By morning the River Quarter wore the charter like a second skin—paper vows pasted to doors, clinic lamps lit at every hour, braziers sunk at corners where trouble liked to loiter. Minji walked the route Rhee had sketched—pump fixed, gutter shored, clinic stocked—while Kade's shadows peeled gossip from walls and Sorrel tuned ward-nodes until their hum settled into the key of work.
At the map table, a fresh prompt pulsed like a heartbeat at the edge of her vision.
[CALAMITY PROTOCOL — EPOCH SHARD]
Timer: 120 Days
Objectives:
— Bind 3 Nexus Cities (0/3)
— Identify & Isolate "Gardener" node (0/1)
Suggestion: Appoint 3 Anchor-Roles within 7 days to distribute command strain
"By chorus, not by crown," Minji murmured, remembering another world's lesson. "We anchor to people who already carry weight."
"Then you know their names," Kade said.
She did.
They ran the trials where the city could see.
Kade — Shadow Anchor.
At dusk in the Underways, Minji set a small miracle—a precise, surgical fear-dampener—so bystanders wouldn't stampede when steel flashed. Kade matched his breath to hers without asking, drawing just enough of the strain to keep her hands steady while he split the fight by angles, not blood.
[ANCHOR CANDIDATE: KADE]
Attunement: 79%
Drain Share (test): Minji -2% | Anchor +1%
Trait: Crowd-Calmer — panic spread -20% in urban skirmishes
Title: **Shadow Anchor**
Kade wiped his blade, unimpressed with titles. "I'll keep the alleys from eating us," he said. "You keep the city."
Sorrel — Nexus Anchor.
At the Glasshouse node, Sorrel pressed both palms to the stone and listened first—a habit Minji trusted. She pulled a thin cord of power to re-knit a cracked arch three blocks away. Sorrel earthed the resonance cleanly into lantern-lines.
[ANCHOR CANDIDATE: SORREL]
Attunement: 82%
Drain Share (test): Minji -3% | Anchor +2%
Trait: Ward-Tuner — resonance feedback -12% citywide
Title: **Nexus Anchor**
Hana — Mercy Anchor.
Rhee brought her from the clinics: a field medic with sleeves rolled, hands sure, voice that could make a riot sit down and drink water. In the Tenements, a miner's daughter wheezed tight; Hana coached the rhythm, set a kettle, then laid her palms as Minji lifted a thread of healing. Pattern met power, and breath opened.
[ANCHOR CANDIDATE: HANA, GUILD MEDIC]
Attunement: 88%
Drain Share (test): Minji -3% | Anchor +2%
Network Trait: Clinic Mesh — targeted miracles -20% cost in clinic radius
Title: **Mercy Anchor**
They bound the three at lantern hour—no pageant, only work: black thread, a shard of etched glass at each wrist, vows spoken in the plain diction of people who expect to be believed.
[PROXY ANCHORS — ESTABLISHED 3/3]
Shadow Anchor: KADE — panic spread -20%
Nexus Anchor: SORREL — resonance feedback -12%
Mercy Anchor: HANA — clinic miracles -20% cost
Keystone Strain (Guild Master): 71% → 47%
Risk: If an Anchor falls, strain rebounds +20% for 72h
Minji exhaled, and for the first time since the console wrote the word CALAMITY, her bones felt like they had somewhere else to stand.
Consent, not decree.
Minji took the charter to the ferry guild, the fishmongers, the dockside matrons who ran evening stews. No thrones; benches and barrels. She spoke the smallest possible vow large enough to be true: clinics first, breath before tribute, wards bound to you—not me.
They signed because the pumps worked and the lanterns were lit when storms rolled in.
At sundown, the quarter breathed together on the fourth beat. Lantern smoke ran along wardlines; Sorrel's nodes drank deep; Hana's clinics kept doors propped with stones that had once been bookends.
[NEXUS BIND — RIVER CITY]
Consent Threshold: 62%
Effects: Barrier +25% | Curse Resistance +15%
Lantern Dividend (B): +35% regen on defended nodes
Public Support: Respected/Beloved (local)
Kade returned at midnight with a man trussed in clean knots and a ledger sewn into his lining. Crest: Ivory Concord.
"Sabotage payments," Kade said. "Shadebrand sigils. Factor named Crane."
Minji remembered another life's balcony and a knife with a clock in it. "Let's have a conversation in a room where eavesdroppers get bored."
They didn't get the chance. A sigil flared on Crane's throat—ink like redacted law—and ate his voice to the vowel. He slumped, emptied but alive.
Hana swore softly. Sorrel hissed. Kade's hand drifted to steel.
Minji only looked up at the ceiling as if it were a mirror and said, calm as a ledger line, "Noted."
[BREADCRUMB — GARDENER PROCESS]
/root/garden/schedule: prune-candidate("Minji") → day 119
Node: routed via Concord vault (Glasshouse)
"Then we go to the Glasshouse," she said. "With lanterns."
They convened under moonvines: Concord lords, guildmasters, a public that had run out of patience for decisions made behind lace.
Minji laid the ledger on the crystal table; Sorrel lit a relay glyph that cast its contents for the gallery. Murmurs curved into anger; the Torrent Marshal—eyes tired, spine straight—folded her arms and let the Concordlord feel the weight of the room.
"Choose," Minji said evenly. "Prosecute your saboteur and we share guardianship of your wards. Keep him, and I read this ledger at the river markets."
Power counted itself and changed hands.
"Arrest Factor Crane," the Concordlord said, voice wanting to be called just. "Open the vaults to audit."
The moonvines sighed. The console chimed.
[DOCTRINE — PUBLIC ACCORD]
Shared Ward Custody established (Glasshouse)
Reputation: +Respected (regional)
Civic Cooldown: -20%
Rally Actions: +1/day (city)
NEXUS BIND — GLASSHOUSE
Consent Threshold: 58% (rising)
Outside, lanterns climbed the trellis like patient stars. Inside, Minji looked at Kade, Sorrel, Hana—three anchors who had learned to carry without being asked—and at a hall full of people who had learned to breathe together.
The timer ticked—still there, still hungry.
She set her palm on the table, steady as a beam.
"Two cities hold," she said. "One more to bind. Then we pluck the gardener's root."
The keep—bolted, load-bearing, ready—hummed its agreement. And the next seconds began to learn how to count around her.
The third city hung on a red cliff and called itself Highcourt, as if naming the altitude could keep out weather and change. Its plazas were tiled with law; its markets sold permits for air. Consent here was a contract written in a font meant to make your eyes tired.
Minji brought benches, not banners. Rhee unloaded flour, oil, lamp-wicks; Hana set up mobile clinics in archways that had only ever seen parades. Sorrel tuned the node-stone hidden beneath the courthouse and frowned at its pitch.
"Someone salted the stone," he murmured. "Old wardline. Petty sabotage."
Kade returned with a pocketful of rumors and a dry mouth. "They say lanterns steal breath. That clinics harvest names."
Minji didn't argue. She demonstrated. Black Lantern Courts resolved tithe disputes in the square with ledgers open to daylight. Pump repairs finished before noon; stew lines wrapped once and never twice. At sundown, Keeper Choirs led the cadence and nobody fainted.
Consent didn't shift.
[NEXUS BIND — HIGHCOURT]
Consent: 42% (stalled)
Unrest: rumor-driven (Shadebrand)
Advisory: Break a lie with something it can't imitate.
"Show them the hum," Minji said. Sorrel set resonance kiosks at the ward edges—small pillars that let you lay your palm against stone and feel the wall answer. Children lined up first, then their mothers, then men who didn't like being last.
Rhee ran a Bread Census—count loaves, not speeches—posted on gates each evening. Hana coined Quiet Hours for the whole city: times when clinics would not spend Minji and would still be open.
On the fourth day, the hill's old water main cracked like a pride that finally heard itself. A street buckled. Kade put bodies where they wouldn't be crushed; Hana triaged by looking into eyes and knowing who would wait and who wouldn't; Sorrel sank his hands into the node and held, not loud, not bright, just true.
Minji lifted a beam with a miracle measured to the gram, and the crowd watched work become proof.
Consent moved like a door unstuck.
[NEXUS BIND — HIGHCOURT]
Consent Threshold: 61%
Effects: Barrier +20%, Civic Cooldown -10%
Lantern Dividend stacks across tri-city network
A clerk with ink on her knuckles signed the charter, eyes wet and angry at herself for it. "We should have said yes sooner," she muttered.
"You did," Minji said gently. "Today is sooner than tomorrow."
The plaza breathed—awkwardly, then together.