The horns sounded at dawn—low, rough notes that rolled along the half-finished walls like an oath renewed.
Every morning began this way now. Steel scraped stone. Boots shuffled toward formation. The smell of damp leather and boiled oats drifted from the cook-fires. Haven lived by rhythm: three hunting parties out at sunrise, one back by noon, another gone before dusk. If the hunts stopped, the food stopped. If the food stopped, everything else followed.
Ethan walked the line forming by the gate, breath fogging in the chill. Spears glinted. Blades were checked and re-checked. Recruits fidgeted under veterans' stares. Since the siege, Haven's population had pushed past two hundred, and that meant the outer fields needed clearing daily.
"Teams rotate," Marcus barked. "Everyone fights. Everyone earns their keep."
At the end of the line, Alina Voss stood stiff-backed, arms folded, face pale with fury.
"I'm not a soldier," she snapped. "You need administrators, not—"
"Administrators don't feed people," Marcus cut in flatly.
"You'll take a spear, you'll stay in formation, and if you live through it, you can complain."
Ravi muttered to Ethan, "At least she's consistent."
Ethan sighed. "She'll learn faster than she wants to."
When the gates groaned open, Alina shouldered her pack and joined the line. Rules were rules. One hunt a week for every able body. That was the price of belonging.
By mid-morning, the courtyard settled into its working hum.
Hammerfalls rang from the smithy. Steam hissed from the distiller. Children hauled buckets of river water up the slope. Along the cliff-line, Aria's ants moved like living rivets, tracing endless paths between tunnels. The place breathed.
Ravi crouched beside a crate near the forge, surrounded by drone shells and cracked weapon cores scavenged from the last raid.
"Half these circuits could still function," he muttered. "If only we had someone who understood pre-Collapse wiring."
"You're grounding essence through bare copper," a voice said behind him. "That's why it keeps shorting."
They turned.
She was small, mid-thirties, hair tied back in a rough knot. Her sleeves were rolled high, palms stained with graphite and resin. Her accent carried the clipped edge of old-world industry.
"Maria Alvarez," she said. "Automation engineer. Built pipeline drones before everything fell apart. Now I fix whatever survives."
Ravi's grin was immediate. "An engineer. Statistically improbable. Religiously welcome."
Ethan gestured to the pile of scrap. "Can you make any of it work?"
Maria's eyes scanned the components. "Work? Maybe not. But I can make it listen."
They cleared space beside the forge.
Maria laid the parts out with surgical precision—battery packs, wire bundles, a fractured transmitter plate. Ravi hovered, scribbling notes faster than she soldered.
"Essence isn't electricity," Maria said, sealing a joint with translucent resin secreted by Aria's ants. "Treat it like current and it rebels. Treat it like breath and it cooperates."
She embedded a stabilized essence core into the frame. It flared once, then settled into a low blue pulse.
Ethan leaned closer. "What are we building?"
"A radio," Maria said. "An old idea with new rules."
Ravi blinked. "You think anyone's still transmitting?"
Maria didn't look up. "I think someone is."
Marcus's team returned by late afternoon, dragging boar carcasses through the gate. Steam rose as bodies hit the butcher tables. Ellie's bear—its fur now burnished like hammered bronze—stood patiently while children helped clean its claws. The Alsatian exhaled a harmless plume of molten breath that sent them squealing with laughter.
Alina staggered in last, mud-covered, eyes wide.
"They came out of the ground," she gasped. "Small things—burrowers—"
Marcus clapped her shoulder. "You killed three. Not bad."
She didn't argue. Later, Ethan saw her cleaning her spear in silence, jaw set. Learning.
At dusk, Maria's device stood finished.
Brass plates. Humming crystals. Antennae rising like silver reeds toward the rafters.
She flipped the breaker.
System Notification
Prototype Construct Complete — Signal Node Mk I
Effective Range: ~40 km
Power Source: Hybrid Essence Core
Static filled the hall.
Then—faintly:
"—North Beacon… this is—anyone receiving—"
The signal fractured.
"—burrowers—walls failing—"
A distant impact thundered through the hiss.
Silence.
Ravi froze. "North Beacon. Roughly eighty kilometers."
Keith's jaw tightened. "We felt tremors two nights ago. Same direction."
Marcus slammed a fist into the table. "Then we're not alone."
Ethan met his eyes. "No panic. Double the watch. Maria—keep the node active."
She nodded. "I'll try to extend the range."
Night fell gently.
Fires flickered. Someone played a battered harmonica. Children chased sparks across the stones. For a moment, Haven almost sounded normal.
Ethan moved through the settlement, trading brief words. Gardeners threaded essence through soil. A new water-elemental shaped floating spheres above barrels, grinning like he'd discovered a miracle.
"Careful," Ethan said. "Don't drown the cabbages."
In the training yard, Darren drilled recruits. Sofia corrected stances. Even Alina trained, sweat darkening her collar.
Progress—rough, but real.
The beacon burned steady above the gate.
Ethan climbed the north tower and opened his interface.
Ethan — Gene Anchor
Level: 21
Health: 460 / 460
Essence Pool: 540 / 540
Title: Siege Defender (+10 to all stats within Haven)
Passive: Settlement Link (active within Haven territory)
Core Stats
Strength: 43
Speed: 31
Intelligence: 48
Endurance: 37
Vitality: 41
Essence Control: 49
Abilities
Gene Thread (III)
Thread Lash (III)
Warden's Grasp
Soul Anchor
Essence Pulse (II) — 20 m radius
Outside Haven's walls, the settlement buffs faded slightly. Inside, the hum underfoot strengthened—territory mattered now.
He closed the interface and looked south. Somewhere beneath the hills, something was moving.
In the workshop, Maria adjusted the radio's dials.
The static changed.
Click. Click. Click-click.
A rhythm.
Her breath slowed as the pattern synced with it.
Alert
Unidentified Transmission Detected
Classification: Non-Human
Directional Source: South Ridge
She cut the power.
The sound continued for three seconds.
Then stopped.
Outside, the beacon flickered once—so brief no one else noticed.
The earth beneath Haven gave a tired, distant sigh.
Maria whispered, "…you're listening too."
And the night did not answer.