The sleeping chamber was deeper in the mine. Carl went to sleep, and Gord and Rothütle took the first watch. Carl had slept there the past few nights, so he didn't feel threatened.
Rothütle brought a warm beverage for Gord. "I saw the Schreibkügel in the workshop," he whispered. "Jack used it to write the letter, but Carl didn't know about it."
Gord nodded. "Do you trust Carl?"
Rothütle nodded. "I have no reason not to. He's a student in Karlsruhe, and I help him with his research sometimes."
They both sipped their drinks in silence. The mine was quiet, except for the occasional creak of the wooden supports.
"Why is Jack helping him?" Rothütle asked finally.
Gord kept thinking, eyes locked on the dark tunnel entrance. "I don't know."
"You said the old magic is failing," Rothütle said. "What did you mean by that?"
"It's the iron train tracks," Gord explained. "They interfere with the old magic that binds shadows. They are planning iron rails through the gorge near Ravennaschlucht. Once it's finished, there will be more iron and oil and machinery."
They stayed guard in shifts until dawn. In the morning, Carl's carriage was gone, and they left the mine quickly.
"Let's go back to the castle," Gord said. "It's on the way to Hinterdorf anyway."
Tip of the day. Old infrastructure can interfere with modern security measures. Regularly audit and update your systems to ensure compatibility and effectiveness — and stay vigilant even when no threat is expected.
Security Tip #13 — Audit and Update Old Infrastructure
Legacy infrastructure often becomes a blind spot in otherwise secure systems.
New security controls assume:
- modern kernels,
- updated runtimes,
- predictable behavior.
Old components quietly break those assumptions.
Common Real-World Examples
- Old kernels blocking eBPF-based security tools
- Legacy container runtimes missing security flags
- Outdated base images incompatible with new mitigations
- Unsupported OS versions silently skipping patches
Practical Checks to Run Regularly
# check kernel version (critical for modern security tooling)
uname -r
# list nodes and their OS / kernel details
kubectl get nodes -o wide
For container images:
# scan for outdated base images and known CVEs
trivy image myapp:latest
The Lesson
Security isn't only about adding new defenses.
It's also about removing or upgrading what undermines them.
Quiet systems can still be dangerous — especially when everyone assumes they're safe.
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