While [s5.name] and [s6.name] follow Mahir's instructions to assemble the tools, Mahir retreats from the blazing furnace. She peels off the fireproof suit, which is soaked through with sweat, and drinks deep, eats heartily, all while spreading dozens of colored glass panels across a rack. Time to brief her investor.

"Projections," she says, "fixed with Aether and dissolved metals. The light and shadow from the Dragon's Eye itself. We can reverse-engineer the properties of that light from these shapes, these colors... Could you get my back?"

She tosses you a towel, strips off her soaked shirt, and turns away. "What we know is this: that light is a kind of... signaling device. A passage. Our souls, even parts of our bodies, might enter through it, into whatever the Dragon's Eye connects to... Ahh, that's perfect. Thanks. I'll get the rest. Lord [player.name], we need to move fast."

She takes the towel and checks on [s4.name]'s dismantling progress next door. "Two hours! Get those tools ready! Good. Now, back to it... You said dragons could flee to other worlds. I'd wager that's exactly what the Dragon's Eye does."

She glances at the Dragon's Eye, still obediently stewing in its bath of aether solution. "So. If we can reshape it, bending its light, we can make that passage... fit for a human. For any soul of this world. That's the work ahead. But every cut means new calculations, new corrections from the glass..."

Then the math begins. You can only nod, nod, nod, and will her to finish the magnificent feat.

Result:

• Clean Slot #3: 1

Mahir pulls the fireproof suit back on. She'll be taking the lead herself. Outside the thick clay door, her two assistants wait, armed with humanity's greatest tool: paper and pen. A set of glass lenses will reflect the Dragon's Eye's light where all can see. The surrounding gauges turn it into numbers. Into something they can understand.

Mahir carefully slices away a nerve still clinging to the Dragon's Eye, the one that twitched and pulsed, making its light dance and shift.

The glass panel goes still, settling into a fixed orange-red jagged pattern. "Gods," Mahir's voice crackles through the copper tube, carrying the furnace's heat with it. "Nothing but fire and ash in that world. Not a trace of life, not even in the spectrum." "This must be where the dragon came last. To drink in energy within the flames? Or to scrub away its tracks? Either way, now we know where those flickers of fire in the Dragon's Eye come from."

Outside, the instruments recalculate the Dragon's Eye's dimensions. [s5.name] and [s6.name] scribble furiously, checking their earlier calculations, whether the curve of the cut was right.

Cut by cut, you analyze each world through its light, like pulling the lever on some kind of lottery machine. Most are barren. Some, eerily thriving. A few even seem to feel your gaze, and try to send something back. Good thing Mahir recut the facet the moment those tendrils appeared.

But none of them, not one, hold a stable connection. They'd drive a user mad. Or worse... So what's wrong?

The two calculators run out of paper. No time to fetch more, they scribble on the table, the floor, the walls, feeding Mahir result after result, all of them mismatches.

The hourglass drains as fuel runs low and Mahir's suit nears its limit. She sits inside the furnace, listening to your shouted numbers, silent as if she were already dead.

You're about to give up and order the furnace opened when Mahir suddenly springs up, rattling off a string of digits. [s5.name] and [s6.name], on pure reflex, crunch them into an answer.

Thus, she starts hammering the Dragon's Eye, its light blazes brighter and brighter until the glass panel burns pure white. And when you can no longer keep your eyes open, silence falls as the colors collapse into nothing.

"No existing world can hold a stable connection through the Dragon's Eye. Maybe that's for other parts of the dragon." Mahir takes a breath. "But I erased those parameters and found one: a new world that isn't born yet." Then she collapses.

Result:

• Clean Slot #1: 1
• Clean Slot #4: 1
• Adjust Tag (Physique) of Slot #2: Add 1
• Adjust Tag (Magic) of Slot #2: Add 1
• Adjust Tag (Magic) of Slot #5: Add 1
• Adjust Tag (Magic) of Slot #6: Add 1
• Card (Perfect Dragon's Eye)

Action:

• Enable Event: 玛希尔的问题