Turn 006 Results — Claybank
Harvest before fire
Alin keeps first call on carts, animals, and field hands until the harvest and immediate storage are secure. The soft lower edge is taken separately at lower quality. Miri's ledger shows exactly where it came from and keeps it apart from seed, ordinary household food, and every craft account.
The two injured households receive their ordinary shares before Rusk receives a counted fuel allowance.
Daia permits one worker to continue seated sorting and record work by choice. For the more seriously injured worker, she gives the answer the household has feared: the leg has healed poorly enough that heavy clay hauling is unlikely to be safe again. She will not call that person useless, and she will not let next season's need turn uncertainty into permission. The care share continues.
The old collapse does not take another life. It does leave a lasting cost.
The terrace in rain
A substantial rain reaches Claybank before the final firing. Hobb closes the hand path while water is moving and watches the redirected drainage from above.
Most of the correction holds. One shallow section begins carrying water toward the soft edge. Hobb redirects it after the rain without deepening a channel toward fields, homes, or the old quarter. The terrace remains firm, but the seasonal record now contains a condition rather than a boast: it must be inspected after serious rain and before every new firing season.
The old kiln quarter and blocked clay path remain closed. No cart road, extraction pit, or permanent wall is begun.
The second small batch
Only after Alin releases the harvest threshold and Miri verifies the household fuel floor does Rusk receive one counted allowance.
The backup tender takes the vent under Rusk's direction. A crosswind changes the draw midway through the firing. Rusk begins to give an instruction, but the tender already opens the vent within the compact's limit. Hobb watches the ground. Daia watches the people. No one is punished for calling the pause.
When the structure cools, the batch contains sound marked forms and a smaller set of cracks and uneven firing. The defects are no worse than the prior pilot. Miri sets both records side by side.
Claybank can now honestly claim a demonstrated and teachable capability: small marked non-food batches at the dry terrace, under named-tender vent control, public accounting, firm-ground inspection, and unconditional worker stops.
Claybank cannot honestly claim food-safe storage, regular production, bulk clay extraction, a permanent kiln, or deliveries to anyone.
Rusk accepts the wording only after the assembly promises that a future post-harvest council must hear his deliberately sized production proposal. Alin accepts the hearing only after the same record states that fuel, carts, and draft animals remain subject to a new seasonal allocation.
The four standing practices are adopted. Rusk keeps craft direction and teaching. Hobb keeps the ground stop. Daia keeps bodily-safety authority. Miri keeps the public ledger with a duplicate held outside the kiln households.
The boat from upstream
Venn does not travel to Ferryend. Late in the month, an unfamiliar small boat comes downriver instead.
Three people remain near the bank: Evin, who handles river and rope work; Pell, a route messenger; and a household witness. They name their settlement Ridgeford and point upstream. Pell says its crossing now carries small supervised cattle groups only when water and footing permit. He offers no access to Claybank and asks for no promise in return.
Venn receives the boat. Miri names her public measure role. Hobb states where the visitors may stand and keeps them away from the old quarter and working ground.
Miri shows the marked non-food forms beside the failures. She does not offer delivery or sale. Evin and Venn compare the visible boat line and immediate channel hazards without exchanging tools. The strangers see harvest work and the terrace smoke; they do not see Claybank's stores, private disputes, or ledgers.
No trade is made. No route right, alliance, protection, food promise, or return visit is agreed. Ridgeford and Claybank nevertheless become real places to one another rather than rumor.
What Claybank leaves behind
- Harvest, seed, household fuel, and care shares remain prior to craft prestige.
- The terrace survives a substantial-rain test with one correction and a permanent seasonal inspection requirement.
- Two bounded batches support a teachable small non-food firing capability under the compact.
- Production, food certification, bulk extraction, permanent construction, and outside deliveries remain unauthorized.
- One worker's heavy-labor capacity is likely permanently reduced; care and ordinary standing continue.
- Ferryend remains a debt-free bounded channel, and Ridgeford becomes Claybank's first directly known player settlement.
At the final public reading, Rusk's sound forms sit on one side of Miri's table and the cracked forms on the other. Daia places an empty work token beside them for the person who will not return to the hauling line.
Claybank keeps all three parts of the record.