What the Water Took

Someone diverted the water. Ridgeway is in its path. After a winter of repairs and hard bargains, Owen Hale finally has room to think about spring planting. There’s food in the stores, a working workshop, and seventeen people ready to build something that will last. Then floodwater tears through the lower yard. Equipment disappears. The water system breaks. An injury changes how his apprentice can work. Cut off upstream, Owen can only listen on the radio as the people back home abandon what they can’t carry. His Fieldwright skills can mend exposed damage and buy a few seconds under load, but his Charge is nearly spent, and leveling up won’t refill it. Rebuilding Ridgeway will take sound foundations, scarce materials, and a new skill earned through work that actually holds. Upstream, Pike controls the pump station, and the turning space Wade’s loaded truck needs to bring supplies down from Harrow. Access is available, as long as Ridgeway lets Pike set its freight schedule. Owen has already learned what happens when someone else’s schedule takes over his home. Now he must restore clean water, build on higher ground, and keep supplies coming without giving up the independence they fought through the winter to keep. What the Water Took is the third book in the Fieldwright series, a post-apocalyptic LitRPG where practical repairs shape a growing settlement and every choice costs something. Skills with hard limits on Charge, seconds and pounds.Scarce food, fuel and ammunition shape every rebuilding decision.Companions who make their own calls when Owen isn’t there.