The forest would not settle.
Rat walked a deer track toward the mountains, boots damp, shoulders aching. The Bell rode his back like a sleeping animal. In the corner of his sight the Fate Interface itched awake and asleep, threads sketching quick lines through leaves, bark, and breath. Every time he blinked, the lines vanished for everyone but him.
He rolled his neck. The Bell hummed once. The trees answered with a soft shiver.
[Observation: Local Basin rhythm persists. Decay rate, slow.]
"Translation," he said. "We poked the world and it liked it."
[Precision edit: It adapted.]
"Same thing."
He cut through a low stand of willow. The creek beside the path paused, then ran backward for three heartbeats. Pebbles hopped upstream like guilty thoughts. Rat tapped the staff to the water. A single tone slid from his palm into the current. The Fate Interface wrapped that tone around a thin blue thread only he could see. The creek remembered direction and hurried on as if late.
"Downhill," he told it. "Ancient law."
A heron lifted off the bank and left a white line in his vision that frayed to mist. The line tugged his eye north. He could almost swear it pointed. He ignored it. If he chased every hint the Interface offered, he would end the day in another arc.
The land opened at a bend. A peasant caravan huddled on a hummock in the middle of a flooded field. Oxen lowed. Children clung to wheel rims. Mud tried to eat the cart wheels whole.
A woman with braided hair and a scar from cheek to chin saw him first. Her gaze slid past the staff and landed on the Bell strap.
"Monk," she called. "If you are one, the river is angry."
"Who told it it could be," Rat said.
He dropped into the water. Cold bit clean as metal. The flood's thread wavered, red from panic, blue where it brushed cultivated fields. Only he saw it. He set his palm to the brown surface.
"Quiet," he said. "People first."
His Qi pressed a steady pulse into the current. The Bell echoed with a soft reply. The red toned down to orange, then to a healthy green. The water peeled away from the hummock in sheets and slunk back to its banks, leaving gleaming mud and a pile of embarrassed fish.
The caravan exhaled. The scarred woman bowed as if her spine owed him something.
"We have no coin," she said. "We have bread. We have one very rude goat."
"Keep the goat," he said. "Feed your road."
A boy held up a flatcake with both hands like an offering to a small god. Rat took it and tore off a corner. Warm. Sweet grit.
"Good," he said. "If the river misbehaves, tell it the Caretaker is keeping score."
They stared. The word made a ripple he could feel. He lifted a hand and left before thanks turned into questions.
Farther on, beasts paced in the trees. He did not see them. He saw their threads sliding between trunks like taut wires. Yellow for hunger. White pins of alertness. Two lines crossed him and veered away as if sniffing the Bell through the bark.
"Do they see any of this," he asked.
[Negative. Fate Interface visibility is Administrator only.]
"Good. I hate sharing."
The path climbed. He found a ridge where wind combed the canopy in waves. The Interface brightened without asking. Faint lines arced far beyond the Basin's shoulder. One pulsed a foggy blue. Another smoldered under gray, like a coal buried in ash.
"Distant bells," he said.
[Correlation, high. One north-northwest, one south-east.]
Emera's drowsy voice drifted through the Bell, half speech, half tone.
"Two hearts answer. One remembers rain. One sleeps beneath a mountain that forgot its name."
"Helpful," Rat said. "If you ever wake fully, I expect maps."
"Wake them," she murmured. "Then ask."
He pushed on until the green gave way to terraced fields. The Open Sky foothills lay ahead, precise as calligraphy. Rows of tea brushed silver in the wind. Outer disciples in gray moved like beads on a string, baskets at their hips. He felt the whisper come along the road before any mouth opened.
Fate Rat. Caretaker. Thief.
He kept his face empty. The Bell dimmed, polite. The Interface thinned, as if understanding that too many lines in a place full of eyes was dangerous.
[Observation: Administrator pulse elevated.]
"Because we are walking into a nest," he said. "Do not worry. I will behave."
[Historical data suggests….otherwise.]
"Have faith."
A cistern overflowed at the field's edge. The water sheeted down a cut and threatened to undermine a terrace wall. A gray-robed girl ran with a shovel and a panic thread bright as fire. Rat stepped past, flicked a finger, and dropped a small tone into the spill. The sheet split clean, parted around the weak seam, and braided harmlessly into the drain.
The girl stopped, shovel frozen. She looked for the trick. There was none she could see. She bowed without knowing why.
Rat did not break stride.
By late day he reached the south gate. The stone lions there wore lichen beards and the patience of old judges. The gate boy lifted a hand to shout. The shout died when shadow fell.
Wind slammed the flags. The sun went thin. Rat looked up.
The hawk that fell out of the sky was palace-big and made of cloud and bronze. Its eyes burned a clean blue. It did not flap. It lowered itself with the calm of authority.
Open Sky's sigil burned on its chest for all to see. The thread attached to it was a thick blue cable only he saw, drawn straight to Heaven's Loom Peak.
The hawk settled in the courtyard. Outer disciples collapsed to knees. Rat did not. He was tired of giving his joints away.
A scarlet tube clicked free of the leg band and dropped. He caught it one-handed.
Inside, a thin scroll smelled faintly of cold.
By command of Elder Yue - report immediately.
He rolled the paper and slid it back into its tube. The hawk cocked its head, eyes like pieces of sky. It opened its beak. No cry. A pressure wave. The Interface flashed once, that blue cable tightening by a finger's width.
Rat pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Perfect," he said. "The paperwork found me."
He looked along the cable and saw nothing but stairs on stairs and a room that would not forgive jokes.
"Alright," he said. "Let us go not get promoted."
The hawk leapt. Air rushed to fill its absence. Dust settled in rings.
Rat tightened the Bell's strap across his chest.
The Fate Interface dulled to a polite glow.
He put his feet on the first inner stair.
[Codex of Strands of Fate - Status Update]
Vitality: 6
Qi Sense: 7
Comprehension: 5
Fate Entanglement: 31
Realm: Foundation Establishment, high
Module: Fate Interface v2.0
Effect: Administrator only. Perceive and gently tug destiny threads within 200 paces. Short disruptions and calm effects possible. Overuse risks sensory bleed and narrative drift.
Module: Creation Archive, fragmentary
Effect: Dream-views of Primordial Era via Emera's sleep. Further access requires three active Bells.
New Trait: Basin Resonance Carry
Effect: Passive Qi field steadies minor waterways and soothes low spirits. Side effect, attention from beasts and officials.