"The intruders are humanoid, probably human," Scout reported. "I was only able to get a good look at a few of them before one of them saw me, but they all looked human with minor animalistic features, ears or horns. There was a pet of some sort as well, some sort of magical beast, but I did not get a reading on its internal mana structure. The internal mana structure of the humanoids matched humans for most of them, but two were different and do not match my records."

Scout sent the data she'd gathered over the manalink. It was far faster and more nuanced than talking, but her creator preferred speech where it was possible. Scout didn't quite understand what her creator meant when it said that it preferred it because humans liked to talk, but she did understand the need to become practiced with humans' preferred communication method. They were clearly going to need it.

At least, she assumed they would need it. From the records her creator gave her when she was made, humans were curious. They'd come looking even if they hadn't seen her, and she was fairly certain that one of them did. Yes, it was one of the strange mana signatures, but the one who saw her could clearly communicate with the humans. That was enough.

It was up to her creator whether or not it was found, but Scout surely would be. Her creator could hide; the deep rooms that held its being were well-hidden. Scout could not hide there; if she was not found the humans would keep looking. That meant she had to be seen. The only remaining question was what her creator would direct her to do. She didn't think she would get far if it told her to fight; the guards were made to fight but she was not. She could talk or she could run. Either might work.

Scout ran over all of the options while she waited for the mana signatures to transmit and for her creator to examine them. It took hours, but Scout was made to be able to wait for hours; it was necessary. Time did not seem to pass in the small unlit space that held the three constructs while they waited.

It did pass, of course, and eventually the mana structures were transmitted, which made it time for Scout to settle in at her recharge point. There were faster ways, but the slow recharge was the best for construct durability and longevity, so it was preferred when possible. It was also the least uncomfortable, at least according to past constructs' records. Scout had no interest in trying the uncomfortable options. The recharge point was warm and soothing and Scout quickly drifted off in the closest thing she had to what humans called sleep.

Her creator was still examining the information when Scout woke. She waited where she was. As much as she wanted to see what had happened with the humans above while she was reporting and recharging, she knew she needed to wait for her creator's analysis.

Her creator was not fast. Time was on their side; speed was not important. Scout knew that was not always true, but the resources and connections required to improve her creator were not available. The Links were long since closed and Scout could not go there. No construct had ever lasted more than an hour or two in the Links. Fixing the problems would take far longer than that.

It was a good thing that they had time.

Another recharge cycle passed before Scout's creator finally spoke. "Most are human. There are significant signs of directed modification in all of the mana signatures. This does not correlate with the animalistic features; while those are supported by modifications, the non-visible modifications are more significant. Expanding past the heritable modifications, the internal systemic structure shows the standard Guide modification; the outer tegument adaption for externalized protection is…"

Scout listened, but she understood less than half of what her creator said. It was easy enough to understand that almost everyone Scout had scanned was human and that their mana signatures were altered both by their heritage and their Spheres, but beyond that she was lost.

She didn't need to know all of the details. Her duty was to gather information, not to analyze it. Her creator would tell her what needed to be done.

She had to admit that she was interested when her creator got to the two she'd scanned with the extremely different mana signatures. They hadn't looked any different outwardly than the others; oh, their actual deviations from the original human conformation were different, but they weren't any more severe. Different eye color, altered ears, and horns were all minor variations. It was their mana signatures that were truly different, different enough that Scout was curious.

Those two were not, apparently, human enough for her creator to call them human based on their mana signatures. They didn't match any mana signatures her creator had records of. Despite that, her creator declared that they were more likely to be human than any other known species.

Scout frowned at that, then tilted her head to the side. She was supposed to use human body language even if she wasn't very good at it and her creator couldn't see it, so she was trying. "If their mana signatures aren't human, why do you think they're probably human?"

"That is not what I said," her creator protested. "I don't think they're human. The Guide does."

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Scout blinked and waited for the explanation. That didn't make any sense. When her creator didn't say anything more, she had to ask. "Why does the Guide think they're human if they aren't?"

"No one can predict the Guide," Scout's creator stated flatly. There was a small pause before it continued. "I can infer that it may be because they're here and Kestii is a human world. Perhaps their ancestors settled here. It is possible that the Guide knows they are not human but has assigned them to humanity in some way. They are Hallowed, with one of the Human Patrons. I cannot identify which one. The manaflows do not conform to the standard patterns of any of the Patrons, but the collation ligature clearly…"

Scout zoned out somewhere in the middle of the explanation of how her creator knew the two strange mana signatures were Hallowed by one of the Human Patrons, but she did manage to gather that much. She even caught that the odds were good that they had the same Patron and that the odds were poor but better than any of the other options that if they did have a single Patron, that Patron was the Wanderer. Scout's creator listed a number of other options for each of the pair, but apparently none of them were shared by both.

Scout had no idea why that was important, but her creator certainly seemed to think it was.

Several rest cycles passed before Scout's creator spoke to her again. This time, it was directions instead of information. "Find them. See where they are and why they are here. This time, you may speak to them. You may not tell them about me, not yet. Once you know why they are here, report back. You may mention the possibility of a trade of services but not what those services would be."

Scout had no idea what her creator meant to trade. It wasn't her place to ask.

"Take your guards," her creator added. "They will enhance your prestige, and prestige is important to humans."

Scout knew the definition of prestige, but she did not understand why having guards mattered for it or even why prestige was important here. The humans wouldn't know who or what she was; she was supposed to hide that, because she couldn't reveal it without also revealing the existence of her creator. Still, her creator knew better than she did. It had interacted with humans in the past.

Sophia wanted to head down to the third floor immediately, but Lan'ti convinced her that he needed time to prepare for another floor, in case it was as bad as the second floor. Sophia couldn't really argue with that. They didn't expect another farm floor, but the pattern was bad; both floors they'd dealt with had a large open area with a lot of ruins apparitions near the stairs they picked.

The next day, they started with a quick sweep of the first two floors to clear out anything that had reappeared since they last went through them. It was probably not necessary, but Lan'ti didn't want anything in the way if they had to retreat, no matter how unlikely it was to matter.

Sophia thought he was overdoing his caution, but it was hard to argue against. Whatever was here had been here for a very, very long time. Even if it was smarter than the bone remnants because it could run, Lan'ti didn't know of any tales about creatures in a ruin that would prepare after meeting humans any more than the bone remnant had. Some were more effective about what they did, but if the beings in a ruin were capable of building, they wouldn't live in a ruin.

Sophia didn't point out that his statement wasn't necessarily true. The lack of repairing the ruin didn't mean that residents couldn't do it, it meant they didn't think it was worthwhile. There were a lot of places on Earth where buildings or even entire cities had fallen into ruin or been destroyed and only partially rebuilt. Sixteen hundred years was a long time. That was more than long enough to come to accept the ruins as normal, not something to repair.

Not that the others agreed. Everyone other than Dav, Taika, and Xin'ri didn't believe Sophia when she said she thought there were people here and not just monsters. They didn't believe there was any way for people to survive without reaching the surface. Even Ci'an thought Sophia was misinterpreting what she saw in the distance. She wasn't as fierce as Sophia expected, but it was clear she didn't believe Sophia when she said that they'd see when they got down there.

When they got back to the underground camp, they arrived at a disaster. An entire herd of fire-breathing horse monsters had rampaged through the upper level. Their livestock was scattered or dead, the structures the builders built to help them prepare for the winter were broken, and many of their tools were broken or missing.

The good news was that no one was killed or permanently maimed. With everything they had stored underground, they could recover, but they were going to have to pull back and have everyone pitch in if they wanted the minimum done before it was too late.

Dav ended up stuck underground, because Azalea was injured and needed his healing. That put them on camp defense, though they didn't have to keep watch; they simply had to stay underground so that if something happened they were available.

Sophia, on the other hand, ended up working above-ground with Taika. On her back to do the actual herding. Ci'an and Los'en were also supposed to be within sight, but they were going to work alone as much as possible; they had a lot of ground to cover.

Their first task was finding and recovering the horses, starting with any they could see from the air. Flight was less common than Sophia expected, since at least half of her group could manage it; only Xin'ri was also able to fly indefinitely and she was needed to help speed up the rebuilding effort. Others would search on foot.

Once they found the horses, Los'en wanted to find out where the fiery monsters came from. They might or might not have a central area, and even if they did it might be nothing magical, but if they did have a Nest or a Hollow, they needed to know. The hunters hadn't seen them on their expeditions, but they needed to eliminate the problem before more of them attacked the campsite. They couldn't deal with many attacks like that one.

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