book 1 finished, created some images for the cover, working towards publishable

world/magic/exploits-log.md

@@ -104,6 +104,38 @@ 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 #4: Floundry Cure — Three-Phase Coordinated Intervention
+- **Chapter:** Ch19
+- **Target:** Three-layer nested curse on Ned Floundry (degradation + stabilizer + dead man's switch anchor). Classified "unbreakable" by Arcane Compact.
+- **Method:** Three phases executed in sequence (L3→L2→L1). Each phase uses a different technique targeting a different layer's specific weakness.
+
+### Phase 1: Anchor Drift (Layer 3)
+- **Concept origin:** Devod Fields — "move the lock" cargo analogy (Ch16).
+- **Technique:** Ghostveil moss at altered concentration applied to anchor points. Moss suppresses resonance between anchor and Ned's life-force signature — narrow-band dampening, not broad-spectrum. Anchor recalibrates, locks, drifts. Each cycle, lock is less certain. Anchor tightens parameters to compensate (grip tolerance contracting, recalibration speed pushing harder). Margin: 18% → 15 → 12 → 9 → 7 → 5. Anchor fires verification sequence — signature drifted past validation window. Kill trigger fires into empty space. Layer 3 goes dark.
+- **Phelan's role:** Bracelet-enhanced Flaw Sight guidance — tracking validation window margin in real-time, ensuring the moss was driving drift effectively.
+- **Cost:** 75% → 67% reserves. ~20 minutes. Precision-demanding but energy-modest. Bracelet buffered continuous Flaw Sight cost.
+- **Mere's role:** Applied altered moss preparation to anchor points (temples, throat, collarbone, wrists). Removed paste after neutralisation.
+
+### Phase 2: Stabilizer Weaponisation (Layer 2)
+- **Concept origin:** Leon D'Nardis — "Systems that monitor other systems can be made to accelerate the very failures they're trying to prevent" (Ch16).
+- **Technique:** Forge-and-redirect (death ward technique, Ch08, adapted). Forged crisis data injected through stabiliser's monitoring channels — two-second windows, sub-second precision, 15 minutes sustained. Data mimicked catastrophic Layer 1 collapse (anchor-point degradation, cascading structural failure). Stabiliser overcompensated — dumped repair energy at emergency speed, overloaded its own channels. Stabiliser ate its own system and tore Layer 1's supporting framework apart.
+- **Cost:** 67% → 16% reserves. ~15 minutes. **Higher than estimated** (51% actual vs. 22-28% planned). Bracelet reservoir nearly depleted. Physical symptoms: shaking hands, sweating, tunnel vision, iron taste.
+- **Bracelet role:** Focusing matrix essential — injection windows too narrow and timing too precise without it. Reservoir buffered but exhausted.
+
+### Phase 3: Degradation Dissolution (Layer 1)
+- **Concept origin:** Sniff parallel (binding salts, Ch03) scaled up. Standard curse-breaking.
+- **Technique:** Standard ghostveil moss applied by Mere (30-60 minute dampening window). Conventional dissolution — wedge into structural weak points left by stabiliser's death throes, widen fractures, let stress cascade. Concentric rings of runic energy with force lines, many already shredded. Textbook: find the cracks, widen them, the structure eats itself. Dissolution radiates inward.
+- **Cost:** 16% → 2-3% reserves. Duration uncertain (time became elastic). Bracelet stone practically black, focusing matrix barely functional. Personal reserves only. Physical: couldn't feel hands, vision tunnel, blood from bitten cheek.
+- **Mere's role:** Applied standard moss, monitored dampening window, called "Twelve minutes remaining."
+
+### Overall Assessment
+- **Total reserves cost:** 75% → 2-3% (73% total expenditure across three phases).
+- **Bracelet:** Fully depleted. Stone dark. Reservoir exhausted during Phase 2.
+- **Crash:** Post-Phase 3 collapse — Phelan chose not to fight it (trust > control, first time). Mere caught him.
+- **Team contribution:** Every person essential. Devod's concept (Phase 1). Leon's insight (Phase 2) + monitoring. Mere's preparations (all phases) + vitals monitoring. Jonael's security (defeated Compact hired hands during Phase 2). Ledger's perimeter (Calla protection + hired hand deterrent). Devod left room during Phase 2 to help fight, returned afterward.
+- **The noise:** Parentheticals disappeared entirely during execution — first and only time in the book. The noise became the work and, in becoming the work, disappeared.
+- **Significance:** Most complex coordinated exploit to date. First team-dependent execution (prior exploits were solo). Three methods for three problems, each contributed by a different person. The "unbreakable" curse broken by identifying that it was three separate problems, each with a different vulnerability.
+
 ## 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.