"On me," he said. "If I say cut, you drop the rope, and we lose a rule to keep the lane."
The line under his wrist quivered, loyal and unafraid. Five pale tips plucked the rhythm again—quick-quick, pause, quick—and the hedge waited like a teacher pleased with its own lesson.
"Detune," Evan said. "We make a bad instrument."
The archer's eyebrows flicked. "How?"
"Dampers. Off-length. Counter-beats." He didn't look away from the gap. "Villagers—give me herb bundles, cloth, anything soft. Tie them every two strides along the rope. Knife—no cuts unless I say; blade for silk only. Archer—watch my wrist: two slack, one pull, one slack, hold. Spear—pin threads to posts and carcasses, edge only. Mech, pry; Aurora, off-beat stitches. Chief—feed stakes."
They moved. Hands found thyme and drying cloth. Knots appeared where none had been asked for an hour ago. The rope grew ugly with bundles. It began to sound less like a string and more like a promise tied to itself.
The hedge plucked again. The line hummed back, duller. Evan matched time with breath, then broke it on purpose.
"Slack," he said. The archer gave."Pull." He took."Slack." He gave."Hold."
The five tips faltered—just a hair, the way a dancer stumbles when the floor changes grain.
"Again," Evan said. His wrist became a metronome with opinions.
The spearwoman pressed two fresh threads into bark, haft neat and low. The knife-man ghosted his blade near a line and stopped—waiting. Aurora snipped a junction on the off-beat with a pip. The Mech nudged a carcass rib two inches to make a new anchor.
"Rope law," Evan said, mostly to himself. "Our song."
The hedge objected with bodies.
Two Weavers vaulted the brush together—limbs folded, bellies low, timing their launch to the rope's last pluck. They came as if they had rehearsed on a different stage and expected this floor to honor their tickets.
"Meet," Evan said. The Goblin shaved the first limb onto the post; the second Weaver touched down between bundles and reached for the rope with a practiced hook.
"Drop—pull—hold," Evan ordered, the words riding his wrist. The line sagged then rose in a rude rhythm; both spiders had planned for a taut song and found a drunk one. Their bellies bumped slack and then caught pull at the wrong moment.
"Aurora—eyes." Two off-beat sparks kissed bead clusters. "Spear—pin angle, don't commit." Her haft nudged the second Weaver's cheek a finger's width off true. Evan put a sting under the front hinge—the small place where decision hides.
[HIT]
The pair tried to correct in opposite ways and discovered the wedge had opinions. The first slid into carcass and post; the second stepped and found the rope's hold where slack had been a blink earlier.
"Drive." The Mech levered the first head down with practical cruelty. Evan bled the Pumpkin orb across hinge once, disciplined. Aurora snapped a thread that wanted to be a lifeline.
[ENEMY DOWN: HEDGE WEAVER (LV?)][ENEMY DOWN: HEDGE WEAVER (LV?)] [CHECK: formal name/level][LOOT GENERATED]
Flags fluttered. He ignored them.
"Pin the curtain," he said.
Silk came as a web, not lines—sheets folding across posts, trying to adhere rope to hedge and hedge to wedge. Evan turned the gourd and let coils wind themselves. He guided them with thumb and staff like a tailor who knows fabric hates you, then pointed. Aurora peppered stitches with off-beat snaps that melted junctions without burning leaves.
"Archer—two slack. Pull." The rope breathed; the curtain sagged into carcass ribs where spears and posts could love it. The spearwoman pressed a palm-sized patch into bark with her haft and held it there while Aurora cut the spine of it and made the rest fall out of harmony.
The hedge plucked again. Bundles along the rope thunked dully. The song sounded like a sick instrument—and that was the point.
The Mech tapped the wrench to Evan's arm—metal on leather, a question. Evan scanned the line; a new problem announced itself: drag. Silk wrapped the rope in three places, pulling toward the hedge, not just vibrating but tugging.
"Cross-brace," Evan said. "Give me a horizontal between those two posts. Chest height. Tie through carcass ribs if you must."
The Chief sent two hands with a length of sapling and a coil of lesser rope. They threaded it through the wedge, tied ugly, and made a second line to argue with the first.
"Knife—watch my wrist. If I say cut, you nick the top rope, not the cross-brace." The knife-man nodded, bored expression thinner now.
The hedge pulled. The rope pulled back with bundles and knots and insult. The cross-brace took load; the wedge complained and then decided to be furniture.
"Two more," Evan said. "Slack—pull—hold."
The hedge sent a third pair of Weavers on the old beat, not understanding that the floor had changed again. "Meet," Evan said, and the Mech did; "Eyes," and Aurora did; "Pin," and the spearwoman smudged angle without trespass.
The pair fell backward into their own curtain and made it worse for themselves.
[ENEMY DOWN][ENEMY DOWN][LOOT GENERATED]
He harvested at the seams because work is faster than being right. The UI put little halos on glands and coils.
[HARVESTABLE: THREAD COILS | VENOM GLAND] [CHECK: exact labels][YOU OBTAIN: THREAD COILS ×? | VENOM GLAND ×?] [CHECK]
"Log," the Chief said. The boy scratched numbers, letters taller each time.
Gold flags persisted, polite.
[HUNDREDFOLD: CONTEXT FLAGGED][POTENTIAL AMPLIFICATION: RARE SILK / DEFENSE CHAIN / LOCAL RENOWN] [CHECK]
"Later," Evan said, without moving his mouth enough to lose the line.
The hedge changed key. A thicker line whispered out—not glistening like silk but dull, humming, as if thread had been braided around something that remembered power. It touched the rope near Evan's wrist and stayed, humming at a frequency the bundles didn't like.
"Not silk," the spearwoman said.
"Cable," the archer said, unhappily impressed.
The line tightened. The rope answered by wanting to be in the forest. The cross-brace groaned and held.
"Archer—slack," Evan said. The hum changed notes, compensating. "Pull." It compensated again. Smart.
"Aurora," he said. "Sparks, lowest. Test it."
A tiny arc kissed the cable and died with a pop that didn't satisfy anybody.
"Knife," Evan said. "Don't touch it."
The Mech pressed wrench to rope, making a hard stop that resisted stretch. The cable sang around the new anchor and tried to find a frequency it liked more.
"Pin?" the spearwoman asked, haft already dipping.
"Not with wood," Evan said. "Wood will teach it our shape."
The cable tightened further. Bundles along the rope squeaked. The cross-brace protested. The posts were already suffering stories they'd tell their grandchildren if wood had that kind of luck.
"Detune," Evan repeated, quieter, thinking. He needed mass on the rope that didn't answer to vibration. He looked at the wedge and found an answer that wasn't pretty.
"Carcass tie," he said. "Two hides—wrap them wet around the rope at intervals; weight them with tusks. Make the rope heavy and ugly."
"Wet with what?" a villager asked, already stepping.
"Water from the lane barrel. If not, mud." He paused. "No—mud. Weight and damping."
They moved. Hides went over rope like obscene shawls; tusks tied as pendants; someone slapped handfuls of clean mud over cloth. The rope began to look like a snake that had lost a fight with its own wardrobe.
The cable's song faltered, offended. It pulled harder, trying brute force. The cross-brace shouldered load and grunted but did not confess.
"Slack—hold—pull," Evan said. The archer matched him. The cable adjusted, smarter than thread, less clever than people.
"Mech," Evan said. "If it surges, pry it against the brace." The Goblin nodded with a sound like tools agreeing to be more than themselves.
The hedge decided conversation was over and sent a Weaver on the cable's beat—a lunge timed to the hum.
"Meet," Evan said. The Mech denied angle; Aurora blinded beads; the spearwoman turned a cheek by half a finger. The Weaver misread the floor and tried to stand on slack that became pull in the old place and nothing in the new.
"Drive," he said. They did.
[ENEMY DOWN][LOOT GENERATED]
The cable hummed louder as if complaining about losing a friend. It tightened enough that the post let out a tired crack.
"Post swap," Evan said. "Knife—take line on my wrist, two beats only." He felt rope climb his forearm again and tasted metal. The archer slammed a new stake; the Chief's people tied like sinners learning a different prayer.
He handed back and became a person again.
The cable kept humming, now in a descending pattern. He didn't like what that meant—pressure plus learning. The bundles helped, the mud helped, the hides helped, but all of it was a compromise like most safety.
"Aurora," he said. "New target: where cable kisses rope. Give me micro arcs at the dampers—not direct. We heat the cloth, not the cable."
The sprite zipped three tiny stitches along a mud-slicked hide. Steam hissed. The cable's hum changed, displeased. Heat ate stretch out of the cloth and then cooled into stiffness. The rope gained a weird, helpful stutter where the cable wanted smooth.
"Again." Another stitch, another little hiss. The cable found the line less musical and more argumentative.
The hedge obliged with two lines this time. He didn't curse. He counted.
"Slack—pull—hold," he said. The archer matched; the knife-man braced; the spearwoman pinned a thread that tried to make the second cable a chorus. Aurora singed a damper; the Mech made iron into a principle.
The line held.
"Harvest," Evan said, because work never stops asking to be done. He took glands and coils at UI seams and rolled them to the lane. The raiders carried edge-only; the Chief's boy wrote the ledger like it was a spell.
[YOU OBTAIN: THREAD COILS ×? | VENOM GLAND ×?] [CHECK][COINS: +? | REPUTATION: +? (Novice Village)] [CHECK]
Gold flags played modest ghosts.
[HUNDREDFOLD: CONTEXT FLAGGED][POTENTIAL AMPLIFICATION: RARE SILK / DEFENSE CONDUCTOR / LOCAL RENOWN] [CHECK]
"Later," Evan told the patient clerk for the fifth time.
The hedge, perhaps bored with losing, plucked the cable in a new signature—long, long, long, then a sudden tighten. The rope jumped under his wrist. The cross-brace leapt against tusked weights; one hide tore; mud fell in a wet laugh.
"Hold," Evan said, and all the hands in the world listened for a beat.
The cable didn't dart back when Aurora kissed damper; it bit, its hum blooming to a richer tone. Not silk at all—something else under woven thread—wire? resin? [CHECK: material unknown]
The archer hissed, "This is wrong metal."
"Not metal," the spearwoman said. "Bone?"
"Bone that sings," the knife-man said, scowling.
The cable tightened again. The post offered the worst sound of the day—shear at the base.
Evan had the count in his wrist and a decision in his mouth.
"Knife," he said, eyes on the hedge. "If I say cut, top rope, between those two dampers. Archer—on the wrist. Spear—pin anything that tries to make a bridge. Mech—if the rope goes, you are the gate. Aurora—save yourself for the big stitch."
The cable thrummed like a throat clearing.
"Slack," he said."Pull.""Hold."
The cable answered with tighten.
"Again," he said, to the rope, to the world."Slack.""Pull.""Hold."
The cable went tighter still and for the first time moved the cross-brace a thumb's width. The wedge groaned as if dead things had just been asked for labor without pay. The rope under his wrist stopped being song and became threat.
Evan felt the beat coming, as surely as a musician hears a barline. Next hum would be the one that either snapped the post or took the rope into the hedge with their law attached.
He took a breath that belonged to nobody and said, "On my word."
The cable sang the beginning of its tightening, thick and sure.
Evan opened his mouth to choose whether they kept their instrument or broke it—
—and something in the hedge answered the cable with a deeper, slower pulse, as if a heavy hand had found the same string and wanted to know who played it best.
The rope jumped under his wrist, loyal and in love with anybody willing to touch it hard. The cross-brace shivered. Mud shook. The staff orb trembled in his grip, coils shivering.
"Cut?" the knife-man asked, blade poised above a clean section of rope.
Evan watched the hum and its echo line up wrong, their beats almost married and then misaligned by exactly a hand's width of time.
"Hold," he said, and kept counting, because sometimes detuning isn't making a new song—it's waiting while two bad songs step on each other.
The cable drew breath for a third, meaner tighten.
Evan's wrist counted one-two-three—and found the off-beat an inch to the left of fear.
He set his mouth, decided, and moved his wrist.