Down at the entrance of the wide, newly excavated basin—a vast area already leveled and cleared to be built into a thriving community—the air was thick with tension and the smell of kicked-up dirt.
A tight line of heavily built boar beastmen, led by a deeply frustrated Taga, stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind the humming boundary line.
Standing just ahead of them were two sleek, metallic automated drones, their lenses whirring and glowing a steady, warning yellow as they scanned the crowd of newcomers.
"Step back from the marker!" Taga bellowed, his deep, rumbling voice straining to carry over the din. He gripped his heavy stone-headed axe, his knuckles turning white. "The rules of New Eden are absolute! You register your names, you submit to the territory's laws, or you turn around and walk back to your lands!"
A gaunt, patchy-furred hyena beastman at the front of the crowd threw his head back, letting out a jarring, high-pitched cackle that echoed off the high rock walls.
