Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Harold let his hand fall away from the page, and the smear of charcoal on the heel of his palm darkened as the sweat soaked into it. Up close, the sheet showed every imperfection of the process—long fibers that hadn’t fully broken down in the press, a thin ridge where the pulp had settled unevenly. Caldwell had stood in this same room two weeks ago with a sample stack tucked under his arm, talking about cost curves and supply chains while Beth’s people hammered the frame together in the yard below. It was rough, but it meant they weren’t trading finished goods for every ledger they ruined.

Margaret shifted one of the clay weights, and it clicked against the wood, the small stamped mark—logging—rotating toward her as she turned the tallies sideways against the basin map.

“If we move a forge team in the next week,” she said, “Haven’s output rises enough that the forum posts look real instead of aspirational. The road crews lose their repair margin, but if we stagger shipments, the slowdown will appear as expansion rather than strain. Then we feed the river villages in increments matching the Phase 1 timeline.”

Harold rocked his chair back an inch and felt the edge of the table press into his ribs. The stone of the keep held the cool even as the air outside thickened, and the difference crawled across his skin where his sleeves were pushed up. His sword belt lay on the floor beside him in a dark coil, the leather still damp where it had rested against his hip.

“We’re hanging a lot on your Phase One,” he said, rolling the stylus. The charcoal dusted his thumb. He hesitated, feeling the weight of potential failure. “It probably works, though, and it’s not something I thought to use that way.”

“It works,” she said, not looking up. “This morning proved it. Only question is if it will over time and how much response it will provoke.”

He leaned back until the stone touched the back of his head and closed his eyes for a breath. Through the open window, the square broke into motion and sound in fragments—a wagon backing too fast and an optio swearing it into line, children trying to stack split wood in arms that were too full until an older woman stepped in and showed them how to brace it against their hips so the pile held.

Margaret squared a stack of tallies against the table with two sharp taps. “Phase One is briefed. My people know their triggers. We get one clean execution, and after that, everyone adjusts.”

“Yes, I know the plan,” Harold said, letting the stylus fall. It rolled into the ledger seam.

She stopped mid-gesture. “Don’t get testy,” she said, pointing at him as she noticed movement out the window.

He followed her gaze, and there, at the edge of the square, Josh and Beth were moving fast and didn’t belong to anything on their schedule. Josh had a coil of rope slung over one shoulder and was talking over it, his free hand carving shapes in the air. Beth walked a half-step ahead, pulling her gloves on as she went. An optio called after them and they didn’t slow. Two apprentices tried to fall in behind and were waved back without a glance.

Margaret’s chair legs scraped across the stone.

“They’re going out there again, and I don't know why. It’s most evenings,” she said, already moving.

Harold scooped up the stylus, dropped it onto the ledger—leaving a fresh black streak across the margin—then hurried to the door. By the time he reached it, she was already halfway down the stairs.

Heat struck him full in the face as he stepped into the square. Josh and Beth waited at the treeline. Margaret stepped off the road, angled across the open ground, cloak slicing a line between two wagons. He kept her in his sights for three steps, then she slipped into the heaving crowd and choking dust.

He lengthened his stride without breaking into a run, weaving between two soldiers hauling iron billets that clanked with each step. The grass at the edge of the square hissed against his greaves. He skirted dried ruts from the last rain, stepping over ridges and noting, almost absently, that they needed stone here before another storm turned the approach to mud.

He searched for Margaret beyond where the square tapered into trees. A hunter coming in from the woods nodded to him, then shifted his weight as if someone had just passed behind Harold’s shoulder. Spinning to follow the subtle movement, Harold spotted only the fold of shadow between two birch trunks, then Margaret materialized from it, stepping out as if she had been there all along.

“How are you steathing right now?” he said, pushing through branches. “What perk are you using?”

“I figured out the trick weeks ago,” she said, pleased. “Let's me fade and work better. I’ve been teaching my people how to earn it.”

“You vanished,” Harold exclaimed.

“I walked,” she laughed. “People ignore what’s quiet.”

He tried to hold her in his vision and lost her again the moment he looked directly at her. He stopped tracking her outline and watched the space instead—the way a clear line between two trunks closed and opened without anyone stepping into it, the way a bird lifted from the path and settled again a few feet farther on.

“You’ve been doing that in the halls for weeks.”

“Yep. Efficient,” she answered. “You should try it. It’s how I get anything done.”

“People need to see me,” he said. “I actually have to talk to them.”

“Well then,” she said, “don’t do it.”

The sounds reached them before the clearing did. A heavy drop reverberated through the ground, traveling into his knees. The rope dragged through a block, and voices rose and fell in a rhythm that wasn't argument and wasn't drill. They had been walking long enough for the air to shift; the scent of the town had dropped away. Now, the unmistakable coppery tang of old blood mixed with the humid exhale of turned earth and sap lay under everything.

They strode onto a slope hacked into rough rings.

Pits yawned at each terrace’s center. Nets swung from deeply braced poles. Between rings, teams cycled—resetting lines, hauling carcasses, stacking tools in neat rows along the edge.

Josh stood near the middle with his shirt plastered to his back, sawdust glued to his forearms. Beth crouched beside a pit with her palm flat on the ground, talking to a cluster of crafters who leaned in to hear her over the noise.

Marshal straightened from a frame he had been adjusting, a small, controlled flame resting in his hand as he spoke to Kers. Kers stepped aside to let two younger men drag a post into place.

At the far edge of the second ring, Robert brought his axe down in a cut that split a support exactly where the net’s tension released without snapping the cord. He shifted before the rope block even began to creak, already moving to the next position.

Josh looked up and grinned. “Watch out, the Lordship is here!” he called.

Beth rose with a slow exhale, her eyes moving from Margaret to Harold and back again. “Sooner than we hoped,” she said. “At least we have a working model.”

The people around Beth had gone still, uncertain if they were in trouble. Harold tried to match what he was seeing to anything on the ledgers he’d left behind.

Margaret had stepped off to one side where she could see the entire clearing. Her head moved in small, exact turns as she counted teams, distances, and stacks of tools.

"Okay," she said, her voice trailing off as if the weight of the situation had settled in. She observed the activity with a keen eye, striving to understand the gaps in her own knowledge. "What am I missing?" The unanswered question hung in the air, drawing everyone’s attention, as if her curiosity had sparked their own.

Margaret did not look at Josh when he came up. Her attention stayed on the nearest ring, on the net being hauled up hand over hand through the block, on the way the posts flexed and then held.

“Start at the beginning,” she said as they approached Beth and Josh.  “Why are there goblins in that net and an ambush cat in that one?”

Josh blinked once, then jerked his thumb toward the trees. “We have a team of adventurers helping. Same people who’ve been claiming the patrol in this area, so it’s not stumbled upon. They drive monsters into marked paths to trip the nets.”

As if to answer, a shout carried from somewhere beyond the slope, and the rope in the next ring snapped tight. The net rose with something thrashing inside it, the whole frame shuddering until the block locked in place and took the weight.

“So you’re catching monsters alive…” Margaret said.

“Yep!” Josh exclaimed. “The danger and immediate results help.”

Margaret’s eyes shifted to her. “Help what, though?”

Beth pointed with two fingers toward the pit as the release peg was knocked free and the net dropped. The impact came through the ground as Harold tried to watch.

“For them,” Beth said.

A team surged forward as movement in the pit lulled. Leather-armored, gripping axes and hammers, they moved with deliberate, practiced steps.

“They’re fighting it,” Harold exclaimed, exhaustedly realizing what they were doing.

“It’s controlled…mostly,” Marshal added. “It can’t run or get behind them. If someone slips or gets hurt, the others can pull them clear.”

Margaret watched the teamwork. One struck. Another hooked and dragged. A third stayed back, waiting for the moment to step in.

She hesitated, her gaze lingering over the teams, eyes catching on the sets of calloused hands and concentrated faces. They were the same hands that built the town, “But they’re crafters.”

“Sure are,” Beth said. “They’re sawyers. Masons. Tanners. They come out after shift. We come out most evenings and back to work in the morning.”

Margaret turned her head toward the stacked tools at the edge of the ring. “Why is that one person using a mallet?”

Josh looked embarrassed for a moment before saying, “That’s Hendrick, he on one of the construction crews. Refuses to use a real hammer.” Beth rolled her eyes at him before turning back to reply to Margaret, “It helps with the visualization,” Beth said. “Makes it easier to connect to the perk and manipulate it. He’s just an idiot because he wants to be that guy from that old movie, “Wreck-It Ralph. Remember how, in the end, that character got a goth girl to fall in love with him? It’s literally his whole reason.”

Harold found himself smiling despite himself, laughing at the reason. Guys would go to insane lengths for a woman. He seemed like an interesting guy.

The next ring over was already hauling a net into place.

“You’re training crafters to fight?” Margaret said.

“Well…no….but yes,” Josh said, laughing. “I’m gonna be an Archmage,” he said haughtily with a smile on his face. Beth dragged her hand over her face in frustration. “How about we just get you a perk as good as mine, Mr. Archmage,” Thoroughly deflating Josh’s bubble. “The goal is to make more capable crafters,” she reached down and picked up a rough stone the size of her hand. Her brow furrowed, and a look of concentration appeared on her face as she stabbed the stone with her other fingers, and a perfect cube appeared as the dust fell away.

Josh looked at Harold, the pride in his wife rolling off of him. “Now, imagine our construction crews all had the ability to shape materials like that. The time required to construct something would decrease dramatically.”

Harold looked at her seriously for a moment before letting his eyes travel over all the people who had gathered here, and Margaret's gaze followed his.  She watched in amazement from the ring to the path back toward the town, then to the people waiting their turn—quiet, watching the team in the pit, tools resting on their shoulders.

“How many injuries have you had?” Harold asked seriously.

Josh winced as if he didnt want to say it, but Marshal answered. “In the beginning, damn near everyone got injured. Now we’ve gone nights with no injuries, and no one has died.

“Gods Josh...” Harold had stopped watching the pit. He was looking at the line of crafters instead, at the way they stepped forward when their name was called, at the way the ones who had finished a cycle picked up their tools and moved back toward the trees in small groups, already talking about the next day’s work.

Harold sighed, taking it all in, proud of their initiative and alarmed at the same time. This was a lot of effort for something he was already developing, but… this was a great start and put them ahead of the curve. He would need to leverage self-interest more often in the future.

“Run one for us,” he commanded.

Beth turned her head. “Robert!”

He was already moving before she finished the word; whetstone dropped back into his pouch, and the axe came up into his hands as he crossed the packed dirt at a jog.

“One of the cats,” she added, and lifted two fingers toward the treeline.

Josh touched Harold’s elbow and steered him up the slope where a low rail marked the safe line. From there, the whole lane through the trees was visible, the guide ropes, the frame, the pit below.

“We have bait placed out there, goblin bodies mostly, but I read some of the notes on the herbs. And asked Elia to craft something we could use to attract monsters.” Josh said. “It works often enough that normally something is over there.”

A horn sounded once in the forest. The rope snapped tight, and the net came up with a thrashing weight inside it, claws tearing at the weave. Four people leaned into the haul, the block-and-tackle system taking most of the strain as they dragged a monster in from the forest, then rotated the ropes onto the crane's rope system.

“No one is out there chasing monsters,” Josh said. “We’ve tried to automate this as much as possible.”

Robert was in the pit before the net reached the frame, one quick check of the wedges at the base of the posts, then he started rolling his shoulders and getting loose as the release peg was knocked free.

The net dropped.

The cat hit hard, tangled for a heartbeat, and then came up snarling.

“Usually it’s three people,” Josh said, and there was something in his voice that wasn’t just instruction. Probably jealousy, Harold thought. “But he—well. Watch.” Josh muttered.

Robert didn’t rush. He waited for the animal to commit to the turn, feet set in the churned dirt, axe low. When it lunged, he stepped in, and the blade came down in a short, brutal arc that ended behind the shoulder.

The sound of it carried, and the cat folded where it stood without a cry.

Robert was already stepping back, pulling the axe free in one smooth motion, breath steady as he turned for the ladder. The cat was split into two portions, and it wasn’t even split where he smacked it.

Josh let out a low breath through his teeth. “He’s the strongest one we’ve got out here,” he said, not taking his eyes off the pit. “He’s been working on his control and doesn't burn himself out of mana in one swing. Now…Well, you saw…it helps his perk is made for cutting, but it's a logging perk. He and Kers, the big German over there, tested their skills against an iron ingot. Robert was able to cut halfway into it.”

Below them, the ground crew moved in, hooking the carcass, resetting the net as if nothing unusual had happened.

Robert came up out of the pit and took his place at the back of the line without looking toward the rail.

Josh shook his head once, half a laugh that didn’t quite land. “We’ve been trying to learn how gain perks that help us defend ourselves but also make us better at our job. At first, this helped, but I’m out of ideas now. Most of us now have some ability to manipulate our perks; only about a quarter of us actually gained a perk from any of this. But all of us have reported better results from work.”

Harold’s eyes stayed on Robert as he was laughing with the tall German fellow. “I think…,” Harold said. “I have a solution to your problem…” He turned to Josh, “I’m upset you did this without looping me in, but I get why, and this was good work. I need more capable crafters. I had a solution coming, but I’m glad you’re trying to figure this out yourself.”

​

Then he looked back to Robert…”Bring that kid to the office tomorrow morning. He just got himself reassigned.”