Earth listened the way old houses do: through weight, through patience, through the long arithmetic of strain and kindness. The cavern's ribs held the city's breath while the basalt gate—its boast now edited into grammar—waited to learn whether stubbornness could be persuaded into steadiness. Heat from the font above threaded down through cracks like polite advice.
Luna laid her brass leaves on a block of stone and drew load paths in chalk: where the street wanted to sag, where the lintel wanted to split, where a stair would prefer to wait its turn. "Terms in plain speech," she said, tapping magnets into place. "Stability first, collapse later—and only after the last person passes."
Selene unrolled a ribbon of predawn and tied it into a safety line that decided to be a lane if panic needed something obvious to hold. The shadow rope gleamed like wet silk, smelling faintly of flour and cool air. "If the roof thinks about becoming a ceiling," she told the rock, "it stops to count neighbors."
Cyrus tested the floor with his heel, the Oath cord humming low against his ribs. "If something falls," he said evenly, "it falls into me first. Then we share the bruise until no single spine breaks."
Earth replied in pressures instead of words, a patient push that asked for slowness the way good soup asks for time. Aragorn stepped forward, bell warm on his palm, fire along his arm trimmed to a thin white line that read intention before it considered spectacle. "We accept boredom," he said. "We pay with hours of repair and minutes we do not steal. We ask only this: stones hold until the last foot leaves, beams warn before they fail, and streets choose to be bridges where fear makes gaps."
The cavern exhaled. Dust fell in a polite curtain. A seam in the far wall closed by the width of a name. Luna set a copper plate against the gate and inscribed the covenant in three short clauses anyone could remember: Hold while carried. Warn before failing. Fall after empty. The letters sank into metal without drama and came back as a rhythm anyone could walk.
Tam bounced once on his toes, eyes bright. "Signposts?" he asked.
"Signposts," Luna agreed, handing him chalk. He wrote WAIT at the mouth of a weak corridor in letters a frightened child would understand at a glance, then drew a happy arrow toward the shadow rope.
A tremor rippled—real this time, not theater. The ceiling above the left passage groaned, reconsidering its ambitions. Selene flicked her wrist and the rope shifted under the sound like a good usher, guiding evacuees into the lane that wanted to be safe. Cyrus planted, braced, and let the first shiver of falling arrive through him so the rest of the room could learn the sensation without flinching.
"Lintel," Luna said, already moving.
Aragorn crossed to the cracked span and called the magma lance—Fire braided with Earth—into existence along his forearm, not as a weapon, as a stitch. He pressed heat into stone slowly, letting rock decide to be joined. The bell on the block hummed a simple worker's note: here, here, and here. When he lifted his hand, the lintel held without heroics.
From the shaft above, a ribbon of noon slid down as if curious. It tasted the cave's new manners and, uncertain whether to prosecute or applaud, withdrew with the discretion of a supervisor who has realized the room no longer needs him.
"Price," Earth said in the body's language, a reminder rather than a bill.
Aragorn nodded and set the bell against a knee‑high curb. He wrote a sentence into stone where boots could teach it every day: Civic Dusk—one hour each evening for repairs, witnesses, and chores; verdicts adjourned. The word dusk cooled the air without darkening it, and the cavern liked the plan the way bread likes a schedule.
"Up top," Selene said, tying off the last loop. "Let's tell the sky we're busy."
They climbed into late afternoon that had learned to be less certain of itself. Halos hovered, courtrooms held at polite distance, Radiant Scales adjusted kerning. When the bell on the parapet breathed once, soft as a kitchen timer, the city answered with the sound of tools being found, water poured, chairs carried onto stoops, and three cups set on every block where a story needed finishing.
The Sunfall Commander appeared on a tower crown and surveyed a district that had decided to change the hour instead of the law. He planted his spear, drew a verdict in the air, and then—seeing Civic Dusk begin like weather—crossed it out with immaculate penmanship. "Adjourned," he said, neither pleased nor angry, simply precise, and stepped back into light that refused to be judge for a while.
Auditor silhouettes looked on from a farther roof. One took notes. Another packed the pen away, as if saving ink for a hearing with better snacks.
Cyrus leaned on a rail and let himself be seen resting. The Oath cord, satisfied, slackened a fraction. Two children pointed and whispered as if viewing a rare animal. He winked at them and demonstrated the skill of sitting, which made both gasp and imitate.
Luna posted the new clause on doorframes and drainpipes: Civic Dusk, chores first, confessions feed, trials tomorrow. Selene tugged night forward by a polite minute and sprinkled it with housekeeping stars. Tam ran ahead chalking arrows from broken steps to ramps that promised to be finished before sleep.
Aragorn felt the white stitch under the black brand ache once—a small, honest pain—and let it. He turned the bell in his hand until the metal's hum matched the neighborhood's pulse: work, witness, rest.
"You owe the day?" Selene asked, joining him at the parapet.
"I'm paying," he said, watching a grandmother teach a teenager how to tighten a hinge without stripping the screw. "With hours."
"Good," she said, approving of chores more than heroics. "Tomorrow, Earth will ask for proof that boredom stuck."
"Tomorrow it will get a list," Luna said, snapping her case closed. "And people to read it aloud."
Civic Dusk flowed through lanes and up stairwells like soup steam, finding the tired and making them honest about it. The city didn't cheer. It breathed evenly, then deeper. In the mine, stone relaxed by a quarter of a sigh and decided—just for tonight—to wait.
"Below again at dawn," Aragorn said.
"After we eat," Cyrus added, practical.
"After we witness," Selene corrected.
"After we sleep," Tam dared, and everyone agreed as if the idea were scandalous and wise.
The halos thinned into polite punctuation over rooftops. The sky, relieved of duty, remembered how to be weather. The bell did not ring. It settled into the quiet that happens when a plan fits the day like a well‑worn apron.
— End of Episode 15 —
Key powers this episode: Earth covenant (hold while carried; warn before failing; fall after empty), Magma Lance used for welding not weapon, Civic Dusk clause (adjourn trials for repairs/witnesses/chores), Shadow rope lane, Oath pain‑split brace, anti‑reset memory via chore lists and cup testimony.
Next on Episode 16: The Root Trial—parley with the colossus mines for a permanent steadiness grant, a basalt choir that only sings to patience, and the first time the ground chooses to become a bridge.