fix(ch01): fix typos, dialogue punctuation, and tighten cold-read parenthetical

Fix pre-existing typos (intellegent, interupted, furiture), double quote
mark, stray period, and dialogue attribution punctuation. Tighten the
Mere cold-read parenthetical for better fragment consistency.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-03-03 09:07:48 -06:00
parent 47b93c1c3e
commit 63c7039bf1

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@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ The inventory was simple enough. Front room: dried herbs, tinctures, salves, pou
The back room was far more interesting to me. Licensed magical components, locked behind warded glass and requiring my signature on a ledger for every sale. Runestones — mostly calibration-grade, nothing powerful. Binding salts. Essence vials in six standard concentrations. A rack of pre-inscribed focusing rods that were, technically, the most valuable things in the shop and, practically, about as exciting as a drawer full of hammers. Tools. Useful, necessary, and profoundly dull to anyone who didn't know what they were for.
I knew what they were for, or rather, what you could do with them if you were intellegent. That was part of the problem.
I knew what they were for, or rather, what you could do with them if you were intelligent. That was part of the problem.
I was re-shelving a crate of dried silkweed when I noticed the ward-jar on the third shelf was doing it again.
@@ -24,11 +24,11 @@ The front door rattled at precisely seventh bell. Gavren Holst was a man of mech
I rearranged his shelves constantly. The man organized by alphabetical name rather than by function, which meant the feverwort was next to the foxglove and two aisles away from the fire-throat remedy it was most commonly purchased alongside. Customers wandered. Wandering customers asked questions. I disliked questions. Reorganizing the shelves reduced questions by roughly forty percent, which I considered well worth the biweekly lecture about "established systems."
Gavren set his coat on the hook by the door, surveyed the front room with the expression of a man checking if wax was applied correctly to furiture, and immediately noticed the silkweed had been moved from the second shelf to the fourth. ""Varrant, We've discussed this."
Gavren set his coat on the hook by the door, surveyed the front room with the expression of a man checking if wax was applied correctly to furniture, and immediately noticed the silkweed had been moved from the second shelf to the fourth. "Varrant, we've discussed this."
"The silkweed was next to the sweetbalm. Cross-contamination risk." I said.
"The silkweed was next to the sweetbalm. Cross-contamination risk," I said.
"They're in sealed containers." he retorted.
"They're in sealed containers," he retorted.
"Sealed containers that Mrs. Dallery opens to sniff before buying. Every time. She opened the sweetbalm last Thursday, then opened the silkweed, and I spent ten minutes picking sweetbalm fibers out of the silkweed with tweezers."
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ He considered this. Gavren always considered things. It was his primary form of
"Fine. But the moonpetal stays where it—"
"Moved the moonpetal too." I interupted. I had tired of this conversation already.
"Moved the moonpetal too," I interrupted. I had tired of this conversation already.
His mouth did the thing where it wanted to object but couldn't find a factual foothold. I appreciated this about Gavren. He was irritating, but he was honest enough to lose an argument when he didn't have the evidence.
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ He was Guild. Not my guild — not yet my guild, I corrected myself, with the in
"The shop on Fenwick Street sells first-tier for only two silvers more."
"The shop on Fenwick Street sells re-graded seconds with polished casings and a markup for confidence. But you're welcome to shop there.".
"The shop on Fenwick Street sells re-graded seconds with polished casings and a markup for confidence. But you're welcome to shop there."
He stared at me. I stared back. This was, in my experience, the part of the conversation where people decided whether I was being rude or honest, and then decided which one they preferred. Merchants usually preferred honest, because it suggested I might be useful. Regular people usually preferred rude, because it gave them permission to be offended, which was a social currency I'd never understood the exchange rate for.
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ I noticed all of this in approximately two seconds, which was unusual. I noticed
My process — the automatic, near-involuntary cold read I ran on every person who walked through a door — engaged the way it always did.
(Posture: confident, not performed. Clothing: practical, well-maintained, not expensive. Hands: no rings, short nails, callus on right index finger — regular writing or detailed manual work. Eyes: already scanning shelves, not browsing. Knows what she's here for. Categorizing what else is available while she locates it.)
(Posture: confident, not performed. Clothing: practical, well-maintained, not expensive. Hands: no rings, short nails, callus on right index finger — writing or detailed manual work. Eyes: scanning, not browsing. Already knows what she's here for. Cataloguing the rest while she locates it.)
All of this was normal. Data. The kind of behavioral surface I could read on anyone in a room and use to predict their next three decisions with reasonable accuracy.
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ I unlocked the case and set the silverthorn on the counter. She picked it up, op
"This was processed with a standard mill," she said. "Not hand-ground."
"Correct. Hand-ground silverthorn runs about four times the price and has to be special-ordered." I said plainly.
"Correct. Hand-ground silverthorn runs about four times the price and has to be special-ordered," I said plainly.
"I know what it costs, it's too much. This will work." She set it down and moved to the binding salts. There were six containers, all from the same supplier, all theoretically identical. She opened three of them, examined each one, and selected the second.
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ I realized I was smiling. This was unusual enough that I stopped, examined the i
"Most customers just grab the nearest container," I said.
"Most customers are wrong about things they don't bother to check. I'm not most customers." she said plainly.
"Most customers are wrong about things they don't bother to check. I'm not most customers," she said plainly.
"No," I agreed. "That... you aren't."