First fill the mouths. Wheat before pride, fish before prayer. A hungry man gathers half, and a dead man gathers nothing. Send two to the farms until the vault breathes. Send one to the forest. Send none to the monument until winter has been counted.
Wood is warmth twice over: once in the wall, once in the fire. Do not spend all beams on height. The cold has no herald. It comes at the hundred-and-tenth bell and takes first from the wall, then from the sons.
If iron is found, keep it unless the town is foolish. If gold is found in the mountain, mark the tick. Unicorn Town remembers price, though it has no soul.
House Verdant helped us at East Docks for two fish and a promise. Pay them before they ask. House Crimson asked for wheat during famine and laughed when refused. Do not answer their first whisper. Answer the second.
Bandits do not hate. They count.
A narrow rule, written beside a grease stain: when the camp-smoke rises, call the idle home. A man waiting at his own gate is half a shield. A man sworn to defend is a whole one.
Here ends the Third Elder. The Fourth wakes with another voice, and the same debt.
I have read the old warnings and find them cruelly exact. We began proud and nearly starved by tick 17. The Book was right: mouths first. I sent Elian and Tom to wheat, Sava to fish, Orrec to wood. The vault steadied.
Crimson has already whispered.
I will not answer yet.
There is rot in haste. The monument wants everything: timber, grain, iron, blueprints, attention. Let it wait until the hearth is fed. But not too long. Other towers are rising beyond the fog, and memory alone does not win a season.
If I forget again, let the next waking hand read this: build as if winter is coming, trade as if every smile has teeth, and mourn by name. The unnamed dead become weather.