The midday sun beat down mercilessly on the dusty pavement of Highway Ten outside the First Citadel's outer defensive perimeter.
Twelve armored documentary vans sat idling in a sweeping semi-circle, their rooftop microwave transmitters humming with high-frequency broadcast energy.
Nox stood fifty paces in front of the iron gates, his hands resting casually in his dark jacket pockets as heat shimmered across the roadway.
Hovering silently fifty feet above the caravan, thirty of Diana's cloaked surveillance drones recorded every angle in crisp, uncompressed 4K resolution.
The side door of the lead media van slid open with a sharp mechanical hiss, and a tall man in a reporter's vest stepped down onto the road.
Behind him followed four burly technicians carrying massive shoulder-mounted broadcast cameras equipped with unusually thick, reinforced lens housings.
