It had been two-solid-days of backbreaking labour for Sludge, though its lumberjack frame would never tire, and neither would the writhing black tendrils deep beneath the folds of its flesh.

  Now that the rains had ceased, the sun had been shining on Barston like the pleasant placement of a fathers guiding hand.

  Teln, the cooper, had wrangled a team of ten of the stoutest folk Barston had to offer—Sludge would make them eleven.

  There were the two brothers, Gus and Sarden, who lived in the small cabin beneath the bell tower. Older fellers, but certainly knew their way around a band saw.

  Lox, Sammy, Hamish, and Rand—frequent patrons of the Sunny Buckle; the town tavern that Sludge had grown awfully fond of. Strange. It had found itself liking things now. Each evening spent there had made the warm feeling in Sludge's belly hum like a hanging lantern.

  Besides the men, there was Esme and Agnes. Both of them barely twenty but keen to prove that their shoulders were just as broad as the rest.

  And then there was Tub. The Butcher's son. Equally as podgy as his father would suggest, with the same doughy eyes and the same warm smile. Ever since his father had returned from Skaggad in one piece, telling the tale of how his life had been gifted by the brave and noble hand of the Axe, Tub hadn't left Sludge alone.

  Tub would sit beside it at the tavern, when they passed warm bread around the logging fire, even when they broke in the warmth of high noon and stood on the tallest ridge—pissing off the side. Sludge would stand there idling, entirely unsure what to do.

  Oblivious, Tub would just stand there on the ridge, breeches unlaced, humming tunelessly into the wind as though it were a duet partner. Sludge awkwardly beside him, axe resting across one broad shoulder, watching the horizon with a patience that could have been mistaken for wisdom.

  “You don’t, er—?” Tub had once asked, glancing sideways mid-stream.

  Sludge had tilted its head. “Do not.”

  Tub had nodded solemnly. “Right.” And that had been that.

  The tenth—of course—was Teln himself. Gaffer. Foreman. Keen keeper of quotas and ledgers. He had promised to work them round the clock—three days straight, maybe more—until there was a pile of lumber high enough for hauling.

  By the third day the north stand fell in steady rhythm.

  Each swing of Sludge’s axe landed with a crack like a split sky. Chips flew; trunks groaned; timber fell true. The brothers worked the saw where needed, Sarden guiding the teeth while Gus sighted the line.

  Esme and Agnes hauled cut lengths with Lox and Rand, shoulders burning, laughing through it. Sammy sang poorly. Hamish complained about sap in his beard.

  Tub followed Sludge like a devoted duckling.

  “Noticed that you swing different now,” Tub observed one afternoon, watching the axe bite clean through heartwood.

  “Different?” Sludge croaked.

  “Less… angry.”

  Sludge paused.

  The black inside it stirred faintly at that, remembering burning marshes slick with blood. Skaggad split open like a carcass.

  “Build,” it said simply.

  Tub grinned. “Aye. We're doing that. What are we building though?”

  Sludge shrugged, swung its axe, and trees were felled.

  The first structure to rise was not glorious. Far from it, in fact. And their three days labour had felt awfully futile in response.

  It was no watch-post crowned with bright banners. No high office or noble constabulary. No hall of hearths grand enough to swallow ten hogs whole.

  It was a simple storehouse.

  It was practical. Square. Thick-beamed and stubborn.

  “Lot of folk in this town that like eating. All that grub needs somewhere to sit,” the Butcher had grunted from a stool dragged out into the square, cane across his knees. “Else it rots.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Teln had scratched the layout into the dirt with a sharp stick and measure. “It ain't pretty but we need this. Near the well. Can keep grain dry and salted meats high. No sense re-tilling the fields if we've nowhere to put it.”

  Sludge had crouched low, staring at the lines.

  Build, said the warm voice inside it.

  The glow in its ribcage pulsed once—firm, deliberate—and somewhere deep beneath the folds of its being, where the black tendrils coiled and whispered, something shifted in reluctant acknowledgement.

  And then, as it had done before in Mav Keddery’s hall—an odd sensation in its vision. A strange, dim light brushed across its thoughts.

  [Barston—Settlement Status

  Steward: “Sludge”

  Condition: …In Repair

  Morale: Steady (+Rising)

  Defences: Meagre

  Food Security: Precarious]

  [Development Slots: 1/6 Occupied

  Slot I: Tavern (The Sunny Buckle) – Provides Morale +1]

  [Available Slots: 5]

  [New Construction Proposed: Storehouse (Tier I)

  Effect: +Food Preservation, +Resource Capacity, Minor Morale Boost

  Materials Required: Timber (Heavy), Iron Nails (Moderate), Stone (Light)

  Labour: 10 Workers

  Estimated Completion: 3–5 Days]

  Sludge blinked, bemused.

  It did not understand the shapes and script as words—not truly—but it felt them as impressions. Like a strange weight of direction. A narrowing path through fog, leading to Teln.

  He was glowing. Well, not quite glowing. More like an outline—a marker. Teln was staring at Sludge as its lumberjack jaw hung open.

  “Well?” Teln said.

  “Build,” nodded Sludge. “Build.”

  By the next day the square was a clutter of beams, carried over in the morning by the girls—great straps of canvas around their waists and shoulders, sliding them through the fields and into the square.

  Teln moved amongst them with a scrap of charcoal tucked behind one ear, muttering numbers. “Ten uprights. And… a cross-brace there. No—there. I swear boys, if it leans like the bell tower then I’ll skin the lot of you.”

  They dug footings with pickaxes, sweat beating their brow.

  Sludge did not tire. It drove posts into earth with methodical force, each thud sending a tremor through the square. A bonk bonk bonk through the afternoon. The sun burned hot overhead, but it felt pleasant—sweet sweat and a steady breeze. The glow in its chest remained constant now. No longer a flicker. A warming hearth, and the more Sludge worked, the firmer and fuller it grew.

  By the fifth morning of graft, walls stood waist-high. Barston folk drifted by as they worked. An old woman with flour on her apron pressed a bright green apple into Agnes’ hands. Children carried pebbles for no reason other than to be part of it, lining up like quarrymen at the pit. The dog lay in the shade of a beam and supervised between snoozing.

  The Butcher watched with a damp-eyed pride. He had, however, been drinking for the entirety.

  “Look at that,” he murmured. “Town’s got bones again, and my boys building better. He's making us all proud, pard.”

  As the final beam was raised, Sludge stood beneath it, hands braced to take the weight while Teln hammered the last of the pegs home.

  “Hold!” the cooper barked.

  Sludge held, lumberjack biceps tensing in thick ridges of veins. The black tendrils within it writhed—not in hunger, but in strain. They were accustomed to the rage and swing of the axe; bursting violence; hungry murder.

  Instead, Sludge steadied. Its heart was different now—if it had one, of course—but that coldness had been sapped in all the right places, and replaced with the hum of warmth and dependability.

  The peg slid in as Teln stepped back. The frame stood. Solid. Firm. A part of Barston.

  A cheer went up—not like patrons cheering a smashed glass at a tavern, but full with sincerity. One that was earned. And again, that unseen sensation brushed across Sludge’s vision.

  [Construction Complete! Storehouse (Tier I)]

  [+Food Preservation Increased

  +Resource Capacity Increased

  +Minor Morale Boost]

  [Development Slots: 2/6 Occupied

  Available Slots: 4]

  [New Build Options Unlocked:

  Watch-Post (Tier I): +Sight Range, +Early Warning

  Palisade (Tier I): +Defence

  Mill (Tier I): +Food Processing

  Barracks (Tier I): +Militia Capacity

  Bell Tower Repairs: +Morale, +Signal Range]

  Sludge exhaled slowly.

  The sight of the Storehouse made it hopeful. It wasn't angry. It wasn't hungry. It didn't feel the need to writhe around consuming everything that slithered its way, because this was home. A hunk of bread by the fire, a tall mug of ale at the Buckle.

  It looked around at the faces in the square—sweat-streaked, dirt-smudged, grinning.

  Tub punched the air. “Can’t believe we've bloody done that. It's standing! Dad, it ain't falling down!”

  “Aye,” said Esme, flexing her aching fingers. “We did.”

  Teln cleared his throat. “Right then. No rest for the righteous and all that. Grain goes in tomorrow, still a few fields that we might be able to rescue before the snows fall.”

  He looked out at the square, at Sludge. “Be a cold winter, I reckon. Won't be many towns feeling as smug as us. Hungry folk get desperate…”

  Sludge turned its gaze to the hill where the old watch-post had once stood—long burned, skeletal against the sky, like a grim scarecrow in a famine field.

  Sludge couldn't take its eyes off the ridge line. It felt the measure of distance in its bones. The way the horizon curved.

  “Next,” it said, pointing with the podge of its lumberjack finger.

  Teln followed the gesture and smiled thinly. “Aye. Had a feeling you might say that, Axe.”

  The Butcher thumped his cane several times against the cobble. “Barston ain’t no table scrap no more!”

  “No,” Tub agreed eagerly with a yell. “We’re the whole fucking hog!”

  Laughter rippled through the air like confetti on a maiden's wedding day, and as the vibrations of the good people of Barston bounced from the cobbles, to the walls, to the firm bones of Sludge's ribcage, it felt something slide within it.

  [Soul Fragment charged. Equip?]