Morning smelled of oil and rope. Oakwatch wore a new mirror frame waiting for glass; the horn cairns hummed when Jory tapped them—each the same note, a habit that felt like armor. Down on the drill green, a bare carriage sat like a question waiting for punctuation.
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• Castle Base I: first course laid; cornerstones set (soupsafe)• Battery: second scorpion Bramble to rig today; crew selection & drills• Cordon: Riversong Fort arcs steady; weirs −4; spawn window 15–20 days• Cross-Training (pm): Fox serpentine clinic (light cav) at Oak Rise• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright 🙂
Ansel stood in the inner ward trench up to his calves, slapping lime off his wrists, and pointed at the cornerstone with the pride of a parent whose child had just recited the alphabet to a storm. "There. She'll carry."
Mara arrived with a kettle and did the indecent thing: set it on the new stone, poured a ladle of water around it, and watched. It did not wobble. "Soupsafe," she declared, which is a word that means more than it looks like. 🍲😌
Hadrik wiped his hands on an apron that had known better days and tilted his head at the bare carriage. "Time to make her sing." He motioned to the stack: bow arms of clean ash; washers hammered out of tempered plate; rawhide bundles soaked and twisted; bronze triggers polished without vanity. Tam stood nearby vibrating quietly with purpose; Rinna pretended not to see and saw.
They named the new scorpion Bramble, because if Thorn was a period, this one would be the comma that made a sentence more precise and occasionally tripped the careless. The name felt right in the mouth.
"Crew," Rinna said, crisp. "Tam, you stay with me on Thorn until you can swear you won't brag to the air. Hake, Mira, Kellan—welcome to Bramble." She looked each one in the face. "You are not a weapon. You are grammar. You put dots where lies try to continue."
Tam tried not to look terribly pleased for the new crew and managed something like restraint. 😌
They rigged in order: axle greased; arm-sockets seated; torsion bundles threaded—rawhide twisted into sinew-vice until the washers sang a clean note; bow arms eased into the sockets with a groan that sounded like a barn remembering it was a ship; string spliced in with a prayer to fingers; trigger bed set and tested with a blank click. Hadrik's thumb followed the line like a blessing.
— Forge Queue Update• Bramble frame assembled; torsion bundles tensioned (rawhide); trigger bed set• Thorn maintenance cycle complete; toolroll calibrated• Bolt batch #12 lathed (30), fletched (linen wrap)
Jory chalked NO GREEDY SHOT on the drill green in letters big enough to embarrass a horse. Rinna fetched a paint pot and wrote the same on the scorpion rails in tidy strokes. "If you fire when you want the noise more than the dot," she told her crews, "I'll take the stock apart and make you eat the washers with soup." 🍲😑
Mira raised a hand. "Washers seem chewy," she said carefully.
"Then don't be chewy," Rinna answered. "Positions."
They rolled Thorn and Bramble to the butts outside line of sight from the Fort—behind a low fold of earth where nothing with a mask could watch. Ansel's people had hung moving targets on a rope-and-pulley rig: straw torsos wearing broken shield faces that swung and stuttered as if a drummer had designed mischief.
"Battery," Rinna called, voice even. "Dot is a gift you earn by not taking the last one. We'll work cadence—Thorn sets, Bramble repeats, then we let the air forget us."
Tam ran the range stick out, careful step, string at the half-mark. "Wind east to west," he called back. "Small and rude."
"Thorn," Rinna said, "period on mask height, leftmost." Tam breathed. Crew hands set. The shot surprised the carriage the way a good joke surprises a crowd.
Thwack. The bolt punched the straw face where bone would have felt religion. The swinging slowed, confessed, stopped.
"Bramble," Rinna said. "Comma on drum height, rightmost." Hake's crew mated hands to wood; Mira called wind; Kellan took the trigger with his breath, not his finger.
Thwack. The bolt scraped the drum line, enough to ruin a rhythm, not enough to break the drum. Rinna did not sigh. "Again," she said, and didn't raise her voice, because tone is also a weapon.
They repeated. Thorn dot. Bramble comma. Reload in discipline—not speed, honesty. Tam's hands did not fumble the lizard loop on the string; Hake's crew found the right tension without looking at a mark because fingers can learn numbers.
"Eight falling if you get clever," Jory warned from the rail with a grin, and the crews grinned back without letting it hit their hands.
On the fourth cycle, Hadrik stepped in with a small leather case. "Washers," he said. "They'll creep on you when you want to brag. Turn them before the brag arrives." He put Mira's palm on the wrench. "Half a kiss, not a clench."
Mira turned, felt the bundle hum, smiled a little. "Hello."
"Good," Hadrik said. "Make it sing, don't make it scream."
They ran moving proof then: Ansel's rig let two torsos jog across the field on a rope they pretended was a lie. "No double aim," Rinna said. "If you miss the comma, don't chase a semicolon."
Thwack.Bramble clipped straw at the ribs with a bite that would have made a drummer reconsider his resume. Thwack.Thorn turned a mask into a thesis about humility.
Tam watched the dust of a miss settle and chose not to "correct." Rinna saw the decision and granted him a silent stripe behind her eyes.
— Battery Certification• Thorn: moving target "mask height" – 4/5• Bramble: moving target "drum height" – 4/5• Reload cadence: 27s (Thorn), 31s (Bramble)• Mishap chance −20% (toolroll calibrated; washer discipline taught)• Doctrine engraved on rails: NO GREEDY SHOT.
Calder and the binders drifted over between clinic checks and watched with the look good healers give good danger—respect, not romance. "We like scorpions that think," Ameline said.
"They don't," Rinna answered, "but their crews do."
Noon opened its palm over the Flats, and the Fox arrived with a thrum of hooves like a polite argument. Lucien trotted down Oak Rise with that ridiculous ease; Renard led twelve light cav who rode as if dust were something you wore well.
"Serpentine clinic," Lucien called, cheerful. "We'll break nothing but pride."
Elara set the lane: three gates made of rope and sticks, offset with stupid temptations; flags at the turn points; the painted boundary that no one crosses under any horn. Bryn watched with cat eyes. Aiden stood with Jory at the horn perch, ready to put music to manners.
Renard demonstrated the fox serpentine at a trot so the eyes could learn before the feet. "Think of it like water," he said. "You make the enemy draw a line, then you are elsewhere without mocking the line for existing. And you always leave yourself a polite door."
Novaterra's riders took it in, first stiff, then looser: Rinna's cousin Rinna? Wait Rinna is scorpion leader; riders include Rinna? Let's avoid confusion. Let's name riders: Hale (he's also Pathfinder; he can ride), Ras? Ras not a rider. Let's use Lute (recovered from ambush), Tam is not cavalry. Use Rinna not rider. Ok: Lute, Rella, Tor, Siah. Good.
Lute rode with new caution and old grace, left boot replaced, pride haltered. He took the first gate tight and would have over-rotated if Jory hadn't blown two short for a polite correction. He grinned at himself instead of being embarrassed; that was progress.
"Dust is a tool, not a painting," Renard told Rella as she went wide. "Kick once, leave; if you admire your own cloud you'll marry a pike out of vanity."
They practiced hand-to-hand with flags: riders swooped not to take, but to tilt standards so shield lines learned to settle and not snap. Elara taught the hinge while the horses curved; Lucien taught the curve while the hinges held. Watching them together felt like learning to breathe twice at once.
Aiden used After-Sight once—not for an enemy, for risk. He thumbed the thought when Renard proposed a "little speed." The world admitted a tiny malice—not goblin, geometry—a low spot where a hoof would misplace itself and make a lesson into a broken leg.
"Gate two—shift one pace north," Aiden called. "There's a hole that doesn't love ankles." No one asked how he knew. Ansel glanced, found the hole, muttered something admiring and rude about invisible ditches, and moved the gate.
— After-Sight• Used: 1/1 (training hazard flagged); cooldown 12h• Note: Non-combat preventative use — valid.
By the end of the hour, Novaterra's riders could serpentine without composing poetry about themselves, and Lucien looked offensively proud. "My compliments," he said. "You're only a little ugly. We'll fix the rest next week."
Elara's mouth tilted—the rare yes. "And your pike-lites can come tomorrow for hinge manners again. I want them to know where our teeth aren't."
Renard bowed absurdly in the saddle. The crowd clapped because he knew exactly how to make them. Mara handed him a cup and didn't quite smile. 🍲🙂
— Cross-Training — Fox Serpentine (Module I)• Novaterra light cav: serpentine proficiency +1; no-greed egress adopted• Shared call: two short at gates (corrections)• Regional trait tick: Market panic −(small) when horns are shared.
Afternoon wore the dust gladly. Battery went back to work. Rinna set period drills: "Dot the mask that sings. If it isn't singing, save your dot. Bramble—comma on drum that doesn't know it's lying."
They simulated panic: Ansel's rig threw three targets and then a blank just to see if greed would take a shot at hope. It didn't. Thorn and Bramble both held their breath like good students at a funeral.
Tam asked, voice low, "When do we… get to shoot at something that's trying to hurt someone?"
"When the line asks for a dot," Rinna said. "Not when your feelings do." He took that into his spine and pinned it there.
They ended with silent reloads—no calls, just eyes and hands. Hadrik timed it without telling anyone. He was pleased and didn't show it. That is how Hadrik loves: numbers that cooperate.
— Battery — Afternoon Metrics• Cadence sustained: 6 volleys, 0 greedy shots, 1 deliberate hold (blank)• Reload (silent): Thorn 29s avg; Bramble 33s avg (trending ↓)• Crew traits unlocked: Measured Trigger (Rinna), Washer Sense (Mira)
Toward dusk, Bryn's Pathfinders came along the west arc with a small parade of silence: three gourds, two ropes, a basket of chalk, and the kind of satisfaction that made men taller without being stupid.
"Brush tunnel tried to grow back," Hale reported. "We told it no."
Ras dropped two pebbles on the table. "Perches learned shame," he said, which is Pathfinder shorthand for we made it hard to hide there.
Calder marked aid bins under flags with little suns. Sera re-painted sigils at the mine mouth because everyone feels calmer when symbols behave. Lia's cousin, now Hollow Aide, laid out tethers for a fresh delving class like a teacher putting chalk on a sill.
In the inner ward, cornerstones sat like patience. Hadrik's cramps sang when tapped. The fish ladder smiled its simple smile at the river. The Bell-Code plank hung where hands could see it and not panic by accident.
Clove drifted past with a notebook he ostentatiously did not open. "Two scorpions make letters cost more," he observed, admiring. "My employer hates when punctuation is affordable."
"Tell him rope is cheaper than funerals," Mara said, and gave him soup because she refuses to learn to be petty. 🍲
Lucien took his leave at the rise with the bow of a man who enjoys having neighbors he must work harder to outshine. "Your comma suits you," he told Rinna.
"Your horses stopped flirting with their dust," she replied. "A good day."
Aiden stood at Oakwatch as the sun drew a long line over Riversong Fort. The palisade looked smaller again, as if boredom were a blade that shaved swagger. He did not spend After-Sight; the best part of the day had been using it once to prevent a broken leg. A gift that buys tomorrow is worth more than a boast that spends today.
He walked the rails of Thorn and Bramble, read NO GREEDY SHOT out loud, and felt the words sit.
"Novaterra," he said to the cairns and the tower and the mine and the ring that kept a fort hungry, "we put a comma beside our period and taught both to wait their turn. We learned to curve without admiring our dust. We fed bread, and we fed patience. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind went down a gourd and came out two short—make way. The road obeyed. The river agreed. Thorn and Bramble settled like grammar that knows it will be asked to speak soon and doesn't need to clear its throat.
— Evening Summary — Novaterra• Bramble (Scorpion #2) rigged & certified; battery cadence stable• Doctrine engraved: NO GREEDY SHOT (both rails)• Cross-Training (Fox serpentine) completed; cav proficiency +1• Cordon steady; spawn window 15–20 days; west brush tunnel denied• Castle Base I: cornerstones soupsafe; first course set• Morale: Quiet-proud → Keen 🙂