The plot is empty, and two officers walk in

The village got restructured around one sentence of his: “building matters more than anything else long term.” Nothing is locked to the day any more — only to what you have built. You leave Clause & Co with a letter and 10:00 on the clock (“DELIVER THE LETTER, BRING BACK THE GOLD”), and the plot has nothing on it but the granary and the Elder. Chop ten logs. Research the logger. Mine five stone. Place the logger. A house — the first one is free — and someone walks in from the road ten to thirty seconds later, wearing a chip until they reach you and say “Heard there was a roof going spare.” Jobs are places now: [M], click the logger, and its card shows the millers, cutters and seeders with a pair of keys each.

When the clock runs out two grey suits arrive and ask for the gold. There is no gold — that is why you stayed. “By your own law, if there is nothing to pay, you can’t do this.” Fine, they say: a thousand planks by dawn, and they leave you a 2:00 clock and the word traitor. Day 1 begins when they go.

The build bar is five shelves — GUNS · HOMES · WORKS · WALLS · REMOVE — and a shelf opens one row up when you press its number. Houses have floors (ANOTHER FLOOR = one more bed). The office has a vault now: a barred window behind the Director onto a pyramid of somebody else’s gold, which is what “bring back the gold” means.

The measurement found the thing the brief forgot: the proxy lost the granary on day 1, because nothing on the plot’s checklist said gun. Now BEFORE DAWN — two scarecrow guns on the road jumps the card until two stand. Day 1 survives (guns at 4:36 and 5:32, dawn at 6:00 under the short letter). The economy is slow — ninety planks took nine minutes, the first farm fifteen — and that number is his to move.