Day 1: Analysis
The baronial manor's central office was frigid, the cold radiating from the heavy, damp stone walls. Kael sat at the Baron's desk—a scarred slab of oak covered in years of accumulated dust and neglect. Candlelight struggled to penetrate the gloom.
Steward Elms nervously spread out the barony's financial and agricultural records. The ledgers were bound in cracking, dry leather, their pages filled with sprawling, messy script that looked less like professional accounting and more like a fevered man's last scribblings. Elms hovered nearby, adjusting his spectacles, clearly viewing the entire exercise as a meaningless formality before their final, collective collapse.
"These are three years of records, my lord," Elms whispered, his voice thin with apprehension. "The previous Baron kept only scant records before his final departure. Most are simple notes on taxes owed and debts incurred. There is little here of substance."
Kael ignored the man's despair and pulled the first ledger close. To Elms, the numbers were a chaotic jumble of medieval symbols representing only failure. To Adrian Cole, the U.S. Army logistics lieutenant, they were a diagnostic map of a complex, deliberately engineered systemic collapse.
He began the arduous process of translating the local script, the complex medieval system of weights (stone, bushel, quarter) and coinage (copper, silver, gold marks) into a modern, actionable, quantifiable resource assessment. He needed data points, not anecdotes.
He focused first on The Caloric Timeline:
Harvest Totals (Last 3 years): The records listed grain yields Y_1, Y_2, and Y_3. All were critically low, showing a year-on-year decline typical of soil exhaustion. Kael mentally calculated the remaining volume of grain in the granary and the required caloric intake for the village's current population of approximately 300 souls. The reality was a punch to the gut: the total stored grain provided only enough bulk food for a maximum of forty days at minimum survival rations.
Seed Stock: Elms pointed to a faint annotation: Seed for spring planting: insufficient. Must borrow. Kael verified the recorded amount—barely enough to plant one-tenth of the needed acreage, and the seed quality was described as "dusty and frail." Planting this amount would not only be pointless but would also be a colossal waste of the remaining food reserves.
Population Health: Kael cross-referenced the estimated current caloric deficit with the growing number of 'sick' or 'infirm' people Elms had vaguely noted. The inevitable conclusion was obvious: the [CRITICAL DANGER ALERT] from the previous night was not merely contamination; it was a compound threat where disease would finish the job that starvation had started.
Kael pushed aside the caloric ledger and pulled forward the Financial Ledger, focusing on the debts. The contents were sickeningly familiar.
"Steward," Kael said, his voice flat with cold realization. "These figures—the final column listing the trade debts to the Duke's merchant guilds for 'iron tools, fine wine, and a decorative suit of armor'—they are not debts incurred by need."
Elms looked terrified. "My lord, the Duke's men will arrive in four months to collect the quarterly payment. The penalty for default is seizure of all assets and forced serfdom for the villagers."
"The interest rates listed here are usury, compounded weekly," Kael stated, tapping the ledger. "The purchase price for the goods is triple the market value even in the capital. This is not debt; this is a predatory scheme set up by my brother's merchants to legally bankrupt the barony, reclaim the land, and destroy me without ever drawing a sword."
The system pulsed again, confirming the severity of the threat Kael had logically deduced.
[CRITICAL DANGER ALERT: Financial ruin via debt default (Duchy Tax Collectors) is a high-probability threat (98% likelihood). Consequence: Immediate loss of all remaining assets, noble title revocation, and enslavement of the population.]
A noble title is my only legal shield, Adrian thought, and the debt is the sword aimed at it. He needed time, and he needed legal leverage. He couldn't fight the Imperial law, but he could fight the predatory contract.
"We will not pay the Duke's collectors," Kael stated simply.
Elms looked aghast, stumbling backward against a shelf. "My lord! That is treason! They will send knights! You cannot defy the Duke!"
"I will not defy the Duke," Kael corrected, his brown eyes fixing Elms. "I will bypass him. Steward Elms, I need you to draft a formal, immediate petition to the Imperial Royal Chancery in Aurelia. Do not send it to my father, the Duke. Send it directly to the Emperor's court."
Elms frowned. "The Imperial Court? They ignore appeals from the frontier!"
"They ignore appeals for mercy," Kael corrected, leaning in. "You will not ask for mercy. You will ask for a legal review of the contract on the grounds of usury and commercial fraud. You will state that meeting the criminal terms of this contract would reduce the entire population to serfdom and permanently sterilize the land, making it unable to contribute any future taxes or military levies to the Crown."
Kael was turning the Duke's scheme into a threat against the Emperor's revenue stream. He was using the very structure of the Empire—which favored stability and income above all else—as his legal shield.
"Frame it not as an appeal from a weak noble, but as a formal Imperial Revenue Warning," Kael instructed. "Detail the fraud meticulously. This will buy us the time we need while the court lawyers argue over the contract."
Elms, bewildered but captivated by the audacity of the legal maneuver, snatched up a quill.
"Now, the hard part," Kael said, pushing away the financial ledger and pulling out the agricultural notes. "The seed stock is worthless, and we have only forty days of guaranteed survival food. We must use what we have to survive now, not to plant. We need a food source that grows fast, requires minimal care, and, most importantly, can survive in this poor, compacted, ash-filled soil."
Adrian looked at the miserable soil description—high in mineral ash, low in nitrogen, and severely compacted. His military agriscience background offered only one viable, yet utterly repulsive, option.
"Do we have any records of wild herbs, shrubs, or edible weeds that currently grow along the riverbed?" Kael asked. "Anything tough. Anything green."
Elms grimaced. "Only the 'Goat's Foot Vine,' my lord. It is hardy, yes, but its tubers are bitter and must be boiled for hours to be made safe and marginally edible. It is known as the food of desperation. No noble, or even free man, would touch it."
Kael gave a bitter smile. "I am no noble, Steward. Find the record for the Goat's Foot. We are going to teach the people of Ashfall how to eat like those who survive on nothing. This will be the food that buys us time."
The initial logistical assessment was complete. Adrian Cole had diagnosed the patient: the barony was suffering from systemic financial sabotage, advanced soil depletion, and imminent mass disease—all within a forty-day window of total food collapse.
Good, Adrian thought, rubbing the cold out of his hands. The problem is quantifiable. Now, we begin the controlled burn to save the infrastructure.