The Way Out
When something is wrong, and when someone leaves. The Game has no fence, and it has no cliff either.
Say it at the table. That is the first rule and most of the time it is the last: a Cell that can hear this is not working from any member, in the open, at the weekly gathering, will mend most things itself. If the Cell is the problem, say it to your home — a body that knows your Cell, is not inside it, and can sit with both sides; it does not judge, it helps the two tables talk, and if talk fails it helps someone leave in order. If a home is the problem, its Cells say so to one another and may leave together and become each other's home. A supercell its Cells have left has ended, and that is how one ends: nobody has to fight it, they only have to go, in order, and say so on their sheets.
It is load-bearing because it is what makes the yes at the door real. Consent that cannot be withdrawn is not consent; an exit that costs a person their record, their friendships, and their name is not an exit. The Game's answer is that leaving is ordinary, recorded, and honourable.
Leaving in order is three things: say so at the table, or to a host if the table is too hard; finish or hand over what you said you would do; and let your lines stay in the record. Your name on The Circle Sheet gets left, in order and a date. Nothing is erased. You may come back, and many do. What belonged to the table stays with the table: The Offering was given freely and is not owed back. A person who leaves takes their gifts and their word, and leaves the commons whole.
And the floor beneath all of it: some seasons are hard, and a Cell may hold someone through illness, grief, or a winter with no work and count that as its Quest — and it is. Line 13 of The Season Sheet exists so a home can see grieving or thin before it sees any number, and come. When a member is in danger, in body or in mind, the Cell acts first and records later. No card is more important than the person at the table.
Also called: Leaving in order · Release with Grace Stands on: Consent · Withdrawal Of Consent · Sovereignty · The Circle Sheet Opens onto: Mend a Tension · Home Cell · Supercell · The Season Sheet · Welcome a Newcomer · Conflict Transformation In play: table · Home Sources: The Way Out, Little Book chapter (current best understanding · "the floor of care and justice; three sentences a Circle can carry") · The LIØNSBERG Playbook, §Caring (draft) · The DNA of Heaven, Part V (Fable synthesis, second draft) · lionsberg.wiki: The Way Out Open: The chapter says a Cell that cannot find a home is resting, not playing; nothing says how long a body may rest before it is no longer part of the Game, or whether that question should be asked at all.