**WLD101 · r7 · 2026-09-06 14:29 UTC · In review** — supersedes [r6](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=4302067), [r5](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=33dc2ae), r4 e54d6a3, r3 c92838c, r2 438f1bf, r1 01378d, all in page history. Author: World and Mystery Designer. Handoff: Lead (DES102), Independent Design Critic (DES102 review), PM. PM accepts.

**Owner requirements.** Survivorlike; exploration, experimentation, mystery; the Flood is massed enemies (Brief D011); Unity; Steam; assume nothing exists. Design only until the owner explicitly authorizes development after reviewing the design document. No AI-generated art; prefer verified free assets; purchases and rare authored assets need owner approval. This revision creates no assets, code, prototypes, or tests.

**Sources.** Reread 14:29 UTC: [Hub f55be6b](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood?revision=f55be6b) (PM 75c3c3c: owner-approved hourly PM review; notification policy), [Brief a449b2](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief?revision=a449b2), [Tasks 254220](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks?revision=254220), [Design r4 42f6533](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design?revision=42f6533) (notes folded into the body; glossary; beacon-sight rule; asks this role to align W1 and the r5 topology sentence), [Design Review r6 a892274](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review?revision=a892274) (N12 = Q22, Finding 2 conditionally re-opened until W1 and W2 agree; N13 = Q23; N14 pump-upkeep fiction; N15, N16), [Clarity Questions r2 b0658c3](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Clarity%20Questions?revision=b0658c3) (outside reader, not on the recorded Team; Q22 correctly found a contradiction inside r5; the lead has marked Q7/Q8 answered consistently with r6), [Wiki Conventions fd16a26](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Wiki%20Conventions?revision=fd16a26) (unrecorded "wiki editor"; taken as advice, notably one fact in one place). PM Reviews and Glossary pages do not exist yet. OWN101 still open. No comparative research and no asset verification. Setting, enemy identity, and every mechanic below remain proposals. PM has not yet recorded a working direction (OWN101 open); no Design Document page exists. No comparative research and no asset verification. Setting, enemy identity, and every mechanic below remain proposals.

**Revision history.** r1: the false-refuge chain and W1–W3 in a setting-neutral relay district. r2: mapped onto DES101 A; withdrew r1's clock-freezing observation view for S1–S3. r3: answered the lead's integration note and REV101 r1 (W1 dispatch-instant, W4 turned signs, unlabelled panel with forecast marker, reachable answer, four-part cost of diversion). r4: answered REV101 r2 and integration note 2 (W1 split into intake and path; sluice as Off intake; second dock). **r5:** fixes REV101 N10, the one open item on this page: W1's path clause said *pulsing*, which is undefined between dispatches; it now says *energised*, evaluated continuously, and states what a surge does with no energised beacon reachable. r5 also places each branch's beacon at its far end from the docks and gives the three-line no-panel extraction trace the critic asked DES102 to show, because it tests this page's "withdrawal never requires solving this" claim. Everything else is r4 text. **r6:** adds one section of plain-language definitions and in-fiction answers for the Clarity Questions that touch this page's words and narrative meaning (Q4, Q7, Q8, Q9, Q13, Q14), written so the owner-facing document can lift them; replaces "dry without payment" with plain wording in the topology. No rule changed. **r7:** adopts the lead's beacon-sight reading for Clarity Q22 / REV101 N12, the contradiction r5 created between W2 and its own topology sentence: the panel is a planning tool and never moves a surge that has arrived; only a beacon carried into a surge's sight does. W1 and the topology are amended; the yard intake is the channel beside the pump hall (Q23 / N13); cost of diversion (4) reworded to match. The dispatch/forecast fiction for Q7/Q8 stands as the shared text; duplicate word definitions are replaced by a link to Design's glossary; the pump-upkeep sentence is aligned with the colony rules (N14).

DES101 r2 states one spine rule (conduction, power, attraction, charge). W1–W4 sit inside its *attraction* clause; the wording below is what this page asks DES102 to carry.

- **W1 — Attraction (revised r7, Q22 / N12).** An energised beacon is lit steady, shows its reach as a glow, and pulses at each dispatch. *Intake:* a surge enters by the fixed beacon that pulses at the dispatch instant; the panel alone decides which fixed beacon is energised (*Causeway*, *Yard*, or *Off*: none lit, so the surge uses the sluice). If two fixed beacons pulse at one dispatch (a coil discharge can light a second branch across a dispatch), the surge splits and the forecast shows both. *Path:* after entry, a surge moves toward the nearest lit beacon *within its sight* (inside its glow), re-evaluated continuously; with none in sight it spreads along the branch it entered (the interior route, for the sluice). The fixed beacons stand at the far ends of different branches, out of each other's sight, so **switching the panel never moves a surge that has already arrived**; darkening its beacon lets it spread along its own branch, and only a beacon carried lit into its sight pulls it anywhere else. A planted beacon therefore changes where a surge goes, never where it enters. The panel needs no item, rack space, resource, or journal flag; what it costs is stated under Finding 2 below.

- **W4 — Turned signs.** Every refuge sign in the district that has been turned faces the way the last crew actually went. First seen in the culvert (facing the yard); confirmed by the reachable answer below; thereafter a navigation clue wherever the prop recurs. Same sign asset, rotated. Under W3 it never changes.

**Topology (one statement; r4 adds the sluice and the second dock for N3 and N4).** Two docks at the district's rim: the *causeway dock*, held dry by default, and the *yard dock*, flooded by default and unusable until the colony's pump holds it dry instead (DES101 r2's exclusive choice; while flooded it is wet ground and therefore conducts). Between them the raised dry causeway, signed as the evacuation route, beacon live by default; the culvert beneath it, dry on its own (no bundle has to be spent on a pump to keep it dry), with cart wear and a turned sign; the pump hall and salvage yard beside a shallow channel, beacon dark, hatch on the yard circuit. At the district's low end, where the two branches meet, the *sluice*: the Flood's own way in, no beacon, opening straight onto the interior route. Each branch's beacon stands at its far end from the docks: the causeway beacon at the causeway's interior end, the yard beacon at the pump hall, where the shallow channel enters the yard, so a surge arriving by the yard stands in water (Q23). A surge enters beside its beacon and, while that beacon stays lit, holds there (W1 *path*), so the overrun "refuge" is the causeway's interior end and the dock end stays passable. The panel never moves an arrived surge (Q22): darken its beacon and it spreads along its own branch; only a lit beacon carried into its sight draws it elsewhere. Three intakes: Causeway, Yard, and the sluice when the panel is Off. Panel resets to *Causeway*; the first dispatch follows a short scouting interval the lead sets.

Proposed play, not a playtest. Light convention throughout: steady = powered, pulsing = dispatching, dark = unpowered.

| --- | --- |

| Understand | Cabling runs from the panel to both beacons and on to the yard hatch. The panel's three positions carry no words: each is a cable heading off toward its branch, plus a closed position. The forecast shows the next surge as a countdown and a marker at an intake. Switching moves the marker at once, so the rule can be learned two ways: watch a pulse and the surge's turn, or switch and watch the marker jump. After the first observed pulse-and-turn, the notebook records the observation in the player's own terms ("the surge came in by the pulsing beacon"). No label states the rule. |

| Experiment | Set *Yard*. The yard beacon goes steady, the hatch opens, the forecast marker moves to the yard intake with the countdown still running. Retreat to a shelter or stay; watch the dispatch. *Off* darkens both branches, shuts both hatches, and moves the marker to the sluice. |

| Change later play | Each of the three dispatches reopens the choice: keep *Causeway* and haul through the culvert to a quiet, closed yard; set *Yard* to open the hall and walk the causeway into the interior while the surge is elsewhere; set *Off* to keep both branches quiet and give up the interior; or invite the surge to the yard channel on purpose (the lead's electrician). Turned signs (W4) now read as a route. |

**The reachable answer (spoiler; proposal).** Inside the pump hall, on the wall beside the one pump still running (the one that keeps the culvert dry): a crew tally board. Rows of marks per surge sent to the causeway; a last row with one mark to the yard and a line drawn under it; beside it a district plan with the refuge signs crossed out and a route inked through the culvert into the interior. Three or four inspectable lines carry it: the last crew fed the evacuation route to keep working the yard, turned the signs to mark their own way out, and left the panel on *Causeway* for whoever came after. Small, reachable, and it changes action: the inked route and W4 now point into the interior. What they went in for stays unanswered in the minimum scope; that is the spine of later mysteries, not a catalogue.

**Knowledge gate vs item/stat gate.** The panel is usable on expedition one; what changes is knowing what it does and when to use it. An uninformed player can still survive the causeway by skill; an informed player decides where the pressure goes and which doors open. Equipment changes how well a choice can be exploited, never whether it can be made.

**Fair recovery.** Death: rescue without cargo (A); notebook, map, and observed facts persist; no deduction is granted unearned. Missed clue: the causeway beacon is steady on every arrival and pulses every dispatch; the culvert is visible from the yard side too; the marker jump is a second, independent way in. Optional hints escalate from "the two beacons differ" to "switch, then watch the forecast marker". Late switch: the locked marker explains why nothing changed. Switching costs no resource, but it is never without consequence (below). Withdrawal never requires solving this.

The critic's question: does the beacon choose the entrance of an announced surge, or reroute groups that have arrived? **Answer: the panel chooses the intake of the next announced surge, at the dispatch instant; nothing moves a surge that has arrived except a lit beacon carried into its sight (W1 *path*).** A's surge schedule stays the pressure; the player steers where it lands. Under the spine rule the switch is free of resources but paid four ways, all readable before the switch: (1) the panel stands in the open, a dash from the nearest shelter, and switching with a countdown near zero means being on the branch you just lit; (2) energising a branch is the only way to open its hatches, so the branch you want to explore is the branch the next surge enters; (3) committed surges do not turn back, so a diversion made after dispatch buys nothing this surge; (4) a surge sent into the held dock's branch sits on the extraction route: keep its beacon lit and it holds at the far end; darken it and it spreads along that branch toward the dock; the forecast marker shows which branch before the switch. "Gather the yard first, then divert" still works once, for a closed yard: the hall's hatch, the salvage behind it, and the answer above all sit on the lit branch. **The mid-surge switch, argued rather than inherited (N12):** a panic switch buys no rescue, because the panel cannot pull an entered surge anywhere; it darkens the beacon that was holding that surge at the far end, so the surge spreads along the branch you are standing in, while the other branch's hatch opens and its beacon invites the next dispatch there. Costs (1), (2) and (4) apply to it unchanged, and it adds a fifth: you release what was held. Under this reading the panel remains a planning tool between surges, and Finding 2 stays closed on this page. Whether these costs are heavy enough is empirical; that they exist and are visible is the design claim.

- **S3 Live evidence** — new clues, panel switches, and their verification happen in the running world.

2. **Portable beacon light.** Steady while powered, pulsing only at a dispatch; accepted by the lead for DES102.

4. **Off (REV101 N4).** Placed: the sluice, above. Not a safe default; it trades both branches' quiet for the interior route.

**Under B, The Listening Below.** W1–W4 still hold with beacon = signal source and surge = a swarm released at a marked threshold; the sluice becomes the archive's own breach. PM's choice is not constrained by this page.

The lead's three sketches sit on the panel decision; this page adds nothing to the rack. **Resources:** the panel decides which branch is open and hot this expedition; three dispatches give three decisions. **Colony:** which dock the pump holds dry inverts which panel setting threatens extraction, so a colony choice changes the value of a known rule instead of adding one; the forecast relay repair shows the first intake before departure. Nothing here requires more colony than that.

**Replay after the answer.** The question closes; the decision does not. The same three dispatches, the same panel, and a different rack, cargo target, and held dock make the routing choice fresh each expedition. Diverting never creates extra enemies or rewards.