The Catalyst Altar had been running overnight, working through the haul from the Ironback Wyrm kill while Riven slept. He checked the result first thing, before the morning's summon, before anything else.[Catalyst Altar — Conversion Report][Input: Iron Scale x7][Output: Refined Ironscale Alloy x2][Remainder Banked: Iron Scale x1][Input: Molten Core x2][Conversion Threshold Not Met — Minimum 3 Required][Molten Core Banked: x2]The Iron Scale had converted clean, three raw units to one refined unit, with a single leftover banked for the next batch. The Molten Cores hadn't converted at all. Two wasn't enough to clear the Altar's minimum, and until a third one turned up, both sat in storage doing nothing.Riven sent the report to Brynhild with a single instruction: come

Riven woke to a panel waiting at the edge of his vision, the way the System always surfaced anything that had changed overnight.[Lord Hall — Overnight Report][Population: 340][Food Reserve: 62% → 41%][Food Production: -180/day (Net)]He sat up and made himself study it fully before he trusted the number, still not entirely awake.Forty-one percent wasn't a crisis yet, but the trend line was the part that mattered. Three hundred forty subjects ate more than two hundred ninety did, and the farms hadn't grown to match. He'd been so focused on the Ravager fight and the housing redesign that the food side of the ledger had kept sliding while he wasn't looking at it.He pulled up the full breakdown before he'd even left the room.[Farm Output — Current][Grain Fields: L

Elarys found Riven on the wall before the morning summon."I want to run a proper check on the Affinity," she said. "Not a guess. A real reading, the same way you'd check a piece of equipment."Riven had been expecting this since the last time she'd brought it up. She'd mentioned it twice now — once after the Ravager fight, once during the housing rezoning — and both times he'd told her it could wait until something more urgent cleared out of the way. Nothing urgent was in the way this morning."Then we check it now, before the Dungeon opens." He didn't see a reason to put it off any longer than he already had. A number left unchecked had a way of turning into a bigger question than it deserved to be, and he'd rather close it early than let it sit."He pulled up Identification and pointed it at her the way he would at any unresolved number.[Identificatio

The fortress trench had grown another meter deeper overnight, and Riven checked its progress from the wall before turning to the rest of the morning.[Fortress Redesign — Status][Foundation Trenching: 40% Complete][Materials Committed: Raw Stone x610, Hardened Timber x290][Estimated Completion: 5 Days]Five days instead of six to eight. Brynhild's crews were running ahead of her own estimate, which had become close to a pattern with her by now. Riven made a note to stop being surprised by it and moved on to the day's actual business.He checked the Watchtower joint reinforcement alongside it, since Brynhild had promised the two projects would run in parallel without either one stealing time from the other.[Watchtower Joint Reinforcement — Status][Joints Completed: 1 of 3]

Last Updated : 2026-10-05

Riven started the morning with a number he hadn't bothered to calculate before.[Territory Ledger — Last 7 Days][Gold In: 18,940 (Dungeons: 4,730 / Hordes: 13,100 / Trade: 1,110)][Gold Out: 14,200 (Construction: 9,800 / Summons: 2,900 / Trade: 1,500)][Net: +4,740][Materials Processed (Altar): 142 Raw → 57 Refined]He'd been treating every Dungeon clear, every Horde reward, and every trade as its own separate event for weeks, checking each number as it arrived and moving on to the next decision without ever stepping back to see the shape of the whole. Looking at a full week combined into one ledger told him something the individual numbers never had — the territory wasn't just growing. It was running a genuine surplus, steady enough to fund something bigger than another building upgrade."We're not short o