07:10 a.m. - At Technologia Chemical Laboratory, Frosthaven
The morning felt thin and cold. Frost clung to the lip of the gutter stones outside. The flue gave a thin, straight line of steam that looked like a quiet promise rising into the grey sky. Inside the lab, the air was warmer. Clay, ash, and a little soap smelled clean. The brick ring around the kettle was dark and at rest. Hooks held tools in tidy rows. On the wall, the rule board was chalked in simple lines for work and safety. Beside it, the slate held today's small hidden knurl pattern, neat and good to teach.
Ryan tore a piece of yesterday's bread and chewed it. It was dense, a little sour, and rough on the mouth. Only Ryan ate this loaf. The others had tried a bite and set it down with faces like someone had handed them a lump of damp bark.
Ryan (grimace, chewing): "Still tastes like a bad joke."
(This bread is like a brick that forgot it was a brick. Welcome to the fucking Middle Ages.)
He swallowed, drank a sip of clean water, and kept chewing. He refused to waste it. He remembered the nights on Earth when he ate instant noodles at a desk in a dark apartment, code glowing on a screen like a fake sun. He also remembered bread that tasted like bread.
Peter came in, saw the heel of the loaf in Ryan's hand, and winced out of sympathy.
Peter (rueful half-smile): "You're brave, Master Ryan."
Ryan (shrugging): "Or stubborn. Eye-wash changed?"
Peter (bright): "Changed. Vinegar full. Fan greased last night."
Ryan (small nod): "Good. Warm the room gentle. Half a pot. No more."
Peter set a small fire under the kettle with a careful hand and a trained eye. The lab warmed one degree at a time. The clay did not crack. The day began the way it always did now—on rules and small acts done right.
Ryan leaned against the bench and took another bite of the medieval loaf. It did not get better. He smiled at his own stupidity and shook his head.
(I can make soap that saves skin, but I can't get a loaf that doesn't fight back. That's on me. Fix it.)
He thought of Aemond. He liked talking with the mage because Aemond answered questions like a map that was honest about cliffs. Sometimes the truths felt too neat and his old brain whispered, is this a fairy tale? Yet the way Aemond put things on the table—holy, city, steel—fit this world better than any slide deck Ryan had ever built. He kept thinking about it while he chewed on the bad bread.
Ryan set the bread down and touched the inside pocket of his coat. He drew out a small, worn notebook tied with a thin cord. It was his private book. No one else read it. Last night, by lamplight, he had copied all his "one hundred things to do in another world" from the big board into this book. Then he had wiped the big board clean. The list was his now, quiet and safe. He opened to a fresh page and wrote one clean line, slow and careful, like a promise he could keep:
Ryan (writing): "42) Be the one who sets the rules of deliciousness."
He added small ticks under it—just dots—and closed the notebook. He wrapped the cord twice and slid it back into his pocket. No one had seen. No one would.
(We fix taste the same way we fix soap. Steps, not magic. Better flour. Clean water. Keep yeast alive. Even heat.)
The lab door opened. Sariel stepped in with a ledger under her arm and a neat bundle of folded papers tied with twine. Behind her, Murdock shouldered a crate lid he had planed to fit with tight lips so jars would not walk. Jory brought a string line and a trowel because he never went anywhere without them.
Ryan (grinning with bread still in his cheek): "I am tired of bread that hates me. We fix food. We start with what we can measure. Yeast, flour, heat."
Murdock (snorts, amused): "You'll be a baker now?"
Ryan (shrug): "Rules are rules. Soap or soup. Same head. Different smell."
Jory (practical): "We can line ovens with tile. Build a baffle. Keep heat even like we did with the kettle."
Ryan (sincere): "Yes. We start small in our own kitchen. We write a sheet as we learn. We share with rope-walk and dyers' kitchens. We do not sell anything. This is about kindness and better mornings."
Sariel held up her bundle of papers and tapped the top page.
Sariel (matter-of-fact): "These are the first books for the shop. I copied simple notes. Big letters. 'Why Soap Works.' 'Heat and Air.' 'Hands and Germs.' 'Weights and Fairness.' 'Clean Water.' 'Vinegar and Safety.' One or two pages each. Simple drawings."
Ryan (warm): "Good. We post times for reading. Two nights a week. Short windows. We pay one copper for anyone who reads aloud and answers two easy questions. No shame. If they can't read, they can listen. Peter can help with letters."
Peter flushed at the praise and stared at a knot on the bench.
Peter (small voice, proud): "I can teach letters. Slow. I will be patient."
Ryan smiled at him. The loaf sat heavy and mean in his stomach, but it now felt like fuel. He wiped his hands on a clean cloth and looked at the team with a clear face.
Ryan (to the team, steady): "I want to build a management company. Not coin tricks. A real body that holds our work steady when I am not in the room. Technologia Management. We put people into their strong seats so I can chase the parts that need me, not hold everything with two tired hands."
Murdock lifted his chin in a way that was half challenge, half interest.
Murdock (gruff): "Say the seats."
Murdock (squinting): "See‑oh‑oh? Is that a dwarven oath or a bird call?"
Jory (practical): "If a carter can't say the word, he won't respect the job."
Sariel (dry): "Use words people know. What does it mean in plain speech?"
Ryan (hands open): "COO means Shop‑Warden—keeps the rules, safety, and ledger. CEO means Holder—I guard the name, pay debts, set the path. Use Shop‑Warden and Holder outside. The other words are just my old-world marks."
Peter (careful): "Then I am Tutor of Apprentices? People will understand 'Tutor'."
Ryan (nod): "Yes. Tutor of Apprentices. Plain words."
Ryan pointed, simple and clean.
Ryan (counting on fingers): "Sariel is COO. She runs the rules. She keeps the ledger, the safety, the sign-off, the sheets. Nothing moves without her stamp. Murdock is Head of Production. Heat, metal, tools. He says what breaks, and he fixes before it breaks. Jory is Head of Build. Floors, shelves, lips, drains, carts. If our work needs shape, he makes it. Peter is Head of Training for apprentices. Letters, rules, drills. He teaches slow, he checks kind. I hold CEO, but I do not strangle the line. I set the direction and guard the brand. I keep the promises and pay the debts. I also need time to chase the work—science, maps, bridges, bread."
Sariel did not smile big, but her eyes softened. She liked work that had a shape people could use.
Sariel (succinct): "Titles matter only if rules follow. I will write a one-page sheet for each seat. Duties, rights, and a 'call me when' list. We post them."
Sariel (tapping the quill): "Write the seat sheets in plain. 'Shop‑Warden (Sariel). Master of the Forge (Murdock). Master of Works (Jory). Tutor of Apprentices (Peter). Holder (Ryan).' Put your strange letters in your private book, not on the door."
Ryan (wry): "Fair. No more bird calls on the wall."
(I need to stop naming things like a startup. Use words that live here.)
Jory tapped the floor with his trowel, already thinking in straight lines.
Jory (practical): "If you give me two boys, I can fix the alley drain and lay a small tile near the oven."
Murdock nodded once, a spark in his eyes.
Murdock (decided): "I will make a small iron test oven baffle here. If it works, we fit it in the rope-walk kitchen. If they like the taste, we copy."
Ryan felt a surge of gratitude. He had been an introvert on Earth who talked to almost no one outside a screen, writing code and eating cheap food. Here, if he crawled into his head and hid, the line would die, the people he loved would suffer, and the city would sniff blood. His introversion had to learn to reach, to point, to say please do this and thank you and mean both.
(Still an introvert, but not silent. Not here. Not if I want this to live.)
He looked down at the heel of the bread in his hand and laughed, quiet.
(You're forty-two now. Get ready.)
He set the bread aside and turned to a stack of small, thin books on the bench: little stitched paper sets Sariel had copied by lamplight. He opened the first.
Ryan (reading aloud): "Why Soap Works. Fat plus lye makes a thing that holds dirt. Water carries dirt away. Hands scrub. Time helps. Read the rules. Do not rub too hard."
He closed the little book, put it on the shelf, and reached for another: Heat and Air. He glanced at the drawings Sariel had done—little arrows, small fire shapes, a jar, a lid, a lid with a vent, a fan turning.
Ryan (quiet, honest): "We are building a small school whether we meant to or not."
(This is the life I wanted to try. A company that can run for an afternoon without me. Books. Teaching. Breakfast that tastes like food.)
He took his personal notebook again, shielded it with his hand, and wrote a simple heading on a fresh page: "Teach basic science." Under it he listed short lines that only he would read later: "air moves heat," "clean hands stop sickness," "weights are truth," "water matters." He shut the book at once and tucked it away.
Ryan (encouraging): "Short meeting on breaks today. After Kettle Eight, we test oven heat with a clay baffle. After Kettle Nine, we read 'Why Soap Works' together for ten minutes. Anyone who reads gets a copper. Anyone who can teach one rule from the sheet to someone else gets another. Keep it kind."
Peter punched the air with a small fist when no one was looking. Sariel wrote "break: reading" on the wall sheet. Murdock made a plan for a small iron baffle in his head and did not say it out loud because he did not like speech when a thing could be done with hands. Jory, already on his knees, ran the string line across the alley mouth to measure where a small tile patch could keep water curses off boots.
Ryan watched them and felt the heavy bread in his stomach turn into fuel for a new thing. He smiled like a man who has decided to walk into a cold river and knows his body will adjust.
The day moved in its rhythm. Move the placards. A to B. B to C. C to A. Recirculate hot water. Egg dome the size of a coin. Lime hiss and settle. Decant through cloth. Parts: ten fat, three lye. Hold two water. Turn the sand glass. Stir slow. Trace at three. Superfat for HAND and HAND-SOFT. Jar. Collars. Cuts. Hidden knurl. Two-person sign-off. Porter's mark.
Between the kettles, Ryan took Why Soap Works and Hands and Germs to the doorway. He read two paragraphs. Peter read one. A rope-walk boy who had come to pick up a jar read a sentence with fear in his eyes and then smiled when he finished. He did not take a copper until Sariel told him to stop being shy and take it. He blushed, took it, and thanked them twice.
During the second break, Ryan pulled the tiny bread test baffle from the Murdock pile—three thin iron plates and a curved piece like a tongue. Jory had already made a small clay bed by the wall near the back, where a small oven mouth would not choke the lab. They set a pot with flour-and-water dough inside and watched the heat line.
Murdock (eyes narrowed): "Heat gathers left. Tongue low. Pull it up a finger."
Jory lifted the baffle tongue up with a bit of iron. The heat flow smoothed. The dough's skin did not burn on one side and stay raw on the other.
Ryan (quiet joy): "See? Rules make taste. Not magic."
(We will not sell this. We will give it to kitchens. In two months I will not have to eat a brick.)
They let the test rest, then broke it open. The smell was simple but right—no burn on one edge, no raw paste in the centre. It was not perfect. But it was honest work.
Jory (thoughtful): "Tile here will keep the heat even. The tongue needs a small hook so it holds where we set it."
Murdock (pleased): "A hook is easy. I'll forge two. We'll mark them so they sit true every time."
Sariel wrote down the settings—height of tongue, time in the small flame, turn of the sand glass—each in a tight, clean line.
Sariel (succinct): "We will copy this test into a one-page guide. Part, heat, time, sign-off. Keep it simple."
Ryan (grateful): "Thank you."
He slipped behind the shelf for a breath, safe from eyes, and took out his notebook one more time. He turned to the page with the single line:
Ryan (writing): "42) Be the one who sets the rules of deliciousness."
He made a tiny dot beside it to mark progress. No one saw. He put the notebook away and came back to the bench.
(Hands, rules, time. That's how we win breakfast. That's how a CEO earns free hours to build new things.)
Ryan (to the team): "Next step. Technologia Management starts today. Sariel, draft the seat sheets. Jory, pull two boys for the drain and the oven corner. Murdock, make two tongues. Peter, set reading pairs and times."
Sariel nodded once.
Sariel (professional): "I will also set audit marks on the reading coppers so we track cost and effect."
Peter straightened, proud with a careful kind of pride.
Peter (eager): "I can mark the times with the sand glass so we all match, Master Ryan."
Jory tapped the wall where the small oven mouth would sit.
Jory (practical): "I'll set tile lines this afternoon. We'll keep the draw clean."
Murdock showed a flash of teeth through his red beard.
Murdock (hearty): "And I'll make a second tongue before the fire cools. No point wasting a good heat."
Ryan (reassuring): "Good. We stay safe. We stay kind. We make things better."
He took one of Sariel's copied sheets and looked at it. The words were simple. The drawings—arrows for air, a circle for a pot, a little hand and soap bubbles—were friendly. He nodded.
Ryan (soft, to himself): "Translate more. Keep it simple. One page at a time."
(Back home the books were thick and proud. Here, we make thin, clear guides. That is how we share power. That is how a quiet company beats a loud sword.)
He looked at the bench, the tools, the people. He felt the old fear that he might fail. He let it pass. He had rules. He had friends. He had a plan that started with heat and ended with taste. He had a private book in his pocket with a single line that mattered today. Item forty-two was not a dream now. It was a job.
The lab breathed around him. The kettle popped like a soft drum. The frost outside began to fade from the gutter stones as the sun found a way through cloud. The thin steam from the flue rose straighter, like a line drawn by a steady hand.
Ryan (encouraging): "After Kettle Nine, reading again. Keep it kind. After that, we fit the first iron tongue on the oven mouth."
Peter (bright): "I'll bring the sand glass and chalk."
Sariel (calm): "Eye-wash and vinegar before fire test. Then we proceed."
Jory (steady): "String line is set. We won't choke the draw."
Murdock (satisfied): "The iron will be ready."
Ryan touched the rule board with two fingers, the way Peter did, like a small prayer without a god in it. He did not look at the spot where a big public list had once been. He did not need to. The list lived in his pocket now, quiet and sharp. He had written it all down where only he could see it. He would carry it, and he would make the work match it, one clean step at a time.
(We improve the food. We free the CEO. We teach the basics. We keep our word.)
Ryan (soft, certain): "Hands, rules, time. We fix bread next."
11:40 p.m. - At Inner Cloister, High Temple of the Staglord, Dawnspire
The inner cloister smelled of varnish and cold incense. Light from tall lamps pooled in gold ovals on polished stone. Shadows clung to ribbed arches like bats at rest. Behind carved doors, the city slept. Here, plans breathed.
Pope Thaddeus Marrow stood at the long table. His vestments tonight were a more sober red, but the silver chain at his throat still caught the lamplight with the hunger of small stars. Two men in neat temple gray stood a little back—his favored handlers, faces careful, eyes fixed on the page, not on the man.
Pope Thaddeus (soft authority): "We will speak clearly. Dawnspire has openings if we make them."
He placed small ivory counters on a map of the city.
Pope Thaddeus (tapping): "Temple Quarter. Merchant Quarter. Port customs. Guild Annex. The watch. Five ribs. Press any two and the city coughs; three and it staggers; four and it cannot stand."
("Break it without breaking it. Slow rot wets every beam. It is sweeter than fire.")
Handler One (low): "Our eyes say the merchant woman Kestrel steps back from the tech man. She will not move shadow for us on that line."
Pope Thaddeus's mouth curled, not in anger; in interest.
Pope Thaddeus (murmur): "Varena learns. She will live. Others will not."
He set a counter on the Merchant Quarter and pushed another near the Temple's outer gate.
Pope Thaddeus (calm): "Odrik Stoneveil will do for noise. He is cheap and loud. Keep him warm but never close."
("A dog with mange—good for a corner bark, then a kick.")
Handler Two (cautious): "High one, a courier from Veilshadow—"
Pope Thaddeus lifted his head. His eyes sharpened like a knife tested on a thumb.
Pope Thaddeus (soft): "Say it."
Handler Two (flat): "Sovereign Lord Malakar orders most spies in Aurelthorn to suspend operations this month. The eastern work takes force. He gathers for bigger moves in the south and east—his words. He says avoid heat in Dawnspire right now."
The small, too-bright smile did not reach Thaddeus's eyes this time. It stalled just shy of the bones.
Pope Thaddeus (pleasant): "Suspend."
He rolled the word like a bead. Then he set a third counter on the Guild Annex and a fourth on the Port customs gate.
Pope Thaddeus (measured patience): "We will respect the letter and delight in the spirit. He commands shadows to still hands; he did not command minds to sleep. We move without breaking the line he drew. Rumor does not carry a knife. Panic wears a pretty dress and arrives with candles. I am a priest. I light candles."
("Malakar plays the long war with dragons. I play the close war with hands and breath. He cannot stop rot he cannot smell.")
Handler One (risk‑averse): "But High one, our plan named Aurelthorn first. We bleed Dawnspire until it calls for a savior. Now he looks east. Drakensvale complicates time."
Pope Thaddeus turned his palm up as if holding an invisible bowl of water.
Pope Thaddeus (soothing): "Everything flows to a basin. If Drakensvale slashes and stomps like a young bull, that is fine. Blood is a form of ink. It writes fear into the city; fear needs a priest's hand to calm it. Aurelthorn will invite us deeper."
He stepped closer to the map and tapped a spot near the Temple Quarter—near the little hall where inquiries were held.
Pope Thaddeus (soft relish): "We begin with an inquiry. Private first. We will ask about the soap man who appeared from nowhere with neat rules and a clean smile. We will call witnesses. We will invite the guild heads to observe. We will place fire and water on either side of his name. Let the city watch him walk on a narrow wall and feel our fingers ready at his back."
("We call him demon and then we forgive him before the crowd—if he kneels. Or we burn him and sell the ashes. Both work. I am generous.")
Handler Two (worried): "High one, the High Priestess—"
Pope Thaddeus's head tilted in a way that was almost curious. He said nothing. Handler Two swallowed and chose his words with care.
Handler Two (careful): "Marcelline hates theater. She will not allow loud shows. She will demand truth."
Pope Thaddeus's smile grew, changed. A private thing. He toed one ivory counter a finger-width, the way a cat taps a beetle to watch it turn.
Pope Thaddeus (confiding tone): "That is why the light shines so well when she holds it. She is a blade. She cuts lies. I would never blunt her."
("No. I will bend her. I will bend her until she sings to me and does not know she sings. She will be mine and think she is God's. Oh, to hear her breathe when she prays—")
He saw his own thought and savored it like a piece of sweet fruit that tasted faintly of poison. He hid the taste and offered only the fruit's color to the room.
Pope Thaddeus (workmanlike): "We frame truth. We bring the porter from Frosthaven who saw jars and read rules. We bring the miner who stares at the pit in his sleep. We bring one guild voice who can say 'process' and drink blood from that word without spilling. We let Marcelline ask the first question. She will cut falsehood. We will… arrange the order of what remains."
Handler One made a note. He did not look up while he wrote. He did not want to look at the Pope's eyes right then.
Handler One (obedient): "Shall we awaken the Port Scribes?"
Pope Thaddeus (light): "Knock. Do not wake. Ask them to dream in our direction. A small error in weights here, a small delay in crates there. Nothing that breaks. Everything that irritates. That is how you make a city want balm."
("Pain should itch, not stab. Stabbing bleeds for someone else. Itching makes people mine their own skin.")
He placed a counter on a tiny street between the Merchant Quarter and the Guild Annex.
Pope Thaddeus (tidy): "We seed rumor in three corners only. North market. East docks. Temple steps. Not one more. Rumor spreads like fire in dry grass; we do not need to carry torches into every field. And you—"
His eyes slid to the second handler, a man with a careful mouth and a talent for hearing what others tried not to say.
Pope Thaddeus (soft command): "You carry a word to a certain man in gray who likes ledgers more than people."
Handler Two (bows slightly): "Baldric."
Pope Thaddeus (smile just a hair too bright): "Such men are easy to honor. 'Inspections' sound like worship to them."
("If he breaks the soap man with the word 'audit,' I will buy Baldric a new ring and a quiet girl for his table and call it piety.")
The door at the end of the cloister opened a hair. A thin choir line drifted in and vanished. The cold in the stone seemed to shift—like a cat turning over in sleep.
Handler One (more urgent now): "If Malakar's order stands, our outer teams cannot cut the port ropes we planned to cut."
Pope Thaddeus lifted a hand without looking.
Pope Thaddeus (pleasant): "Do nothing big. Do ten small things. Belmara rules the night by patience as much as by knives. Tell them this exact line."
He looked from one handler to the other. His voice stayed calm. His eyes did not.
Pope Thaddeus (final): "If anything you do is louder than a priest's breath, do not do it."
("I am not a fool. I am the knife that looks like a candle.")
He turned away from the table then, as if the meeting were a light mantle he could set down without trouble. He walked to the high window that held the Stag's dawn and watched light that was not there because night had the city in its hand.
Pope Thaddeus (soft, to the window): "Aurelthorn will sink into its own goodness. It will curl around old law like a snake and fall asleep. We will tug one thread. The blanket will come apart. And when the cold bites—"
He laughed once, a tiny sound that did not belong in a holy place.
Pope Thaddeus (whisper): "—Marcelline will go to save them. And then she will find she belongs to me."
The handlers glanced at each other once and did not show the way that last line made their stomachs drop. They bowed, made the little temple sign, and left to set small things in motion.
Alone, Thaddeus leaned his forehead against the cold stone and let one thought come up like a bubble from a deep, black well.
("Humans will be great again, but not as they are now. We will take the Red Moon into bone and make a new breed that does not bend or beg. Love that vision. Fear it. Both feed it. Malakar plays with crowns. I play with souls.")
He drew in a breath that trembled on the way out. Then he turned and smiled like a man in control of himself and a city, and walked away with a calm gait and hands folded in front the way saints are carved when woodcarvers lie.