Fourteen source-linked entries, seven game-development candidates, and the boundaries between a candidate, an authority and a claim.
FIRST-EDITION STUDY · A2-CH02-20260926-R1 · CHAPTER SPOILERS
Historical canon pack: these claims and numbered evidence links document the 26 September 2026 text. The novel has since been revised. A “revised passage” link appears only when the cited wording survives in the revised chapter; other claims await editorial verification.
Established material
A2-CHAR-HOLT · Character
Systems Clerk Holt
Viewpoint character
A municipal clerk with nineteen years in her office. She redirects an existing ward delivery, helps limit the provisional supply undertaking and accepts a personal share of responsibility. Small lawful releases do not solve the general grain-renewal problem.
Character design remains separate from scene prose. For a future painting, show action at a depot counter rather than another formal balcony portrait.
A2-CHAR-PELL · Character
Daran Pell
Appears onstage
The junior archive worker carries the signed dispatch receipt back from the ward where his sister works, then returns with nineteen additional patients' names. He has not become a Probate official or a senior administrator.
Young copying clerk, handcart or dispatch book, practical clothing. Do not substitute an older existing Leader portrait.
A2-CHAR-SENN · Character
Registrar Senn
Named here; the senior registrar seen in Chapter 1
An experienced registrar who insists emergency authority name its task, signatories and review time. He distinguishes a maintained succession return from an adjudicated inheritance and sends an inquiry rather than an acceptance instrument.
Seated or working beside an annotated undertaking; details of age and face beyond the text are an illustration choice, not prior canon.
A2-CHAR-TERN · Character
Reva Tern
First appearance
Formerly responsible for reservoirs and now working in emergency supply. Her spectacles have one cracked lens. She pushes for actionable authority but corrects a premature succession announcement and reduces the chamber's breakfast allowance to feed patients.
Cracked spectacles and reservoir-office papers give a recognisable working silhouette. No crown, uniform or generic command-table villain treatment.
A2-CHAR-KEST · Character
Iona Kest
First appearance
An examiner working in borrowed shoes while her wet pair rests under the table. She registers the supply undertaking, then examines the succession return. She distinguishes registration, authentication, identity verification and authority.
Intimate desk-level composition with weighted fold-out return and borrowed shoes; no ornamental throne room.
A2-CHAR-MARIAN · Character
Marian Vale
Named in a return; not seen or heard directly
A thirty-four-year-old woman placed first among surviving candidates by this particular maintained return. Excluded branches and civil entries still require checking. She has not authorised its petition, accepted succession or met the delegation within this chapter.
The existing Heir artwork may be used as a separately labelled character study, not as evidence of a coronation or acceptance in Chapter 2.
A2-PLACE-DEPOT · Place
Receiving Depot Loading Bay
Visited
The first scene's depot holds forty sacks assigned to North Receiving. Only two are redirected to the ward's temporary address, supported by receipts and a delivery amendment.
Environmental scene with sacks, an empty handcart, a wired window and exhausted porters. Exact depot geography is not fixed.
A2-PLACE-WARDS · Places / service locations
North Receiving and South Surgical
Destination and evacuation established
North Receiving's preparation rooms have flooded, and its patients and staff have moved to the southern ward. Their orders have not moved automatically. Treating both as separate destinations risks misdelivery and double counting.
Use receipts or a paired destination study; do not invent a hospital floor plan.
A2-OBJ-CARBON · Artifact / document
Carbon Dispatch Amendment
Created and returned with a receipt
Holt signs a three-leaf carbon entry changing delivery location without making an extra allocation. The returned signed leaf later confirms two sacks reached the temporary kitchen.
Typeset study of a delivery amendment. Use only established fields and quantities; do not fabricate signatures or complete legal wording.
A2-OBJ-UNDERTAKING · Document / institutional act
Provisional Supply Undertaking
Signed and registered
A limited undertaking for emergency supply, with named responsibility, a noon review and posted decisions. Holt replaces broad military requisition with guards protecting food and water dispatches. A Master-seal space is crossed out.
The shortened heading emerges after the supply agreement. It is not a settled sovereign government. Different services accept different parts of the undertaking, and general grain renewal remains blocked.
Ensemble rather than six identical character portraits; individual signatories not named in prose must remain unnamed.
A2-OBJ-RETURN · Record / document
Maintained Succession Return
Received and under examination
A periodically maintained family table delivered by the office that keeps it, together with that office's petition. It places Marian first but is neither proof that all other claims fail nor an acceptance by Marian.
Typeset family-return concept with verified labels and explicit pending status. No invented ancestors, dates or complete family tree.
A2-SYS-BLACKSUN · System / institutional credential
Black-Sun Transmission Authentication
Observed; capability limited by the evidence
The wrapper's black sun traces to an old trustee authentication office and a current subordinate desk. It authenticates the packet's origin, not its legal conclusion. Holt records the desk's name as a potential operational route.
Do not depict secret conspirators, weapons or an awakened machine: those are not established here.
A2-OBJ-NINETEEN · Record / document
The Nineteen-Name Requisition
Received and answered locally
A new requisition covers nineteen people absent from either ward's old list. Tern and Holt release part of the Council House emergency allowance; this does not unlock the general reserve.