She turned to him, a small smile on her face. "Oh, it was fun," she said. "The market was busier than I expected. Lots of people, lots of noise. The carpenters knew exactly where to go, so there wasn’t any wandering around or haggling. We just walked in, picked the wood, paid for it, and arranged for transport."

Darion nodded. "Sounds efficient."

"It was." She paused. "What did you do while we were away?"

Darion smiled at the question. "I read. Then after I was bored, I went to the knights barracks to watch the knights train. Then I went to sleep. I was woken up by Garren."

Seren raised an eyebrow. "Sounds boring."

Darion smiled. "Not exactly." He said. "The training was actually entertaining. They were sparring, and one of them caught the other with a hit that would have killed him in a real fight. It was interesting to watch."

Seren shrugged. "I guess. Still sounds boring compared to buying wood."

Darion laughed at that.

She smiled.

---

Garren was already closer to the carpenters, looking at the whole stuff more closely, leaving Darion and Seren to their discussion. The older knight moved among the piles of timber, running his hand over the wood, checking the quality, nodding occasionally. He was doing what he always did, making sure things were done properly, even when he wasn’t the one doing them.

Now the carpenters were getting started. They began with measuring the land. This was the most important step. You couldn’t build anything if you didn’t know where it was going to go.

The head carpenter walked to the center of the marked section and pulled out a long measuring rope, not a normal rope, but one with knots tied at regular intervals, each knot marking a specific distance. He handed one end to a laborer and told him to walk toward the eastern edge of the livestock section.

The laborer walked, the rope stretching out behind him. The carpenter called out instructions: "A little left. No, too far. Stop. Good."

Another laborer followed behind them, carrying wooden stakes and a mallet. When the carpenter was satisfied with the measurement, he called out, "Mark it!" and the laborer drove a stake into the ground at that spot.

They repeated this process along the entire perimeter. One knot at a time. One stake at a time. The measuring rope was pulled taut, then adjusted, then pulled taut again. The stakes went in at regular intervals, forming the outline of what would become the livestock pens.

Darion watched from a distance, arms folded. It was slow work. Painstaking work. But it was necessary. A fence that was measured wrong would be crooked. A shelter that was placed off-center would be unstable. The carpenters knew what they were doing. They took their time, checked their measurements twice, and made sure every stake was in the right place.

After the perimeter was marked, the carpenters began measuring the interior. Where the cattle would go. Where the goats would go. Where the chicken coops would be built. Where the storage shelters would stand. Each section was measured, staked, and recorded. The carpenters talked among themselves in low voices, making adjustments, agreeing on placements.

Darion watched it all. The sun was still high, but it was moving. The shadows were growing longer. The work was slow but steady.

He stepped closer to the head carpenter.

"How long will the measuring take?" he asked.

The carpenter straightened, wiping sweat from his brow. "Another hour, maybe more. Then we’ll start sinking the posts. We won’t get far before dark, but we’ll get enough done to make tomorrow easier."

Darion nodded. "That’s fine. Do what you can."

He stepped back and looked at the farmland.

This would take a lot of time for sure, Darion decided. The measuring alone was slow, meticulous work, each stake had to be placed precisely, each measurement checked twice, each section marked and recorded before they could move on to the next.

And it would be very boring for him to just sit and watch it all, especially under this sun that seemed determined to bake him alive.

He remembered the small building made of wood in the middle of the farmlands. The place where he had found a corpse he revived on the first day he came here, the one that had been inside, sitting on a chair, hidden. A man who had died alone in that small structure. Darion had used his necromancy on him, raised him, added him to his inventory. That felt like a long time ago now.

He stared at it now. The building was still standing, weathered but intact.

It wasn’t much, a single room and a storage shed. It had a roof. It had shade.

It would be a good place to sit while he watched this from afar.

He walked toward it now, his boots crunching against the dry earth. Seren watched him as he moved, her eyes tracking his progress across the field. The sun wasn’t doing any difference to her either, she stood there in the middle of the heat like it didn’t bother her, her arms still folded, her expression unreadable.

Darion reached the building and stood at the corridor before the door. The shade was immediate and welcome. The coolness of the wooden structure enveloped him, a relief from the oppressive heat. The sun was still blazing out there, but here, under the overhang, it felt bearable.

It was better here. Shelter!!

He leaned against the wooden wall and watched the work continue from a distance. The laborers moved slowly, their shadows long and dark against the bright earth. The carpenters directed them with hand gestures and occasional shouts. The stakes went in one by one. The measuring rope was pulled taut, adjusted, pulled taut again.

He stayed there for a while, letting the coolness of the shade wash over him. The sound of the work, the thud of stakes being driven into the ground, the murmur of voices, the distant movement of the farmers at the other end of the fields, created a kind of background hum that was almost peaceful.

And now... Seren started walking toward there.

She moved across the field with purpose, her boots kicking up small puffs of dust with each step. She wasn’t running, wasn’t hurrying, but she was coming. Directly toward the building. Directly toward him.