Riley slept in later than usual. For a few seconds she lay still, listening to the quiet, her cheek pressed against the rough weave of the old carpet. It was not comfortable by any means, but after everything she had lived through, the stillness of a night without nightmares felt like a luxury. The night had been merciful. No claw marks on the door. No growling creatures. Just sleep. Deep, heavy, almost peaceful sleep.

  She woke with her mind already reaching for the day, but her body lagged behind. The stone floor had left its mark with tension knots in her shoulders, kinks in her spine and every joint stiff and reluctant. Ressa’s Rest came to mind. Blankets. A real pillow. A mattress that had its rough spots but it was raised off the ground and she could sink into it. The memory felt almost cruel now, a reminder of what comfort used to mean. She needed to figure out how to replicate those features before her back gave up and filed a complaint with management.

  She rustled around in her supplies. She mixed water with the remainder of last night’s boiled batch, reheated the leftover porridge and then she sprinkled berries across the top.

  “Breakfast of champions,” she said, although her tone suggested the champions in question had been retired for twenty years and were living off their savings.

  While she ate, she pulled up the map. The little moving icon lurking near the river at the shroud’s edge that she had seen last night, was gone. No movement. No unfamiliar symbol. Just the faded grey fog of undiscovered terrain. That did not erase the need to check, though. She would be at the river all day gathering resources anyway, and it would be careless to ignore something that had been creeping around last night. Even if it could have been nothing.

  The message she had been waiting for all night greeted her.

  ? Door repair completed.

  Her whole body lit up.

  “NICE.”

  She excitedly made her way across the room and pulled the benches away from the newly repaired door. Her grin stretched so wide it felt ridiculous.

  "Saturday afternoon renovation TV hosts have nothing on my door repair skills!" she bragged.

  She grabbed the handle, tugged, and frowned.

  Nothing.

  She pulled harder, both hands, feet braced against the stone. Still nothing. The door refused to move, solid as a bank vault.

  She stepped back, panting lightly.

  “Well, there goes my cable TV renovation show.”

  Then the slow, creeping realization hit her.

  Her shoulders sagged. Her face fell. She reached out, pressed her fingers against the latch, and turned it.

  The lock clicked open.

  She opened the door with ease.

  “Oooh, so door locks are for locking. Bone head,” she said, rolling her eyes at herself.

  Another message caught her attention.

  Stolen story; please report.

  ? First upgrade: reward chest

  She accepted the chest and stepped back as a soft blue glow flickered in the center of the room. With a sound like air exhaling, a wooden chest materialized on the floor. She rubbed her hands together, already imagining something dramatic and game-changing. Maybe a weapon upgrade. Maybe supplies. Maybe something magical enough to give her a moment of hope.

  She opened the lid.

  Her grinch smile shrank by two sizes.

  “A pickaxe,” she said, holding it up with all the enthusiasm of a tax receipt.

  “Great.”

  It wasn’t useless. It was valuable. It was just incredibly confusing timing. She had a shovel already and now this completed her mining kit. It practically screamed go dig up the world. Theoretically it could help her get more ore, but practically she had no idea where ore actually came from other than Zelgra’s vague explanation that the best ore came from the mountains and lesser quality ore was elsewhere underground (if you felt like playing geological roulette).

  Randomly digging holes all over the place sounded like a nightmare. She didn’t have the time, energy or callous for that.

  The system must have chosen a pickaxe because of the ore she had dropped in yesterday. Some reward algorithm probably woke up and said, congratulations, you gave us something shiny, here’s a tool to get more.

  Riley sighed and set the pickaxe beside her cart.

  “Fine. Cool. It’s like digging my own grave.”

  Sunlight washed over her as she stepped out. She loaded her tools into the cart, settled her sun hat on her head, and set off toward the river.

  The first round of gathering went smoothly. She loaded wheat, wood, stone. Filled her bucket with fresh water. Her body moved with familiarity, the kind that came from repetition. She had a rhythm now. Dump resources at the tower. Boil water. Return to the river. Rinse and repeat.

  This might have been her most productive day yet.

  On her second trip, she had already collected wheat and wood. The stone, however, was growing sparse. The top layer along the riverbank was nearly exhausted. She eyed the ground, and headed further inland to unexplored territory. She hefted her new pickaxe.

  “You want me to mine?” she said. “Let’s mine.”

  She dug down into the dirt. The soil gave easily at first, then grew firmer, until it finally thudded There was another layer of stone buried there.

  She kept digging, uncovering stone after stone and stacking them in the cart. Her arms burned. Dirt stuck to her fingers. Sweat slid down her temple. But the work felt good. Productive. Like she was unlocking something.

  She leaned down, grabbed the last small boulder, and froze.

  “What the…”

  Something else was in the hole. Buried deep. A rock that was the wrong color, the wrong texture, the wrong everything.

  Her heart skipped once. She reached for it carefully and pulled it free.

  The rock was heavy. Much heavier than the others. She carried it to the riverbank, crouched, and dipped it into the running water. Mud peeled away. Brown gave way to metallic streaks. Yellow gleamed at the edge. Silver shone across its side. The moment the mineral veins revealed themselves she let out a startled, delighted shriek.

  She had found ore. Real ore. A decent size chunk too, not just a little pebble.

  She started laughing, breathless and slightly wild.

  “Today is my lucky day!” she said. She couldn’t believe it. Zelgra had made it sound like ore was impossible to find.

  Her hands shook slightly as she inspected it. It was beautiful in the way only survival resources could be. The river light reflected off it like a promise.

  She dug around the area a bit longer, but everything else she found after that was only plain rock. Still, she marked the spot with a sturdy stick before hauling the cart back toward the tower.

  The sun warmed her shoulders. The air smelled like damp earth and summer wind. The scenery around her was quiet and idyllic, the kind of peaceful countryside painting she might have used as a phone wallpaper once upon a time.

  But as she walked, smiling to herself, she slowed.

  Something prickled along the back of her neck. A little whisper of instinct. Not danger, exactly. Not a sound or a movement. Just a feeling. The kind that made you glance over your shoulder in a grocery store because someone’s cart had been following you too long.

  She turned her head slowly and scanned the treeline.

  No movement. No shapes. No shadows creeping between branches.

  But the feeling did not fade.

  She was not alone.

  Her pace quickened until she was almost jogging. The cart jostled along with her. She did not look back again until the tower appeared in front of her.

  Whatever that feeling was, she wanted stone walls between her and it.

  She pushed through the doorway and let out a shaky breath.

  The door swung shut behind her and clicked softly into place.

  Safe. For now.