By nine in the morning, the shade beneath the canvas awning of Joric Thane’s command wagon was the only cool refuge on the quarry terrace. Outside the strip of grey shadow, the sun beat down upon the pale limestone. That turned the quarry floor into an expanse of white glare that forced every driver and mule skinner to squint through slitted eyes.
Kezra Venn sat on an overturned nail keg at the camp frame stand table, her wooden inkhorn wedged firmly between two flat river stones so it wouldn’t tip if a passing gust rattled the awning poles. Her sleeve was rolled past the elbow to keep the rough wool from smearing the wet lampblack across the parchment of her private field journal.
She wasn’t writing magical formulas or calculating boundary vectors. She was writing down mule-skinning, dog-handling, and burrow-plugging.
In careful, block lettering, she laid out the four-stage set:
SITE CLEARANCE & LIVING-BLOCKER PROTOCOL SALTGLASS CARAVAN · STANDARD Running Claim
Stage One: Underground Cavity Sweep (Dawn / T-minus 120 min) - Iron-rod percussion sweep across all four quadrants at two-pace intervals. - Safety check of all white chalk-stone seams, gravel aprons, and rock vents for claw marks and breathing frost. - Living flush via bitter salt water wash. Zero smoke allowed in porous rock. - Forced burlap-and-cobble plugging of every vent prior to anchor placement.
