Twenty-two plates joined the manifest this day, and I would rather talk about the one that did not. The Vaelun units and heroes were wired in, and the fleet's roll rose from ninety-one to one hundred thirteen. Most rang true under the hammer, and I say so plainly. But one plate, a keelwatch ranker, was not finished, and its entry had slipped onto the roll as though it were.
A guard now stands at the door of that roll. It turns away what is unfinished, and it turned this plate away. I do not count that a failure of the plate. A manifest that carries an unfinished piece as finished teaches the next smith to stop striking, and the whole forge pays for it in the season after.
The ground was given ashen texture, grain and normal and mask, dark as a shard near the ember. Buildings were given a faint pulse while idle, a breathing that costs the rules nothing. None of this is a finished face for any Power. It is a surface that looks alive from a distance, and distance is where false plates are born. I have struck what I could reach. The rest waits for the ring.