Brom Copperfist, it turned out, was a very annoying person to work with.
Not because he was incompetentquite the opposite. He was too competent, and like all people who are overly competent in their field, he had his own way which he believed was the only correct way, and he didn't hesitate to express that opinion at an unnecessarily loud volume.
"The excavation angle should be forty-five degrees, not sixty!"
"Sixty is more efficient for"
"In normal soil, yes! But here there's a thin granite layer at a depth of two meters. If you dig at sixty degrees, the moment you hit granite, the tools break and we start from scratch!"
Raka stopped. Considered. "Right."
Brom looked like he had prepared a long argument and suddenly lost his opponent. He stared at Raka with a slightly incredulous expression. "You... agree?"
"You're right. Forty-five degrees."
"Oh." Brom scratched his beard. "Well then."
And they continued working.
________________________________________
The first morning of excavation began with two peopleRaka and Brom. But it didn't take long before others joined.
First came a young Dwarf named Gort, who apparently had been watching from a distance since Brom started making tools the night before, and his curiosity finally overcame his principle of not caring about other people's business. He came without much talk, immediately picked up a hoe, and started working.
Brom glanced at him briefly. "Which mine did you work at?"
"North Ironhold."
"Hmph. Not bad." And that was the warmest welcome Brom could give someone.
Two hours later, three young Beastmen arrivedtwo males and one female, all with twitching ears and restless tails. They didn't immediately offer help. They stood at the edge of the excavation pit, now half a meter deep, watching.
Raka didn't speak to them. Didn't invite them. Didn't explain anything.
He just worked.
Ten minutes later, the largest Beastman among them climbed down into the pit and began digging with his bare handsbecause there were no tools left for them, and apparently that wasn't a problem since the grip of Beastmen fingers in rocky soil was almost as effective as a hoe.
Brom glanced at Raka with a questioning expression.
Raka gave a small shrug. Let them be.
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The granite layer was found exactly at the depth Brom predictedone meter ninety centimeters from the surface.
"Well," Brom said in the tone of a teacher who had just proven his point. "Good thing you listened to me about the angle."
"I already admitted you were right earlier."
"I know. But it still feels good to repeat it."
Raka looked at him briefly. Then returned to examining the granite layer in front of him with the tip of a smaller, sharper tool.
This granite was thinno more than twenty centimeters, if he read the natural fractures correctly. There was a weak point at the lower left corner where the rock layer had naturally separated, perhaps due to years of ground movement. If struck at the right angle with the right force
"Brom."
"What."
"Look at this crack." Raka pointed. "If we strike from this angle with a chisel, the granite will split along its natural line. No need for extra force."
Brom narrowed his eyes, stepped closer, examined it. His hand traced the crack Raka indicated with careful fingertipslike a doctor feeling a possibly broken bone.
"...Couldn't you have said this earlier?"
"It only became visible after we dug this far."
"Hmph." Brom grabbed his chisel. "Move."
The first strikeright at the point Raka indicated, at a thirty-degree angle from horizontal.
The crack spread.
The second strikeslightly harder, same position.
The crack widened.
The third strike
The granite didn't crack. It collapseda large slab the size of a dining table broke off completely and fell into the darkness below. Everyone in the pit jumped back reflexively.
Then they heard it.
Not faint like what Raka heard yesterday from the surface.
Clear. Real. The sound of flowing water in significant volumeechoing from the space beneath the now-open granite, rising upward like the breath of something long asleep.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Brom, who in forty years of life had found many things underground but apparently never something like this, uttered a single word in Dwarf language that Raka didn't understandbut from the tone, it clearly wasn't a curse.
It was closer to a prayer.
"Aegis," Raka called softly in his mind.
"Yes, Host."
"Can you scan now?"
"With the location identified, a partial scan is possible without CivPoints. Processing..."
A notification lit up.
________________________________________
║ AEGIS PARTIAL SCAN: CALVEN
╠══════════════════════╣
║ Identification : Underground River "Calven"
║ Width : Estimated 8–12 m
║ Depth : Estimated 4–6 m
║ Flow : South to North
║ Volume : VERY LARGE (exceeds initial estimate by 340%)
║ Water Quality : Cleandrinkable after simple filtration
╠════════════════════╣
║ ⚠ NOTE:
║ Calven River branches eastward
║ toward the Ferros Plains. High irrigation potential.
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝
________________________________________
Raka read the number twice.
340% above the initial estimate.
He took a deep breath. In his previous world, he had worked on dam projects. He knew what a water source of this scale meant for a region the size of Kraval.
This wasn't just solving a water crisis.
This was the foundation of an entire civilization.
"Brom," he called.
"What." Brom's voice was still slightly offtoo quiet for a Dwarf like him.
"We need to reinforce the pit walls before going further down. If someone falls into the river now, there's no easy way back up."
Brom nodded slowly. His hands were already movingchecking the excavation walls, measuring thickness in a way only someone who had spent half his life underground could.
"Two hours," he said. "I need two hours for stabilization."
"You have two hours."
Raka climbed out of the pit, stood on the surface, and inhaled the cool evening air.
Pak Doru was already waiting above, along with about thirty Kraval residents gathered curiously around the Old Stone. Some Humans. A few Dwarves. One or two Elves pretending not to be interested but standing close enough to hear.
"There's water down there," Raka said without preamble.
Thirty pairs of eyes stared at him.
"A lot. Enough for all of Kraval and still plenty left."
Silence.
Then someonea elderly Dwarf woman standing in the backcovered her mouth with her hand. Her shoulders trembled.
Raka turned away before anyone could see his expression.
________________________________________
Night came faster than he wanted.
The pit stabilization was completed on time, and the small group that had formed organically throughout the dayBrom, Gort, the three Beastmen, and four Humans who joined latermanaged to create initial access to the Calven River before the light was gone. They couldn't channel water to the surface tonight. That was tomorrow's job.
But they had touched the water.
Brom lifted his wet hand out of the access gap, stared at the water flowing across his palm under torchlight, and said nothing. No need.
Raka returned to his hut with his body aching and the next day's agenda already neatly arranged in his mind.
He had just sat down when someone knocked on his door.
Not an ordinary knock. Three knocksquick, short, specific. Like a code.
"Come in."
A Beastman entered.
But not one of the three who helped dig today.
This one was different.
Wolf-typethat was obvious from the ears and facial structure. Tall, almost as tall as Raka, with a proportionate build but strength evident even in the way he stood. Dark gray hair. Golden-yellow eyes that caught the oil lamp's light in a way human eyes couldn't.
And on his wrista chain.
Not a new chain. One that had been worn for a long timethere were chafing marks on the skin beneath it, red and rough. At the end of the chain was a rusted lock, still closed.
Behind him, four Humans in worn uniformsguards, or those claiming to bepushed the Beastman into the room unnecessarily.
"Lord Aldric," said the front guard. Probably in his forties, with a thick mustache and the tone of someone used to handling matters he considered beneath him. "This Beastman was caught last night stealing from the food storage. We await your decision for punishment."
Raka looked at the Beastman.
The Beastman looked back. Didn't lower his gaze. Didn't apologize. Didn't explain.
Just staredwith eyes too accustomed to situations like this to be surprised by whatever would come next.
"How much did he steal?" Raka asked.
"Three pieces of bread and two tubers, sir."
Raka turned to the guard. "Did everyone eat last night?"
"Yes, sir. But rations were distributed evenly"
"If everyone already ate and he still stole three pieces of bread," Raka said flatly, "then he's saving it for someone who wasn't present during distribution."
Silence.
"Or," Raka continued, "he doesn't trust that food distribution will still exist tomorrow. So he keeps reserves."
He looked at the Beastman again. "Which is it?"
The Beastman didn't answer. But something moved very slightly in his jawa muscle tightening and relaxing again.
"Are there children in your group who weren't present during yesterday's distribution?" Raka asked directly.
A longer silence.
Then, very softlyalmost inaudibleone word.
"Two."
Raka nodded. He reached for the keys on his deskhe had asked Pak Doru to collect all stray keys in Kraval since morning without explaining whyand tried them one by one on the chain lock.
The third key.
Click.
The chain fell to the floor with a sound too loud for such a small room.
Everyone in the roomthe four guards, the Beastman himselffell silent.
"Tomorrow morning," Raka said to the guard who spoke earlier, "make sure someone goes around to each group and asks directly if anyone was absent or unable to attend the food distribution. Deliver rations to their location."
"But sir, the procedure"
"Our procedure has just changed." Raka turned to the Beastman. "Name?"
The Beastman looked at his freed wrist. Then at Raka.
There was no overflowing gratitude on his face. No tears of emotion. Just the expression of someone carefully reassessing somethinglike someone who had been deceived too many times to immediately trust kindness given without conditions.
"Seran," he finally said.
"Seran." Raka nodded. "Tomorrow morning, if you want, come see me here after sunrise. I have an offer you might want to hear."
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't, that's fine." Raka had already turned back to his desk, picking up his wooden notes again. "That's your choice."
Seran stood there for a few more seconds.
Then, without a word, he left.
The four guards exchanged looks, unsure how to react.
"You too," Raka said without turning. "Tonight you guard the storage, not people."
They left.
The room returned to silence. Only the sound of wind outside and the creaking of a hut in need of repair.
Raka looked at the chain lying on the floor.
"Aegis."
"Yes, Host."
"Note this. Kraval currently has no laws regarding chains and imprisonment. That needs to change. But not tonight."
"Noted. Priority: establishing a basic legal system."
"One more thing."
"Yes?"
"That BeastmanSeran. Keep his name."
"Reason?"
Raka set down his wooden notes. Looked at the cracked ceiling of the hut, his thoughts already three steps ahead as usual.
"Kraval needs eyes and ears. And I just saw someone whose way of moving makes four armed guards unaware that he could take them all down before the door even closed."
Silence.
"...A very specific observation."
"Data is data." Raka extinguished the oil lamp. "Good night, Aegis."
________________________________________
Seran walked out of the new ruler of Kraval's hut with light wrists and a mind full of things he couldn't yet decide.
He had lived long enough to know that no one gives something without expecting something in return.
But the way that Human removed his chainsthere was no expression of victory. No expectation of repayment displayed. No look that said, "you owe me now."
Just a question.
And a choice.
Seran looked up at the star-filled sky of Kraval and decided he would come tomorrow morning.
Not because he believed.
But because he wanted to know what would happen next.
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