The Oakhaven Method was a seed, and in the fertile ground of Fairmeadow's desperation, it grew with astonishing speed. Titus's team did not give orders; they created systems. The engineer Lise did not just oversee the digging of the new well; she taught the townsfolk the principles of the A-frame level and the rock-chisel, creating a crew of budding local engineers. The agronomist Perrin did not plant the fields himself; he held classes, teaching the farmers how to test the soil, how to space their crops, how to build the simple irrigation ditches that would connect to their new, deeper well.
Fairmeadow began to heal. The sound of hammers replaced the silence of despair. The sight of clean water bubbling from a new stone-lined well brought tears to the eyes of people who had only ever known brackish poison.
Weeks later, a lone rider from Fairmeadow arrived in Oakhaven City. He did not come as a beggar, but as an ambassador. He carried a heavy, carefully inscribed clay tablet, a formal petition from the newly established Fairmeadow Council. It requested that their lands, the whole of the former Duchy of Stillwater, be formally accepted as a Protectorate of the Wastes Confederacy, swearing to uphold the Charter in exchange for the continued partnership and protection of Oakhaven.
Back in my study, the news arrived as a cool, clinical chime in my mind.
[PRIMARY QUEST UPDATE: 'THE AGE OF ORDER']
[SUB-QUEST 1: Establish Protectorates in three separate regions by offering aid and security. (1/3) COMPLETE.]
[ANALYSIS: The Oakhaven Method has proven effective. The Stillwater Duchy has been successfully integrated as a protectorate. Ideological influence is spreading.]
[REWARD: +10 SYSTEM POINTS.]
A wave of profound relief washed over me. I checked my strategic reserves. The influx of ten points was a godsend. I thought of the immense, nation-building costs of the Lyceum, of establishing the Ministries and the Hall of Records, expenditures that had bled my reserves dry. The Confederacy was thriving, but I had been running on the fumes of past victories, a dangerous secret I had kept even from my council. These ten points brought my total to twelve—a desperately needed buffer, but a slim one. The future was expensive.
I brought the news of our first Protectorate to the Grand Council. The mood in the Market Hall was jubilant. Grak roared in approval, while Anya gave a nod of quiet, deep satisfaction. We were no longer just a collection of allied tribes; we were becoming the architects of a new world order, one built on mutual prosperity instead of fear.
The celebration was cut short by the frantic arrival of a Desert Ranger, his face pale and his sand-colored horse lathered with sweat. He stumbled into the hall, gasping for breath.
"My Lord Protector," he said, his words directed at me but heard by all. "It's Greenhollow. The town in the northern foothills." He was talking about a community that, inspired by the news from Stillwater, was preparing to send their own delegation. "They've been sacked. Burned to the ground."
A heavy silence fell over the council.
"Bandits?" Borin growled, his hand already on the hilt of his sword.
"No," the Ranger said, shaking his head. "It was an army. Disciplined. They flew the banner of the flayed wolf."
Anya's sharp intake of breath was the only sound. "Lord Vorlag," she whispered, the name a curse. "A former Royal Duke. A man who rules his lands with an iron whip. A man who skins his enemies."
The message was as clear and brutal as Vorlag's banner. He had seen our soft power spreading, and he had met it with hard, bloody steel. He was not just a bandit; he was a rival power, a cancer of the old world who saw our new one as a mortal threat.
I walked to the great map. The new, stable green of the Stillwater Protectorate seemed so fragile now. The Ranger's report was a fresh, bloody stain on the northern territories, a direct, contemptuous challenge to everything we were building. The war of liberation was over. The war for the soul of the fractured kingdom had just begun.