Tiber Valeriev

Tiber Valeriev is a Durantine xenologist and director of excavations at Phanamhara on Sabratha, affiliated with Thalma University in the Republic of Durannos. He is killed during a Cielcin assault on the dig site.

Valeriev combines material expertise -- four Vaiartu inscription languages, the city's communal layout, the risks of excavating the sealed pantheon -- with practical leadership of the dig crews over nine years. He opposed the plasma bore breach on artifact-safety grounds and directed the clearance of the collapsed tunnel under Friedrich Oberlin's orders. When the Cielcin attack comes, he takes shelter with roughly two dozen survivors in a collapsed side chamber of the ruins, haggard and bloodied. He confronts Hadrian with anger, demanding to know why the excavation team was given no warning and what Hadrian intends to do about it -- insisting he is a scientist, not a soldier. He is struck down by a Cielcin warrior during the fighting outside the ruins.