The optical telegraph was designed to be a tool of internal synchronization, a way for Kael to ensure the pulse of the mine matched the rhythm of the forge. However, the unexpected amber glow detected by the Gray Fang observers during the midnight watch introduced an unquantified variable into the barony's security matrix. The light was too steady for a bandit's campfire and too large for a simple scavenger camp. It sat twelve miles to the east, nestled in the jagged "Salt-Spurs" of the lower mountains—a territory Kael had previously written off as a geological dead zone.
Kael did not panic; he calculated. An unauthorized settlement of that scale suggested a permanent infrastructure. He utilized the Signal Tower to initiate the Triangulation Protocol. By using the known positions of the Gray Fang and the Ashfall central tower, Kael's telegraphers were able to use their sightlines to fix the light's coordinates with a high degree of trigonometric accuracy. The data suggested a hidden valley, shielded from the prevailing northern winds—a perfect location for a covert mobilization.
"If the Duke is funding a proxy force in the spurs, he's doing it with the expertise of a professional engineer," Rylen observed, leaning over the mapping table. "The light doesn't move. It's coming from a fixed structure. Maybe a kiln, maybe a furnace."
Kael initiated a Long-Range Reconnaissance Mission. He selected a small, high-mobility squad: three Tier 0 veterans led by Rylen, and two of the most agile Aspirants trained in the use of portable optical signaling. Their objective was not engagement, but "Technical Identification." Kael provided them with a specialized piece of equipment: the Brass Chronometer-Observer, a prototype surveying tool that combined a telescope with a series of etched glass reticles for measuring the height and volume of distant structures.
The journey into the Salt-Spurs was a study in physical and psychological grit. Unlike the paved tracks of the Iron Road, the eastern terrain was a labyrinth of crumbling shale and ancient, dried-up salt pans that crunched like broken glass under their boots. The cold was different here—a dry, biting chill that leached the moisture from their skin. To maintain contact with the barony, the squad had to stop every two miles to set up a "Relay Mirror," flashing a brief, coded status update back to the Gray Fang.
As they crested the final ridge of the spurs, the "Eastern Variable" was revealed. It was not a military camp. It was a mirror image of Ashfall, but built for a different, darker purpose. In the valley below sat a sprawling Sulfur Processing Plant.
Kael, receiving the coded description via the telegraph, realized the gravity of the find. The facility featured a series of massive iron retorts and condensation chambers, remarkably similar to his own water-stills, but designed for the sublimation of raw sulfur from the volcanic vents in the mountain. This was not a resource for housing or food; sulfur was the primary ingredient for black powder and high-grade chemical accelerants.
"The Duke isn't trying to starve us anymore," Kael said to Elms as the telegrapher transcribed the report. "He's building a munitions base. He knows he can't break our iron with traditional siegecraft, so he's looking for the one thing that can shatter a stone wall: explosives."
The "grit" of the discovery was the realization that the Duke had his own "Kael"—a disgraced engineer or a black-market alchemist who had mastered the chemistry of the Spurs. The reconnaissance squad reported seeing three massive, steam-venting chimneys and a labor force of at least two hundred, many of whom were branded with the marks of penal colonies. This was an industrial operation fueled by slave labor and desperation, the antithesis of Ashfall's meritocratic system.
Kael faced a critical strategic failure: his Signal Tower was now a target. The Gray Fang sat directly between Ashfall and the new sulfur plant. If the Duke's forces moved to secure the high ground, the barony would be blinded and the Iron Road would be exposed to bombardment.
He did not order an attack. He ordered a Resource Subversion. If the Duke wanted sulfur, he needed the high-density peat from the northern marshes to fire his retorts—a resource that Kael controlled. Kael redirected a wing of the Tier 0 laborers to the northern road, not to build, but to "Sanitize" the peat bogs. They began a systematic process of flooding the primary harvest sites, rendering the fuel unusable for high-heat distillation.
Kael stood on the balcony of the manor, looking toward the distant amber glow. He had turned the "Eastern Variable" into a logistical problem. He was fighting a war of thermal energy, cutting the fuel lines of his enemy before a single shot was fired.
"They have the retorts, Elms," Kael said, his eyes fixed on the horizon. "But without the peat, they have no heat. And in this frontier, the man without heat is a man who has already lost."