Investigates a credential the machinery actually accepts. He helps preserve the original ward delivery, defers the armed encounter to municipal officers and recognises the limits of staffing each threatened gate.
Existing Engineer design remains authoritative; no new literal portrait is established.
A2-CHAR-RILL · Character
Jessa Rill
Dispatch keeper with eleven years at the fuel court. She stops a carrier on the weighing strip when no receiving crew can be identified, records her hold and accounts for the driver's extra journey.
New character concept: practical dispatch keeper at a wet weighing court, not a command-table aristocrat. No portrait commissioned.
A2-CHAR-HOLT · Character
Systems Clerk Holt
Separates the current transmission desk from the obsolete operational authority, avoids a blanket embargo on essential deliveries, and arranges local refusals and direct checks.
Maintain the municipal clerk's established role. No new portrait in this release.
A2-CHAR-ELIZA · Character
Eliza Marr
Finds evidence that the old office was abolished but lacks a complete record of revocation at dependent controllers. She distinguishes accepted exchanges, legal authority and identified actors.
Use approved Archivist identity only; document studies do not invent new likenesses.
A2-CHAR-AMEL · Character
Amel Ryn
Reports strangers turning porters away from a familiar supply passage, supplies times and observations, and gives her account separately from the detained men's.
Serving-court action, not a triumphant crowd-capture tableau.
A2-CHAR-AVEN · Character
Kelm Aven
Municipal officer who investigates the reserve room, detains two men, separates witness accounts and records evidence. He does not identify the controlling network or verify Ostrog's involvement.
Mended service coat, ordinary municipal working posture; no unsupported elite military insignia.
A2-PLACE-FUEL-COURT · Place
Rill's Fuel Dispatch Court
A wet dispatch court whose barrier accepts an obsolete credential. A local hold prevents further movement; the original ward fuel takes a separately confirmed street route.
Wide low-angle court with held carriers and an empty receiving lane. No real operational gate diagram.
A2-PLACE-RESERVE-ROOM · Place
Eastern Reserve Balancing Room
An old balancing room previously used for spare rail sections, now occupied beside a forwarding relay. Cups, meal remains and a new lamp show recent human use. Detention does not stop subsequent remote acknowledgments.
Interior still life: fresh bulb among old machinery, cups and flat-case mark. No copied evidence facsimile.
A2-OBJ-BLACK-WARRANT · Record
The Black-Seal Freight Warrant
Redirects fuel and lamp oil under a surviving emergency authority. Its black-sun emblem resembles an earlier transmission wrapper, but that resemblance does not identify the issuing actor or make the instruction lawful.
Separate, editable editorial typography. No claim that a drawn stamp reproduces an approved definitive emblem.
A2-SYS-EXTINCT-OFFICE · System / former office
Office for the Preservation of Necessary Services
An emergency custody office abolished more than a century earlier. Some retained controller lists still accept its asserted authority. The text does not establish a citywide bypass or a universal key.
Layered office records rather than magical black-sun imagery; mechanics remain fictional.
A2-OBJ-ACCEPTED-CHALLENGE · Record
The Six-Hour Acceptance Entry
The earliest successful exchange Eliza can trace occurs six hours after the death announcement. It is a machine acceptance record, not proof of who activated the credential or whether today's sender is the same.
Typeset timeline with the evidence limitation attached; no invented cryptographic certificate.
A2-OBJ-SERVICE-ADDRESS-LIST · Record / artifact
The Three Marked Addresses
Three service addresses are marked on a folded list found with old trustee badges. Two are recognised; forwarding locations are not yet the origin of all commands.
Object study with illegible background marks; readable addresses cannot be invented from this chapter.
A2-EVENT-RESERVE-DETENTION · Event
The Reserve-Room Detention
Municipal officers detain two men after witnesses report an armed presence. A pistol is recovered. The older man's remarks about Ostrog do not establish who sent him or whether Ostrog is alive.
Restrained distant scene with witnesses kept clear; no celebratory armed mob.
A2-OBJ-SUSPENSION-NOTICE · Record
The Recorded Operational Suspension
Kest seeks recorded suspension of the old office's operational authority; accepting systems are being contacted. Two courts acknowledge it, but citywide revocation is not established.
Editorial scope study showing acknowledged and unanswered sites. No final law or universal shutdown is implied.
A2-OBJ-TWELVE-ACKNOWLEDGMENTS · Record / event
Twelve Release Acknowledgments
Twelve service rooms acknowledge a release request after the detention. One door is reported open, another closed room appears occupied, and ten remain unchecked. Subsequent knocks come through the second room's call.
Reveals a small bounded set of potential changes; inspection establishes which actually resolve. The narrative number is not a required twelve-target game effect.
Open design question: Use existing reveal-and-select rules without excessive hidden bookkeeping or guaranteed mass activation.
Takes place on the morning after Chapter 9's public register opened and continues into afternoon.
The northern coupling has reached the local store but is not yet reported fitted. Ward fuel is delivered via a confirmed alternative route; lamp-oil delay remains separate.
The Chapter 2 black-sun transmission wrapper and this operational authority are distinct functions. The current desk denies these commands; the emblem alone is not proof of complicity.
Office abolition is established; complete revocation across all controllers is not. This is fictional infrastructure, not a real technical bypass procedure.
Six hours dates an accepted exchange relative to the death announcement; it does not establish actor identity.
One armoury reports an inner door open and its outer counter secured; the other has not answered. Weapons theft is not established.
Two men are detained; their names and employer remain unknown. Ostrog's fate remains unresolved. No connection to the Chapter 9 recording maker or UNKNOWN is proved.
Of twelve release acknowledgments, one physical door is reported open and a second closed room seems occupied. The remaining ten are not verified.
The suspense ending concerns a living unknown presence behind the second door, not proof of a resurrected Graham.
No new painted Chapter 10 artwork, card costs, statistics, rarities or live V0.3 rules are approved by this publication.