Timeline: TC1853.03.01 (Dawn)
Location: Seven Peaks Territory, Eastern Valley
Four days of recovery had restored Raven's spiritual reserves to acceptable levels. Not perfect—her core still carried faint scars from building too much too fast—but strong enough for what needed doing.
The southern wall stood complete, twelve meters of living plant-fungal hybrid that breathed and thought and defended. But three approaches remained vulnerable. East, west, and north—each one requiring a different defensive strategy, a different terrain adaptation, a different impossible technique.
Raven stood at the valley's eastern edge where dense forest met the settlement's boundary. Morning mist clung to the trees, and she could feel the spiritual vein pulsing forty meters below. Regular as a heartbeat. Every forty-seven minutes, essence rising to the surface, waiting to be guided.
