Progress on the dome, which Mavis had officially dubbed "Project Umbrella," was measured in arches. By the end of the second day, Kazuto had connected twenty-seven of them along the northern rim, creating a shimmering, transparent awning that covered a quarter of the basin. It looked less like a majestic shield and more like a half-built greenhouse. But it was something.
The real issue, it turned out, wasn't the dome. It was Lunch.
The healed lizard had recovered its strength with alarming speed. It also possessed a bottomless appetite and a complete lack of respect for barriers. Kazuto had used a few low barrier walls to create a simple pen for it near the water cache. Lunch immediately learned it could use its thick skull to batter the invisible walls, creating a constant, dull thud-thud-thud that echoed through the basin.
"It's trying to deliver itself back to the goblins," Doom grumbled, watching the creature ram itself again.
"Or it's bored," Mavis observed, not looking up from her calculations. She was now using a smooth piece of slate and a sharp bit of quartz to draw precise angles. "It's a herd animal. It's alone. Loneliness is a form of distress."
Kazuto paused, his hand on a new arch he was forming. "Are you saying its boredom is a hostile intent against itself?"
"I'm saying it's annoying," Mavis clarified.
The goblins, however, adored Lunch. They saw the lizard not as a failed meal, but as a living trophy of Kazuto's power. They started bringing it treats—special grasses, crunchy beetles—which they would toss over the barrier wall into its pen. This led to Lunch associating the sound of goblin chatter with food, which made it ram the walls even harder when they appeared.
The situation came to a head on the third morning. Kazuto was demonstrating to a young dwarf named Borin how to stack the perfect bricks for a more permanent food storage platform. A chorus of excited goblin shrieks erupted from the rim.
Lunch, hearing its fan club, went into a frenzy. It backed up to the far side of its pen and charged the barrier wall with surprising speed.
THWUMP.
The barrier held, of course. But Lunch's momentum didn't just stop. It transferred, as physics demanded, into the ground. The force of the impact vibrated through the earth, right under the nearly completed storage platform.
The perfectly stacked bricks, not yet mortared, wobbled. Borin lunged to steady them, but it was too late. With a crash, two days of work tumbled into a pile of rubble.
Silence fell, broken only by Lunch's pleased baaa and the distant, suddenly silent goblins.
Borin stared at the ruins, his shoulders slumping. Doom's face turned a shade of red usually reserved for hot iron. He pointed a thick finger at the lizard. "That's it! That creature is a menace! We should—"
"We should build a better pen," Kazuto interrupted, sighing. He walked over to the rubble. "And we'll rebuild this. It's just bricks."
"It's the principle!" Doom insisted. "The beast has no discipline! It doesn't contribute!"
« ANALYSIS: CONFLICT ARISING FROM MISALIGNED RESOURCE UTILIZATION. »
The voice's cold analysis was, as usual, annoyingly accurate. Lunch was a resource (a potential food source, a plow animal, a morale object for goblins) being utilized poorly (as a battering ram).
"Alright," Kazuto said, thinking out loud. "It's bored and lonely. It needs a job. And it needs a pen it can't shake just by headbutting."
He walked over to Lunch's current pen. He dismissed the barrier walls. Lunch blinked, confused, then took a tentative step forward.
Kazuto focused. Instead of walls, he imagined a floor. A perfectly smooth, slightly bowl-shaped barrier placed just under the sand and dirt of the pen area. An invisible, unbreakable foundation. Then, he created new walls, but this time, he angled them inward slightly, like a funnel. He left the top open to the sky.
The new pen looked the same from the outside. But when Lunch, curious about its freedom, tried its signature charge, its feet scrabbled for purchase on the slick, unseen floor. It couldn't build up speed. It sort of waddled forward and bumped its nose gently against the slanted wall.
It tried again, with the same pathetic result. It looked back at Kazuto, its dumb eyes full of betrayal.
"There," Kazuto said. "No more shaking. Now, for the job."
He had an idea. He walked over to the forge area, where dwarves turned rubble into bricks. He selected a large, flat, unfinished slab. He used a rope made of braided vines (another goblin trade item) to fashion a crude harness. With some difficulty and many annoyed baaas, he managed to get it attached to Lunch.
He then led the lizard to a clear, flat area of the basin. He placed a heavy stone on the slab.
"Pull," Kazuto said, pointing forward.
Lunch stood still, chewing on the harness.
From the rim, a goblin made a sharp clicking sound. Lunch's ears perked up. The goblin pointed forward, mimicking pulling. It clicked again.
Lunch strained forward. The slab, with the stone on it, slid smoothly across the hard ground.
A cheer went up from the goblin scouts. They'd given the command. They'd contributed.
Kazuto looked at Doom. "It can haul materials. Brick, stone, dirt. It's contributing. And the goblins are its managers."
Doom watched as the goblins used more clicks and whistles to direct Lunch to drag the slab toward the collapsed platform. The lizard, now the center of positive attention, moved with a proud strut.
"It's… efficient," Doom admitted, the anger leaving his voice. "Annoying, but efficient."
Mavis had been watching the whole thing, her stylus paused. "You turned a pest into a public works project. And you outsourced its management." She made a note on her slate. "Unconventional. But logistically sound."
The rest of the day took on a new rhythm. The thud-thud-thud was replaced by the sound of Lunch's harness sliding and the occasional happy baaa. Goblins took turns on the rim directing it with their clicks, ferrying loads of bricks for Borin to rebuild the platform. The dwarves, while still wary, began to appreciate not having to carry everything themselves.
As the sun set, painting the partial dome arches with orange light, Kazuto sat with Mavis. She showed him her slate. It was no longer just a dome design. It was a full settlement layout. Zones for housing, crafting, agriculture, even a marked area for "Diplomatic Exchange" (the trade pile).
"You're planning for more than just survival," Kazuto said.
"I'm planning for what comes after the cleansers," Mavis said, her voice low. "If we survive, word will spread. Others will come. The desperate, the hunted. You'll need systems. Not just walls."
Kazuto looked around the basin. At the dwarves sharing a meal by a fire. At the goblin faces peeking over the rim, sharing in the day's success. At Lunch, contentedly chewing some cud in its un-shakeable pen. At the golden prison-box, where the overseer watched it all, its earlier confusion now replaced by a deep, simmering thoughtfulness.
It was no longer just about hiding. Mavis was right. He'd accepted the first delivery—the dwarves. Then the goblins. Then the witch. Then the lizard.
He was building a distribution center for people who had nowhere else to go.
« NOTICE: SETTLEMENT DESIGNATION 'DELIVERY' EVOLVING. CONCEPTUAL SHIFT DETECTED: FROM REFUGE TO HAVEN. »
The voice made it sound so grand. It felt like just keeping up with the paperwork.
"Alright," he said to Mavis, tapping the slate. "Let's talk about where to put the compost heap. And how to build a real gate for the wall, not just a hole I open and close."
Mavis almost smiled. It was a small, sharp thing. "Finally. The boring, important stuff."
As night fell, the basin was quieter than it had ever been. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the contented snoring of a full, useful lizard.
Kazuto lay back, looking up at the stars through the gaps in his unfinished dome. The ceiling wasn't up yet. But the foundation, once just hard dirt, now felt like it had roots. Strange, stubborn, deeply weird roots.
He closed his eyes. The cleansers were coming. The dome was half-built. But today, they'd turned a problem into a tractor. He'd call that a productive day.