Kazuto woke up to a strange silence.
It wasn't the quiet of an empty place. He could still hear the soft snoring of dwarves from the tunnels, the distant, wheezing breath of Lunch in its pen. But the usual morning sounds—the wind whistling over the rim, the scrabble of loose rocks falling, the distant calls of Scabland birds—were gone.
He sat up in his sleeping scrape. The air felt still. Heavy. Then he remembered.
He looked up.
The sky was there—a pale, pre-dawn grey. But it looked… different. Flatter. Like a painted ceiling. The dome. It was finished. They were inside a giant, invisible bowl.
A wave of claustrophobia hit him, sudden and sharp. He took a deep breath. The air smelled the same: dirt, cold ash from last night's fire, the faint mineral tang of the well.
It's just a roof. A really big roof.
He stood, stretching the kinks from his back. He walked to the center of the basin and looked straight up. High above, a lone cloud drifted past, distorted slightly by the curve of the barrier. It was surreal.
One by one, others woke up. They emerged from tunnels, blinking, and did the same thing he had—stopped and looked up. Expressions ranged from awe to unease.
Doom scratched his beard, staring at the sealed sky. "No birds," he muttered.
Mavis was already awake, of course. She stood with her slate, making notes. "Air circulation appears unaffected. Temperature stable. Auditory damping effect noted on external sounds. We're in a sensory bubble."
"It's quiet," said one of the young dwarves, Kael. He sounded nervous.
"It's safe," his brother Bren corrected, but he kept looking up too.
Elder Leon emerged last. He didn't look at the dome. He looked at the people. He saw their uncertainty. He leaned on his walking stick and cleared his throat.
"A hall needs purpose," he said, his voice carrying in the quiet. "A dojo needs students. You." He pointed his stick at Balmond, who was staring at his own hands as if they were unfamiliar tools. "And you two." He pointed at Kael and Bren. "And anyone else with two legs and a spine that isn't made of pudding. Over here. Now."
He walked to the largest open space in the basin, near the central well.
Balmond frowned but walked over. The young dwarves followed. After a moment's hesitation, a few other dwarves joined them. Even a couple of the braver goblins, curious, crept down from their perches and lurked at the edge of the group.
Kazuto watched, curious. Mavis drifted over to stand beside him, still scribbling.
"Observation: group cohesion activity. Subject: Elder Leon. Hypothesis: attempting to convert latent anxiety into disciplined motion."
"Or he's just bored," Kazuto said.
Elder Leon had the group stand in a rough line. "Feet shoulder-width. Knees slightly bent. Not like you're about to sit. Like you're a tree. A very stubborn, ugly tree."
He began with simple stances. How to stand so you couldn't be easily pushed over. How to shift your weight. It wasn't flashy. It was boring. It was about feeling the ground through your feet.
Balmond, used to explosive power, struggled with the slow, controlled movements. He kept over-correcting, wobbling.
"You are a mountain, not a landslide!" Leon barked, tapping Balmond's knee with his stick. "A mountain does not wobble."
Kazuto expected the berserker to snap. But Balmond just grunted, reset his stance, and focused harder.
Then came the punching drills. Not to hit anything. Just to practice the motion. Straight forward, from the hip, twist the torso. Again.
Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.
The sound of fists cutting air filled the quiet basin. It was a new rhythm. A productive one.
The goblins watched, fascinated. One of them, the scout who had first led them to water, mimicked the motion with its own small, green arm. Thwap.
Leon saw it. He didn't shoo it away. He just nodded. "Elbows in. Even you."
The goblin startled, then puffed out its chest and tried again, its tiny face scrunched in concentration.
Kazuto felt a smile tug at his lips. This was good. This was people doing something, not just waiting.
His moment of peace was interrupted by Mavis. "We have a new problem."
"Of course we do."
"The dome solves ingress. It does not solve egress. We are sealed in. Our food comes from trade with the goblins, who go outside. If the Seats surround us, that trade stops. We have maybe two weeks of stored food. Three if we're hungry."
Kazuto's good mood evaporated. Right. Logistics. "We need to grow our own food. Inside."
Mavis gestured at the barren basin floor. "The soil here is dead rock and clay. You'd have better luck growing turnips on your uniform."
"Then we bring in soil. Compost. Make gardens."
"Where? We are running out of flat space. The tunnels are for living. The central area is for everything else. We need to think vertically. Tiered gardens. Irrigation. It's another massive project." She tapped her slate. "And it's not the only one. We have one water source inside the dome—the bitter well. The clean spring is outside. We need to either pipe it in, which is impossible right now, or dig a new well inside, which could collapse tunnels. Or, we find a way to make the bitter well not bitter."
Kazuto rubbed his temples. Completing the dome felt like the finish line. It was just the starting block for a hundred new races.
He looked over at Elder Leon's "dojo." Balmond was now practicing a slow, defensive parry with his axe, guided by Leon's stick. It looked less like a warrior's move and more like a careful craftsman's stroke. The young dwarves were sweating but grinning. The goblins were having a silent, punching-speed competition.
They were building strength. But strength wouldn't matter if they starved.
"Alright," Kazuto said. "New priority list. One: secure a sustainable food source inside the dome. Two: solve the water problem. Three: don't let anyone notice I have no idea how to do either of those things."
Mavis gave him a sidelong look. "Your administrative skills are… uniquely terrifying."
"Thanks." He walked toward the group. "Leon, can I borrow your students for a bit? We need to move some dirt."
The training session broke up. Kazuto had them gather all the scrap organic material—food peelings, waste from Lunch's pen, the inedible parts of the goblin's foraged plants. He used his barrier skill to forge deep, rectangular troughs from the basin's rock along the sunniest southern wall.
"Today," he announced, "we start the Delivery Compost and Garden Initiative. We're making soil."
It was unglamorous work. Hauling waste. Mixing it with crushed rock and clay. But it was work everyone could do. Even the goblins helped, fetching specific types of dry brush for carbon.
As they worked, Balmond, his giant arms covered in dirt, looked at the pathetic-looking mixture in the stone trough. "We are going to grow food in this?"
"Eventually," Kazuto said. "It takes time. Like sharpening an axe."
Balmond looked at his hands, then back at the trough. He gave a slow nod. Patience. It was a new kind of strength.
By afternoon, they had five long, rocky planters filled with the beginnings of future soil. They were ugly, barren lines against the wall. But they were a start.
Kazuto stood back, wiping dirt from his uniform. He looked up at the dome. The sun was directly overhead, its light diffusing evenly through the barrier, bathing the basin in a soft, shadowless glow. It was peaceful. Artificial, but peaceful.
A goblin scurried up to him. It wasn't the scout. This one was smaller, wearing a ridiculous hat made of woven grass. It held out a single, perfect, purple root vegetable. A twilight tuber. A delicacy the goblins rarely found.
It pointed at the new planters, then at the tuber, then at Kazuto. It made a planting motion.
It was donating seed stock.
Kazuto took the tuber gently. "Thank you."
The goblin nodded sharply, then scampered off, its grass hat bobbing.
He held the tuber. It was a small thing. But it was hope, handed from a green hand to a blue-uniformed one, under a dome that shouldn't exist.
« NOTICE: SETTLEMENT SELF-SUFFICIENCY PROTOCOLS INITIATED. COMMUNAL MORALE COHESION INCREASING. »
The voice was right. The dome was complete. But today, they had planted their first seed. The delivery wasn't just about receiving safety anymore.
It was about learning how to grow.