~Kendrix
The night smelled like copper and rain.
We moved under it in silence — three shadows slipping through the Verdant perimeter. Mana fog rolled low across the ground, coiling around our boots. Somewhere far behind us, the city still breathed: faint hums of traffic, neon ghosts reflected in puddles. Here, though, there was only quiet and the soft click of our equipment.
Ardent walked ahead, coat brushing the wet grass. He carried himself like a man returning home, not invading one. That bothered me more than the cold.
“North array’s up ahead,” Denzel murmured through the comms. “Signal density’s low. We’re in the diagnostic pocket.”
I gave a short nod.
He crouched near the steel root of a communications pillar, fingers moving in small, precise arcs over his tablet. The lattice
