All I wanted was to fix a wall.
Just a normal wall. Mosscrete, trench-side, slightly cratered from where the last mana bolt had scread through it and turned three support beams into compost.
A reasonable request. A straightforward task.
So of course the system had opinions.
[Rebuild Identified – Eligible Structure Detected]
[Enhancent Options Available – Select Upgrade Path?]
[Option 1: Heroic Bastion of Fla-Earned Resolve]
[Option 2: Forgotten morial of Those Who Probably Died Here]
[Option 3: Cracked Wall (No Title)]
I selected option three.
The system froze for a mont, as if disappointed.
Then pinged again.
[Option 3 Selected – Assigning Default Tag: 'Pending Cultural Significance']
[Would You Like to Add Flavor Text? Y/N]
I whispered very calmly at the interface.
"No. I would not."
[Flavor Text Queued Anyway – Enjoy!]
---
Stonealign shuffled over with a stack of cracked bricks in one arm and what might've once been a load-bearing beam in the other.
He looked at the wall. Then at . Then back at the wall.
Then cried.
Just a single, contained sob into his scarf. Nothing dramatic.
I put a paw on his shoulder.
"You okay?" I asked, not okay.
The beam fell out of his other hand and cracked a golem's kneecap behind us.
The golem groaned and sat down like it was giving up on life.
---
Ashring was... rebuilding.
That was the best word for it.
Not thriving. Not expanding. Just slowly uncollapsing in semi-coordinated directions.
Bitterstack was having a violent argunt with a barrel marked "ergency grain." Apparently it had turned out to be moss cordage and two dead slis.
Quicktongue was halfway across camp trying to fix a broken shoutline horn with a fork and pure fury.
The Chaos Artisan was standing on a crate, yelling at a golem that refused to wake up unless soone sang at it. I had questions. I wasn't going to ask them.
And Embergleam—bless her overworked bones—had assembled a lecture circle of three tiny kobolds and was using old relay sheets to teach them the difference between "boiled" and "burned." She was holding a stick.
I respected the stick.
I turned back to my wall.
I'd already cleared the debris. The bricks were stacked. The trench lines were marked. The beam was... still broken. But maybe if I wedged it at an angle and stared hard enough, it would behave.
The fire inside yawned once. Not alard. Just bored.
"Yeah, I know," I muttered. "It's not combat. No dramatic duels. No heroic sacrifices."
I set the beam.
"Just bricks. And splinters. And maybe tetanus."
I patted it.
It held.
For about three seconds. Progress, I guess.
Then the trench wall let out a soft groan and shifted a single inch to the left.
I froze.
It froze.
Stonealign watched with horror.
The golem behind us whispered, "Nope," and laid back down.
The beam gave up and snapped like it'd always hated .
Dust everywhere. Bricks collapsed. My patience died.
A brick landed on my foot. Not my toe. My actual foot.
I looked at it for a mont, then looked at the sky, and calmly, very rationally, scread directly into the moss.
Not words. Just... noise.
The moss scread back. Or maybe it was a golem. Hard to tell.
"I didn't need you to stand forever," I said. "Just five seconds. Five. Whole. Seconds."
The trench wall did not apologize.
---
I slumped back on the edge of the crater and picked up a spare tile.
Threw it once.
It hit a dead tree and fell flat.
"I'm not built for combat," I said aloud.
Not to anyone in particular. Just to the moss. To the wind. To the mory of being dead and the fact that my ribcage still occasionally made noises like a fla was curling around my lungs.
"I don't like it. The fighting."
I looked at my claws. Covered in dirt, ash, and mortar dust.
"I'm better at this," I said. "Yelling at rocks. Telling kobolds where to put wood. Pretending I know what reinforcent ans."
No one responded.
Which, honestly, was nice.
Even the system stayed quiet.
For now.
---
It took four tries.
Three failed pings.
Two sarcastic prayers to the system.
And one kobold with a minor concussion holding the beam up with her back while Stonealign hamred like the trench was personally responsible for his childhood trauma.
But we got it.
One section. Upright. Stable.
Exactly what I wanted.
The system chirped, smug.
[Structure Repaired – Stability 2]
[Settlent Morale: Holding]
[Regional Fire Signature: Mildly Respected]
[Architecture Grade: Acceptable]
I swear, if the system gives a tutorial popup on "How To Stack a Wall Without Summoning Trauma," I'm going to eat the interface.
[Would You Like a Building Tip?]
I ate the interface. It tasted like burned nus.
I held up a claw.
[You're Welco.]
---
Ashring, sohow, was alive.
And that ant things had to be counted.
Bitterstack compiled the numbers. Loudly. While hitting things with a ledger.
Casualties from the raid: five confird dead, fourteen still healing, at least one now afraid of loud paper.
Supplies: low, but stable. Moss flour was holding. We had enough stone for maybe two walls, one shrine, or seven really angry golems. We weren't going to do that last one again.
Healer tents: intact. Embergleam's student count had risen to six. She'd instituted sothing called "fire safety hour" and threatened to make it daily. I approved, silently, from a distance.
Fire status: mostly settled. The communal fla wasn't flaring anymore. It was warm. Quiet. Like a cat sleeping with one eye open.
Golem capacity: still reduced. Chaos Artisan was trying to reboot them with what he called "creative circuitry" and what I called "insanity plus wires."
And then there was .
Back.
Still uncertain.
But not falling apart. Which, given precedent, felt like progress.
I was halfway through adjusting the trench slope angle—because apparently "eyeballing it" was not good enough for Stonealign anymore—when the relic started humming again.
Low, irregular, like it wasn't sure if it was allowed to be annoying.
I frowned and dug into my toolkit, which at this point mostly consisted of nails, bent nails.
Sothing had wedged itself under the moss-lined lid.
A slip of parchnt.
Old. Frayed. But humming with glyph heat.
I unrolled it.
One line. Crude spiral. Ash-streaked edges.
ssage read:
"Still watching. Still drawing. Still burning."
My claws tightened.
"Scribbles," I whispered.
The system didn't ping.
The relic didn't react.
But the fire shifted, just a little, behind . Like soone breathing behind a closed door.
Scribbles was alive.
Sowhere.
Lost.
Maybe further than the dungeon. Maybe in a place no map could mark.
Maybe across sothing we hadn't even thought to na.
But he was still burning.
Which ant I had to keep this place standing.
Just in case he ever wanted to co ho.
Also because if I let it collapse again, Stonealign's going to throw a brick at .
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