The disc lay warm under Veyra's palm.
A long pulse shivered through the stone, then two short. She breathed once and translated under her breath.
"Main asks: alive—where—mark—status."
Ash kept his voice low so it wouldn't carry, "Both alive. Injured: ribs, ankle. Holding. Side alcove off a choke. Draft pulls right."
Veyra pressed the notch, sending short–long patterns in careful sequence. They waited with the drip for long minutes—ten, then twenty slow breaths—before the relay quivered back a reply: tick–tick—tick.
"It's them," she said, listening. "Alive. Moving inward. They ask us to mark if safe and to describe terrain."
Ash angled his head toward the corridor. The draft still combed his nape from the same direction; no new grit hissed, "Safe enough. Tell them the throat here narrows into a flowstone curtain and a column‑forest. There's a dry shelf above a shallow gutter, not a ramp. Lichen throws a faint blue wash. No fresh Worker sign—only old, dust‑soft scuffs."
