The sun was barely above the horizon when Moss cinched the last strap on Bran's saddle. The chocobo ruffled his feathers, impatient, his yellow crest catching the morning light. Moss murmured something low and steady to calm him, checking the map tucked into his pack. The day's work would take them past the ridge, farther east than before, uncharted ground.
Serra arrived next, carrying a pack filled with vials, coils of wire, and a crystalline container that pulsed with faint blue light. "You're early," she said.
"Habit," Moss replied.
Dole was stretching nearby, staff balanced across his shoulders. "You're really coming with us, Maester?"
Serra smirked, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "If I leave the experiments to someone else, I'll just end up fixing their mistakes later. Better to see the failures firsthand."
Cid looked up from tightening the straps on a cart mule. "That's the confidence I like in my engineers, already expecting failure."
Lyra joined them, her white robes clean but travel, worn, the faint glint of healing charms at her belt. "At least she admits it. Everyone ready?"
The group of six set out shortly after, the settlement fading behind them into morning haze. Conversation was light, Cid muttering about soil density, Serra sketching adjustments to her crystal cage, and Dole humming a song that didn't quite fit the tension in the air.
The hills rose ahead, marked by wind, shaped stones and scraggly brush. When they reached the ridge, Cid was already on his knees, tapping the rock with a small hammer. "Iron content's decent," he said, scraping away dust. "Not pure, but workable once we get a smelter running."
"That's something," Moss said, marking it on a map. "One less hole we'll have to dig blind."
While Cid collected samples, Serra crouched near a patch of scorched earth. The ground was faintly gray, like ash layered thin. "This was aether, burn," she murmured. "Something died here."
Dole frowned. "From the last hunt?"
"No," Serra said. "Too old." She drew out her device, a glassy crystal fixed within a brass lattice. When she pressed a stud, it gave off a low hum. A soft shimmer rose from the ground, faint, bluish threads curling upward before vanishing. "Residual aether," she explained. "I can collect it, but only for a short time before it dissipates."
Lyra leaned closer. "And this helps how?"
"If I can slow the rate of decay," Serra said, "we could store energy for power, healing, maybe even construction. The Empire's magitek draws from deep veins, but out here we're cut off. This, " she tapped the crystal ", might bridge that gap."
Dole crossed his arms, half, grinning. "Or blow up your tent again."
She gave him a sharp look. "That only happened once."
Moss smirked faintly, but his focus drifted to the tree line. The leaves rustled though the air was still. Bran's feathers flared, and the chocobo gave a low, uncertain chirp.
"Something wrong?" Lyra asked.
"Thought I saw movement," Moss said, hand on his sword hilt.
They waited, the silence stretching. Then, nothing. Just the steady hiss of wind.
"Could've been an animal," Dole said.
"Or not," Serra murmured. She knelt again, capturing another wisp of fading light. "Let's make this quick."
They stayed through midday, gathering ore samples and logging the terrain. Cid marked another outcropping to the north, and Lyra spotted a small herd of grazing elk that would help feed the settlement. The hunt was clean and efficient, no stray wounds, no chaos.
By the time they started back, the light had dipped golden, their packs heavier with ore and meat. Still, Moss couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. More than once, he turned to catch shadows slipping between the brush, but they vanished each time.
When they reached the settlement, Serra set her crystal on a workbench. Its glow was weak, barely visible.
"It's decaying faster than before," she muttered. "The thinner aether out here isn't helping. If I can adjust the chamber to cycle it, maybe add a second compression lens, it might last longer."
Cid nodded thoughtfully. "You're onto something, Maester."
Dole leaned against a crate, arms folded. "Or something's onto us. Feels like we're not alone out there."
Serra didn't look up. "Then we'd better make ourselves worth watching."
Moss stepped outside as twilight fell. The fires burned low across camp, voices rising and fading in the distance. He glanced toward the hills, the direction they'd come from.
The ground there seemed to pulse faintly under the moonlight, as if something vast shifted far below. He blinked, and it was gone.
He turned in for the night, uneasy.
When dawn broke, shouts echoed through the camp. People were gathered near the gate, fear cutting through their voices like a knife.