The grade was perfect and the grove was gone.
Kaelen Ironfist stood at the section marker — a iron post driven into compacted earth, stamped Km 231, S47, Grade: 2.3%, Drainage: TBD — and read his own handwriting from eighteen months ago. The survey notes were precise because the survey had been precise. The route through Section 47 followed the natural fall of the lowland to the southeast, maintaining grade consistency within half a degree of optimal, which was as close to optimal as real terrain allowed and closer than most engineers would have demanded.
The grove that had occupied this section was not here.
