The sun barely crested over the cavern's natural stone walls, casting thin beams of light that trickled through the entrance and danced along the surface of the underground lake. Where once the air had been thick with hesitation and doubt, now it hummed with movement and purpose. Hammers clanked. Tools scraped. Voices rang out—not in frustration, but in sync, with the rhythm of a team that finally believed in what they were doing.
The naval project was alive again.
After the dinghy's triumphant test, something in the people had shifted. That one successful voyage, however small, had done what no amount of planning or talk could have ever achieved. It had proven that the ship could move—not by paddle or brute force, but by the very wind itself.
