Chapter 85 Lo
Chapter 85 Lo
Chapter 9: Bram
Bram's farm smelled like spilled ale before Jasper even reached the door.
He knocked twice. Nobody answered. He knocked again, harder.
"Go away." The voice came muffled through the wood. "Whatever you're selling, I don't want it."
"Sana sent me."
A long pause. Then a chair scraped somewhere inside, and the door opened. Bram stood there in a wrinkled shirt, hair sticking up on one side, eyes bloodshot but sharp enough underneath the mess.
"Sana doesn't send people to my door unless something's wrong."
"Something's wrong." Jasper held up the ledger fragment. "Guild's been shorting your reported yield. Same as everyone else's."
Bram stared at the parchment without taking it. "I know."
"You know?"
"Course I know." Bram stepped back and waved Jasper inside. The house was a mess, dishes stacked in the sink, an empty bottle on the table. "Been farming this plot eleven years. I know what I harvest. I know what the guild says I harvest. The numbers stopped matching two years back."
"Then why haven't you said anything?"
Bram sat down heavily in a chair and rubbed his face with both hands. "Said something once. Went straight to the guild office, laid out my numbers, demanded an explanation." He laughed, short and humorless. "They fined me for wasting an auditor's time. Said my recordkeeping was sloppy. Called me a drunk in front of the whole office."
"Were you drunk?"
"Not yet, that day." Bram's mouth twisted. "Started drinking more after, though. Hard not to, when you know you're being robbed and nobody with power cares."
Jasper set the ledger fragment on the table between them. "This isn't just your word against theirs anymore. I've got four names already. Pell, Sana, Marra, and me. This is Hesk's own handwriting, stolen from the guild storeroom."
Bram picked up the parchment this time, scanning it slower than the others had, like he didn't quite trust his own eyes yet.
\[READ INTENT ACTIVATED\]
\[TARGET: BRAM\]
\[ASSESSMENT: BURIED HOPE — RESISTANT TO TRUSTING GOOD NEWS\]
"This is real." Bram's hands weren't quite steady. "This is actually real."
"It's real. And it's not enough on its own. I need a formal grievance with enough names behind it that the guild can't dismiss it the way they dismissed you alone."
"You want my name on it."
"I want your name on it."
Bram set the parchment down and stared at the table for a long moment. "Last time I stuck my neck out, it cost me my reputation in this village. People still whisper about the drunk farmer who made a scene at the guild office."
"This time you won't be alone."
"That supposed to make a difference?"
"It's already made a difference. Four other people believed it was worth the risk. Pell's risking his daughter's future. Sana's risking the only thing she's got left since her husband passed. Marra's been keeping her own records for fifteen years waiting for someone to listen." Jasper kept his voice level. "You're not the only one who got burned trying to fix this. You're just the only one who tried first."
Bram looked up at him, something shifting behind the bloodshot eyes.
"You're not from around here." It wasn't a question. "Farmers don't talk like this. Farmers keep their heads down."
"I keep hearing that."
"Because it's true." Bram pushed back from the table and stood, steadier than Jasper expected. "Alright. I'm in. But I want it done right this time. No half-measures, no getting dismissed as a drunk with a grudge. If we're doing this, we do it with everything we've got."
"That's the plan."
Bram walked to a shelf near the window and pulled down a small wooden box, coughing dust off the lid before opening it. Inside sat folded papers, yellowed with age.
"My own records." He handed the box to Jasper. "Every harvest for the past three years. Written down the day I brought the crop in, before the guild ever touched the numbers. Kept them in case anyone ever wanted proof."
Jasper flipped through the pages. The dates and figures lined up with the ledger fragment almost perfectly, another independent confirmation stacking on top of Marra's notebook and Sana's memory.
"This is exactly what we need."
"Wish I'd shown someone sooner." Bram's voice went quiet. "Maybe things would've gone different if I hadn't just given up and started drinking instead."
"You're showing someone now."
Bram nodded slowly, something like resolve settling into his face for the first time since Jasper had walked in.
\[QUEST UPDATED: RALLY THE FARMERS — 4/5 CONVINCED\]
\[REPUTATION INCREASE: +5 (BRAM)\]
"One more name," Jasper said, mostly to himself.
"Who's left?"
"Don't know yet. Sana and Marra didn't have a fifth name ready."
Bram thought for a moment, sobriety sharpening his focus. "Try Widow Hale. Runs the goat farm at the north edge, past the old mill. Guild's been fining her worse than anyone, on account of her being alone with nobody to argue on her behalf."
"She'll talk to me?"
"She'll talk to anyone who brings proof instead of promises." Bram managed something close to a smile. "Tell her Bram sent you. She's known me since I was a boy. She'll trust the introduction, even if she doesn't trust you yet."
Jasper thanked him and stepped back out into the afternoon light, the ledger fragment and Bram's box of records both tucked safely against his chest.
Four names. One more to go.
He turned north, toward the old mill, and started walking.
\---
Chapter 10: Widow Hale
The goat farm sat at the edge of the village, fences leaning slightly from years of weather, goats scattered across a field that had clearly seen better days.
An old woman stood near the fence, watching Jasper approach before he'd even reached the gate.
"You're the Farmer." She said it flatly, no warmth in her voice yet. "Word's already gotten around. Pell, Sana, Marra, Bram. All talking to the new Farmer about the guild's numbers."
"Word travels fast."
"Word travels fast when people are desperate for good news." She crossed her arms, studying him the way a woman studies a stranger who might be selling something too good to be true. "I'm Hale. Bram sent you, I take it, since you're standing at my gate instead of running off already."
"He did."
"Then you'd best come in before the goats decide your boots look interesting."
Jasper followed her through the gate, careful to step around the goats wandering loose across the yard, and Hale led him to a small bench near her farmhouse door.
"Show me what you've got."
Jasper laid it all out. The ledger fragment first, then Marra's notebook, then Bram's box of yellowed records. Hale examined each piece slowly, her weathered hands steady despite her age, eyes sharp as she cross-referenced dates and figures.
\[READ INTENT ACTIVATED\]
\[TARGET: WIDOW HALE\]
\[ASSESSMENT: CAUTIOUS INTEREST — VERIFYING BEFORE COMMITTING\]
"This matches." She set the papers down carefully in her lap. "This matches almost exactly what I've suspected for three years running. I stopped keeping my own records after my husband died. Didn't see the point, farming alone with nobody to fight my case."
"You have a case now. Four names already committed to a formal grievance. Yours would be the fifth."
"Five names." Hale looked out at her goats, thinking it over. "Five names against Hesk and whatever guild officials he's got in his pocket. That's not nothing, but it's not everything either. What happens if the guild sides with him anyway?"
"Then we escalate. Regional auditor, formal inspection, public accountability. Guilds hate scandal more than they hate internal corruption. Five farmers filing together forces a response they can't quietly bury."
Hale studied him for a long moment, the same weighing look Jasper had gotten from everyone else in this chain of conversations, each of them deciding whether trust was worth the risk.
"You're young." She finally said it. "Younger than you look, maybe. Bram said you've been here two weeks."
"Two weeks."
"And in two weeks you've convinced four farmers who've been burned by this guild for years to trust a stranger with everything they've got left to lose." Hale's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's either a gift or a trick. I haven't decided which."
"Ask Pell. Ask Sana. Ask Marra and Bram. They'll tell you the evidence speaks for itself. I'm just the one who put the pieces together."
"Modest, for a man organizing a rebellion against guild corruption."
"It's not a rebellion. It's a grievance. Paperwork, not pitchforks."
Hale's mouth twitched, something close to amusement breaking through her caution. "Paperwork can cut deeper than pitchforks, if it's aimed right." She handed the documents back to him. "Alright. My name's on it. Fifty years I've lived in this village, and I won't spend whatever years I've got left watching a thief squeeze every farmer here dry."
\[QUEST COMPLETE: RALLY THE FARMERS — 5/5 CONVINCED\]
\[REWARD: 30 EXP, REPUTATION INCREASE, ALLY NETWORK ESTABLISHED\]
\[NEW QUEST AVAILABLE: FILE THE GRIEVANCE\]
Jasper felt something settle into place as the quest completed, five names now standing behind evidence solid enough that even a guild protecting its own would struggle to dismiss it.
"Thank you." He meant it plainly, without embellishment.
"Don't thank me yet." Hale stood, brushing dust off her skirt. "Thank me after the guild actually does something about Hesk. Until then, this is just five farmers with a piece of paper and a lot of hope."
"It's more than that."
"Maybe." She walked him back toward the gate, goats scattering out of their path. "But hope's gotten plenty of people in this village hurt before. I'm trusting you to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"I will."
Hale opened the gate for him and watched him step through. "One more thing, Farmer."
Jasper turned back.
"Hesk's not stupid, whatever else he is. Five quiet farmers acting different all at once, he'll notice before you're ready for him to notice." Her expression hardened slightly. "Move fast. Faster than feels safe."
"I know."
"Then stop standing at my gate talking, and go file that grievance."
Jasper nodded once and headed back toward the village, five names secured, evidence gathered, and a guild office waiting that had no idea what was about to land on its doorstep.