Chapter 101 You

Chapter 101 You
Chapter 7: Old Pell

"You're either the bravest fool in this village or the stupidest."

Old Pell said it without looking up from the turnip he was pulling from the ground, dirt-caked hands working with the patience of a man who'd farmed this same plot for thirty years.

"Depends who you ask." Jasper leaned against the fence separating their two properties, watching the old man work. "Tobin says you've got complaints about quota fines."

"Tobin talks too much." Pell finally looked up, squinting against the morning light, eyes sharp despite the wrinkles carved deep around them. "But he's not wrong. Guild's been fining half the farms in this village for three seasons running. Says our yields don't meet regional average."

"And do they?"

"Used to." Pell set the turnip in his basket and reached for another. "Then something changed about a year back. Fines started climbing, quotas started climbing with them, and somehow the guild always seemed to know exactly which farms were falling short before we'd even finished the season's harvest."

Jasper pulled the ledger fragment from his shirt and held it out over the fence. "Take a look."

Pell wiped his hands on his apron before accepting the parchment, and Jasper watched his face carefully as the old man's eyes moved down the columns of numbers.

\[READ INTENT ACTIVATED\]
\[TARGET: OLD PELL\]
\[ASSESSMENT: GROWING ANGER — RECOGNITION OF FAMILIAR PATTERN\]

"This is Hesk's hand." Pell's voice went flat, dangerous in a way that hadn't been there a moment before. "I'd know his ledger scrawl anywhere. Man's been keeping the market stall books for a decade."

"Recognize the numbers too?"

"These figures." Pell jabbed a finger at a column halfway down the page. "These are half of what my farm actually produced last season. I remember the exact count, because I remember thinking the fine that followed didn't make sense given what I'd brought in."

"He's reporting half your yield to the guild and keeping the difference."

"Selling it outside the village, I'd wager. Getting full price twice over while the rest of us eat fines for underproducing." Pell's jaw tightened, weathered hands curling into fists at his sides. "Every season I've told my daughter we might have to sell the farm if the fines keep climbing. Every season."

Jasper let the silence sit for a moment, giving the old man room to feel the full weight of what he'd just confirmed.

"I'm gathering Farmers willing to file a formal grievance." Jasper kept his voice level, businesslike. "Enough voices, backed by evidence, forces the guild to send an unscheduled auditor. Someone above Hesk who actually checks the books against real yield."

"And if Hesk finds out before the grievance goes through?"

"Then we lose the element of surprise, and he has time to cover his tracks or come after the people who exposed him." Jasper met the old man's eyes directly. "That's why I need people I can trust to stay quiet until we're ready."

Pell studied him for a long moment, the same calculating look Jasper recognized from every negotiation he'd ever sat through in his old life, someone weighing risk against reward with the kind of care that came from having something real to lose.

"You're new here." Pell finally said it plainly. "Two weeks in this village and you're already digging up guild corruption. Most Farmers your age spend their first month just learning which end of the hoe does the work."

"Guess I learn fast."

"Guess you do." Pell handed the parchment back, decision settling into his weathered features. "Alright. I'm in. But I want to see the full grievance before it goes anywhere near guild eyes. I've got a daughter to think about, and I won't gamble her future on a stranger's plan without knowing the details."

"Fair." Jasper nodded once. "I'll have it ready in a few days. Tobin's reaching out to others too. The more names on the grievance, the harder it is for the guild to dismiss it as one bitter Farmer with a grudge."

"Smart." Pell picked his basket up off the ground, turnips shifting with the movement. "You said you learn fast. What else have you learned, in your two weeks?"

Jasper considered the question, thinking through everything the system had quietly handed him since he'd woken up in this world with a class everyone else considered a joke.

"That nobody pays attention to Farmers." He said it slowly, watching the words land. "Which means Farmers can pay attention to everything else."

Pell's mouth curved into something that might have been the ghost of a smile, the first real warmth Jasper had seen from him since the conversation started.

"There's a saying, back where I trained as a young man. Before I ever picked up a hoe." Pell shifted his basket to one arm. "The quietest field grows the deepest roots."

"Didn't peg you for a poet."

"I'm not. I'm a farmer who's watched thirty years of harvests come and go, and I've learned that the loud ones burn out fast while the quiet ones outlast everybody." Pell nodded toward Jasper's field, wheat visible over the fence line, still growing faster than any tutorial crop should. "You'd do well to remember that, whatever else you're planning underneath all this."

"I'll keep it in mind."

Pell turned to head back toward his farmhouse, basket balanced against his hip, before pausing and glancing back over his shoulder.

"Two days, you said. For the grievance."

"Two days."

"I'll have three more names by then. Farmers I trust, same as you're trusting me." Pell's expression hardened slightly, resolve settling into the lines of his face. "Time somebody made Hesk answer for what he's been doing to this village."

He walked off toward his farmhouse without waiting for a response, and Jasper watched him go, feeling the plan solidify further with every step the old man took.

\[QUEST UPDATED: RALLY THE FARMERS — 2/5 CONVINCED\]
\[REPUTATION INCREASE: +5 (OLD PELL)\]

Jasper tucked the ledger fragment back into his shirt and turned toward his own field, wheat swaying gently despite the still air, patient and quiet, exactly the way Pell had described it.

"Deepest roots," he murmured, testing the words against everything he'd built in two short weeks. "Let's see how deep this one goes."