The boy, seemingly in his mid teens, extended his hand gesturing at the rat “Congratulations!” he exclaimed. Before Ozzy could wrap his head around the situation the boy continued. His eyes creased with worry as he looked Ozzy up and down “Oh, um you don’t look great. Do you need help?”

“Uh…” Ozzy responded numbly. He paused for a moment before continuing “I was just going to go… Uh, home and recuperate for a bit”. Now that he’d come face to face with another person he was all tongue tied.

“Oh!” The boy said. “Could I follow along!?”

It seemed every other thing he said was an exclamation or question. Or both. Though it made some sense. If Ozzy hadn’t just experienced the brutal strangling murder of a ridiculously large and resilient rat he’d likely be overjoyed to meet someone new. That was exactly why he was in this square in the first place. He’d been so eager to find somebody, or even something, to interact with he’d blindly stumbled into a fight he nearly didn't survive. He probably wouldn’t have survived it nine times out of ten. Which made him wonder if he was safe next to this suspicious boy who appeared out of nowhere. He thought for a moment on how to best broach the subject but in the end he just blurted out. “Who are you?”

“OH! Sorry!” The boy said, waving his arms in a warding off gesture. “I completely forgot! I’m Cederick.” he continued tapping his chest. “Usually I introduce myself after congratulating people, but was thrown off with your injury.”

“Usually? So you’ve met other people here?” Ozzy asked, now both more cautious and excited. If there were more people about maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all. At the same time he wasn’t sure if he trusted some random group of people that could show up unannounced.

“Well, yeah, although I guess that depends on what you mean by people” Cederick said, looking off to the side. “I wasn’t always lucky when finding others and I am not very good at protecting myself or killing things” At this he gave the large rat a wary look. “I learned my lesson though and now I make sure to get a good feel of a place before stepping over”.

Ozzy still wasn’t entirely convinced but felt a bit disarmed with the way the kid blabbered on as if he was in a rush to get the story out. Something about it felt genuine. Also his description of getting a feel for a place lined up with Ozzy’s own experience connecting to places. Not that it in any way corroborated the boy’s honesty but it at least felt like it did. “I guess that’s fine, but I’m not sure if you’re able to” Cederick looked at him confused at first then Ozzy continued “I mean when I tried to come here at first I bounced back”.

“Oh, Right!” Cederick replied, smacking his own forehead “Usually the havens try to protect their occupant once they get one, but they also listen to it. Being inviting toward someone, or even just wanting to meet them should get your haven to allow them through!”. The clarification came across as if it was something rather obvious and easy. Honestly it kind of was, as he’d had similar insights. Initially this rat's haven had resisted both his membrane’s intrusion as well as his own. Only after the rat had responded to his intent to meet it and it entered his own haven did the rat haven then open up for him. Huh, he kind of liked that term, it didn’t really make more sense than anything he’d been using before. It was likely because somebody else had used it and he didn’t have to come up with it on his own. That, and if this kid had met lots of others, which it seemed so, and some of which he was able to talk to, then they likely used the same terminology.

“Um, Sure I guess you can follow then” Ozzy said although even while saying it he was still hesitant. He was holding a core that held almost half as much energy as he’d collected today from the other rats. Not to mention he had a pile of cores in his recliner pocket. Hobbling to the edge of the grass tiles he stepped into his haven and continued on to his recliner. Shoving the huge core into the pocket he pulled a small pile of the normal ones out. Holding them against his injured leg he let them get to work healing. Maybe he could get this fixed before…

Even as the thought crossed his mind Cederick appeared on the same grassy tile Ozzy had stepped onto. Cederick looked up and nodded appreciatively. “Yeah! There you go. They’re great for helping with wounds. It was good you had some stockpiled.”. He stepped nother tile closer and Ozzy was about to react, but instead of continuing forward Cederick sat down right on the grass. He leaned back and braced himself with a hand to get comfortable. Ozzy wasn’t sure where to start but asked the thing he was most curious about to get the conversation going. “So, you’ve been here a while then?”. Cederick chuckled to himself and nodded

“Yup!” He said “It’s a pretty long story… “. Cederick’s story began essentially the same as Ozzy’s. It quickly diverged though. His haven didn’t quite live up to the name. Awaking in complete darkness. No bright sky, no stars, not a single bit of light. He’d spent a lot longer calling out for someone. Likely due to the fact that he couldn’t see anything. After getting no response and hearing nothing he felt around but only found a stone below him and nothing else. He hadn’t spent much time in his haven before taking a step to get out of there, assuming that he was trapped in some kind of cave.

The step took him to another pitch black haven with what he described as a ‘little demon cherub’. “Somebody later said that would be called an imp, but at the time I was just horrified”. Continuing with the story Cederick explained that at first he had no idea what it was and didn’t even know it was there until it started scratching and slashing at him with its rather long claws. There was no warning hiss or squeak like Ozzy had received. He’d yelled out and grabbed whatever it was squeezing it to keep it from attacking. He’d actually tried talking to it in case it was a person or something but that just caused the thing to lash out and wriggle even harder.

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Yelling and crying Cederick had smashed the thing against the stone he now found himself standing on then fled back to his haven after dropping it. Huddled and still overwhelmed he’d taken quite some time to get up the courage to try venturing out again. Never realizing the haven had grown by one tile at the time. It was on his second trip to the Imp haven that he was able to figure out that he wasn’t just taking a step forward but into some other place entirely. Another Imp, this time one that thankfully screeched at him, greeted him and caused him to step right back out of there. Which immediately silenced the Imp. A few back and forth steps confirmed to him that the Imp’s protests were being cut off the instant he stepped away from it.

It was only then that he started to explore his starting spot. Staying there for a time he hoped somebody might come find him, but eventually, like Ozzy, hunger and thirst pushed him forward. Again things diverged from there. Cederick was quick to move on from the first connection he could feel as he wasn’t finding what he needed there. This also got him used to the feeling of connections to other havens much faster. He’d done rather well for himself despite the torturous environment. There’d been a little luck in that one of the first few Imps he’d killed had a puddle on its square when he killed it. That puddle allowed him to stay back in his haven more often than not. The water tasted a little stale but was otherwise fine, as he never felt sick from it. To pass the time he examined the uncountable connections he could feel and tried to get a feel for them. Not too different from Ozzy’s exploration of them.

What surprised Ozzy was that Cederick said he actually could tell the difference between the connections, at least in some ways. He’d started feeling slight tremors or vibration from some of them at times, afterward he could sometimes feel them open up, as if they were welcoming him over. Other times they would remain closed afterwards. The first time he built up enough courage to actually step into one of those connection’s he’d found nothing there. Other than a field of stars, and hard cracked earth under his feet. There’d been a similar reaction for him as to what Ozzy had experienced seeing the stars again, although much more visceral for him. As it was the first light he’d seen at all in what had felt like a week.

The experience, and the need for some light had caused him to stay for much longer than Ozzy had. Instead of a few minutes to watch the stars, Cederick had spent nearly an hour just staring. Long enough that he’d been kicked back into his own haven. Later on he’d understood this was due to the place being occupied by a new resident, but at the time he wasn’t that cognizant to find out what happened. His response had been to scream out “NOOO!” and holler at the nothingness around him. Eventually he’d shouted “Where did the stars go! Bring back the STARS!”. At which point his haven had obliged with a starry sky of his own.

The shock made him freeze and slowly flip himself over. Where he stayed for he didn’t remember how long. The light allowed him to get a view of his new home for the first time since arriving. He stood on one of four reddish brown stones each a square, with obvious lines of separation between them. One of which had a puddle of water on it. Seeing it reminded him of how thirsty and hungry he was. Although he had been drinking regularly from the puddle it was still full. Which he found continued to be the case in the following days.

Food though he had no source of, at least not yet. With a full week since he’d eaten he was really starting to starve. That drove him to do something he hadn’t even thought possible before. Not wanting to relive each moment of it he instead just told Ozzy that he’d eaten one of the imps. Ozzy didn’t want to think about how he’d accomplished that as he’d given no description of any knife, or weapon he had on hand. Eating the Imp had led him to find the cores, though Cederick called them essence spheres. Which in turn helped significantly with his hunger and weakness.

While it did help immensely physically it didn’t help emotionally. Cederick didn’t have something easy like rats to work with. Imps were humanoid little creatures with arms, legs, hands and faces not too dissimilar to humans. Although he did from time to time kill one out of necessity he spent most of his time eyeing the connections in the hopes of finding another place like before. Maybe, hopefully this time there would be somebody that could help him. At this point Cederick paused and looked off wistfully before continuing.

He’d spent months trying to find someone, anyone, or anywhere, he could get help to improve his situation. The first time he saw something other than just another set of squares it was a beast in the middle of eating its kill. Narrowly avoiding death there had given pause to his search. He kept watch on the connections still holding off on returning after the near death experience. Which allowed him to get even better at reading the connections. Eventually he found he could feel the intent of those present at the connections. Which spurred on another attempt at a visit. Of course intent wasn’t the same thing as reading character. Especially after that person just murdered something.

His next few meetings were still not great. Some didn’t speak his language. Most were still aggressive. He said he did eventually meet some people worth meeting. People who were willing to trade with him at least, if not outright help him. “So that’s what brings me here” He said, wrapping up, “what about you?!”