chapters 16 and 17 finalized

world/magic/exploits-log.md

@@ -104,6 +104,32 @@ Every exploit Phelan uses, logged for continuity tracking.
 - **Significance:** The bracelet is not just a perception tool — it's an autonomous energy management system. Pre-Compact engineering operating on logic Phelan didn't write and can't fully read. "Patient, autonomous, operating on logic I hadn't written and couldn't have designed."
 - **Flaw Sight used:** No — Flaw Sight offline in mine. Discovery was through physical sensation (warmth direction) and reserve math (numbers didn't add up).
 
+## Exploit Refinement: Layer 2 — Stabilizer Weaponisation (Leon's Insight)
+- **Chapter:** Ch16
+- **Origin:** Leon D'Nardis riffing on forge-and-redirect (Exploit #3) applied to Floundry curse's stabilizer layer.
+- **Refinement:** The stabilizer monitors Layer 1 and repairs damage. Instead of just disrupting the stabilizer, feed it forged crisis data showing catastrophic Layer 1 collapse. The stabilizer overcompensates — dumps repair energy into the degradation curse, but the degradation isn't actually collapsing. The repair function, running at emergency speed with nowhere to dump its output, overloads the channels and actively tears Layer 1 apart from the inside. The stabilizer is weaponised against the system it was built to protect.
+- **Leon's key insight:** "Systems that monitor other systems can be made to accelerate the very failures they're trying to prevent."
+- **Technical requirements:** Bracelet precision for two-second injection windows. Sub-second precision per injection. ~15 minutes sustained forging. Stabilizer monitoring interval drops under a second when reading crisis data ("it panics"). Reservoir cost: 22-28%. If bracelet exhausts mid-forge, precision drops to ~40% detection probability per cycle. Maximum three retry attempts before reservoir threshold.
+- **Status:** Solution locked. Awaiting execution (L3→L2→L1 order — Layer 2 is second).
+
+## Exploit Concept: Layer 3 — Anchor Drift Acceleration (Devod's "Move the Lock")
+- **Chapter:** Ch16
+- **Origin:** Devod Fields, cargo analogy — "If you can't unlock the lock, move what it's locked to."
+- **Target:** Dead man's switch anchor keyed to Ned Floundry's life-force signature.
+- **Key principle:** The anchor requires signature verification before delivering kill trigger — a kill mechanism without verification fires into whoever's nearby. The keying is both safety and constraint. If the target's signature drifts past the validation window, the trigger fires into empty space.
+- **Method:** The curse itself is already causing life-force drift (degradation changes Ned's signature). The anchor recalibrates faster than the natural drift — but ghostveil moss at altered concentration suppresses the resonance between anchor and signature, accelerating the drift beyond the anchor's recalibration ceiling. The anchor over-corrects, each correction widens the gap. Eventually the validation fails — trigger fires, finds nothing it recognises. "The lock is still locked. The chain is still whole. But the boat has moved."
+- **Moss preparation:** Altered concentration — narrower band than standard dampening, targeting resonance frequency specifically. Living preparation (not dried, not standard extraction). Preserved root structures essential. 12-hour prep time. Requires one more bracelet-enhanced bedside observation for anchor resonance characteristics (recalibration speed, grip tolerance, bond weakness threshold).
+- **Dual moss use:** Standard preparation for Layer 1 dampening. Altered concentration for Layer 3 drift acceleration. One ingredient, two applications. Mere's botanical expertise essential for both.
+- **Status:** Concept locked. Awaiting resonance data (bedside observation) and Mere's 12-hour altered preparation.
+
+## Discovery Update: Bracelet Wellspring — Repeating Behaviour Confirmed
+- **Chapter:** Ch17
+- **Context:** Hyperfocus crash. Phelan sustained a cognitive overload spiral (Ch16 continuation) — the bracelet's focusing matrix kept sharpening the corridor after his body was already shutting down. Reserves depleted past threshold. Bracelet went hot (burn, not warmth). 14 hours unconscious.
+- **Wellspring confirmation:** Second flow reversal observed (first: Ch15 mine combat). Stone shifted to dark, tired colour between amber and black. Recovering visibly — warming back toward amber. Recharging faster than Phelan's personal reserves. **Repeating conditional behaviour confirmed** — not one-time. The *if-then* cycle repeats: charge → discharge when threshold breached → recharge.
+- **Safety limitation identified:** The focusing matrix does not have a built-in mechanism to stop when the user's body is failing. It extended Phelan's cognitive reach past his physical capacity. "Like giving a man drowning a longer rope — he can reach further, but the water's still the same depth." Pre-Compact engineering built for practitioners who may have had different limits, or who were expected to know their own.
+- **Post-stress harmonic:** Carter observed harmonic settling patterns in the bracelet's inscription work after the crash. First external technical observation of bracelet behaviour. Sent note via Devod (technical terms preserved phonetically). **Carter now knows about the bracelet** — saw it while Phelan was unconscious ("Hard to keep a focusing matrix hidden from a craftsman when you're unconscious on his floor with your sleeve riding up").
+- **Mere's observation:** Bracelet recovering faster than Phelan's reserves. She identified the pattern from her Ch10 conditional logic analysis — watching the colour progression and drawing conclusions Phelan hasn't caught up to yet.
+
 ## Equipment: Focusing Ring (Carter's Custom Build)
 - **Chapter:** Ch13
 - **Builder:** Jonael Carterson ("Carter")