Reader, I Learned One Gate Outprices Stone

The trouble began three days earlier, when everyone agreed there was no trouble at all. I used to count a keep’s stone and call the account finished; now I put the gate first, because a wall can stand handsome while the least watched entrance spends the whole defense. Reader, pay for the hinge, the watch, and the repair timber before you raise another course of masonry. A gate is not an ornament. I have held a level 27 keep and learned that stone is the visible cost; neglect is the one that arrives quietly, as if no one will notice until morning.