The outer wall of Starlight loomed ahead, scarred but slightly taller than when they'd left. Salvaged steel plates caught the morning light, bolted over old damage in jagged layers. A pair of turret housings vented thin trails of steam while pressure built inside their rotating mounts. Someone had been busy. To Xander, it wasn't just an upgrade. It was a signal. The settlement hadn't folded. It was adapting. It would endure.

They passed through the main gate checkpoint without trouble, just a nod from a tired guard who recognized the Starlight crest stitched to Kane's pauldron. No drawn-out questions this time. For once, returning didn't feel like pushing uphill just to get back into the Safe Zone he had helped establish.

Inside the walls, the group paused long enough to share a few words.

"We're heading back to the inn," Jo said, already shedding gear like the weight had just tripled now that they were back in civilization.

"Same," Kane added. "I'm done smelling like cursed moss."

Zoey gave Xander a light tap on the arm. "You get to be the responsible one this time."

Xander nodded. "Briefing won't take long."

With that, the four of them peeled off toward the southern row, cutting across the main street where early vendors were just setting up. Xander didn't need to look back to know they'd keep an eye on things.

Darvos lingered near the checkpoint, his team close behind, quiet and unbothered. They didn't need instructions. They were already shadowing him as he fell in step beside Xander.

Market Row had changed.

What used to be a scatter of tarp-covered tables and melted vending units now carried structure and rhythm. Stalls stood straighter, rebuilt from machined wood and composite panels, their signage forged or burned by hand, clean lettering backed by new guild crests. Blacksmiths, along with Xander's blacksmith mentor, Lily Morgan, laughed over breakfast near a water barrel, smoke still curling from their forge. Their aprons were crusted in soot, and the stack of shaped steel beside them looked fresh. Even the scavenger posts had grown up, with canvas banners marking claims in chalk that read Ironreach Guild, Salvage Accepted, No Fakes.

Progress. Or at least the shape of it.

Xander tracked the shape of a new framework rising at the far end of the street. It wasn't a shop. It was too big for that. Foundation stones and poured concrete hinted at permanence. Maybe an inn, maybe something else entirely, but either way it carried the weight of planning. Civic thinking layered over survival.

A flicker of motion pulled his eye upward. JT was already descending the wall steps, flanked by a pair of councilors whose faces were familiar, though their names stubbornly absent. The politicians who'd been present enough to recognize but never involved enough to remember.

That councilors name was Steve. Or maybe Stan. Maybe something else that started with an S? Xander never bothered to commit the man's name to memory. He might as well have been stuffed shirt number six, for all Xander really cared.

JT reached the ground level and made his way over with the gait of someone who hadn't slept much, but had kept everything running anyway.

"Glad to see you back in one piece," JT said. "Given the last trip near Champaign was a bloodbath. Hard not to expect the same."

Xander gave a chuckle. "Didn't get eaten. Came close."

JT offered a tired smirk before turning to Jo and the rest of the team, exchanging brief handclasps and glances that meant more than words. The councilors offered shallow nods. Civil but cautious.

One of them, maybe Steve or Stan or something else that started with an S, watched Xander like he was inspecting a damaged shipment that might still explode. Xander didn't blame him for being cautious. What wore him down was the unspoken expectation that he could keep the world from falling apart while they judged from behind reinforced walls.

Xander's eyes cut toward the admin building. "Let's debrief if you're free. There are a lot of things to update you on."

"Hopefully, you haven't brought more disaster to our doorstep. Again," the councilor grumbled.

Xander didn't rise to it. Just turned and started walking.

JT fell in beside him with a small shake of his head, while the two councilors followed at a slower pace, their conversation hushed enough to be polite but not far off from annoyed. Darvos and his patrol trailed a short distance behind.

They passed under a stripped-out fuel canopy and stepped through a pair of reinforced doors that looked like they'd once belonged to a convenience store. The smell of old concrete and solder hung faintly in the air, and the hum of a wall-mounted generator buzzed just above the threshold.

The council chamber wasn't much. It still looked like a converted travel office, with maps tacked to every available wall and a large table dominating the space. A chalkboard stood nearby, still marked with half-erased repair schedules and scrawled progress updates in different handwriting. A couple of folding chairs had been replaced with actual benches. Some signs of progress couldn't be hidden.

Darvos stepped inside, then immediately turned back and told his men to wait outside. He didn't bark the order, just delivered it low and direct. They obeyed without question.

Inside, the air was warm and stale with the scent of too many people thinking too hard in too small a room.

JT took the end seat. Xander remained standing.

"This is Sergeant Darvos of Fort Octave," he said, not waiting for everyone else to get seated before starting. "His team joined us mid-mission. He'll corroborate everything."

One councilor leaned forward, mouth already half open. Xander cut ahead of the question.

"But we're not starting with Fort Octave."

That drew a pause. JT raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt.

Xander kept going. "The citadel is confirmed as a raid-type dungeon. I'll give a full breakdown later, but suffice it to say it's going to be ugly. We also discovered a standard dungeon in a separate structure, but I chose not to explore it. Getting back here with the intel took priority. I recommend we send another team to investigate and clear it before some random adventuring group wanders in unprepared."

"The station?" JT asked.

"It's viable. Strong enough to serve as a forward base in Champaign. The structure is solid, rail link is intact. If we keep the route clear, we could move supplies and run adventurer transport without much trouble."

"There is one problem, however," Xander said, gesturing to Darvos to take over.

Darvos stepped forward. "The Cult of the Simulation used the citadel as a ritual staging ground. Everything was set up to be discovered. We believe it was meant as a signal or a message. What it's pointing to, we don't know yet. But the Cult isn't hiding anymore. The commander of Fort Octave thinks something bigger is going on, so he sent me to find Xander.

"In the building Sargent Darvos is referring to, there was also a sealed door," Xander added.

A low hum of conversation stirred. One councilor finally cut in, voice edged and skeptical.

"And you didn't open it? You just walked away?"

Xander turned his head. "Correct. As I said, the door was sealed."

"Resources win wars," the man said. "We're trying to build a functioning city here, not just rack up kills for glory. We need to find resources, supplies, and salvage."

"There was no way through the door," Xander said. "I'm not going to guess what's behind it, and I wasn't about to waste time or lives trying to pry it open. Getting Darvos back here with what we found was the priority. I'm recommending we send a team specifically to figure out what's on the other side."

The councilor gave a thin smile. "Spoken like someone who's never had to manage a town budget."

Xander started to respond, but JT's chair scraped back across the floor as he stood.

"If it weren't for Xander and his team," JT said, "there wouldn't be a budget. Or a town."

The room fell still.

"I don't always agree with his choices," JT continued. "I wish he'd take on a more formal leadership role here. But if you want to second-guess the guy whose team just walked through hell and came back with intel, working trains, and beat back the siege we were clearly losing, you can do it on your own time."

The other councilor didn't answer. Just shifted slightly in his seat.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Xander let the silence hold before shifting gears. "Now, about Fort Octave."

That got their attention.

"It's new. At the Rantoul Air Force base ruins. If you remember, I worked with Major Rex to deal with the Saint Joseph safe zone. Afterwards, he took off for a fallback position that had been called in for the military. Seems he found other military remnants and established a safe zone."

JT grinned. "Another safe zone?"

One councilor asked, "Are they a threat?"

Xander looked to Darvos, who spoke before Xander had to.

Of course, they were worried about Fort Octave. Because they heard military and fort and that clearly screamed 'invasion force,' Xander nearly rolled his eyes. Rex was as solid as they came. The leader who checked on his people before checking his gear. But then again, none of these people had worked with Rex. They'd only heard the name, not earned the trust. From their position, caution probably looked a lot like suspicion.

"Fort Octave has no intention of pressing territory," Darvos said. "But we need allies and trade. And we're seeing signs the Cult has spread farther than we assumed. What Xander's team found matches what we've seen at other sites. You're not the only ones under pressure."

"What kind of pressure?" JT asked.

Darvos's voice remained even. "People going missing. Ritual locations. Sabotage on infrastructure. We burned six such sites in the last two. This is systemic."

A long breath settled over the table.

JT finally nodded. "That figures."

Xander waited.

"We've had signs too," JT said. "Propaganda left behind. Sabotage. Nothing overt, but too much to ignore. Two of our residents disappeared during the siege. Charlie Osborn and a woman named Lucy. Both were suspected of involvement with a cult splinter. Our head of security is running a quiet investigation. We're still seeing signs. But they're careful."

"How careful?" Xander asked.

JT looked him in the eye. "Careful enough that I don't know if we're still compromised and how badly."

Xander stood still, letting the implication settle in.

He'd known there were cultists in Starlight. The spy they had captured had confirmed it, even if they didn't know names. Every safe zone had a few refugees who'd lost something and gone looking for meaning in all the wrong places. Lucy had been one of them, maybe. Or maybe not. But until now, he'd chalked the Cult's reach inside Starlight up to desperation and bad timing. Just fringe believers clinging to scraps of control.

But JT's voice hadn't carried the weight of paranoia.

That meant something else entirely. JT wasn't worried about strays slipping through gaps in the wall. He was worried the rot had made it inside and gotten comfortable. Xander hadn't been looking in the right places. He'd expected cultists in shadows, not influence woven into the foundation.

If JT was right, this wasn't about missing civilians, propaganda, or sabotage. This was about the people already in the room. People with responsibilities. Maybe even authority. And that shifted the entire board.

Darvos shifted slightly. The movement wasn't nervous, more like he was waiting for a beat to let the moment pass before speaking. He didn't raise his voice or posture for effect.

"We had orders to look for safe zones. Make contact if possible. That's why I didn't push when Xander wanted to return here first. I was sent to find him, not drag him back."

He reached into a worn satchel and pulled out a folded paper, handing it to JT.

"Commander Rex asked that I deliver this directly if we made contact. Consider it informal. An invitation, not a demand."

JT took it without ceremony, unfolding the letter and reading through in silence. The room remained still.

Xander watched from his place at the table, arms loose at his sides. He already knew what the letter said. Not the exact words, but the shape of them. It would be Rex. Clear phrasing and zero drama. Rex was the man who asked for cooperation with one hand while preparing for a siege with the other.

JT refolded the letter and tapped it against his palm. "Coordination. Supply exchange. Possibility of a defense pact."

Darvos nodded once. "I can't speak for him beyond what's written. But I think that's the intent. Fort Octave's stable, but isolated. Too much pressure and it could break like anything else."

JT looked up again, this time to Xander. "What's your read?"

"Rex is good," Xander said. "If he wants a partnership, it's because he thinks both sides will benefit. And he's probably right."

JT didn't speak for a moment.

Then, with the tone of someone stating a fact, not floating an idea, he said, "We'll send a delegation."

Xander nodded, already seeing where it was going.

"You'll escort them," JT added.

There it is.

"Figured I would," Xander said.

"I want political weight on this one," JT continued. "We need someone the council can trust to ask questions I wouldn't think to. Someone Rex will take seriously."

Xander had a name in mind before JT said it and was already internally cringing. He hoped he wasn't right about who JT was suggesting.

"Councilwoman Weller," JT said.

Shit.

She was sharp, careful, and rarely sentimental. Also very public about her distrust of anyone who made a living with armor and weapons. From her point of view, most adventurers chased loot and glory, then vanished when the work of rebuilding actually started. She hadn't been quiet about that either. Which made her the right voice for a first contact mission, but probably not the easiest travel companion. Especially for someone like Xander, who'd bled to keep the walls standing.

"She'll be safe with me."

JT gave a small grunt that passed for approval. "Good."

"We can send a train. We've been running light scouts down the line to check for hazards. So far, it looks passable."

Xander gave Darvos a look. "Undead thinned out north of Champaign?"

"Mostly cleared along the tracks. Still pockets farther east, but the stretch toward Octave is quiet."

JT stepped toward the board near the far wall and ran his fingers across the pinned scraps of paper, most of them curled at the edges or half-faded from exposure. There were route tags, cargo manifests, and projected repair timelines, some dating back to the siege and likely obsolete. But what held JT's attention wasn't the clutter of numbers. It was the map underneath.

Someone had used a thick red pen to mark potential supply caches scattered across the region, each circled and numbered in order of priority. Arrows connected them in a loose sequence, showing where Starlight planned to send trains once enough track had been cleared. Different colors showed where scouts had been, where they hadn't, and where no one wanted to go again.

Xander caught the label near the bottom of the board. Saint Joseph, engine prep started.

That didn't surprise him. Xander had confirmed to JT that the tracks were in good shape all the way up to Saint Joseph in a meeting right after the chaos of the siege died down. Still, part of him didn't love seeing it written on the board like it was just another checkpoint instead of a pit of snakes.

JT said nothing as he studied the layout. He didn't need to. The way his finger hovered over the rail line near Tolono said plenty. He was clearly calculating risk against necessity, wondering if they had enough crews to follow through or if someone was going to bleed for the next stretch of progress.

Xander stayed quiet. He respected the work JT did here, the way he mapped a world still half-broken and tried to wring order from rot. But he also knew the Cult wouldn't care about priority lists or rail diagrams. They'd dig in wherever they found weakness and twist until the lines broke.

"We'll prep a crew for the railcar. Engine's been through diagnostics. We'll need guards, fuel, and a backup engineer. Meet at the station in six hours."

The meeting dissolved with the scraping of chairs and quiet murmurs. Councilors filed out first, their voices low and faces drawn, already recalculating schedules and personnel assignments in their heads. Darvos gave a tight nod to JT before stepping aside to confer with Hask, and Xander let the movement of people carry him toward the hallway. It felt like stepping off a battlefield. This one just wore paperwork and lived inside repurposed drywall.

Six hours. Enough time to pull together supplies, get the crew ready, and make sure the wheels didn't fall off once they left the safety of Starlight's perimeter.

Jo met him outside the admin building, leaning against a rail post with Zoey, Kane, and Ford clustered nearby. Cabbot perched atop a crate behind them, tail flicking once, eyes unreadable.

"Everything good?" Jo asked without looking up.

"Good enough to move forward," Xander replied.

Darvos passed by with his team in tow, already peeling off toward Market Row. One of them muttered something about gear upgrades and smithwork. Xander didn't stop them. Let them explore. They'd earned it, and the market had grown sharp enough in recent weeks to strip a man of coin, secrets, or both.

"We'll gear up and meet at the station," Xander said.

Jo jerked her head toward Darvos and his group. "I'll keep them from starting a brawl in the forge."

"I give it fifteen minutes," Zoey grinned, already walking backward toward the main thoroughfare. "Twelve if Hask starts bartering."

"I'm a generous negotiator," Hask said, calling over his shoulder.

Xander let their voices fade as he cut down a side path. He didn't need to follow them. Not yet. There was one more thing to check.

The Starlight railyard had once been at the back of a parking lot for semis and delivery trucks. Now it groaned with purpose. New rails crisscrossed the area where the scavenged railcars sat. Cranes on makeshift gantries lowered crates onto flatbeds. Workers in stitched-together uniforms rolled barrels toward the loading ramps, voices raised over the hiss of steam valves and the bark of orders. Everywhere he looked, someone was hauling, hammering, or calibrating something.

The lead engine stood at the center of the organized chaos, armored in salvaged boilerplate and striped with paint that was barely dry. Stenciled letters on its flank read STL-002. The forward plow had been reinforced with angular spikes, and a ballista mount bristled near the cab.

It looked dangerous. And just operational enough to work.

Xander circled around it, checking the line of connected cars, most of them gutted freight containers welded shut or turned into troop compartments. The second engine further down the track was no less active. Supply crates were being stacked in precise rows. Crews double-checked manifests against a wall of chalkboard instructions.

He spotted Harvey near the front, gesturing animatedly at a councilor Xander didn't recognize. Paperwork passed hands. Arguments passed faster.

So that's why JT hadn't mentioned Harvey in the meeting.

Harvey was heading to Saint Joseph.

Xander wasn't surprised, not really. Given Xander's history, it made sense to send someone else to reconnect with Saint Joseph. Still, it confirmed what he'd already assumed.

Harvey had drawn the short straw.

Xander watched the train being loaded, arms crossed. Saint Joseph had been stabilizing the last time he'd passed through, but it was a mess underneath. Too many clueless and selfish people clawing for relevance, too many backroom deals wrapped in civility. Xander, Rex, and the others had cleared out the worst of the rot, but it would take more than a few dead snakes to clean out a nest.

He didn't envy Harvey. But he was curious. That place had operated like a storm behind a smiling face. If Saint Joseph was serious about joining the table, someone needed to poke at the foundations and see what cracked first.

He turned back toward the staging platform, where JT now stood near the edge of the ramp, clipboard under one arm, talking with Maeve Weller. The councilor had swapped her usual business coat for reinforced travel leathers. Sensible, fitted, and practical. Her expression still made it clear she would rather write policy than riding rails.

Xander stopped beside them, scanning the horizon past the defensive wall. The treeline sat quietly in the distance. A thin coil of smoke drifted upward somewhere far off. Hard to tell if it came from a firepit or a signal.

JT followed his gaze. "You've got everything you need?"

"I was actually going to get some sleep on the train before we leave. Jo is grabbing everything I'll need. We'll make it work," Xander said.

"You always do," JT replied.

They stood there for a few seconds, saying nothing. Wind pulled at a loose tarp near the second engine. Metal clanged against metal as a wrench slipped. Somewhere behind them, a valve screamed and hissed before stabilizing.

JT's voice came quieter now. "Be careful. Feels the other shoe is about to drop."

Xander didn't argue. He didn't offer comfort either. He just nodded once. Given the Crusader quest he'd receive, Xander already knew what JT suspected. Things were going to get messy.

Cabbot the Destroyer sat at the top of the stairs already, tail curled neatly, gaze unreadable as ever.

Xander glanced once more toward JT. Their eyes met.

Then he boarded the train.

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