It was mid-afternoon when they reached the riverbanks again. Jara shoved the canoe into the water and jerked her chin at Caio.
"Sit in front. We need speed."
He didn't question her, though internally he was frustrated that he didn't know how to paddle properly. The canoe rocked under his weight, the river's skin trembling around them, and Jara slid behind him with a fluidity that made no sound at all.
Her paddle dipped. Water parted. The current welcomed them like an animal guiding prey along its narrow spine.
"Row left."
He matched his movements to her instructions the best he could. His arms burned and the narrow paddle kept slapping the water wrong, sending droplets back onto his face. Behind him, Jara's breath was steady and controlled as she guided him with simple commands.
"Right."
The hull glided sideways, following the two rowers' paddling. Caio felt the river pulling the canoe, but he kept rowing. He tried to ignore how his hands were shaking.
Since he saw those tracks earlier he had felt fear creeping inside him. Swelling.
"Hold."
A paddle touched the side of his hand, light as a reed leaf. Guiding, correcting. Jara trying to make his strokes precise.
"Don't fight current. Let current move you."
He breathed out through his nose and adjusted.
It's hard to not fight the current when we're literally trying to row upstream…
But he tried.
The canoe steadied when he followed her instructions to the letter.
Still, he kept looking back over his shoulder, expecting to see glowing eyes in the mist, expecting the corrupted water to open like a wound and spill jaws and scales and wrongness.
"Forward. If something follows, I hear before you see."
He nodded and tried to keep his focus forward.
Yet, he still opened the minimap in his mind.
I'm used to looking at minimaps, but this feels nothing like a game. Those red dots can literally kill me if I waver for an instant.
The air changed as they cut deeper into the Yarikari heartlands. Less insects, more silence. Yet, there was a new pressure in the air, weighting on the skin.
"Jara…"
"Row."
They didn't speak again for the rest of the crossing. They didn't need to. Their breath fell into the same narrow cadence, rowing as one.
***
Aruá was sorting bowls of river mushrooms when they arrived. The moment she saw Caio step off the canoe, she froze, the color draining from her cheeks.
"What happened?"
Jara answered with a tilt of her chin toward Caio.
"He sees with far-eyes. Tell her."
Aruá pulled him closer before he could speak, hands searching for wounds first. She inspected closely his shoulders, ribs, wrists. Only when she confirmed he was unhurt did she look into his eyes.
"Talk."
He knelt and used coal on a big, stretched piece of cloth to sketch the area. He drew the river, ponds, the stillwater pocket, the claw marks, the unnatural clustering.
Aruá's pupils tightened as she listened, fingers brushing the river-air around them like she was tasting it.
"I felt the river's fever. Did not know its direction. Now I do."
Then she pressed her hand flat against his chest with a familiar, comforting gesture.
"You did right coming back fast."
"I'm not sure I'm right. What if I misread the pattern? What if I-"
"River brought you. Storm brought you. Both together. You see something we don't. We move."
Her touch lingered an instant longer than necessary. Not as a lover, but as a healer giving someone a spine when theirs threatens to fold.
"Come. Rana must hear."
***
The chamber of the Circle of Reeds was lit only by dusk-fire and a handful of glow-fungus jars. It wasn't a ritual or a ceremonial meeting, but the gravity in the air made it heavier than any ceremony.
Rana sat with her elbows on her knees, eyes tired. Saori stood at her side, jaw tight. Hessa leaned against a post, arms folded. Pita watched from behind a basket of drying fish, trying to look smaller than she was. Suma waited like a statue carved out of vigilance.
Few were sitting on their assigned stools.
Caio laid out the map he had made on cloth.
"Beasts don't move like this unless something pushes them. Clusters forming, not dispersing. It's a pattern."
Rana studied the sketch.
"You think a surge."
"Yes. In my world, this is buildup. Siege behavior."
Saori's breath made a subtle hiss.
"My dreams had too many jaws. Water running silent after screams."
Saori's fingers twitched at her sides, as if remembering something she didn't want to remember.
"This dawn, the shells clustered toward the corrupted channels. Even before you returned."
Her eyes flicked to Caio, her voice trembling.
"River whispers same path you draw."
Hessa grunted.
"If corruption breaks through here, other tribes will call us weak."
Pita added, voice barely above a breath.
"If fishing paths break, we starve even if claws never touch us."
The air thickened around them. Tjere was no panic. Just the cruel clarity of shared danger.
Caio inhaled and forced his shoulders to still. He did his best to espeak in the cadence proper of Waterspeech. If he used too many concepts of strategy games, they wouldn't understand, yet their language lacked many words. He had to make sure his idea was clearly understood.
"There's time. Not much. Enough to prepare. We strengthen platforms here, flow movement here, make boats through safe channels. Here and here. We act now, we limit currents they attack from."
Saori bristled.
"Since when do we let outsiders speak storms into being?"
Before Caio could answer, Rana lifted a hand.
"We listen. Storm does not care if words come from river-wives or sky-strangers."
She looked at him then, directly.
"Show us."
And the river changed again. In the people, something aligned.
[COORDINATED PLANNING EVENT DETECTED]
[PRECONDITIONS FOR DOMAIN: HEARTH — 70%]
He instantly understood what those notifications meant, then blinked them away. He had no time to waste.
The work had barely begun.
***
The next morning arrived with labor and urgency.
Caio spent half the day with the Root-Current women, helping lash together spike-rafts. Those were ugly, practical clusters of sharpened wood that turned narrow channels into lethal choke points.
One of the rope-makers stared at his knots.
"You count."
He shrugged, replying without stopping the work.
"It's what I do best."
"We hear the rope. You make it speak numbers."
Later, he joined the Moonfish patrol to reroute their fishing lines through channels less likely to be ambushed. Jara demonstrated how to push against the current with minimal sound. He followed her instructions with the earnest clumsiness of someone who hated being deadweight.
"Don't fall in."
"Trying not to."
"If you fall, Aruá gut me."
She said it with a half-smile, one he could tell was very real.
Even in fear, she glows.
When Jara turned away to push the patrol canoe back into position, Caio caught a glimpse of Mairi standing nearby.
Her jaw was tight and her eyes were locked on Jara, not him. Still, he could sense the anxiety in that look. He remembered them being married, and the mix of jealousy and fear hit him like a rock.
Jara's smile faltered when she noticed her, but she focused back on the task she was supposed to do now.
Caio sighed and turned to his own affairs, but not before adding a mental note to himself.
[]Better to stay away from Jara for a bit. I'm not here to ruin households.
Pita oversaw drying racks, splitting food stores across platforms so one loss wouldn't collapse the whole village. Hessa reinforced anchor lines, muttering about storms past and neighbors who never learned.
Aruá taught apprentices, younger women from the Dawn-Eels House, how to bind deep wounds.
"Claws of corruption tear through spirit too. Not just flesh."
Through all of it, Caio felt the river pulse differently. The village had begun to move like a single organism. Purpose replaced fear. Rhythm replaced chaos.
So this is what war feels like.
[LAB +6]
[HRM +2 — SHARED PURPOSE]
He acknowledged the increase of stats, wiped sweat from his face, and lifted another bundle of sharpened reeds.
Communities really get stronger in times like this.
***
By late afternoon he was trembling from all the effort. Aruá yanked him into her house before he collapsed outright.
"Sit."
He sat.
She checked his fingers, pressing gently against the joints.
"You're lifting wrong."
"That's… entirely plausible."
Her hands moved to his ribs next, thumbs tracing the place where the wound of the confrontation with the monster had once lived. She hummed a melody under her breath, the sound deep, steady, and not meant for anyone except the river listening through her.
"You push your body too far."
She murmured.
He laughed softly.
"Habit."
"Bad habit."
Her gaze flicked up to his, close and warm.
"If you break, who reads the storm?"
He didn't have an answer to that. Not one she would accept, at least.
Aruá leaned her forehead against his shoulder, letting herself rest against him for a breath, then straightened, cheeks flushed as if she'd caught herself doing something forbidden.
"Go. Rana waits."
He wanted to touch her hand before leaving, but he didn't.
***
The second council felt different.
It was darker, more united.
Rana stood before Caio's crude map. Hessa, Saori, Jara, Pita, Suma, and Aruá formed a half-circle around it.
Caio outlined the day's progress.
Suma listed kill-spots and watch rotations.
Jara detailed evacuation routes between platforms.
Aruá explained healer post placement, her voice steady even as tension coiled at the base of her throat.
Rana listened to each one, measuring and judging. Then, she finally nodded.
"These are roles we follow. Suma, teeth-path leader. Jara, river-routes. Aruá, body and breath. Hessa and Pita, stone and food. I speak last."
The organization of defense was lined up. And the System recognized it.
[CONDITIONS MET]
[PRIMARY DOMAIN "HEARTH" — ONLINE]
Caio saw that there were new tabs and metrics in the civilization ledger. He exhaled through his teeth, heart pounding.
The Yarikari were no longer a loose collection of wives and hunters. This was the moment the System recognized it as the embryo of a Civilization.
***
As they exited the council hut, hours later, a Moonfish scout came running from the outer platforms, her breath ragged.
"There are shadows in the channels. Too many. Moving wrong."
Suma's expression hardened into stone and her gaze locked into Caio. He understood what that meant.
He opened the minimap in his mind. It was now filled with warnings, vectors, heat maps of corrupted currents, and several other notifications that cluttered everything. A result of several features he had unlocked.
He checked the legend, and saw that there was a way to filter the mess by map modes.
Then, a new notification appeared. This time, it was a pop-up one, with a big, red danger sign.
[ENTROPY PATTERN DETECTED NEAR "BRAIDWHISPERS"]
[FORECAST: BEAST SURGE - MINOR → MODERATE]
Then, a woman's voice sounded in his head. He knew that voice, it was the Overseer.
[Do your best to survive this.]