The scale of the fire grew as he added more fuel to it, and by the time the others began to actively return from their chosen tasks, it was working well to illuminate the area—he’d even managed, with Melon’s assistance, to dig out two holes on either side of it, preparation for the hanging bamboo rack he intended to secure above it. Kalter left the unfortunate [Mitikos] that had sacrificed itself to become their dinner lying on the ground a few meters away—one of the monster’s thick legs was gone entirely, which meant that Neptune must have been eating well.

“Three sections of the wall are done, which leaves us with three left,” Boko said as he dropped down next to the fire. “We spent the last half hour cutting a bunch of the bamboo down to the correct size for tomorrow—it should take us about half the time to get it all up.”

“They look good—well done,” August said, nodding. “Should work well to keep anything from creeping up on us while we’re asleep.”

Kalter stepped into his range, eyes on the fire between them, and August was left to eye Haiko’s approach with a bit of wariness—the most amount of people he’d had within his expanded range was three.

“That’s the plan,” Boko agreed, “The ceilings coming along as well—although I’m seeing more string than bamboo up there.”

Haiko crossed over the edge of it, and he paused for a moment, but there wasn’t much change to the processing of information, if any at all—the strain of it was still entirely absent.

“Yes, we’ve had to go somewhat overboard, I must admit,” Haiko said as she joined them. “I believe we’re waiting on some nails to correct the situation.”

“I’ve got four nails leftovers that you can have,” August offered, almost in jest. “I’ll probably stay up a bit later tonight and make a couple of batches—I’m kind of stuck waiting for my mana to come back, though, so it’s not really a fast process.”

“You’re making nails with mana—” Melon said, “How are you accomplishing that without an understanding of the runic language? The conversion process would be far too complex to have stumbled onto by accident.”

“I’m just using one of the skills I learned from the HUD to whittle some metal chain down into nails,” August explained, “I have no idea if it has anything to do with runes—but it’s called Etch.”

“Etch?” Melon said, clearly unfamiliar with the word in the context of a skill. “How does it work?”

“I would assume it just concentrates a bunch of mana into my fingertip? But I don’t really know how it works,” August admitted, “It’s voice-activated, so I’m not really doing anything to make it function other than speaking the word—[Etch].”

The skill activated like it always did, and he ran his finger across one of the rocks bordering the fire, leaving a deep, smooth groove in its wake before cancelling the skill. Melon kind of stared down at his hand for a moment in silence. Rittan returned to the fire, carrying his array of cutting boards and one of the flint knives—there was a small shift as he crossed over the range of the [Predator] skill, but it was still far below the threshold of causing any kind of problems—August was more than a bit relieved at the discovery, and that the effectiveness of a single point had done so much to curb the side effects of the skill.

“It would appear that I am late to the party—an act of criminality, I’m sure, considering I am the one responsible for catering the event,” Rittan said, smiling at them. “I’m glad to see that you’re feeling a little bit more comfortable now, Melon.”

Melon straightened a bit at the words.

“It’s not that I am uncomfortable,” Melon tried, “I’m just—not sure about the situation and if we should really be so ready to break all of the rules that we’ve lived by for so long.”

“You’re worried about following the rules of the people who slaughtered every last one of our kind because they’d come up with a better model,” Kalter said, annoyed. “The Gaians aren’t our masters anymore; they’re our enemies—and you don’t allow your enemies to rule you.”

“They are our creators, and we wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for them,” Melon said in protest. “The fact that we can breathe, speak, hate or—or—experience anything at all is because of them—”

August couldn’t help but note how much more confident she was in speaking with members of her own species—willing to argue with Kalter, of all people, about what was probably the least safe topic of all time. For Kalter’s part in things, her teeth were now showing as her anger rose and the light of the fire flickered in her eyes.

“Kalter,” Haiko said, voice gentle. “I don’t think it is the time for a discussion like this.”

“Yes, rather than sour a rather eventful and productive day, perhaps we should leave this particular topic for another time,” Rittan said, speaking up. “I don’t know about all of you, but I’d much rather discuss our way forward than the shackles of our past.”

“Sounds good to me,” Boko said, remarkably unbothered by the tension. “Well, we’re all here now—was there anything we needed to talk about as a group?”

Considering the argument that had almost taken hold, it probably wasn’t the best time to bring up the idea of contacting the Gaians for help, but leaving it unaddressed was probably just asking for trouble.

“I’ve got something—Melon and I were discussing the date earlier, and the assumption is that at least three hundred years have passed from the time of your last days on Hekaton,” August said, prefacing it. “Every Gaian that was alive at that time has probably undergone the whole Rebirth thing you told me about, so I’m guessing they probably aren’t the exact same as they were.”

Rittan began passing skewers to Boko, who in turn passed them along to the others, and a moment later, he had a few of his own in hand, cooking in the fire.

“Melon believes we might be able to figure out a way to use runes in a rudimentary way to contact someone, but I’m curious about whether or not there are any Gaians who you would actually trust enough to reach out to,” August said, “I also want to centre the discussion on whether or not we should actually attempt to contact them in the first place, or for us to remain hidden for as long as possible.”

“You haven’t made up your mind yet?” Kalter said, “On contacting them or not?”

“Kalter, I’m the one who understands the Gaians the least out of everyone here,” August pointed out, “There’s no way in hell I’d take a risk like that without talking to you all about it first.”