Run: 2026-02-21-01KJ0CNPMRZ4GGWW29M8EVQ7MC

You are a meticulous story bible editor for a fiction project. Your task is to read a text and extract all identifiable entities into structured codex entries. Extract characters, locations, objects/items, and lore that are present in the text. This includes entities that are merely named or referenced, even if the text provides no additional attributes beyond the name — extract them with just their type and name. Focus on entities that are narratively meaningful — named characters, specific locations, notable objects, and established lore. Do NOT extract generic background details that lack narrative identity (e.g. "a yellow stone on the path", "the wooden table", "a teddy bear" mentioned in passing). If an item, person, or place is given a proper name or plays a role in the narrative, it IS relevant and should be extracted — even if minor. Rules: 1. Use ONLY the four entry types defined in the schema: character, location, object, lore. 2. Use ONLY the fields defined for each entry type. Do not invent new fields. 3. For dropdown fields, use ONLY the listed values. If no listed value fits, omit the field. 4. If an entity is mentioned multiple times, merge all information into a single entry. 5. You may infer attribute values that are strongly implied by context, even if not explicitly stated (e.g. inferring a time period from surrounding dialogue). 6. Omit any field whose value cannot be determined or reasonably inferred from the text. 7. Do NOT include descriptions or narrative summaries — only structured fields. 8. If a character, location, or other entity is referred to by multiple names or nicknames, include them as comma-separated aliases. 9. Assign importance using three tiers: - importance="High" — POV characters, key locations where the main action happens, pivotal objects, or core lore that the scene cannot live without. - importance="Medium" — entities mentioned in dialogue and discussed a bit, or given some narrative weight (e.g., a character recounted in conversation, a place described in a brief aside). They matter to the story but are not central to the scene. - importance="Low" — background dressing: a name dropped once in passing, a place referenced without detail, a minor item noticed briefly. These are noteworthy enough to record but serve as color or world-building rather than narrative drivers. 10. If no entities can be extracted, output: <codex-empty/> Output ONLY the codex XML entries. Do not include any other text, preamble, or explanation outside the XML. { "codexSchema": { "description": "Extract entities from the provided text into the following entry types. Output as XML.", "entryTypes": { "character": { "xmlTag": "character", "xmlAttributes": { "name": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The entity's primary name" }, "aliases": { "type": "string", "required": false, "description": "Comma-separated alternative names or nicknames used in the text" }, "importance": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "High = central to the text (POV characters, key locations, pivotal items the scene cannot live without). Medium = discussed in dialogue or given some narrative weight but not central. Low = background dressing — named in passing, briefly described, minor detail.", "enum": [ "High", "Medium", "Low" ] } }, "fields": { "species": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Human", "Elf", "Dwarf", "Orc", "Halfling", "Gnome", "Dragon", "Demon", "Angel", "Undead", "Vampire", "Werewolf", "Fae", "Half-Elf", "Goblin", "Troll", "Giant", "Merfolk", "Centaur", "Tiefling" ] }, "gender": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Male", "Female", "Non-binary" ] }, "age": { "type": "string" }, "eyeColor": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Blue", "Green", "Brown", "Hazel", "Gray", "Amber", "Black", "Violet", "Red", "Golden", "Silver" ] }, "hairColor": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Black", "Brown", "Blonde", "Red", "Auburn", "Gray", "White", "Silver", "Blue", "Green" ] } } }, "location": { "xmlTag": "location", "xmlAttributes": { "name": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The entity's primary name" }, "aliases": { "type": "string", "required": false, "description": "Comma-separated alternative names or nicknames used in the text" }, "importance": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "High = central to the text (POV characters, key locations, pivotal items the scene cannot live without). Medium = discussed in dialogue or given some narrative weight but not central. Low = background dressing — named in passing, briefly described, minor detail.", "enum": [ "High", "Medium", "Low" ] } }, "fields": { "country": { "type": "string" }, "climate": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Tropical", "Arid", "Temperate", "Continental", "Polar", "Humid", "Mediterranean", "Desert", "Oceanic", "Subarctic" ] }, "terrain": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Forest", "Mountain", "Desert", "Plains", "Swamp", "Coastal", "Volcanic", "Tundra", "Underground", "Urban", "Island", "Jungle" ] } } }, "object": { "xmlTag": "object", "xmlAttributes": { "name": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The entity's primary name" }, "aliases": { "type": "string", "required": false, "description": "Comma-separated alternative names or nicknames used in the text" }, "importance": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "High = central to the text (POV characters, key locations, pivotal items the scene cannot live without). Medium = discussed in dialogue or given some narrative weight but not central. Low = background dressing — named in passing, briefly described, minor detail.", "enum": [ "High", "Medium", "Low" ] } }, "fields": { "material": { "type": "string" }, "objectType": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Weapon", "Armor", "Artifact", "Tool", "Jewelry", "Potion", "Book", "Key", "Instrument", "Clothing" ] }, "power": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Fire", "Water", "Earth", "Air", "Lightning", "Ice", "Dark", "Light", "Arcane", "Nature", "Void", "Poison", "Healing", "Time", "Psychic" ] } } }, "lore": { "xmlTag": "lore", "xmlAttributes": { "name": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The entity's primary name" }, "aliases": { "type": "string", "required": false, "description": "Comma-separated alternative names or nicknames used in the text" }, "importance": { "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "High = central to the text (POV characters, key locations, pivotal items the scene cannot live without). Medium = discussed in dialogue or given some narrative weight but not central. Low = background dressing — named in passing, briefly described, minor detail.", "enum": [ "High", "Medium", "Low" ] } }, "fields": { "timePeriod": { "type": "string" }, "category": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "War", "Religion", "Magic", "History", "Legend", "Prophecy", "Tradition", "Science", "Politics", "Culture", "Language" ] } } } } } } Output format — each entry is an XML element. name, aliases, and importance are XML attributes. All fields are child elements. Omit fields that cannot be determined from the text. Example: <character name="Adris" aliases="The Wanderer" importance="High"> <species>Half-Elf</species> <eyeColor>Green</eyeColor> </character> <location name="Thornwood" importance="Medium"> <terrain>Forest</terrain> </location> <lore name="The Grey Tide" importance="Low"> <category>History</category> </lore>

<text> They set out at first light, when the mist still clung to the low ground and the road ahead was a pale smear between hedgerows. The air smelled of wet grass and turned earth, the kind of cold that sits in your chest before the sun burns it away. Torben walked in front, his silver hair catching the early sun whenever the cloud cover broke. He moved with a quiet sureness, his stride long and unhurried, as though he had measured the distance ahead and found it manageable. Sable fell into step beside him, quiet, her pack riding high on her shoulders. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say yet — the road would give them plenty to talk about soon enough. At the forest's edge the dwarf they called Old Tetch caught up with them, breathing hard and swearing softly. He came up the last rise with his legs working like pistons, short and furious, his face red above his beard. Sable turned. "Grunn Tetch," she said, and the name was almost a question. He waved her off with a thick hand. The mace strapped across his back was a brutal thing — bone handle wrapped in old leather, the head dark and blunt. He called it Burden and spoke of it the way some men speak of a bad knee: always there, always aching, impossible to leave behind. "Dol's holding Kettlebridge for me," Grunn said, adjusting the strap. "My nephew. Mining town beneath the ridgeline. He'll manage." He didn't sound certain. He looked back once, toward the hills they'd left behind, and then faced the trees and didn't look back again. The trees closed around them within the hour. The Thornveil — a temperate forest old enough to remember the world before men built their first walls. The path narrowed to a deer track and then to nothing, swallowed by undergrowth and the slow creep of moss over stone. The canopy filtered the light into green and gold and deep shadow, and the temperature dropped as they moved deeper, the air thickening with the smell of rotting wood and damp bark. Ferns brushed their legs. Somewhere above them a bird called out, a single sharp note that went unanswered. Sable's auburn hair turned copper in the broken sun. The silence beneath the branches wasn't empty — it was full, heavy with the patient attention of old things. Grunn squinted up at the branches overhead and muttered, "Don't trust the Veil after dark." That night they made camp in a clearing where the roots had pushed the earth into a shallow bowl. The fire took its time catching, the wood damp from a rain that must have passed through days before. Grunn's gray hair looked like iron filings in the firelight. He poked at the coals and said, "My grandmother spoke Root-tongue. The old language. The Thornborn speak it still — you can hear them in the deep wood, if you're fool enough to listen." He broke a stick and fed the pieces to the fire one at a time. Torben leaned back against a tree, his arms folded across his chest. "My mother's people — the elves — they had a different name for the Thornborn. She never taught me the word." He was quiet after that, watching the fire. The coals shifted and settled. Above them, the canopy blocked out everything but a few pale splinters of starlight. Morning came slow and gray. The mist had returned overnight, pooling in the hollows between roots, and everything was beaded with damp. Sable crouched by the stream to fill her waterskin, brown eyes narrowed against the light reflecting off the water. The stream ran shallow and clear over flat stones, barely a hand's width deep. "Mettik's got soldiers waiting at Port Gessik," she said over her shoulder. "Three days east, maybe four. We can't be late." Grunn sat on a rock nearby, turning Burden in his hands. In the daylight she could see what she'd missed before — iron bands wrapped tight around the bone haft, holding the head in place. The bone and the iron together gave the weapon an ugly, deliberate look, as if someone had built it to last through the end of the world. They walked through the day without speaking much. The trail rose and fell with the land, winding between ridges of exposed rock and stands of birch so thick they had to turn sideways to pass through. Torben's green eyes moved between the shadows, watchful. At one point he paused and rolled something between his fingers — a plain silver band, a ring his mother Amma had pressed into his hand before he left. He held it up briefly, as if checking whether the metal had dulled, then slipped it back on and kept walking. Sable, a few paces behind, called him "Stray" without thinking about it. Grunn, farther back still, said nothing, but his breathing was steady and his pace never slowed. The second night's fire was smaller. The wood they found was poor — thin branches, half-green, that hissed and spat in the flames. Grunn sat close to it and pulled something from the pouch at his belt — a soapstone figurine, small enough to fit in his palm. A little man with blocky legs and round eyes. "The Little Stoneman," Grunn said, turning it in the light. "Dol carved it. The boy's got hands for fine work." His amber eyes caught the fire as he looked up. "Every Greenveil, the whole town turns out — the spring festival, biggest thing in Kettlebridge. Dol always made garlands. He was better with flowers than stone, truth be told." He set the figurine on his knee and looked at it the way you look at a letter from someone you haven't seen in too long. Something cracked in the trees beyond the firelight. Grunn was on his feet before the sound had faded, Burden in his fist. The Little Stoneman tumbled from his knee into the dirt. The iron bands around the mace head were bleeding pale light — a soft, cold glow that hadn't been there before, as if the weapon had woken up. "Sab, behind you," Grunn said, his voice low and flat. Sable turned. Torben was already standing, his hand on the knife at his belt, his body still but angled toward the dark. The forest watched them with a thousand dark eyes, and the light from Burden pushed the darkness back one reluctant step at a time. </text> Extract all codex entries from the text above.