Lunch stretched for nearly two hours, yet no one at the table seemed eager to leave. The atmosphere was thick with ambition, greed, and the quiet tension of people standing at the edge of history.
Philip Hardy dominated the conversation.
With the confidence of a man who already saw the future unfolding in his favor, he laid out the government's plans for Calma. Whether the excavation uncovered scattered ruins or an entire city preserved from the golden age of Azuverda, the administration had already prepared for every possibility.
Calma would become the greatest archaeological discovery of the century.
Tourism. Research grants. International partnerships. Media rights. The profits would be immeasurable.
But before foreign corporations could sink their claws into the discovery, the government intended to secure local investors first.
