The surface measurement of a Plot square was only the skin of a survey. The bone and marrow lay in the dark beneath. Under the third binding mechanic of her class, Kezra Venn couldn’t certify an exchange prism until she had physically dropped to the deepest accessible point inside the boundary, sounded the lithology at every grid intersection, and proven that no hidden load-bearing tie bound the parcel to the surrounding mountain.
While Paxa kept watch over the pack mule at the spring trough and Yseld monitored the lower trail from the western crags, Fellis settled onto an overturned ore tub beside the sorting platform. He buckled the wooden lap-tray across his thighs, opened the leather field ledger. Then he pressed the parchment flat with the smooth heel of his splint.
“outer edge confirmed, Kezra,” Fellis called out, his pencil poised in his uninjured right hand. “Sixteen paces square, true spirit vein posture. Call the surface grid points.”
Kezra walked the nine internal intersection points across the crushed shale yard. She dragged her iron-shod sounding rod through the gravel. At each point, she raised her leather-muffled wooden mallet and struck the head of the brass-collared rod with three firm, measured blows.
