Chapter 296: Field Notes
Day seven.
The terrain on the seventh day was lower — the first real descent from the highland, the rock stepping back into longer grass and wider sky to the west.
Kai walked with the Earth Depth Sense running and let the picture come to him. Root systems reached further here. The soil organisms were denser than the high ground, more varied. He counted fourteen distinct colony structures in the first two hours of walking. He had stopped counting by noon.
The network was old here. The source channels ran close. Every living thing in this section carried more.
He noted it. Kept walking.
They made camp early — Soren's call again, and again no one argued. The descent had gone harder on the older man's knees than the highland had, though Soren had not said this and would not. He walked precisely, upright, and he sat down on a flat stone by the fire with his third notebook open before anyone had finished setting their bedrolls.
