Journey at dawn i

Dawn sunlight filtered between swaying pines as Jiro stuffed a final ration pack in his duffle, mentally tallying equipment. Nearby,

"Ruka gulped her rice cake while tossing crumbs to the twittering birds".

Jiro nodded to her briskly and hoisted his walking staff.

No words needed after long seasons together struggling towards this refuge.

Passing groggy gate sentries, Jiro squinted against the rising sun. No promises of fortune, only necessity’s goad to stock their sanctuary against bitter months soon emptying the land’s generosity.

Jiro exhaled Frosty plumes striding ahead with Ruka his quiet shadow.

By late morning Jiro’s thighs burned ascending the craggy track as Ruka steadily outpaced him towards derelict ruins promising lost relics.

Pride stung each rest stop where he pretended adjusting laces. Youth still mocked aged joints once tireless on perimeter march.

"Now much wearied faster. But her encouraging glances never smirked at his labors two paces behind".

In broken stone foundations and tumbled walls embraceing long-dead villages swallowed by encroaching trees, Jiro discovered glass jars of preserved oddments still intact, their dusty faces beaming like diamonds.

Each bottle a torch against hungry nights or wounds unanswered by all earth’s herbals. Jiro tucked them with care inside protective wrap, every container a fired clay bearer of precious things from lost generations.

"What families had sealed these vessels against darkness visible now only to scavenger descendents"?

Huddled around their tiny driftwood stove years ahead, refugees would owe past ghosts silent tribute when raising jars to cracked lips.

By afternoon Jiro could survey their sanctuary boundaries reduced now to distant smudges where ridgelines converged far below.

All those souls who depended on him and Ruka for survival across coming bitter leagues seemed to peer through trees that separated them by hard necessity.

To fail at his solitary task was unthinkable; too many beloved or those still unmet would perish. "That dread North Star must hold fast however exhaustion and doubt capsize all inner compass bearings".

Before descending through shadows that would soon erase the valley below, Ruka paused abruptly like a hound scenting past breezes.

She pointed off trail where intrusive undergrowth swallowed all but the mouth of a hovel beside evidence of large cargo hastily moved to conceal traces. Why such effort hiding passage if intentions prove benign?

From habit Jiro studied the secreted gap, marking signs of regular heavy traffic oddly clustered right outside their refuge perimeter. Alarm trickled slowly then. But till threats appear beyond instinct's needle pricks, charity bids suspending judgment against strange benefactors.

He........ nodded to Ruka. Together they would probe delicately but withdraw faster if mysteries prove darker than first supposed. Inside, mud-tracked floor held candles guttering low in wall niches and a second inner portal secured by oiled hinges and complex locks belying barriers more expected for bankers’ vaults.

"What were such impediments defending or obscuring? Jiro felt Ruka’s equally narrowed eyes signaling shared questions".

Beyond the ciphered doorway, bare chambers stretched holding caches of medicines and trauma gear long vanished from frontier barter stalls.

"Dust blankets over crates clearly undisturbed generations left no doubt inventories lay complete from initial interment.

Power conduits feeding small indicators still emitted gentle hums. What contingency so dire or projected crisis demanded such preparations be secreted away useless until too late for relief?

Jiro ruffled his scalp uneasily as deeper rooms revealed locked bio-arsenals and prototype firearms exceeding any outlander trade convoy's hopes. Guarded resources on such scale made no coherent sense so distant from settlement industry and markets.

Little matched between extravagant equipment still operating with no keypads or displays indicating this facility's interim purpose. Someoverwrite code made these halls now run blind.

While Ruka stalked the perimeter, Jiro disabled locks on a final vault where shelves and cabinets stood recently accessed. Prising open wedged doors released his breath seeing row upon row of precious medicine long expired outside lost peaks where technology's special gifts had briefly germinated after the last world fell.

Their village still desperately needed such providence to treat fevers, wasting and accidents beyond the wizened talents of one threadbare healer.

Surely mitigating such relentless agony outweighed respecting ambiguous rules of some ghost benefactor against diffuse later hopes?

No sage could demonstrate such impressive but idle vaults better served being sealed from populations wandering diseased in the outlands. Fate had positioned the right thief to rescue what better use value cried for. Theft shades to morality when suffering pleads against indifference.

Pack space severely limited choices from this buried cornucopia. Jiro selected bare essentials their healer needed most desperately then helped Ruka gather additional precious compounds into storage bundles.

"Who could predict how master keys might open doors when options ran dry"

Thus had Jiro learned hard rule that knowledge itself holds power still when old strengths fail. They must take enough to alleviate current pain yet not attract violent notice in leaner seasons soon to follow.

Jiro eyed the mysterious installation's faintly pulsing hardware as he gingerly resealed the pharmacy vault. If original architects someday returned to inventory, what explanations could he ever assemble their ghosts would accept or comprehend? Those open questions must hinge on trust in his Speaker's wisdom once these numinous treasures reached her sway.

Beyond that leap, this windfall bore only light to warm, not weapons to expand dominion. Let higher justice determine the rest.

Jiro secured the portal concealing any hints of their surgical infiltration then stood breathing deeply until doubts stopped swirling. However obtained, these medicines would genuinely heal rather than harm. That moral compass heading must guide whatever other failures of rule or rebellion plague his record behind.

Graver sins stalked the wooded horizon soon to descend than reclaiming tools left teetering on time's cliff edge of forgetfulness. Did not healers pledge service before personal codes? Hard passages had scoured him enough to stand on that rock regardless of familiar landmarks sinking from view.

With the prize bundled safely in their stretched packs,

Jiro and Ruka descended through purple twilight now erasing their valley refuge into ghostly silhouette.

***************

Tomorrow would unveil all choices awaiting inside those distant gates. But tonight still welcomed dreamless rest however threatening their undisclosed holdings. Sleep proved a slumbering ally no longer taken lightly this side of the dream fields their most ancient ones had wandered. But survival left slim space for idle reflections.

**********

Let Speaker Han wisely judge his due; Jiro's bones had wandered too long and far beyond lawful fences. Justice would stand where they made camp if heaven still held any court.