The whisper rain lasted three days.
On the fourth day, the sky cleared enough to smell distance again.
With clear skies came scouts.
Not ours.
Just after dawn, a hunter named Rell entered the village at a jog — not frantic, not exhausted, but with the clipped urgency of someone who had news that mattered.
He approached Baba directly.
"Smoke," he said.
Baba's jaw tightened. "Where?"
Rell turned his head slightly toward the east ridge.
"Far. Day and a half. Not from rain. From men."
Men meant tools. Tools meant labor. Labor meant camp, not fire. And in this world, nothing large burned wood for comfort — only for purpose.
Baba asked, "How many fires?"
Rell paused.
"Too many for hunters. Too few for war."
That meant something rare.
Travelers.
Not just slavers — slavers traveled lean. This was something else.
The council was summoned within the hour.
Council Fire
The seven elders sat in a ring, staff tips touching the earth. The council was not a democratic body — it was survival pressed into ritual.
The eldest spoke first. "Smoke to the east."
Rell relayed the details. The council listened without interruption.
When he finished, the elders tapped their staffs twice — a gesture of acknowledgment.
"Could be traders," one said.
"Could be slavers," another countered.
"Could be Payan," whispered a third.
That word changed the air.
Payan.
A name spoken in low voices, half-fear, half-reverence. To the tribes, Payan were not just slavers.
They were civilized.
They had roads. They had priests. They had rules. They had armies. They had writing.
They also had wealth — which meant demand — which meant markets — which meant slavers.
I listened silently. I was three years old, but the council did not forbid children from listening. Children remembered things adults forgot.
The eldest finally asked the question that mattered:
"Do we hide or do we watch?"
Baba answered without hesitation.
"We watch."
There was no vote. Only silence, then taps of agreement.
The System chimed.
New Quest: Observe the Unknown
Objective: Identify the source of eastern smoke
Risk Level: Moderate
Strategic Value: High
We were not sending warriors.
We were sending scouts.
The Cohort's First Mission
Half an hour later, Baba crouched beside the six of us outside the big hut.
"You heard," he said.
Haniwa nodded. Tullen nodded slower. Talli was already bouncing on her toes.
Baba pointed to the forest.
"You will not go far. You will not go close. You will listen, smell, touch, and return."
Ren raised his hand. "What if they see us?"
Baba paused — then let out a single dry chuckle.
"They will not see you."
He was not being poetic. He meant it literally.
In a blind world, being small and silent was a tactical advantage.
But he still added:
"If you hear wheels, men, dogs, or chains, you return."
Then he tapped the dirt with two fingers — the sign for go.
The six of us slipped into the woods like pups on a hunt.
Children? Yes.
Useless? No.
In this world, childhood had no patience for useless things.
Scouting Without Sight
The forest east of the village rose in uneven ridges before sloping down toward old stone beds that once were roads.
We moved slowly, not because we were afraid, but because we were listening.
Feet pressed into soft moss. Hands brushed tree bark. Tongues tasted humidity. Scents carried through pine needles and ferns.
We didn't talk.
We used signs.
Finger circle → listen
Palm down → crouch
Two taps → move
Flat hand → silence
Finger to nose → scent
In an hour, the ground changed.
Moss thinned. Soil compacted. Trees spread. The air smelled different.
Tullen crouched, pressing his palm into the earth.
"Hard," he whispered.
"Men," I said.
He nodded.
Hard ground meant trampled ground. Trampled ground meant barefoot or booted feet. Barefoot meant primitive. Booted meant Payan or slaver.
Talli pointed to a scuff in the dirt.
Boot print.
Then another. Smaller. Then a third.
Three sets of prints alongside deeper indentations.
Wagon wheels.
Tullen sniffed the air. "Metal smell."
Iron.
The System chimed.
Foreign Material Detected: Iron (Refined)
Tech Level: Higher than Tribe
Cultural Impact Potential: Significant
Then we heard it.
Not close — the forest bent sound — but near enough to catch pieces.
A clop. A rattle. A low rumble of wood on wood. A man humming something off-key.
Then voices.
"…how many?"
"…two crates for the priest…"
"…and three for the capital…"
Capital.
That was a civilized word.
The System tagged the voice:
Faction Trace Identified: Payan Traders
Then the hum of gears and wheels resolved into shape.
Through the trees, I saw them.
A small caravan of three wagons, drawn by stocky horses with coarse hair and iron bits. Drivers sat atop, wrapped in fur, swinging whips lazily. Behind them, four men walked with long staves, tapping ground carefully.
The drivers were sighted.
The guards were blind.
A hybrid structure.
The sighted handled direction.
The blind handled threat.
Efficient.
There were no children in cages, no chains, no collars. This was not a slaver convoy.
This was commerce.
Haniwa whispered, "They have horses."
We had never seen horses.
Ren whispered, "Why do they hit the horses?"
"Control," I said. "Horses are strong but they listen with pain."
Tullen asked, "What is a crate?"
"A box that holds things."
"What things?"
"Things Payan want."
We watched until the wagons disappeared down the old stone bed toward the valley's throat.
When the last wheel rumbled out of earshot, I turned to the group.
"What did we learn?" I asked.
Tullen spoke first. "Payan buy things. They are near."
Talli added, "They have iron."
Ren whispered, "They are not slavers."
Haniwa frowned. "But slavers sell to Payan."
There it was.
The children were doing inference.
The System chimed:
Cohort Skill Advanced: Strategic Inference (Minor)
Then Tullen asked the question that mattered:
"Should we fear them?"
I thought about that.
Then I shook my head.
"We fear those who take from us," I said. "But Payan take from others."
Talli blinked. "So they are our enemies?"
"No," I said. "They are not our enemies."
Then I smiled faintly.
"They are our future."
They stared at me, confused.
I couldn't explain everything — not yet. Not empire, not trade, not diplomacy.
But the System understood perfectly.
Insight Logged: External Civilizations as Opportunity
Path Enabled: Diplomacy / Trade / Espionage / Subjugation
We turned and ran home.
Report to the Council
When we returned, Baba waited at the entrance to the village, arms crossed.
"You are early," he said.
"We saw wagons," Haniwa said without hesitation.
"Wagons?" Baba asked.
"With horses," Talli added.
"With iron," Tullen added.
"With boxes," Ren whispered.
"With sighted drivers," I finished, "and blind guards."
The elders froze.
Nothing in that sentence was harmless.
The eldest tapped her staff twice. "Payan," she said.
Another elder whispered, "Payan this close means trouble."
A third whispered, "Payan this close means trade."
Baba looked at me—not asking, just waiting.
"Not slavers," I said. "Just traders. For now."
The System chimed.
Diplomatic Window Opened:
First Contact (Passive)
Likelihood of External Influence: Rising
The elders murmured, tapping slow, thoughtful patterns in the dirt.
After a long silence, the eldest spoke:
"Then our children did not just watch."
She touched her staff to the earth once.
"They scouted."
The cohort straightened unconsciously.
"Then," she said, "we have our answer for the year."
She turned to Baba.
"You will make them scouts."
The council had spoken.
Our purpose was chosen.
The first role of the future kingdom had been named before the kingdom even existed.