I held up my quill like a scepter, calling for silence. The crowd went still, eyes wide with the desperate hope that only a man obsessed with silt could provide.
"Citizens! Neighbors!" I projected, using my most 'Official Lecturer' voice. "The matters you describe—the leaning post, the musical cellar, the disloyal cow—these are not mere accidents! They are symptoms of a greater geological phenomenon I call The Great Silt Shift of '26!"
Higgins gasped. Martha clutched her pickles.
"However," I continued, adjusting my spectacles with a flourish, "I cannot give you a definitive ruling until I consult the Great Silt Archives in the library. I must cross-reference the mineral deposits of Higgins's backyard with the topographical maps of 222. One wrong calculation, and the entire neighborhood's drainage could be compromised!"
"The drainage!" Miller whispered in horror. "Go, Master Verne! To the archives!"
The crowd parted like the Red Sea. They didn't just let me through; they practically ushered me toward the library doors with reverent whispers. I marched up the steps, my heart racing, and didn't stop until I had vanished behind the heavy oak doors.
"Go, Master Verne! To the archives!" Higgins cheered, waving his leaning fence post in the air like a battle standard.
I didn't look back. I practically sprinted up the library steps, my satchel bouncing against my hip. I burst through the heavy oak doors, and the glorious, dusty silence of the Great Library swallowed me whole.
I leaned against the door, gasping for air. "I need... to invent... a more boring hobby," I wheezed. "Petty dispute mediation is going to be the death of me."
I walked toward my usual sanctuary—the deep, dark stacks where the books are so dry they practically crackle when you open them. I found my favorite table, tucked safely behind a mountain of scrolls titled Taxation on Minor Poultry: 1750-1800.
Finally, peace.
I sat down, opened my notebook, and prepared to actually look for something useful. But as I reached for my inkwell, I noticed something. My table wasn't empty.
Lying right in the center of my blotter was a small, perfectly square piece of slate. On it, written in a cramped, elegant hand that I recognized immediately as Principal Albrecht's, was a single sentence:
"The Grey Cloak has requested a 'Physical Aptitude Demonstration' for the students at noon. He wants to see the 'Stones' move."
My heart did a nervous little stutter. Noon. That was only two hours away. The Grey Cloak wasn't satisfied with Arin's "Slow-Motion Duck" from last night. He wanted to see if the Verne children could maintain their "Clumsy" masks under the pressure of a public Academy drill.
If Arin and Lysa looked too fast, the secret was out. If they looked too slow, the Grey Cloak might decide they were "defective" and ship them off to a labor camp just to clear the roster.
I gripped my quill so hard it creaked. I needed a way to interfere. I needed to be at that demonstration, but I couldn't just walk in as a "Mastermind." I had to walk in as the man everyone expected me to be.
I looked at the window, seeing the townspeople still gathered at the bottom of the steps, waiting for my "Silt Ruling."
A slow, devious smile spread across my face.
"If they want a demonstration," I whispered to the empty library, "I'll give them one. But first, I need to 'consult' the Academy's structural integrity. Again."
The "Demonstration" is in two hours.
Before the "Silt Mob" could descend, the atmosphere at the Academy training grounds was anything but academic.
"It's over," Cyrus whispered, his face so pale it was almost translucent. He was staring at the climbing ropes like they were gallows. "He knows, Arin. The Grey Cloak saw me flinch when a bird flew past my head this morning. I moved too fast. He's going to put me on the high-bars and I'm going to accidentally perform a Level-Seven Imperial Vault."
"Don't you dare vault!" Arin hissed back, though his own knees were knocking together.
Mira was practically vibrating beside them, her hands tucked deep into her sleeves. "I'm going to throw up. If I throw up, will that be 'boring' enough? Or is even my stomach too efficient?"
"Focus!" Lysa whispered, though she looked like she was about to bolt for the woods. "We are four boring, uncoordinated, completely average children. We are not a strike team. We are... we are a bag of wet flour!"
The Grey Cloak stepped toward them, his boots crunching menacingly on the gravel. "Verne. Cyrus. Mira. Step forward. We're going to see how 'wet' that flour really is."
The Great Silt Stampede
Just as the Grey Cloak reached for Cyrus's shoulder, the Academy gates didn't just open—they exploded inward under the weight of thirty angry villagers and one very determined Architect.
"I MUST SAMPLE THE PERCOLATION!" I screamed, leading the charge.
The Grey Cloak spun around, his hand flying to his sword hilt, only to be nearly leveled by Miller's cow. Behind the cow, Higgins was brandishing his fence post like a spear.
"YOU!" Higgins roared, pointing the wood at the Grey Cloak. "Master Verne says your foundation is a geological parasite! You're tilting my property with your heavy-footed marching!"
"Move aside, fool!" the Grey Cloak snarled, but he was suddenly surrounded by a wall of "Concerned Stakeholders."
"I have the string!" I shouted, rushing past the guards and diving toward the kids. "Arin! Lysa! Help me hold the Silt-Measurement Line! It must be perfectly horizontal or the data will be corrupted!"
I shoved a tangled mess of kitchen twine into Cyrus and Mira's hands. "You two! Hold the anchors! If you move even an inch, the limestone resonance will be lost!"
Cyrus looked at the twine. He looked at me. The panic in his eyes vanished, replaced by a glint of pure, calculating brilliance. He immediately "tripped" over his own feet, Tangling the twine around the Grey Cloak's ankles.
"Oh no!" Cyrus wailed, sounding like a terrified sheep. "I've ruined the data! The resonance is shifting! Master Verne, the silt is angry!"
"The silt is what?" the Grey Cloak yelled, trying to kick his legs free of the string, only to have Martha shove her jar of pickles into his face.
"SMELL THE ACIDITY!" she screamed. "DOES THIS SMELL LIKE G-SHARP TO YOU?"
Under the cover of the "Silt-Mob" madness, I leaned in and whispered to the four of them: "Act like you're caught in a spiderweb. Be clumsy, be loud, and for the love of the North, don't catch anything!"