The Guild's classification investigation took four days.
Not because the evidence was complex—it was the clearest challenge circuit finding the Zone Desk had received in living memory. Verath's document was specific, detailed, and unambiguous. Multi-path expression candidate. Classification review required. The problem was not the evidence. The problem was that the Guild's classification framework, which had been built over two hundred years of cataloguing single-path hunters, had no procedure for what to do when a challenge circuit found something it had no category for.
The oversight board could not convene without Archive approval. The Archive had not given approval. The Zone Desk's charter required an investigation when a challenge circuit returned a multi-path notation. Thornwood had standing as historical documentation resource. Aldric had standing as initiating classification party. The Archive had claimed jurisdictional authority over the process itself.
