When (and How) to Extract

The Mound is an extraction game: treasure in your pack is worth nothing until you carry it back to the ship. Every expedition ends the same way — the whole crew loads its haul and returns to the rowboats that ferried you in, which take you back to the Tempestad. Die or get stranded in the forest and everything you were carrying is lost. Extraction isn't the end of the run; it's the point of it.

An AI-driven priest, Father Escalona, steers an ox-drawn wagon that follows your crew into the jungle. The game tells you not to worry about him — he knows when to follow and when to run from danger. The wagon is two things at once: your mobile hub, with a crate at the back for storing treasures and resources so the haul isn't riding on any one player's back, plus four quick-access slots on its side for anything you need to reach fast — and your route home.

If you are ever lost or lose track of where the ox-wagon is, blow your horn. Father Escalona answers with his own horn, and you follow the sound back to him. Note which way this runs: the horn doesn't summon the wagon to you, it tells you where the wagon already is. Bear in mind the forest is always vigilant and noise raises its hostility, so this is a tool for when you're genuinely turned around rather than a substitute for tracking the cart.

Extraction runs through the priest, not through a map marker. When your party is ready to complete the expedition, tell Father Escalona and he guides you back to the rowboats that ferried you in; you can also talk to him to send the wagon back to the boat. Extraction is still a team action — call your positions and confirm everyone is converging before you commit, because nothing wastes a good haul like most of the crew at the water while someone is pinned two zones away.

The forest gets more dangerous the longer you stay — pressure and spawns build over time. The teams that survive are the ones that leave with a good-enough haul instead of chasing a perfect one. Greed, not the monsters, ends most runs. When the pressure is rising and your packs are heavy, make for the wagon and go; a partial haul you actually extract beats a full one you die holding.

• Deposit loot in the wagon as you find it, so a single death never costs the whole run
• Scout and mark your exit route early, not when the forest is already surging
• Watch the escalation — combat noise and firearms bring the awakening on faster
• If a teammate goes down far from the group, weigh the rescue against the extract — sometimes the loot in the cart is already the win