An enormous portal of unknown origin opens deep beneath the plains of central Addar north of the Malphigian Sea, instantly consuming billons of tons of rock and leaving in its place a semi-spherical cavern containing an extremely technologically advanced city. Automatons set to work reinforcing the chamber.

The event causes a reverberation in the region dismissed as a minor earthquake, but otherwise goes mostly undetected. Lanst and Ervuol both pick up on the spike of unusual energies but fail to localize the source; each suspects the other of conducting hidden projects or tests.