The third morning at Blackridge began not with Kaelen's summons, but with a sound Ali hadn't heard before: the low, rhythmic thunk of an axe on wood, but from outside the main gate. It was followed by the sharp, high-pitched scrape of a two-man saw. They were felling a tree. The work was close, just beyond the walls.
Ali emerged from the shed. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine resin and fresh-cut timber. Kaelen and Bryn were gone, presumably the source of the sounds. Elara was in the yard, tending to a small, smoky fire under a blackened laundry cauldron. The two children—a boy and a girl, both probably under ten—were carrying armfuls of dirty cloth and linens from the longhouse to her. They stopped and stared openly at Ali as he stood stretching his aching body.
He received his morning water and biscuit in silence from Elara, her eyes flicking to his hands, which were now developing calluses over the raw spots. He ate quickly, the gritty biscuit tasting almost familiar now.
The sounds from outside ceased. A few minutes later, the main gate groaned open, and Kaelen and Bryn hauled in a massive, newly-cut log, still dripping sap. They dropped it by the woodpile with a final, ground-shaking thud. Both men were sweating, their breaths pluming in the cold air.
Kaelen wiped his brow with his sleeve and looked at Ali. "South pasture fence. Bryn will show you the breach. You'll haul the replacement rails from here to there. We cut them today."
It was more of the same. Hauling, lifting, following. The foundational grind. But the sound of the axe, the purposeful work outside the walls, sparked the question that had been simmering since he arrived. These people weren't just hunkering down. They were harvesting. Planning. They had a rhythm that spoke of more than mere survival.
As Bryn gathered tools—a hammer, a bag of wooden pegs, a coil of fibrous rope—Ali made his decision. He approached Kaelen, who was inspecting the newly felled log.
"Kaelen," Ali said, keeping his voice respectful, devoid of the desperation that might mark him as a flight risk.
Kaelen looked up, his pale eyes guarded.
"I have worked for two days. I am… grateful for the hearth." Ali used the phrase he'd heard them use, the law of the frontier. "This steading… it is strong. But I have a question, if it is permitted to ask."
A flicker of something—caution, maybe annoyance—passed over Kaelen's face. He gave a short, sharp nod. "Ask."
"You live here. You work, you watch the forest. But…" Ali chose his next words carefully, framing it as a question of fact, not desire. "Are you alone here? Is there… other steadings? A village? Somewhere people gather? Or is the Blackridge the only hearth for a long way?"
The yard went very quiet. Elara paused in her scrubbing. Bryn stopped sorting pegs. Even the children stopped their fidgeting to watch.
Kaelen studied Ali for a long moment. The question had crossed a line from practical labor into something else: intention, curiosity, a looking-beyond-the-walls.
"Why do you ask?" Kaelen's voice was flat.
"To understand," Ali said, holding his gaze. "In my… old place, people lived close. To see if this world is the same, or if every fire is alone."
Kaelen seemed to weigh the answer. He finally gestured with his chin toward the south, past the pasture. "Two days' hard walk that way, following the river down from the ford, there's a place. They call it Millers' Crossing. It's not a town. It's a grain mill, a smithy, a trading post, and maybe a dozen families that cling to it. The nearest thing to a village in these parts."
Ali's heart beat faster. A location. A name. Millers' Crossing.
Kaelen continued, his tone making it clear this was not an invitation. "We go there once, maybe twice a year. Before the first snow, to trade pelts and salted meat for hard grain, iron, and news. It's a journey. The forest between here and there is not empty. The Crossing has its own walls, and its own problems. It is not a soft place."
"So you are not alone," Ali stated.
"We are alone," Kaelen corrected him, his voice hardening. "For eleven months of the year, we are alone. The Crossing is a resource, not a neighbor. Their problems are not ours. Our strength is our own." He took a step closer, his presence suddenly immense. "You are thinking of leaving. Already."
It wasn't a question. Ali didn't deny it. "Someday. Not today. I have not earned the right to walk your path safely."
This seemed to be the right answer. Kaelen's intensity lessened a fraction. "Good. You have not. You would not make it to the first nightfall. The forest eats the foolish and the weak. You are still both." He turned back to his log. "The fence. Your work is here. The world beyond the tree-line can wait until you are no longer a child in its eyes."
The conversation was over. Bryn jerked his head for Ali to follow, and they headed toward the south pasture, a smaller, rough-grass enclosure behind the longhouse where a few tough-looking, shaggy-haired goats were penned.
As they walked, the System analyzed the new data.
[Geographical Data Acquired: Settlement - 'Millers' Crossing'.]
[Type: Frontier Trading Post / Micro-Hamlet.]
[Distance: ~50-70 kilometers southeast, following watercourse.]
[Significance: Confirms low-density, decentralized human presence. Primary point of contact for regional trade and information.]
[Strategic Note: A potential mid-term destination. Current survivability rating for solo travel: 4%. Requires significant skill foundation, supplies, and credible reason for arrival to avoid being cast as an outlaw or beggar.]
At the pasture fence, Bryn pointed to a section where several horizontal rails were broken, crushed inward as if by a heavy weight. "Boar, again," Bryn said. "Or a spooked stag. We'll replace these. You haul. I'll set and peg."
The work began. As Ali carried the first heavy, rough-cut rail, his mind was no longer just on the technique.
Millers' Crossing.
It was a pinprick of light on a dark map. A place with a smithy. With other people. With news. It was the end of the first real quest line. But the prerequisite to unlock it was brutally clear: he had to stop being "a child in the forest's eyes." He had to graduate from a tolerated burden to a competent enough laborer that his departure wouldn't be seen as a suicide, but as a possibility.
The fence rail was heavy in his raw hands. The grind had just been given a name, and a distance. Two days' hard walk for Kaelen meant a week of dying alone for him. He had a long, long way to go before he could even think about earning that journey.
But for the first time, he knew what direction to face while he ground.