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Metal arrives as a tool and becomes a mirror. It shows a society who it intends to be.
We made nothing glorious in those first days—no swords, no miracles. We made shovels that cut stubborn earth without chipping, hoes that held their edge, fishhooks that bit and did not bend, nails that knit beams into a roof that didn't leak the first time the storm tested it.
The Protectors, of course, asked for spearheads and knives. We gave them a handful, plain and well-made, each stamped with a simple mark: a river line beneath a rising sun—our settlement's sign. They trained with the new weight, their stances subtly shifting as the balance changed. Wooden blades had taught discipline. Iron blades demanded judgment.
I convened a twilight gathering at the Academy's open circle. Families came. Elders sat with hands folded. Children squirmed until the stars pricked open overhead and listening became easy.
"Listen to me," I said, letting my voice carry without force. "Metal is a gift and a test. With it, a single person can do the work of many. With it, a single person can harm many. We will not build a future where knowledge is a weapon used to break the weak."
We read out the Forge Covenant—simple lines any child could memorize:
Tools serve hands that feed, heal, build, or protect.
No blade leaves the forge without a Protector's mark and an Academy record.
No one hoards iron. No one forges in secret.
When the horn sounds, the forge cools and all hands report.
People nodded. Some looked relieved. A few looked calculating, and filed the rules away like problems to solve later. I saw them. The System, too.
[Governance Note: Pair every new capability with a social rule and a repeatable ritual. People remember rituals longer than rules.]
I smiled at the message. "You're starting to sound like a teacher."
[The Host is improving.]
I snorted softly.
Two market-days after our first iron hoes went into the fields, the rumor reached us: a settlement to the southeast—larger than ours, tightened under a chieftain called Kagh—had begun sending scouts toward the plateau.
I knew of that place. They traded people when food ran thin. They "leased" families to carry loads on long journeys and didn't always send them home. When I had first heard, winter-deep, I had told myself that after the thaw we'd go and talk. Then the forge, the Academy, the trade routes—life filled the space where outrage had lived. That, I realized, is how ugliness grows: not through grand crimes, but through other people's small busyness.
The first sighting was a boy on the northern ridge—barefoot, thin, quick. He vanished the moment a Protector turned. The second was a trio at dusk, studying the slope through a stand of birch. Xie E sent a patrol. By the time they reached the spot, only crushed grass and scuffed bark remained.
"Let them look," one farmer said, hefting an iron hoe with proprietary pride. "They can stare all they want."
I shook my head. "Jealousy doesn't stare forever. It grabs."
We doubled the watch. The forge moved to daytime-only. The Academy sealed its clay vault each night with a waxed imprint; the key-stamp changed hands at sundown like a ritual in a temple. I trained a small group of older apprentices to read our tool ledgers aloud from memory until they could do it in their sleep.
[Risk Level Updated: Moderate → Elevated.]
[Advisory: Prepare nonlethal deterrents, signal redundancy, and evacuation protocols for noncombatants.]
[Note: Protectors' tier improvement recommended. Current spirit rank distribution: Tier 2 majority, Tier 3 minority, leaders at Tier 4. Uplift plans?]
I inhaled. After the forge is stable, we train. Hard.
The System didn't answer, but the task ping settled in my bones like a promise.
They came near moonrise, when the plateau lay blue and quiet and most bellies were warm with stew. The first signal—three quick horn notes—sliced the night. Those of us awake grabbed what we could; those asleep woke with a jolt learned in a harsh world.
The south slope—our flattest approach—glittered with moving lanterns. A dozen shadows at least. Two carried ladders. One had a coil of rope. They moved with ugly confidence, like men who had taken freely before.
Xie E was already at the wall, his presence like a hinge the whole gate could swing on. "Hold," he said, voice low. His lieutenants—Han, Zhen, Meiyun—fanned along the parapet. The Protectors took their places without rattling the boards.
Below, the raiders stopped just out of throw range. The leader stepped forward, lantern in one hand, a long iron-studded club resting on his shoulder. He was powerfully built, with the slack face of a man who mistook appetite for strength.
"We heard this is where the soft-hearts live," he called. His tone oozed ease, calculated to push. "We heard you've been making pretty things. Give them to us, and we'll leave you some of your people."
Behind me, a child gasped. I reached back and felt for a little hand, squeezed, and let go.
Xie E didn't raise his voice. "Turn around."
Laughter below. "Send us your metal and two apprentices. We'll teach them what work is."
The fury tried to catch my throat. Instead of speaking, I lifted a hand toward the signal tower. A drum answered: two slow beats, one fast—warning posture shifting to repulse stance. The Protectors adjusted without a shouted command, shields angling, slingers nocking smooth river stones, archers drawing until their bows creaked soft as breath.
"Last chance," Xie E said.
The leader spread his arms as if about to embrace us. "Come then. Teach me a lesson."
He stepped forward.
"Loose," Xie E said, and the wall became a living machine.
Sling stones flashed in the moonlight and cracked into the lead line's knees and shins with flat, decisive pops. Archers' shafts thudded into shield rims and thumped meat, fired at angles that bled but didn't kill. From the tower, a weighted net unfurled like a black flower and dropped across the ladder team, tangling legs; the two men went down fighting like fish in a woven trap. Meiyun rolled two oil pots to the slope's lip and didn't light them—she only smashed them to turn the grass below slick and treacherous. A raider slipped, knees folding, and tumbled in a cursing heap into two of his friends.
The leader roared, swinging his club above his head—and jerked, confused, when a blunt arrow socked into his shoulder with a solid thump. His hand went numb; the club fell; the moon took his surprise and painted it on his face for everyone to see.
There are moments when a shape breaks—an idea, a plan, a man. He tried to rally. He screamed threats. But he could no longer make his body a banner for the men behind him; the mechanism of fear and desire he'd assembled over years had slipped its pin.
"Down," Xie E said, and we surged.
The gate teeth lifted, but only halfway. Two Protector teams flowed through in staggered pairs, shields tight, tipped spears level. They moved like ink poured along a groove—inevitable, cool, not eager. The men of Kagh saw something in that that they had not known they were afraid of. Some ran. Some stayed long enough to get the backs of their hands split open so their fingers wouldn't close around a rope again for a month.
At the fight's edge, I worked the line where wounds only just begin. A cut at the brow, bleeding into an eye: dab, bind, shove the head back into the fight; a palm with a nail through it: pull gently, cleanse, wrap tight while swearing low and kind. One of Kagh's men stumbled past, wild-eyed, then looked at me and looked away, as if I were a mirror he couldn't bear.
"Take him," I told Zhen, who had been waiting for that moment. "Bind his wrist—kindly."
Zhen's mouth twitched. "Kindly?"
"Kindly," I said, and his rope did not bite the man's skin.
It ended quickly because we had decided it would. We did not chase. We did not gloat. We hauled our net back in and cut two men free and sent them limping after their friends with two loaves of yesterday's bread. The leader—whose name I refused to ask—lay face-down with his cheek in the mud and his chest heaving. Meiyun stood over him, drumming the haft of her spear against her boot, bored.
"Go," Xie E told him, voice quiet as rain. "Tell Kagh we are not a field to harvest."
The man's courage had worn a hole through itself. He nodded, slow and stiff, and crawled until crawling could become walking.
Only then did I climb the tower and look out at the slope. Oil glistened on trampled grass like a lake of moon. The forge glow beat steady at my back. I wanted to cry and I wanted to laugh and I wanted to sleep for a week.
The System's presence settled over my shoulder like a shawl.
[Engagement Summary: Nonlethal repulse successful.
Injuries: 7 minor, 1 moderate.
Civilian casualties: none.
Strategic outcome: deterrence established; probability of near-term repeat assault reduced.]
[Advisory: The settlement's deterrence relies on disciplined Protectors and Host reputation. Elevate key fighters' tiers to avoid attrition. Suggestion: Launch a joint cultivation initiative—"Shield & Loom." Protectors train by day, cultivate at night. Academy supports with breathing methods, meridian mapping, and meal plans.]
I closed my eyes. Understood. We balance the fire we make with the fire we carry.
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