# Book 3 Ruin Backstory Revision — Design Spec

**Date:** 2026-04-19
**Status:** Approved — awaiting implementation plan
**Scope:** Revises the discovery backstory, connecting mechanism, surface geography, and Pip's species for Book 3 ("The Sealed Chamber"). Preserves the 6-level underground Athel Repository, the seal/lock inversion, the WellsMoon callback, the Ch19 Cass confrontation, the elevation resolution, and all other Act 2–3 structural beats.

---

## 1. Why This Revision

The canonical Book 3 discovery mechanism — Pamira's root-cellar excavation breaking through to a pre-Compact chamber, one previous operative killed by a first-chamber ward, a dying note reading *"Contact the Cairns. Get the Wolf."* — works but has three specific weaknesses the author wants to resolve:

1. **The 4-month gap** between Ledger's Book 2 Ch20 "after the wedding" micro-hook and the Book 3 Ch02 briefing is unexplained. Reads as drift.
2. **The "Wolf note"** is a convenient but somewhat contrived plot device. The author wants to remove it.
3. **Devod's prior connection to the site** is unused. Tying him concretely to the ruin's backstory strengthens his Act 2 usefulness and pays off his Pathfinder years.

This revision addresses all three while preserving the existing Act 2 chamber structure, the climax, and the Pip tactical role.

It also clarifies and upgrades two worldbuilding elements that were under-specified in current canon:

- **Pip's species** — shifting from "pixie dragon feeding on ambient residue" to "true dragon mutated from lizards by concentrated earth-magic," with growth gated by magical-energy intake. Consistent with the series' existing magical-residue-as-fuel logic.
- **Pamira's political position** — grounding her financial strain and urgency in a named rival (Duke Garrett Holven of Aldermere), already in the Kingdom of Corvel canon.

---

## 2. Scope Decision

Option B — *hybrid*. Keep the 6-level underground repository and the sealed weapon chamber. Add the walled village, 3 mines, cliff, and dragon colony as genuinely new surface/adjacent features. Rebuild Pip's origin. Leave the climax mechanics unchanged.

Not Option A (backstory-only retcon) because the walled village and mines are genuine new worldbuilding, not just dressing.

Not Option C (full restructure) because the seal/lock inversion, WellsMoon callback, archive contents, and Cass confrontation are all load-bearing for the Book 3 arc and the Book 4+ setup; rebuilding from scratch would be a multi-spec decomposition project the book doesn't need.

---

## 3. The Site — Physical Layout

45-acre eastern-coastal site on Pamira's land, in the duchy of Thorngate. Previously thought to be unexplored woodland. Geography concentrates everything interesting along a cliff line.

### Outer Perimeter

- **Wooden palisade** around the central compound. Pre-Compact century-preservation magic embedded in the timber. The preservation technique itself is a worldbuilding flex — modern practice cannot replicate it. Survey 20 years ago catalogued the technique in detail.
- **The Sealed Gate** — single perimeter breach point. Pre-Compact adaptive ward on it. Diagnosed in the original survey as unbreakable by then-current technique and lethal to force. Kills operatives who attack it head-on (same mechanism as the ward on the first chamber in current canon, relocated to the gate).

### Inside the Walls (Surface Compound)

The compound was **not** a civilian village. It was a pre-Compact research campus — practitioners studying advanced magic lived with their families here while working. Structures:

- **The Hall** — central stone building. Preserved inscription panels on interior walls. Surface "echo" of the underground Inscription Gallery; the ward-logic notation system is visible here in introductory form. Clean stone floor, good south light through preserved glass panels. **Mere's Act 2 workspace.** Pip prefers a windowsill perch facing the mines.
- **The Researchers' Quarters** — 6–8 small stone-and-timber buildings clustered near the Hall. Mostly empty. Preserved well enough that the team could sleep here if needed (Act 2 camp option). One quarter has preserved personal effects still in place: a journal, a child's carved wooden toy, a half-finished meal calcified to the table. Pre-Compact researchers had families here. The partial evidence implies *some* of them did not leave cleanly. Book 3 does not explain this — it is atmosphere and Book 4+ seed.
- **The Descent Building** — small, unassuming structure near the cliff wall. Inside: a stone staircase down. This is the entrance to the 6-level underground repository (existing canon, unchanged). The building is deliberately plain because the pre-Compact builders wanted the dramatic Gate to be the decoy and the real containment to be below. This is load-bearing: it separates "breach the perimeter" from "reach the weapon," which matters for pacing.

### Outside the Walls — Cliff and Mines

- **The Cliff** — natural backing. The compound wall backs directly against it; no rear access to the compound is possible from the cliff side.
- **Mine 1 (earth-magic saturated)** — entered from the cliff face, not from inside the walls. Centuries of concentrated earth-magic residue have mutated the native lizard population into dragons. Resident colony (wolf-to-pony-sized matriarchs). **Pip's origin.** Team does not engage the colony in Book 3 — hears claw marks, sees distant shapes, Pip reacts when carried near the entrance. Future-book potential.
- **Mines 2 & 3** — ordinary played-out mines in the cliff face, rare ore traces logged but not mined during the Book 3 case. Atmosphere and Book 4+ revenue for Pamira.
- **One E-accent (seeded, not resolved):** Mine 1 has an undiscovered underground connection to the repository's lower levels. Pip reacts strongly when Mere carries her past a specific rock face during a surface survey. The team notes the behavior, does not investigate. Book 4+ seed — when the Compact comes back through the mines, this connection becomes a problem.

### The Underground Repository (Unchanged)

The existing 6-level structure lives beneath the Descent Building, unchanged from current canon:

1. Entrance Chamber — intent-filtering wards ("these aren't wards, they're locks")
2. Inscription Gallery
3. Demonstration Hall
4. Archive Proper (including flawfinder's-gift documentation)
5. Research Workshop
6. Sealed Weapon Chamber (the amplifier)

All Act 2 chapter beats map to these levels as written.

---

## 4. The Site — Backstory

Pre-Compact practitioners built the compound to study advanced magic. They lived here with their families. When they determined the amplification weapon was too dangerous to keep accessible, they executed a three-layer containment:

1. Sealed the weapon chamber from within
2. Built a self-maintaining ward architecture on the lower levels
3. Walked out through the Descent Building, out through the Gate, and cast the adaptive ward on the Gate from the outside

What happened to them after they left is unknown. The partial personal effects in one of the Researchers' Quarters (half-finished meal, child's toy) suggest not all of them left voluntarily, but Book 3 does not investigate this — it is texture.

The preserved wooden palisade has lasted 100+ years because of the century-preservation magic embedded in it. The gate ward has held for the same reason. Both are proofs of pre-Compact technique that feed the institutional stakes (the Compact's authority rests on the claim that modern practice is an improvement).

---

## 5. The 20-Year Gap

### Year 0 (~20 years before Book 3 opens)

Pamira commissions a Pathfinder contract to survey her eastern territory. She's early 40s; her late husband is alive and active in the decision. She thinks it's unexplored forest, hopes for resources. Pathfinder team finds the site. Catalogues walls, gate, mines, cliff. The senior surveyor writes up the gate; **Devod**, on the team as a contract operative at age ~35, catches something the senior missed and adds a field note: *the gate is a ward, not a door.* Pamira reads the report. Devod's name is now on a document in her drawer.

The team cannot breach the gate. Survey concludes with the file stamped *"pre-Compact adaptive ward, outside current capability, defer."*

### Years 1–10 — The Wait

Pamira's late husband — who brought the guild relationship to the marriage and had a deeper read on the Necessary Services / Cairns world than Pamira did — advises holding. His reasoning: *"When someone who can open it exists, we'll hear about them. Until then, it sits."* Pamira agrees. The site becomes a shared inside joke between them. *Our expensive mystery.*

They run the estate. Raise Emmila. Live their long partnership of mutual competence.

### ~Year 10 — The Husband Dies

Estate obligations transfer to Pamira. Among them: the unopened file and the quiet understanding that she would honor her husband's wait-it-out stance. She does. This is part of her widow grief. *He said we'd hear about someone. He didn't hear about anyone. Now I'm waiting for both of us.*

### Years 10–20 — The File in the Drawer

Pamira runs the estate. Watches grandchildren grow. Manages the declining outlying holding. Keeps the financial strain hidden under cheerful efficiency. File stays in the drawer.

### Recent — The Decision to Reopen

Two things shift simultaneously in the months before Book 3 opens:

1. **Financial pressure from Holven is no longer deniable.** Duke Garrett Holven of Aldermere has been acquiring distressed noble debt across the north for a decade. Recently, one of Pamira's late husband's unresolved obligations has landed in Holven's ledger. He hasn't moved on it. He could. She knows. Everyone in the north does.
2. **Through the Cairns network, Pamira has heard of a guild operative called "the Locksmith."** Someone who does impossible jobs. Who reads what other operatives can't. She doesn't know it's Phelan. She doesn't need to. *The shape of the person her husband said would come has finally arrived.*

She sits at her ledger one night, opens the drawer, reads the 20-year-old survey one more time, and writes the letter to the Cairns.

**This is part of what she hides from Devod.** She is breaking from her husband's guidance by acting without his blessing. *He chose the person he said would come. I didn't wait for him to do it.* Not said aloud in Book 3. Shapes her behavior throughout.

---

## 6. The Connecting Mechanism (No "Wolf Note")

The *"Contact the Cairns. Get the Wolf."* note is removed entirely. Its four canonical jobs are redistributed as follows:

### Job 1 — Pamira → Cairns

She writes the letter because the Cairns hold the institutional memory of the original survey. They are the only people who know where the 20-year-old file lives.

### Job 2 — Cairns → Ledger

Via Ledger's existing standing-order infrastructure (Book 2 canon — the precaution he set after Devod's Book 2 draining to be read in on anything Wolf-related). The Cairns' messenger lands on his desk. He reads the file.

### Job 3 — Ledger → Phelan + Team

Ledger reads the survey and sees immediately: the gate needs Flaw Sight (Phelan), the artifacts and ore traces need a fence (Leon), and the site needs someone with direct underground experience (Devod, whose name is in the survey). The team basically assembles itself on the page.

Ledger recognizes this also serves his grooming agenda and his need to get Phelan out of Drenwick while the Compact grievance is pending. The ruin is a test, a showcase, and a procedural escape route — all in one job.

### Job 4 — Ch07 Reveal

Relocated from "A dead man told me your name" to **"I've read about you."** See Section 7.

---

## 7. Ch07 Reunion — Relocating the "You're the Wolf" Reveal

**Pamira and Devod did not meet 20 years ago.** She paid the contract; he was one of a dozen operatives on a multi-month job. But she read the survey report multiple times over two decades. Devod's name is associated with the gate diagnosis specifically — his terrain eye caught what the senior surveyor missed, and his field note is what told her husband the gate was a ward, not a door.

When they meet in Ch07:

- Pamira reads him within minutes — the walking stick, the way he scans the terrain, the posture. She goes still.
- *"I've read about you. You were on the Kade Reach survey. You found my sealed gate."*
- Devod: *"That was your survey?"*
- The "Wolf" name still lands, but through a different door: "I've heard the name. Your unit was known to the logistics people. My brother served in the era after yours."

**Tonal notes:**

- Reunion-recognition energy, not dying-words mystery.
- Mere eye-roll still fires at "princess."
- Chemistry still immediate — *two old soldiers finding each other on purpose* reads stronger when one of them has been quietly holding the other's 20-year-old field note.
- Pamira's later-scene connection to Devod's Vethek Pass story (Ch11) gains weight: she's not hearing about the Wolf for the first time; she's hearing what the man whose note she kept has carried for three decades.

---

## 8. Scout Deaths and the 4-Month Delay

### Deployment Sequence

1. **Week 0 (Phelan's wedding week):** Ledger deploys Scout 1 — experienced Cairns operative, Tier Two or equivalent, standard ward-breaking training. Mandate: confirm the site matches the 20-year-old survey, catalog what's changed, assess whether the gate is still active.
2. **Weeks 1–6:** Scout 1 establishes surveillance, walks the perimeter, catalogs the three mine entrances, cross-references Devod's 20-year-old notes against current terrain. Working notes accumulate in his field journal. Cross-references accurate; survey still holds.
3. **~Week 6:** Scout 1 tries to force the gate. Ward adapts to his methodology and kills him. (Same mechanism as canonical "wards kill experienced operatives," relocated from the first chamber to the gate.) Final journal entry: a confident hypothesis about the ward's structure, followed by a gap.
4. **Weeks 6–14:** Silence from Scout 1. Ledger does not panic — long-duration scouts go quiet by protocol. But by week 14, silence is past threshold.
5. **~Week 14:** Ledger deploys **Sabre + one Cairns forensics operative.** Two-person recovery team.
6. **Weeks 14–16:** Sabre and partner find Scout 1's body near the gate. No note. Field journal recovered. Partner reads the body: arcane burn pattern, positioning, defensive posture. Diagnoses pre-Compact adaptive ward. Confirms survey-era assessment is still correct.
7. **~Week 16:** Partner returns to Ledger with forensics report and the journal. Sabre stays on rotation (holds the site lightly, sends sending-stone updates, awaits next team).
8. **~Week 17 (Book 3 Ch02):** Ledger briefs Phelan with the full file: 20-year-old survey (with Devod's notes), Scout 1's journal, forensics report, Sabre's observations.

**Total elapsed: ~17 weeks / ~4 months** from Phelan's wedding to the Ch02 briefing. *The delay is competent operational caution, not drift.*

### What the Scouts Brought Back

- Scout 1's field journal — working notes, cross-references to Devod's survey, the final hypothesis about the gate ward, silence.
- Forensics partner's report — cause of death, kill mechanism, confirmation that the ward is still active and still lethal.
- Sabre's ongoing site observations — terrain changes, mine-entrance status, weather, any sign of other visitors (none).

### What Pamira Knows

She was informed of Scout 1's death when Ledger briefed her on the delay. She knows the guild lost a man and is taking the job seriously enough to assemble a specialist team. She does not know the forensic details. Her warmth in Ch07 is unaffected — the gate killing people is an abstract fact to her, not a fresh grief. When Devod arrives, she does not lead with the death; she leads with the survey.

---

## 9. What the Team Brings to Ch08

Scout 1's journal is handed to Phelan in Ch07 — either by Pamira (she's been holding it for weeks) or by Sabre (hands over in a briefing).

Phelan reads it overnight. He already has Devod's 20-year-old survey notes in the file. By morning, he's partway into the ward's logic — **not starting from zero, reading past a dead man's mistake to see what the scout missed.**

**Ch08 opens at the gate with Phelan speaking the first "these aren't wards, they're locks" line with earned authority.** The beat now pre-loads the Ch14 build-a-perfect-lock payoff at gate scale — the first ward Phelan cracks in the book is a keep-in seal on a perimeter, same logic he'll have to invert three chapters later at chamber scale. Same vocabulary shift (keep-out → keep-in) is now active from Ch08, which lets Ch14's Oh-moment land even harder.

---

## 10. Pip — Species, Growth, and Role

### Species

**True dragon.** Not "pixie dragon." The correct species framing in the Corvel world is: dragons are magical-reptilian creatures whose form and mass are gated by available magical residue. In the wild, they only survive in magic-saturated environments. Outside those environments, they either migrate to find residue density or die.

**Origin.** Mine 1 on Pamira's territory has been concentrating earth-magic for centuries (unusual ore vein, pre-Compact-era disruption, or similar — specific cause Book 4+). The ambient residue saturation is high enough to have mutated the native lizard population into dragons over many generations. Wild colony of 5–10 individuals, wolf-to-pony-sized at maturity.

**Why they don't spread.** Metabolic threshold. A wild-mine matriarch needs the mine's residue density to survive; outside the saturation zone, she starves within days of flight. The colony has been geographically stable for centuries for this reason.

### Growth Mechanics

**Body mass is a function of sustained ambient residue intake.** A dragon fed rich residue grows. A dragon fed trace residue stabilizes at a lower mass.

**Pip is a hatchling / young adult.** She left the mine colony (drawn out by Mere's calm, Mere's Moonswell trays, and Phelan's ambient working residue). At Chandler's Row, residue intake will be trace-to-moderate — she will stabilize at hand-sized for the foreseeable future.

**Growth gate gives three future-book levers:**

1. Extended stays in magic-dense environments (visits to another ruin, prolonged proximity to a major working).
2. A deliberate feeding program — Mere could construct a magical hothouse around Pip, with all the practical and ethical complications of raising a predator at scale.
3. A catastrophic residue event (Book 5+ big magical occurrence) that accidentally triggers growth — reframes Pip from "Mere's companion" to "Mere has a problem."

### Ch18 Tactical Role — Unchanged

Earth-magic attunement means pre-Compact stone architecture reads as native signal to Pip. Cass moving through the repository lights up like a fish in a pond. The tactical-intelligence beats in Ch18 (Pip + Mere tracking Cass's position from the surface) work identically to current canon — if anything, cleaner, because Pip's signal sensitivity has a concrete physical basis instead of an abstract "reacts to ambient residue" framing.

---

## 11. Pamira's Political Rivals

**Duke Garrett Holven of Aldermere** (existing canon — he is one of the two northern duchies, peer to Thorngate). Has been acquiring distressed noble debt across the north for a decade. Recently acquired one of Pamira's late husband's unresolved obligations.

### Usage in Book 3

- **Named in one private-voice scene** — Pamira at her ledger, alone, Ch09 or Ch11 (drafter's call on placement). Two paragraphs. She names Holven to herself, not to Devod or to any on-page character.
- **Compact amplifier.** When she declines each Compact delegation in Ch10 / Ch15 / Ch18, she is knowingly spending political capital with northern peers. Holven hears about each decline within three days. She does it anyway. The *cost of declining* is part of what makes the delegations pressure, not imposition.
- **Ch18 breach hits harder** because the Compact at the gate is the physical manifestation of Pamira's deliberately-chosen political isolation. She held the line. The line came to her door.

### Book 4+ Seed

Holven on the board means when the Compact comes at Phelan through policy in Book 4, one of their levers is a northern noble coalition with Holven at or near the center. The ruin case creates the coalition either direction:

- If Pamira holds, the Compact has lost a round and Holven has plausible deniability.
- If Pamira falls, Holven acquires her debt and the Compact acquires a cooperative duchy.

The Compact's Book 4 approach will likely exploit this.

---

## 12. Devod's Timeline Reconciliation

Current canon: Devod is 55 now, joined Pathfinders ~18-20, left full-time service at ~28 ("did the math on fatherhood"), met Charlette at ~25, married ~26-27, Mere born when Devod was ~30-31.

### Revision

**Devod left full-time Pathfinder service at ~28 as canon states.** He took occasional contract gigs in his early 30s while building the delivery career — not uncommon for the Pathfinder-to-civilian transition, his skillset translated, the money was good, the gigs were specific and finite.

**The Pamira survey at ~35 was the last one.** Multi-month eastern-coast job. Careful documentation work, not frontier combat. His role was senior asset — the Wolf's terrain eye on a puzzle the senior surveyor couldn't read. He found the gate diagnosis (ward, not door) that went into Pamira's file.

**The job ended him.** Not because it was dangerous — because it was long. He came home from the eastern coast and told Charlette never again. This becomes *the* moment he exited the life — not his formal departure at 28.

### What This Adds

- **Brennan Toor's Vethek Pass story (Book 2 Ch15)** stays untouched in the 23-24-years-ago slot as the defining early-20s combat legend.
- **Charlette reframe gains texture.** The Pamira job is one of the data points that ended the marriage — she had accepted the delivery-career trajectory, then he took one more months-long contract, then he came home and said never again. By then Charlette had already started to calcify. The Book 1-2 ultimatum backstory is unchanged; the Pamira job just provides one more pre-ultimatum friction point.
- **Mere was ~5** during the Pamira survey. She may or may not have any memory of "the year Dad was away for a long job on the coast." Light-touch series texture, drafter's call on whether this surfaces in Book 3.
- **Devod has first-hand site knowledge.** He paced this ground. He remembers where the cliff crumbles. He remembers Mine 1's entrance. When the team arrives in Ch07, he is the one who says "this hasn't changed much" — and when Pamira's survey report is pulled out, his own handwriting is on it. This grounds Ledger's "Devod specifically" reasoning in concrete expertise, not just reputation.
- **The Ch07 reunion** carries weight because Pamira has held his field note for 20 years.

---

## 13. Files to Update

### Core narrative files

- `outline/book3-outline.md`
  - Core Case section — rewrite "How it enters the story" paragraph to match the new discovery mechanism (20-year survey, husband's wait, recent decision, Cairns → Ledger → scout deployment → Sabre finds body).
  - Ch02 briefing — update Ledger's briefing language (no Wolf note, survey file + scout journal + forensics instead).
  - Ch06 — add Sabre-is-returning texture (he's been here before, knows the road, has seen Scout 1's body).
  - Ch07 — rewrite the Pamira-Devod meeting to use "I've read about you" / "That was your survey?" reveal instead of "A dead man."
  - Ch08 — frame the gate as the first Flaw Sight showcase; Phelan already partway into the ward's logic from reading Scout 1's journal overnight.
  - Ch09 or Ch11 — add two-paragraph private-voice Pamira-at-ledger scene naming Holven.
  - Subplot thread map — Sabre row gets a "returning to site" beat for Ch06.

- `characters/duchess-pamira.md`
  - Backstory section — add the 20-year survey, the husband's wait-it-out guidance, the recent decision to reopen, the emotional weight of breaking from his guidance.
  - Political Position / Relationships — add Holven as the named rival.
  - Relationships → Devod — update to reflect "she has held his 20-year-old field note the whole time" rather than "meeting for the first time."
  - Ch07 character progression row — reflect the new reveal mechanism.
  - Late husband section — expand his guild connection slightly to justify his Cairns/Necessary Services knowledge.

- `characters/devod-fields.md`
  - Service Timeline table — add a row at ~35 for the Pamira survey as final contract work.
  - Backstory section — "Transitional years (~28-30)" becomes "Transitional years and contract work (~28-35), with the Pamira eastern-coast survey at ~35 as the final Pathfinder-adjacent contract."
  - Retirement Reasoning — update to reflect that the Pamira job is the true exit, not the formal 28 departure.
  - Character Progression → Book 3 section — will be filled in during drafting; note that Ch07 involves his survey notes being in Pamira's file.

- `characters/pip.md`
  - Species section — rewrite from "pixie dragon / magical symbiote" to "true dragon, mutated lizard lineage from earth-magic-saturated Mine 1."
  - Growth mechanics — add new section describing magical-energy obligate growth and the Chandler's Row stabilization.
  - Origin — update "found near the ruin entrance during Mere's surface survey" to "found during a surface survey, drawn out of Mine 1 by Mere's calm + Moonswell residue + Phelan's ambient workings."
  - Ch18 tactical role — unchanged, but note that earth-magic attunement is the physical basis.
  - Open Questions — add Book 4+ levers for growth (magic-dense stays, feeding program, residue catastrophe).

- `characters/ledger.md`
  - Add the scout deployment sequence and the 4-month delay explanation.
  - Standing-order-on-Wolf-related-matters (Book 2 canon) now has a concrete first use.
  - Cairns-as-institutional-memory framing strengthens.

- `characters/supporting-cast.md`
  - Holven row — flesh out as named antagonist/rival for Book 3 texture + Book 4 setup.
  - Sabre row — add the "returning scout" context.

- `chapters/book3/CLAUDE.md`
  - Core Case summary paragraph — rewrite to match the new discovery mechanism.
  - Ruin location — add the walled village, 3 mines, cliff, dragon colony to the site description.

- `chapters/book3/ch01-input.md`
  - Check for any references to the old "root cellar discovery" or "Wolf note" — rewrite if present.

- `chapters/book3/ch01-draft.md`
  - Audit for any references to the old backstory. Book 3 Ch01 is primarily domestic at Chandler's Row, so likely minimal impact, but verify.

### Worldbuilding files

- `world/locations/kingdom-of-corvel.md`
  - Holven entry — add a line about his debt-acquirer pattern across the north. Seeds Book 4.

- *(New, created during drafting — not this spec's scope)* `world/locations/athel-repository.md`
  - Full site layout: palisade, Hall, Researchers' Quarters, Descent Building, the three mines, cliff, dragon colony.

- *(New, created during drafting)* `world/timeline-book3.md`
  - Include the 4-month scout sequence in the pre-Book-3 timeline.

---

## 14. Deferred / Explicitly Out of Scope

These questions were raised during brainstorming and deliberately left open:

- **Rare ore specifics.** Mines 2 & 3 have ore traces. Ore types and commercial value — TBD during drafting. Not load-bearing for Book 3; these are Book 4+ revenue.
- **The pre-Compact researchers' fate.** What happened to the people who built the compound is unknown and not investigated in Book 3. The partial personal effects in one of the Researchers' Quarters are texture, not a subplot.
- **Mine-to-repository underground connection.** Seeded (Pip reacts near a specific rock face); not investigated in Book 3. Book 4+.
- **Dragon colony engagement.** The colony is heard, glimpsed, and implied but not engaged in Book 3. Future-book territory.
- **Holven on-page.** Named in one private-voice scene; not on-page. Book 4+ if the character shows up in person.
- **Pamira's brother's name, unit, and era.** Still TBD per current Pamira file. Unaffected by this revision.
- **Pamira's late husband's name.** Still TBD. Unaffected by this revision.
- **Pip's growth arc.** Deliberately deferred to later books. Not a Book 3 beat.

---

## 15. Continuity Notes

- **Preserves:** Act 2 chapter structure (Ch08 first chamber → Ch13 sealed door → Ch14 build the perfect lock), WellsMoon callback (Ch03 fusion → Ch14 Oh-moment), flawfinder's-gift archive documentation, Ch19 Cass confrontation at the sealed weapon, the elevation resolution in Ch21, the Compact enforcement force at the gate in Ch18, every Kimbra beat, every Mere/pregnancy beat, every Ledger grooming beat.
- **Changes:** Discovery mechanism, Pamira's motivation texture, the note (removed), Ch07 reveal line, the 4-month delay explanation, Pip's species and origin, the physical footprint of the site (now has a surface compound and three mines).
- **Does not break Book 2.** The Book 2 Ch20 micro-hook ("a contract inquiry from a Duchess Pamira, Thorngate district — pre-Compact site clearance, previous operative deceased") still works cleanly — Scout 1's death is the "previous operative deceased" referenced there, and Ledger has been holding the inquiry because the scouting is still in progress at the time of the Book 2 debrief. No Book 2 change required.
- **Compatible with published Book 1 and Book 2.** Neither book names the discovery mechanism, the note, or Pip. Everything in Books 1-2 stays locked canon.

---

*End of spec.*
