Scout found the sealed chamber three days later, on Day 103.
The water specialist had been systematically mapping every deep channel, every hidden passage, every place where water did strange things that suggested deliberate engineering rather than natural geology. Current followed everywhere now, learning through constant proximity, absorbing expertise through observation and practice.
The young specialist was getting scary good, scary fast. Scout had mixed feelings about that.
Found it. Deliberately sealed. Someone built an actual wall to protect what's inside. It's different from everything else. More intentional. Need Dig.
The builder kit arrived practically vibrating with excitement, because nothing made Dig happier than structural problems that needed creative solutions. Two weeks old and already talking about engineering principles like they were personally fascinating rather than just useful.
"This isn't natural collapse," Dig said immediately, running claws over the sealed entrance with something approaching reverence. "This is construction. Deliberate. Planned. Someone built this wall with specific protective intent. Someone wanted whatever's inside to survive when everything else was destroyed."
"Can you open it without wrecking what's protected?" Kai asked.
"Probably. Maybe. There's really only one way to find out and that's doing it."
Dig worked with focused intensity that made the young kit forget the entire world existed beyond the immediate problem. Stone moved under careful application of force and leverage and deep understanding of how materials behaved under stress. The wall came apart in planned sections, revealing a chamber beyond that hadn't seen any light in thousands of years.
And inside, arranged with obvious intention, were five more carved stones.
Not scattered randomly. Not dropped carelessly. Arranged in a specific sequence that absolutely had to be deliberate. A story told across millennia by creatures desperate to communicate something critically important.
Scout and Current carefully retrieved them one at a time while Dig ensured the chamber remained stable. By evening, all five stones sat in the main den alongside the six already collected.
Eleven stones total. Eleven warnings. Eleven chapters in a story about extinction and failure and desperate attempts to warn the future.
Kai arranged them in sequence based on carving style and erosion patterns, and the complete narrative emerged like watching a slow-motion catastrophe unfold across geological time.
Stone One: Concentric circles with break at the top. Foundation. Something terrible descending from above.
Stone Two: Crosshatch patterns with precise dots at intersections. Territory mapped. Boundaries established. Organization beginning.
Stone Three: Spiraling patterns so intricate they made eyes hurt from following them. Complexity. Interconnection. Systems building on systems building on systems.
Stone Four: Flowing water rendered in impossible detail. The danger identified and named. The catastrophe understood.
Stone Five: Sharp angles radiating from central point like an explosion frozen in stone. Aggression arriving. Attack beginning. Violence descending.
Stone Six: The massive stone Scout had found. Aquatic predators hunting in water. The threat made specific and real and absolutely terrifying.
Stone Seven: Multiple predator species rendered with equal precision. Different forms. Different strategies. All hunting in coordinated patterns that transcended individual survival instinct.
Stone Eight: Central figure surrounded by others in hierarchical arrangement. Leadership. Command structure. Authority attempting to impose order on chaos.
Stone Nine: Same figure diminished and defeated. Fewer surrounding forms. Some carved figures showing obvious damage. Loss. Collapse beginning. Everything falling apart.
Stone Ten: Empty space. Nothing. Void. The end rendered in absence more powerful than any presence could be.
Stone Eleven: Different from all the others. Symbols that looked almost like writing. Abstract concepts rendered in careful marks that suggested pure language. Communication. The desperate attempt to preserve knowledge beyond individual survival.
The entire colony stood in silence, reading the story carved by creatures who had watched their own extinction approach and had tried so hard to warn whoever came next.
"They knew," Whisper said quietly, studying the sequence with analytical focus that meant the sensory kit's brain was working faster than words could capture. "They mapped the danger. They organized defenses. They established leadership and command structures. They even invented language to preserve knowledge across generations. And they still lost. They still went extinct."
"Why?" Current asked, pressing against Scout for comfort. The young water specialist's voice was small. "If they prepared, if they understood what was coming, if they did everything right, why did they fail?"
Shadow's telepathic presence swept through the chamber gently, touching each consciousness without consuming any of them. The young kit was getting better at that, learning to connect without overwhelming.
Maybe they were too organized. Too rigid. All their preparation assumed the solution would come from leadership making perfect decisions. But what if the threat required adaptation they couldn't predict? What if following orders stopped being enough when the situation changed faster than command structure could adjust?
"Or maybe they just faced something too strong," Bitey said with characteristic bluntness. "Sometimes you do everything right and still lose. Sometimes the universe just decides you're done and preparation doesn't matter at all."
Twitchy had been quiet, moving between stones like reading pages in a book written in desperation and stone. The eldest kit finally spoke carefully.
"They faced multiple threat types simultaneously. Water catastrophe. Organized predators from different species. Social structure that couldn't adapt when circumstances changed. They tried to prepare for everything at once."
"Which means they prepared for nothing properly," Kai finished, the recognition settling like cold weight in the chest. "They spread themselves too thin. Trying to be ready for everything meant being ready for nothing when it actually mattered."
Uncomfortable silence filled the chamber. No one wanted to say what everyone was thinking.
"That's us," Dig said suddenly. The young builder kit wasn't usually philosophical, vastly preferred concrete problems with engineering solutions. But even Dig could see the pattern emerging clear as carved stone. "We're preparing for the flood. We're preparing for Scar-Mandible possibly attacking again. We're trying to build infrastructure and develop specialists and understand water systems and create defenses and map territories and we're literally doing everything simultaneously."
"And maybe we're going to fail exactly like they did," Scout finished quietly.
Kai wanted to argue. Wanted to say their situation was fundamentally different, their flexibility made them stronger, their diverse thinking would save them where rigid hierarchy had doomed the ancients. But the stones were patient and unyielding and impossible to ignore or dismiss.
Eleven stones. Eleven warnings. Eleven chapters in a story that ended with complete extinction.
"We're different in one critical way," Kai said finally, looking at each of them. Seven young faces. Seven different minds. Seven completely different ways of approaching problems. "We know their story. They faced catastrophe completely blind. We face it knowing what came before. That has to count for something."
"Does it though?" Whisper asked, not challenging but genuinely questioning. "Knowing how they failed doesn't automatically mean we'll succeed. It just means we'll understand exactly why we're failing while it happens. That might actually be worse."
Shadow moved closer to the stones, particularly drawn to Stone Eleven with its abstract language symbols. The young telepathic kit's crystal marking pulsed with soft light as consciousness focused.
"This one is different from all the others. See these marks? They're not pictures anymore. Not representations of physical things. They're trying to be pure language. Symbols representing concepts without needing visual metaphor. They were inventing writing. Creating a way to preserve knowledge across generations that didn't depend on direct teaching or genetic memory."
Everyone gathered around Stone Eleven. The symbols were harder to parse than pictorial carvings. But patterns emerged with careful study. Repetition suggested meaning. Combinations created complexity. Structure implied grammar.
"It's beautiful," Whisper breathed. "They were transcending individual consciousness. Creating culture that could survive beyond any single creature's lifetime. This is what civilization actually looks like when it's trying to become immortal."
"Can you read it?" Twitchy asked practically.
"Not yet. Probably not ever, honestly. But I can try to understand the structure. The grammar. The way symbols combine to create meaning through relationship rather than individual definition." Whisper traced, analyzed, began building structure from fragments. "Give me time. Give me lots and lots of time."
"Time might be the one thing we don't have," Scout said quietly. "The system is getting more unstable. Whatever's building down there is building faster now."
The next message arrived from the last voice they expected.