Chapter Five: The Green Unknown

They stepped out into the forest.

Not a forest like any Caleb had known. No trails or birdsong. Just a warped, alien wilderness of twisting roots and towering trees that looked older than memory. The air was thick. Not humid, exactly but alive. As if breathing and watching.

Dina said it first. "All this still doesn't feel real."

It didn't. The trees were too tall. The trunks too smooth. And the light that filtered through the canopy shifted constantly, like clouds were moving even though the sky itself was still.

They moved cautiously. Each step muffled by layers of moss and strange, spongy foliage. The forest had a way of swallowing sound, making their movements feel distant, and unreal. Caleb's boots left no tracks. The soil wasn't exactly soil either, It felt too soft and too pliable. Like flesh pretending to be earth.

Caleb raised his hand. "Don't spread and stay close."

They quietly nodded.

And then they saw it.

Not at once, but little by little.

A crude wooden fence, it was half-rotten and covered in moss. With smoke trails, faint and oily, drifting above the trees. Shapes moving between the trunks. Small, hunched and inhuman creatures.

Caleb ducked, motioning the others down. They crawled to the edge of a small rise and looked down into the valley below.

A village.

But not like any they had seen.

It looked like someone had built it out of garbage. Tents made from stitched leather, bones used as scaffolding, weapons like sharpened scrap. And things moved through it. Creatures, green-skinned and wiry, with cruel eyes and oversized ears.

"What the hell…" Soren whispered.

"They're so small," Dina murmured.

Caleb's heightened Perception caught their wiry frames. "Half our size," he said. "Likely half as strong as a normal adult, but we'll need to fight them to be sure."

They watched for a while longer, unmoving. The creatures moved with purpose. Some carried tools. Others argued or fought over scraps. It was chaotic, crude, but not mindless. There was structure buried beneath the savagery.

"Are they the hostiles?"

Marek's voice was cold. "Doesn't matter. We've got nothing. No weapons. No armor. No food."

"True," Caleb said. "All we have is time."

Ellen looked pale. "You think they're intelligent?"

"They built that, didn't they?" Dina said.

A deep silence fell which made them all uneasy.

Then the interface pulsed again.

FLOOR FIVE OBJECTIVE

ENEMY TYPE: INVADER GROUP

SURVIVAL REQUIRED: FOUR OF FIVE

REWARD: TEN EXTRA STAT POINTS

[Tower Database – Entity Analysis: Invader Group]

Name: Skraelings

Type: Humanoid – Tier 2

Threat Level: Moderate

Strength: 5, Agility: 8, Endurance: 6, Perception: 7

Weak Spot: Spine

Skills: Scavenger's Strike – Quick melee attacks with improvised weapons

Drop Items: None

Caleb tapped the ground.

"We don't know how to fight them," Marek said.

"No," Caleb agreed. "We don't. But we'll find out."

"How?" Ellen asked.

He stood. "We hunt. My Strider's reflexes and Fast Step can close the gap quickly. Dina, your Savant insight might spot patterns in their movements. Soren, with your strength can hold the line. Ellen, your shadows could distract them. Marek, your Binder chains can pin one down."

They all looked at him.

He gestured down toward the woods. " We wait till on of them is isolated, we observe for a bit then we ambush. That's how we survive this floor."

"Won't they notice and try to fight back?" Dina asked.

Caleb didn't blink. "Then we learn faster."

No one argued. The strategy was brutal, but clear.

Predators and prey. That was the new shape of the game.

The others rose slowly. Soren's jaw was tight, his Vanguard resilience steadying his stance. Dina kept swallowing, her Savant mind scanning the treeline for patterns. Ellen sat down slowly on a thick root, hugging her knees. Her eyes didn't look afraid anymore, just tired, as if Calm Heart dulled her panic. Marek's fingers twitched, Binder chains flickering faintly in his hands.

For the first time since the Tower began, they would have to kill something that seemingly thought.

They retreated from the ridge. Carefully, one slow step at a time, until the village was hidden behind a screen of crooked trees and woven vines. Caleb led them deeper into the woods, far enough that the smell of smoke faded, but not so far they would lose sight of their objective.

They needed distance. Time to think and prepare themselves.

To feel the weight of what came next.

Caleb stopped in a clearing overgrown with roots and knotted grass. The silence here was heavier, like the forest itself was listening. The others gathered around him in a loose circle, eyes scanning the trees, ears straining for sounds that weren't their own.

"We wait here," Caleb said, his Strider senses sharp. "Dina, watch their movements with Savant insight. Ellen, use Veilcaller shadows to mask us if they get close. Soren, Marek, be ready to strike or bind."

"And then?" Soren asked, gripping his fists, Vanguard strength coiled.

"Then we make our move."

Ellen hugged her knees tighter. "Do you think they have families?" she asked.

The question settled over them like a weight. Soren rubbed his face with both hands. Dina turned away, her Savant focus wavering. Marek's fingers curled into fists, then relaxed, then curled again, his Binder chains shimmering faintly.

Caleb watched them process it. The slow realization of what they were planning. What they were becoming.

"Does it matter?" he asked quietly.

"It should," Ellen whispered.

"Should," Caleb repeated. "But the Tower doesn't care what should matter. It cares what we do."

He looked at each of them in turn. Saw the fractures forming. The pieces of themselves they were losing, floor by floor, choice by choice.

"We can stay human and die, or we can become whatever keeps us alive." His voice was steady. Matter-of-fact. "There's no middle ground in this place."

Caleb turned his head and listened to the forest, his Perception catching a distant snarl. Somewhere out there, something moved. Not loud. Not very far away.

He lowered his voice. "Be ready. We move when the time is right."

The forest breathed around them.

Waiting, just like they were.