The sky was pale with fog, not yet bright but no longer night. The fire in the centre of the clearing had long since burned down to ash, leaving behind only the faintest red glow beneath the grey crust. Smoke still clung to the camp like a second skin, mixing with the bitter musk of jungle rot and the dull, chalky scent of spores.
Mira shifted first, rousing from where she had sat all night beside Naera. Her back ached. Her thighs prickled from sitting too long on hard-packed dirt. She blinked against the gloom and looked around the camp.
Naera was still asleep, or half-asleep. Her eyes were closed, lips parted just slightly, arms curled close to her chest around the stave. Her breathing was slow and shallow, not quite calm. Mira watched her a moment longer before standing, the motion careful, quiet.
Around them, the others began to stir. Goss stretched with a grunt near the fence post he'd used for support. Lira groaned and rubbed at her shoulder, still favouring the side where she'd taken a knock in the last fight. Eloin rolled out of his blanket and immediately began coughing, hand to his mouth.
Raif was already up.
He moved from the perimeter in near silence, checking bark slats, walking the edge of the wall with a slow, even pace. His expression was unreadable, his body coiled with tension not from fear but from readiness. He stopped near the centre of the clearing.
"Everyone up," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut cleanly through the haze. "We've got work to do."
There was no complaint.
The others rose slowly. Mira offered Naera a hand without a word. Goss moved toward the damaged edge of the fence, eyes scanning the peeled and blackened bark. Hennick limped to where the water jars had been stacked. Rix sat with his elbows on his knees, watching the mist like he was expecting it to form teeth.
No one spoke of the night.
It was still with them, settled in their bones and lungs, tucked under the skin.
Raif began issuing assignments with quiet efficiency. No one questioned the orders.
Goss and Eloin to reinforce the wall.
Syl and Hennick to burn anything the spores had touched.
Lira and Rix to inventory supplies.
Naera and Mira to the inner shelter.
They moved like a group that had already been tested, and knew the next test was coming.
By midmorning, the camp was moving in quiet rhythm. Conversations were sparse but present now, a word here, a hand gesture there. Lira muttered as she counted through crates, Rix occasionally correcting her numbers with raised brows and muttered sarcasm. Eloin and Goss worked with measured silence, stopping only to stretch sore backs or gesture toward weakened sections of the wall.
Near the inner shelter, Mira and Naera knelt side by side, scraping mould from a bark panel. Mira finally broke the silence.
"I thought we'd have more time," she said.
Naera looked up. "We never do."
Raif passed by on his way toward the shrine, nodding once to them both. He paused briefly when he reached Rix and Lira.
"How's the tally?"
"Less than it should be," Lira replied. "Spores took out two bundles of thatch and half a crate of dried wood."
Rix flicked a crumb of rot from his sleeve. "If this keeps up, we'll be burning furniture by the end of the week."
Raif gave a small grunt. "We'll work around it."
As he turned toward the shrine, something caught in his step. A faint hum,not sound, not vibration. A change in the air pressure. The hairs on his arms rose.
He wasn't the only one who felt it. Naera straightened. Mira froze. Even Goss, elbow-deep in mud, lifted his head slightly.
That was when the orb pulsed.
Naera was the first to feel it. She stood near the shrine, wiping ash from her hands, when the stone flared beneath its cracked surface. The glow crept up into the air and formed a slow-spinning script.
[System Quest: Contain the Spread]
Three Spore Roots detected near base perimeter.
Terrain Integrity: 81%
Remove the Spore Roots before Integrity drops below 50%.
Reward: +10 KE
Naera stepped back. "Raif," she called, "the orb's speaking again."
He and Rix approached and read it silently.
Rix muttered, "What does 'terrain integrity' mean?"
Raif didn't answer right away. "I don't know. But if it drops too far, we lose something. Maybe control. Maybe the Core."
Mira frowned. "Or maybe ourselves."
Raif's jaw flexed. "We can't afford guesses."
Rix crossed his arms. "We can't afford silence either. We need to understand what we're up against, not keep reacting to it."
Raif turned to him. "You think I'm not trying?"
"No," Rix said. "I think you're trying to carry it all alone. And that's how mistakes happen."
Mira stepped in. "Enough. We don't need to argue. But we do need to listen. If the jungle's shifting, if this terrain integrity thing means we're being surrounded,then we need to move fast."
Rix jabbed a thumb at the floating script. "Three roots. That's what it wants us to find. You think it stops at three?"
Raif didn't answer immediately. He looked at the glowing text, then toward the wall.
"We'll clear what we can today," he said finally. "Track everything. Mark every change. No more assumptions."
He walked away before either could press further.
Later that day, Eloin and Goss worked at the soil near the breach, clearing mud and rot with makeshift spades carved from bark and split stone. The ground was softer than it should have been. Too soft.
Goss paused. "You feel that?"
Eloin drove his tool down again. This time, it struck something beneath, fibrous, slick, and faintly elastic. They cleared it carefully by hand, both of them crouched and breathing through their sleeves.
What emerged was no ordinary root. The thing was pale grey, threaded with darker veins. It pulsed slowly, like it breathed. And it wasn't attached to anything above ground.
"Doesn't belong," Goss muttered. He stood quickly and wiped his hands off like the root might follow.
Mira arrived first, flanked by Kael. Her expression tightened when she saw it.
Kael crouched beside the mass and hovered his hand over it. Not touching. Feeling. Then he leaned closer and sniffed once.
He drew his stone knife without a word.
Mira nodded and dropped to her knees beside him. She took a sharpened stone tool she'd shaped herself and worked from the other side. Together, they cut it free in slow, deliberate strokes. The root writhed faintly when sliced, leaking a dark fluid that smelled of mildew and iron.
No one spoke.
When it came loose, Mira lifted the end with a grimace. It twitched once before going still.
They carried it in silence to the new burn pit, already ringed with stones. Goss lit it with dry moss and shavings. The root hissed as it caught flame, crackling, shrinking, curling in on itself until nothing remained but ash and smoke.
[System Update: Spore Root Neutralised – 1/3]
Syl and Hennick were carrying a broken bark panel toward the burn pit when they heard a soft hiss. Then another. Then a flutter.
From beneath the wood burst a swarm of tiny, glistening beetles, grey-backed, their legs sharp as splinters, their bodies emitting a faint green vapor.
"Down!" Hennick shouted.
Syl dropped the panel and grabbed a smouldering stick from the fire pit, swinging wildly. The beetles scattered, some landing on her arm. She screamed.
Raif was there in seconds, Mira right behind. Raif used a bundle of smouldering leaves to drive them back. Mira used her stave to smash at the densest clump, sending them into retreat.
Eventually, the swarm fled toward the trees.
Syl knelt, panting. Her forearm was bleeding and already swelling. The skin around the bite had begun to darken, and faint green lines crept outward beneath the surface, like veins filled with algae. It itched furiously, and burned worse when she touched it.
"That's not normal," Mira said sharply.
Hennick stepped in to steady her. "You're going to be fine," he said, but his eyes stayed locked on the spreading lines.
Eloin crouched beside them and scraped up a paste of crushed herbs he'd packed into bark folds the day before. "This might hold it off. For now."
Raif was already calling for clean cloth. "Wrap it tight. We'll check it again in a few hours. If it spreads further, we cut."
[Hostile Neutralised – Category: Mutated Insectoid]
[Kill Type: Defensive Response]
[Reward: +2 KE]
Eloin treated Syl's arm with salve, muttering about watching it overnight. The bite marks were deeper than they looked.
Around the fire, they shared few words. Rix turned the dirt with a stick, sketching spirals.
"We can't let this grow," Goss said. "We burn it. All of it."
Raif nodded. "Tomorrow we start mapping. If it's spreading, we need to see how far."
Kael stepped forward. He didn't speak. Instead, he raised one hand and pointed.
They looked up. He stood at the edge of the firelight, holding a rotted branch etched in spirals, not carved, but grown into the grain.
They looked up. He stood at the edge of the firelight, holding a rotted branch etched in spirals,not carved, but grown into the grain.
With a small gesture, Kael beckoned Raif and Mira to follow. He turned and moved silently into the trees, his posture rigid, steps slow and deliberate. There, beneath a warped tree trunk, pulsing faintly like the first, was another Spore Root.
They marked it but did not touch it.
Raif stared at the ground. The faint pulse of the root cast a soft hue over the dirt, barely visible, but steady, rhythmic like a heartbeat.
He crouched beside it, fingers brushing the edge of the spiral mark in the soil.
"It's not spreading," he said. "It's growing toward us."
Mira didn't speak, but her jaw tightened. Her eyes scanned the surrounding undergrowth, half expecting something to move.
Kael knelt beside the root. He placed the branch gently at its base, then rested his fingers briefly on the spiral carved into the bark. He didn't look at Raif or Mira. Just stared into the darkness beyond the tree line. It wasn't reverence, it was warning.
Mira turned to Raif. "If there's more of these, we need to stop marking them and start destroying them."
Raif stood slowly. "We will. Tomorrow."
He looked at Kael, then back to the root. The firelight from the camp barely reached this far. The darkness beyond was complete.
"I don't think it's just watching us," Raif said quietly. "I think it's learning."
The three of them stood there a moment longer, unmoving.
Then they turned back toward the clearing. The night behind them didn't follow. But it didn't recede either.