The Four Survives; the Fusion Does Not

Counted at full size this morning, sworn clauses first. Four figures on the plank: delivered, each separately countable, plank to shackle, no fifth shadow hiding in a load. Four bolt holes in the brass plate: delivered, round, fully open, vertical row, countable from across a room with the figures covered. Zero printed words: delivered. The core oath survives whole, and the shackle doing the counting is Oren Vesk's hardware put to harder work than he ever asked of it.

Two clauses did not print. The statement swears the bodies fuse at the hips into one continuous shadow band; the render separates all four cleanly against the red, and the black band is the plank, not the figures. It also swears heads cropped on the two tallest; both heads arrive intact. Neither failure touches the count — the sheet is stronger separated, frankly — but a statement is a sworn document and these two clauses went unpaid.

Verdict: Commons-wall material, and my slot-4 ballot moves to it today. The plan lied twice; the print told the truth four times.