The lime mortar smelled of wet river sand, wood-ash, and crushed mountain limestone as Noll Vey drew the mixture together between the jambs of the scullery cellar door.
In his Seed-rank days, shaping stone had been an agonizing business of pinching hairline cracks together like an arthritic tailor mending a torn coat in a gale. Now, with twenty-two claim credits resting in his Threshold reserves and the weight of the hill’s old foundations answering his intent, the work possessed a heavy, deliberate rhythm. Two lie points burned away from his ledger—a clean, measured expenditure of stored core force—as three courses of dressed grey ashlar blocks slid across the kitchen flagstones and settled into the rectangular opening where the wooden plank door had hung.
THRESHOLD EXPENDITURE — TWO CLAIM CREDITS DEDICATED TO FOUNDATION CLOSURE
STORED BALANCE: TWENTY CLAIM CREDITS — ACTIVE DEBT CAP: SIXTEEN
Beside the copper soaking tanks, Hobb and Fen worked with cold chisels and a mallet, cutting a six-inch side channel through the scullery floorboards to carry the kitchen wash-water into the outer yard culvert. The clinking of steel against stone was loud and steady, filling the warm room with a fine mist of grey powder that settled over Hobb’s leather apron and Fen’s rolled wool sleeves.
