Morning lifted its lid gently. Oakwatch blinked — . (ready); the Waystone purred low under the tower planks; the cairns along Founders' Way hummed one clean syllable when Jory touched them—ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• State: Regional Accord signed; Grass Law posted; bead spine cut; Drum-man held alive• Project: Waystone Mk II (Stable Field) — longer quiet, less seer-ache• Ops: White clerks (child-sun + aides) to notarize rope and reed exchange• Cordon: standards steady; no chase policy remains• After-Sight: Ready (0/1) — sensitive (Mk I pulse echo)• Morale: Work-bright, pleasantly tired 🙂
Kessa had a sketch under her palm: a ring of little mica shutters around the crystal, each tied with reed cord to a drip-cooler—a gourd with three pinholes feeding water onto a copper lip. "We make a pond in the stone," she said, eyes bright. "Quiet stays round, not sharp."
Émile frowned like a man building a cathedral out of kettles. "I will need thin tin," he warned. "And no flour near the bench."
"Done," Mara said, putting a NO FLOUR sign on the path with a ladle. 😑🍲
Ansel measured Oakwatch's ribs with rope and a scowl. "We can take a brace ring at mid-level," he decided. "If it groans, we love it until it stops."
Aiden touched the first Waystone cradle and felt the chalk-nail ache rise like a tide. He did not pretend it was nothing. "We buy hours if we can," he said. "But not with my head." Elara's look said: we will not pay twice.
Tavi stood near the table, rope token at his belt, the hollow drum under his palm like always. Mokh sent two bank-paint foremen to watch the work. "If it sings wrong, men will hear," Tavi said simply. "Better they hear true."
— Project Card — Waystone Mk II (Stable Field)• Inputs: 1 small crystal splinter (from the big heart's trimming), mica shutter ring, drip-cooler gourds, copper lip, tin-solder frame, lens hook v2• Assembly: Glass Isle (Kessa/Émile) → Oakwatch mid-brace (Ansel/Jory)• Target effect: Stable Field — quiet bands continuous at low strength; seer-ache ↓• Risk: tower resonance; optics drift; Pike sabotage (watch rails)
Glass Isle turned earnest.
Kessa and Émile cut the splinter off the mother crystal with a saw that sang little sighs. "No more than a thumbnail," Émile warned. "Stone likes being itself."
The mica shutters—eight of them—hung on reed pivots around the splinter. A drip of clean river water tapped the copper lip steadily; a tiny gourd-valve found a rhythm no drum could bully. Kessa clucked to the assembly like a hen teaching chicks to be quiet.
Jory brought over the lens hook v2, a neat brass thing with a foolish little loop Kessa had insisted on so fingers wouldn't touch glass when brains were busy. "We name it Fool's Grace," she said, pleased.
At Oakwatch, Ansel bolted in the brace ring like a wedding band. The tower didn't groan. It hmm'd as if entertained. They seated the splinter ring below the main cradle, cinched the gourd cooler, slipped the Fool's Grace into place, and then all of them stepped back like midwives in a polite room.
Jory tuned. He lifted a mouthpiece, hummed at the stone like a man trying to flatter a cat, and listened for the between.
The Stable Field woke like dew.
Not a pulse. A soft floor under sound. The world's mean edges rounded. Aiden pressed thumb to brow and waited for the nail. It came as a blunt thing, not a spike. He breathed. The ache did not climb.
"Good arithmetic," Elara said, and meant we keep both the field and the man.
— System: Waystone Mk II Online• Field: Stable (quiet bands at low strength); peg consonant effectiveness −10–12% always within arc• Pulse overlay (Mk I): available (−25%) on two short; seer-ache reduced (tolerable)• Maintenance: refill drip gourds each dawn and dusk
Down below, white clerks reported to Venn: Lia's cousin (child-sun, solemn), Jory's niece Tess (ink smile), and a bank-paint boy with a reed-pen laced to his wrist so pride couldn't drop it. They learned to stamp rope tokens, record reed bundles, and scowl at any bead that tried to pretend to be decorative.
"Say the loops out loud," Clove told them, drifting by. "Audit with kindness; shame with math."
So children stood at planks and counted loops until men remembered three is work. 🙂
By noon, Mara declared the bench open—as long as nobody sneezed flour onto mica. People came in with polite errands: reed to rope, rope to broom, broom to work. Tomas shambled in from Millcross under his wife's eyes and breathed out steam over the oiled cone. He nodded to Tavi—two fingers—like men who have shared a table.
"Stupid day," Tomas grinned, breath easier. "Feels like a road again."
"Stupid road," Mara answered, ladling soup like a treaty. 🍲🙂
Bryn's Pathfinders ran Optics v3: tins at shrines; string sweeps on carts; mirror audits on rooflines. Pike boys tried a new trick—sugar in rail oil near the scorpion sheds—to make us squeak when we wanted to be quiet. Hale sniffed it, made a face like trumpets at dawn, and poured the sugar into a cake she then burned on purpose while staring at their hidey-hole. "We see you," she said to nobody, and somebody blushed in reeds.
Lucien extended market shun to wagoners hiding strings. "If your axle tells stories," he said, ledger neat, "the market forgets your name." Merchants decided to remember roots, not.
Rowan Three-Slash rode the west ridge with two lies and a smirk that had learned manners. He raised his spear to white, to the tower, to Mokh's men cutting reed without drama. "Everyone's learning grammar," he called, amused. "Even me."
"Mind the commas," Elara said, which made him laugh and go away before anyone had to pay for it.
— Accord Rollout — White Corridor• White clerks posted (child-sun + aides) at Oakwatch, Millcross, Knoll• Rope tokens honored; reed exchange logged; strings confiscated as weapons• Merchant morale: up (Kept Roads Open)• Pike: sabotage attempt (oil sugar) foiled; fines/work-service levied
Evening kissed the tower. The Stable Field hummed like a big animal asleep; the pulse sat ready like a sentence held behind teeth.
Aiden climbed the tower, set his hand to oak, and waited for stars. They stayed far. He smiled without telling his face. "Manageable," he said.
Elara set her helm down like a dog, bumping his shoulder. "We taught the day to be quiet without you paying more than due," she said.
"We," he agreed.
"Good arithmetic."
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the river that liked being a road, "we built a heart that hums evenly, kept white honest with children for clerks, and taught rumor to live in tins. The headache blinked first. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Oakwatch• Waystone Mk II online (Stable Field); seer-ache ↓; pulse overlay ready• White Corridor staffed (clerks + logs + tins)• Pike sabotage foiled; market shun applied• Cordon steady; standards content; soup excellent 🙂