book3: character bible updates for ruin backstory revision

- duchess-pamira.md: 20-year Kade Reach survey backstory,
  Holven as named rival, Devod's field note held 20 years,
  Ch07 "I've read about you" reveal
- devod-fields.md: Pamira survey at ~35 as final Pathfinder-
  adjacent contract and real exit from the life
- ledger.md: Scout Deployment Sequence explaining the 4-month
  post-wedding gap; Cairns as institutional memory

Ref: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-19-book3-ruin-backstory-revision-design.md

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

characters/devod-fields.md

@@ -72,9 +72,12 @@ During a frontier clearance gone wrong, Devod took charge of a deteriorating sit
 | ~28 | Left the Pathfinders | Did the math: stay and eventually your daughter grows up without a father. Left on his own terms — not broken, not forced out |
 | ~28-30 | Transitional years | Took lighter guild contract work while settling into civilian life. Logistics and supply skills translated immediately |
 | ~30-31 | Mere born | Fully committed to delivery work. Same guild network, same logistics skillset, fraction of the danger |
+| ~35 | **Kade Reach survey (Pamira's territory) — final Pathfinder-adjacent contract.** Multi-month eastern-coast job on a newly surveyed 45-acre section of Thorngate duchy. Devod was a senior asset — the Wolf's terrain eye on a puzzle the senior surveyor couldn't read. Catalogued the walled pre-Compact compound, three cliff-face mines, and the sealed perimeter gate. Wrote the field note that called the gate *a ward, not a door.* Note filed with Pamira's survey report. **The job that actually ended him** — not the 28-year-old formal departure. Came home from the eastern coast and told Charlette never again. | Final contract |
 
 ### Retirement Reasoning
-"Did the math — stay and your daughter grows up without a father." Left on his own terms. Not broken, not forced out. The delivery career is the same brain — navigation, terrain assessment, logistics, improvisation — applied to work that doesn't kill you.
+**Formally left full-time Pathfinder service at 28** — *"Did the math — stay and your daughter grows up without a father."* Not broken, not forced out. But the formal departure was not the real exit: he continued taking occasional Pathfinder-adjacent contract work through his early 30s while building the delivery career, a common transition for the skillset.
+
+**The Kade Reach survey at ~35 is where it actually ended.** Multi-month eastern-coast job on Duchess Pamira's territory. Careful documentation work, not frontier combat. He came home and told Charlette never again. That is the moment he exited the life. The delivery career — navigation, terrain assessment, logistics, improvisation applied to work that doesn't kill you — is what the rest of his 30s onward became.
 
 ---
 
@@ -100,7 +103,7 @@ During a frontier clearance gone wrong, Devod took charge of a deteriorating sit
 - **Pathfinder service (~18-28):** Served roughly a decade in the Pathfinders, an elite guild-contracted frontier clearance unit. Earned the nickname "The Wolf" for pack-leader instinct and relentless problem-solving under pressure. Left voluntarily at ~28 when he did the math on fatherhood vs. casualty rates.
 - **Met Charlette (~25):** She worked guild-adjacent supply logistics for Pathfinder operations. Sharp, organized, ambitious. They bonded over competence. Married ~26-27.
 - **Charlette reframe:** Her controlling nature is grounded in her professional history — years managing logistics for operations where people died regularly. Risk assessment, contingency planning, resource control were assets in that context. When she shifted that energy to family life, "managing risk" became "controlling everything and everyone." The same traits that made her excellent at supply logistics made her suffocating as a partner and parent. This doesn't excuse her behavior with Mere. It grounds it.
-- **Transitional years (~28-30):** Lighter guild contract work while settling into civilian life. Logistics and supply skills translated immediately. Mere born ~30-31. Fully committed to delivery work by then.
+- **Transitional years and contract work (~28-35):** After leaving full-time Pathfinder service at ~28, took occasional contract gigs through his early 30s while building the delivery career — not uncommon for the Pathfinder-to-civilian transition. Mere born ~30-31, Devod ~5 years into the civilian shift. **The Pamira / Kade Reach survey at ~35 was the final contract.** Multi-month eastern-coast job; he was senior asset; his field note on the sealed gate went into Duchess Pamira's survey report and sat there for 20 years. He came home from that job and told Charlette never again. That is the real end of the Pathfinder-adjacent life — Charlette had already started to calcify by then, and the months-long absence was one of the pre-ultimatum friction points. Mere was ~5; light-touch series texture whether she has any memory of "the year Dad was away for a long job on the coast." Drafter's call on whether this surfaces on-page in Book 3.
 - Divorced from Charlette Fields (Mere's mother). Marriage ended mutually ("or close enough"). Charlette hates him.
 - **The Ultimatum (when Mere was 12):** Two years post-divorce, Devod was still seeing Mere on Godsday visits. Every visit, Mere was missing something basic — worn shoes, old coats, clothes that should've been replaced. Devod took her shopping each time. **The trigger:** Winter, Mere at twelve, no gloves, hands red and cracked. Devod bought her three pairs (lined, with spares). Charlette came to Millford Street: framed basic care as "undermining her" — if he kept showing up and making her look like she couldn't provide, she'd take Mere and disappear. No forwarding address, no legal recourse — custody was hers, divorce settlement gave him nothing. He complied. Strategic choice, not cowardice. Calculated that Mere staying in Drenwick (near him) was better than Mere disappearing entirely. Then Charlette found out he was still in Drenwick — demanded 3 silvers/month payment for the privilege of proximity. Paid for four years (ages 12-16). Has lived with the guilt for 12+ years.
 - **Mere learns the truth in Book 2 Ch11.** Payment records trigger the revelation. She reclassifies both parents — Charlette as closed account, Devod as model-inverted (didn't leave, was forced out).
@@ -221,7 +224,12 @@ During a frontier clearance gone wrong, Devod took charge of a deteriorating sit
 | Epilogue | **Wedding party attendance, Mere hug on-page, Pathfinder address handoff.** Day ~17 post-draining. Attends Phelan and Mere's wedding party at Chandler's Row. Fourth attendee in arrival order (after Carter & Jenet, Carson, Leon). **Mere does not wait for him to reach her** — meets him in the middle of the room and puts her arms around him "the way Mere put her arms around almost nobody," and he holds her "as a man holds the daughter who had stood at his bedside and counted his pulse for hours in the dark." First physical affection beat between them on-page in the book. Lasts a breath longer than Phelan expects. They step back at the same moment without coordinating it. **Book 3 Pathfinder seed:** sets a folded slip of paper down on the table next to Leon's cloth twist. An address, written in a hand Phelan does not recognise — not Devod's own handwriting. *"For when you're ready."* Implied source: Brennan Toor or another Cairns/Pathfinder-adjacent contact from the same network that delivered the Ch15 Vethek Pass story. First tangible Book 3 lead Phelan holds that Ledger did not give him — independent of guild channels. **Exchanges a quiet unheard word with Ledger** at the party, Phelan files the exchange without being able to read it. The two of them now explicitly operate on off-channel communication Phelan cannot parse. Uninformed about Phelan/Mere marriage decision's interior weight (the children decision, the father wound from Ch21) per Book 2 lock | Mere hug / Pathfinder address / Ledger off-channel |
 
 ### Book 3
-<!-- Future -->
+
+<!-- Chapter-by-chapter progression fills in during drafting. Pre-set anchor from the ruin backstory revision: -->
+
+**Ch07 anchor:** When the team arrives at Pamira's estate, Pamira's survey file is already on her desk. Devod's handwriting is on the 20-year-old field note about the sealed gate. His reunion-recognition exchange with Pamira lands on *"I've read about you. You were on the Kade Reach survey. You found my sealed gate."* / *"That was your survey?"* He paced this ground at 35. He remembers where the cliff crumbles, where Mine 1's entrance sits, how the palisade reads from the approach. Ledger's "Devod specifically" reasoning in the Ch02 briefing is grounded in this concrete expertise — the team assembly includes him because the site is already partly mapped in his head.
+
+<!-- Full Book 3 chapter rows to be filled in during drafting. -->
 
 ---
 

characters/duchess-pamira.md

@@ -63,7 +63,8 @@ She is a grandmother of four. The warmth is real; the grandma energy is literal;
 
 ## Political Position
 
-- **Duchess of Thorngate.** Holds the title by inheritance from her late husband's family (House Varnesse), confirmed in her own right by the crown after his death. Her duchy is one of the two northern duchies of Corvel; the other is Aldermere, held by Duke Garrett Holven (peer and neighbor). See `world/locations/kingdom-of-corvel.md` for the full kingdom structure.
+- **Duchess of Thorngate.** Holds the title by inheritance from her late husband's family (House Varnesse), confirmed in her own right by the crown after his death. Her duchy is one of the two northern duchies of Corvel; the other is Aldermere, held by **Duke Garrett Holven** (peer and neighbor). See `world/locations/kingdom-of-corvel.md` for the full kingdom structure.
+- **Holven as named rival (Book 3+).** Holven 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 his ledger. He has not moved on it. He could. Pamira knows. Everyone in the north does. She does not say his name aloud to any on-page character in Book 3 — he surfaces in one private-voice ledger scene (drafter's Ch11 placement) and as the unnamed cost of declining each Compact delegation. When she declines, she is knowingly spending political capital with northern peers; Holven hears within three days. She declines anyway.
 - **Jurisdictional authority.** Noble estates retain advisory jurisdiction over Compact regulatory matters on their own territory. This is the mechanism Pamira uses to decline the three Book 3 delegations — each time with warmth and a firm no.
 - **Territorial holdings.** The central estate near the city of Thorngate plus smaller outlying holdings elsewhere in the duchy. One is in quiet decline (part of the financial strain thread) and has been for years. She has not raised the subject with anyone.
 - **Court connections.** Limited but real. She does not attend court often; she does not need to. Her name and her discretion are known at the level that matters, and she has banked both over a lifetime of running things well without demanding credit.
@@ -79,7 +80,10 @@ She is a grandmother of four. The warmth is real; the grandma energy is literal;
 - **Four grandchildren on the estate.** Two boys and two girls. They know their grandmother runs things. They do not know yet who Devod is, but they notice that she laughs more when he is around.
 - **Brother lost to frontier service.** A Pathfinder-era casualty, her brother was a few years younger than her. She has specific knowledge of what frontier clearance work costs the people who do it — which is why when Devod tells the Vethek Pass story from the inside (not the legend), she understands the sickness in it without having to be told. She has never told the story aloud. She has carried it privately for forty years.
 - **Connected to Thorngate's military logistics in an earlier era.** In her 20s and 30s, when her brother was in service. That is where she encountered Pathfinder veterans and where she learned of "the Wolf" through the Cairns network long before Devod set foot on her estate. It is also, quietly, where she met her late husband.
-- **Her estate discovered the Athel Repository** when workers excavating a root cellar broke through to a pre-Compact chamber. A previous guild operative died clearing the first level. Pamira then contacted the guild as a client — this is the case that brings Phelan and his team to her.
+- **The Athel Repository site — a 20-year file in her drawer.** Roughly 20 years before Book 3 opens (Pamira in her early 40s; her late husband alive and active in the decision), she commissioned a Pathfinder contract to survey a 45-acre eastern-coastal section of her territory that everyone had assumed was unexplored woodland. The Pathfinder team found a walled pre-Compact research compound, three mines in the adjacent cliff face, and a single sealed gate ward the surveyors could not breach. The senior surveyor wrote up the gate; a contract operative on the team at ~35 years old — **Devod Fields** — caught what the senior had missed and added a field note: *the gate is a ward, not a door.* The file closed with the stamp *"pre-Compact adaptive ward, outside current capability, defer."* Pamira's late husband, who had the deeper read on the Necessary Services / Cairns world, advised holding: *"When someone who can open it exists, we'll hear about them. Until then, it sits."* They agreed. The site became their shared inside joke — *our expensive mystery.*
+- **The wait, the widowing, the file.** When her husband died ~8–10 years ago, the file transferred to Pamira along with the title and the debts. She honoured his wait-it-out stance. She has carried it privately for another decade. The file has sat in her desk drawer the whole time; she has reread the survey report — and Devod's field note — many times.
+- **The decision to reopen.** In the months before Book 3 opens, two things shift simultaneously. First, Holven's pressure is no longer deniable (see Political Position). Second, through the Cairns network she has heard of a guild operative called "the Locksmith" — someone who does impossible jobs, who reads what other operatives can't. She does not know it is Phelan. She does not 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. 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 behaviour throughout.
+- **What the scouts found.** The Cairns relayed her letter to Ledger via his standing Wolf-intercept order. Ledger deployed a Tier-Two scout (Scout 1) in Phelan's wedding week — 17 weeks before the Ch02 briefing. Scout 1 established surveillance, catalogued the site, cross-referenced Devod's 20-year-old notes, and around week 6 tried to force the gate. The adaptive ward killed him. Ledger deployed Sable and a Cairns forensics operative at week 14; they recovered Scout 1's body, his field journal, and a forensics report confirming the gate ward is still lethal. Pamira 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.
 
 ---
 
@@ -87,7 +91,7 @@ She is a grandmother of four. The warmth is real; the grandma energy is literal;
 
 | Name | Relationship | Status | Notes |
 |------|-------------|--------|-------|
-| Late husband ([name TBD]) | Husband, deceased | Widowed ~8–10 years ago | Long marriage of mutual competence. Previous relationship with the Guild of Necessary Services brought Pamira the connection she uses to contract the Athel Repository case. Left unresolved estate obligations that Pamira has carried quietly |
+| Late husband ([name TBD]) | Husband, deceased | Widowed ~8–10 years ago | Long marriage of mutual competence. Brought the Necessary Services / Cairns-network awareness to the marriage — he had the deeper read on that world; she learned it from him. Commissioned the 20-year-old Kade Reach Pathfinder survey with her; counselled the wait-it-out stance when the Gate could not be breached ("*when someone who can open it exists, we'll hear about them*"). Died before anyone who could open it was known. Left unresolved estate obligations that Pamira has carried quietly — one of them now on Holven's ledger |
 | Emmila | Daughter | Living on the estate | Late 30s to early 40s. Helps run day-to-day operations. Four children. Has read her mother accurately for decades and sees how her mother looks at Devod |
 | Grandson (eldest, name TBD) | Grandchild | Early adolescence, on the estate | Watches the adults closely. First of the four to notice Devod's walking stick for what it is |
 | Granddaughter (name TBD) | Grandchild | Pre-teen, on the estate | The cautious observer. Keeps distance until she has read a newcomer |
@@ -101,7 +105,8 @@ She is a grandmother of four. The warmth is real; the grandma energy is literal;
 
 | Character | Relationship | Status (Current) |
 |-----------|-------------|-------------------|
-| Devod Fields | Love interest / "princess" target | Meets him Book 3 Ch07. Chemistry immediate and genuine. He calls her princess; she says "DEVOD!"; neither of them is going to stop. Ends the book with a brass compass exchange and "You'd better." |
+| Devod Fields | Love interest / "princess" target | Has held his 20-year-old Kade Reach field note in her drawer the whole time — his name has been on a document in her possession since the survey closed. They did not meet then; she paid the contract, he was one of a dozen operatives. Meets him in person in B3 Ch07. Reads him within minutes — walking stick, terrain scan, posture — and goes still. *"I've read about you. You were on the Kade Reach survey. You found my sealed gate."* Chemistry immediate and genuine. He calls her princess; she says "DEVOD!"; neither of them is going to stop. Ends the book with a brass compass exchange and "You'd better." |
+| Duke Garrett Holven | Political rival | Has been acquiring distressed northern noble debt for a decade. Recently acquired one of Pamira's late husband's unresolved obligations. Has not moved on it. Could. Pamira knows. Every Compact delegation she declines in Book 3 costs her political capital with Holven at the centre of the northern coalition that hears about it within three days. Named in one private-voice ledger scene in Ch11 (drafter's call on placement); not on-page in Book 3. |
 | Emmila | Daughter, estate co-runner | Lives on the estate. Present during Book 3. Reads her mother without comment. Book 4+ hook — her own arc develops across future books |
 | The grandchildren (four) | Grandchildren | On the estate during Book 3. Devod meets them; the younger ones warm to him first. Background presence throughout, foregrounded once or twice |
 | Late husband ([name TBD]) | Husband, deceased | Mentioned, respected, not grieved visibly anymore. His prior guild relationship is the connection Pamira used to contract the case |
@@ -121,7 +126,7 @@ The chemistry is immediate and genuine. It is not the chemistry of two young peo
 
 **The "princess" routine.** Devod calls her princess within five minutes of meeting her. She corrects him once ("I'm a duchess"). He says "Sure, princess." She says "DEVOD!" The correction never lands and she stops trying. The mistake becomes a running joke and then an endearment and then the name only he uses for her.
 
-**The Wolf story.** She has heard of the Wolf through the Cairns network for years. She meets Devod and recognises him immediately — not through briefing, through how he moves. When he tells her the Vethek Pass story from the inside (the fear, the sickness when the fourth idea worked, not the legend), she understands because her brother went to the same work. Connection moves from charming friction to genuine recognition. It is also the first time in forty years that anyone has named the shape of what she lost. She does not speak of her brother to Devod in Book 3. She does not need to. He has already said it for her.
+**The Wolf story.** She has known Devod's name on paper for twenty years — his Kade Reach field note is the reason her husband held the line. She has heard of "the Wolf" through the Cairns network separately, from her Thorngate military-logistics era; the name reached her through her brother's unit's successors, not through the Pathfinder operational chain that includes Devod's unit. When Devod arrives in Ch07 she recognises *him* by how he moves, goes still, names the survey — *"I've read about you. You were on the Kade Reach survey. You found my sealed gate."* He answers: *"That was your survey?"* The Wolf name lands in the same scene 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." When he later tells her the Vethek Pass story from the inside (Ch11) — the fear, the sickness when the fourth idea worked, not the legend — she understands because her brother went to the same work. It is the first time in forty years that anyone has named the shape of what she lost. She does not speak of her brother to Devod in Book 3. She does not need to. He has already said it for her.
 
 **The grandchildren.** During a surface beat, Devod catches one of the younger children running through the garden with something they have built. He admires the build, sets them back down, lets them keep running. He does not perform. He does not teach. He does not try to be noticed. Pamira watches this from the kitchen door and her face does something she does not comment on. It is the second confirmation (after the Vethek Pass story) that she has not misread him. The Wolf does not perform around children. The Wolf notices what they are building.
 
@@ -159,7 +164,7 @@ Pamira is not a damsel, a prize, or a plot device. She is a woman who has lived
 
 ## Standard Setting
 
-- **Her estate:** Comfortable rather than grand. Gardens that produce food. A kitchen that feeds guests and staff equally. A study that runs estate business without pretence. The discovered Athel Repository is on her territory — a root-cellar excavation broke through to it. The main house has an east wing where Emmila and the grandchildren live
+- **Her estate:** Comfortable rather than grand. Gardens that produce food. A kitchen that feeds guests and staff equally. A study that runs estate business without pretence. The Athel Repository is on her territory — a 20-year-old Pathfinder survey file in her drawer, now finally actionable. The main house has an east wing where Emmila and the grandchildren live
 - **The ledger:** A leather-bound book in her study that no one is allowed to see. Not hidden, just private. Emmila knows more of its contents than anyone else and less than Pamira would like her to have to know
 - **The brass compass:** An object she owns before the book begins, gives to Devod at the farewell. Points north
 
@@ -179,7 +184,7 @@ Pamira is not a damsel, a prize, or a plot device. She is a woman who has lived
 
 | Chapter | Development | Category |
 |---------|-------------|----------|
-| Ch07 | **Introduction.** Team arrives at her estate. "Princess" within five minutes. "DEVOD!" Recognition of the Wolf — "How do you know that name?" Emmila greets the team briefly; the grandchildren are somewhere underfoot in the garden. End of chapter: helping Devod in the garden | Introduction / chemistry |
+| Ch07 | **Introduction.** Team arrives at her estate. "Princess" within five minutes. "DEVOD!" **Recognition line:** *"I've read about you. You were on the Kade Reach survey. You found my sealed gate."* / *"That was your survey?"* The Wolf name lands later in the scene through the logistics-era route ("I've heard the name. Your unit was known to the logistics people."). Emmila greets the team briefly; the grandchildren are somewhere underfoot in the garden. End of chapter: helping Devod in the garden | Introduction / chemistry |
 | Ch09 | Surface beat — watches Devod work. Calls him "the Wolf" quietly. He goes still. **Grandchild cameo:** one of the younger children runs through the garden holding something they have built. Devod catches them, admires the build, sets them down, lets them keep running. Pamira watches this from the kitchen door and says nothing | Recognition / grandchildren |
 | Ch10 | Declines first Compact recon delegation. Calm, warm, firm. A half-second pause before the decline — the only sign that she knows what declining will cost her politically. Nobody notices | Institutional resistance |
 | Ch11 | **The Wolf story — from the inside.** Devod tells the Vethek Pass story as it actually was. She lost a brother to frontier service. Connection moves from friction to genuine understanding. The next morning, Emmila asks about "the nice man with the walking stick." Pamira answers with his name, not his title. Emmila files it | Deepening |

characters/ledger.md

@@ -94,6 +94,38 @@ Specific moments where Ledger's Pathfinder past leaked through in the final draf
 
 ---
 
+## Book 3 — The Ruin Case Setup
+
+Ledger's Book 2 Ch01 standing order ("read me in on anything Wolf-related") was a precaution set after Devod's near-death draining. In Book 3 it has its **first concrete use**: Duchess Pamira's letter to the Cairns about a 20-year-old sealed pre-Compact site lands on his desk via the standing order. The Cairns hold the institutional memory — they know where the original Kade Reach survey file lives — and route it to him because Devod's field note is in the report.
+
+### The Scout Deployment Sequence (pre-Book-3 timeline)
+
+The 4-month gap between Phelan's wedding (end of Book 2) and the Ch02 briefing is operational caution, not drift. 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, catalogue what's changed, assess whether the Gate is still active.
+2. **Weeks 1–6:** Scout 1 establishes surveillance, walks the perimeter, catalogues the three mine entrances, cross-references Devod's 20-year-old notes against current terrain. Cross-references accurate; survey still holds.
+3. **~Week 6:** Scout 1 tries to force the Gate. The pre-Compact adaptive ward adapts to his methodology and kills him. 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. By week 14, silence is past threshold.
+5. **~Week 14:** Ledger deploys **Sable + one Cairns forensics operative** — two-person recovery team.
+6. **Weeks 14–16:** Sable and partner find Scout 1's body near the Gate. No note. Field journal recovered. Partner diagnoses pre-Compact adaptive ward from the kill pattern; confirms survey-era assessment is still correct.
+7. **~Week 16:** Partner returns to Ledger with forensics report and the journal. Sable stays on rotation — holds the site lightly, sends sending-stone updates, awaits the next team.
+8. **~Week 17 (Book 3 Ch02):** Ledger briefs Phelan with the full file — 20-year-old survey (with Devod's field note), Scout 1's journal, forensics report, Sable's observations.
+
+**Total elapsed:** ~17 weeks / ~4 months from Phelan's wedding to the Ch02 briefing.
+
+### What Ledger Carries Into Ch02
+
+- **The 20-year-old Kade Reach survey** with Devod's field note on the Gate (*a ward, not a door*). This is why Devod is on the team.
+- **Scout 1's field journal.** Working notes, cross-references to the 20-year-old survey, the final hypothesis about the Gate ward, silence. Handed to Phelan in Ch07 (either by Pamira who has been holding it, or by Sable on-site — drafter's call). Phelan reads it overnight; by Ch08 morning he is partway into the ward's logic, not starting from zero.
+- **The forensics partner's report.** Cause of death, kill mechanism, confirmation that the ward is still active and still lethal. Institutional gravity without Ledger having to spell it out.
+- **Sable's ongoing site observations.** Terrain changes, mine-entrance status, weather, any sign of other visitors (none). Relayed by sending-stone since ~week 16.
+
+### Framing for the Ch02 Briefing
+
+The spec replaces the Book 2-era *"Contact the Cairns. Get the Wolf."* dying-note device with institutional competence: the Cairns are **institutional memory**, not a convenient plot courier. Pamira wrote to them because they are the only people who know where the 20-year file lives. Ledger assembled the team on the page — Phelan for the Gate (Flaw Sight), Leon for the artifacts and ore traces, Devod because his name is in the survey — because the file itself argues for those three people. The ruin case is also what Ledger has been waiting for to test and showcase Phelan for elevation, and a procedurally clean way to get him out of Drenwick while the Compact grievance runs.
+
+<!-- Book 3 chapter-by-chapter progression rows to be filled in during drafting. -->
+
 ## Role in Guild
 
 - Sat on Phelan's interview panel as "The Observer" — the one with nothing in front of him, arms crossed, watching for what others missed