The Floodlight Orchard

The exterior route passed through a row of dead floodlights that activated one at a time as the crew advanced. Each light cast a shadow in the wrong direction. The shadows joined behind the group and blocked the return path.

The Shadebound reader found a narrow darkness beneath a collapsed curb and led the crew through it while the Luminary observer measured the light's timing from the inner chamber.

When the last floodlight went dark, the road was empty again. MOTHER sealed the route as electrically unstable. The field record says the lights were not guiding the team forward; they were learning how to keep them from going back.