You kneel beside the rough plank map and press a thumb into the spot you want for the sleeping hall, far enough from the stream to stay dry and near enough to the entry shaft to flee quickly if the mountain wakes angry. The others crowd in, their breaths steaming in the cool air, and they nod as you explain how warmth will travel from the forges below and how a central corridor will keep the whole colony from feeling like a burrow of separate fears. A few quick strokes of charcoal turn the guess into a plan, and the marked ground suddenly feels less like raw dirt than the first private promise of home.

Before the pegs are driven, one of the scouts returns from the tree line with ash on his boots and a sharp look in his eye. He has found a ring of scorched stones half-hidden under fern roots, old enough to be swallowed by moss but deliberate enough to raise every beard in the camp, and the nearest pines bend away from it as if remembering heat. The discovery splits the colony at once between curiosity and caution, for the marked sleeping hall lies only a short haul downslope from whatever once burned there.