Chapter 142: Dealing with the Quest
The wind was still as the stars overhead blinked into a cloudless night. The heat sensors beeped quietly from the perimeter, casting soft red light onto the barricades the team had hurriedly constructed. The JLTVs were parked in a defensive crescent facing the basin, mounted spotlights sweeping across the melted terrain.
Inigo stood on a rock outcropping just above the camp, binoculars in hand, watching the treeline where the last tunnel had emerged.
"Anything?" Lyra’s voice came softly over the comms.
"Nothing moving. But the sensors are twitchy," he replied.
She exhaled. "I don’t like this silence. Not after what we saw earlier."
"Same. Stay sharp."
Back at the camp, Sark was adjusting the motion detectors wired to claymores, while Brenna loaded mags at the back of the JLTV, humming low to herself.
Hal stirred a small pot over a field burner, muttering, "If we’re gonna get jumped, I’m not dying hungry."
Feron sat beside him, flipping through his enchanted notepad, pages covered in rune symbols and elemental profiles.
"This environment’s unstable," he muttered. "It’s not just that the creatures are foreign. The land itself—leylines, soil composition—it’s being warped."
"Warped how?" Brenna asked.
"Warped like something is trying to shape it. Like... colonization."