hold the flood/traps and encounter progression.md ..
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**Responses.** The player can time a crossing along the fixed handrail; place loose mass on the other plate; or complete two cutter-release checkpoints and pin one rib. A Vector Nozzle can push eligible loose mass onto a plate, while its recoil must be accounted for. Nozzle is an option, not a key. A strong combat rig may simply clear the room before solving its movement problem.
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**Learning and state.** Plate order and the plumb cage let the player predict which side will descend in a later chamber. On alive withdrawal or death, an unpinned chamber returns to neutral; deliberately placed loose objects remain. Each completed release and pin persists, even if the room later has different neighbours; an unfinished release resets. The pin does not bind the room.
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**Learning and state.** Plate order and the plumb cage let the player predict which side will descend in a later chamber. On alive withdrawal or death, an unpinned chamber returns to neutral; deliberately placed loose objects remain. On re-entry, any remaining object above the visible load mark lights its plate and starts the normal warning rather than being ignored. Each completed release and pin persists, even if the room later has different neighbours; an unfinished release resets. The pin does not bind the room.
### 2. Breath-exchange bank — time and oxygen become the price
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*Replaceable human-hospital hypothesis.* A patient-routing vestibule closes one branch when its floor frame and wrist-reader register a transfer, now treating creatures and the astronaut as untrusted traffic.
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**Scene and read.** Two destination lamps, a floor outline, and a shutter preview illuminate before the reader commits. Crossing the frame closes the previewed branch, opens the other, and sounds a local alert whose connected entrance is shown. The alert moves only eligible existing groups.
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**Scene and read.** Two destination lamps, a floor outline, and a shutter preview illuminate before the relay commits. The floor frame accepts the astronaut, a creature, or a loose object above its visible load mark; the wrist reader classifies a recognised patient token, while every unrecognised crossing follows the previewed untrusted route. A qualifying crossing closes the previewed branch, opens the other, and sounds a local alert whose connected entrance is shown. The alert moves only eligible existing groups.
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**Responses.** Observe the preview and choose which side to stand on; send a loose object or enemy across the frame from cover; or finish a baseline-cutter override before crossing. A visibly compatible service socket may accept a Fork Relay to keep both local outputs supplied, but only at an authored instance and at the cost of leaving the Fork installed. No part name decodes the destination marks.
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**Responses.** Observe the preview and choose which side to stand on; send an eligible loose object or enemy across the frame from cover; or complete the physical override. Its first checkpoint cuts the exposed alarm lead, preventing new calls but not dismissing groups already moving. Its second hand-cycle engages a mechanical dog in the chosen shutter track, holding that shutter open. A visibly compatible service socket may instead accept a Fork Relay to keep both local open-hold outputs supplied where their shown thresholds accept its split, but only at an authored instance and at the cost of leaving the Fork installed. No part name decodes the destination marks.
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**Learning and state.** Repeated lamp order can support a later prediction about which shutter a matching relay will close; disagreement remains a hypothesis. Occupancy and alarm readiness reset after withdrawal or death, but groups already moving do not vanish on withdrawal. Completed override stages persist, and a completed mechanical dog remains set through death. A Fork-powered state lasts only while the part remains installed and the fixture powered; installation persists, power need not. The vestibule gains no fixed post-death neighbour.
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**Learning and state.** Repeated lamp order can support a later prediction about which shutter a matching relay will close; disagreement remains a hypothesis. On withdrawal or death, frame occupancy clears, the reader rearms, and an undogged shutter returns to its shown neutral state. A cut alarm lead stays cut, so rearmed detection cannot call; a dogged shutter stays open through death, while the reader may still preview and cycle the other branch. Releasing or moving the dog requires a separate completed hand-cycle. A Fork-powered state lasts only while the part remains installed and the fixture powered; installation persists, power need not. The vestibule gains no fixed post-death neighbour.
### 4. Sterilization carousel — cover and firing angle become the choice
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## Two worked encounters
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**Pressure gallery: overpower or understand.** In Ascension Works, pressers approach through a Phase-Balance chamber while a Breath Bank throws force-bearing debris across the control. Under a replaceable later **8 A** allowance, Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector supplies ordinary automatic fire, while Manual Trigger → Barrier Plate is the faced special; Dynamo is clamped to the Barrier, Capacitor stores qualifying impact charge, and its built-in manual release feeds Arc Emitter. The player faces the announced draw lane, catches debris and strikes, lets automatic fire thin the nearest valid targets, then manually releases Arc into the packed survivors. If the build clears them before the next cycle, it wins cleanly: no new wave or reduced reward appears, and the player completes the caps in quiet.
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**Pressure gallery: overpower or understand.** In Ascension Works, pressers approach through a Phase-Balance chamber while a Breath Bank throws force-bearing debris across the control. Under a replaceable later **8 A** allowance, Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector supplies ordinary automatic fire, while Manual Trigger → Barrier Plate is the faced special; Dynamo is clamped to the Barrier, Capacitor stores qualifying impact charge, and its built-in manual release feeds Arc Emitter. The player faces the announced draw lane, catches debris and strikes, lets automatic fire thin the nearest valid targets, then manually releases Arc into the packed survivors. If the build clears them before the next cycle, it wins that combat cleanly: no new wave or reduced reward appears. The bank and balance chamber remain active.
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The cap control sits on the chamber's marked neutral line behind a fixed rib, with a maintenance stirrup that visibly protects the operator from tilt displacement. When the three-beat indicator starts drawing through the opposite lane, the shown interval permits one cap hand-cycle. The player braces there and faces Barrier toward any late debris; Barrier protects only against qualifying impacts, not oxygen drain or bad timing. Closing the first cap is a persistent checkpoint: its vessel no longer draws across the control, so the next cap attempt has no debris from that side and lower local drain, although the other vessel and Phase chamber still operate. Thus crowd clearance buys an uncontested timing problem, not an automatic mechanism solution.
Another player needs none of those parts. They observe the three-beat light, use hard cover during suction, cross while the plate is neutral, and close one cap before withdrawing. That checkpoint persists. The journal permits comparison, but the bank does not advance and the cap does not close while paused.
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**Sterile ward: create the angle or take the long way.** A Shutterback shelters pressers beside a Sterilization Carousel. A later **5 A** rig uses Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector for ordinary automatic fire and Manual Trigger → Vector Nozzle as a faced special. The player waits for the shown cool detent, manually shoves Shutterback sideways, and exposes the crowd; automatic fire now has valid targets, while the next announced sweep catches bodies left in its arc. A strong execution can empty the ward without replacement pressure.
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**Sterile ward: create the angle or take the long way.** A Shutterback shelters pressers beside a Sterilization Carousel. A later **5 A** rig uses Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector for ordinary automatic fire and Manual Trigger → Vector Nozzle as a faced special. The authored bay shows enough clear space for the Nozzle's opposite recoil; without that clearance this response is visibly unsafe. The player waits for the shown cool detent, manually shoves Shutterback sideways, and exposes the crowd; automatic fire now has valid targets, while the next announced sweep catches bodies left in its arc. A strong execution can empty the ward without replacement pressure.
Alternatively, the player records the detent order from cover, takes the longer maintenance bay, and cuts the first carousel clamp while enemies remain elsewhere. Or they ignore the mechanism and spend oxygen on a different current connection. The journal can hold the frozen view for thought, but cannot rotate the arm, finish the record, reveal an unwalked route, or interpret its marks.
## Scope, exclusions, and later evidence
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**This first-pass package:** five family rules, a four-region pressure map, two encounter traces, and persistence checks. Planning envelope: Systems authoring **6–10 role-hours**, focused review **3–5**, response **2–4**; **11–19 total**. It maps to the outline's trap and encounter allowances without recounting creature, equipment, survival, combat, or interface work.
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**This first-pass package:** five family rules, a four-region pressure map, two encounter traces, and persistence checks. Planning envelope: Systems authoring **6–10 role-hours**, focused review **3–5**, response **2–4**; **11–19 total**. It advances narrower portions of the outline's separate trap and encounter rows; it does not complete both original allowances or recount creature, equipment, survival, combat, or interface work.
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**Later finite SMALL inventory:** author the outline's proposed **12 placed mechanism instances** across the five families, plus four detailed regional pressure briefs and their cross-instance dependency check: Systems **24–40 author role-hours**, focused review **6–10**, response **3–5**; **33–55 total**. Each instance would specify geometry, warning, stages, state transitions, alternatives, and its current-region placement. This excludes creature roster/behaviour, equipment definitions, interface and accessibility cue design, survivor scenes, language-chain writing, reusable room-module and objective authoring, implementation, assets, numerical tuning, simulation, and playtesting. A room, scene, clue, or set-piece hosting a mechanism is one cross-listed content unit, not additive labor in every category. TARGET/STRETCH remain unestimated.
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**Later finite SMALL inventory:** author the outline's proposed **12 placed mechanism instances** across the five families, plus four detailed regional pressure briefs and their cross-instance dependency check: Systems **24–40 author role-hours**, focused review **6–10**, response **3–5**; **33–55 total**. Each instance would specify geometry, warning, stages, state transitions, alternatives, current-region placement, what counts as withdrawal, persistent-mass rearming, and safe or unsafe Nozzle-recoil clearance. This excludes creature roster/behaviour, equipment definitions, interface and accessibility cue design, survivor scenes, language-chain writing, reusable room-module and objective authoring, implementation, assets, numerical tuning, simulation, and playtesting. A room, scene, clue, or set-piece hosting a mechanism is one cross-listed content unit, not additive labor in every category. TARGET/STRETCH remain unestimated.
Later owner-authorized implementation and observation must test readability under horde density, whether five families remain distinct, whether bypass and overpower routes are viable, whether reusable hazards feel discovered rather than scripted, and whether death shifts preserve understanding without creating route confusion. This paper design establishes none of those outcomes.
