"Shields up," Evan said. "We farm."
The soldiers stepped together, shields kissing, blades angled like quotes waiting for a statement. The Gate hummed behind them; the Hut watched with its square window like a held breath.
Fog obliged. Two Desert Mist Lizards slid out low and fast. "Right, then left," Evan called.
The first hit the shield with a wet thunk; the soldier tilted and cut the hinge of the jaw. The second tried to slither past; the other rotated to pen it against the humming edge of the Territory Shield. Two beats, two bodies.
The chime fell twice. Light peeled from meat in obedient icons and drifted to Evan like filings to a magnet.
[LOOT ACQUIRED][DESERT MIST LIZARD LEATHER × 6][BLACK IRON INGOT × 2][MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1]
[LOOT ACQUIRED][DESERT MIST LIZARD LEATHER × 9][BLACK IRON INGOT × 3][RANK STONE: BLACK IRON - LOWER × 1]
"Pocket," Evan said, pointing to a patch already slick with habit. "Bodies here. Backs to the shield."
The soldiers dragged carcasses into a low wall just outside the border, fouling approaches and forcing throats to show at a certain angle. Evan kept his voice flat. "We don't chase. They come to tools."
The next pair tried staggered timing. "Left first. Then right." Steel obeyed. Chime. He felt inventory weightless and real behind his ribs - enough for a token.
He backed into the Hut without turning and touched the Workbench.
[WORKBENCH: ONLINE][CRAFTING: SWORD-AND-SHIELD SOLDIER SUMMON TOKEN][REQUIRED: BLACK IRON INGOT × 3 / MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1 / LEATHER × 2][STATUS: AVAILABLE]
Three ingots, one core, two leather; metal learned its job and became a disc with the weight of an argument.
"Gate." He moved with the disc; the soldiers opened and closed a path like doors that trusted their hinges.
[SUMMONING GATE: TOKEN ACCEPTED][CONSTRUCT: SWORD-AND-SHIELD SOLDIER][STATUS: CONFIRM?]
"Confirm."
The Gate sang a low chord. Light webbed stone. A third soldier stepped through, identical down to rented-breath poise.
"My Lord."
"Shield left. Overlap. No gaps. We use the bodies like we paid for them."
The three settled into a shallow crescent biting just outside the invisible border. The corpses anchored the center. Tails flicked and disappeared in the gray.
World Channel hissed like steam at the edge of hearing.
[UNKNOWN RACE / ID: 11,440]: The humans shed cores like bad habits.][HUMAN - EARTH / ID: 9,331,710]: My shield is flickering - help -][UNKNOWN RACE / ID: 2,881]: Smell the certainty. There.]
"Mute," Evan said. Let rumor sniff; he would make it choose the wrong door.
More bodies came. The soldiers worked without flourish. Evan called angles and learned the small ways these things taught you to be efficient - where the eye sat under ridge, how the jaw unlatched if you made it choose between bite and breathe.
[LOOT ACQUIRED][DESERT MIST LIZARD LEATHER × 7][BLACK IRON INGOT × 2][MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1]
He crafted a second disc fast and kept it. Insurance sits in the pocket until needed.
The fog changed pitch the way a crowd does when a rumor arrives. The next shape carried more weight and less hurry.
[ENEMY LIFEFORM: DESERT MIST LIZARD - VARIANT][RANK: BLACK IRON - MIDDLE]
"Center. Brace. Tilt down. It'll try to climb."
Heavier plates. Wedge head. It hit the crescent and tried to ride up. The men stepped together - not back, down - denying the angle. The animal slid, exposing the seam where plates met soft. The blades corrected the belief.
The hit rattled Evan's teeth anyway. "Reset." It came again. They repeated the earth-and-steel lesson. It died for thinking a trick was a plan.
[LOOT ACQUIRED][BLACK IRON INGOT × 4][MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1][BLUEPRINT FRAGMENT: BASIC WORKBENCH × 1]
Duplicate fragment. Paperweight today; barter later.
The Initial Pulse kept its promise. Movement shifted from singles to clumps, then back. Evan risked three steps to adjust the body wall - one drag, one push - then back across the brush of the shield. Approaches tripped where he wanted.
"Token ready," he told the Gate, "but hold."
[SUMMONING GATE: STANDBY]
Between rushes he used the Workbench like a baker uses a counter - hands quick, motions small. Leather became drag-straps; two ingots repaired shield rims where edge met insistence.
World Channel leaked again.
[HUMAN - EARTH / ID: 9,118,003]: Do not go into the fog alone. Pair up. Use the shield line. Drops are real.][UNKNOWN RACE / ID: 33,770]: Who's the human with the impossible yield?]
He didn't answer. He was busy teaching the line to sing: three more bodies; a pivot so the pocket wouldn't trip his own men; a hand on a shoulder that meant wait, not fear. The soldiers took instruction like rain.
Another variant tested the more broken part of the wall with a slow push. Evan denied it rhythm. "Bite." The shields stepped into the shove; the wedge lost balance; the seam showed; swords wrote the sentence. Chime.
[LOOT ACQUIRED][BLACK IRON INGOT × 3][MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1][RANK STONE: BLACK IRON - LOWER × 1]
"Gate," Evan said, paying out the second disc. "On my mark."
Fourth shield meant he could close the crescent into a short wall if needed. Whether faster killing came from three cutting and one bracing, or two and two, would be decided by how the fog meant to spend the next minutes.
The event pane unfolded like a visor.
[SYSTEM NOTICE][LOCAL EVENT: INITIAL PULSE - ACTIVE][REWARD CONDITION: DEFEND SUCCESSFULLY UNTIL EVENT END.]
"Define defend."
[CONDITION: TERRITORY SHIELD NOT BREACHED.]
"Good. We don't let them in. We don't leave the frame."
[SUMMONING GATE: TOKEN ACCEPTED][CONSTRUCT: SWORD-AND-SHIELD SOLDIER][STATUS: CONFIRM?]
"Confirm."
The fourth soldier arrived; Evan slotted him right and tightened the curve. The pocket became a shallow U, one end on rock, one on stump, the middle a lesson plan written in meat.
"Names later," he muttered. Tools win first.
The fog tried a trick: three on a stagger - two low, one late and high to draw eyes. Evan called the late one first. The men trusted the call over sight. Plan became mistake; mistake became opening. Swords talked; chime did bookkeeping.
He spent leather on a crude drag-sling so a shield could yank carcasses while the blade stayed honest. Small upgrades felt like oxygen.
A tremor ran left, not weight or glide - something pushing two ideas through one door.
[ELITE VARIANT DETECTED][DESERT MIST LIZARD - BLACK IRON (MIDDLE)][BEHAVIOR: BURROW-GLIDE / FEINT ANGLES]
"Burrow," Evan said. "It'll try under our feet or through the wall." The bodies made terrain he liked and tunnels he didn't.
"Shift right one. Leave the soft patch open. We want it to pick the worst door."
They adjusted. The U opened a handspan to the right, leaving a neat, tempting soft spot left-center - two inches of loam over stone. The elite's wake puckered the ground, smoothed it, crept. Evan stepped to the exact middle of the soft and set his heel of hand against the air where the Shield's hum brushed his knuckles. It did nothing for him outside, but it reminded him what inside meant.
"Now," he said, almost gentle.
Shields slammed to ground. The elite hit stone, thinking impact; finding surprise. Head came up wrong; seam showed proud; blades corrected pride. It didn't die in one beat. The second took a curl off an edge - note: repair. The third took the thought out of the eye.
[LOOT ACQUIRED][BLACK IRON INGOT × 5][MONSTER CORE (BLACK IRON - LOWER) × 1][RANK STONE: BLACK IRON - LOWER × 1]
The Workbench wanted those ingots. Evan promised them with a touch to wood.
The pane throbbed once and flattened. Regular lizards resumed, insulted back into arithmetic.
"Reset the wall," he said. "Make the soft patch again. If another thinks it invented burrow, it graduates the same way."
They worked; the line sang. Evan took a breath that belonged to him.
The World Channel prodded - closer, like a finger through cloth.
[UNKNOWN RACE / ID: 2,881]: I can smell you.][HUMAN - EARTH / ID: 9,042,111]: If you have drop-rate above 10%, DM me -]
He muted it. He wasn't a rumor; he was a field.
The Gate warmed. Evan eyed the inventory shape and made a decision he didn't enjoy: spend an ingot on repair rather than hoard for a fifth shield he couldn't feed yet.
[WORKBENCH: REPAIR - SHORT SWORD EDGE][REQUIRED: BLACK IRON INGOT × 1][STATUS: AVAILABLE]
He paid. The blade came back obedient and clean.
The fog thickened, then thinned. The rhythm said the Pulse was past its loudest minute and beginning to argue with itself about impressing him.
Then the ground to the left hummed lower. Not weight; not glide. Two ideas through one door again - closer, heavier.
[ELITE VARIANT DETECTED][DESERT MIST LIZARD - BLACK IRON (MIDDLE)][BEHAVIOR: PAIRED APPROACH]
Evan felt the Gate's hum kiss his back; the last disc sat cold in his palm. He had a wall built of lessons, a soft patch that wasn't, and a window that belonged to him, not to rumor.
"On me," he said, adjusting the line with two fingers like a conductor telling cellos to breathe. "Left pocket. We bait it."
The fog bulged.