Kestrel's archmage berserker dug a pit at the far mouth of a warp,
then tried to walk through that mouth seven times: each stride landed
on its own pit with a thornbush beyond, the maze bounced it back and
charged the stride, and on the seventh it rolled the 1 and fell in.
Cursed with SLOW DEATH at seven life, it kept drawing two cards a
turn at a point apiece, raised a SHADOW that drinks a point a turn,
and bled to death in three turns.
The path search now refuses a pit it cannot leap beyond — the same
test the maze applies — whether the pit is a waypoint or the goal.
Under SLOW DEATH the end-of-turn draw keeps four life in hand and
draws nothing when it cannot; while bleeding, or at six life or less,
no SHADOW is raised. Three tests pin them.
The chronicle tells the bounce as what it was: "leaps the pit —
nothing to land on beyond it — and teeters back", not a blind blunder
into a wall; and the shadow's last drink no longer trails a zero-damage
line. Brain and chronicle changes only, ungated; 83 ledgers replay.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Jm2auWk6RP71CjaAb4FMoG
Eric WagonerandClaude Fable 5.1
0750fe3f21