Rook chose neither floor for longer than one drop.
His left heel pressed the clinic branch. Doma's green tile stopped descending while Keda's boiler stair lost one centimeter.
He shifted across the forked yoke.
The boiler stair stopped. The clinic lost one centimeter instead.
Rook changed again when Doma called the cracked-base mark. His injured right leg stayed straight against the wall, useless to the two branches. Sweat darkened the mortar beneath his bare left foot.
"I can trade the fall," he said. "I cannot remove it."
Doma called each clinic drop from the crack beneath the pelvic frame. A later centimeter lifted one corner of the chest-drain mat and pushed dark fluid up the clear tube. She lowered the clay bottle until the line drained again.
Keda called from the boiler stair. One drop spilled condensate across the pale-stalk trays. Tob moved the warm pipe away from the new floor edge while Osril kept the dented pot from entering the brass wheel.
