Morning crept in with a damp haze and the whisper of shifting leaves. Mist hung low over the clearing, catching faint beams of filtered light as the jungle stretched and exhaled.
Raif crouched beside the orb, already glowing faintly. The message came as it always did, soft and soundless, pulsing across the surface.
[Quest Progress Updated]
[Secure the Perimeter: 71% ]
[Investigate the Source of Aberrant Growth: 45% ]
[Time Remaining: 1 Day]
He exhaled through his nose. No need to call anyone over. The others were already in motion.
Just past the firepit, the beginnings of the drying rack had taken shape, bark slats hung between forked posts, catching the morning dew. Near the edge of the shelter, Goss had cleared a shallow pit, ringed with stone and half-covered with bark tiles. It would be the storage. The perimeter fence now reached nearly two-thirds of the way around the camp, woven from bitter-rooted branches soaked in ash.
Eloin was at the west side already, measuring gaps between bark slats and shaving down the overhang with a flint wedge. Lira moved steadily behind him, checking anchor points with the stave she now used more as a pointer than a crutch. Every few steps, she scorched a creeping vine out of habit.
Syl reappeared from the brush, carrying a net of twisted cord strung with bone pins, another trap rigged and placed. She passed Raif with a nod, already moving to string another line.
Hennick was hauling bundles of bark and watching the drying rack take form, occasionally nudging a post straighter or commenting on airflow. Kael crouched beside the wall's curve, etching faint symbols into the dirt where runoff gathered. Mira remained near the ridge, scanning the trees with slow, deliberate movements, her posture guarded but steady.
Raif stood and stretched the stiffness from his back. A quiet confidence had settled over the group, nothing spoken, nothing commanded. Just a rhythm. Just work.
He picked up a bundle of freshly stripped bark and headed toward the unfinished wall. It wasn't done yet, but today, it would be.
And maybe, for the first time in days, they'd be able to breathe without watching the trees too closely.
By midmorning, the west perimeter crackled with movement. Bark lengths were slotted and fixed into place, overlapping like scales. Eloin hammered the stakes in with a heavy stone, sweat darkening his collar. Goss followed behind with a bundle of vine cord, weaving joints tighter with each pass. Lira oversaw the spacing with narrowed eyes, tapping points of weakness with the end of her stave.
"You're leaning that whole panel," she said, pointing to a slight inward curve.
Goss straightened and frowned at it. "It's not leaning. It's settling."
"It's leaning," she repeated, already shifting a brace into position.
Raif watched them for a moment, then moved to the next section. He knelt beside a loose gap and started lashing it shut with a strip of twisted root. The sun was climbing now, but the jungle heat hadn't yet broken through the morning chill. The bark creaked beneath his hands, dry and fibrous, and the smell of scorched vine clung faintly in the air.
"Looks better than it did yesterday," Goss muttered nearby, quieter now.
Raif didn't answer right away. He tied off the cord, double-checked the tension, and stood. "Still soft in the south bend. But we'll reinforce it. One more pass."
"Aye. You hear that, Eloin? We're just one pass away from a miracle."
Eloin didn't look up. "Better be a tough miracle, then."
Lira gave a rare chuckle. "We'll shape it into one. Not like we haven't before."
They fell into a rhythm, no barking, no checking over shoulders. Just work. And trust.
Raif shifted beside Goss, passing him a coil of spare cord. Their hands brushed, and neither flinched. A week ago, that same motion might've drawn a flinch or a flared temper. Now it was just another gesture, simple and shared.
"Remember the first time we tried to build a fence?" Goss said, threading the cord through a split in the bark. "I tried using fresh greenwood. Thought it'd bend easier. Forgot it warps when it dries."
"The wall looked like a sleeping snake," Raif replied with a faint grin.
Raif glanced toward the corner of the clearing where a crumbling brace still leaned, crooked, water-warped. One of the first they ever placed. He remembered pressing it into the mud with Goss and Eloin in a panic, all three of them arguing about which way it should slant. It had held. Barely. But it had held.
"Still held off that first night, though," Eloin added. "Barely. But it held."
Lira nodded once, eyes never leaving the next anchor point. "And now look at us."
Raif watched Lira a moment longer. She moved with care but not caution, the limp still present but now integrated into her stride. She didn't pause. Didn't wince. There was a steadiness in her now, not the brittle kind that came from fear, but the grounded sort built from survival. From learning when to bend, and when not to.
And Eloin, quiet, capable, precise, no longer needed reminding. He measured, adjusted, and moved like the wall's future was in his hands alone.
Even Goss, who once muttered through every chore with irritation, now grumbled out of habit more than resistance. He still complained. But there was pride behind it.
No one said it out loud, but they felt it, stronger, tighter, sharper than before.
Raif glanced toward the treeline. The jungle didn't feel closer today. It felt still, as though watching.
And for now, that was good enough.
Farther off, Kael crouched near the edge of a shallow ridge, eyes scanning the tree canopy. His charcoal-smudged fingers moved over the bark map he'd been sketching for the past two days, crude, etched in layers, but consistent. Every dip in the terrain, every vine-thick snarl, marked with a shorthand only he seemed to understand.
Rix stood beside him, arms folded, eyes narrowed as he compared the hand map with the glowing grid burned into memory from the orb's display. "Yours is off by a handspan here," he murmured, tapping near the ridge-line to the southeast. "But it's… closer than it should be. You didn't see the orb's map, did you?"
Kael didn't respond aloud. Just met his eyes and gave a small tilt of his head, not quite a nod, not quite a denial.
"Of course you didn't," Rix muttered, half to himself. "You're guessing. But not really guessing. You feel it, don't you?"
Kael's gaze flicked down the trail. He lifted his hand and pointed with two fingers, then drew a spiral in the air and tapped the far right corner of the bark map. It was his way of marking something unnatural, something that didn't belong.
Rix followed the gesture, then crouched to compare. "This bend here-" he gestured to the drawn line of roots and water run-off. "It's pulling toward the same spot the birds refuse to cross. Even the moss curls the wrong way."
Kael's head tilted slightly. A rare sign of agreement.
"So either there's a sinkhole, or something's radiating influence," Rix muttered. "Could be heat, sound, pheromones, magic. I don't know yet. Maybe some weird resonance effect. Hell, maybe it's nothing."
Kael signed a short phrase, sharp and decisive.
Rix blinked, then translated aloud: "No such thing as nothing here."
He gave a slow, thoughtful grin. "You're not just a scout. You're a damn sensor."
Kael didn't smile, but his eyes didn't leave the ridge. Not for a second.
Raif's voice called from a distance, checking on their route.
Kael folded the bark map and stood. As he moved, he brushed a smudge from Rix's arm, a faint gesture, but deliberate. Rix blinked, surprised.
"That's a new one," he said. "You're warming up to me?"
Kael gave a short shrug, then signed a lazy spiral.
Rix laughed. "Yeah, yeah. Still watching. Got it."
Kael nodded once. But this time, when they walked back toward the clearing, he didn't walk ahead.
He walked beside him.
Near the slope overlooking the camp, Mira stood with her arms folded, watching the jungle. She didn't flinch when Naera approached, but her stance shifted slightly, shoulders squaring, chin lifting.
"I thought you'd avoid me today," Mira said.
Naera sighed. "I thought about it. But we're both here. Might as well talk."
Raif stepped up the incline a few moments later, holding a half-filled water skin. "You two okay?"
Mira offered a stiff shrug. "As okay as we get, apparently."
Raif passed her the water. "You've been watching the ridge since dawn. Take a breather. You've earned one."
Mira took it with a short nod, then looked to Naera. "You always had this way of just… settling into places. Even when everything else went to hell."
Naera sat on a flat stone, brushing dirt off the spot beside her. "It's not about settling. It's about adapting. This place isn't home, but it's where we are. And it's ours to shape."
"You sound like Raif," Mira muttered.
"Good," Raif said. "Someone has to."
That got the faintest smirk from Mira.
Naera leaned forward. "You should talk to the others more. You've been keeping distance. I get it, but they're trying too. Hennick asked if you'd help him reinforce the drying rack."
"He did?"
"He said you've got a sharper eye than most. Might see weak spots others don't."
Mira frowned, then looked down at her hands.
"It's easier not to get attached," she muttered.
"But you're already here," Naera said gently. "And they've noticed."
Raif crouched beside them, voice low but warm. "Everyone's rebuilding something. Walls, racks, firepits. You could help rebuild the people."
Mira gave a quiet exhale. Her eyes drifted down toward the camp where Syl and Lira were speaking, Kael and Rix walking back together.
"That quiet one, Kael. He's sharp. Doesn't speak, but the way he watches… he misses nothing."
"He does," Naera agreed. "He's been through more than we know. But he never stopped helping."
A long silence passed between them. Mira rolled the water skin between her palms.
"If I help Hennick, I'm not lifting anything heavy. I'm just telling him when he's wrong."
Naera gave a crooked smile. "He'll appreciate that."
Raif chuckled. "Might be the only time he listens without arguing."
Mira finally sat. Not for long. Just enough.
And for now, that was enough.
The sun had dipped lower, and the sky above the jungle canopy had begun to pinken with late-afternoon haze. By the time the final cord was tied off at the western wall, the clearing hummed with the last steps of work.
One by one, the group filtered back toward the firepit. Not all at once. Not in a rush. But drawn by the same quiet rhythm.
Syl dropped a pouch of carved pins beside the drying rack and dusted off her hands. "Second line of traps set along the north. Marked them with those triple vines so we don't gut ourselves."
"Saw feathers in the canopy," she added, eyeing Raif. "Might be time to start thinking about birds. Less work than bark-wolves."
Raif gave a small nod. "Makes sense. We'll try baiting them tomorrow."
"I can set a few lures," Hennick offered. "Got some bone scrap we can hang. Might draw attention."
"You just want to see if you can catch a jungle rooster again," Goss muttered.
"And what if I do? They're delicious."
Kael stepped into the circle, his map held carefully in one hand. He crouched and laid it beside the orb. The glowing grid on the orb pulsed once, soft and brief.
The two maps, rough bark and golden projection, weren't identical. But they matched closely enough that a few raised eyebrows circled the group.
"He's nearly spot-on," Rix murmured. "From memory."
Kael glanced at him, then at Raif. He tapped a symbol on his bark map, indicating a southern stretch of the ridge. Then he drew a spiral again, the same warning he'd shown Rix earlier.
Raif crouched beside the orb and checked the latest pulse.
[Quest Progress Updated]
[Secure the Perimeter: 89% ]
[Investigate the Source of Aberrant Growth: 45% ]
[Time Remaining: 1 Day]
"We're close," he said. "One more push tomorrow and we'll be there."
Lira leaned on her stave, arms crossed. "About time. Feels like this place might stop chewing at our heels for five minutes."
"It won't," Goss replied. "But at least we'll have a fence while it does."
"I fixed the brace near the western post," Eloin added, glancing at Raif. "Lined it with bark offcuts. Should hold longer now."
"Drying rack's already catching heat," Hennick said. "Meat'll keep better if we smoke it overnight."
Syl nodded. "I've got greenwood we can use. Won't burn too fast."
Mira lingered near the back of the group, arms still folded, but she was listening.
Naera spoke gently. "We'll get through the last of it tomorrow. Then we rest."
Kael crouched again and used a fingertip to trace along the bark. Then he looked up and gave Raif a small, definite nod.
Raif returned it. No speeches. No orders. Just a quiet moment of agreement.
The orb pulsed again. Just once. Dim, but steady.
Then, text shimmered softly across its surface.
[Loyalty Increase Detected. +2 KE]
[Loyalty Increase Detected. +2 KE]
[Loyalty Increase Detected. +2 KE]
[Loyalty Increase Detected. +2 KE]
[Total KE: 47 / 200]