Morning came shaped like a decision. Oakwatch blinked — . (ready); the river shouldered past Glass Isle with manners; the horn cairns along Founders' Way hummed when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• Spawn Window: 24–36 hrs (tight)• Intel: Fort split—bank-paint (Mokh) vs Drum-man (lacquer / rain-cadence)• Aim: disarm drum authority in public under white• Project: build Waystone Mk I (crystal → quiet bands) at Oakwatch• Risk: Waystone may interfere with After-Sight (headache; range jitter)• Morale: Work-bright, knife-steady 🙂
Tavi arrived before the shade remembered its job—mask off, rope token on his belt, a bundle under his arm wrapped in reed mat and boldness.
He set it on the plank and unfolded a drum board, sketched from memory: pegs mapped with soot dots and wax scratches; edges labeled with a foreman's spit names: bank, mouth, false shelf, wet hinge, teeth. His finger walked the board as if teaching a child to read.
"Here," he said, tapping a small ring of pegs near the drum's rim, "he makes rain into a clock. If this fails, the bank men walk later or not." He tapped another mark—bead shrines, drawn under eaves in three places inside the palisade. "When he beats, the strings talk to hips."
Mokh stood behind him like a rule. Lacquer gone, eyes counting. "Bank-paint men will stand down if drum is shamed in white," Tavi translated, choosing words that would not make a war by themselves.
Elara's mouth made a not-smile that was, for her, praise. "Then we will shame a drum without shaming hunger."
Aiden set both palms on the table. "We jam the teeth, not the mouth," he said. "Quiet the pegs; let bread speak."
"Crystal," Kessa murmured, already measuring with her eyes. "Glass Isle can cradle it. Oakwatch can sing it."
Émile's hands traced a frame in the air. "A prism sleeve—thin brass, mica washers, tin cold-solder. We keep it cool or it sings wrong."
Ansel tapped his knuckles against oak. "The tower can hold a seed heavier than luck. Brace top and mid. If it groans, we love it until it stops."
Jory's grin committed a misdemeanor against boredom. "We tune quiet bands—between his consonants. We don't shout; we un-ask the answers."
Rinna, practical as rope, lifted a brow. "And if this breaks After-Sight?"
Aiden pressed thumb and forefinger to his brow, felt the chalk-cold warning. "I'll swallow the ache," he said. "We buy a hour where feet obey poles, not rain."
Mara thumped the ladle once like punctuation on law. "Eat before you teach rocks to sing," she ordered. 🍲🙂
— Project Card — Waystone Mk I (Oakwatch)• Input: 1 Magic Crystal (cradle), prism sleeve (brass/mica/tin), lens hook (quick swap)• Assembly: Glass Isle (Kessa/Émile) → Oakwatch mount (Ansel/Jory)• Effect (target): Quiet Bands — peg cadence attenuation −20% within arc (short charges)• Risk: After-Sight interference (headache; cooldown jitter)
Glass Isle turned into a patient animal.
Kessa set the crystal in a brass cradle with mica washers like little moons; Émile cold-soldered the prism sleeve into a frame that loved light but didn't court it. The heat at the crown held steady; the bench stayed shy beneath blankets; Mara forbade flour within ten paces because superstition sometimes masquerades as hygiene.
At Oakwatch, Ansel bolted a cross-brace into the tower ribs. Jory fitted a lens hook so he could swap quiet bands without touching glass; Kessa arrived with the crystal heart soft-wrapped; Émile carried the sleeve like a holy inconvenience.
They lifted the Waystone into its cradle. The tower took the weight the way an old tree takes a hammock—surprised, then fond. The crystal hummed low, uncertain, like a throat clearing.
Jory tuned the bands with a mouthpiece and a reckless reverence. "We listen for the spaces between his pegs," he said. "Then we make those spaces bigger."
Aiden touched the oak, then his brow. A cold nail pushed behind his eye—a warning from whatever math After-Sight borrows. He blinked until the nail became a chalk line.
"Still me," he lied to Elara.
"Good arithmetic," she lied back.
— System: Project Progress — Waystone Mk I• Status: Mounted (Oakwatch)• Calibration: Quiet Bands 60% → 80% (tuning in progress)• Side-effect: After-Sight sensitivity ↑ (mild headache during pulse)
Parley had to be public if it would be binding. They made white tidy—posts straight, water clean, hollow drum at center. The Waystone hummed like a throat keeping a secret.
Tavi stood on one side of the line with Mokh and two foremen who looked like men betting on bread; Elara stood on the other with Aiden, Mara, Ras, Calder. Lia's cousin held child-sun just out of everyone's way like a sun that knows where not to burn.
The palisade birthed lacquer and laughter. The Drum-man came draped in a smile that thought it had invented weather. He brought his drum—rings shined, pegs proud, tassels absent because yesterday had cut them.
"Hollow," Aiden said, and Tavi tapped the open rim. Ponk. Clean.
The Drum-man let a knuckle fall—tap… t'tap…—the consonants that had taught rain to say now.
The Waystone woke.
No flourish: a hum that felt like someone peeling paper off a stuck window. The beat ate its own echo. The pegs lost teeth—not silenced, blurred. The hill forgot a syllable.
Bank-paint foremen looked at one another and discovered their hips had stopped anticipating.
The Drum-man's smile bent like tin in heat. He struck harder—t'tap—t-t'tap—but the consonants stumbled into vowels and then into air. Jory touched his horn without blowing it; Ras pushed one pebble off a triangle; Garran's semicolon felt heavier.
Tavi stepped forward, lay a palm flat on the hollow drum, and spoke stall / edge in a clear voice the bank could hear: wait; left bank. He didn't look at the Drum-man. He looked at Mokh.
Mokh made his decision with his neck. He shifted his weight away from the Drum-man's shadow and into the white.
A bead lanyard hissed once on the palisade and then failed to chain. The bead shrines didn't answer. The Waystone had turned their whisper into ordinary string.
"Grass," Elara said, like a judge passing a sentence that wasn't a hanging.
"Grass," Mokh agreed.
The Drum-man knocked the board off the plank with a slap that meant you are embarrassing me more than war. The hollow rolled, wobbled, and righted itself like grammar.
"You are welcome to cut under white," Aiden told the bank-paint, words careful and public. "No drums. No strings. Knock the hollow first. We will not be late to rain today."
Mokh put two fingers to his temple: the Fort's rude salute. Under it, respect had learned to speak.
The Drum-man's laugh came back with less lacquer on it. "Sally," he told nobody and everybody, because when tools stop obeying, some men reach for bigger tools.
Tavi flinched once, then stood heavier. "I will bring names if men live after his folly," he said.
Mara pushed the water bucket a little closer to everyone and did not mention soup. 🍲😑
— Parley Outcome — Drum Check Under White• Waystone pulse: peg consonants attenuated (−20%); bead shrines failed to chain• Bank-paint: agrees to white terms independent of drum• Drum-man: escalation posture signaled ("sally")• Reputation: White Corridor trust +small (regional)
Clove, who had watched with the pleasure of a man seeing a tidy number ruin a swagger, left a folded leaf on the plank.
You took his clock. He'll try force before weather.Your stone buys minutes; spend them on doors.— C.
Elara's gauntlet bumped Aiden's shoulder. "We built a room inside his shadow," she said.
"And we'll need it today," he answered, hand to brow as the Waystone hummed a smaller ache into his skull.
"Good arithmetic."
"Novaterra," Aiden told the cairns and the tower and the river that had learned to keep its breath, "we stole the teeth from a drum and gave them to a hollow. The board rolled and righted itself. Pride reached for a bigger hammer. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
— Evening Snapshot — End Chapter 47• Waystone Mk I mounted (Oakwatch) — Quiet Bands live (short pulses)• Parley: drum cadence blurred; bank-paint accepts white; Drum-man signals sally• After-Sight: sensitivity ↑ (mild ache)• Spawn Window: 18–30 hrs (watch)• Morale: Quiet-proud; braced 🙂