The room went silent.
Not complete silence. Just the sort of pause you get when people stop what they’re doing and look up, but haven’t quite decided what happens next.
The guild representative had frozen halfway through a sentence. Two council mbers were staring at the new arrival. Brenne had turned fully around in her chair. Vassara, over by the hearth, hadn’t moved at all. Only her eyes had squinted.
Renner already had his pen out.
I counted.
Him. The four behind him.
Five.
I wrote the number on the board.
"I want to address the chair concern," I said, "because I’ve put a considerable amount of thought into these chairs. And I think there may be so missing information in the current assessnt."
He looked at .
"They are shoddy," he said with certainty.
"The back height on these chairs," I said, "ca from two rounds of testing."
I held up a finger.
"The first prototype had the back four inches higher. It worked fine if you sat all the way back. But if you leaned forward, which most people in this room have been doing for most of the day, you had to turn your head at an angle."
I paused.
"It becos a real problem around the twenty-minute mark."
Another pause.
"Not imdiately. Around twenty minutes."
I knew that because I’d tid it.
"The second prototype had the back lower. That solved the forward-sitting problem and created a different one. There was nothing useful to lean against during longer sessions."
I gestured at the chair.
"The current height works for both situations. I tested it across eighteen people, two versions, before committing."
"The back is still poorly designed," he said.
Then he added, "The seat is also crude."
"The seat went through three iterations," I said.
"My supplier at the ti had opinions about chair seats. His opinions were genuinely wrong."
I’d had to explain why they were wrong before he’d agree to make what I was asking for.
"The seat depth responds to a specific brief," I continued. "Common room chair. Not dining chair. Not reception chair."
Three different use cases. Three different seat depths.
"He understood once I walked him through it. Then he made what I asked for."
I rested a hand on the nearest chair.
"The seats have been in daily use for many years. Not once have they been the issue."
Four seconds passed.
"Wrong," said the heavy one.
It shifted slightly forward. Then stopped.
"Incorrect seat," said the grey-green one.
"The seat is poorly conceived," said the one with the bundle. It still hadn’t looked up from the bundle.
The fourth one continued to glow its edges a little.
The guest studied the nearest chair.
"The structural integrity," he said, "of this chair is insufficient for extended use."
"The stretcher," I said, "is cut from timber I sourced as part of a lot about dozens of years ago."
I leaned back against the counter.
"The grove it ca from had already been cleared by then."
It had apparently was from an imnse tree. There was a whole civilization built around it. That civilization has since been gone.
"The timber ca to secondhand through a supplier."
He’d ntioned, while explaining why the price was what it was, that the grove had been standing since before anyone in the region had settled on a word for how old sothing could be.
I picked up the cloth from the counter.
"He said that like it was a selling point."
I hadn’t been especially interested in that part.
"I told him I needed asurents and grain information."
Because I was buying timber for a chair stretcher. And what I needed was for the stretcher not to fail under daily use by a varied guest population.
"He was sowhat deflated by that." I folded the cloth, "The grain on that timber runs tight enough that the stretcher hasn’t needed replacing in thirty years."
I had spare stock from the sa lot.
"When that stock runs out, there’s no more of it. The grove is gone."
I’d been careful with the spares.
He went still. A different kind of still than before.
"Those trees," he said.
His voice had shifted register.
"The supplier described them as very old," I said.
He’d actually been quite detailed about it.
"I mostly let him finish. Then I confird the dinsions."
Four seconds.
"Old trees," said the heavy one.
Which, to be fair, was the most accurate thing it had said so far.
"Trees of significant prior existence," said the grey-green one.
"Trees of considerable historical standing," said the one with the bundle.
Still not quite right. But closer.
The fourth said nothing. Sothing in its trailing edges redistributed.
He looked at the chair again. Specifically the stretcher.
The low horizontal bar between the front legs. Worn smooth from years of feet and movent. The grain still visible, dense, carrying that quality you get when sothing has taken a very long ti to beco what it is.
Then he looked at .
"I," he started.
Across the room, the guild representative had stopped arguing. Now he was just watching.
Renner had written several lines.
I caught a glimpse of the notebook as he shifted. He’d written down the stretcher detail. The grove. The garrison. The supplier’s comnt.
That was going into the record.
I noted that and moved on.
He tried starting again. Twice. Neither attempt went anywhere.
"The back height—" he said.
"I explained the back height," I said.
"Two prototypes. Tested across eighteen people. The current height ca out of that process."
I gave him a polite nod.
"I can walk through it again if you’d like."
Then I shrugged slightly.
"But the short version is that the process produced the correct answer. And the chairs have been in use for years without the back height being raised as a concern."
Four seconds after he spoke, the heavy one said, "Soone should have raised it."
Not quite what he’d said.
"The back height is a concern," said the grey-green one.
"The back height rits further consideration," said the one with the bundle.
The fourth was still quiet.
He looked at the chair again. Then the stretcher. Then .
From the hearth end, Vassara was watching. Her amber eyes had been on this the whole ti.
Brenne had turned completely around in her chair.
He settled slightly.
"I," he said.
A pause.
"I am Arveth."
He said the na with authority. That part held.
"The Unmoved."
Still there.
"Keeper of the Antecedent Record."
Slight decrease.
"Sovereign of the Deep Territories."
His voice had started in one register and ended in a sowhat lower one.
"Right," I said.
I wrote it down in the guest ledger. Na and titles in full. Guest column. Entry dated and tid.
"The broth’s been ready for a few minutes," I said, "I made an announcent earlier. I wasn’t sure it carried to your end of the room."
I gave a small nod toward the kitchen.
"It’s worth having if you’d like so."
Then I looked at the four behind him.
"I’ll need to know whether your colleagues eat," I added.
I preferred not to assu.
It saved trouble later.
[SYSTEM LOG]
New guest entry confird.
Arveth. The Unmoved. Keeper of the Antecedent Record. Sovereign of the Deep Territories. Classification: Abyss-adjacent sovereign, negative aura, active. Prior entry updated from pending.
Accompanying entities: four. Classification entries opened. Pending individual assessnt.
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