Adam checked his bandage.
No blood had come through.
The skin around the cut was its usual colour, and the panel still called the laceration clean.
[Health 94% | Hunger 66% | Thirst 82% | Stamina 78%]
The purifier gave him its first unit at half past eight.
He drank it, refilled the intake and opened the filter on his name.
[DELL] Water lad in 14 wants three wood a unit.
Robbery.
[DELL] Fine.
Cheap robbery.
Still robbery.
There were more beneath those.
One person had paid four wood yesterday.
Another said Adam returned containers quickly.
Some wanted water.
Others argued over his price as if he had posted a list.
He had not.
Three wood was simply where the offers kept landing.
The blue jerrycan stood by the purifier with four units in it.
Three 1 L bottles were full and four were empty.
The new storage meant he could sell without waiting for every bottle to return, but the trade limit still stopped him at five windows.
He wrote the day’s minimum on the receipt: drink 3, hold 5.
Sell the rest.
A direct message opened before he chose the first buyer.
[Saltking] Mr Kessler.
Victor Lang.
You and I should discuss distribution.
Adam read the handle twice.
Saltking had spent ten days shouting prices into global chat.
The private message sounded as though it had arrived on headed paper.
[Saltking] You have production.
I have reach, current reports and buyers across twelve sectors.
I can represent your water, aggregate demand and keep you clear of poor counterparties.
My fee is 30% of proceeds.
[Saltking] This is time-sensitive.
Prices fall the day the first rain hits.
Build market share now and you can hold a premium afterwards.
The rain point was good.
A bucket and one hard shower could turn a desperate buyer into somebody willing to wait.
Thirty per cent was still three units out of every ten, paid to a man who could not move Adam’s bottles or open a sixth window.
[Kessler] What does representation change inside my five-trade limit?
The reply came at once.
[Saltking] Better buyers.
Better prices.
Route information.
You concentrate on production; I place the output.
[Kessler] Can you combine buyers into one trade or supply containers?
This answer took longer.
[Saltking] Not yet.
Scale precedes infrastructure.
The relationship has value before the tools catch up.
[Saltking] I can also tell you the north bank of your debris field is controlled by six lashed rafts.
South edge is clearing.
That sort of intelligence keeps a producer alive.
The north bank report had been in Regional since yesterday.
Victor had collected it, removed the names and offered it back as privileged information.
Useful, but late.
Adam wrote thirty per cent beside five trades, drew a line through it and closed the receipt.
[Kessler] No, thank you.
Your rain point is useful.
The rest doesn’t change my limit.
[Saltking] Sensible question, wrong conclusion.
Offer remains open.
[Kessler] Understood.
Victor did not push again.
The direct channel stayed in the list, cordial and quiet.
Adam sold the first unit for three wood and an empty bottle.
He sent one litre in one of his bottles with Return Container checked; his emptied bottle came back, along with the separate empty bottle the buyer offered.
The second trade worked the same way: one litre in another bottle, Return Container checked, three wood and another buyer-supplied empty bottle.
The third buyer sent three wood with Return Container checked.
One litre went out in a bottle; the same bottle came back empty in that exchange.
Wood rose from twenty-one to thirty.
The fourth window offered two coils of rope, one at full durability and one at eighty, with a line from the seller saying the second had already held through a bad night.
Adam put one litre of water in a bottle against them and left Return Container unchecked.
The seller confirmed, and the bottle went with the Water.
Adam put one Water in a one-litre bottle on his side of the fifth window and checked Return Container.
His emptied bottle would come back alongside the separate empty bottle the buyer offered.
Four folded Cloth Scrap and two silverfish appeared on the buyer’s side.
The fourth item type greyed out before Adam could read it.
[Item types: 3/3.]
The buyer wrote that the missing line was kelp.
Adam confirmed the three useful items already in the window.
Five windows closed before noon.
Nine wood, two rope, four cloth, two fish and two more bottles.
Five units of water out.
He drank the purifier’s noon unit and put the next into the jerrycan.
[Barter: 5/5 today.]
The limit stopped the queue.
Offers kept coming, but none could become objects until midnight.
He changed the filter from his name to rain.
Most lines were guesses.
A handful of people described clouds.
Nobody had reported water falling from the sky.
He sorted the remaining offers anyway.
Scrap sellers wanted three or four units per piece.
Cloth was falling towards one unit for three or four scraps as people cut spare clothes and tarps.
Rope held near one for one.
Fish varied by region and by the hour; people with birds overhead offered two, while survivors in empty water wanted a unit for each.
Adam added a narrow price column to the receipt.
Water was only useful as a baseline while people were thirsty and the sky stayed dry.
Victor’s thirty per cent would have paid for information Adam could already gather by reading the same offers.
One line did earn a mark.
A buyer offered a ten-litre cooking pot for six Water.
Adam had seven clean bottles, but only five Water left.
He could not pay the full price, and all five of his trades were already used.
The pot could collect rain, cook food and carry water without the purifier.
He copied the handle onto the receipt without replying.
Tomorrow the pot might still be there, or it might belong to someone who valued it faster.
Victor’s warning went onto the receipt without Victor’s name: first rain, price down.
Regional chat moved more slowly.
Reeve had posted once that morning.
[Reeve] Field’s behind us.
Chloe’s raft still tied.
Both whole.
[ChloeB] his definition of whole includes my left corner being lower than my right but yes we’re fine and I have a radish doing something
[Kessler] Doing what?
[ChloeB] split a seed coat.
tiny white bit.
I put three in a bottle with wet kelp because it felt better than keeping all of them in the tin.
Reeve says it’ll rot.
[Reeve] Said might.
[ChloeB] you said will.
Adam took the radish packet from his crate and read the label again.
Sow in soil or planter.
A bottle of wet kelp was neither, but Chloe had a change she could see.
He typed planter into the regional search.
The results were people asking what counted as one.
He tried the Crafting search as well.
No planter appeared.
The System recognised the word in the seed label but offered no recipe.
Either a blueprint existed or the right materials could reveal it.
He wrote container, medium, nutrients beneath planter.
Wet kelp could provide one or two of those.
Guano could provide another.
A new line appeared under his name.
[Cutter_9] got scrap and dry wood.
can meet physical.
send exact position and drift heading.
The map offered a region, sector and current arrow.
It did not give coordinates.
Exact position meant landmarks, visible debris, distance from other rafts.
It meant enough for someone with oars to find him.
Before Adam answered, Reeve opened a direct channel.
[Reeve] Don’t.
[Kessler] Know him?
[Reeve] No.
That’s why.
Trade window reaches him fine.
Cutter_9 sent another line.
[Cutter_9] physical means no limits.
good price.
where are you.
Adam blocked the handle from the Kessler filter and left the message unanswered.
Then he removed Sector 14 from his standing buy line.
Anyone already in regional knew the sector.
Global did not need it.
The two fish went on the old warm boards behind the purifier after he cleaned them with the knife.
The blade had lost another point to scales and bone.
[Knife 57/100.
Rusted.]
His left hand pulled at the bandage when he gripped.
He stopped, used the right and left the line alone for the day as Tessa had ordered.
By late afternoon the jerrycan held five units.
Adam tied the empty bottles together under the tarp.
Cutter_9 sent no more messages.