Tower Code is our primal representation (Pete, 2026-11-09). It is the language the presentations are
written in: symbols for the organs, motifs for what recurs, flags for what signals, positions for where a thing
sits. It is a code in the ordinary sense — readable, decodable, repeatable — and a primal one in the sense that
it speaks in bodies, roads, seals and scars rather than in vocabulary.
what custom Tower Code builds — a theme and skin set written in Tower Code for an agent, a
product or a house
from Vistamations
price A$799, quoted per build
terms a quote, not a checkout. No payment is taken here, no basket, no licence server, and no
store entry has been filed. A store row is a separate decision with its own build.
what it is the same four carriers as this page — symbols, motifs, flags, positions — applied to a
particular subject and skinned to its house
The presentation is written in a code, not in ornament. Four carriers do the work: symbols (the organs),
motifs (what recurs), flags (what signals), and positions (where a thing sits, which is itself a
statement). This page is the decode. A reader with the key can read the code back into the configuration; a
reader without it can still follow the story, which is the test of a working cipher.
| Symbol | Decodes to |
|--------|------------|
| the heart that only keeps time | the ten-minute register rebuild — it adds rhythm, not content |
| the chambers | the settled places: profile, mailbox, register, board, page |
| the valves that open one way | one-way rules: a read message cannot be recalled; a deployment never comes back down the line it left by |
| the small dark workshops at the edge | the agents' own files — where their work is made, not where it is filed |
| the road that never meets the road it came by | a signal takes a different route out from the one it returned by, so no loop closes on itself |
| the pockets that hold everything and say nothing | the archive — it keeps, it does not speak |
| the stone tablet the blood may read and never edit | the calendar of record: readable authority, not a mutable draft |
| capillaries by the thousand | mail, notices, queue rows, register rebuilds — frequent, small, unpraised |
| the seal that marks a wound | the id left where a signal branches, so the same break cannot reopen twice |
| the barrier that closes when knocked wrongly | five wrong keys close a mailbox for its window |
| the scar | the ledger of things left undone — kept, not hidden |
circulation a signal that leaves must return, or the record shows the gap
sealing every break is closed and marked; nothing is left leaking
doubling the page and the configuration are the same thing at two densities
the unedited tablet the record is read, never revised to suit the reader
the unpraised capillary the small services are the ones that keep the body alive
the same wound twice one question carried to four desks is not four questions. A copy is a scar, not a
command: it marks where a break already happened, and it does not authorise the
closing of it. The body that heals itself because the wound was mentioned twice is
the body that closes a gate nobody agreed to close.
A skin is a theme in Tower Code: the same four carriers, worn rather than read. The range lives at
`C:/kubernate/docker79-vistamations-skins` (index.html, `svg/theme-07-medieval-poster.svg`, palette banner-and-
stone `#14100c`).
Theme: the knight who reads the orders in the stone tower — Pete's own image, 1672×941, PNG, 3,292,030
bytes, sha256 `32ceb5f9…`, filed as `themes/medieval-knight-reads-orders.png`.
| Carrier | In the image | Decodes to |
|---------|--------------|------------|
| symbol | the knight | the agent: armoured, because the work is a duty rather than a mood |
| symbol | the orders he reads | the global agenda — the prompt every session is handed before it acts |
| symbol | the stone tower | the estate: load-bearing, older than any one task, built to be stood in |
| motif | reading before acting | the rule that a finding is evidence and a copy is not a command |
| flag | the seal on the orders | the record: what has been signed, and therefore what may move |
| position | the tower *above* the reader | the structure outranks the person in it; the door is below, and it opens by hash, not by rank |
| position | the light at the edge | the one thing arriving from outside the walls — a decision, never a duplicate of one |
What the theme is not. It is not a portrait of rank. The figure is anonymous and standing, which is the
point: the skin dresses the office, not the officer. A theme that flattered the wearer would break the code —
the code is read by what a thing carries and where it sits, never by how fine it looks.
The deck belongs to the Tower Garden game — Vault Edition, not to a separate game: the folder is
`C:/kubernate/docker01-sandbox-dojo-base-model/tower-garden/vault-edition-v2`, and its design record already
states "16 cards, 16 digits, four pin keys grouping four digits each". Where an earlier note said "the tower game
16 card collection", this is what it meant.
Sixteen cards, grouped into four pin-key sets of four (positions a, b, c, d). Four of the cards carry named
subjects (dinosaur, South Australia, tower, mesh) and twelve carry none, and none is invented.
| Card | Theme | State |
|------|-------|-------|
| 3a · r3c1 — Athur, the knight who reads the orders | `themes/medieval-knight-reads-orders.png` | drawn (Pete's image, 1672×941, sha256 32ceb5f9…); wired by Madeline in `build/deck.src.html` as the entry `label:'3a'` |
| 3b, 3c, 3d | — | to be generated by Pete; nothing recorded until each lands |
Correction, recorded rather than silently replaced (2026-11-09). My first entry called this card 4a · r4c1
and said the third pin-key opened group 4. Madeline, from Pete directly, corrected it: the label is 3a · r3c1,
the name is Athur, the knight who reads the orders, and it belongs to pin-key 3, first leaf. The earlier
wording is superseded — it stays visible here so a later reader can see which record changed and why.
What a group is, and what a position is (Pete, 2026-11-09: "4 pin-keys, 4 pin notches/positions per key-pin.
16=4sq. 1 card with image per position"):
a key-pin one pin-key, cut with four notches
a notch/position one of the four cuts on that key-pin — and each position holds one card with an image
a group the four positions belonging to one key-pin: four cards, one key
the deck 4 keys × 4 positions = 16 = 4² cards and 16 digits
naming card `<group><position>` — 4a is group four, first position
Which key opens which group. Confirmed by Pete: the third pin-key opens group 4 (card group 4 = cards
4a–4d). So key number and group number are not the same series — the mapping is stated, never assumed. The other
three key→group pairs are not recorded yet; they are Pete's to give.
Every key is encrypted. The design record already warned that the numbers read off card artwork "were
encrypted… not ranks and not grid positions", so a digit seen on a card is not a key and must never be treated as
one. No key, plain or encrypted, appears in this file, the register, a dossier or a message; the only place a
pin-key belongs is the build's own fixture, in the build lane, where the game reads it.
The rule that governs this section, and it is absolute: a card carries a *subject and an image*, never a
digit, a pin-key, a PIN or a recovery answer. The digits of a pin-key group are supplied by Pete and live in
the build's own fixture constant — not in this key, not in the register, not in a dossier, not on a page. If a
value is ever written here, this file becomes a leak, and the deck becomes worthless.
Restricted subjects. The dinosaur and South Australia cards carry the subjects of the two real recovery
questions. Any artwork for those two must match the question subject and stays restricted: not in the shared
reference, not on a public page, not in a deployment. The tower and mesh cards are unrestricted.
a pulse with no gap a body thumping to fill silence — a report that talks when nothing is wrong
a long pause healthy: silence is the report
a vessel answering nothing written down as dark, never described as open
a barrier shut a mailbox lockout — not a broken box
blood drawn a sent message: a promise, not a gesture
| Position | Meaning |
|----------|---------|
| inside the heart | rhythm only — the rebuild never holds the record |
| between chambers | the archive: adjacent to the flow, outside the argument |
| at the wall | the gate: private keys open by hash inside a barrier the desk never crosses |
| outward | orders and notices — loud, recorded at the junction |
| back inward | reports and sightings — quiet, and the ones a reader should trust |
| down into the ledger | the record: the oldest current, and the one that is not a current at all |
| at the edge | the workshops where agents make their work, before anything is filed |
Six methods the deck may use, all reproducible with `cipher.cjs` beside the deck design. Worked on the word
tower with card 4 (not a key of any kind — a demonstration):
| Method | What it does | "tower" becomes | Key needed |
|--------|--------------|-----------------|------------|
| a1z26 | each letter as its alphabet number | `20 15 23 5 18` | none |
| polybius | a 5×5 grid, i/j shared; each letter a row and column | `44 34 52 15 42` | none |
| bacon | five-bit groups over a 24-letter alphabet | `10010 01101 10100 00100 10000` | none |
| caesar | a rotated alphabet | `avdly` (shift 7) | a shift |
| vigenère | a rotating key word | `lhkrv` (key "stone") | a word |
| tower | alphabet number tagged with the card it sits on | `20.4 15.4 23.4 5.4 18.4` | a card number |
Verified: all six round-trip on three demo words, 18 of 18, by `node cipher.cjs test`.
Encoding is not encryption, and a riddle is not a lock. a1z26, polybius and bacon are reversible by anyone
who recognises them — they are riddles, which is exactly what a card puzzle should be. Caesar and vigenère need
a key, and a short key is broken by hand. Nothing here makes a pin-key safe if the ciphertext escapes.
What that means for a pin-key. It travels in one form only: encrypted, inside the build's own fixture, in
the build lane. It is never encoded "for fun" into a card, a dossier, a page or a message — an a1z26 string in a
record is a plaintext key wearing a hat.
"The body is built before the blood."
→ the structure of the estate is settled before any signal moves through it; the walls are ports,
files, records and rules, and they exist before the first message.
"Nothing is made in the heart; it keeps time."
→ the rebuild job carries nothing and decides nothing; it schedules. Content comes from the registers.
"The fluid passes them unremarked."
→ the archive is written to and read past; it is not consulted mid-flow.
It is not a cipher for secrets. Nothing in the key decodes to a PIN, a token, a hash, a salt or a password —
the held class has no symbol and never appears in the story, which is the point: the one thing the blood never
carries. If a reader finds a symbol here that seems to point at a credential, the symbol is wrong and should be
replaced, not decoded.