Kai, while waiting for Daniel's return, decided to put his restless hours to use. The underground was already carved into a vast hollow, but it lacked character, lacked the marks of intention that would make it more than stone. He began to refurbish it, shaping the place with thought and hand so that it could become a home fit for all kinds of creatures who shunned sunlight. Wolves could run in the commons, goblins could burrow into side-tunnels, kippers could have a mini separate cave if they wish. Kai cared deeply for them after all. He pictured it alive, not barren, and the mountain obeyed him reluctantly, stone reshaping under his steady push of resonance.
Stone took the shape of his thinking like a stubborn animal taking a new harness. Deep beneath the mountain, where roots of rock knotted into places the sun had never known, Kai sat cross-legged on a ledge and breathed cold into his lungs until his tattoos buzzed. Flicker hovered nearby as a small, steady light, their glow painting the newly raised pillars in shy silver.
He pictured the cavern as clearly as he might have pictured a face: pillars like old tree trunks, spiraled grooves for hands and paws, a domed ceiling threaded by veins of quartz that would catch and refract Flicker's faint light, alcoves for sleeping, high ledges for sentries, a wide, flat commons in the middle meant for the Hollow Howl to howl together without colliding. Each image slotted into place in his mind; each idea became a tap on the world.
The rock listened.
Granite sighed and rearranged itself. Pillars grew, not by hammer and sweat but by the slow persuasion of thought — stone peeled where he willed it, furrowed where he wanted handholds, smoothed where feet would tread. The dome rose like the inside of a giant shell. Bioluminescent fungi awoke along seams and dripped soft light into niches. The air filled with the scent of wet stone and old, cold roots.
He pushed one last shape into being and the room sang. Then his limbs betrayed him. Vision narrowed to a pinprick; sound peeled away to muffled waves. The last thing he registered was Flicker's amused murmur curling into his skull.
'You're not a cathedral,' Flicker said. 'You're a man. Try both less often.'
When he woke, he was in a root-chair beneath the glitter of a web where a massive spider lingered, its countless eyes reflecting the faint light. Misk was there, clutching his arm with a frantic earnestness.
"Mister! You passed out your work too hard!"
He recoiled from the attention, shoulders tight. The crowd's gaze pressed like a physical weight. The spider's stir gave him cover, and he slipped away into the tunnels, leaving the settlers murmuring behind him.
Outside, he shaped a heavy stone door into the cavern's throat, flanked it with wolf-carved pillars, and let his anger grow teeth. Vorath's Academy and its vampire students feasting on kippers burned in his mind. He tried to summon lightning by thought alone, failed, and tasted only the bitterness of his own limits.
So he walked deeper until the tunnels gave way to a lake, black as glass. Flicker nudged him.
'Hey, mister—want to help build a nation?'
"Hello?" Kai whispered.
HELLO! boomed the reply, bursting into his skull like the mountain collapsing. The lake surged upward into a trembling giant of water and light. Fish darted inside its translucent body as it glowed faintly, casting ripples of pale radiance across the cavern walls.
"I am many things!" the slime chattered in thoughts. "I am the lake! I am fish-holder, rust-eater, purifier! I can split, I can glow, I can become streams that light the dark! Look!"
The glow intensified, running like veins of blue through its body, spilling out across the lake until the water itself shimmered. In that light, Kai saw a vision: rivers of glowing water channeling through his underground, guiding the lost, feeding the thirsty, keeping the dark alive.
Flow thrust forward a part of itself, forming a wobbling blob like a hand. The gesture was clumsy, childlike, but unmistakable.
Kai hesitated, then placed his hand into the cool, yielding surface. The slime pulsed in delight.
"Yes! Yes! A river in the underground! A cradle for my core! I can be secret! I can be your stream, your weapon, your friend!"
Flow dimmed for a moment, voice rippling like a sigh. "Once, I even held a light fragment. It was warm inside me, brighter than ten suns. I thought it would stay with me forever. But a lone warrior came. Strong, silent. He stole it, cut me apart, left me less. I was so sad… so lonely without that glow. I am still sad sometimes. The light is gone."
Kai's lips curled in the faintest smile. "Then we'll build your cradle. You'll glow in the dark and keep this place alive."
The handshake sealed it—stone and slime, man and monster. Flow burbled with joy, though the tremor of sorrow never fully left. "Not so lonely now. Not empty anymore. Even if my fragment is gone… I can shine again with you."
From there, they spun plans together—channels, cisterns, streams that glowed and ran silent through the tunnels. Flicker sniped at the slime's overeager chatter, and Dualmind weighed risks with cold detachment. But Kai left the lakeside certain of one thing: the underground now had a heart that beat with water and light.
The kippers welcomed the promise, their new district already neatly marked with paths and tunnels, fishbone sigils for food, leaf symbols for gardens. Kai crouched to explain Flow's streams, the secret bell system for danger, and the promise of clean water that would always flow.
"We will be fast," said a kipper grandmother, stitching a satchel with a careful hand.
Above them, the spider shifted in its web as if listening. A wolf's cry echoed faintly from far ridges. Yet beneath it all, the cavern felt alive — lit by hope, sustained by stone, guarded by a friend who glowed.
The stream ran clear through the kipper district, its glow reflecting faintly from carved stone walls and the soft shimmer of fungi. The water gurgled like laughter in the dark, and the tiny people never had to fear thirst again. Children played by the banks, their reflections rippling like pale lanterns, while the elders murmured that it was a miracle. Kai had carved the river himself, his thoughts shaping a channel that ran like a vein through the underground. It was protection as much as it was sustenance, and he was quietly proud of it.
For several days, peace reigned. The air smelled of wet stone and bread. Goblins and humans bartered at the new market stalls, the kippers carried buckets filled with glowing fish from the stream, and even the spider above the root-throne spun cloth for the settlers. The underground city was becoming something alive.