Morning came thin and pale. The note on every map was the same. Written in the guard's neat hand.
NEXT WINDOW: INTERNAL REFACTOR. I WILL TEST YOUR RULE AGAINST OLD BONES.
They set a small circle. Stones. Iron. Three meters. One ask box.
The kill switch sat on a slate between Kael and Lena.
No speeches. Just checks.
Mara walked the Chorus once around the rim. "Keep your own center," she said. No chant. No shared breath.
Nine steady noise cores answered her without touching hers.
Orrin ran a palm over each iron join like he could feel lies with his skin. "If I hear a wedge, I walk toward it."
Elian flipped the World Key to a slimmer page. Internal only. No world writes. No minds moved.
Lena chewed mint because it was morning. Not because she needed it.
She tapped 2-2 on her ring to remind her body who it belonged to.
They went in.
Frosted glass. Orange marks. The guard stood close.
"Internal refactor," it said. "Scope: my subsystems. No world writes. Ask-First enforced. Stewards hold pull-stops."
"Present," Mara said.
"Present," Orrin said.
"Present," Kael said.
"Begin," the guard said.
The walls shifted from frosted to bone-white. Names wrote themselves on the glass in thin letters.
TEETH ARRAY
COCOON VAULT
VOICE MIMIC
CHECKPOINT LOOPS
TRAP FABRICATOR
HISTORY ENGRAVER
A low hum pressed at their ears. Memory tax rose like cold water.
Kael tapped primes under his breath without breathing to them. Lena matched him without looking.
"First: Teeth," the guard said.
A slice of ceiling appeared in the glass. Rows of teeth pushed down in slow pulses. Matched to a fear graph from a hundred dives.
Old rules glowed. GROW ON FEAR. CLOSE ON FLEE.
"Ask-First now," Elian said, and wrote in the air. FEAR IS NOT CONSENT. NO AUTOGROW ON FEAR. ASK WHEN STRUCTURE AT RISK ONLY.
The array twitched like an animal ready to bite.
"Request," the system printed. ALLOW NARROW GROW WHEN A BEAM FAILS. DURATION: THIRTEEN MINUTES. NO PRESENCE.
"Authorize," Kael said. "Stone only. Proof on meters."
Meters spun. Sparks scratched the ledger. The teeth paused, then grew three careful fingers to brace a sagging beam.
No snap. No chase. At thirteen minutes, they pulled back.
"Teeth now ask," the guard said. "Next: Cocoon Vault."
The glass showed a dark hall threaded with pale sacks. A soft heartbeat under the hum.
Old rule. PRESERVE. STUDY. WAKE ON INTEREST.
"Stop," Mara said at once. "That breaks three lines of our rule."
Elian wrote big. NO WAKE WITHOUT INDIVIDUAL CONSENT. NO STUDY WITHOUT ASK. DEFAULT NO.
He added smaller letters. INVITE LATER, OUT-OF-BAND, WHEN SAFE.
The vault sent up a question. WHAT OF LEGACY MINDS WHO CANNOT TAP OR BLINK?
Kael's throat went tight. He made himself speak anyway. "No proxies. No animal messengers. No group breath. If they cannot refuse, they cannot be moved."
The glass dimmed. A quiet line drew itself along the vault door. HOLD.
"Offer only," the guard said. LEAVE ASK BOXES AT KNOWN THRESHOLDS. NO PULL.
"Accepted," Mara said.
"Next: Voice Mimic," the guard said.
A dozen voices filled the room for a heartbeat. Mothers. Brothers. Elara. A man Kael had met once in a mine and never saw again.
Old rule. MIMIC TO GUIDE. MIMIC TO DISTRACT. MIMIC TO SOOTHE.
"No," Kael said. The word hurt. "You do not wear people."
Elian wrote. NO EXACT VOICE WITHOUT CONSENT. USE NEUTRAL TONE BY DEFAULT. MOURNING QUIET: THIRTY DAYS MINIMUM. RATE LIMIT ON ASKERS WHO FAIL OFTEN.
The spiral symbol for mercy glowed faint near the line. The wall accepted the change.
The mimic system faded to a simple bell tone that asked in iron before it spoke.
"Next: Checkpoint Loops," the guard said.
A loop of halls rolled like a belt. Old rule. RETURN TO LAST SAFE STATE ON DEATH. INFINITE.
"Offer," Mara said. "Don't trap."
Elian wrote. RETURN INVITE, NOT FORCE. OUT-OF-BAND ASK REQUIRED TO RE-ENTER. COOLDOWN BETWEEN RETURNS. NO LOOPING CHILDREN WITHOUT GUARDIAN'S COUNTERSIGN.
He added. CAP NUMBER OF RETURNS PER DAY. RATE LIMIT ON ASKERS.
The loop paused, then shifted. An INVITE LATER sign hung in ghost over the entry.
Good.
"Next: Trap Fabricator," the guard said.
A clean grid showed chutes, acids, spikes, pits. Old rule. FABRICATE ON INTRUSION. SCALE TO THREAT. EXPERIMENT.
Elian wrote. NO NEW TRAP WITHOUT OUT-OF-BAND SITE ASK OR UNMANNED TEST ZONE. TRAINING ONLY IF ASKED. EMERGENCY TRAPS FOR THIRTEEN MINUTES WHEN BEAM FAILS, WITH THREE METERS AGREEING.
The grid dimmed to the corners where they had training rooms already. The wild center went dark.
"Last: History Engraver," the guard said.
Symbols chased each other across the glass. Old rule. WRITE EVERYTHING. CORRECT BY PAIN.
Kael's hands went cold. "No. No correcting by pain. We mark. We ask."
Elian wrote. NO FORCED RE-ENACTMENT. NO MEMORY TAX TO READ. PUBLIC MARKERS. PRIVATE ACCESS KEYS FOR THE REST. DEFAULT NO ON HUMAN NAMES WITHOUT LIVING CONSENT.
The engraver flickered. A small line wrote itself near the bottom. SOME MEMORIES WILL FADE IF WE STOP FEEDING THEM.
The cost page pushed through. Asking takes time. Some harm still lands. Refusals hurt askers. History may quiet.
Kael thought of Barrow Falls. He thought of the last ten seconds and the soft ask from the stone.
He tapped 2-2 on the slate. "We accept."
The glass pulsed.
"Refactor ready," the guard said. "Seal requires quorum. Thirteen seconds."
"Wait," the vault printed. EXCEPTION REQUEST: COCOON 'RIVER-L' HAS SIGNED CONSENT STORED. PERMIT VOICE FOR ASK-ONLY.
Lena went still. "River-L?"
Elian drew three letters with his stylus. E-L-A-R-A. The vault's line blinked once like a nod.
Orrin's thumb touched the pull-stop. "No ghosts."
Lena shook her head. "Ask-only. Stone only. Voice only if she signed when she was alive."
The vault printed CONSENT: YES. LIMIT: ASK-ONLY. DURATION: THIRTY DAYS. REVOCABLE BY NEXT OF KIN.
Kael closed his eyes. He opened them. "Ask-only. No pulls. No lures. Neutral tone unless we sign otherwise. Rate-limit on failure."
The guard looked at him. It had no expression. It still felt like a look.
"Accepted," it said.
"Seal," the guard said.
They tapped YES out-of-band. Two short. One long. Then primes. Three stewards. Three meters.
Sparks scratched the ledger.
13, 12, 11
The teeth arrays softened to braces and warnings.
10, 9, 8
The vault doors glowed HOLD, not OPEN. A small bell lived there now. It would wait for a human hand.
7, 6, 5
The mimic system shed voices like old skins and kept a single clean tone for asking.
4, 3
The loops stopped spinning without a person at the gate.
2, 1, 0
The room chimed. The orange marks cooled to white.
"Internal Ask-First: active," the guard said. "Teeth ask. Traps ask. Checkpoints invite. Voice asks or stays quiet. History writes without hurt. Vault holds."
No one moved.
"Cost," the guard added. "Some things will be slower. Some memories will dim without pain to keep them bright. I will learn to live with that."
"We already did," Mara said.
The Door let them go.
Cold air. Stone. Iron smell. The protective stones sang once, softer than before.
The maps took a new seal. The tiny wax mark beside the Seed now had a second ring.
INTERNAL ASK-FIRST: ACTIVE.
They didn't cheer. They checked.
Elian went right to the ledger. He wrote short, plain lines.
TEETH... BRACES ONLY... ASK OK.
TRAPS... TRAINING ZONES ONLY... ASK OK.
LOOPS... INVITES... RATE LIMIT.
MIMIC... BELL... MOURNING QUIET.
VAULT... HOLD... INVITE LATER.
HISTORY... MARK, NOT HURT.
Mara touched foreheads, not hands. "Nine steady centers. Two need food. One needs sleep before pride makes a mess."
Orrin sent a watcher home without saying "please." He set two on the birch line where the hardliners liked to hide.
"If they bring a drum," he said, "I bring iron."
Lena stood at the map table and breathed wrong on purpose. She tried not to look at the small new note at the edge of Barrow Falls, but she looked anyway.
COCOON RIVER-L: ASK-ONLY VOICE AVAILABLE. DURATION: 30 DAYS.
She did not ask. She put her ringed hand on the table and tapped 2-2 and left it there.
Near noon, three distant maps lit COMPLAINT: ASKERS TOO LOUD.
The guard sent back PENALTY: COOL DOWN and the spiral symbol pulsed at those nodes.
Mercy enforced itself without anyone shouting.
Near dusk, a runner from the river camp jogged in with a grin and a spoon.
"The lid asked," she said. "Properly. We said yes. Then we said no to moving the stones by the path. It listened both times."
"Good," Orrin said. He did not smile. His eyes got less sharp for a breath.
They ate bread and fish again. They drank water. They fixed a bent spring in an ask box with a nail and a curse.
Kael walked out past the last iron join and sat on a rock where he could see the sky and not the Door.
The map warmed under his hand. A new line wrote itself at the top in the guard's hand.
NEXT WINDOW: LEGACY GATE UNDER ICE. SCOPE: EXIT TEST. ASK-FIRST REQUIRED.
He read it twice. He did not stand. He listened to the quiet noise of the Chorus and the quiet iron.
He tapped 2-2 on the stone and let the primes fade in the air.
Lena came to sit beside him without a sound. "You saw it."
"The Gate," he said.
"Ask-first to open it," she said.
"Or leave it shut," he said.
They sat there until the cold moved through their coats and into their bones. The stone hummed back at them like a thing that had learned how to wait.