“Indeed,” Rittan said, smiling. “August—Boko mentioned that the range of your sensory ability has increased.”

August descended the last few rungs of the ladder before stepping down onto the ground.

“Apparently, using the skill will increase its proficiency, and when it reaches the maximum, the skill gains some kind of benefit,” August said, “In this case, it increases the range of the detection—creating a temporary lean-to out of bamboo was actually my next task because I’m not sure how well I’m going to be able to deal with sleeping next to everyone.”

August stretched a bit, attempting to dispel or at least disperse some of the achings in his body—it didn’t really work, but it was worth a try.

“Then the ceiling must wait because there isn’t much light left,” Rittan said, “Kalter has already offered to work with Neptune and Morningstar to find us a Mitikos for dinner—which she appears to be doing now.”

As he’d said, Kalter emerged from the hut, stopping to talk to Morningstar, who seemed to be following her around to an amusing degree. Kalter caught the two of them watching her, hesitated at the attention she was getting, and then furrowed her brow at them. August removed another length of bamboo from his inventory, aiming to look like he was doing something other than watching her, and then cleared his throat.

“If you could hold that end up for me,” August said, removing some of the vines from his inventory. “It only needs to last a day or two—we should have the ceiling up by then, and we can start thinking about something more comfortable than A-Frames, and Lean-tos.”

Rittan took the vine with his bottom right hand before lifting the bamboo up with his bottom left, pressing it against the outside of the pillar at about hip height. August matched the height, pinning it to his own pillar, and then removed another length of the vine to tie off his own side. He lashed it tightly, frowning a bit at how more finicky using the vine seemed to be—he tossed a glance at the other piles of the stuff he’d left by the other pillars.

“This vine is actually garbage for this kind of thing,” August admitted once he’d mostly gotten it settled. “The twine is so much easier to use.”

“Yes,” Rittan said, “It certainly doesn’t possess the same type of flexibility.”

August agreed, before removing a bunch of bamboo from his inventory, leaning it against the edge facing the lakeside—because he didn’t want anything spotting him from the water if he could help it. About ten pieces were enough to give himself some decent cover, and the rest of the offcuts he had left over from making the ladder worked to block in the side that didn’t have a pillar. He leant a final piece of bamboo against the outermost piece to keep it all in place—It had far less coverage than anything he’d built prior to this, but it was enough for now.

“Thanks, Rittan,” August said, straightening back up.

“You’re welcome,” Rittan said, eyeing it with a bit of a frown. “It’s not exactly enclosed.”

“It only has to last a day or two, and I’ll have Ladybug with me,” August said, unbothered. “Seeing the way the bamboo stacks up horizontally like that, though—we could replicate that for the walls pretty easily.”

“Yes, it does look like it would work,” Rittan said, turning to judge the distance between the pillars. “How much bamboo did you manage to collect, because that will take a substantial amount of it.”

“Just under five hundred, each roughly the same size as those ones,” August said, pointing to the one they’d just lashed to the pillars. “They have a diameter of about—what, three and a half inches, four maybe—that’s about thirty lengths stacked on top of each other to reach the top.”

My judgement on the width was a bit suspect, so I wasn’t sure it was perfect, but it was a decent enough estimation.

“One hundred and fifty pieces to wall off the entire lakeside,” Rittan said, humming. “We may not need to go as high as the top of the pillars either, so we may end up using less than that.”

“Right,” August said, trying to picture it. “The gaps between the pillars are short enough that we could cut a piece of bamboo in half and get a second layer out of it as well, so it’s probably only around seventy-five pieces for a side.”

“Three hundred pieces for all four sides once the six new pillars are up,” Rittan nodded, “With all of the materials on hand, this shouldn’t take us much more than a day to complete—provided we have enough twine.”

“I’ll make a bunch,” August said.

“I suspect we’ll all need to participate in order to fulfil that quota,” Rittan admitted, “If you leave the materials out for us, I’ll make sure to work on it tonight.”

August agreed but made a note to go harvest some more of the long grass in order to keep his stock of materials up. The two of them were distracted for a moment as a series of splashes came from where Kalter was knee-deep in the water. Morningstar’s chain spike was reeling in, and the disturbed path of water that he recognised as Neptune circled back again.

“I believe that is my queue to start preparing dinner,” Rittan said, smiling.

“Then I’ll get the fires ready,” August said with a nod.

August headed back to the huts in order to get started on that, while Rittan broke off, heading towards where Kalter was dragging a Mitikos out of the water by one of its spiky limbs. Boko emerged from the hut just as he arrived, apparently coming to investigate all the splashing. For a moment, both Haiko, sitting crosslegged in the hut, and Boko stooping to get out, were both inside his range. The amount of information being jammed into his head was definitely lesser than before—or it was the same amount of information, but he was better at dealing with it. August caught the hanging shade before it could fall shut behind him and pinned it up on the stick hook they’d made.

“Here I thought something exciting was happening,” Boko said, straightening. “You got your shelter for the night settled, I see.”

“It’s a bit rough, but it will do,” August offered, “I’m just coming to fix up the fires.”

“Don’t let me get in your way then,” Boko said, unbothered. “Is that a ladder?”

Boko set off without really waiting for an answer, and August shook his head in amusement before kneeling down in the doorway.

“Aha,” Haiko said, affecting something of a lower tone. “You’ve foolishly approached me, alone and inside my lair no less.”

August caught sight of Haiko a moment later and found her watching him. Even without the words she’d spoken, he felt like he was being assessed by some great blue spider—and whose criteria for passing were entirely unknowable.

“A bunch of sticks isn’t exactly the height of luxury, but I suppose it is a lair,” August said as he rebuilt the fire.“Just how much danger am I in?”

An inappropriately triumphant smile bloomed on her face, smug and entirely unearned—perhaps playing into her game hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

“You’re in less danger than you were a moment ago,” Haiko decided, checking her fingernails on three different hands at once. “If you continue to impress me, well, who knows where that may lead.”

Despite it being an extremely vague and most likely vacuous throwaway line, his mind latched onto the possibilities, which was probably why she’d said it in the first place, to keep him guessing. Instead of asking what she had meant—because that would have been pathetic in all sorts of ways—he went the opposite direction.

“Uhuh,” August said, voice dry. “Do I want to know what happens when I inevitably fall from grace?”

Haiko flapped one of her hands at him, remaining solidly entrenched within her magnanimous role of the villainess.

“That would require you to disappoint me quite severely or perhaps to fall short of my expectations of you,” Haiko said, eyeing him for a moment. “You haven’t managed anything like that yet, so I suppose it will come as a surprise to both of us if you ever do.”

August turned his gaze back down to the unfinished fire, suddenly not quite able to meet her gaze—the unexpected praise and thinly veiled endorsement managing to slip entirely under his guard. Haiko made something of an amused hum in the back of her throat as he took far too long to respond. Thankfully Kalter and Rittan arrived outside of the hut, freeing him up to avoid ever responding. He finished the fire, lit it, and then scuttled off into the dark like a bug in the night. August built himself a similar fire beside the bamboo lean-to but left it in the final stages and unlit—there was no point in wasting the wood yet.