**Crest.** The second ward door gives. There are seventy bodies in the hall now, and the fast pack has reached the pillar you were counting on. You have three choices: take the dense middle, where every spark in your arc chain finds another body; hug the wall, where fewer reach you; or run for the door and lose the hall. You take the middle. When the pack arrives you raise your barrier, and every blow against it charges the capacitor behind it.
-
**Break.** You release. A white wash rolls down the lane and takes everything that came through the first door. The second ward is still pushing bodies at its threshold, so on your way past you throw its lock. Silence. That release is resolved — cleared on one side, sealed on the other — and your rig offers you a temporary upgrade for the rest of this trip.
+
**Break.** You release. A white wash rolls down the lane and takes everything that came through the first door. The second ward is still pushing bodies at its threshold, so on your way past you throw its lock and clear the remaining bodies already inside. Silence. That release is resolved — cleared on one side, sealed on the other — and your rig offers you a temporary upgrade for the rest of this trip.
**Quiet.** The loop at the end is yours now, and in it is what you came for: a sample counter stamped with a date after the hospital was supposed to be empty.
@@ 33,11 33,11 @@
1. **Wake.** Something disturbs an occupied space — your arrival, noisy work, an alarm, a machine you started. You see sleeping bodies, moving shadows, opening doors, and you hear which routes are going to answer.
2. **Gather.** A slow majority fills the broad lanes. Faster packs take side routes, climbers come from ceilings and ducts, and a few heavy bodies bend the flow so you have to change course.
3. **Crest.** Two or three movement patterns overlap. You choose the dense line your build rewards, the safer line that protects your condition, or a costly retreat that spends oxygen and position. If you are working toward something that moves — a carriage, a rising lift, a walking scan — it keeps going through the fight rather than turning the room into a defence circle.
-
4. **Break.** The release is resolved: everything it sent into the room is cleared, or you complete a seal that closes its source. Killing faster than bodies arrive keeps a lane clear, but it does not stop a source that is still feeding. You can also get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area — that saves you, though it resolves nothing. When a release is resolved, the music, the flow and the room's silhouette all let go together, and the lull that follows belongs to looking, salvaging and deciding where to go.
+
4. **Break.** The release is resolved: everything it sent into the room is cleared, or you complete a seal that closes its source. Killing faster than bodies arrive keeps a lane clear, but it does not stop a source that is still feeding. You can also get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area — that saves you, though it resolves nothing. Closing a source stops its incoming flow but leaves creatures already inside active. Once the current space is cleared or safely separated from them, the music and room silhouette release, and the lull belongs to looking, salvaging and deciding where to go.
## Where crowds come from
-
Crowds come from **source areas**: wards, lift wells, ducts, flooded concourses, sealed volumes — places that physically hold bodies and connect to the route you are on. Bodies always arrive through routes you can see or hear. There is no secret timer, nothing appears behind you, and no extra wave arrives because your build was efficient.
+
Crowds come from **source areas**: wards, lift wells, ducts, flooded concourses, sealed volumes — places that physically hold bodies and connect to the route you are on. Bodies always arrive through routes you can see or hear. Crowds do not materialize without a physical approach, and no extra wave arrives because your build was efficient. A warned route can still carry enemies around or behind you.
Each source releases its crowd in **stages**: a finite surge the room announces, from a source you can identify. While a stage is feeding, out-killing it keeps a lane open but does not stop it. It ends when you clear everything it sent, or when you complete a physical seal that closes its access. Walking away ends your part in it, not the stage. A further stage exists only where the room announces and sources one — a machine waking, a new mouth opening. Finite sources are fine; what the design avoids is an encounter that is over after five enemies. Sources feed through apertures — grilles, hatches, ward doors, ducts — that are separate from the passages you walk through, so sealing one never closes a route you need.
@@ 51,7 51,7 @@
## Earning quiet
-
Resolving a stage earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. The room shows whether each source is sealed, spent or still able to release another announced stage. You can resolve a stage early, too — clear the first arrivals before the peak, or seal the source before its crowd fully arrives — and that counts at once; there is no need to wait for danger. Or you can simply get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area.
+
Clearing the current space, or safely separating it from remaining threats, earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. A source seal can earn its upgrade while creatures already inside remain dangerous; sealing never deletes those creatures. The room shows whether each source is sealed, spent or still able to release another announced stage. You can resolve a stage early, too — clear the first arrivals before the peak, or seal the source before its crowd fully arrives — and that counts at once; there is no need to wait for danger. Or you can simply get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area.
Quiet does not last forever. An occupied area next door can still send bodies through a visible route, with sound and door movement to warn you. But a stage you resolved does not come back by itself.
