So here's the thing about civilization: it doesn't care if you're ready.
It just sort of shows up, pokes you in the ribs, and says "hey, if you don't dig a proper drainage channel under your semi-mythic community firepit, you're gonna get smoke in your face and slowly destabilize the symbolic anchor holding your people's fragile collective hope together."
Which is, you know. Great.
I was elbow-deep in mosscrete slurry, trying to reinforce the south side of the firepit ring, when the system finally decided to chi in with its usual cheerful existentialism.
[Synchronization Drift Detected – Cultural Node Instability: 1.2%]
Which, in system-speak, ans sothing is a little off with the soul of the village.
Not enough to scream about. Just enough that if I don't fix it, the fire might decide it's no longer in the mood to be sacred.
So. No pressure.
"You're leaning too far left again," muttered Stonealign from a few paces back, adjusting a crude wooden protractor he'd carved using a broken piece of vent-shroom spine. "Gonna offset the glyph angles. Fla alignnt'll skew."
"Yeah well, maybe I want a rebellious fla," I grumbled, scraping out the misaligned rune circle. "Maybe I'm tired of pretending this isn't the weirdest therapy session in history."
He didn't answer. Just passed a smaller carving tool and got back to drafting an expansion marker on the other side of the plaza.
I don't even rember asking for a plaza. But apparently that's what it is now. Half-ford stone circle, mosscrete drainage grates, ash-path markers. People started walking the edges when they were nervous, so now it has aning. Civilization is great like that. Real opportunistic.
The fire hissed behind .
I didn't turn around, but I felt it. The way it flickered not with wind but like it was... disagreeing.
I pressed the stone tighter. Reinforced the circle. Let the grit bite into my claws. I didn't say anything clever, and for once the system stayed quiet. Just let work. Or let pretend I was doing sothing that mattered.
"You're muttering again," Stonealign said without looking up.
"Thanks. I'll be sure to pass that along to my looming death vision."
He nodded. Like that made sense.
I don't know what I thought would happen when we made it this far. Maybe I believed I'd get to retire at twenty-four days old. Maybe I thought the system would say "congrats, you reached minor nationhood, enjoy your fresh water bonus and emotional stability."
Instead, I'm patching microfractures in a civilization's nervous system and trying not to shake.
Because sothing is coming. I know it. The fla knows it. The dirt under my feet knows it.
The system hasn't said raid imminent.
But it will.
And when it does, I don't think I'll be ready.
Not really.
I caught Splitjaw later by the east trench. He was chewing on sothing tough and dried and had the expression of soone pretending it was fine.
"You still haven't left," I said, because subtlety is for people who haven't watched golems cry blood.
He blinked. Then shrugged.
"I would've. But you're still here."
"That's a dumb reason," I said.
"Yeah," he agreed.
The silence between us was good. Not easy, but honest.
"I'm scared," I said finally.
He didn't move. Didn't look at .
"Good," he said. "So am I."
Then he handed half of whatever the tough, awful jerky thing was. I chewed it. It tasted like dry moss and burnt guilt. I kept chewing anyway.
There's a kind of silence that says, I don't know the right words, but I'm standing next to you anyway.
Splitjaw speaks fluent silence.
---
The wind blew from the Verge.
The fire flickered wrong again.
Embergleam was sorting herbs when I found her, which is about as normal as things get around here.
Boneflower petals. Fernted glowshroom stalks. So kind of root that looked like it might bite back if you touched it wrong. She ground them together with the sa focus most people reserve for trying not to die.
"Got a mont?" I asked.
She didn't look up. "You planning on dying in the next few minutes?"
"No."
"Then I've got a mont."
I sat beside her. Cross-legged, clawtips scratching into the ash-flecked dirt. She kept grinding. I kept watching. Neither of us talked.
Eventually, I said, "If this place falls, I want you to lie to them. Tell them I had a plan."
"I'll tell them you tripped over a moss pot and survived out of spite," she said, deadpan.
"Fair."
We sat with that for a while. Just... sat.
"I'm not good at this," I said.
"At what?"
"Being the one they look at when the sky shakes."
Embergleam stopped grinding.
"You think any of us are?"
"No. But you all pretend better."
She finally turned her head. Her expression was unreadable. Not cold. Just... tired in the way that ant she still cared.
"Do you know why I follow you?"
"I lit a fire?"
"No. You never asked to."
I blinked.
"You keep walking. Even when it breaks you. That's the kind of leader I can bind a wound for."
My throat hurt. I didn't answer. Just nodded.
She pressed the paste into a small stone pot and pushed it toward . "Put that on your claws. They're bleeding again."
I hadn't noticed.
Later, I found Hoarder re-weighing our food stores by counting grain piles in sets of six. I didn't say anything. Just watched.
He looked up once. Gave a crooked grin. Said, "No one told building a supply chain would involve this much arithtic."
Then he kept counting. His lips moved with each group.
"Did you ever think we'd make it this far?" I asked.
"No," he said. "But I hoped."
He paused. Put down the grain pouch. Let out a slow breath.
"I wanted to open a bakery. I think I told you that once."
"You didn't," I said. "But I'm glad you just did."
He nodded. "If we live through this, I want ovens."
"Done."
We didn't need to say what "this" was.
The fire was low when I returned.
Too low.
The fla always reflected back my outline when I stood in front of it. It was a weird trick of heat and light—half magic, half sothing else.
Tonight, it showed and sothing else beside . A shape. Smaller. Not kobold. Not human.
Sothing drawing.
My gut dropped.
I ran.
Scribbles was in the western watch hollow, sitting in the dirt, both hands sketching wildly in opposite directions. Glyphs spiraled around him—burnt into the soil with glowing white chalk that wasn't chalk.
"Scribbles," I said, breathless. "What are you doing?"
He didn't answer. His eyes were glassy. Like he was watching a movie only he could see.
I stepped closer.
He spoke.
"She burns. And then she doesn't. And then no one rembers her na."
My spine locked.
"Stop. Scribbles, stop."
His fingers shook. The chalk lines curled into fla-glyphs. Then shattered. Then looped.
I dropped to my knees beside him and grabbed his shoulders.
"Scribbles. Listen to . What do you see?"
His mouth opened.
But the system answered instead.
[Myth Echo Detected – Tiline Collapse Projection: 37.8%]
[Relic Node: Fla Extinguished – Sovereign Heart: Absent]
[External Interest Status: Elevated]
[Divine Pathway: Wavering]
I couldn't breathe.
Scribbles whispered one final line.
"The fire goes out."
The words didn't echo. They just landed.
Like truth hitting stone.
Then he passed out in my arms.
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