The orb pulsed beneath Raif's palm, once, then again, deeper than before. The clearing fell still. Not quiet, but still, like breath held too long.
No wind. No birdsong. Even the fire gave nothing now.
Light gathered at the orb's core, slow and deliberate. Not a flash, a rising glow, soft as mist. It curled outward like steam, pale and shifting, and then began to draw in again, folding itself into the space just in front of the group.
Raif didn't move.
Naera stepped forward before she meant to.
From the swirling light, a shape began to form… piece by piece. Shoulders. Hair. A thin frame. Tattered clothing. Blood crusted along one sleeve.
A face.
Naera froze.
Mira.
The last time she'd seen her, it had been a grave. A mound of stone. Fingers pressed to cold skin. But now-
Mira's eyes opened.
She didn't collapse. She didn't blink. Her face contorted, and her whole body drew tight.
Then: "No."
Her voice cracked. "No. You-"
She stepped back, voice rising. "You died."
Naera couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
"I buried you!" Mira shouted, louder now. "With my own hands. I carried you!"
The others flinched at the sound. Even the jungle seemed to pull away.
Naera's throat worked, but the words didn't come. Her fingers curled, digging into her palms. Her heart felt scraped raw.
Mira took another step back. "Why are you here?"
Still, no answer.
Naera's eyes shimmered. But she didn't cry. She just stood there, trembling, a wound reopened in the shape of a name.
Behind them, the orb continued to pulse.
More light swirled, folding inward again.
Four more figures took shape, slower, less defined. One collapsed to their knees. Another reached instinctively for a weapon that wasn't there. One stood completely still, as if not realising they'd moved.
Goss's mouth opened in shock. "Hennick?"
The man with a grizzled jaw and a half-limp straightened, blinking against the light. "That you, Goss?"
"I thought you were long gone," Goss muttered.
"Yeah, well," Hennick said, glancing around. "Looks like I'm late to whatever this is."
A sharp-eyed woman in scavenged leathers turned toward Lira. "You brought me here?"
Lira tensed. "Syl."
"Still making bad choices, I see," Syl muttered, dry as ash. "Didn't think you'd want to see me again."
"I didn't," Lira said. "But I didn't choose this."
Syl's eyes narrowed. "Good. Don't mistake this for reconciliation. We're just sharing a jungle."
Another form emerged, silent and strange, a lean figure with near-colourless eyes and a long cloak of stitched leaves. He didn't speak.
Naera's breath caught. Her expression shifted, not shock, but something quieter. She stepped forward, slowly.
"Kael."
He gave a slight nod.
She turned to the others, voice low. "He doesn't speak. But he's never needed to. He sees more than most of us ever will."
The last to appear was a man with narrow shoulders and calculating eyes. His gaze swept the camp, stopping on Goss.
"Well," he said smoothly, "I didn't expect this kind of rescue."
"Rix," Goss said, his voice flat.
"You missed me."
"Like a toothache," Goss muttered.
Rix only grinned. "No idea what this is," he said, looking around. "But if it gets me out of my last mess, I'll play along."
[Summoning Complete – 5 units received]
Anchor-linked recall successful
Loyalty tracking: Inactive
KE remaining: 30
The orb dimmed. The light around it settled.
The ground beneath Raif's feet still held a faint warmth, like a fire recently snuffed. The orb pulsed once, weakly, like it had exhaled.
And slowly, the jungle began to return. Insects first, then birdsong, cautious and quiet. The world exhaled with them.
Raif stepped forward. "Let's get them water," he said. "And shade. If they're anything like we were... they'll need a moment."
Goss approached Hennick, shaking his head with a half-laugh. "Still remember how to tie a proper knot, or have the vines rotted your brain too?"
Hennick snorted. "Only thing rotting around here is your sense of humour. Got anything to drink?"
Goss chuckled and jerked a thumb toward the water bowl. "Try not to choke on it."
Kael passed by them, silent as ever. Hennick tilted his head after him.
"He always that quiet?"
"No idea," Goss muttered. "But I'm guessing he hunts ghosts for a living."
"More like is one," Hennick added.
They both watched Kael drift toward the edge of the clearing without a sound.. "But I've seen him spot a snake before it moved. Kid's half ghost, half hawk."
Hennick gave a low whistle. "Might be useful. Or creepy."
Goss grinned. "Bit of both."
Nearby, Syl crouched by the fire with Lira. She poked at a bark slab sizzling over the coals.
"This meat smells like burnt mould," Syl muttered.
Lira didn't look up. "It tastes worse."
Syl's mouth twitched. "You always sell food like that?"
"I don't sell anything," Lira replied. "I serve what keeps us alive."
Syl snorted. "Still limping?"
Lira stiffened, but only slightly. "Still standing."
"Same as ever then." Syl smirked. "Guess you didn't bleed out after all."
Lira looked at her for a long second. "You sound disappointed."
Syl gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Nah. You always were too stubborn to die properly."
Not far from the fire, Mira sat cross-legged on a flat stone, elbows on her knees. She hadn't said much since her outburst. Her eyes stayed on Naera.
Naera stood a short distance away, hands clenched at her sides. She took a step forward. Stopped. Then another.
"I didn't know this would happen," she said, voice rough.
Mira didn't answer.
"I didn't ask for it. I didn't even understand what the orb could do."
Still no reply.
Naera exhaled, slow and shallow. "You were the last thing I remembered before this place. The only thing I tried to forget."
Mira's voice, when it came, was quiet. "You were the only thing I held onto."
They didn't speak after that. But Naera didn't walk away.
And Mira didn't tell her to.
Rix, meanwhile, was walking slow circles around the camp, examining the shelter walls and firepit like an appraiser.
"You building civilisation or just winging it?" he asked aloud.
"We're not dead yet," Raif said.
Rix grinned. "Better than my last neighbourhood."
He nodded toward the orb. "That thing still got juice in it?"
"For now," Raif said.
Eloin stepped forward, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. "You're casing the place."
"Casing?" Rix looked amused. "I'm just... admiring the effort. Vines, mud, a firepit that doesn't collapse in the rain. You're almost civilised."
"You sizing us up?" Eloin asked.
Rix gave him a slow smile. "Isn't that what you're doing to me?"
Raif didn't interrupt. He watched the exchange carefully.
Eloin didn't back down. "We don't need trouble."
"And I don't need another spear in the ribs," Rix replied, calm as anything. "So we're already halfway to being friends."
Raif let the silence hold for a second longer. Then nodded. "Help out. Watch the walls. You'll earn more than our suspicion."
"Fair deal," Rix said, tapping a knuckle against one of the firestones. "You run a tighter ship than I expected."
Later, they gathered near the fire. It wasn't a formal meeting, just the closest thing they had to one. The newcomers sat or crouched where they could. Mira stayed near the edge. Kael perched on a root, unmoving. Syl kept her back to the wall, and Rix lounged near the fire like it owed him something.
The food was plain: strips of bark wolf meat roasted with wild herbs, cracked root bulbs boiled and mashed in a carved bowl. No one praised the flavour. But no one complained either. strips of bark wolf meat roasted with wild herbs, cracked root bulbs boiled and mashed in a carved bowl. No one praised the flavour. But no one complained either.
Raif looked around the fire, then spoke.
"I don't have all the answers," he began. "We woke up in this jungle like you did. No memory of how. Just the orb... and a message."
He paused, letting the silence settle.
"At first, I thought it was just a rock. Until it spoke. It gave us a challenge: build a shelter before nightfall. When we did, it gave us something back. Not thanks. Not comfort. Just a number."
"KE," Eloin added. "We still don't know what it really is. Energy, maybe. Credit. The system runs on it."
"It tracks everything," Raif said. "What we build. What we destroy. What we survive."
"You make it sound like it's watching," Mira said.
Raif nodded. "I think it is. Not judging. Just... observing."
Syl snorted. "Sounds like a trap more than a miracle."
"We fought a bark wolf," Lira said. "Lost someone. The Core gave us KE for the grave."
"It pays you to bury the dead?" Syl asked.
"No," Naera said quietly. "It remembers them."
Kael, silent as ever, stood and slowly circled the orb's edge, eyes never blinking. The faint light reflected in his gaze.
Rix hadn't spoken yet. But now, he leaned forward, arms resting on his knees.
"So let me get this straight," he said. "You follow the glowing stone's orders. Build what it says. Fight what it tells you. And in return, it gives you points?"
"It's not that simple," Raif said.
"Sure it is," Rix replied. "It hands out rewards, tracks progress, and drops strangers into your lap. That's not a god. That's a mechanism."
"It hasn't told us to do anything we wouldn't have tried ourselves," Goss said. "We needed shelter. Water. Food."
"And when it asks for something you wouldn't have done?" Rix asked. "What happens then? What if it rewards you for letting someone die?"
Silence pressed down on the fire.
"We haven't crossed that line," Raif said.
"Yet," Rix muttered.
Hennick scratched his chin. "I'm with the tall one. What's its endgame? Build your camp and wait for the next prompt? What if it stops helping?"
"We're not just following it blindly," Raif said. "It gives us tools. Information. But the choices are still ours."
"Sounds like a test," Lira said. "But we don't know what it's testing."
Mira's voice came quiet. "It brought me back... but didn't say why. Just dropped me here. Like I'm another piece on a board I never asked to play."
Raif met her eyes. "You're not a piece. None of us are. The orb may have called us, but we choose what we build."
Syl leaned back, arms folded. "If we're lucky, it doesn't notice when we stop listening."
For a while, no one spoke. The fire crackled quietly. Not comfortable silence, but not hostile either, a space between caution and trust. The new arrivals absorbed the strangeness of it all. The old group wore their tiredness like armour.
Then Rix flicked a bit of bark into the coals. "Well," he said, tone unreadable, "let's hope your orb likes what we build. Otherwise, we're just nailing planks onto a sinking ship."
No one answered. But his words lingered, like smoke that refused to lift.
Raif didn't disagree. Not entirely. The orb gave no guidance. No answers. But it had brought them together, and maybe, just maybe, that meant something.
When the food was gone and the fire had dimmed to embers, Raif rose and walked toward the perimeter. He didn't look back, but he knew who followed.. He didn't look back, but he knew who followed.
Naera joined him near the edge of the clearing. She didn't speak at first. Just stood beside him, arms folded tight.
"She's not the same," she said finally. "Mira. She looks at me like I'm a ghost."
"You did die," Raif said, gently. "In her memory, at least."
Naera's jaw tightened. "It's like I stole something from her."
Raif didn't respond right away. Then: "You didn't. You're both here now. That's all that matters."
"I don't even know what to say to her."
"You don't have to say everything. Just enough to remind her that she's not alone."
Naera looked toward the camp. Mira hadn't moved. Still perched on the rock, watching shadows.
"She held on to me," Naera whispered. "And I let go."
Raif placed a hand on her shoulder. It wasn't a command. Just presence.
"You're still here," he said. "You chose to be."
She didn't cry. But her next breath shuddered.
They stood like that for a time, not healer and wounded, not leader and follower, just two people trying to understand what survival really meant.