With the new trade route established and the injection of high-grade iron and salt, Kael shifted the primary focus of the Core labor group from pure defense to long-term structural investment. The construction of the aqueduct had eliminated the disease vector, and the bastions had averted the external military threat. Now, Kael had to tackle the core structural failure that had caused the famine in the first place: the complete lack of safe, efficient food storage. The existing granary was a crumbling, pest-infested structure, incapable of protecting the coming meager harvest from rot, insects, and rodents. Investing labor in a new granary before the harvest was a high-risk gamble, but Kael knew it was essential to guarantee the success of the planting efforts. If the grain could not be stored securely, the entire effort was wasted.
Kael utilized the lessons learned from the aqueduct project: precision and sealing. He ordered the construction of a new granary—a massive, freestanding structure—using the remaining stone from the dismantled manor roof and the scattered, high-quality timber found in the periphery of the village. Kael's design was unorthodox for the feudal world, prioritizing insulation and sealing over grand scale. .
The primary design principle was pest exclusion. Kael directed the Core workers to construct the foundation on raised stone pillars, ensuring a minimum two-foot gap between the floor of the granary and the ground. This deliberate elevation served two critical purposes: it prevented moisture from rising and spoiling the grain, and it created a physical and visible barrier against rodents, who could not easily climb the sheer, smooth stone pillars. He ordered the tops of the pillars to be capped with flat, smooth stones—a rudimentary pest barrier that forced any climbing rodent to navigate a clean, exposed surface, easily spotted and eliminated.
The walls were built double-thick with stone and clay, ensuring thermal stability—a defense against the extremes of the frontier climate. The doors and windows—minimal in number—were designed to fit with meticulous, airtight precision. Kael taught the carpenters how to use simple rabbet joints and wooden stops to create a seal, then insisted they pack every joint and seam with the fine, ash-and-clay mixture derived from the briquette production. This airtight sealing served the secondary purpose of controlling humidity and insect infestation. Kael needed to ensure that the grain, once harvested, would be stored in a dry, low-oxygen environment that inhibited the growth of mold and the hatching of pests.
The construction of the granary was rigorous and demanding, consuming the Core group's energy for nearly four weeks. Kael himself oversaw the internal compartment construction. He ordered the interior divided into three distinct, sealed chambers. The first chamber was designated for the Trade Assets—the valuable high-grade iron and salt, requiring secure storage from both moisture and potential theft. The second chamber was for the Seed Stock—the small but vital amount of nitrogen-fixing legumes and hardy grains that would sustain the planting for the next cycle. The final, largest chamber was for the Contingency Harvest—the projected minimum survival yield of the coming months.
Kael's meticulous separation of the stores was a core logistical defense against complete system failure. If one section of the grain was spoiled by mold or compromised by pests, the other two vital assets—the trade goods and the seed stock—would remain protected, guaranteeing the barony's ability to initiate the next planting cycle and maintain its crucial trade agreement. The work was slow, painstaking, and required a level of architectural precision unknown in the frontier. But as the double-walled, elevated structure took shape, the farmers and laborers felt a growing sense of security. The structure represented not just a place to store food, but a tangible symbol of Kael's commitment to long-term, verifiable survival, replacing the flimsy hopes of the past with the solid certainty of engineered permanence.