Morning stood up straight. Oakwatch blinked once from its glass eye; the river rubbed past Glass Isle like a cat that had chosen its humans; the horn cairns along Founders' Way hummed the same note when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in the language of ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• Cordon: Riversong Fort arcs steady; spawn window 7–12 days (watch)• Promotion Board: elevate first Squires (4) from Elite ranks (Lv 16–20 → Lv 21–25)• Oath of Edges: draft & adopt; standards issuance (not swords)• Drum Lexicon: v0.2 (count + edges → horn phrases); test table• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright 🙂
The Promotion Board was just three planks on trestles and a string of names, but people looked at it like weather. Elara set a palm on the list as if weighing it. "Squires don't fix courage," she said, voice flat as law. "They discipline it."
Venn read the candidates in a tone that made arithmetic sound affectionate. "Garran of the hinge—scar-left, limp honest; Orla—shield lead, rower's back, zero chase infractions; Fen—line anchor, shepherd before spears, feet that listen; Reeve Piet—reserve chief, old Guard hands, new patience."
Rella made a face like a horse asked to sit at table—half envy, half pride. Lute clapped Fen's shoulder. Tam nodded to himself as if punctuation had just been promoted.
Mara set down four hafts on the plank: ash poles wrapped in linen at the grip, each topped with a small standard—white circle on green, semicolon stitched under it in dark thread. "Standards, not swords," she said. "You carry a pause with a hinge in it." 🧵🍲
Jory could not help himself. "We're literally raising semicolons," he murmured, delighted. "A clause; and then another—held together."
Elara didn't smile. The corner of her mouth considered it. "Accurate."
Hadrik fitted iron shoe-caps to the haft ends—enough to stick in dirt, not enough to be a spear and forget its job. Kessa brought leather sling-hangers for the poles—so a squire could free both hands without letting the pause fall over. Calder laid out binders for wrists, not for wounds: linen oath wraps that looked like the kind of promise gods respect quietly.
"Before we pin cloth to men," Aiden said, "we test hands and feet."
The trial was all work and no theatre. Elara paced the green and called three drills:
Anchor Step under shove—two ranks, stakes-lite seated shallow, bully-boys pushing like debt-collectors in a hurry.
Hinge under veer—Left opens a mouth; Right refuses to bite the joke.
No-Chase envelopment—flank pair wraps a ribbon, Jory's eight falling bites feet before pride does.
Garran's hinge answered like habit that had learned music—one step left, heel planted, breath into the shove. The limp, once embarrassment, acted like truth: he could feel angles men miss. Orla took three shield kisses to the boss and did not answer with a bite; her eyes told the line when to breathe. Fen smiled once—small, farm honest—and made a wall feel pleasant to stand near. Piet counted out loud under noise, and people found their feet remembering numbers.
Elara stopped in front of Garran and tried to push past him with a spear butt. He didn't move or snarl. He became heavier, as if the ground preferred him. "Squire," she said. Garran swallowed once and nodded like a man given a yoke he wanted.
Orla's shield dipped when a boy in the second rank winced at an old bruise. She adjusted without looking—that earned a note in Elara's book. "Squire," Elara declared. Orla exhaled through her nose as if somebody had finally said what her arms already knew.
Fen glanced at the child standard Lia's cousin held at the edge and, without thinking, squared the whole front just because a small sun deserved to be measured against a perfect line. "Squire," Elara said.
Piet did the thing old steadies do: he let someone else be the center, then quietly placed them to stay it. He got his word, too.
— Promotion — Squires (4)• Garran (Hinge Master)• Orla (Shield Lead)• Fen (Line Anchor)• Reeve Piet (Reserve Chief)• Kit: Standard (ash/linen), sling-hanger, oath wrap (linen)• Role aura: Don't-Chase discipline +1 within 40m; Anchor Step gain +1 near standard.
"Afternoon," Elara said, "we make it ritual."
Rinna, watching from the battery shed with her thumbs hooked in her belt, muttered to Tam, "They're giving the wall a voice. A good dot needs a good sentence to live in." Tam nodded and wrote that down in his brain.
Before the oath, there was a little math.
*— Drum Lexicon v0.2 (Draft)• Count (bodies): short-short-long = 3; short-short-short-long = 4; …• Edges (bank/angle): long = left bank; long-long = right bank; long-short = center tilt• Horn Translation:
3 left bank → 5 rising (left) + 7 steady (stakes)
4 center tilt → 1 long (spine) + 2 short (compress) + 5 rising (correct)• Note: If drum cadence stutters, treat as mask speech—ignore until seen.*
Ras stood at the plank knocking pebbles into rhythms with an embarrassed seriousness. Jory matched them with horn phrases, smug but useful. "We can hear their map and reply with ours," he said. "It's rude in a way only I enjoy."
Aiden traced an edge symbol. "If we can predict a tilt, we stage sand three paces left of sanity and call it forethought."
"Good arithmetic," Elara said.
The captured shaman sat on a stool under shade, a bowl of soup in his hands he pretended to be suspicious of and then wasn't. Mara had learned four of his numbers in a language that had probably never met soup before. She taught him two short by tapping the table and moving a cup. He frowned, then smiled despite himself. 🍲🙂
Clove drifted past without a notebook and left a folded leaf by the plank.
You are making a grammar the Moth will be tempted to counterfeit.Leave a nonsense call in your lexicon.Thieves trip on mirrors.— C.
Jory added dot-dot-dash-dash = "pretend thunder" to the light-calls list and underlined it twice, wickedly pleased. 🫡
Evening put honey on the grass. People came to the oval because they had been invited and because they wanted to see something become true. Oakwatch kept its eye—— . (ready). Bramble and Thorn slept under cloths like punctuation marks on a page that didn't need them tonight.
Mara laid out the oath wraps on a board like loaves. Calder set a small basin to wash hands, not faces. Ansel planted four standard holes—just narrow cuts in the dirt that would hold ash shod in iron without wobble. Kessa adjusted sling-hangers and told them not to squeak.
Elara stepped up where all could see. She did not dress the occasion in unnecessary words.
"The Oath of Edges," she said, "is not about being brave. It's about being unfinished on purpose, so the man next to you becomes the other half of the sentence. Repeat."
She spoke. They answered.
"I hold what's heavy;I don't run what's easy.I keep a door for our tomorrow;I close it on my vanity.This is my edge; this is your edge;together, we are the line.I do not chase."
The last sentence the crowd said with them.
Mara wrapped linen at each wrist—left, then right—and tied a flat knot that wouldn't snag a shield strap. "You promise with both hands," she said. "If you drop a standard, the ground will forgive you once."
Jory blew one long soft as a blessing. Lia's cousin—child-sun standard held very upright—walked the line and stood beside Orla as if she'd always belonged there. Orla's mouth actually smiled and then disciplined itself.
Aiden took the first ash pole from the board and presented it to Garran. Garran set the butt in the cut Ansel had made; the standard stood if he did. "Semicolon," Aiden murmured. "Hold one thought; be ready for the next." Garran's eyes were wet and not embarrassed.
Orla received hers without looking self-important: she looked at the second rank while taking it, which is the kind of grace nobody teaches. Fen bowed to the child-sun standard before he lifted his. Reeve Piet kissed the linen—once, practical—and not for an audience.
— System: Squire Standard issued• Aura: Don't-Chase (+1 discipline radius 40m)• Secondary: Stand Tall (panic resist +10% when standard upright)• Passive: Hinge Memory near Garran: angle corrections auto-calc (≤1 step)• Passive: Row Rhythm near Orla: breath cadence stabilizes under shove.
The town didn't cheer. It breathed like a line finding its meter.
Lucien Duvall, late by courtesy and on purpose, arrived with two pennons folded in a linen roll—green edge stitched with silver. "Borrowed elegance," he said, offering them to Orla and Garran. "Your broom taught my banner better manners." The fox's smile had earned in it.
Elara took one pennon, weighed it, and nodded once. "Behaves," she said, which in her mouth is thank you.
Mara set a pot at the edge of the green and did not thump it with her ladle. The smell said after. 🍲🙂
What you make true, you test.
Elara ran a short walkthrough under flags: Green—move; yellow—prepare; white—parley. At green, Garran's standard glowed without light—the air heavier near his feet. Men breathing near him found the beat. At yellow, Orla's Row Rhythm made backs line up like a river pulling. At white, Reeve Piet planted his pole and nobody fidgeted; even children discovered stillness politely.
A shadow moved at the east arc where the cordon watches back: not a raid—twenty-odd shapes with brush and drum box and a patience that smelled like instruction being tested rather than hunger. The Fort had seen them build a ritual and wanted to poke it.
Elara didn't sigh. "Squires," she said, as if she'd ordered a cup of water. "Stand."
Garran planted left of center; Orla took right; Fen sat the middle like a stone that likes you; Piet shadowed the reserve with the calm of a door leaned on. Skirmishers put one stone in their slings and kept the second where it belonged.
"Four broken, east," Jory blew—drum echo. He almost sounded bored.
The brush-bearers crept into the curl they thought they owned. Hale's whipline hummed under dirt. Ras had found the knee before a knee knew it lived. The drummer lifted a stick and realized the pegs didn't make the map he wanted.
"Center—sit," Elara said. "Two short."
The line took one polite pace back together and then stopped wanting. The aura from four poles made the world tight and honest for forty meters. Someone at the very end of the second rank felt his calf prepare for a chase and then change its mind without asking him first. He looked around, baffled, then pleased. 🙂
The brush-carriers wavered at the place where cleverness expects applause and boredom gives it nothing. The drum popped one stutter—Ras's fingers counted it, Jory translated 5 rising (left correction) into a note the wall already knew how to obey. Orla's pennon didn't move. Garran's semicolon did that thing semicolons do: it said wait; and.
The twenty-odd turned into fewer. The Fort swallowed them with a posture that wanted to be offended and wasn't sure how.
Aiden didn't spend After-Sight. He didn't have to. The math lived in poles and lungs now.
— Contact Log — East Arc (Squire Trial)• Enemy: ~22 (brush + drum box); test sally• Our actions: aura hold (Don't-Chase), whipline/caltrops prepared; two short compress; stones once• Outcome: raid unmade; no pursuit; standards upright throughout• Our casualties: 0; enemy: 1 sprained pride; 1 drummer confused 🙂
Mara let people have soup after and called it a ceremony. 🍲
Rinna watched the standards and leaned toward Tam. "See it? The period doesn't have to hold the whole paragraph anymore. Our dots will be rarer. Better."
Tam squinted like a person learning to hear commas. "We'll shoot less."
"We'll shoot right," Rinna corrected.
Clove drifted by with empty hands and a face that looked like it might write a letter later. "Your broom taught your banner how to stand," he said. "My employer will dislike this."
"Tell him to bring a semicolon next time," Mara replied, and filled his bowl to a line that said affection disguised as portion control. 🍲😌
Night came with a breeze. Oakwatch flashed — . (ready). Cairn #8 returned — . (ready) correctly this time, which pleased Jory in a way that would annoy him if anyone noticed. He noticed. 🫡
The four squires sat together at the edge of the green with their poles in the dirt, talking the way people do when hands have been given a job they wanted. Garran ran a finger along the linen seam and made a face at his own sentiment. Orla checked her sling-hanger twice and then pretended she hadn't. Fen lent Lia's cousin the handle and let her practice setting it—no wobble—until the earth decided she could be a small thing that made big things behave. Reeve Piet did nothing at all for a full minute, which is a trick most gods can't perform.
— Unit Trait Unlocked — Squire Cadre• Nearby foot units: Don't-Chase stacks (up to +2) if two standards within 25m• Standard break alarm: auto 2 short on nearest horn if pole drops (one/town/night)• Training path: Squire → Standard-Bearer (City) or Banner-Sergeant (Field)
Bryn wandered over, eyes soft and sins small. She put a pebble at the foot of each pole. "For tomorrow," she said, and left.
Elara came last. She touched each ash pole once, like counting, and didn't make a speech. "We added edges," she said to Aiden when they were alone at Oakwatch's mouth. "Now the sentence can turn without falling apart."
"Semicolons," he said, unable to help himself.
She groaned with affection. "Don't teach the line grammar jokes."
"Just work," he promised, grinning.
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the island with its tame fire, "we gave the wall voices that say wait; and. We tied our hands to tomorrow and found we could hold more today. When drums lie, we translate; when pride runs, we plant. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind ran down a gourd and came out two short—make way. People stepped aside for sleep as if it had rank.
— Evening Summary — Novaterra• Squire promotions (4): Garran, Orla, Fen, Reeve Piet; standards issued (semicolon pennons)• Oath of Edges adopted (townwide call-and-response)• Aura online: Don't-Chase +1 (radius 40m); Stand Tall panic resist +10%• Contact (east arc): ~22; raid unmade; no pursuit; 0 casualties• Drum Lexicon v0.2: horn translations tested; nonsense call added ("pretend thunder")• Cordon steady; Fort window 7–12 days; sally appetite low• Morale: Quiet-proud; steadied by poles; soup excellent 🙂