Location:Mid Ring, Vel'thari Containment — Dead Spot Boundary
Date/Time:Ashbloom, 9942 AZI — Day 152, 213 days remaining
Realm:Lower Realm, Doha
The mantis was closer today.
Jayde noticed during her morning check of the boundary sensors. The creature had been holding its position on the equilibrium line for two weeks — the narrow band where dead-spot silence met corruption-saturated air, the energetic sweet spot it had chosen and maintained with the patient precision of something that understood exactly what it was doing. She'd visited it every day. Walked to the boundary. Stood fifteen meters away. Let it read her with those individual sensory pits. Let herself be read.
The distance had been constant. Fifteen meters. The mantis on its line. Jayde on hers. Two predators studying each other across a gap that neither had closed.
Today the gap was ten meters.
