The outpost was rotting quietly before dawn. Eutie Silvanus placed her notebook on her lap and stared at the wall. More precisely, she was "appraising" it. [[Appraisal in progress]] [[Target: South wall of outpost—wooden section]] [[Durability: 18/100 · Decay progression rate: 4.2% annually · Estimated collapse: approximately 2.5 years]] "...Two and a half years." She spoke it aloud. It meant nothing. But somehow, when she converted numbers into sound, the reality of them felt a little more tangible. Beyond the wall, bird calls echoed from the still-dark primordial forest. Grentzer—the central settlement of Turarge, the easternmost frontier administrative district of the Velshen Empire—would greet the dawn emerging from the mist. The stone pavement was damp, and occasionally something stirred beyond the wooden palisade. Last night, the distant howl of a fang-jaw beast—a mid-sized magical creature with jaws of steel-like hardness, common in this region some 820 kilometers from the