Project README

This folder holds canonical story reference for a fantasy-origin story now continuing as an Earth-side slice-of-life fantasy romance. Use this README for orientation; use synopsis.md and timeline.md for latest story state and chapter coverage.

Current Earth Arc and Fantasy-Side Local Point

The latest dated protagonists' Earth scene is Saturday, 10 June 2028, through the Ch.502 café/home visit and Ch.503 evening. Ch.506 advances their local story to a later undated evening reading the returned Crownholt letters. The latest fantasy-local scene is Ch.510's return to the western holding after bathhouse trial work and the chicken contract. Earth, manifested London, fantasy, divine and Ian-biological time have no stable conversion.

Thomas and Isha remain healthy, married and in flat 202. Ian tells them about Crownholt in Ch.503 and, at their request, returns the originals sealed and unread. Ch.506 gives each a chosen, limited reading; most letters enter separate named folders in locked correspondence storage, with two selected letters left out that evening. Their anger at Crownholt and Thomas's newly disclosed use of Isha's reassurance is not a reset of the Ch.310–322 relationship repair. Kanno is not told this private material. Her forty-five wall photographs await inexpensive working prints; the couple's purchased prints remain unhung. Work, residence, Cleanse and inhabited-world-crossing restrictions are unchanged.

Ian and Lethira remain exclusive lovers, unengaged and unmarried, and equal owners of the western holding and southern parcel with the jointly held town-ground route. Ch.507 approves construction of the revised bathhouse; Ch.510 agrees the basic price/scope and makes a satisfactory trial opening. The eastern footing may proceed with the drain work; inspection is required before covering the new disposal end, not before starting the footing. Construction remains incomplete, as does the range/backstop. The Varren warning is delivered; ridge title and branch allocation remain open. Use merrowford.md for the precise source, use and discharge restrictions.

Pain Island: introduced in Ch.474, first physically visited in Ch.475, with four visits through Ch.488 and no further visit through Ch.510. Its name is in character use by Ch.501. The living inlet and old inland works remain unconnected observations. Ch.506 limits what the Wood Elf Crown requests, without creating a contact mission or royal veto; relay of that working note to Ian/Lethira is not yet shown. Knife Island: named and first physically visited in Ch.501 by Ian, Lethira, Mirelen and Aelira. A limited eastern-bay walk establishes neither an empty island nor a safe harbour, completed pass route or mapped survey. Regional observations belong to new_island.md and knife_island.md; their GIS qualifications remain intact.

Crownholt retains its restricted archive-incident record. Ch.504 requires a specific present purpose and separate Crown Necessities/Chancery approval for any reconstruction of letter contents. Ch.509 opens no new formal investigation into Arliss's contact and imposes no restriction on her work. Arliss keeps Ian's name and the Ch.505/508 private demonstrations from Voss, subject to her specific-danger threshold. Her emerging friendship, research and untested first-message missives do not confer knowledge of Thomas/Isha's survival, Ian's biological source or his friends' identities. crownholt.md, spells.md and knowledge_boundaries.md separate place, mechanism and witness scope.

The Lifegiver chooses Alice Green and authorises a documentary identity in Ch.500, then books and pays for four weeks in a London serviced apartment. This is reality's manifestation of Ian's real-world Earth, distinct from his biological reality and Thomas/Isha's Earth. Her fictional mother and recorded past supply no lived memories or real relatives; her divinity is not removed. Ch.502 secures a short paid florist trial for later that week, not a completed trial or continuing job. Her specific apartment/realm return works independently. Attraction to Ian remains unresolved and undisclosed to Lethira; no mouth-to-mouth kiss or sexual relationship occurs. The gardening balance remains 32 beds. The Waykeeper's unfinished road, Worldsmith's unseen mortal trial and Sun Father's restraint have no new resolution; Ch.505 clarifies the Demon Lord's removed authority without changing his retained identity or physical agency.

Cleanse remains Lv.6. Hero-System correspondence remains 21 outgoing / 20 incoming, with the next expected opening around 17 June 2028. all-chapters.md contains prose through Ch.510; the separate edited Chapter 500–510 files control this update over stale summaries and chat history.

Active Read Order and Roles

Unsuffixed reference filenames describe the active Earth sequel unless their declared scope says otherwise. For ordinary future-chapter drafting, read:

1. writing_style.md - slice-of-life prose, dialogue, romance, language, fourth-wall restraint and modern-Earth tone.
2. characters.md - current Thomas, Isha, Kanno and Lethira, their relationships, retained fantasy history and other major characters.
3. earth.md - Earth locations, institutions, home/artifact continuity and future local-GIS grounding.
4. synopsis.md - whole-story overview, current state and the narrative chapter-summary index.
5. timeline.md - compact chronology index for dates, ages, chronology-relevant elapsed intervals, presentation/local order and cross-reality placement; its event anchors route to the synopsis/direct prose rather than duplicating chapter summaries.
6. spells.md - current Earth magic and correspondence mechanics; use the Spells Reference section of historic_fantasy.md for exact old mechanics.
7. knowledge_boundaries.md - current identities, explanations, language concealment, correspondence disclosure, Ian evidence/claims and witness scope.
8. minor_characters.md - Earth-side and current post-Ch.214 recurring side cast unless promoted into characters.md.
9. canvas.md - whole-series premise, thematic direction, sequel engine and author-level external-narrative rules.
10. Recent direct prose relevant to the planned scene. all-chapters.md contains prose through Ch.510; use the separate edited Chapter 500–510 files for this latest range when exact wording or the post-review corrected form matters.

Conditional/evolving references are available for narrower tasks. Load ian.md only when Ian's realistic physical baseline, projected embodiment, exertion, sleep, eating or clothing matters; it complements rather than replaces characters.md. Load merrowford.md while the current town/road arc remains active. Both are temporary continuity aids rather than durable ownership files: migrate durable outcomes into the owners above and do not let either override direct prose.

pantheon.md is the evolving author-level reference for the five builder-gods, religious masks, divine influence, spirits and possible elemental origins. Load it when developing or using deity/religion cosmology. Its agreed sections govern that developing model; candidate correspondences and unresolved questions remain explicitly non-canonical until settled. It does not broaden any character's knowledge or override direct prose and established historical witness scope.

development_fantasy.md is a conditional author-level comparative-development index for the indigenous fantasy world. Load it only when assessing fantasy-world institutions, technology, economics, medicine, law, social organisation or the consequences of uneven development across those domains. It interprets established evidence rather than owning the underlying setting facts: its Western-Earth date ranges are comparative calibration, not an in-world date, a progress ladder or knowledge available to characters. Direct prose and the relevant domain owner override it; a local, magical, specialist or ancient capability recorded there must not be generalised into a reproducible world baseline.

new_island.md is the conditional regional owner for the far-side island introduced in Ch.474 and physically visited from Ch.475. Load it for the island's observed geography, ecology, expeditions, inhabitants/construction evidence, access politics and unresolved extent. It does not establish a public discovery, native taxonomy, political system or general fantasy-world maritime doctrine; use knowledge_boundaries.md for who knows each layer.

crownholt.md is the conditional regional owner for current Crownholt, palace/Crown Deep places, local work and regional character developments. Its Ch.490–509 layers distinguish historical confinement, working upper routes, the archive incident, separate practice-room faults and private Arliss encounters. Use minor_characters.md for the current cast register, spells.md for mechanics and knowledge_boundaries.md for disclosure. It is not a general Northern Kingdom gazetteer; its existing GIS anchors remain qualified.

knife_island.md owns the separate southern Knife Island and Knife Edge Mountains regional design plus the bounded Ch.501 discovery/first-visit record. It separates firsthand observations, Ian-provided displays, reports and unvisited GIS assumptions. Mapped dimensions, pass points and heights retain their qualifications; the field route is not automatically matched to a mapped pass, and geological alternatives remain unresolved.

For a scene or audit involving an in-story document, recipe, letter, contract, receipt or other preserved artefact, consult the artefact index before drafting. In the repository it may be supplied as artefacts/artefact-index.md; in a flat ChatGPT Project upload it may instead be supplied as artefact-index.md. Check both locations when available and treat duplicate entries as alternate access paths to the same artefact, not separate canon. An indexed artefact may preserve exact content which chapter prose describes only in summary, but it cannot override contradictory direct chapter prose; when they conflict, direct prose controls.

all-chapters.md, when present, is an aggregate of direct chapter prose for targeted retrieval. Do not load it wholesale for routine drafting. Use the current durable references and relevant recent prose first; when an exact historical fact, wording or scene needs verification, search or retrieve only the relevant material from all-chapters.md. Direct chapter prose remains highest evidence.

No repository earth_arc.md or marriage_arc.md source is available. The name marriage_arc.md survives in canon only as the in-story historical planning artefact printed for Thomas by Ian. ian.md and merrowford.md are temporary/conditional packets; pantheon.md is the evolving author-level divine owner and must not be reconstructed into wider arc plans or treated as higher priority than durable canon.

As material becomes established, keep using the durable owner:

• locations, institutions and useful environmental continuity -> earth.md;
• major-character and relationship state -> characters.md;
• side cast -> minor_characters.md;
• active magic/correspondence mechanics -> spells.md;
• identity, cover, disclosure and external-anomaly witness scope -> knowledge_boundaries.md;
• builder-gods, religious masks, divine influence, spirits and proposed elemental origins -> pantheon.md;
• far-side-island geography, ecology, expedition history, evidence layers and access politics -> new_island.md;
• current Crownholt places, local work and regional character developments -> crownholt.md, with cast and disclosure cross-references;
• Knife Island geography, first-visit evidence and access context -> knife_island.md;
• chapter outcomes, causality and narrative significance -> synopsis.md;
• dates, ages, chronology-relevant elapsed intervals, presentation/local order and cross-reality placement -> timeline.md;
• prose behaviour -> writing_style.md;
• premise/thematic or author-level external-narrative rules -> canvas.md;
• cross-domain fantasy-world comparative-development synthesis -> development_fantasy.md, after the underlying facts have been recorded in their domain owners.

Planning files cannot override direct prose or durable canon.

Current Crownholt events, people, powers and disclosure have active homes in synopsis.md, minor_characters.md, spells.md and knowledge_boundaries.md; crownholt.md owns the current regional place/work register and the detailed local development of those characters. Those later observations do not advance the closed/generated historic_fantasy.md or broaden historical witness knowledge. political_geography_interim.md remains a planning aid.

Closed Fantasy-World References

historic_fantasy.md preserves canonical historical detail through Chapter 214. It is not deprecated as evidence, but it is legacy authoring context rather than the default Earth-sequel loadout. Its independently owned sections cover:

• World Reference - fantasy geography, institutions, peoples, magic framework and ancient systems;
• Map Notes - fantasy map reasoning, route continuity and GIS projection;
• Ecology - fantasy creatures, monsters, demons, elementals and flora;
• Spells Reference - exact historical spell levels, behaviour, limits, combinations and final uses;
• Knowledge Boundaries - historical public cover, witness scope and restricted facts;
• Minor Characters - fantasy-world side and recurring cast.

map_fantasy.in.md and world_fantasy.in.md remain the editable GIS templates for the generated Map Notes and World Reference sections. HTML generation deliberately preserves the former six split fantasy page names for stable navigation and links; there is no aggregate historic_fantasy.html.

Do not load these files for routine Earth chapters. Consult only the relevant one when a dream, memory, flashback, grief beat, comparison or historical question depends on exact fantasy-world detail. Their contents do not imply current Earth availability or knowledge.

Completed fantasy arc workspaces are obsolete once durable facts have been migrated. long-range-seal-ending-arc-plan.md has been deleted and must not be recreated or used as current planning. Any other completed fantasy arc file should likewise be treated as deprecated, not as an active source for the Earth sequel.

Fantasy-World Closure and Open Questions

The Hero Summoning failed: Thomas was recognised; the event was an error; Thomas was not. Green Road reached the Broken Court, defeated the Greater Demon/First Hand and removed the Demon Lord from the fantasy world (Ch.210-214). Thomas sacrificed Pocket Island as a one-way destination, restored Kelda, reached Isha and disappeared with her. Kelda carried the bounded account and eventually returned to the Green Road homes outside Larchmeet.

Durable fantasy-world questions remain unresolved unless later prose answers them:

• why the Hero System targeted Thomas, who built it and what recognised individual / continuity exception mean;
• whether summoning or preservation machinery continues after the Demon Lord's removal;
• what remains active in Ironvein, the High Elf continuity anchor, Crown Deep and the wider passage network;
• what dark fire was and why it answered both damaged and protective intent;
• whether elementals stand down and what the Magnog's rise still signifies;
• how western survivors, Black Lock, erased dark-elf care/work records and Hero-seeking institutions rewrite the ending.

Generated Fantasy Files and GIS

earth.md is currently hand-maintained. It contains the canonical home-building massing, floor/unit schedule and common-space register needed for Earth-side GIS/CAD work, including 202 as Thomas and Isha's current large corner flat and 304 as their vacated former flat. A future Earth GIS may receive its own explicitly named source and projection workflow, but none exists yet; until then, treat earth.md as the authoritative source and preserve its canon/inference labels rather than treating the prose as generated.

map_fantasy.in.md is the hand-edited fantasy map template. gis/world-map.gpkg supplies generated spatial tables and diagrams; the Map Notes section of historic_fantasy.md is the committed reading projection. Edit the template or GeoPackage rather than that generated section, then run make gis-sync-map. make gis-map-check fails when the projection is stale.

world_fantasy.in.md is the hand-edited fantasy world template. Inline {{gis:layer:id:field}} tokens draw selected physical facts from the GeoPackage exports while preserving hand-authored narrative canon. The World Reference section of historic_fantasy.md is the committed reading projection. Regenerate it with make gis-sync-world; make gis-world-check rejects stale or unresolved output.

map-data.md, when generated, is non-canonical GIS context. Load it only for fantasy geography, route, drainage or local-layout work; prose canon and qualifications in the Map Notes section of historic_fantasy.md override provisional geometry and derived measurements.

Standing Rules

• Chapters must begin on the first line with the prefix ## Chapter . A normal hyphen, en dash or em dash may separate the chapter number and title. Keep one chapter heading only, and preserve a final newline so shell tools such as cat compose files safely.

• Chapters 50-58, 110, and 177 do not exist and never existed. Do not call them skipped chapters or infer off-page events from those numbers.

• Thomas used to be called David; ensure the name David does not resurface.

• For fantasy-world authoring databases and date arithmetic, use the proleptic Gregorian calendar with 8 February 4000 as the opening of Chapter 1. This is a technical epoch, not an in-world calendar or a date characters should state in prose.

• Dates derived from that epoch remain author assumptions unless chapter prose establishes them; preserve uncertainty markers such as estimated dates or ranges.

• Direct chapter prose remains highest evidence. Later direct prose supersedes older reference wording and earlier contradictory prose where the project explicitly resolves the conflict. After canonising future material, update every owning reference affected by it.

• Synopsis/timeline division: every canonised chapter needs a narrative outcome in synopsis.md. Update timeline.md only when the chapter establishes or changes a date, age, chronology-relevant elapsed interval, sequence relationship, cross-reality strand or current chronological endpoint. Keep enough of a compact event anchor to identify the scene, but do not turn a timeline row into a second chapter summary.

• Canon-audit edit threshold: absence from a summary/reference is not contradiction. A plausible mundane biography detail, character opinion or scene-level inference may be flagged for review, but should not be removed merely because no .md file pre-authorised it. Before editing established prose, search relevant direct chapters and require a clear contradiction, a knowledge/control violation or comparably strong evidence. Borderline concerns should normally be preserved and reported separately.

• historic_fantasy.md preserves historical witness state through Chapter 214 and is not advanced by Earth-side inference. Later Earth prose may refine facts Thomas had never fully disclosed in the fantasy chapters—such as Daniel Mercer's name, age and original-Earth location—without rewriting the historical witness state. Returned pages establish later fantasy-world receipt and disclosure only through their exact wording; active references must not broaden that circle to crowns, temples, Guilds, mountain authorities or anyone else not named by the correspondence.

• Earth references may record Chapter 215 survival and retained memories, but must not imply that historical fantasy spells, ranks, bodies, institutions or physical rules remain active on Earth.

• Planning files cannot override direct prose or durable owning references. Keep planned, inferred, cover-story and unresolved material explicitly qualified.

• Current relationship prose must begin from the post-Ch.322 repaired baseline. Ch.310-313 remains causal history, not unresolved current behaviour.

• The Ch.324 physical assessment supersedes the incompatible isolated Ch.300 140 kg bench line; use 65 kg × 4 as Isha's current canonical bench result.

• Kanno Emi's birthday is 17 April. Her exact age and birth year remain unestablished; conflicting later date-check reminders are non-canonical.

• Isha's Graves/System correction is complete and medically monitored. Do not reopen active disease or active external repair without new prose; broader System influence remains an open question.

• Ch.357 begins the bounded external-narrative layer, but Chapters 371–499 supersede the old absolute “no physical return / rare senderless contact only” capability rule. Ian can create neutral door/room constructs, physically visit the fantasy world, accompany a consenting Kanno into real Berlin in the protagonists' Earth, create/transport objects and digital media, and participate in an invitation-based four-person chat. The current Earth-entry and inhabited-world-crossing restrictions nevertheless remain in force: a possible Sendai walk and Kanno's possible fantasy-house visit require a new agreement, not merely an invitation or a neutral room. None of this gives Ian standing permission to appear in 202, approach uninformed people, or intervene in somebody's body, memories, belongings or meaningful choices. Each contact must inherit the specific consent/boundaries established in direct prose.

• The external mechanism and Hero System remain distinct unless direct evidence proves otherwise. Ch.459's direct narration establishes that Ian caused the transfer-protection change after asking, but it does not establish how the intervention worked or that the external mechanism and Hero System are ontologically the same thing.

• Fourth-wall/group-chat contact is now an established relationship among Ian, Thomas, Isha and Kanno, but ordinary chapters must not become continuous author chat. Ian may read machine-supplied material beyond the chat; the core cast knows that privacy cannot be guaranteed. The durable agency rule is stronger than the old silence rule: if the substance of an option is a meaningful character decision, Ian is to leave the answer to that character and choose only to learn/hear what they decide.

• Lethira-specific non-alteration rule: the Ch.421 displayed machine response is absolute. Ian and the machine must refuse direct, indirect, retroactive, disguised or delegated attempts to alter Lethira's memory, mind, personality, identity, thoughts, desires, preferences, values, emotional disposition, agency or personal history, or to engineer equivalent changes by circumstances selected for that purpose. Her later memories—including recognition of her B-rank history—must arise through lived events, ordinary memory, evidence and interaction.

• Non-linear-time clarification: Ch.442 does not create a memory-edit loophole. A genuine world-level causal event, including one experienced non-linearly, may become part of reality and therefore part of Lethira's lived experience if it affects the world generally, preserves her agency, is not targeted at changing her, and is not designed to manufacture a desired feeling, decision or relationship outcome. Memories arising from an event she actually experienced are not themselves memory alteration. Changing the whole universe in order to author Lethira would still violate the rule.

• Cross-reality time is not synchronised. Never convert Ian-time, Earth-time and fantasy-world time by ratio. Explicit intervals such as the three fantasy-side days in Ch.373 are local facts only.

• Aelira photograph continuity: Ch.392 supersedes Ch.374 and establishes that Aelira was unphotographed at that point. Ch.438 later supplies her direct, bounded consent and is now controlling: six approved Aelira photographs return with Kanno; one specified frame may be shown to Thomas/Isha; the remaining images are private; Aelira also makes one photograph of Kanno and joins one private timer frame. Consent to that session is not standing consent for future photography or sharing.

• No general Earth-arc workspace currently exists. ian.md and merrowford.md are temporary/conditional packets for the current strand; references to the in-story marriage_arc.md printout remain historical evidence, not an instruction to locate or recreate a repository planning file.

• A send/receive Hero-System opening is a simultaneous swap of two already-prepared pages. Never let the incoming page answer the outgoing page from that same opening.

• Intentional-door access is occasion-specific. A prior neutral-room route does not stay enabled for later meetings; Ian must ask/agree/enable each new use.

• Before prose that crosses knowledge boundaries, audit how each character learned the fact. Direct experience, a Hero-System page, a deliberate summary, a private Ian conversation and a machine-generated reconstruction are different sources and are not interchangeable.

• In interactive drafting Ian is user-controlled. Never supply his dialogue, decisions, physical actions, messages or reality changes unless the user has done so. If another character asks Ian a direct question, stop for the user's response. Any explicit user permission for the assistant to author Ian is limited to the named scene/chapter and does not carry forward. Before consolidating an interactive chapter, make a turn-by-turn inclusion pass: preserve every user-authored Ian line/action once, use the latest corrected version of a rewritten segment, and remove superseded duplicates.

• Interactive-chapter exception: for interactive chapters and their consolidations only, normal chapter-length expectations and the usual narrative/dialogue percentage target are advisory rather than pass/fail constraints. Do not cut meaningful user-authored or character-essential exchange merely to hit a word count or ratio. All other guardrails remain active: Ian control, exact inclusion, voice, knowledge provenance, privacy, dialogue rhythm, duplicate removal, structural checks and prose-quality revision still apply.

Cross-world meeting and transport boundary

Ian may create occasion-specific neutral constructs in which people from Earth and the fantasy world meet, provided every participant independently agrees and retains the agreed return. This does not authorise direct or indirect transport from Earth into the fantasy world or from the fantasy world into Earth. A neutral construct, planet or intermediate destination may not be used to launder such a transfer. The completed Ch.433 four-woman gathering is a neutral meeting, not a visit to either lived world, and leaves no standing route.