"Why doesn't it just tell us, then?" This whole situation seems too surreal to fully wrap his mind around. It's frustrating. It's frustrating that they have no choice in any of this, and it's frustrating that everyone else seems to just accept all this without a fight. And it's more than frustrating that these automata seem to know so much about everyone and are in a position to make ludicrous demands of them.

"Ugh." Felix rests his arms across his knees and lowers his head onto them. War or no war, this is the most miserable he's felt in a while. Physically and otherwise. At least the war was simple. The stakes were obvious, their choices clear. Battle is something Felix has always understood. Whatever this nonsense is, he doesn't understand it at all.

"They may need us, but we don't need them. That puts us at an advantage. If this were a battle, the best way to foil the enemy would be to disrupt their resources. If everyone here refused to participate, the Augur would have no choice but to make concessions to keep us happy."

He shrugs. "As for what happened to this place, minds more well-suited to that kind of thing will figure that out. I don't need to know the details. Just how to prevent it from happening again while there are actual people here. If you need someone to swing a sword while you're investigating, you can count on me for that."