Morning peeled itself off the night like a receipt from a clean counter. Oakwatch blinked — . (ready); the Waystone slept with one eye open; the cairns along Founders' Way hummed one clean syllable when Jory touched them—ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Shrine Action (Rope-Sanctioned)• Aim: end Drum-man authority at bead shrine; keep white witness• Roles: Tavi (voice & hollow), Mokh's bank-paint (stand in white), Bryn Pathfinders (cut spine), Jory/Waystone (Light–Horn Sync), Lucien fox wing (wash), Rinna battery (silent)• Rules: No chase; no trophies; rope tokens visible; two short opens help; one long closes ledger• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Ledger-steady 🙂
They walked with white—posts carried, rope tokens visible, hollow drum at center like a heart that doesn't make a fuss. Lia's cousin lifted child-sun just high enough to be seen and not argue.
The bead shrine sat under a sagging eave within the palisade mouth—strings hung like tame rain, lanyards braided into a spine across the ceiling. The Drum-man stood before it lacquered and necessary and furious, flanked by two runner priests whose hips had forgotten humility.
Mokh and three bank-paint foremen stepped into white and did not flinch. Tavi set his palm on the hollow, tapped stall/edge in a voice even boys would obey.
Elara raised white to waist—parley posture. Jory's horn waited; the Waystone took a breath.
"Hollow," Aiden invited, gentle.
Tavi knocked: ponk. Clean. He faced the shrine and spoke like a man reading terms to a market. "We cut grass under white. We trade rope for bread. We do not carry weather on strings."
The Drum-man smiled and hit the board—THRUM—like he thought sound could sign a contract. Strings shivered; bead spine hissed.
"Elara," Aiden murmured.
Two fingertips. Two short kissed the tower; the Waystone pulsed—quiet bands caressed the pegs into stuttering vowels. The shrine's whisper fell out of chain.
Bryn's Pathfinders moved without theater. Hale climbed the lintel like punctuation, found the spine knot dressed as piety, and set a knife where faith had never expected friction. Ras looped a rope through the ceiling beam and made a winch out of patience.
"Wait," Elara told glory quietly.
Tavi lifted his hand. "Now," he said—stall/edge with his voice.
Ras pulled; Hale cut. The spine surrendered like a lie asked to show its math. Beads rained softly—not a shatter, a relief. A runner reached for the rope in reflex; Lucien's fox lad moved his hand back with a touch that didn't need a story. 😌
The Drum-man counted on mirrors that weren't there and hips that no longer worshiped him. He took the stick like a man who thought he was still a government and raised it over white.
Tavi stepped between stick and law. He did not lift a shield. He laid palm to hollow and said, in the voice of a foreman who knows how to turn boys into bread, stall—edge.
Mokh spoke like a river that has decided where it will run. "No pegs. No beads. White stands. Drum sits."
The Drum-man swung anyway—too late for the math. Bryn's rope came off the beam, looped a lacquer wrist, and the pathfinder's pull was a paragraph explaining consequences. He fell forward into a cloth that was not a trap but a policy: a sling, not a spectacle. He hit mud, not myth.
"No trophies," Elara said aloud. Rinna's crews did not look up from nothing.
The two runner priests chose hunger over lacquer. Their hips went quiet. They slid behind Mokh and discovered white had room for men who could carry rules.
— Shrine Action — Resolution• Spine: cut; beads collected (logged under Bridge Law)• Drum-man: seized by rope (alive); delivered under white to holding shed• Bank-paint: declares Grass Law (no beads/pegs; white respected)• Waystone pulse: ON during disarm; peg cadence blurred (−25%)
Jory exhaled a trick he'd been saving: he lifted the mirror pane and the horn together—Light–Horn Sync—and wrote — . / . — across the Pact: ready / ready? Lenses on three roads answered — . like towns shaking hands at a distance. 🫡
Venn stood with slate and wrote law the way bakers set loaves: plain, hot, useful.
Regional Accord — White Corridor
White stands on both banks; hollow drum only; no pegs, beads, strings.
Bank-paint may cut tops under white; roots, not.
Spawn days: no raid; no mirrors within two bowshots; no drums at all.
Violations → fines/work-service or exile under Grass Law (Mokh).
Rope tokens honored by Pact signatories; forgery → market shun (Duvall).
Lucien signed with a tidy flourish. Mokh pressed a thumbprint that looked like mud choosing to be a seal. Ana of Silverbrook rapped the plank with a needle and dared anyone anywhere to forget root not. Mara slid a ladle across the board like an amen. 🍲🙂
The Drum-man lay in the holding shed behind a rope latch, lacquer bleeding rain, dignity bleeding volume. He tried consonants on the wood and got nothing back but splinters. Tavi stood the doorway with his palm on the hollow drum and did not gloat.
Calder checked his wrists the way compassion never forgets its job. "No broken," he said. "Only pride."
"Leave pride to air," Mara advised. "It dries into something you can sweep later."
Aiden let After-Sight bite once—a clean nail behind the eye—and looked through the shrine's absence. Roads unclenched. The market gutter forgot it was a rumor. The ford stopped wanting to be a sermon. Pressure fell—like a weather glass admitting it had lied.
— System: Regional Effects• Spawn Pressure: −1 tier in river arc (bank-paint cooperation; peg net dismantled)• Trait: Boring Wins — when Diamond Calm, Don't-Chase, and Measured Bite are all upheld in contact, enemy morale decay +small per minute• Unlock: Waystone Mk II (Stable Field) — questline available (more constant quiet; less After-Sight ache)
Clove left a leaf on the shrine plank.
You ended a noise with a ledger.Now build a quieter heart so your seer keeps sight.The Moth will go looking for a louder hill.— C.
On the northern spur, a clean mirror winked once—sharp, elegant—and then turned away like a gentleman losing interest. Bryn smiled without humor and made a note about tomorrow.
Mokh stood where boys could see him and did something rarer than a speech: he worked. He cut one top reed, left the root, and handed the blade to a runner who had not earned it. "Bread," he said. The word traveled better than any drum.
Jory wrote — . back at three cairns and felt the desire to perform go out of the day like steam under a towel.
Elara bumped Aiden's shoulder with a gauntlet that had never needed extra ornament. "We traded a banner for a broom," she said.
"Doors stay open," he answered.
"Good arithmetic."
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the river that kept being a road when asked nicely, "we cut a shrine's spine, put a drum under rope, and wrote white into the region with signatures instead of scars. The spawn jaw unclenched; the market remembered how to breathe. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Regional Accord• Bead Shrine disarmed; Drum-man seized alive under white (no trophies)• Accord signed: White Corridor recognized; Grass Law (bank-paint) posted• System: Spawn Pressure −1; Boring Wins unlocked; Waystone Mk II questline available• Optics: Light–Horn Sync tested (— . / . —); northern Moth mirror withdrew (watch)• Morale: Quiet-proud; soup excellent; roads open 🙂