🌾 The Mill House of Camp Dragon
“Where the wheel turns, the camp eats.”
Tucked beside the fast-moving Star River that carves a clear path through Camp Dragon, the Mill House looms above the foliage like a watchtower of labor and livelihood. Built from weather-worn cedar logs and reinforced with moss-dark stone, this is a structure that has seen many seasons — and stood through them all.
The dominant feature is a towering waterwheel, slick with algae and forever turning with a deep, groaning creak. It feeds into a grindstone chamber where grain is milled to flour that feeds both sides of Camp Dragon: miners, mercenaries, and clergy alike.
All around the main structure, the grounds are littered with children’s toys, rusted farm tools, and wooden crates marked for flour, dried root, and cornmeal. The smell of damp wheat, river silt, and sweat hangs thick in the air.
A pair of muddy-footed children — a boy of about eight and a younger girl — stand by a broken cartwheel and stare in silence at your group as you approach. Neither waves. Neither runs.
They watch.