I wake up to screaming.
Not death screaming.
Worse.
Logistical screaming.
There are kobolds everywhere. Half of them are eating, the other half are arguing about eating, and the third half—I'm too tired to math properly—are yelling at someone who apparently "blessed a rat" and now wants to build it a shrine.
Splitjaw's group settled in like a mold colony. Efficient, invasive, territorial. Our corner? Overrun. The line that separated "our kobolds" from "their kobolds"? Gone. Trampled. Replaced with a pile of shredded cloth someone is now calling "the communal sleeping nest."
The stranger hasn't moved. That's the only good news. If it had started talking this morning, I think I'd have buried myself under the slab.
I try to sit up. Someone immediately runs over.
"There's no more water!" they say.
Before I can lie and say water is a myth, another one appears.
"Someone stole food from the stash!"
"Also, is this your fire rock?" a third kobold says, holding up something that definitely isn't mine.
I nod anyway.
Then I get up and walk behind the nearest rock.
I sit there.
Very quietly.
For five whole minutes.
Then I stand up, walk over to Splitjaw—who is trying to argue with someone about whether a tunnel counts as a "private nest"—and grab him by the shoulder.
"You," I say. "Congratulations. You're now in charge of… all of this."
He blinks. "All of what?"
I gesture at the general horror.
"This."
Splitjaw looks at the chaos. Looks at me. Grins like I handed him a spear made of compliments.
"I'll need three lieutenants," he says.
"Pick your loudest friends."
System pings.
[Temporary Command Delegated – Role Node Stabilized]
[Firekeeper Status: Supervisor Mode Active]
[Crisis Level: Reduced – You May Breathe Now]
Breathe?
Unlikely.
But I walk away before someone assigns me a fourth problem.
The fire's low. The ash ring's smeared. The slab's replaced by wall marks now, cleaner, sharper.
I circle the cavern, slow. Take it in.
Too many bodies. No space. No lines. Just movement and sound and dust.
I find myself thinking something strange.
We need… something else.
Not just rules.
Structure.
I pull my tail away from someone who's using it as a blanket.
Again.
Not even malicious. Just instinct. I'm warm, apparently. Which is great, except I'm not a blanket.
I hiss. They hiss back. I think that's supposed to be an apology.
Somewhere behind me, a loud crash. Followed by silence. Then a triumphant: "I fixed it!" which is immediately followed by a smaller crash.
I do not investigate the crash.
Or the follow-up crash.
I've learned that "fixed" is a fluid concept down here. It usually means "less broken in a new way."
I walk the outer edge of the cavern like someone pacing the edge of their own nerves. Kobolds are clustered everywhere. Nest piles, food piles, arguments about whose tail was stepped on. Someone's trying to cook something that definitely isn't food. Someone else is sorting rocks by size and humming.
It's not a camp anymore.
It's a mess.
And somewhere in the middle of that mess is the skeleton of something worse: responsibility.
I duck into a quieter corner and sit. Just for a second. Just until—
System pings.
[Settlement Threshold Reached – Instability Managed]
[New Trait Unlocked: Instinctive Planner]
[Interface: Primitive Construction — Active]
[Structure Nodes Available: 3]
Wait, what?
I blink.
Then blink again.
Because in the air—barely there, like a heat shimmer—I see lines. Faint suggestions. Transparent blue nothings. Where a wall could go. Where a space is too crowded. Where a line of sleeping kobolds might be a tripwire in the making.
No one else sees it.
Of course.
[Guidance Available – Scan Area for Talent Threads]
I turn, slowly.
One kobold is stacking rocks.
Not for fun. Not for prayer. Just… balance. Over and over. Every time they fall, he starts again. Adjusts weight. Placement. Efficiency.
[Detected: Construction Aptitude – Basic]
Another is watching food exchanges. Not eating. Not speaking. Just counting. Every clawful noted, every swap observed.
[Detected: Logistics Aptitude – Intermediate]
A third is chewing on charcoal and drawing weird spirals near the cave entrance. His eyes are… not calm.
[Detected: Engineering Aptitude – Dubious]
I groan.
"Oh no. I have employees."
I pull them together.
Rock stacker, ration watcher, chaos artist.
"Okay," I say. "You. Rocks. Wall. Keep people from sleeping in the walkways."
The first one nods. Doesn't ask questions. Starts sorting stones immediately.
"You. Food guy. Make sure no one dies from hoarding or overeating or whatever. I don't know, just... balance things."
Another nod. Silent. Already taking mental notes.
"And you... weird spiral person. Go do whatever you were doing but... do it farther from the fire."
He salutes. It's unclear if it's sarcastic or sincere.
System pings again.
[Node Assignments: Builder | Quartermaster | Artisan(?) Established]
[Structure Initiated: Perimeter Driftwall – In Progress]
[Prototype Network Anchor Created – Build Node Alpha]
I stare at the system window like it just declared war on my free time.
The wall builder grabs two others and starts dragging rubble with sudden, eerie efficiency. The logistics kobold organizes the food into neat piles—ranked by freshness. The chaotic one begins layering traps with teeth, twine, and what I hope is charcoal.
I blink.
"This is… effective?"
One of the nearby watchers glances my way.
"Didn't you tell them to?"
"I didn't think they'd listen."
By the time I loop back toward the center, the sound in the cavern has changed. Still noise. Still voices. But… less sharp. Less panicked.
Structure, apparently, is loud but helpful.
I sit near the wall and try to convince my brain that it's okay to feel slightly optimistic for a whole thirty seconds.
It lasts fourteen.
The stranger has moved.
Not a lot. Just enough.
One arm is shifted forward. Fingers curled around a piece of flat stone.
On the wall, scratched in a wobbly hand, is a spiral.
My spiral.
Same shape. Same edges.
Except it's upside down.
System pings.
[External Cognitive Thread Detected]
[Cross-Symbol Recognition Triggered – Source Unknown]
[Warning: Cultural Drift Possible]
I stare at it.
Then at the stranger.
Still not talking.
But apparently thinking.
Great.
"Oh good. Now we've got upside-down ideas."