As the first real snowflakes of winter began to gently fall upon our shelter, the freezing silence of the forest gave way to a tense wait. Barun stood by the edge of the trench, his eyes piercing through the mist. Suddenly, the silhouettes that appeared beyond the perimeter put us all on high alert. Eliz instantly drew her silver bow, and I gripped my axe. However, when we recognized those familiar broad shoulders emerging from the fog, we let out a collective sigh of relief. It was Koram. And he wasn't alone.
He carried a massive, weathered backpack on his shoulders. Behind him stood a petite, sweet-looking girl with cheeks flushed red from the cold, and she was pulling the halter of... a heavily pregnant, fat sheep.
"Koram?" Barun said, lowering his massive mine pickaxe. "What is that? Was the Aethelgard market so bad that you brought us a ball of yarn?"
Koram struck his staff on the ground and opened his mouth to introduce Lira, but the sheep suddenly stopped dead in its tracks as it entered the door. The moment the animal's hooves met the sweet warmth of the underfloor heating system Koram had built, its eyes bulged. After the freezing cold outside, this sudden rush of heat relaxed the animal's muscles instantly. Letting out a high-pitched, agonizing bleat, the sheep collapsed onto the stone floor.
Absolute chaos erupted inside the shelter.
"Damn it, the beast is dying!" Barun roared. The giant man looked around in pure panic, not knowing what to do, and reflexively grabbed his massive pickaxe off the wall again. "It's dying!"
"It's suffering! Should I shoot it? Should I end its pain?" Eliz yelled, instantly nocking an arrow to her silver bow and aiming at the shivering sheep.
Meanwhile, I was kneeling in the corner next to the dozing Essence (the Green Slime), aggressively poking it to wake up. "Wake up, quick, secrete something healing! The animal is going to explode!"
Even Koram had lost his disciplined, cold-blooded commander stance. He was pacing around the sheep with his staff raised in the air, completely clueless. The grand combat engineer who had fought regular armies and defended border fortresses was utterly helpless against a writhing sheep.
"Put those weapons down, you idiots!"
The sharp, incredibly authoritative voice that echoed through the shelter belonged to Lira. The starving, shivering sweet girl was gone; in her place was a professional nomad with fire shooting from her eyes. Lira pushed the giant Barun aside with one hand and knelt beside the sheep, swiftly rolling up the sleeves of her thin cloak.
"Drop the pickaxe, you brute, and fetch me hot water and clean cloths immediately! Archer girl, lower that bow and find me a sharp knife! And you," she said, pointing at me, "come here and hold the animal's head steady, keep it calm. Now!"
All three of us obeyed instantly, stunned by the unexpected scolding from this tiny girl. Lira moved with such speed and professionalism that we were mesmerized just watching her. She massaged the animal's belly, expertly adjusted its position, all while humming soothing lullabies in her own tongue. After a sweaty, frantic scramble that lasted only minutes but felt like centuries, a new, tiny voice joined the warm air of the shelter. A tiny, wet, pitch-black lamb had been born into the world.
Lira wiped the sweat from her forehead as she carefully cleaned the lamb and guided it to its mother's milk, then turned to us and smiled. "You might know very well how to hunt monsters in the woods and dig trenches... But managing a birth is nomad work."
That evening, the atmosphere in the shelter had completely transformed. As we ate our steaming hot stew from the clay bowls, Lira looked around in disbelief at the underfloor heating and the absolute sense of security behind the door. She had lined up the rare winter seeds she brought in her bag on the table; these seeds could sprout indoors thanks to the heat. Koram proudly displayed the double-handled steel crosscut saw and the professional sewing kit he had secured through tough haggling in Aethelgard.
Barun ran his finger along the razor-sharp teeth of the saw, his eyes gleaming. "No more messing around with makeshift fences and broken branches," he said eagerly. He then looked at Lira and the sheep sleeping peacefully in the corner. "Our population is growing. Rabbits, deer, and now these balls of yarn... First thing tomorrow morning, I'm taking this new steel saw into the woods to cut the thickest timber."
"Not just for the animals," I chimed in, looking at the walls of the shelter that were now feeling too cramped for us. "This shelter is getting too tight for five people. It's time we build a real, sturdy barn, and a proper, warm new room for Lira on the other side of the sauna."
Winter might have begun to freeze the forest outside, but in our settlement, with our roaring kiln and the new lives joining us, everything was just starting to catch fire.
ESSENCE HAVEN
POPULATION: 5 People (+20 Rabbits, +3 Deer, +2 Sheep)
NEW PROJECT: Barn and New House Construction