Waking was a slow emergence from troubled waters. First, the pain: a deep ache that snaked along his back, a souvenir of the night spent on the hard, damp hay of the stable. Then the smells: mold, manure, and that undertone of spent ash that seemed to permeate every fiber of Greyrock. Finally, the realization: it was not a dream.
Arteo sat up, rubbing his eyes. The Library, the tragic books, the Voice... it was all real. Except that he was now in a world of flesh and stone, with an impossible mission and a bed of straw as his only headquarters.
Beside him, Lyn's small copper pot glinted faintly in the gloom. That simple, dented object had become the symbol of his one, fragile hope. As he watched it, something new manifested in his consciousness. Not a voice, not an image, but a sensation. As if an extra vein flowed through his mind, filled not with blood, but with something denser, darker. He closed his eyes and, concentrating, saw: an ebony inkwell, suspended in the void of his thought. It was filled to the brim with a black, viscous liquid that caught the light in purplish reflections. Next to it, clear, crisp numbers floated: 100/100.
The Ink of Destiny. The resource the Voice had spoken of. It was not a metaphor. It was there, tangible in its intangibility, a limited reserve of possibility. He felt an irrational impulse, the temptation to dip an imaginary pen into that ink and alter something, anything, just to see how it worked. To feel its power. He suppressed the instinct. That power had a price, and he did not yet know what it cost. He had to be thrifty. He had to be wise.
He left the stable, the small pot in his hand. The icy morning air stung his lungs. The village was waking up, enveloped in a cloak of grey and routine.
"Hah, the hardworking stranger. The nightingale sings even with a dry throat, I see."
Borgo was in his usual spot, at the entrance to The Drunken Boar's Lodging, the pipe in the corner of his mouth and the sharp chisel he twirled between his fingers like a juggler. His raven eyes scrutinized Arteo, then the small pot.
"Good morning," Arteo muttered, feeling the weight of the man's gaze.
"Good day, bad day, the sun rises and sets all the same," Borgo philosophized, blowing a perfect smoke ring. "I see you have a soft heart, Scribbler. You trouble yourself over a small pot when the roof of the world has rotten beams." His gaze drifted toward the higher part of the village, where Torvin's manor loomed, gloomy and silent. "Be careful not to confuse charity with foolishness. Mending an object is noble. Mending destiny is an ambition for madmen."
At that moment, a hideous sound tore through the morning quiet. It came from the manor. It was not a human cough. It was a metallic wrench, a rattle that seemed produced by rusty gears and twisted sheet metal. The sound spread through the village like a malicious wave. The few inhabitants already in the street hurried their steps, bowing their heads and pulling up their hoods, not from the cold, but as if to protect themselves from that impure noise. Torvin's cough. It was worse than he had imagined, a mechanical, spectral thing. Borgo grimaced in disgust. "Hear that? Our beloved lord rings his personal bell. A warning, Scribbler. Soon he will send his dogs to collect the bone he desires." His gaze, heavy with meaning, pointed straight toward Roric's forge. The threat was no longer an abstraction, a tavern rumor. It was in the air, in that blood-chilling sound, in Borgo's words. It was real and it was approaching.
Shortly after, he saw Roric leave the forge, empty buckets swinging at his sides. He walked with heavy steps toward the river, completely lost in thought. It was time. Arteo headed for the workshop, his heart beating a little faster. The pressure of the Ink in his mind was a constant presence, a silent reminder.
Lyn was waiting for him on the threshold, hopping to warm her bare feet on the frozen ground. "Quickly," she whispered, grabbing his arm with surprising strength and pulling him inside the forge. The air was warm and stagnant, thick with the smell of metal, charcoal, and sweat. As Lyn closed the wooden door, Arteo noticed something that chilled his blood more than the outside cold. On the stone wall opposite him, lit by the reflection of the extinguished forge, the shadows of the hanging tools—hammers, tongs, pincers—did not cast their usual confused shapes. For a very brief moment, they organized, composing themselves into sharp, angular characters, forming a phantom phrase written with smoke and darkness: YOU CANNOT FIX EVERYTHING. Then, with the blink of an eye, the shadows returned to normal. The Proofreader. He had heard it, he had seen it. And it was warning him. The pressure of the Ink in his mind pulsed, stronger, like an alarm bell.
"There," Lyn said, pointing to a secondary workbench, cluttered with filings and old tools. She was clearly unaware of the nightmare that had just unfolded under her nose. "You can use that. But don't touch anything else. Roric... he knows when something has been moved. It's as if he talks to the metal, and the metal whispers its secrets to him." Her voice was filled with a mixture of admiration and fear.
Arteo nodded, setting down his small mending kit: the silver thimble, the sturdy needle, a piece of soft leather, and a tiny hammer he had borrowed from Borgo. The small pot, among Roric's massive and threatening tools, looked like a toy, fragile and out of place. The sensation of the Ink was now a constant itch in his consciousness, a dangerous temptation.
"Well then," Lyn said, perching on a nearby stool and fixing him with her sharp, awl-like green eyes. "Show me how a Scribbler mends."
Arteo smiled despite the tension. He set to work. The bottom of the small pot was uniformly dented, as if someone had repeatedly struck it with dull anger. With a delicacy that contrasted with the crude setting, he began to work the copper from the rim inward, using the tiny hammer and leather to soften the blows, to persuade the metal to return to its original shape, not force it. It was a work of patience, of tact, of listening. Just like his book restoration. As he worked, the impulse to use the Ink returned, stronger. What would happen if he used just one dot, one tiny little dot? Maybe the pot would fix itself instantly, perfectly. Maybe Lyn would look at him with awe. He resisted. He had to do it alone. He had to earn that trust with his own strength, not with a magical shortcut.
Lyn watched in silence, absorbed by his precise movements, by his hands that, despite writer's calluses, moved with an innate certainty. "You are different from the others," she commented after a while, breaking the silence. Her voice was thoughtful. "The others who come here... they want something from Roric. A sharper sword, a stronger plow. They ask, they take. You... you came to fix something. Something small." She looked at him, and in that gaze there was genuine, not suspicious, curiosity.
Arteo froze for an instant, surprised by her insight. "Perhaps I just need to feel useful," he said, choosing his words with the care he used to handle an ancient scroll. "Your friend, Roric... he seems very focused on his work."
Lyn grimaced, an expression too old for her young face. "Focused? He's possessed." She lowered her voice, even though only the two of them were in the forge. "He only thinks about that stupid bell. He hasn't eaten, hasn't slept for days... it's as if someone lit a fire in his head and he doesn't know how to put it out." Her voice cracked, showing for the first time the fear she was trying to hide. "He fears Torvin wants to steal his silver. He says silver is the only thing that can purify the air of this cursed village. And now that the Lord's cough can be heard all the way here..." She broke off, listening. Another of those terrible coughs, weaker but equally sinister, echoed in the distance. Lyn shivered, hugging her shoulders. "His men were already here yesterday to 'check.' With faces like a funeral and stupid questions." She stared at Arteo. "They asked about you too. The new stranger."
A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature clenched his stomach. The mosaic of tragedy was assembling with terrible clarity. The Proofreader watched from the shadows, Torvin stirred in his manor, his henchmen asked questions, and he, Arteo, was there in the middle, with a small pot in his hand, a mysterious resource in his mind, and the awareness that he was already in the crosshairs. He was about to say something to her, an empty reassurance that he immediately felt foolish for contemplating, when a massive shadow blocked the light from the entrance.
Roric had returned. The buckets, now full of water, hung from his hands as if they were empty. He stopped on the threshold, his imposing silhouette filling the entire doorway. His grey eyes, ringed with exhaustion and lit by an internal fever, passed from Lyn to Arteo, then fixed on the small pot that was slowly returning to its shape in the "Scribbler's" hands. The silence that fell over the forge was thick, laden with a tension you could cut with a knife. Arteo stiffened, bracing for a roar of anger, for an order to leave and never come back.
Instead, Roric put down the buckets with a dull thud that made Lyn jump. Then, with a slowness that was almost more menacing than a sudden movement, he approached. His gaze was not angry. It was... curious. Deeply, intensely curious. He bent down slightly, his broad shoulders casting an even larger shadow on the workbench, and observed Arteo's hands working the metal with a precision that was the absolute antithesis of his powerful, muscular blows.
"You are stretching the metal," he said finally, his voice a low rumble that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. "You don't hammer it. You use patience. Not force."
Arteo nodded, unable to speak. He felt the pressure of the Ink subside slightly, as if the choice not to use it, to work alone, had somehow preserved the precious resource.
"It's a goldsmith's technique," Roric continued, almost speaking to himself. His gaze was fixed on the copper taking shape. "Not a blacksmith's. You work the metal as if it were thread, not a bar." He paused, and for the first time, Arteo saw a glimmer of something that wasn't obsession in his eyes: respect from artisan to artisan. "But... it is effective." With a movement surprisingly delicate for such a large, calloused hand, he reached out and took the small pot. He examined it, turning it between his fingers, feeling the surface that was now almost smooth. "Copper is soft. Yielding. It bends under pressure, it doesn't break." He looked up and his eyes met Arteo's. "Sometimes... perhaps that is a quality."
It was a revelation, a moment of pure, uncontaminated human connection that cut through the fog of obsession and fear. Roric, the giant of fire and steel, the man who wanted to forge a bell to purify an entire village with sheer willpower, was recognizing the value of a different, subtler, more patient approach. Lyn stared at him, open-mouthed, incredulous, her expression a mixture of hope and astonishment.
Then, like a falling curtain, the moment broke. Roric placed the small pot back on the bench with a gesture that was already distant again. "The bell is not copper," he said, his voice returned to its flat, obsessive tone. He looked at his hands, calloused and burned. "Silver is pure. But it is fragile. I must be strong for both of us." He turned and walked toward the forge, his attention already captured by the covered crucible, returning to his world of fire, determination, and solitude.
But for an instant, a brief, precious instant, a crack had opened. And through that crack, the light had passed.
Lyn grabbed the now almost-perfect small pot. Her eyes shone with an emotion Arteo had not yet seen from her. "Thank you, Scribbler," she whispered, clutching the object to her chest. "Maybe... maybe you can come back tomorrow? I have a spoon... it got bent when... well, when I threw it against the wall." She blushed slightly. "I was angry."
Arteo nodded, an unexpected wave of warmth melting the cold that had accumulated in his stomach. He hadn't defeated Torvin's shadow, he hadn't driven away the Proofreader, he hadn't changed destiny. But he had mended a small pot. And perhaps, he had begun to mend a little of the trust that fear and obsession had consumed.
Leaving the forge, he saw Borgo across the street, watching him with his usual indecipherable expression. But next to Borgo, standing at the corner of a hut, was a man he had never seen. Burly, dressed in dark, better-than-average fabric, with an impassive face and eyes that scrutinized the forge with the empty intensity of a hawk. A servant of Torvin. The threat was no longer just a sound or a voice. It was there, in the flesh, watching, taking notes. And as Arteo met his gaze for a moment, he thought he heard, perhaps it was just an impression dictated by nerves, the faint, dry, unmistakable rustle of a page turning somewhere behind him.