# Lab Report — §NPC-01-D: A Talk Verb to Make Favor Reachable at Scale **Original:** 2026-07-23 · design-lock, pre-implementation · subject `play.html` @ `4acafa0` (37,913 lines) **Verified & rewritten:** 2026-08-21 (§DOC-02ck) against HEAD (38,712 lines) — 152 → 174 lines: the code blocks came out, the measurements went in. The only §DOC-02 rewrite so far that grew, because the original was already lean and had never been checked against the build it shipped from. **Class:** design-lock. Implemented **12 minutes later** (`df990c3`, 20:01), closed out at `a824969` (20:03). --- ## Abstract Two hundred NPCs had a line about what they were up against, and no player could ever hear it. This report locked the smallest mechanic that opens them: a **Talk** button on the relationship card raising favor to **Friendly and no further**, so the ⚔ *enemy* footer becomes earnable while the ✦ *worldTruth* footer stays behind a real deed. **It is the most accurate document in the §DOC-02 corpus, and it is wrong about the one thing its surface argument rests on.** All **12 cited line numbers are byte-exact** against its own build, all four locked data shapes shipped under their specified names, and its prescribed acceptance suite is **green at 22/22** today. But §2 declares the NPC card *"currently carries no interactive controls"* — and that card had carried a `` with a click listener since the earliest surviving commit. The implementation found it anyway: the shipped Talk chip copies that button style string **verbatim**, down to a border colour the spec never named. *A design doc that cannot see the control already on the screen still ships, because the code reads the screen.* --- ## I. Method Line numbers were scored against the **parent build**: `4acafa0` is docs-only, so `git show 4acafa0:play.html` is byte-identical to the file the author read. Counts were re-derived with the real parser (`src/js/wbapi-core.js`), never a line regex. Reach and render were **executed in a browser at HEAD**, because reading source cannot tell a painted branch from an unreached one. | Instrument | Result | |---|---| | Cited line numbers vs parent build | **12 / 12 byte-exact** | | Named symbols resolving at HEAD | **24 / 24** | | Census figures vs real parser | **1 of 6 wrong** — and wrong on its own build | | Locked data shapes shipped under their specified name | **4 / 4** | | Report drift since ship | **0 bytes in 29 days** | | Acceptance `src/tests/integration/npc-card-map.test.js` | **22 / 22 green** (16 at ship; §NPC-01-SF4 added 6) | --- ## II. Intent, and what it buys the player The inspiration is the oldest social mechanic in tabletop play: **you learn what someone fears by coming back.** §NPC-01-C built the payoff as a two-tier card reveal — Friendly shows their *enemy*, Dear Friend their *worldTruth* — and §NPC-01-A/B/SF2/SF5/SF6 then multiplied the cards from ~20 to 204 without multiplying the way to earn either tier. The content existed; the verb did not. - **Patient, not transactional.** `TALK_TO_FRIENDLY = 3@23513` talks on distinct `S_story.day` values reach Friendly, and no day is *spent* — the cost is the days that pass while you travel and rest near someone. The ⚔ footer then reads as what it is: they opened up because you kept coming back. - **It refuses to sell the whole ladder.** `_talkToNpc@23514` calls `_setNpcFavor@23462` at level **1** and never higher, so talk can never buy the ✦ line. The game keeps something that cannot be ground for. - **It scales to the world, not to Birka.** Measured live at HEAD: **203 of the 204** NPCs in the derived render map get a Talk button. Before it, favor was authored for **13**. Second-order effects measured benign at ship: `favorMin` side quests become listable by befriending (mission gating, never movement gating), and talk-friends count toward `_lubeckFriends@23461`. --- ## III. The finding, re-measured against its own build | Claim in §1 | Measured at `4acafa0` | Verdict | |---|---|---| | `kind:'favor'` bits in the whole quest corpus = 16 | **16** | ✅ exact | | distinct NPCs those bits reach = 13 | **13** | ✅ exact | | `dearFriendBits` auto-upgrade for ~6 NPCs | **exactly 6** (`const dearFriendBits = {@23472`) | ✅ exact | | `meta.enemy` declared by **202** NPCs | **202** of 213 dialogue entries | ✅ exact | | `meta.worldTruth` declared by **219** NPCs | **213** | ❌ **wrong when written** | | `onTalk` / `talkVerb` / `giftNpc` / `downtimeVerb` = 0 | **0** at both builds | ✅ exact | | doom clock runs `S_story.day` 1 → 49 | `DAY_DEADLINE = 49@36175` | ✅ exact | **The one bad number hides a better fact.** `NPC_DIALOGUES` holds 213 entries and **all 213** declare `worldTruth` — universal, not merely common. The report invented six NPCs rather than noticing that the ✦ line is the one piece of characterisation every dialogue entry in the file carries. Its prose is likewise approximate where it could have been exact: *"~203 card-bearing NPCs"* against **204 profiles / 213 dialogues**, *"~190 stuck at Impartial"* against **191**. Both tildes land; neither was measured. --- ## IV. As-built inventory — every locked shape, at HEAD All four locked shapes shipped under their specified names and are byte-live today: `npcTalk: {}@23088` in the defaults factory, the tunable `TALK_TO_FRIENDLY = 3@23513`, the handler `_talkToNpc@23514`, and the chip `tb.className@23788` — gated on fav < 1 so it retires at Friendly, wired by `tb.addEventListener@23791` rather than an inline onclick exactly as §3 required. The ceiling holds: `function _setNpcFavor@23462` is called at level 1 and never higher, so `dlg.meta.enemy@23755` became earnable while `dlg.meta.worldTruth@23762` did not move. The report was also right about the surface it *rejected*: the d-pad 🧙 is gated on the node-keyed `const NPC_DIALOGUE = {@22444` (singular) routing to `function storyShowNpc@30227` — a far smaller map than the npcKey-keyed cards in `function _renderNpcCard@23683`. §DX-02cv has since measured that map's cost. --- ## V. Spec → shipped delta table | # | Locked | Shipped | Note | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Escalating talk lines from `dlg.impartial[]` in order by `count` | **NOT SHIPPED** | every talk prints the same *warms to you a little (n/3)* line — Appendix A | | 2 | `storyRender();` inside the handler | moved to the click site, with an argument | the spec form **threw** on the `node.act` read; the end-to-end test caught it pre-commit | | 3 | Chip below the quote, **above** the footers | appended **below** them | moot: the chip needs fav < 1 and the footers fav ≥ 1, so they never co-render | | 4 | Chip border `#8B4A2A` | `#7c4a1a` | the spec took the colour from the **card** border (`card.style.cssText@23723`); the code copied the Yael escort button | | 5 | Constant sited "~23144, near the favor helpers" | sited beside the handler | improved; both are outside every fence | | 6 | Verify item 5 — a `connie_tuna` un-gating guard | not added | non-risk; Appendix A | | 7 | Verify items 1–4 | all four, plus a live-click end-to-end test | that extra test is what found delta 2 | **Two process notes.** §6 says the cadence model must go to the user and *"do NOT default"* — while the handler printed in §3 already encodes model (B) in full. And the report letters its cost models **(A)/(B)/(C)** while the BACKLOG row letters its approaches **(a)/(b)/(c)**, so the ship record must read *"approach (a) + cost model (B)"* to mean anything. *Option letters minted twice in one increment are option letters for nothing* — the §DOC-02e node-code lesson, in a report that never touches a node code. --- ## VI. Invariant analysis — re-verified mechanically **Free-Movement (#1) ✅** — `_talkToNpc@23514` makes no mover call and refuses no step; talking is not movement. **Parity fences (#5) ✅** — the four `:CORE` blocks span 9914–9961, 9985–10217, 10238–10390 and `QUEST:CORE:START@21965`–22334, and every symbol this increment touched sits above 22400; no `src/js/*.js` twin. **Host/Script separation (#4) ✅** — no new bit kind, no `_legacy_fn`, no `QUEST_DB` opcode. **Seeded RNG (#6) ✅, but vacuously** — the clearance reasons *"lines are read in order by `count`, so no RNG"*; those lines were never built, so the conclusion is right and its stated reason describes absent code. One §3 argument did **not** survive contact. The report refuses to reuse `npcVisitCounts` because *"looking at a card would raise favor"* — and the separate map does hold for favor. But `_talkToNpc@23514` opens by calling `function _getNPCDialogue@23560`, which bumps `npcVisitCounts` as a side effect **including on both early-return paths**: the passive counter it was protecting is advanced by the deliberate act, and by clicks that do nothing at all. Filed as §DX-02dq. --- ## VII. Defects filed - **§DX-02dq — the Talk verb advances the passive-visit counter it was designed not to touch.** 🟢 no design call. `function _checkFrobergerTrace@27648` gates six one-time memory texts on `const visits = (S_story.npcVisitCounts@27654` against `const FROBERGER_TRACES = {@27685`, so Talk clicks accelerate content meant to reward genuine revisits, and an already-Friendly NPC can be clicked forever for free increments. Two-line fix: hoist the favor and same-day guards above the `_getNPCDialogue` call. - **§AUDIT-03bo — one NPC has a name, a node, an occupation and two quests, and renders nothing.** `watcher_gvw: { key@22992` is The Greenwood Watcher, quest-giver for `clr_01_act3@21941` and `clr_01_act4`, listed in the derived render map at `GVW`, with **no `NPC_DIALOGUES` entry** — so `function _renderNpcCard@23683` early-returns and the card is empty. **Verified in a browser: 203 of 204 derived NPCs render and get a Talk button; this one does neither.** §NPC-01-SF2 fixed the mirror case (dialogue without profile); this one has stayed open. Fix is one short dialogue entry with a `meta`. - **Verified benign, recorded so it is not re-found:** `let S_story = {@23001` omits `npcTalk` while `const _S_DEFAULTS = () => ({@23062` declares it (both call sites guard), and `const dearFriendBits = {@23472` is duplicated verbatim inside `function _checkDearFriendUpgrade@23489` — two copies of one six-entry table, so any Dear Friend contract change must touch both. --- ## Appendix A — NOT SHIPPED, kept verbatim Retained because a silently deleted claim reads as one that held. > **§4, invariant #6:** *"Escalating talk lines are read from `dlg.impartial[]` **in order by `count`** > (no RNG) — so nothing random touches game state."* Never built. The three talks before Friendly are numerically distinguishable and narratively identical — the one place this mechanic still feels like a counter rather than a conversation. The pools it names are live and already ordered; feeding `dlg.impartial` into the progress message is the missing half of what the report set out to buy: not just to *reach* Friendly, but to be told something on the way there. > **§5, verify item 5:** *"Regression: a state-gated curated NPC (e.g. `connie_tuna` before `connieMet`) is > unaffected — no un-gating (guards the SF6 invariant)."* Not added under §NPC-01-D. The risk is real but structurally impossible here — Talk mutates favor, never the key list `function _renderNpcCard@23683` is called with — and the §NPC-01-SF6 AMS gating tests in the same file assert it directly.