The silent, brutal efficiency of the goblin takedown left a vacuum, quickly filled by renewed urgency. The small, localized victory was logged, the immediate threat neutralized, but the larger mission parameters remained critical. Four fewer variables, yes, but the path ahead was still riddled with unknowns, chief among them the state of Herbert’s boat.

  “Alright, listen up,” Sir Roland commanded immediately, his voice cutting through the fragile silence that had fallen after Julia released her spell. The lingering adrenaline buzz dissipated, replaced by sharp focus. “Path to the river access is clear for now. We don’t know if those scouts will be missed or if others are nearby. We move fast, stay quiet. Jett, lead.”

  Jett acknowledged with a curt nod, already scanning ahead, his usual preternatural calm restored. He set off down the barely-there game trail, faster than their initial cautious approach but prioritizing silence over speed, weaving through the dense undergrowth like water flowing around rocks.

  The team fell into formation. Roland close behind Jett, then Julia and William, with Caspian nervously bringing up the rear, checking the clasp on his primary defensive amulet. Despite the urgency, the forest itself fought their progress. Tallenwood wasn't designed for efficient transit. Gnarled roots became ankle-high tripwires, moss concealed treacherous divots, low branches snagged cloaks, and unexpected patches of sucking mud threatened to claim boots whole.

  This isn't a path. It's an obstacle course designed by a passively aggressive ecosystem, William grumbled internally, carefully placing his feet to mimic Roland’s path, trying to minimize his noise profile. He was breathing hard again, the +2 enchanted armour feeling heavier with each step, the ache in his shin a dull, persistent throb. Beside him, Caspian stumbled, catching himself on a low branch, his face pale with exertion. Performance bottleneck analysis: Team members designated 'Scholar' and 'Analyst' significantly impacting overall travel velocity metrics, William noted wryly. Suggest optimizing team composition... oh wait. He gripped his sword hilt. Right. Focus. Keep moving.

  Jett halted them multiple times with sharp, silent hand signals, melting into the woods to investigate some unseen disturbance before reappearing moments later with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. These pauses frayed William’s nerves, the internal mission clock ticking louder with each delay. Are we there yet? The absurdly childish thought surfaced, stark against the lethal backdrop.

  Finally, after what felt like an age but EMMA logged as just under fifty minutes, the air shifted. The heavy, loamy scent of deep woods began to thin, replaced by the cool, damp smell of moving water and riparian vegetation. A faint, distant murmur reached them, the river. Approaching designated coordinates, William noted with profound relief.

  Jett led them through a final, dense screen of ferns. They emerged onto a narrow, muddy bank overlooking a sluggishly flowing stretch of dark, leaf-littered water. A small, dilapidated wooden jetty, listing drunkenly, extended a few feet over the current. And tied to a rotting piling, bobbing with pathetic lethargy, was Herbert's boat.

  A collective sigh, sharp with released tension, went through the group. They’d made it. The boat was here, apparently unnoticed by the goblins. The river path, their only hope, was accessible.

  Then they actually looked at the boat.

  It was larger than William had pictured a simple fisherman owning, a sturdy-looking, flat-bottomed river boat perhaps fifteen feet long, wide enough to potentially hold them all and their gear, likely used for laying larger nets or hauling goods in calmer waters. Any relief at finding it intact, however, was instantly extinguished by its appalling condition. The wood was dark, almost black with age and perpetual dampness, visibly warped along the gunwales. Ominous cracks webbed the hull planks, patched crudely in places with failing tar. Faded, peeling paint hinted at a long-forgotten brighter colour beneath decades of grime and river scum. A tangled mess of rotting fishing nets, slimy with algae, filled the stern, accompanied by several cracked pottery jars and splintered wooden barrels, all contributing to an overpowering stench of decaying fish and stagnant water that hit them even from the bank.

  Julia made a low sound of dismay. “Gods, it looks like it might dissolve if we breathe on it too hard,” she murmured, her optimism visibly foundering again.

  Jett, ever practical, crouched at the water's edge, his sharp eyes scanning the hull below the waterline. He pointed silently to a dark patch near the bow where water was clearly seeping in. “Slow leak, starboard bow. Transom feels soft, likely rot.” His assessment was blunt, damning.

  Roland stepped carefully onto the jetty, the wood groaning ominously under his weight. He ran a hand along the gunwale, probing a deep crack near the stern with his fingers. A light kick to a main rib caused a section to crumble into damp splinters. His face, already grim, darkened further. “Large enough, perhaps,” he muttered, voice tight with frustration and disappointment, turning back to the team. “But rotten through. It might float on a still pond, maybe. It wouldn't survive the first wave in Hammer Falls. We'd be swimming in wreckage before we cleared the bend.”

  The crushing weight of their predicament slammed back down on them. They had overcome the goblin scouts only to find their only means of transport was a death trap waiting to happen. The hope that had briefly flared died, leaving behind the cold ashes of despair. Hardware Assessment: Capacity adequate. Structural Integrity: Critical failure. Vessel unsuitable for projected operational load (Hammer Falls Passage). Mission viability trending towards zero. William felt the familiar icy grip of realizing a critical dataset was fundamentally corrupted, invalidating the entire project.

  But his mind, trained to seek solutions even in failure, refused to shut down. If primary system fails, assess environment for alternative resources, potential workarounds. His gaze swept the muddy bank, the trees, the small clearing... searching.

  And then he saw it. Tucked under a crude lean-to of branches and canvas, partially hidden by debris, Herbert’s abandoned repair cache. Sturdy-looking timber planks, seasoned and dry. Basic woodworking tools, saw, hammer, nails, mallet, rusty but functional. A half-bucket of thick, black tar, hardened on top but likely usable underneath. A coil of strong-looking rope. Not much, but something.

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  An idea sparked, a potential synergy. Physical patches + Magical reinforcement = Workaround? Hypothesis: Combine rudimentary physical repairs with targeted, dynamic magical enhancement.

  He turned quickly to Julia, urgency cutting through his own despair. “Julia!” Her head snapped up from staring bleakly at the boat. “Magic can reinforce objects, right? Make them temporarily stronger?”

  “Yes, William, a Reinforce spell, but the mana cost to enchant something this large, make it strong enough for rapids…” She trailed off, the implication obvious, impossible drain.

  “Not the whole boat!” he interrupted, mind racing, pointing from the boat to the repair cache. “Just sections! Dynamically! And could you shift the focus rapidly?” He gestured towards the supplies. “We patch the worst holes physically, planks, tar. It won’t make it strong, just… less leaky. But what if you only reinforced the specific point of impact, just before it hits?”

  He outlined the desperate concept. “Like… dynamic shielding. Allocate defensive resources only where and when needed. If Jett, or someone with sharp eyes, calls out threats in the rapids, ‘Rock ahead, port bow!’, ‘Heavy water, reinforce keel!’, could you react? Shift the Reinforce spell to that specific spot for the moment of impact, then release it immediately to conserve mana for the next hit?”

  Julia stared at him, her eyes widening slowly as she processed the radical concept. Enchanting wasn't typically done dynamically in combat, especially not on something as large and unwieldy as a boat navigating rapids. Spells were cast, maintained, or released. Shifting a focused Reinforce barrier in real-time based on external cues… it was theoretically possible, a complex application of mana control and focus manipulation, but incredibly demanding. It would require absolute concentration, rapid reaction time, and perfect communication from whoever was spotting the hazards.

  She mentally ran the calculations. Segmented application dramatically reduced the instantaneous mana cost. Shifting the focus was taxing but feasible for short durations. The biggest variable was the reaction time, could she reinforce the correct section before impact?

  “It's...” she hesitated, biting her lip, the sheer audacity of the plan warring with its desperate logic, the challenge appealing to her magical intellect, “...theoretically plausible, William. The mana drain for localized reinforcement would be manageable, sustainable. Shifting the focus quickly... yes, I believe I can do that. But it would require someone with incredibly sharp eyes and instantaneous reflexes calling out the threats. There would be almost no margin for error.” Her gaze flickered towards Jett, the implicit nominee for the spotter role, then back to William.

  William took that as confirmation, the spark of desperate hope solidifying into a concrete proposal. He turned, forcing himself calm, addressing Roland directly but ensuring the others heard clearly over the distant crackle of flames. “Sir Roland,” he began, keeping his voice level despite the urgency pulsing beneath it, “Julia believes this workaround... has a non-zero chance of success. The concept is, we use Herbert's materials for basic physical patches, stop the leaks, reinforce the most critical structural weaknesses.” He gestured towards the dilapidated boat, then the repair cache. “This won't make the boat strong enough for Hammer Falls, merely functional enough to not sink immediately.”

  He continued, outlining the crucial magical component, ensuring the commander understood the mechanics and risks. “Then, Julia applies a localized Reinforce spell, dynamically shifted in real-time. Someone, either Jett or myself,” he glanced briefly at the scout, acknowledging the critical role, “will need to spot the hazards as early and quickly as we can, before the impact. We then call the threat and location, Julia reinforces only that section for the instant it's needed, then releases, conserving mana.” He met Roland's intense, assessing gaze. “It's incredibly high-risk. It demands perfect coordination under extreme duress. But based on my analysis, compared to the certainty of failure on the land routes, it's the only scenario that offers any probability, however small, of getting this vessel and ourselves through Hammer Falls.”

  A tense silence descended, heavier than the smoke-filled air. Jett gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod, his expression grim but focused, acknowledging the immense difficulty of the spotting task but not ruling it out. Caspian looked from William to Julia to the boat, torn between the terrifying danger and the sheer novelty of the magical theory. Julia watched Roland, her face set, conveying both her assessment of the plan's feasibility and its inherent peril.

  All eyes rested on the Knight Captain. The fate of their mission now hinged on his judgment, embrace this desperate, unconventional gamble, or admit defeat here and now. William could almost see the grim calculations running behind Roland’s stony expression, certain failure versus improbable success wrapped in extreme danger.

  Roland stared hard at the pathetic boat, then towards the looming, silent forest, then back at his mismatched team. Finally, he spoke, his voice low but carrying absolute authority, cutting through the tension. “The risks are undeniable,” he stated flatly. “Coordination failure, mana exhaustion, the rapids themselves, Herbert's... entity. Any one element could doom us.” He paused, letting the weight settle. Then, resolve hardened his features. “But William's assessment stands. It is the only path remaining that does not lead to certain failure. We proceed with this… dynamic reinforcement plan.”

  He clapped his hands together once, sharp and decisive, instantly shifting from deliberation to command. “No time to waste! Jett,” he locked eyes with the scout, “maintain perimeter security. Your eyes and ears are our shield while we work. Alert us to any approach, goblin or otherwise.” He turned to the others. “William, Caspian, focus on sealing this wreck. Use the tar, the canvas scraps from the lean-to, whatever else you can scavenge. Every accessible seam, every crack needs attention. Make it as watertight as humanly possible.” His gaze shifted to Julia. “Conserve your mana, but familiarize yourself intimately with this boat's structure. Know where the weaknesses lie, where you'll need to focus your reinforcement when Hammer Falls hits. I’ll focus on the actual repairs of the boat as I have some experience in this area.” He surveyed them all again, his command absolute. “Work quickly, efficiently. We have maybe three hours of usable daylight. We get this barge functional, load gear, and reach the river access point before full dark. We enter Tallenwood via Hammer Falls tonight.”

  The orders galvanized them. The despair was replaced by frantic, focused energy. William grabbed the bucket of tar, already assessing the worst cracks near the waterline, Caspian moving quickly to help him clear debris. Julia began carefully examining the boat's ribs and hull, while Roland drew his sword, taking up a watchful position near where Jett had melted back into the surrounding woods. Resource acquisition and system reinforcement phase initiated, William thought, dipping a crude brush into the thick tar. Optimize loadout for high-risk aquatic environment infiltration with potential hostile entity encounters. The terrifying reality of Hammer Falls loomed, but first, they had to make their leaky boat float.