Location:Mid Ring, Vel'thari Containment — Southern Tunnels
Date/Time:Ashbloom, 9942 AZI — Day 167, 198 days remaining
Realm:Lower Realm, Doha
The scouting run went wrong at the third junction.
Jayde was alone. That was the first mistake, and she'd made it deliberately. The new students needed two days to recover before training could begin; Eden was in the medical bay monitoring the wounded girl's recovery, and Meifen was running crossbow drills with the original seven. The southern tunnel network — the sector they hadn't mapped yet — needed eyes before Jayde could extend patrol routes to cover the new group's expanded territory.
She'd gone alone because nobody else could move fast enough through unmapped territory and survive what they found there. The exoskeleton carried her at a pace that would have exhausted a Grade 4 cultivator. The siege bow was on her back. The compound crossbow in her hands. The pheromone disruptor canister on her belt, three charges remaining.
