First Rest was not much to look at.
A collection of weathered buildings clustered around a crossroads where the main path split toward different zones, functional and sparse, designed to feel like a waypoint rather than a destination. I had built it that way deliberately: a place to resupply and orient before committing to the next challenge, with just enough character to feel inhabited without pulling focus from the zones surrounding it. The kind of settlement that existed for gameplay purposes and knew it.
Jake and I had not spoken much during the final stretch of road from the Glass Wastes border. He had given me the terrain information I needed, I had given him the encounter knowledge I had, and together we had made it through without dying, which had felt like a victory at the time.
