The foundation was hexagonal.
Everything in Aurex began with hexes now—nodes of function, points of shared contact. The Civic Uplink Array schematic dictated it down to the last bolt: three pylons, one command node, six data relays, and a lattice of fiberroot conduits threading beneath the soil like veins.
Toren watched the first support frame rise as the sun broke through post-storm haze.
Wess guided a lifter rig over the northern trench, Mira barking torque measurements from the far scaffold while two younger workers climbed the signal tower, laughing in bursts between fearful curses.
System Notice: Civic Uplink InitiatedFunctionality (on completion):—Settlement-wide communication—Mass scheduling—Emergency override signals—Distributed learning modulesBonus: +8% Efficiency, +2 Morale (passive)
Toren nodded to himself.
This wasn't defense.
This was infrastructure. Thought made manifest. Unity baked into signal paths and reinforcement joints.
Jakel limped over with a long-handled hammer in one hand and a bundle of copper-wrapped circuits in the other. "You're not just building anymore," he said, eyeing the rising tower.
"You're waking something."
"I know," Toren replied.
He didn't say what.
Because it wasn't just the village they were waking.
It was what came next.
And it wouldn't sleep again.