With the immediate Council threat neutralized, their focus turned to survival and preparation for the Odyssey's arrival. They needed more than just food; they needed technology, knowledge, and materials to build a landing site and establish communication.
The Custodian's long-range scans identified a promising location: the ruins of a major pre-Filtering university, its library and laboratories potentially still intact, buried deep within a "Dead Zone" of high radiation and unstable terrain.
The journey was perilous. The landscape was littered with the skeletal remains of the old world, and they encountered strange, mutated flora and fauna that had adapted to the toxic environment. After days of travel, they reached the university, a sprawling complex of crumbling, vine-choked buildings.
While searching the ruins, they were ambushed not by Council enforcers, but by a tribe of feral humans—descendants of those who had never entered the simulation, who had survived the Filtering in hardened shelters and regressed to a primitive, tribal state. They were led by a hulking, scarred man who called himself Kael, the "Scavenger King."
Kael saw the awakened not as kin, but as rivals for the scant resources of the Dead Zone. A brutal skirmish ensued in the dusty halls of the ancient library. Kael's tribe fought with a savage ferocity, using crude but effective weapons.
Just as the situation seemed dire, Elias, separated from the others, found himself cornered by Kael in a room filled with ancient, preserved animal skeletons. Instead of fighting, Elias did something unexpected. He reached into his pack and offered Kael a portion of their precious, synthesized food.
Kael stared, suspicious. Elias then pointed to a skeleton of a long-extinct bird, and then to the sky, trying to convey the concept of the Odyssey, of a return, of a shared heritage. It was a clumsy, desperate pantomime of hope.
Kael, to Elias's astonishment, lowered his weapon. He grunted, pointing first to Elias, then to himself, and then to the world around them. It was a simple, primal acknowledgment: they were all survivors of the same catastrophe. The tribe, while fierce, was starving. An alliance was forged not on shared memory, but on shared need. The "Scavenger Kings" would help them scavenge the university in exchange for food and knowledge.