[Cass]
Morning came with the sound of water and work. The river whispered along the cavern edge. Chisels tapped a slow rhythm. Children's feet pattered like rain on clay. The shrine's light held steady, a pulse that told the tribe they had survived the night and would attempt the next.
Cass stood at the edge of the food alcove and watched baskets move hand to hand. The Open Granaries policy had turned the line into a single living thing. No one hoarded. No one stepped out. A Warble boy on his toes carried a basket taller than his chest and grinned when an elder ruffled his hair. There was less food in the store. There was more warmth in the line.
He opened the hamlet view in his mind and read it like a prayer.
[Propervy Bastion – Hamlet Overview]
Population: 243 (steady)
Food Days: 6 (Open Granaries)
Housing: Cramped
Faith: Strong
Safety: Recovering
Stability: 61% (fragile, rising)
Season: Trial Cycle 2
Modifiers: Infection pressure south. Beast nests disturbed. Surface storms reported.
Season. The word hung there like a signpost at the road's edge. Trial Cycle 2 meant the system had shifted its weights again. Somewhere above the mountains shook. Floodplains swelled. Forests coughed blight into the wind. The world did not stay still long enough for a plan to gather dust.
He closed the view and lifted a basket himself. The stew pot steamed. The smell was honest and thin. He set the basket by the ladle and counted bowls without looking at his fingers.
"Children first," he said. He did not need to say it loudly. The line already moved that way on its own.
Karrek arrived with stone dust in his hair and a roll of drawings under his arm. He set them down on a flat rock and looked at the baskets the way a foreman counts bricks.
"You gave away two days to buy a smile," Karrek said. There was no anger in it. Only the problem.
"I bought time," Cass said. "Smiles buy time. Time buys iron."
Karrek grunted. "You talk like a reader."
"I am reading," Cass said. "The hamlet writes in my head now."
Karrek's mouth twitched. "Then read this." He unrolled the drawings. Lines had been carved with a nail into rough pulp. The marks were clean and sure.
"New shield frames," Karrek said. "Curved. Reinforced with chitin ribs. Lighter. We can hold longer without breaks."
"How much chitin," Cass asked, "and from where."
"Two crawler plates per shield," Karrek said. "We have enough from the last tide for twenty. And I need a small forge. Stone and bellows. Not iron. Not yet. Just heat and a frame."
Cass nodded. "You have it. We push a pit against the east wall. You pick the spot."
Karrek's eyes warmed. "And spears."
"Yes," Cass said. "Of course."
They stood a moment together and listened to the line move. There were fewer baskets now. The pots scraped deeper. No one in the line complained. Hunger made short tempers. But faith dulled sharp edges. He could not count on faith forever.
"We need herbs for the healer," Cass said. "And fiber for cloth. And salt if we can find any. I want a waterhouse with a proper boil line and filtered run. Four vats. Steam vented. We can jury a sand and charcoal stack if we find the right grit."
Karrek stared at him. "Where do you find the words for things we have never built."
Cass touched the approval mark on his chest. It burned lightly as if embarrassed. "I listen to stone," he said. It was easier than saying he remembered a different life where he had learned to read patch notes like weather and watched towns die for want of soap and boiling water.
The elder approached, staff tapping the ground in an old rhythm. He listened to the last part of their talk and nodded once.
"Build the waterhouse first," the elder said. "Faith understands thirst."
"Then the pit forge," Cass said. "Then the shields."
"Then sleep," the elder said.
Cass almost smiled. "One day."
[Rilka]
Rilka hummed to herself as she cut caps from the glowshroom racks. Her knife did not slip, even when a spider skittered along the wall. She shooed it with her elbow and kept the rhythm steady. Cut and twist. Set and stack. The song she hummed was new. The children had made it up after the light came down the shaft like a rope the sky had thrown for them.
She liked the new song. It had small steps you could put your feet on. It had a piece where you held your breath and then laughed. It tasted like clean water and warm stone.
She reached for a cap and froze when the edge of her vision swam. The world breathed and then straightened. She blinked. The light from the shrine seemed too bright for a heartbeat.
She rubbed her eyes and smiled at the plant like it had played a trick. "Not today," she told it.
A touch on her shoulder. She looked up. Cass stood there with a basket on his hip like any other worker. He did not wear a crown on his brow or a title on his back. He carried things. He asked questions. He listened more than he spoke.
"Are you well," he asked.
She nodded. "Sometimes the light moves inside my head. It leaves behind a shape. Then I can finish the rows faster."
He looked at her for a quiet moment. She felt seen, which often felt like being warmed by a stove.
"You remember patterns," he said. "Better than most."
She shrugged and hid her smile in her shoulder. "I like when things line up. It makes the world feel like it wants me."
He laughed softly. "I will find you a place where patterns matter. Would you learn to read maps."
She blinked. "We have maps."
"Not like the ones I want," he said. "Lines of tunnels. Veins. Air flows. Heat eddies. Places where stone hums. If you learn to see them, you can tell us where to dig without dying."
She swallowed. The idea pressed at her chest. It scared her. It tasted like the first bite of a good stew when you cannot tell yet what spice will win.
"Yes," she said. "I want that."
He set the basket down and showed her how to make clean marks on a slate. He drew a curve and she drew it again. He drew a spiral and she made it tighter. He smiled.
"You see it," he said.
"Only when the light moves inside my head," she said. "But I can chase it now."
He nodded and left her with the slate and a small piece of chalk broken in half. She held the chalk like it might bite and then pressed it to the slate and watched a path appear.
[Torv]
Torv hammered chitin plates into a curve against a block of stone. The noise came up through his arms and into his teeth. He liked the noise. It told him where the weak parts were. It told him what the piece wanted to be if you let it.
Karrek stood over his shoulder and did not talk much. That helped. Talking made his hands forget what they knew.
"Turn," Karrek said. Torv turned the plate. "There. Hit there."
Torv hit there. The plate bent without cracking. He grunted happiness. It was a small sound. It felt like a morning with no ache in the back and a full bowl at the end of it.
Cass stopped at the edge of the pit where they had set the temporary forge. He squinted through heat waves and coughed when the smoke tried to live in his throat.
"You need a hood," Cass said. "And a vent that loves the smoke more than your lungs."
Karrek nodded. "Stone eats smoke if you shape the mouth right."
Cass crouched, drew with a charred stick on the floor. A tall triangle mouth. A throat like a snake. A flat at the top.