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Before dark

Artifact Intent​

  • Story role: Decision. The MC commits to a shelter site, plans a fire, and writes the vow they will keep through the night.
  • Playable-lore position: clue -> investigation -> partial truth step in miniature. The MC names the night as the next problem and stages the work that will answer it.
  • What this artifact must not claim: any explanation of why the night is dangerous beyond the MC's own observations; any named hostile force; any narrator voice that knows what is coming.

Narrative Surface Notes​

  • Artifact shape: measured diary entry; the MC writes the way someone writes when they have stopped panicking and started counting.
  • Player-facing uncertainty: the MC names "things" only in abstract — the MC has not seen a hostile creature yet, only the wrong patch by the stream and the quiet of the air.
  • Journal or objective linkage: closes act0.survive.prepare-for-night; opens act0.survive.search-for-food.

Body Draft​

Before dark.

There is a stone outcrop where the slope breaks. A fallen tree lies across the lower side. The fallen tree leaves a wedge of dry ground under the outcrop the rain would not reach. That is the shelter. I have looked at three other spots and this is the best one.

I am going to make a fire small. Small for two reasons. First, I have only the one flint and the knife with the chipped edge and the small bundle of dry stuff I gathered on the way up. Second, a big fire is a beacon. I do not want to be a beacon to anything tonight.

I do not know what is out here. I know the air is quiet wrong. I know the patch by the stream is wrong. I know my body hurts more than the bruise on my forearm explains. That is enough for me to plan as if something is out there.

I wrote a line for myself at the top of this page, where I will see it in the morning if there is a morning. It says: do not leave the fire to die.

I will sleep in the wedge. The knife stays in my hand. The pack stays under my head. The water skin stays at the foot of the fallen tree where I will not knock it over reaching for it.

I am not afraid. That is a lie. I am afraid, but I am writing it down so that the fear has a place to be and does not have to come and live in my chest for the whole night.

I should eat something. There is not much, and I am thinking about whether I find food while the light still holds or whether I save what I have and stay put. I think I find food. The jerky is two strips and there will be a tomorrow.

Playable Consequences​

  • Immediate consequence: act0.survive.prepare-for-night resolves on shelter committed and fire plan registered; act0.survive.search-for-food opens.
  • Follow-up clue, mission, site, or world-state change: 'first shelter' becomes a registered site entity that later entries reference; the 'do not leave the fire to die' line registers as a Journal-pinned line.
  • Related branch or linear continuation: linear; next entry is act0-day1-food-or-trouble.

Review Notes​

  • Open questions: whether the 'do not leave the fire to die' line should also surface in the Journal's pinned-line UX is a gd-journal.md concern; this entry leaves the line in body prose only.
  • Canon-delta follow-up: none.
  • Audit carry-forward: the small-fire / beacon reasoning should stay consistent across later entries that touch demon-proximity caution.