Poison Mask

Poison Mask

Slip a toxic overlay onto the target's preferred interface so repeated use starts hurting them.

What This Skill Does

Use Poison Mask when the right move is not to poison one tile on the floor but to contaminate a specific interface, workflow surface, or operating persona that the target keeps wearing. Poison Mask attaches the cost to continued contact: every repeated use of the same channel, wrapper, queue, ritual, or decision surface becomes more unpleasant, slower, riskier, or more draining. Unlike Poison Face, which punishes staying in one place, Poison Mask punishes continuing to operate through one poisoned surface. Unlike Time Bomb, it is not waiting to go off later; unlike Killer Eye, it is not there to detect passage; unlike Anti Damage, it is proactive rather than retaliatory. In this chip pack, Poison Mask is treated as a hybrid battle-chip procedure with a shipping-now delivery profile. Canonical reference input: Poison Mask. Hermes shelf: Control and Terrain.

When To Use

• The target keeps interacting through one familiar interface, wrapper, queue, role, or workflow layer that should become costly to keep using.
• You need repeated-contact attrition rather than positional denial on one fixed tile.
• The strongest move is to make an old operating surface unpleasant enough that the target removes it, abandons it, or migrates to a cleaner lane.

Prerequisites

• Name which part of this move is real tool use versus battle-chip framing before you act.
• These procedures rely on the normal tools already present in the active Hermes runtime; this repo does not ship a separate integration layer.

Operator Inputs

• Name the exact interface, queue, approval step, wrapper, role, or recurring workflow surface that should become toxic to keep using.
• Describe what ongoing cost the poison should impose: friction, exposure, delay, audit burden, nuisance, or forced migration.
• State what cleaner lane, replacement interface, or unmasked operating mode Hermes wants the target or team to move toward.
• Say how you will recognize success: reduced reuse of the poisoned surface, migration to the cleaner route, or explicit retirement of the masked layer.

Procedure

1. Restate the target, success condition, and no-touch boundaries before you spend the chip.
2. Collect the operator inputs below so the chip lands on the right panel.
3. Name the exact interface, procedural layer, or persona the target keeps wearing.
4. Define what each continued touch, pass, or use should cost and what clean alternative Hermes wants to make relatively more attractive.
5. Apply the toxic overlay, then direct operators toward the unmasked route, replacement surface, or cleanse condition.
6. Package the result with concrete evidence, what stayed untouched, and the next recommended chip only if follow-up is truly needed.

Deliverables

• One contaminated interface, wrapper, or workflow surface whose repeated use now carries a named cost.
• A short note describing the clean alternative, unmask path, or migration lane that becomes preferable.

Output Contract

• One clearly named contaminated interface or workflow surface with a defined cost attached to repeated use.
• An explanation of how the poison punishes continued contact rather than one-time crossing or delayed detonation.
• A clear unmask path, replacement route, or clean operating surface the operator can move toward immediately.
• Scope limited to one bounded interaction surface, not a vague whole-environment malaise.

Do Not Use For

• Static positional denial where the real issue is one lane, tile, or camping spot; use Poison Face.
• Field hazards meant to make ground itself painful to occupy across a larger area; use Lava Stage or another terrain chip.
• Monitors that only need to notice when something crosses a line; that is Killer Eye.
• Delayed punishments that should wait for a timer or checkpoint; that is Time Bomb.
• Reactive counters that must fire only after the next incoming hostile event; that is Anti Damage.

Pair With

• Poison Mask + Panel Grab: contaminate the old interface, then claim the one cleaner lane operators should use instead.
• Poison Mask + Area Grab: make the incumbent workflow surface less wearable, then reclaim a broader replacement operating space.
• Poison Mask + Air Shoes: hover over the contaminated legacy surface long enough to map the clean route out without stepping fully back into it.
• Poison Mask + Poison Face: poison the preferred interface with the mask and poison the fallback resting spot with the face so both continued use and comfortable idling become costly.

Pitfalls / Guardrails

• Keep the theatrical framing, but name the concrete mechanism that makes the chip useful right now.
• Poison Mask must attach cost to continued use of a named surface; if you are really poisoning a location, use Poison Face instead.
• Do not poison an interface without naming the clean alternative or the condition for removing the mask.
• If the surface is used equally by allies and opponents and you cannot separate the harm, the mask is badly placed.
• Keep the chip metaphor anchored to a real operating move; do not let flavor substitute for procedure.

Verification

• Check that the response includes every promised deliverable and leaves an inspectable audit trail.
• Check that confirmed facts, assumptions, and proposed follow-up are visibly separated.
• Confirm the poison is attached to repeated use of a named interface, wrapper, or workflow surface rather than to mere presence on one tile.
• Confirm the response names the cleaner alternative or unmask path so the mask drives migration instead of pure confusion.
• Confirm the draft is proactive ongoing attrition, not a timer-based payload, threshold detector, or hit-triggered counter.
• Check which parts are concrete actions versus framing, so the operator can tell what is real now.

Example Invocation

Use Poison Mask on this legacy approval flow: make repeated use of the old surface increasingly costly, name the clean replacement path, and tell me how we'll know the team stopped wearing the old mask.
Use Poison Mask here to contaminate one stale interface the operator keeps falling back to, so continued use hurts enough to force migration without pretending this is a bomb or a tripwire.