From 6e3483c1e70004e447ec91105564b480d25ba8f3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sam <samuv.eth@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2026 16:22:57 +0700
Subject: [PATCH] the loading tip draws, its backdrop holds, and indoor trails
 go warm
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

- the loading screen's tip of the day is on screen: it was picked and saved but never painted, and once painted it was wiped by the login round trip (2083, 2081)
- the backdrop no longer switches mid-load — logging back in to an expired dungeon held its art for a second and then flipped to the continent's; the art latches at the raise, keyed on the texture, not the map id (2081, 2087)
- a weapon trail indoors takes the room's warm light instead of the sky's ambient, the wearer's own light being the reference's term (2086)
- the glue dialog moves out of the login screen into the shared glue layer, so the select screen's refusals and the login's errors are one widget (2084)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 crates/benilla-app/src/capture/fixtures.rs   |   8 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/capture/scenarios.rs  |  20 +
 crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/input.rs  |   2 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/mod.rs    |  20 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/screen.rs |   7 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/game_tip.rs           | 346 ++++++++---
 crates/benilla-app/src/glue/dialog.rs        | 579 +++++++++++++++++++
 crates/benilla-app/src/glue/mod.rs           |   9 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/loading_screen.rs     | 341 +++++++++--
 crates/benilla-app/src/login/mod.rs          | 532 ++++++-----------
 crates/benilla-app/src/login/screen.rs       | 183 +-----
 crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail.rs       |  51 +-
 crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail/tests.rs |  84 +++
 crates/benilla-app/tests/world_api_wall.rs   |  12 +-
 crates/benilla-world/src/interior.rs         |  30 +-
 15 files changed, 1504 insertions(+), 720 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 crates/benilla-app/src/glue/dialog.rs

diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/fixtures.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/fixtures.rs
index 67efc141..8da8c7a4 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/fixtures.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/fixtures.rs
@@ -51,10 +51,11 @@ pub(super) fn seed_ui_fixture(
     mut selection: ResMut<crate::target::Selection>,
     mut player: ResMut<crate::player::Player>,
     // Bundled: Bevy systems cap at 16 top-level params — a nested tuple is one param.
-    (mut actions, mut bank, mut exit): (
+    (mut actions, mut bank, mut exit, mut loading): (
         ResMut<crate::ui_action::PlayerActions>,
         ResMut<crate::ui_bank::BankOpen>,
         MessageWriter<AppExit>,
+        ResMut<crate::loading_screen::LoadingScreen>,
     ),
 ) {
     // A glue-screen capture has no world scenario, and no glue screen opens a UI fixture.
@@ -156,6 +157,11 @@ pub(super) fn seed_ui_fixture(
         // IS the fixture. The `script.is_none()` refusal above still guards it: these scenarios
         // photograph the player UI, so a run without a VM is as wrong for them as for any other.
         UiFixture::Bare => {}
+        // The one fixture that opens no window: it raises the world-entry loading screen over the
+        // settled scene and pins it there, tip and all. `hold_for_capture` sets the `Pick` edge;
+        // `crate::game_tip::drive_game_tip` paints it on the next frame, and the stability watch
+        // settles on the held image.
+        UiFixture::LoadingTip => loading.hold_for_capture(scenario.map),
         UiFixture::Merchant => {
             names.insert_creature(
                 NPC_ENTRY,
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/scenarios.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/scenarios.rs
index 619510ea..3060863e 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/scenarios.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/capture/scenarios.rs
@@ -79,6 +79,15 @@ pub(super) enum UiFixture {
     /// render): slot icons, the attribute/resistance panes with buff coloring, melee + ranged
     /// blocks, the ammo count, the level line.
     Character,
+    /// **The loading screen, held up, with the tip of the day on it** (decision 2083).
+    ///
+    /// Not a window: it raises the world-entry loading screen — per-map backdrop, progress bar,
+    /// and the `TipEdge::Pick` that chooses a `GameTips.dbc` row — and pins it so the harness has
+    /// a still frame to settle on. Every other screen in the client can be photographed by
+    /// standing in front of it; this one is up for a second on a path nobody can pause, which is
+    /// exactly why its tip could ship dead, log `tip 0 of 74` twice in a live smoke run, and be
+    /// caught by nothing at all.
+    LoadingTip,
     /// The shared **StaticPopup** plate, shown as the group-invite dialog (`PARTY_INVITE`).
     ///
     /// Every other StaticPopup customer in the tree raises its dialog over another window's opaque
@@ -1042,6 +1051,17 @@ pub(super) const ON_DEMAND: &[Scenario] = &[
         minute: 720,
         ui: Some(UiFixture::Social),
     },
+    // The world-entry loading screen, held up with its tip of the day. Run with
+    // `WOW_CAPTURE=loading-tip`. The backdrop is whatever `Map.dbc` → `LoadingScreens.dbc` gives
+    // this scenario's map, so it photographs the art chain and the bar as well as the tip.
+    Scenario {
+        name: "loading-tip",
+        map: Some(MAP_AZEROTH),
+        eye: GROUND_EYE,
+        look: GROUND_LOOK,
+        minute: 720,
+        ui: Some(UiFixture::LoadingTip),
+    },
     // The era Options window over the ground scene. Run with
     // `WOW_CAPTURE=ui-options`.
     Scenario {
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/input.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/input.rs
index 76d8241a..dbc2c763 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/input.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/input.rs
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ pub(super) fn select_input(
     mut next: ResMut<NextState<ClientState>>,
     mut sounds: MessageWriter<GlueSound>,
     mut intent: ResMut<crate::login::LoginIntent>,
-    glue_dialog: Res<crate::login::LoginDialog>,
+    glue_dialog: Res<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>,
     time: Res<Time>,
     mut last_click: Local<Option<(usize, f32)>>,
 ) {
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/mod.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/mod.rs
index 9bf55ebd..f1cb6463 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/mod.rs
@@ -132,12 +132,12 @@ impl Plugin for CharSelectPlugin {
                         input::rotate_model,
                         debug_select_dialog,
                         dialog::drive_delete_dialog,
-                        // The shared glue dialog (`crate::login::drive_dialog`) — the reference's
-                        // one `GlueDialog`, which on this screen carries the refused character
-                        // login. Its home is the login module only because that is where it was
-                        // first needed; the widget is the glue layer's, and the two screens run
-                        // the same instance of it rather than each keeping a copy.
-                        crate::login::drive_dialog,
+                        // The reference's one `GlueDialog` (`crate::glue::dialog`), which on this
+                        // screen carries the refused character login. Both glue screens run the
+                        // same system over the same resource; what a press *means* is answered
+                        // per-screen, and an `Error` — the only kind reachable here — needs no
+                        // answer at all.
+                        crate::glue::dialog::drive_glue_dialog,
                         // Before the list refresh, and before `select_input` reads a click that
                         // landed on the panel rather than the screen (decision 1196).
                         debug_select_addons,
@@ -608,7 +608,7 @@ fn back_on_login_refused(
     mut msgs: MessageReader<CharacterLoginFailedMessage>,
     mut roster: ResMut<Roster>,
     mut next: ResMut<NextState<ClientState>>,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<crate::login::LoginDialog>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>,
     strings: Option<Res<GlueStrings>>,
 ) {
     let Some(msg) = msgs.read().last().copied() else {
@@ -1248,7 +1248,7 @@ mod tests {
             .init_resource::<crate::ui_script::UiKeyboardCapture>()
             .add_message::<EnteredWorldMessage>()
             .add_message::<CharacterLoginFailedMessage>()
-            .init_resource::<crate::login::LoginDialog>()
+            .init_resource::<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>()
             .add_systems(Update, (enter_on_connected, back_on_login_refused).chain());
         app.world_mut().resource_mut::<Roster>().pending_pick = Some(7);
 
@@ -1276,7 +1276,9 @@ mod tests {
         // And the player is told. No GlueStrings in this App, so this is the fallback literal —
         // the shipped sentence for vmangos's `1` is asserted against the real chain below.
         assert_eq!(
-            app.world().resource::<crate::login::LoginDialog>().text,
+            app.world()
+                .resource::<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>()
+                .text,
             "World server is down",
             "a refusal the player cannot see is the bug this whole path exists to end",
         );
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/screen.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/screen.rs
index 2c219c7c..c572a213 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/screen.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/char_select/screen.rs
@@ -657,7 +657,7 @@ pub(super) fn exit_select(
     roots: Query<Entity, With<CharSelectUi>>,
     mut preview: ResMut<GluePreview>,
     mut dialog: ResMut<super::dialog::DeleteDialog>,
-    mut glue_dialog: ResMut<crate::login::LoginDialog>,
+    mut glue_dialog: ResMut<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>,
 ) {
     for e in &roots {
         commands.entity(e).despawn();
@@ -672,8 +672,5 @@ pub(super) fn exit_select(
     // `exit_login` closes it on the same edge for the same reason. The tree goes with it **here**
     // rather than being left to the driver: the driver runs on the glue screens only, so on the
     // edges out of the glue layer there would be nobody left to despawn the root.
-    if let Some(root) = glue_dialog.root.take() {
-        commands.entity(root).despawn();
-    }
-    glue_dialog.close();
+    glue_dialog.dismiss(&mut commands);
 }
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/game_tip.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/game_tip.rs
index 68135e64..824cf5f9 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/game_tip.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/game_tip.rs
@@ -28,7 +28,15 @@
 //! **Only on the glue→world transition.** The setter `0x406630` (a seven-byte
 //! `mov [0x882e10],ecx; ret`) has exactly one caller, and neither `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING` arm sets
 //! it — so an in-world portal or worldport screen carries **no tip**. That is why this module hangs
-//! off the loading screen's `world entry` raise and clears on every other one.
+//! off the loading screen's `world entry` raise.
+//!
+//! **It comes down with the screen, never with a raise.** `[0x882e10]`'s only other writer
+//! image-wide is `0x407f2b`, inside the dismiss `0x407e80` — so the two edges are *pick at the
+//! entry raise* and *clear at the dismiss*, and nothing that happens mid-load can take a tip away.
+//! This module used to clear on every non-entry raise, which read the same for an in-world screen
+//! (the tip was already down) and was wrong for exactly one case: the login snap
+//! `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD`, which benilla was treating as a fresh load, wiped the tip a server
+//! round-trip into **every** world entry.
 //!
 //! The reference lays the text out **once per raise** and draws it every frame, between the
 //! background quad and the progress bar. Its placement, in the screen's own `[0,1]` ortho:
@@ -37,14 +45,28 @@
 //! at 16:9); position `(0.5 − s·0.5, 0.1 + yoff, 0)`; `justifyH = 0` (left); wrap width `s`; body
 //! `0xd7c8c8c8` ARGB with an opaque black shadow at `(+0.001, −0.001)`.
 //!
-//! **`yoff` is `(1 − a)·0.5` and we do not apply it, on purpose.** wow-re left that term
-//! *unreconciled*: `0x406a60` already applies the letterbox as a viewport, and `yoff` is
-//! bit-for-bit the same `(1 − a)·0.5` added again inside it, which may double-count on a display
-//! narrower than 4:3. benilla's loading screen is a **4:3 content box by construction** (the root
-//! letterboxes and the area is `100vh × 4/3`), and at 4:3 the reference's own `yoff` is exactly
-//! zero — so placing the tip in that box at `y = 0.1` is the reference's layout on the one aspect
-//! where the ambiguity cannot bite. If wow-re settles the term differently the fix is this comment
-//! and one constant.
+//! **Placing it in the 4:3 box is not an approximation of that — it is the same numbers.** The
+//! reference's `[0,1]` ortho spans the whole window, so its `s` and `left` both carry `a`; ours are
+//! percentages of a box that is `H` tall and `4H/3` wide. Multiply them out and the `a` cancels:
+//!
+//! ```text
+//! ref wrap  = s·W          = 515·W / (a·1024)          = 515·H / (1024·0.75) = 0.6706·H
+//! our wrap  = s₁·(4H/3)    = (515/1024)·(4H/3)                               = 0.6706·H
+//! ref left  = (0.5 − s/2)·W                                   = 0.5·W − 0.3353·H
+//! our left  = (W − 4H/3)/2 + (0.5 − s₁/2)·(4H/3)              = 0.5·W − 0.3353·H
+//! ```
+//!
+//! …for **every** aspect, not just 4:3 — the reference's own wrap column is a constant multiple of
+//! the window HEIGHT, which is exactly what a height-fit letterboxed box makes it. And `yoff` is
+//! settled rather than dodged: `0x4066b9`'s `fcom; fnstsw; test ah,5; jp` takes the `(1 − a)·0.5`
+//! arm **only for `a < 1`**, so on any window at least 4:3 wide the term is zero and the two
+//! layouts agree bit for bit. Narrower than 4:3 they part — but so does the whole loading screen
+//! there (our box overflows where the reference letterboxes top and bottom), and that is the
+//! screen's difference to answer, not the tip's.
+//!
+//! `TIP_BOTTOM`'s `0.1` is not a round number either: `0x4066ee` builds it as `0.05·0.5 + 0.075`,
+//! which is the bar border's own `halfH·0.5 + cy` — **the tip's baseline IS the top edge of the
+//! progress bar**, so the block always sits directly on it.
 //!
 //! The `|cffffd100Tip:|r ` prefix and the trailing `\r\n` are **in the DBC data**, and the escapes
 //! *are* interpreted (`0x5c28af`, flags bit `0x800` clear), so the gold "Tip:" is markup rather
@@ -69,7 +91,13 @@ const TIP_SCALE: f32 = 515.0 / 1024.0;
 /// just above the progress bar's `cy = 0.075`.
 const TIP_BOTTOM: f32 = 0.1;
 
-/// `0.018 · [0x832a48]` — the font height as a fraction of the viewport height.
+/// **The font height is 1.8 % of the viewport HEIGHT**, and the `[0x832a48]` in `0x406659`'s
+/// `0.018 · [0x832a48]` is the unit conversion, not part of the number. `0x41ad10` writes that
+/// slot as `1/√(x²+1)` and its neighbour `[0x832a44]` as `x/√(x²+1)` — height/diagonal and
+/// width/diagonal, i.e. the pair that turns a height- or width-fraction into the diagonal-
+/// normalized units `0x44d040` and the placement round trip both work in (`0x41ae70 = x·[832a48]`
+/// beside `0x41ae60 = x·[832a44]`). Reading the 0.6 the shipped `.data` holds as a factor to apply
+/// would shrink the line to five-eighths of the reference's.
 const TIP_FONT_FRACTION: f32 = 0.018;
 
 /// The body colour `0xd7c8c8c8` (ARGB) and its shadow offset, in the same `[0,1]` space.
@@ -213,6 +241,30 @@ pub(crate) const fn base_color() -> Color {
     TIP_COLOR
 }
 
+/// **The tip node's components, in one place.** The loading screen spawns this under its 4:3
+/// content box; [`drive_game_tip`] queries it back. They were written twice — the tuple in
+/// `loading_screen.rs`, the query here — with nothing tying the two together.
+pub(crate) fn tip_bundle() -> impl Bundle {
+    (
+        Text::new(String::new()),
+        TextLayout {
+            linebreak: LineBreak::WordBoundary,
+            justify: Justify::Left,
+        },
+        TextFont::default(),
+        TextColor(TIP_COLOR),
+        TextShadow::default(),
+        Node {
+            position_type: PositionType::Absolute,
+            left: Val::Percent(0.0),
+            bottom: Val::Percent(0.0),
+            width: Val::Percent(0.0),
+            ..default()
+        },
+        Visibility::Hidden,
+    )
+}
+
 pub(crate) struct GameTipPlugin;
 
 impl Plugin for GameTipPlugin {
@@ -262,79 +314,91 @@ fn drive_game_tip(
     script: Option<NonSendMut<benilla_ui::script::UiScript>>,
     mut persist: ResMut<crate::cvars::CvarPersist>,
 ) {
-    if let Some(edge) = screen.take_tip_edge() {
-        let next = match edge {
-            crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Pick => raise(
-                &mut tips,
-                setting.show,
-                roster
-                    .as_ref()
-                    .is_some_and(|r| r.pending_level() == Some(0)),
-                setting.next,
-            ),
-            crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Clear => {
-                clear(&mut tips);
-                None
-            }
-        };
-        if let Some(next) = next {
-            // The cursor moves only when a tip was actually shown — a suppressed tip freezes it.
-            setting.next = i64::from(next);
-            if let Some(mut script) = script {
-                crate::cvars::write_host_cvar(
-                    &mut script,
-                    &mut persist,
-                    "gameTip",
-                    &next.to_string(),
-                );
-            }
-            // The run's own evidence: which row this screen carries and where the cursor lands.
-            // A tip is a picture on a screen that is up for a second, so "did it pick one" is a
-            // question for a log line, not for a capture.
-            info!("loading screen: tip {} of {}", next - 1, tips.catalog.len());
+    let Some(edge) = screen.take_tip_edge() else {
+        return;
+    };
+    let next = match edge {
+        crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Pick => raise(
+            &mut tips,
+            setting.show,
+            roster
+                .as_ref()
+                .is_some_and(|r| r.pending_level() == Some(0)),
+            setting.next,
+        ),
+        crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Clear => {
+            clear(&mut tips);
+            None
         }
-        // The text is laid out once per raise, not per frame, exactly as the reference does.
-        let Ok((entity, mut n, mut font, mut shadow, mut vis)) = node.single_mut() else {
-            return;
-        };
-        let Some(tip) = tips.shown() else {
-            *vis = Visibility::Hidden;
-            commands.entity(entity).despawn_related::<Children>();
-            return;
-        };
-        // The 4:3 content box is `100vh` tall and `100vh · 4/3` wide, so the window's height is the
-        // box's height and the box's width follows from it.
-        let height = windows.iter().next().map_or(768.0, |w| w.height());
-        let l = layout(height * 4.0 / 3.0, height);
-        let (left, bottom, width) = geometry();
-        n.left = Val::Percent(left);
-        n.bottom = Val::Percent(bottom);
-        n.width = Val::Percent(width);
-        font.font = crate::char_select::wow_font(&assets);
-        font.font_size = l.font_size;
-        shadow.offset = l.shadow;
-        shadow.color = Color::BLACK;
-        *vis = Visibility::Inherited;
+    };
+    if let Some(next) = next {
+        // The cursor moves only when a tip was actually shown — a suppressed tip freezes it. This
+        // is `EnterWorld`'s own bookkeeping and belongs to the PICK, not to the draw: it stands
+        // even on a frame the paint below cannot complete.
+        setting.next = i64::from(next);
+        if let Some(mut script) = script {
+            crate::cvars::write_host_cvar(&mut script, &mut persist, "gameTip", &next.to_string());
+        }
+    }
 
-        // The coloured runs: the first is the `Text` root's own, the rest are `TextSpan` children.
-        let runs = spans(tip, base_color());
-        let mut e = commands.entity(entity);
-        e.despawn_related::<Children>();
-        match runs.split_first() {
-            Some(((head, head_color), rest)) => {
-                e.insert((Text::new(head.clone()), TextColor(*head_color)));
-                let (rest, tf) = (rest.to_vec(), font.clone());
-                e.with_children(|c| {
-                    for (text, color) in rest {
-                        c.spawn((TextSpan::new(text), tf.clone(), TextColor(color)));
-                    }
-                });
-            }
-            None => {
-                e.insert(Text::new(String::new()));
-                *vis = Visibility::Hidden;
-            }
+    // The text is laid out once per raise, not per frame, exactly as the reference does.
+    let Ok((entity, mut n, mut font, mut shadow, mut vis)) = node.single_mut() else {
+        // Our own `setup_loading_screen` spawns this node, so a miss is a STRUCTURAL bug — the
+        // bundle no longer answering the shape of this query — and never a state a run can
+        // legitimately be in. It was a silent `return` for one release, and it cost the whole
+        // feature while every other instrument read green (decision 2083).
+        warn!("loading screen: the tip node is missing — no tip can draw");
+        return;
+    };
+    let Some(tip) = tips.shown() else {
+        *vis = Visibility::Hidden;
+        commands.entity(entity).despawn_related::<Children>();
+        return;
+    };
+    // The 4:3 content box is `100vh` tall and `100vh · 4/3` wide, so the window's height is the
+    // box's height and the box's width follows from it.
+    let height = windows.iter().next().map_or(768.0, |w| w.height());
+    let l = layout(height * 4.0 / 3.0, height);
+    let (left, bottom, width) = geometry();
+    n.left = Val::Percent(left);
+    n.bottom = Val::Percent(bottom);
+    n.width = Val::Percent(width);
+    font.font = crate::char_select::wow_font(&assets);
+    font.font_size = l.font_size;
+    shadow.offset = l.shadow;
+    shadow.color = Color::BLACK;
+    *vis = Visibility::Inherited;
+
+    // The coloured runs: the first is the `Text` root's own, the rest are `TextSpan` children.
+    let runs = spans(tip, base_color());
+    let painted = !runs.is_empty();
+    let mut e = commands.entity(entity);
+    e.despawn_related::<Children>();
+    match runs.split_first() {
+        Some(((head, head_color), rest)) => {
+            e.insert((Text::new(head.clone()), TextColor(*head_color)));
+            let (rest, tf) = (rest.to_vec(), font.clone());
+            e.with_children(|c| {
+                for (text, color) in rest {
+                    c.spawn((TextSpan::new(text), tf.clone(), TextColor(color)));
+                }
+            });
         }
+        None => {
+            e.insert(Text::new(String::new()));
+            *vis = Visibility::Hidden;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // The run's own evidence — and it sits HERE, past the query, the layout and the runs, because
+    // the line it replaces sat in front of all three: it reported a row picked over a screen that
+    // drew nothing, and a live smoke run printed it twice while the feature was entirely dead.
+    if let (Some(next), true) = (next, painted) {
+        info!(
+            "loading screen: tip {} of {} on screen",
+            next - 1,
+            tips.catalog.len()
+        );
     }
 }
 
@@ -380,7 +444,7 @@ pub(crate) fn raise(
     }
 }
 
-/// Every other raise — an in-world portal or worldport — carries no tip.
+/// The dismiss (`0x407f2b`, inside `0x407e80`) — the only thing that takes a tip down.
 pub(crate) fn clear(tips: &mut GameTips) {
     tips.shown = None;
 }
@@ -484,4 +548,124 @@ mod tests {
             "0.018 of the box height"
         );
     }
+
+    /// An app holding the real node and the real system, one tip in the table.
+    fn tip_app() -> (App, Entity) {
+        let mut app = App::new();
+        app.add_plugins((MinimalPlugins, bevy::asset::AssetPlugin::default()));
+        app.init_asset::<bevy::text::Font>();
+        app.init_resource::<crate::cvars::CvarPersist>();
+        app.init_resource::<GameTipSetting>();
+        app.insert_resource(GameTips {
+            catalog: GameTipsCatalog::from_tips(vec![
+                "|cffffd100Tip:|r Talk to the innkeeper.\r\n".to_string(),
+            ]),
+            shown: None,
+        });
+        app.init_resource::<crate::loading_screen::LoadingScreen>();
+        let tip = app
+            .world_mut()
+            .spawn((crate::loading_screen::LoadingTip, tip_bundle()))
+            .id();
+        app.add_systems(Update, drive_game_tip);
+        (app, tip)
+    }
+
+    fn set_edge(app: &mut App, edge: crate::loading_screen::TipEdge) {
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<crate::loading_screen::LoadingScreen>()
+            .tip_edge = Some(edge);
+    }
+
+    /// **The tip has to reach the node, and only a run of the real system can say that.** Every
+    /// pure-function test here covers the *pick* — and the pick is exactly the half that worked: it
+    /// advanced the cursor, wrote `gameTip`, and logged "tip N of 74" over a screen that drew
+    /// nothing, because the spawned bundle was one component short of what [`drive_game_tip`]'s
+    /// query asks for and the missed `single_mut()` returned in silence. So this drives the
+    /// system over the bundle the loading screen actually spawns and looks at the glass end.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_pick_paints_the_node_the_loading_screen_spawns() {
+        let (mut app, tip) = tip_app();
+        set_edge(&mut app, crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Pick);
+        app.update();
+
+        let w = app.world();
+        assert_eq!(
+            w.get::<Visibility>(tip),
+            Some(&Visibility::Inherited),
+            "the tip node never came out of hiding"
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            w.get::<Text>(tip).map(|t| t.0.as_str()),
+            Some("Tip:"),
+            "the gold prefix is the root run"
+        );
+        let kids = w
+            .get::<Children>(tip)
+            .expect("the body sentence is a TextSpan child");
+        assert_eq!(kids.len(), 1, "one run after the prefix");
+        assert_eq!(
+            w.get::<TextSpan>(kids[0]).map(|t| t.0.as_str()),
+            Some(" Talk to the innkeeper.")
+        );
+        // …and the geometry the paint writes, which is what puts it above the bar rather than at
+        // the box's corner where the bundle leaves it.
+        let node = w.get::<Node>(tip).expect("Node");
+        assert_eq!(node.bottom, Val::Percent(geometry().1));
+        assert_eq!(node.width, Val::Percent(geometry().2));
+        assert!(
+            w.get::<TextFont>(tip).is_some_and(|f| f.font_size > 0.0),
+            "the font height is resolved from the window"
+        );
+        // The cursor moved with it: `gameTip` holds the NEXT row.
+        assert_eq!(w.resource::<GameTipSetting>().next, 1);
+    }
+
+    /// **A tip outlives every raise and dies with the screen** — [`crate::loading_screen`]'s law
+    /// (decision 2081), seen from the painting end. That module's own test asserts which *edges*
+    /// the state machine emits; this one asserts what the painter does with them, and the case that
+    /// matters is the one with no edge at all: a raise landing on a live screen must leave the line
+    /// exactly where it is, same text and same cursor. Between them the two cover the login snap
+    /// that used to wipe the tip a server round-trip into every world entry.
+    #[test]
+    fn the_tip_outlives_a_second_raise_and_dies_with_the_screen() {
+        let (mut app, tip) = tip_app();
+        set_edge(&mut app, crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Pick);
+        app.update();
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world().get::<Visibility>(tip),
+            Some(&Visibility::Inherited)
+        );
+
+        // The destination snap: `drive_loading_screen` raises again and sets NO edge.
+        app.update();
+        app.update();
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world().get::<Visibility>(tip),
+            Some(&Visibility::Inherited),
+            "a raise with no edge must leave the line where it is"
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world().get::<Text>(tip).map(|t| t.0.as_str()),
+            Some("Tip:")
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world().resource::<GameTipSetting>().next,
+            1,
+            "and it must not re-pick: one screen, one row"
+        );
+
+        // The dismiss.
+        set_edge(&mut app, crate::loading_screen::TipEdge::Clear);
+        app.update();
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world().get::<Visibility>(tip),
+            Some(&Visibility::Hidden),
+            "the pending tip dies with the screen"
+        );
+        assert!(app
+            .world()
+            .get::<Children>(tip)
+            .is_none_or(|c| c.is_empty()));
+    }
 }
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/dialog.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/dialog.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..efb51f99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/dialog.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,579 @@
+//! **The glue layer's one dialog** — the reference's shared `GlueDialog`.
+//!
+//! `GlueDialog.xml` is a `GlueParent` child, not a screen: `GlueDialog_Show` texts it, sizes it to
+//! its content and `Show()`s it over whichever glue screen happens to be up, and every screen
+//! raises the same frame through `OPEN_STATUS_DIALOG`. The realm list is built the same way and
+//! for the same reason (2072).
+//!
+//! Ours lived inside [`crate::login`] until 2084, because the login screen was the only thing that
+//! had ever needed one. That stopped being true when a refused *character* login had to be said on
+//! the select screen (2071): the choice was a second copy of the widget over there, or this — the
+//! move `crate::glue`'s own charter asks for, so "what the screens share" cannot fork.
+//!
+//! **The split, and where the line is.** This module owns the *widget*: the tree, the text, the
+//! spawn/despawn, which key answers which button, the click sound. It does not own what a press
+//! *means* — a realmlist Okay that refuses a bad address and stays open, a status Cancel that
+//! abandons a login attempt in flight. Those belong to the screen that opened the dialog, so a
+//! press is published as [`GlueDialogAnswer`] and answered by [`crate::login::answer_dialog`].
+//! The one exception is [`DialogKind::Error`], whose entire behaviour is "say a thing, and its
+//! Okay dismisses it" — [`drive_glue_dialog`] ends those itself, which is what lets a screen raise
+//! one without also writing its ending.
+//!
+//! [`drive_glue_dialog`] runs inside **each screen's own chain** rather than being hoisted out
+//! with a `before`/`after` pair. That is not a style choice: the shared painters
+//! ([`crate::glue::art_swaps`] and friends) sit in those chains, and ordering this both after a
+//! screen's input and before those painters from outside makes a painter transitively ordered
+//! against its own `SystemTypeSet`, which Bevy rejects at schedule build. It panics at boot, and
+//! no unit test can see it (2071).
+
+use bevy::prelude::*;
+
+use benilla_ui::widget::EditBoxState;
+
+use crate::glue::art::{GlueArt, GOLD};
+use crate::glue::backdrop::{backdrop_border, tiled_bg_node};
+use crate::glue::widgets::{
+    glue_button, glue_edit_box, outlined_text_centered, overlay, paint_glue_field, GlueBtnKind,
+    GlueFieldPart, GlueText,
+};
+use crate::glue_strings::GlueStrings;
+use crate::sound::GlueSound;
+
+use crate::char_select::wow_font;
+
+/// `DEFAULT_TOOLTIP_COLOR` (AccountLogin.lua): the edit box's backdrop tint (border rgb, bg rgb) —
+/// the login screen's own boxes, so the realmlist editor matches the two behind it.
+const BOX_BORDER: Color = Color::srgb(0.8, 0.8, 0.8);
+const BOX_FILL: Color = Color::srgb(0.09, 0.09, 0.09);
+
+/// The dialog's two buttons — the ref's `GlueDialogButton1`/`GlueDialogButton2`. Its own
+/// component rather than a variant of any screen's action enum: the buttons belong to the widget,
+/// and the widget belongs to no screen.
+#[derive(Component, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
+pub(crate) enum GlueDialogAction {
+    /// The affirmative one — Cancel on the status dialog, Okay on the others.
+    Button1,
+    /// The second, on the kinds that declare one (Cancel on the realmlist editor).
+    Button2,
+}
+
+/// A button was pressed on the dialog, for the screen that opened it to answer. Carries both
+/// flags rather than one enum because the realmlist editor's ESCAPE answers *button 2*, and
+/// nothing but the kind's own table knows that.
+#[derive(Message, Clone, Copy)]
+pub(crate) struct GlueDialogAnswer {
+    pub(crate) kind: DialogKind,
+    pub(crate) button1: bool,
+    pub(crate) button2: bool,
+}
+
+/// Which dialog is up: the connecting status (Cancel button, text driven by the stages), an
+/// error (Okay button), or the realmlist editor (Okay + Cancel over an edit box).
+#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
+pub(crate) enum DialogKind {
+    Status,
+    Error,
+    /// **Queued for a full realm** (decision 1681). The reference has no queue dialog *type*: it
+    /// opens the ordinary `CANCEL` status dialog and re-texts it every frame, relabelling the one
+    /// button to `CHANGE_REALM`. This is that, as a kind — the relabel is the only thing that
+    /// distinguishes it from [`Self::Status`], and a kind is how this screen spells "different
+    /// button caption".
+    Queued,
+    /// The realmlist editor (decision 1667) — the reference's `GlueDialog` `hasEditBox` shape,
+    /// which is how the shipped dialog asks for a typed value (`GlueDialog.lua`: it shows
+    /// `GlueDialogEditBox` and re-heights the box to
+    /// `16 + text + 8 + editbox + 8 + button + 16`). The reference never opens this particular
+    /// dialog — it has no realmlist UI at all — but the widget is its own.
+    Realmlist,
+}
+
+impl DialogKind {
+    /// Whether this dialog carries the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` (its `hasEditBox` flag).
+    pub(crate) fn has_edit_box(self) -> bool {
+        matches!(self, DialogKind::Realmlist)
+    }
+
+    /// `(button1, button2)` captions — `GlueDialogTypes`' own two fields. A `None` second button
+    /// is the ref's centred single-button layout; `Some` is its BOTTOMRIGHT/LEFT pair.
+    pub(crate) fn buttons(self, strings: &GlueStrings) -> (&str, Option<&str>) {
+        match self {
+            DialogKind::Status => (strings.text("CANCEL", "Cancel"), None),
+            // The reference's own relabel: leaving a queue is "Change Realm", not "Cancel".
+            DialogKind::Queued => (strings.text("CHANGE_REALM", "Change Realm"), None),
+            DialogKind::Error => (strings.text("OKAY", "Okay"), None),
+            DialogKind::Realmlist => (
+                strings.text("OKAY", "Okay"),
+                Some(strings.text("CANCEL", "Cancel")),
+            ),
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+/// Which of the dialog's two buttons a key press answers, as `(button1, button2)` — the keyboard
+/// half of [`drive_glue_dialog`]'s buttons; the mouse half is OR-ed in beside it. Button 1 is the
+/// affirmative one on every kind (Cancel on the status dialog, Okay on the others); button 2
+/// exists only where the kind declares it. ENTER confirms, ESCAPE dismisses; on a one-button
+/// dialog they are the same button.
+///
+/// **`on_screen` is the whole of the second bug fixed on 2026-08-29.** Pressing ENTER on an empty
+/// login form played the sound and showed nothing, while *clicking* Login showed the dialog
+/// (director's report). The two systems poll the same [`ButtonInput`]: [`login_input`] opened the
+/// error dialog on the ENTER edge, and [`drive_glue_dialog`] — later in the same chained frame, with
+/// `keys` untouched — read *the same* `just_pressed(Enter)` as that dialog's own Okay and closed
+/// it before it had ever been drawn. Both sounds played, which is exactly what was heard.
+///
+/// The reference cannot have this bug because it is event-driven: the ENTER that fires
+/// `AccountLogin_Login` is *dispatched* to the focused edit box (`OnEnterPressed`), and a dialog
+/// that does not exist yet is not in the dispatch. Polling is our seam, so the gate has to be
+/// ours too, and it says the same thing the dispatch does — **a dialog answers only keys pressed
+/// while it was already on screen**. Not "not this frame": on screen. It is passed the same
+/// `fresh` flag that drives the (re)spawn, so the two cannot drift apart.
+fn dialog_keys(kind: DialogKind, on_screen: bool, enter: bool, escape: bool) -> (bool, bool) {
+    if !on_screen {
+        return (false, false);
+    }
+    let button1 = match kind {
+        // The status dialog's one button IS Cancel, so ESCAPE is it. The queue's button is the
+        // same act under another name, so it answers to ESCAPE the same way.
+        DialogKind::Status | DialogKind::Queued => escape,
+        DialogKind::Error => escape || enter,
+        DialogKind::Realmlist => enter,
+    };
+    (button1, kind == DialogKind::Realmlist && escape)
+}
+
+/// The glue layer's one dialog (the ref's shared `GlueDialog`): kind + text; the driver spawns/
+/// despawns the tree (respawning on a kind change — the button caption differs) and updates the
+/// text in place.
+#[derive(Resource, Default)]
+pub(crate) struct GlueDialog {
+    pub(crate) kind: Option<DialogKind>,
+    pub(crate) text: String,
+    pub(crate) dirty: bool,
+    pub(crate) root: Option<Entity>,
+    /// The ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` — a real [`EditBoxState`] like the two on the screen behind
+    /// it, so the realmlist box gets the same caret, selection, Ctrl+A and clipboard law
+    /// (decision 0704). Only meaningful while a [`DialogKind::has_edit_box`] dialog is up; it is
+    /// rebuilt from the current value on every open, so a cancelled edit leaves nothing behind.
+    pub(crate) edit: EditBoxState,
+    /// The queue's sample ring and the realm it is for — live only while [`DialogKind::Queued`]
+    /// is up, and rebuilt from empty on every fresh queue so a second login never inherits the
+    /// first one's estimate.
+    pub(crate) queue: crate::login::queue::QueueEstimate,
+    pub(crate) queue_realm: Option<String>,
+    /// The kind the spawned tree was built for.
+    spawned: Option<DialogKind>,
+    /// The glue scale the spawned tree was built at — a resize rebuilds it.
+    spawned_s: f32,
+}
+
+impl GlueDialog {
+    /// Raise the one-button error dialog over whichever glue screen is up.
+    ///
+    /// `pub(crate)` for the character-select screen: a refused *character* login
+    /// (`SMSG_CHARACTER_LOGIN_FAILED`) is said there, not here, and it is the same dialog — the
+    /// reference has exactly one, under `GlueParent`.
+    pub(crate) fn open_error(&mut self, text: &str) {
+        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Error);
+        self.set_text(text);
+    }
+
+    /// Is a dialog up? The glue screens' modal test — while one is, the screen behind it does not
+    /// answer clicks or keys (the select screen's own delete confirm and AddOns panel are read the
+    /// same way).
+    pub(crate) fn is_open(&self) -> bool {
+        self.kind.is_some()
+    }
+
+    pub(crate) fn open_status(&mut self, text: &str) {
+        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Status);
+        self.set_text(text);
+    }
+    /// Enter the queue: a fresh ring (a second login must not inherit the first one's estimate)
+    /// and the realm's name for the `_NAME` text variants.
+    pub(crate) fn open_queued(&mut self, realm: Option<String>) {
+        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Queued);
+        self.queue = crate::login::queue::QueueEstimate::default();
+        self.queue_realm = realm;
+        self.set_text("");
+    }
+    /// Open the realmlist editor over `current`, with the caret at the end of it and the whole
+    /// value selected — the reference's `hasEditBox` dialogs open ready to be typed over, and a
+    /// player changing servers is replacing the address far more often than editing it.
+    pub(crate) fn open_realmlist(&mut self, prompt: &str, current: &str) {
+        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Realmlist);
+        self.edit = crate::textinput::field(crate::realmlist::MAX_LETTERS, false);
+        self.edit.set_text(current);
+        // `HighlightText(0, -1)` — the client's own select-all (`0x77cca0`), which resets the
+        // blink on its way so the box opens on a solid caret.
+        self.edit.highlight_text(0, -1);
+        self.set_text(prompt);
+    }
+    pub(crate) fn set_text(&mut self, text: &str) {
+        if self.text != text {
+            self.text = text.to_string();
+            self.dirty = true;
+        }
+    }
+    /// Close **and take the tree down in the same frame** — what a button press does. Closing
+    /// alone would leave the spawned root standing until [`drive_glue_dialog`] next runs, and on
+    /// the edges out of the glue layer that is never.
+    pub(crate) fn dismiss(&mut self, commands: &mut Commands) {
+        self.close();
+        if let Some(root) = self.root.take() {
+            commands.entity(root).despawn();
+        }
+    }
+
+    pub(crate) fn close(&mut self) {
+        self.kind = None;
+        self.text.clear();
+        self.dirty = false;
+    }
+}
+
+/// The dialog's message text (updated in place on stage changes).
+#[derive(Component)]
+pub(crate) struct DialogText;
+/// The dialog's edit box row items — the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox`, painted from
+/// [`GlueDialog::edit`] by [`refresh_dialog_box`].
+#[derive(Component, Clone)]
+pub(crate) struct DialogEditText;
+
+/// Build the dialog tree (the ref's shared `GlueDialog`): the 512-wide `UI-DialogBox` backdrop
+/// centered on the screen, the message (`GlueFontNormalLarge`, wrapping at 440), an optional edit
+/// box, and one or two `GlueDialogButtonTemplate` 200×40 buttons — Cancel for the connecting
+/// status, Okay for an error, Okay + Cancel over the box for the realmlist editor.
+/// Content-sized vertically (the ref's own `GlueDialog_OnShow` resize, by layout).
+///
+/// The edit box and the second button are both the reference's own (`GlueDialog.lua`'s
+/// `hasEditBox` and `button2`); benilla simply had no dialog that used either until 1667. The two
+/// authored geometries they bring with them: the button pair is Button1 BOTTOMRIGHT ← the
+/// backdrop's BOTTOM at (−6, 16) with Button2 LEFT ← Button1's RIGHT at (13, 0) — a centred pair
+/// with a 13 gap — and the box re-heights the backdrop to
+/// `16 + text + 8 + editbox + 8 + button + 16`, which the column below is already shaped as.
+///
+/// **One stated divergence:** the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` is 130×32, sized for the short values
+/// its own dialogs ask for. A realmlist is a hostname, so ours is 300 wide inside the same 512
+/// backdrop; the height, insets and border treatment are the login screen's boxes unchanged.
+pub(crate) fn spawn_dialog(
+    commands: &mut Commands,
+    art: &GlueArt,
+    assets: &AssetServer,
+    strings: &GlueStrings,
+    kind: DialogKind,
+    text: &str,
+    s: f32,
+) -> Entity {
+    let px = |v: f32| Val::Px(v * s);
+    let font = wow_font(assets);
+    let edit_font: Handle<Font> = assets.load("mpq://Fonts/ARIALN.ttf");
+    let (caption, caption2) = kind.buttons(strings);
+    commands
+        .spawn((
+            GlobalZIndex(1200), // over the screen's 1100
+            Node {
+                width: Val::Percent(100.0),
+                height: Val::Percent(100.0),
+                justify_content: JustifyContent::Center,
+                align_items: AlignItems::Center,
+                ..default()
+            },
+        ))
+        .with_children(|overlay_ui| {
+            let mut boxed = overlay_ui.spawn(Node {
+                width: px(512.0),
+                flex_direction: FlexDirection::Column,
+                align_items: AlignItems::Center,
+                padding: UiRect::axes(Val::Px(0.0), px(16.0)),
+                row_gap: px(13.0),
+                ..default()
+            });
+            boxed.with_children(|b| {
+                // Backdrop: bg tiled at 32 inside (11,12,12,11), the 32-edge border over it.
+                if let (Some(bg), Some(border)) = (&art.dialog_bg, &art.dialog_border) {
+                    b.spawn((
+                        tiled_bg_node(bg.clone(), 32.0, s, Color::WHITE),
+                        Node {
+                            position_type: PositionType::Absolute,
+                            left: px(11.0),
+                            right: px(12.0),
+                            top: px(12.0),
+                            bottom: px(11.0),
+                            ..default()
+                        },
+                    ));
+                    backdrop_border(b, border, 32.0, Color::WHITE);
+                } else {
+                    b.spawn((
+                        BackgroundColor(Color::srgba(0.05, 0.05, 0.08, 0.95)),
+                        overlay(),
+                    ));
+                }
+                // The message (GlueFontNormalLarge 18 at TOP (0,−16), width 440, wrapping) —
+                // **centred**, which `GlueDialogText` gets by omitting `justifyH` (a FontString's
+                // default is CENTER; every other wrapped glue string in the shipped XML asks for
+                // LEFT explicitly). It read left-aligned until the director's eye caught it.
+                outlined_text_centered(
+                    b,
+                    Node {
+                        width: px(440.0),
+                        justify_content: JustifyContent::Center,
+                        ..default()
+                    },
+                    (),
+                    DialogText,
+                    GlueText {
+                        text,
+                        size: 18.0,
+                        color: GOLD,
+                        wrap: true,
+                    },
+                    &font,
+                    s,
+                );
+                // The edit box, on the kinds that declare one (`hasEditBox`).
+                if kind.has_edit_box() {
+                    glue_edit_box(
+                        b,
+                        art,
+                        &edit_font,
+                        (),
+                        DialogEditText,
+                        (300.0, 32.0),
+                        (BOX_BORDER, BOX_FILL),
+                        (15.0, 0.0, 0.0, 5.0), // the login boxes' TextInsets
+                        s,
+                    );
+                }
+                // The buttons (GlueDialogButtonTemplate 200×40) — one centred, or the authored
+                // pair with its 13 gap.
+                b.spawn(Node {
+                    flex_direction: FlexDirection::Row,
+                    column_gap: px(13.0),
+                    ..default()
+                })
+                .with_children(|row| {
+                    glue_button(
+                        row,
+                        art,
+                        &font,
+                        GlueDialogAction::Button1,
+                        caption,
+                        200.0,
+                        40.0,
+                        GlueBtnKind::Dialog,
+                        s,
+                    );
+                    if let Some(caption2) = caption2 {
+                        glue_button(
+                            row,
+                            art,
+                            &font,
+                            GlueDialogAction::Button2,
+                            caption2,
+                            200.0,
+                            40.0,
+                            GlueBtnKind::Dialog,
+                            s,
+                        );
+                    }
+                });
+            });
+        })
+        .id()
+}
+
+/// Spawn/despawn the dialog tree with the resource, keep its text current, and read its buttons
+/// from the mouse and the keyboard.
+///
+/// A press plays the click sound, publishes a [`GlueDialogAnswer`] for the screen that opened the
+/// dialog, and — for [`DialogKind::Error`] alone — dismisses it here, because that kind's whole
+/// behaviour *is* its dismissal. Everything else a press might mean belongs to the opener; see
+/// this module's header for where that line falls and why.
+///
+/// Runs inside each glue screen's own system chain (again: the header says why it cannot be
+/// hoisted out with an ordering pair).
+#[allow(clippy::too_many_arguments)]
+pub(crate) fn drive_glue_dialog(
+    mut commands: Commands,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>,
+    art: Res<crate::glue::art::GlueArt>,
+    assets: Res<AssetServer>,
+    strings: Option<Res<GlueStrings>>,
+    keys: Res<ButtonInput<KeyCode>>,
+    buttons: Query<(Entity, &GlueDialogAction)>,
+    clicks: Res<crate::glue::GlueClicks>,
+    mut texts: Query<&mut Text, With<DialogText>>,
+    mut sounds: MessageWriter<GlueSound>,
+    mut answers: MessageWriter<GlueDialogAnswer>,
+    window: Query<&Window, With<bevy::window::PrimaryWindow>>,
+) {
+    let empty = GlueStrings::default();
+    let strings = strings.as_deref().unwrap_or(&empty);
+
+    let Some(kind) = dialog.kind else {
+        if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
+            commands.entity(root).despawn();
+        }
+        dialog.spawned = None;
+        return;
+    };
+
+    // (Re)spawn on the open edge, a kind change (the button caption differs), or a window resize
+    // (the tree bakes the glue scale); a text-only change updates the message line in place.
+    //
+    // `fresh` is *this dialog appearing*, as opposed to a resize rebuilding a dialog already up —
+    // and it is the same flag [`dialog_keys`] takes as `!on_screen`, so the frame the dialog is
+    // drawn on and the frame it starts answering keys on are one decision, not two.
+    let s = crate::glue::screen_scale(window.single().ok());
+    let fresh = dialog.root.is_none() || dialog.spawned != Some(kind);
+    if fresh || dialog.spawned_s != s {
+        if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
+            commands.entity(root).despawn();
+        }
+        dialog.root = Some(spawn_dialog(
+            &mut commands,
+            &art,
+            &assets,
+            strings,
+            kind,
+            &dialog.text,
+            s,
+        ));
+        dialog.edit.reset_blink();
+        dialog.spawned = Some(kind);
+        dialog.spawned_s = s;
+        dialog.dirty = false;
+    } else if dialog.dirty {
+        for mut t in &mut texts {
+            if t.0 != dialog.text {
+                t.0 = dialog.text.clone();
+            }
+        }
+        dialog.dirty = false;
+    }
+
+    // The buttons, from the mouse or the keys. A click needs no `fresh` guard of its own: the
+    // button it would hit did not exist to be clicked on the frame the tree spawned.
+    let hit = |want: GlueDialogAction| buttons.iter().any(|(e, a)| *a == want && clicks.hit(e));
+    let (key1, key2) = dialog_keys(
+        kind,
+        !fresh,
+        keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::Enter) || keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::NumpadEnter),
+        keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::Escape),
+    );
+    let button1 = hit(GlueDialogAction::Button1) || key1;
+    let button2 = hit(GlueDialogAction::Button2) || key2;
+
+    // **Every glue dialog button clicks** — `GlueDialog_OnClick` ends with
+    // `PlaySound("gsTitleOptionOK")` for button 1 and button 2 alike, whatever the dialog's type.
+    // Ours played nothing at all. Emitted here, once, before the kinds diverge, so no arm can
+    // forget it (and so the realmlist editor's Okay-that-refuses still clicks: the reference plays
+    // the sound on the press, not on the outcome).
+    if button1 || button2 {
+        sounds.write(GlueSound("gsTitleOptionOK"));
+        // **What a press MEANS belongs to whoever opened the dialog**, not to the widget. A
+        // realmlist Okay may refuse the typed value and stay open; a status Cancel has a login
+        // attempt to abandon. Both are the login screen's business, and neither is reachable from
+        // any other screen — so the press is published and [`crate::login::answer_dialog`]
+        // answers it.
+        answers.write(GlueDialogAnswer {
+            kind,
+            button1,
+            button2,
+        });
+        // The one kind with no owner: an `Error` states a thing and its Okay dismisses it, which
+        // is the whole of its behaviour. Ending it here is what lets ANY glue screen raise one
+        // without also having to write its ending — the character-select screen's refused login
+        // (2071) raises an error and answers nothing.
+        if kind == DialogKind::Error {
+            dialog.dismiss(&mut commands);
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+/// Paint the dialog's edit box from [`GlueDialog::edit`], through the same
+/// [`paint_glue_field`] the two screen boxes use (decision 0704) — so the realmlist box gets the
+/// identical caret, selection highlight and scrolling.
+///
+/// Runs **after** [`drive_glue_dialog`], which is what spawns the box: on the frame a dialog
+/// opens the entities do not exist until that system has run, and painting before it would show
+/// one frame of empty box.
+#[allow(clippy::type_complexity)]
+pub(crate) fn refresh_dialog_box(
+    dialog: Res<GlueDialog>,
+    mut boxes: Query<(&GlueFieldPart, Option<&mut Text>, &mut Visibility), With<DialogEditText>>,
+) {
+    if dialog.kind.is_some_and(DialogKind::has_edit_box) {
+        paint_glue_field(&dialog.edit, true, boxes.iter_mut());
+    }
+}
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use super::*;
+
+    /// The dialog kinds' own shape: only the realmlist editor carries the ref's `hasEditBox`, and
+    /// only it declares a second button. The caret clock and the keyboard routing both branch on
+    /// the first of those, and `spawn_dialog` lays out from the second.
+    #[test]
+    fn only_the_realmlist_dialog_has_a_box_and_two_buttons() {
+        let strings = GlueStrings::default();
+        assert!(!DialogKind::Status.has_edit_box());
+        assert!(!DialogKind::Error.has_edit_box());
+        assert!(DialogKind::Realmlist.has_edit_box());
+        assert_eq!(DialogKind::Status.buttons(&strings), ("Cancel", None));
+        assert_eq!(DialogKind::Error.buttons(&strings), ("Okay", None));
+        assert_eq!(
+            DialogKind::Realmlist.buttons(&strings),
+            ("Okay", Some("Cancel")),
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// **A dialog never answers the key press that opened it.** ENTER on an empty login form
+    /// opened the error dialog in `login_input` and then, later in the *same* frame with the same
+    /// `ButtonInput`, the driver read that identical `just_pressed(Enter)` as the dialog's own
+    /// Okay — so the popup appeared and vanished inside one frame and only the two sounds were
+    /// heard (director's report, 2026-08-29). The gate is being on screen, not a frame count.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_dialog_does_not_answer_the_key_that_opened_it() {
+        // The frame it appears on: the key that opened it is not its answer.
+        assert_eq!(
+            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, false, true, false),
+            (false, false),
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, false, false, true),
+            (false, false),
+        );
+        // Once it is up, the same press is.
+        assert_eq!(
+            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, true, true, false),
+            (true, false),
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// Which key answers which button, per kind: ENTER and ESCAPE are the same (single) button on
+    /// an error dialog; ESCAPE alone works the Cancel-shaped ones; the two-button editor splits
+    /// them, ENTER to Okay and ESCAPE to Cancel.
+    #[test]
+    fn each_dialog_kind_maps_its_own_keys() {
+        for (kind, enter, escape, want) in [
+            (DialogKind::Error, true, false, (true, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Error, false, true, (true, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Status, true, false, (false, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Status, false, true, (true, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Queued, false, true, (true, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Queued, true, false, (false, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Realmlist, true, false, (true, false)),
+            (DialogKind::Realmlist, false, true, (false, true)),
+        ] {
+            assert_eq!(
+                dialog_keys(kind, true, enter, escape),
+                want,
+                "{kind:?} enter={enter} escape={escape}",
+            );
+        }
+    }
+}
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/mod.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/mod.rs
index 9e490298..ee467a1a 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/glue/mod.rs
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 pub(crate) mod add_material;
 pub(crate) mod art;
 pub(crate) mod backdrop;
+pub(crate) mod dialog;
 pub(crate) mod widgets;
 
 use bevy::ecs::entity::EntityHashSet;
@@ -31,8 +32,10 @@ use widgets::{ArtSwap, GlueBtn, GlueCaption, GlueDisabled, OutlineCopy};
 pub(crate) struct GlueVisuals;
 
 /// The shared glue infrastructure both screens stand on: the ADD-mode UI material pipeline, the
-/// [`GlueArt`] resource (loaded on first screen entry), and the GlueStrings table. Registered
-/// before either screen plugin (`main.rs`).
+/// [`GlueArt`] resource (loaded on first screen entry), the GlueStrings table, and the one
+/// [`dialog::GlueDialog`] every glue screen raises. Registered before either screen plugin
+/// (`main.rs`) — which is also why the dialog's resource and message live here rather than in a
+/// screen: they outlive any single screen's plugin.
 pub(crate) struct GluePlugin;
 
 impl Plugin for GluePlugin {
@@ -46,6 +49,8 @@ impl Plugin for GluePlugin {
                 crate::glue_strings::load_glue_strings.after(benilla_assets::AssetSet::Open),
             )
             .init_resource::<GlueClicks>()
+            .init_resource::<dialog::GlueDialog>()
+            .add_message::<dialog::GlueDialogAnswer>()
             .add_systems(PreUpdate, glue_clicks.after(bevy::ui::UiSystems::Focus))
             .add_systems(
                 Update,
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/loading_screen.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/loading_screen.rs
index 1e6a0aa0..fb418f26 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/loading_screen.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/loading_screen.rs
@@ -21,9 +21,15 @@
 //! by a per-frame readiness poll. Which is this file's shape. What an async-streaming client has to
 //! build explicitly is not the lifecycle after all: it is the **input suppression** the blocking
 //! stretch does not provide either (see [`input`], decision 1990). The screen
-//! rises at the explicit edges — the character pick's `Connected` edge (before the glue tears
-//! down), `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING` (the portal walk-in), the worldport snap — all observed *here*,
-//! from the messages/resources the net bridge already publishes; a residency backstop catches any
+//! rises at the **transition edges and only those** — the character pick's `Connected` edge (before
+//! the glue tears down) and `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING` (the portal walk-in), which are precisely the
+//! reference's two entries into `0x406640`'s tail — all observed *here*, from the
+//! messages/resources the net bridge already publishes. The destination **snap** is not one of
+//! them: `SMSG_NEW_WORLD` and `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD` are two handlers there (`0x401b00` /
+//! `0x401de0`) and neither can reach the raise `0x406800` or the screen's map global `[0x82f00c]`,
+//! so a snap only ends the wait its raise armed and can never re-point a live screen
+//! ([`LoadingScreen::far_snap`]). And what a live screen *shows* is latched harder still: the
+//! resolved texture, not the map id ([`LoadingScreen::art_resolved`], decision 2087). A residency backstop catches any
 //! path with no edge, **in world only** — it used to fire at boot too, and that is what warmed the
 //! world's pipelines behind the glue (0540), which only worked while a world was being streamed
 //! there at all. Since 0777 none is, and the warm-up rides the entry cover instead. It clears when
@@ -196,10 +202,35 @@ pub(crate) struct LoadingScreen {
     /// login-vista tiles are fully resident the moment the glue tears down, and without this hold
     /// that residency would clear the screen seconds before `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD` arrives.
     awaiting_snap: bool,
-    /// Destination art before `CurrentMap` catches up: the roster's `Character.map` at the pick
-    /// edge, the transfer's map at `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING`. Cleared by the snap (from which frame
-    /// `CurrentMap` itself is correct).
-    pending_map: Option<u32>,
+    /// **The map to resolve this screen's art from** — the reference's `[0x82f00c]`, set by every
+    /// raise: the roster's `Character.map` at the pick edge, the transfer's map at
+    /// `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING`, the map we are on for a backstop raise. `None` is the reference's
+    /// `-1`: *this screen draws no backdrop* — the boot default, and what a failed resolve leaves
+    /// behind ([`Self::art_resolved`]).
+    ///
+    /// It is deliberately not `CurrentMap`, which moves under a live screen. Log out inside a
+    /// dungeon whose instance is gone by the time you come back and vmangos relocates you *during*
+    /// `Player::LoadFromDB` (`Player.cpp`, the `GetGoBackTrigger` arm) — no
+    /// `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING`, no `SMSG_NEW_WORLD`, just a `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD` naming a
+    /// different map than the roster row the screen was raised from. Reading the art per frame
+    /// from `CurrentMap` made the dungeon backdrop switch to the continent one mid-load; nothing
+    /// on the wire can do that in the reference ([`Self::snap_landed`]).
+    ///
+    /// **This field is not the latch, though — [`Self::art_resolved`] is** (decision 2087). Five
+    /// writers touch `[0x82f00c]` image-wide, all inside the `LoadingScreen.cpp` TU: `0x4067e6`
+    /// and `0x4072d3` store a map id (the two transition entries), and `0x406d0e`/`0x4073d4`/
+    /// `0x407e59` store `-1`. A raise landing on a screen that is already up re-points it
+    /// *unconditionally* — and repaints nothing, because the texture is already resolved.
+    map: Option<u32>,
+    /// **Has this screen resolved its backdrop yet?** — the reference's `[0x882e04]`, the loaded
+    /// texture handle, and the thing the art is actually latched by (decision 2087). `0x406cf0`
+    /// reads the map id only to reject `-1`, then `0x406cfc`/`0x406d01`/`0x406d03` skip the
+    /// resolver `0x406e20` outright whenever the handle is non-null; the handle's three writers
+    /// image-wide are the resolver's two stores and `0x407ed7 = 0` inside the dismiss `0x407e80`.
+    ///
+    /// So the map id decides the picture on **exactly one frame per screen**, and nothing that
+    /// happens afterwards can change it. Cleared by [`Self::dismiss`], never by a raise.
+    art_resolved: bool,
     /// **Plain black cover, no art, no bar** — the logout transition (decision 0738). The logout
     /// teardown despawns the avatar and the streamed world in the same frame's Net stage, but
     /// `CharSelect` (and the glue screen with it) only applies at the NEXT frame's state
@@ -220,6 +251,11 @@ pub(crate) struct LoadingScreen {
     /// other raise, taken by [`crate::game_tip::drive_game_tip`] on the same frame. A field rather
     /// than a message because it is a property OF the raise, and the raise is this struct's.
     pub(crate) tip_edge: Option<TipEdge>,
+    /// **Capture only** — the clear below is skipped while this is set. A loading screen is a
+    /// picture that is up for a second and then gone: nothing in the tree could photograph one,
+    /// which is how the tip of the day shipped dead and stayed dead through a live smoke run
+    /// (decision 2083). Written by [`Self::hold_for_capture`] and by nothing a player can reach.
+    held: bool,
 
     /// `Time::elapsed_secs` at the last raise + at the last wait-instrument line (see
     /// [`WAIT_LOG_AFTER`]).
@@ -254,19 +290,93 @@ impl LoadingScreen {
         self.tip_edge.take()
     }
 
-    /// Raise (or re-arm) the screen for a fresh load. `awaiting_snap` marks a raise whose
-    /// destination snap is still in flight; `map` is the destination when the edge knows it.
+    /// **The capture instrument** (`WOW_CAPTURE=loading-tip`): raise the screen the way the
+    /// glue→world entry does — art, bar and a `Pick` edge for the tip — and then never let go, so
+    /// the harness's settle window has something to hold still on. The one screen in the client
+    /// whose whole existence is measured in the seconds before it disappears, made photographable.
+    /// `map` is the destination the art latches to, exactly as a real raise's is ([`Self::map`]):
+    /// the harness knows it from the scenario, and with `None` the shot would be a black box with a
+    /// tip on it rather than the real `Map.dbc` → `LoadingScreens.dbc` → BLP chain.
+    pub(crate) fn hold_for_capture(&mut self, map: Option<u32>) {
+        self.active = true;
+        self.blackout = false;
+        self.awaiting_snap = false;
+        self.map = map;
+        self.held = true;
+        self.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Pick);
+    }
+
+    /// Raise the screen for a fresh load. `awaiting_snap` marks a raise whose destination snap is
+    /// still in flight; `map` is the destination this screen's art is LATCHED to for its whole life
+    /// ([`Self::map`]) — every caller states what it knows, and a caller with no announced
+    /// destination passes the map we are on rather than leaving the art to follow `CurrentMap`.
+    ///
+    /// **Only an edge that would reach the reference's own transition entries calls this.** The
+    /// destination *snap* is not one of them ([`Self::snap_landed`]).
     fn raise(&mut self, reason: &str, awaiting_snap: bool, map: Option<u32>, now: f32) {
         self.active = true;
         self.blackout = false;
         self.awaiting_snap = awaiting_snap;
-        self.pending_map = map;
+        self.map = map;
         self.ready_frames = 0;
         self.displayed = 0.0; // restart the fill for the new load
         self.active_since = now;
         self.last_wait_log = now;
         info!("loading screen: up ({reason}, map {map:?})");
     }
+
+    /// **The destination snap landed** — `SMSG_NEW_WORLD` or `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD`. It ends the
+    /// wait a raise armed, and it does **nothing else**: not the art, not the tip, not the bar.
+    ///
+    /// The two are one [`crate::net::WorldportMessage`] here and two handlers in the reference
+    /// (`0x401b00` and `0x401de0`, `re/net/opcode-handlers.tsv`), and *neither touches the screen*:
+    /// the raise `0x406800` has three call sites and all three are inside the `LoadingScreen.cpp`
+    /// TU, so nothing on the wire can re-raise or re-point a screen that is already up. Treating
+    /// the snap as a fresh load is what swapped the backdrop mid-load ([`Self::map`]), restarted
+    /// the bar, and — a round-trip into *every* world entry — wiped the tip of the day that
+    /// decision 2077 had just picked.
+    ///
+    /// `map` is the destination the snap names — `None` for a same-map teleport ack, which cannot
+    /// disagree with the screen by construction.
+    fn snap_landed(&mut self, map: Option<u32>) {
+        // Worth a line on its own: the destination the server actually seated us on is not the one
+        // this screen was raised for, i.e. we were relocated between the roster and the login.
+        if let (Some(raised), Some(dest)) = (self.map, map) {
+            if raised != dest {
+                info!("loading screen: snap landed on map {dest} — raised for map {raised}, art holds");
+            }
+        }
+        self.awaiting_snap = false;
+    }
+
+    /// **The far snap's whole rule** — the one place it lives, so the test seam and the system
+    /// cannot drift apart (the [`EntryCover::tick`] pattern, two structs up).
+    ///
+    /// A screen that is already up **is this snap's screen** — the entry raise waiting for
+    /// `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD`, the portal's waiting for `SMSG_NEW_WORLD` — so the snap ends its
+    /// wait and nothing more. Returns `true` only when no screen is up at all, which is the
+    /// caller's cue to raise one: our backstop for a server-initiated port that arrived with no
+    /// announcing edge (the reference needs no such backstop — its own world load blocks).
+    #[must_use]
+    fn far_snap(&mut self, map: u32) -> bool {
+        if !self.active {
+            return true;
+        }
+        self.snap_landed(Some(map));
+        false
+    }
+
+    /// **The dismiss** (the reference's `0x407e80`) — the one place the screen comes down, so the
+    /// things a screen owns for its lifetime come down with it exactly once. The tip is one of
+    /// those: `[0x882e10]`'s only writers image-wide are the `EnterWorld` setter `0x406630` and
+    /// `0x407f2b` inside this dismiss, so a *raise* never clears a tip — only this does.
+    fn dismiss(&mut self) {
+        self.active = false;
+        self.blackout = false;
+        self.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Clear);
+        // `0x407ed7 mov ds:0x882e04,edi` — the next screen resolves its own art, and only here.
+        self.art_resolved = false;
+    }
 }
 
 // UI entity markers.
@@ -396,24 +506,7 @@ fn setup_loading_screen(
             // `crate::game_tip`'s constants are in; only the font size and the shadow need pixels,
             // and those follow the window each frame. Empty and hidden until a glue->world raise
             // fills it.
-            area.spawn((
-                LoadingTip,
-                Text::new(String::new()),
-                TextLayout {
-                    linebreak: LineBreak::WordBoundary,
-                    justify: Justify::Left,
-                },
-                TextFont::default(),
-                TextColor(crate::game_tip::base_color()),
-                Node {
-                    position_type: PositionType::Absolute,
-                    left: Val::Percent(0.0),
-                    bottom: Val::Percent(0.0),
-                    width: Val::Percent(0.0),
-                    ..default()
-                },
-                Visibility::Hidden,
-            ));
+            area.spawn((LoadingTip, crate::game_tip::tip_bundle()));
             // Fill — left-anchored; width = progress·FILL_MAX_WIDTH (set each frame). y from the
             // BOTTOM (verified by screenshot + binary). The fill art is a horizontally-uniform
             // gradient, so width-scaling reads as a left→right reveal.
@@ -483,7 +576,13 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         ),
     >,
     player: Option<Res<crate::player::Player>>,
-    time: Res<Time>,
+    // **Real, not virtual** — this clock measures a LOAD, and `Time<Virtual>` clamps any frame
+    // longer than 250 ms (`transport.rs` names the same constant for the same reason). A loading
+    // screen is made of exactly those frames, so the default clock under-reports it: measured on
+    // one smoke re-entry, a cover that was up for 2.24 s wall reported 1.2 s. An instrument whose
+    // whole job is "how long was this up, and what was blocking it" cannot run on a clock that
+    // discards the stalls.
+    time: Res<Time<Real>>,
     // The 0837 warm pass: the cover holds until the menagerie's pipelines have compiled — the
     // point of the cover is that NOTHING first-sight-compiles after it lifts.
     warm: Res<crate::pipe_warm::WarmPass>,
@@ -548,7 +647,6 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         match &t.0 {
             Some(info) if info.transport_entry.is_none() => {
                 screen.raise("transfer pending", true, Some(info.map_id), now);
-                screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Clear);
             }
             // The latch cleared with no snap in flight = `SMSG_TRANSFER_ABORTED` (a worldport
             // clears it too, but that path also lands below this frame): stop awaiting, and the
@@ -557,17 +655,20 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
             Some(_) => {}
         }
     }
-    // The snap: a worldport IS a fresh cross-map load (raise covers server-initiated ports that
-    // had no preceding edge); a same-map teleport just ends any awaited snap — whether it needs a
-    // screen at all is the backstop's call (a summon across the room shouldn't flash one).
+    // The snap ([`LoadingScreen::far_snap`]): it never re-raises a live screen, so the art that
+    // screen was raised with holds even when the server seats us on a different map than the one
+    // it announced. That is the reference exactly — `0x406800` is reachable from nothing outside
+    // the loading-screen TU, so no packet can re-point a screen that is up.
     for w in worldports.read() {
-        screen.raise("worldport", false, Some(w.map_id), now);
-        screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Clear);
+        if screen.far_snap(w.map_id) {
+            screen.raise("worldport", false, Some(w.map_id), now);
+        }
     }
+    // A same-map teleport just ends any awaited snap — whether it needs a screen at all is the
+    // backstop's call below (a summon across the room shouldn't flash one).
     let teleported = teleports.read().next().is_some();
     if teleported {
-        screen.awaiting_snap = false;
-        screen.pending_map = None;
+        screen.snap_landed(None);
     }
     // Logout (decision 0738): the same frame's Net stage despawned the avatar and tore the world
     // down, but `CharSelect` only applies at the NEXT frame's state transition — cover the dead
@@ -587,7 +688,6 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         screen.active = true;
         screen.blackout = true;
         screen.awaiting_snap = false;
-        screen.pending_map = None;
         screen.ready_frames = 0;
         info!(
             "loading screen: blackout ({})",
@@ -602,8 +702,7 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
     }
     if screen.blackout && *state.get() != crate::char_select::ClientState::InWorld {
         // The glue is up (it renders above this root); the cover's job is done.
-        screen.blackout = false;
-        screen.active = false;
+        screen.dismiss();
     }
 
     // --- Backstop trigger: the ground under the view focus isn't resident and nothing raised us
@@ -633,8 +732,8 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         && focus.follows_body()
         && *state.get() == crate::char_select::ClientState::InWorld
     {
-        screen.raise("focus not resident", false, None, now);
-        screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Clear);
+        // Same map by construction — the destination this covers is the ground under the body.
+        screen.raise("focus not resident", false, map_id, now);
     }
 
     // --- …and the same test at the SNAP, on everything the reveal actually needs. The backstop
@@ -662,14 +761,13 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         && *state.get() == crate::char_select::ClientState::InWorld
         && !(progress.is_ready() && progress.presentable())
     {
-        screen.raise("teleport, destination not presentable", false, None, now);
-        screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Clear);
+        screen.raise("teleport, destination not presentable", false, map_id, now);
     }
 
     // --- Clear: the destination snap has landed, the scene is presentable (tiles + focus
     // placements + colliders — [`WorldLoadProgress::presentable`]), and the physics hold is done,
     // sustained a few frames. ---
-    if screen.active {
+    if screen.active && !screen.held {
         if progress.is_ready()
             && progress.presentable()
             && !screen.awaiting_snap
@@ -679,7 +777,7 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         {
             screen.ready_frames += 1;
             if screen.ready_frames >= CLEAR_AFTER_READY_FRAMES {
-                screen.active = false;
+                screen.dismiss();
                 info!(
                     "loading screen: cleared ({}/{} resident, {:.1}s)",
                     progress.ready,
@@ -741,28 +839,49 @@ fn drive_loading_screen(
         return;
     }
 
-    // --- Backdrop art (resolve via the FK chain; cached by path). Before the snap lands the
-    // destination is `pending_map` (the roster/transfer told us); after it, `CurrentMap`. ---
-    let art_map = screen.pending_map.or(map_id);
-    if let (Some(map_id), Some(maps), Some(screens), Some(assets)) =
-        (art_map, maps.as_ref(), screens.as_ref(), assets.as_mut())
-    {
-        if let Some(path) = maps
-            .0
-            .loading_screen_id(map_id)
-            .and_then(|id| screens.0.path(id))
+    // --- Backdrop art — `0x406cf0`'s gate in shape (decision 2087): the map id is read ONCE per
+    // screen, to resolve the texture; from then on the resolved texture is what draws, and only
+    // the dismiss clears it. A raise landing on a live screen re-points [`LoadingScreen::map`] and
+    // repaints nothing, which is why "the screen you were given is the screen you keep" survives
+    // even a transfer arriving mid-load. Resolution walks the FK chain and caches by path. ---
+    if !screen.art_resolved {
+        // Until this screen's own art lands, the backdrop is the root's black — never the LAST
+        // screen's texture, which is what a stale tint would leave on the glass (the reference
+        // holds a null handle here and does not draw the quad at all).
+        if let Ok((mut img, _)) = backdrop.single_mut() {
+            if img.color != Color::BLACK {
+                img.color = Color::BLACK;
+            }
+        }
+        if let (Some(map_id), Some(maps), Some(screens), Some(assets)) =
+            (screen.map, maps.as_ref(), screens.as_ref(), assets.as_mut())
         {
-            let path = path.to_string();
-            let handle = match screen.art_cache.get(&path) {
+            let path = maps
+                .0
+                .loading_screen_id(map_id)
+                .and_then(|id| screens.0.path(id))
+                .map(str::to_string);
+            let handle = path.and_then(|path| match screen.art_cache.get(&path) {
                 Some(h) => Some(h.clone()),
                 None => assets.sprite_texture(&path, &mut images).inspect(|h| {
                     screen.art_cache.insert(path.clone(), h.clone());
                 }),
-            };
-            if let (Some(handle), Ok((mut img, _))) = (handle, backdrop.single_mut()) {
-                if img.image != handle {
+            });
+            match (handle, backdrop.single_mut()) {
+                (Some(handle), Ok((mut img, _))) => {
                     img.image = handle;
                     img.color = Color::WHITE; // reveal the art (was tinted black)
+                    screen.art_resolved = true;
+                    // Once per screen, and the only place the picture is decided — so "which
+                    // backdrop did that load actually show" is a log line rather than a capture.
+                    info!("loading screen: backdrop for map {map_id} resolved");
+                }
+                // The resolve failed — no `LoadingScreens` row, or the BLP is missing. This screen
+                // shows no backdrop for the rest of its life and does not retry: `0x406d0e` writes
+                // `-1` into the map id for exactly this, and `0x406cf0` early-returns on it after.
+                _ => {
+                    warn!("loading screen: no backdrop for map {map_id} — plain black this load");
+                    screen.map = None;
                 }
             }
         }
@@ -824,4 +943,104 @@ mod tests {
         cover.tick(true);
         assert!(!cover.presented(), "the next raise starts its own count");
     }
+    /// **The director's report, as an assertion.** Log out inside a dungeon, come back hours
+    /// later, and the instance is gone: vmangos relocates the character to the dungeon's go-back
+    /// trigger *inside* `Player::LoadFromDB`, before the world is entered — so no
+    /// `SMSG_TRANSFER_PENDING` and no `SMSG_NEW_WORLD` ever announce it, and the first the client
+    /// hears is `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD` naming a map the roster row did not. The screen keeps
+    /// the art it was raised with, for its whole life. The reference could not do otherwise:
+    /// `[0x82f00c]` has no writer on either world-load handler's path (`0x401b00`/`0x401de0`), and
+    /// the raise `0x406800` is reachable from nothing outside the `LoadingScreen.cpp` TU.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_relocating_snap_cannot_move_the_art_the_screen_was_raised_with() {
+        let mut screen = LoadingScreen::default();
+        // The pick edge: art from the roster row, Shadowfang Keep, snap still to come.
+        screen.raise("world entry", true, Some(33), 0.0);
+        screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Pick);
+        screen.displayed = 0.4;
+
+        // `SMSG_LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD`: the server seats us on map 0, at the instance's exit.
+        assert!(
+            !screen.far_snap(0),
+            "a screen is already up — its own snap must not raise a second one"
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            screen.map,
+            Some(33),
+            "the backdrop is the raise's and holds the whole way — the report"
+        );
+        assert!(
+            !screen.awaiting_snap,
+            "the snap the raise was waiting for has landed"
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            screen.tip_edge,
+            Some(TipEdge::Pick),
+            "and the tip 2077 just picked survives it — a raise is the only thing that could \
+             have cleared it, and no raise happened"
+        );
+        assert!(
+            (screen.displayed - 0.4).abs() < f32::EPSILON,
+            "nor does the bar restart mid-load"
+        );
+        assert!(screen.active, "the screen stays up across its own snap");
+    }
+
+    /// The other half of the same rule: a cross-map port that arrived with **no** announcing edge
+    /// still gets a cover. This is ours, not the reference's — its own world load blocks, so it
+    /// needs no backstop.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_snap_with_nothing_covering_it_asks_for_a_raise() {
+        let mut screen = LoadingScreen::default();
+        assert!(screen.far_snap(1), "nothing is covering this load");
+        assert!(
+            !screen.active,
+            "far_snap answers the question; the caller does the raising, with its own reason"
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// **The tip comes down with the screen, never with a raise** — `[0x882e10]`'s only writers
+    /// image-wide are `EnterWorld`'s setter `0x406630` and `0x407f2b`, inside the dismiss
+    /// `0x407e80`. Ours used to clear it on every non-entry raise, which meant the login snap wiped
+    /// the tip a server round-trip into *every* world entry.
+    #[test]
+    fn only_the_dismiss_clears_the_tip() {
+        let mut screen = LoadingScreen::default();
+        screen.raise("world entry", true, Some(0), 0.0);
+        screen.tip_edge = Some(TipEdge::Pick);
+
+        screen.raise("transfer pending", true, Some(389), 0.0);
+        assert_eq!(
+            screen.tip_edge,
+            Some(TipEdge::Pick),
+            "no raise clears a tip"
+        );
+
+        screen.dismiss();
+        assert_eq!(screen.tip_edge, Some(TipEdge::Clear), "the dismiss does");
+        assert!(!screen.active);
+    }
+
+    /// **What a live screen SHOWS is latched by the resolved texture, not by the map id**
+    /// (decision 2087, correcting 2081's reading). A raise onto a screen that is already up
+    /// re-points `[0x82f00c]` unconditionally — the reference's `0x406640`/`0x4072c0` have no
+    /// guard on that store — and repaints nothing, because `0x406cf0` skips the resolver whenever
+    /// `[0x882e04]` is non-null. Only the dismiss `0x407ed7` clears it.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_raise_onto_a_live_screen_repoints_the_map_but_never_the_picture() {
+        let mut screen = LoadingScreen::default();
+        screen.raise("world entry", true, Some(33), 0.0);
+        screen.art_resolved = true; // the first plain-draw frame resolved Shadowfang Keep's art
+
+        screen.raise("transfer pending", true, Some(389), 0.0);
+        assert_eq!(screen.map, Some(389), "the map id is re-pointed, unguarded");
+        assert!(
+            screen.art_resolved,
+            "…and the picture is not: the texture is still the one this screen resolved"
+        );
+
+        // The dismiss is the only thing that lets the next screen resolve its own.
+        screen.dismiss();
+        assert!(!screen.art_resolved);
+    }
 }
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/login/mod.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/login/mod.rs
index 0c56fa1a..d5c97292 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/login/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/login/mod.rs
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 //! [`screen`] (the authored layout, transcribed from `AccountLogin.xml`), [`smoke`] (the
 //! `WOW_LOGIN_SMOKE` headless prover).
 
-mod queue;
+pub(crate) mod queue;
 mod screen;
 mod smoke;
 
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ use bevy::prelude::*;
 use benilla_protocol::{DialFailure, LoginRefusal, LoginStage};
 
 use crate::char_select::ClientState;
+use crate::glue::dialog::{DialogKind, GlueDialog};
 use crate::glue_strings::GlueStrings;
 use crate::net::{
     CharListMessage, DisconnectedMessage, LoginAbandon, LoginFailedMessage, LoginQueuedMessage,
@@ -61,7 +62,6 @@ impl Plugin for LoginPlugin {
     fn build(&self, app: &mut App) {
         app.init_resource::<LoginIntent>()
             .init_resource::<LoginForm>()
-            .init_resource::<LoginDialog>()
             .add_systems(OnEnter(ClientState::Login), enter_login)
             .add_systems(OnExit(ClientState::Login), screen::exit_login)
             .add_systems(
@@ -76,26 +76,22 @@ impl Plugin for LoginPlugin {
                         tick_login_caret,
                         screen::refresh_boxes,
                         screen::refresh_checkbox,
-                        // **The dialog is the GLUE's, not this screen's.** The reference's
-                        // `GlueDialog` is a `GlueParent` child shown over whichever glue screen is
-                        // up, and benilla needed that the moment a *character* login could be
-                        // refused: `SMSG_CHARACTER_LOGIN_FAILED` has to be said on the select
-                        // screen, where the pick was made. So [`drive_dialog`] is `pub(crate)` and
-                        // the select screen's chain runs it too — one widget, two screens, rather
-                        // than a second copy of it over there. The kinds this screen owns
-                        // (`Status`, `Queued`, `Realmlist`) can only be *opened* from here, so
-                        // only `Error` is ever reachable on the other one.
-                        //
-                        // It stays inside each screen's own chain rather than being hoisted out
-                        // with a `before`/`after` pair: the shared painters below sit in this
-                        // chain, and ordering a system both after `login_input` and before
-                        // `art_swaps` from outside makes `art_swaps` transitively ordered against
-                        // its own `SystemTypeSet`, which Bevy rejects at schedule build — a panic
-                        // no unit test sees and only a real run finds.
-                        drive_dialog,
-                        // Both after `drive_dialog`: it is what spawns the dialog's edit box, and
-                        // what a realmlist Okay changes the address in.
-                        (screen::refresh_dialog_box, screen::refresh_realmlist),
+                        // The shared glue dialog (2084) — the widget is `crate::glue::dialog`'s
+                        // and the select screen runs the same system over the same resource; what
+                        // a press *means* here is [`answer_dialog`]'s, right behind it. It sits
+                        // inside this chain rather than being hoisted out with a `before`/`after`
+                        // pair, because the shared painters below are in this chain too and
+                        // ordering across it makes a painter transitively ordered against its own
+                        // `SystemTypeSet` — rejected at schedule build, so it panics at boot and
+                        // no unit test sees it (2071).
+                        crate::glue::dialog::drive_glue_dialog,
+                        answer_dialog,
+                        // Both after the driver: it is what spawns the dialog's edit box, and a
+                        // realmlist Okay is what changes the address this repaints.
+                        (
+                            crate::glue::dialog::refresh_dialog_box,
+                            screen::refresh_realmlist,
+                        ),
                     )
                         .chain()
                         .before(crate::glue::GlueVisuals)
@@ -375,7 +371,7 @@ fn without_dead_url(text: &str) -> std::borrow::Cow<'_, str> {
 /// table `0x836b78` — the long `LOGIN_*` family; the world server's resolve against `0x85cae8` —
 /// the short `AUTH_*` family ([`world_refusal_text`]). The chain is grunt opcode table `0x85e278`
 /// → `Logon::OnAuthResult 0x5b2c90` (byte-index table `0x5b2ea4` + jump table `0x5b2e78`) →
-/// `CGlueMgr::OnLoginState 0x46b0f0` → `CGlueMgr::UpdateLoginDialog 0x46b140`.
+/// `CGlueMgr::OnLoginState 0x46b0f0` → `CGlueMgr::UpdateGlueDialog 0x46b140`.
 ///
 /// Two consequences worth stating outright:
 ///
@@ -455,7 +451,7 @@ fn logon_refusal_text(strings: &GlueStrings, code: Option<u8>) -> &str {
 fn drive_policy(
     mut attempt: Attempt,
     realm_list_up: Res<crate::realm_select::Realms>,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<LoginDialog>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>,
     strings: Option<Res<GlueStrings>>,
     time: Res<Time>,
     mut stages: MessageReader<LoginStageMessage>,
@@ -525,7 +521,7 @@ fn drive_policy(
     }
     // The realm list answers the same question the status dialog is asking ("what are we
     // connecting to?"), and the reference does not stack them: reaching the realm list means the
-    // login state moved past `LOGIN_STATE_CONNECTING`, and `CGlueMgr::UpdateLoginDialog` clears
+    // login state moved past `LOGIN_STATE_CONNECTING`, and `CGlueMgr::UpdateGlueDialog` clears
     // the dialog when it does. Ours would otherwise sit behind the list saying "Connecting".
     if realm_list_up.shown && matches!(dialog.kind, Some(DialogKind::Status)) {
         dialog.close();
@@ -662,7 +658,7 @@ fn drive_policy(
 fn to_select_on_roster(
     mut msgs: MessageReader<CharListMessage>,
     mut intent: ResMut<LoginIntent>,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<LoginDialog>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>,
     state: Res<State<ClientState>>,
     mut next: ResMut<NextState<ClientState>>,
 ) {
@@ -808,7 +804,7 @@ fn login_input(
     raw_handle: Query<&bevy::window::RawHandleWrapper, With<bevy::window::PrimaryWindow>>,
     mut form: ResMut<LoginForm>,
     mut attempt: Attempt,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<LoginDialog>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>,
     strings: Option<Res<GlueStrings>>,
     mut sounds: MessageWriter<GlueSound>,
     mut quit: Local<bool>,
@@ -898,10 +894,8 @@ fn login_input(
                 if !form.save {
                     save_account("");
                 }
-            }
-            // The dialog's own buttons are [`drive_dialog`]'s, and this loop is skipped
-            // entirely while one is open.
-            LoginAction::Dialog | LoginAction::Dialog2 => {}
+            } // The dialog's own buttons are `crate::glue::dialog`'s, and this loop is
+              // skipped entirely while one is open.
         }
     }
 
@@ -910,7 +904,8 @@ fn login_input(
     for ev in keyboard.read() {
         // A dialog with an edit box owns the keyboard while it is up — the ref's `GlueDialog` is
         // `toplevel` with `enableKeyboard="true"`, so the boxes behind it hear nothing. ENTER and
-        // ESCAPE still come back unclaimed; [`drive_dialog`] reads them as its two buttons.
+        // ESCAPE still come back unclaimed; [`crate::glue::dialog::drive_glue_dialog`] reads
+        // them as its two buttons.
         if dialog_open {
             if dialog.kind.is_some_and(DialogKind::has_edit_box) {
                 textinput::feed_key(
@@ -1016,7 +1011,7 @@ fn login_input(
 /// **A dialog with an edit box takes the focus with the keys** (1667): its box blinks and the
 /// form's stops, so the screen never shows two live carets at once. Every other dialog leaves the
 /// form's caret running — a dialog eats the keys, not the clock.
-fn tick_login_caret(mut form: ResMut<LoginForm>, mut dialog: ResMut<LoginDialog>, time: Res<Time>) {
+fn tick_login_caret(mut form: ResMut<LoginForm>, mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>, time: Res<Time>) {
     let dt = time.delta_secs();
     let in_dialog = dialog.kind.is_some_and(DialogKind::has_edit_box);
     textinput::tick_caret(form.focused(), !in_dialog, dt);
@@ -1048,279 +1043,54 @@ fn drive_quit(arm: Option<Res<QuitArm>>, time: Res<Time>, mut exit: MessageWrite
 
 // ── The GlueDialog (connecting / error) ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
-/// Which dialog is up: the connecting status (Cancel button, text driven by the stages), an
-/// error (Okay button), or the realmlist editor (Okay + Cancel over an edit box).
-#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
-pub(super) enum DialogKind {
-    Status,
-    Error,
-    /// **Queued for a full realm** (decision 1681). The reference has no queue dialog *type*: it
-    /// opens the ordinary `CANCEL` status dialog and re-texts it every frame, relabelling the one
-    /// button to `CHANGE_REALM`. This is that, as a kind — the relabel is the only thing that
-    /// distinguishes it from [`Self::Status`], and a kind is how this screen spells "different
-    /// button caption".
-    Queued,
-    /// The realmlist editor (decision 1667) — the reference's `GlueDialog` `hasEditBox` shape,
-    /// which is how the shipped dialog asks for a typed value (`GlueDialog.lua`: it shows
-    /// `GlueDialogEditBox` and re-heights the box to
-    /// `16 + text + 8 + editbox + 8 + button + 16`). The reference never opens this particular
-    /// dialog — it has no realmlist UI at all — but the widget is its own.
-    Realmlist,
-}
-
-impl DialogKind {
-    /// Whether this dialog carries the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` (its `hasEditBox` flag).
-    pub(super) fn has_edit_box(self) -> bool {
-        matches!(self, DialogKind::Realmlist)
-    }
-
-    /// `(button1, button2)` captions — `GlueDialogTypes`' own two fields. A `None` second button
-    /// is the ref's centred single-button layout; `Some` is its BOTTOMRIGHT/LEFT pair.
-    pub(super) fn buttons(self, strings: &GlueStrings) -> (&str, Option<&str>) {
-        match self {
-            DialogKind::Status => (strings.text("CANCEL", "Cancel"), None),
-            // The reference's own relabel: leaving a queue is "Change Realm", not "Cancel".
-            DialogKind::Queued => (strings.text("CHANGE_REALM", "Change Realm"), None),
-            DialogKind::Error => (strings.text("OKAY", "Okay"), None),
-            DialogKind::Realmlist => (
-                strings.text("OKAY", "Okay"),
-                Some(strings.text("CANCEL", "Cancel")),
-            ),
-        }
-    }
-}
-
 /// What the realmlist dialog says when the box holds something that is not an address. It replaces
 /// the prompt in place and **leaves the typed text alone**, so the fix is an edit rather than a
 /// retype — the reason a bad value does not close the dialog or become an error dialog of its own.
 const REALMLIST_BAD: &str =
     "That is not a server address.\nTry  logon.example.org  or  127.0.0.1:3724";
 
-/// Which of the dialog's two buttons a key press answers, as `(button1, button2)` — the keyboard
-/// half of [`drive_dialog`]'s buttons; the mouse half is OR-ed in beside it. Button 1 is the
-/// affirmative one on every kind (Cancel on the status dialog, Okay on the others); button 2
-/// exists only where the kind declares it. ENTER confirms, ESCAPE dismisses; on a one-button
-/// dialog they are the same button.
-///
-/// **`on_screen` is the whole of the second bug fixed on 2026-08-29.** Pressing ENTER on an empty
-/// login form played the sound and showed nothing, while *clicking* Login showed the dialog
-/// (director's report). The two systems poll the same [`ButtonInput`]: [`login_input`] opened the
-/// error dialog on the ENTER edge, and [`drive_dialog`] — later in the same chained frame, with
-/// `keys` untouched — read *the same* `just_pressed(Enter)` as that dialog's own Okay and closed
-/// it before it had ever been drawn. Both sounds played, which is exactly what was heard.
-///
-/// The reference cannot have this bug because it is event-driven: the ENTER that fires
-/// `AccountLogin_Login` is *dispatched* to the focused edit box (`OnEnterPressed`), and a dialog
-/// that does not exist yet is not in the dispatch. Polling is our seam, so the gate has to be
-/// ours too, and it says the same thing the dispatch does — **a dialog answers only keys pressed
-/// while it was already on screen**. Not "not this frame": on screen. It is passed the same
-/// `fresh` flag that drives the (re)spawn, so the two cannot drift apart.
-fn dialog_keys(kind: DialogKind, on_screen: bool, enter: bool, escape: bool) -> (bool, bool) {
-    if !on_screen {
-        return (false, false);
-    }
-    let button1 = match kind {
-        // The status dialog's one button IS Cancel, so ESCAPE is it. The queue's button is the
-        // same act under another name, so it answers to ESCAPE the same way.
-        DialogKind::Status | DialogKind::Queued => escape,
-        DialogKind::Error => escape || enter,
-        DialogKind::Realmlist => enter,
-    };
-    (button1, kind == DialogKind::Realmlist && escape)
-}
-
-/// The glue layer's one dialog (the ref's shared `GlueDialog`): kind + text; the driver spawns/
-/// despawns the tree (respawning on a kind change — the button caption differs) and updates the
-/// text in place.
-#[derive(Resource, Default)]
-pub(crate) struct LoginDialog {
-    pub(super) kind: Option<DialogKind>,
-    pub(super) text: String,
-    pub(super) dirty: bool,
-    pub(super) root: Option<Entity>,
-    /// The ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` — a real [`EditBoxState`] like the two on the screen behind
-    /// it, so the realmlist box gets the same caret, selection, Ctrl+A and clipboard law
-    /// (decision 0704). Only meaningful while a [`DialogKind::has_edit_box`] dialog is up; it is
-    /// rebuilt from the current value on every open, so a cancelled edit leaves nothing behind.
-    pub(super) edit: EditBoxState,
-    /// The queue's sample ring and the realm it is for — live only while [`DialogKind::Queued`]
-    /// is up, and rebuilt from empty on every fresh queue so a second login never inherits the
-    /// first one's estimate.
-    pub(super) queue: queue::QueueEstimate,
-    queue_realm: Option<String>,
-    /// The kind the spawned tree was built for.
-    spawned: Option<DialogKind>,
-    /// The glue scale the spawned tree was built at — a resize rebuilds it.
-    spawned_s: f32,
-}
-
-impl LoginDialog {
-    /// Raise the one-button error dialog over whichever glue screen is up.
-    ///
-    /// `pub(crate)` for the character-select screen: a refused *character* login
-    /// (`SMSG_CHARACTER_LOGIN_FAILED`) is said there, not here, and it is the same dialog — the
-    /// reference has exactly one, under `GlueParent`.
-    pub(crate) fn open_error(&mut self, text: &str) {
-        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Error);
-        self.set_text(text);
-    }
-
-    /// Is a dialog up? The glue screens' modal test — while one is, the screen behind it does not
-    /// answer clicks or keys (the select screen's own delete confirm and AddOns panel are read the
-    /// same way).
-    pub(crate) fn is_open(&self) -> bool {
-        self.kind.is_some()
-    }
-
-    fn open_status(&mut self, text: &str) {
-        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Status);
-        self.set_text(text);
-    }
-    /// Enter the queue: a fresh ring (a second login must not inherit the first one's estimate)
-    /// and the realm's name for the `_NAME` text variants.
-    fn open_queued(&mut self, realm: Option<String>) {
-        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Queued);
-        self.queue = queue::QueueEstimate::default();
-        self.queue_realm = realm;
-        self.set_text("");
-    }
-    /// Open the realmlist editor over `current`, with the caret at the end of it and the whole
-    /// value selected — the reference's `hasEditBox` dialogs open ready to be typed over, and a
-    /// player changing servers is replacing the address far more often than editing it.
-    fn open_realmlist(&mut self, prompt: &str, current: &str) {
-        self.kind = Some(DialogKind::Realmlist);
-        self.edit = textinput::field(crate::realmlist::MAX_LETTERS, false);
-        self.edit.set_text(current);
-        // `HighlightText(0, -1)` — the client's own select-all (`0x77cca0`), which resets the
-        // blink on its way so the box opens on a solid caret.
-        self.edit.highlight_text(0, -1);
-        self.set_text(prompt);
-    }
-    fn set_text(&mut self, text: &str) {
-        if self.text != text {
-            self.text = text.to_string();
-            self.dirty = true;
-        }
-    }
-    pub(crate) fn close(&mut self) {
-        self.kind = None;
-        self.text.clear();
-        self.dirty = false;
-    }
-}
-
-/// Spawn/despawn the dialog tree with the resource, update its text, and run its one button:
-/// Status's Cancel bumps the abandon generation (the in-flight attempt discards at its next
-/// stage boundary) and forgets the intent; Error's Okay just closes. Esc = the button; Enter
-/// confirms an error.
-#[allow(clippy::too_many_arguments)]
-pub(crate) fn drive_dialog(
+/// **What a glue-dialog press means, on this screen.** The widget itself
+/// ([`crate::glue::dialog::drive_glue_dialog`]) owns the tree, the keys and the click sound, and
+/// ends an `Error` on its own; everything below is behaviour only the login screen can define, and
+/// none of it is reachable from any other screen — `Status`, `Queued` and `Realmlist` can only be
+/// *opened* from here.
+fn answer_dialog(
     mut commands: Commands,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<LoginDialog>,
+    mut answers: MessageReader<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialogAnswer>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<GlueDialog>,
     mut intent: ResMut<LoginIntent>,
     mut realmlist: ResMut<crate::realmlist::Realmlist>,
     mut script: Option<NonSendMut<benilla_ui::script::UiScript>>,
     abandon: Res<LoginAbandon>,
-    art: Res<crate::glue::art::GlueArt>,
-    assets: Res<AssetServer>,
-    strings: Option<Res<GlueStrings>>,
-    keys: Res<ButtonInput<KeyCode>>,
-    buttons: Query<(Entity, &LoginAction)>,
-    clicks: Res<crate::glue::GlueClicks>,
-    mut texts: Query<&mut Text, With<screen::DialogText>>,
-    mut sounds: MessageWriter<GlueSound>,
-    window: Query<&Window, With<bevy::window::PrimaryWindow>>,
 ) {
-    let empty = GlueStrings::default();
-    let strings = strings.as_deref().unwrap_or(&empty);
-
-    let Some(kind) = dialog.kind else {
-        if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
-            commands.entity(root).despawn();
-        }
-        dialog.spawned = None;
-        return;
-    };
-
-    // (Re)spawn on the open edge, a kind change (the button caption differs), or a window resize
-    // (the tree bakes the glue scale); a text-only change updates the message line in place.
-    //
-    // `fresh` is *this dialog appearing*, as opposed to a resize rebuilding a dialog already up —
-    // and it is the same flag [`dialog_keys`] takes as `!on_screen`, so the frame the dialog is
-    // drawn on and the frame it starts answering keys on are one decision, not two.
-    let s = crate::glue::screen_scale(window.single().ok());
-    let fresh = dialog.root.is_none() || dialog.spawned != Some(kind);
-    if fresh || dialog.spawned_s != s {
-        if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
-            commands.entity(root).despawn();
-        }
-        dialog.root = Some(screen::spawn_dialog(
-            &mut commands,
-            &art,
-            &assets,
-            strings,
-            kind,
-            &dialog.text,
-            s,
-        ));
-        dialog.edit.reset_blink();
-        dialog.spawned = Some(kind);
-        dialog.spawned_s = s;
-        dialog.dirty = false;
-    } else if dialog.dirty {
-        for mut t in &mut texts {
-            if t.0 != dialog.text {
-                t.0 = dialog.text.clone();
+    for answer in answers.read() {
+        match answer.kind {
+            // The widget's own — it has already dismissed it.
+            DialogKind::Error => {}
+            DialogKind::Realmlist => {
+                // Okay: take the typed address, or say why it cannot be taken and stay open with
+                // the text as typed — the fix is then an edit, not a retype. **The only press
+                // that does not end its dialog**, which is exactly why the widget cannot own
+                // this arm. Cancel (button 2, or ESCAPE, which this kind routes to it) closes.
+                if answer.button1 {
+                    let typed = dialog.edit.text.clone();
+                    if accept_realmlist(&typed, &mut realmlist, script.as_deref_mut()) {
+                        dialog.dismiss(&mut commands);
+                    } else {
+                        dialog.set_text(REALMLIST_BAD);
+                    }
+                } else if answer.button2 {
+                    dialog.dismiss(&mut commands);
+                }
             }
-        }
-        dialog.dirty = false;
-    }
-
-    // The buttons, from the mouse or the keys. A click needs no `fresh` guard of its own: the
-    // button it would hit did not exist to be clicked on the frame the tree spawned.
-    let hit = |want: LoginAction| buttons.iter().any(|(e, a)| *a == want && clicks.hit(e));
-    let (key1, key2) = dialog_keys(
-        kind,
-        !fresh,
-        keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::Enter) || keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::NumpadEnter),
-        keys.just_pressed(KeyCode::Escape),
-    );
-    let button1 = hit(LoginAction::Dialog) || key1;
-    let button2 = hit(LoginAction::Dialog2) || key2;
-
-    // **Every glue dialog button clicks** — `GlueDialog_OnClick` ends with
-    // `PlaySound("gsTitleOptionOK")` for button 1 and button 2 alike, whatever the dialog's type.
-    // Ours played nothing at all. Emitted here, once, before the kinds diverge, so no arm can
-    // forget it (and so the realmlist editor's Okay-that-refuses still clicks: the reference plays
-    // the sound on the press, not on the outcome).
-    if button1 || button2 {
-        sounds.write(GlueSound("gsTitleOptionOK"));
-    }
-    if kind == DialogKind::Realmlist && button1 {
-        // Okay: take the typed address, or say why it cannot be taken and stay open with the text
-        // as typed — the fix is then an edit, not a retype.
-        let typed = dialog.edit.text.clone();
-        if accept_realmlist(&typed, &mut realmlist, script.as_deref_mut()) {
-            dialog.close();
-            if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
-                commands.entity(root).despawn();
+            DialogKind::Status | DialogKind::Queued => {
+                // Cancel: the next stage boundary discards the attempt; a canceled manual attempt
+                // must not silently resubmit later.
+                abandon.0.fetch_add(1, Ordering::SeqCst);
+                intent.in_flight = false;
+                intent.clear();
+                dialog.dismiss(&mut commands);
             }
-        } else {
-            dialog.set_text(REALMLIST_BAD);
-        }
-        return;
-    }
-    if button1 || button2 {
-        if matches!(kind, DialogKind::Status | DialogKind::Queued) {
-            // Cancel: the next stage boundary discards the attempt; a canceled manual attempt
-            // must not silently resubmit later.
-            abandon.0.fetch_add(1, Ordering::SeqCst);
-            intent.in_flight = false;
-            intent.clear();
-        }
-        dialog.close();
-        if let Some(root) = dialog.root.take() {
-            commands.entity(root).despawn();
         }
     }
 }
@@ -1418,7 +1188,9 @@ mod tests {
         let mut app = App::new();
         app.init_resource::<Time>()
             .init_resource::<LoginIntent>()
-            .init_resource::<LoginDialog>()
+            // The dialog is `GluePlugin`'s resource now (2084), so a harness that stands this
+            // screen's systems up without that plugin has to seat it.
+            .init_resource::<GlueDialog>()
             // The policy asks whether the realm list is standing over this screen; in a harness
             // that never raises one the answer is a default `Realms` — always "no".
             .init_resource::<crate::realm_select::Realms>()
@@ -1470,7 +1242,7 @@ mod tests {
              account back off the client that displaced us",
         );
         assert!(intent.retry_at.is_none(), "and nothing is scheduled");
-        let dialog = app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>();
+        let dialog = app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>();
         assert_eq!(dialog.kind, Some(DialogKind::Error));
         // The fallback literal: this App has no GlueStrings, and the table's own row is
         // `DISCONNECTED = "Disconnected from server";` (GlueStrings.lua) — the same words.
@@ -1502,7 +1274,7 @@ mod tests {
              straight back",
         );
         assert!(
-            app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>().kind.is_none(),
+            app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind.is_none(),
             "with no dialog: nothing went wrong",
         );
     }
@@ -1521,33 +1293,33 @@ mod tests {
         app.add_plugins((MinimalPlugins, bevy::state::app::StatesPlugin))
             .insert_state(ClientState::CharSelect)
             .init_resource::<LoginIntent>()
-            .init_resource::<LoginDialog>()
+            .init_resource::<GlueDialog>()
             .add_message::<CharListMessage>()
             .add_systems(Update, to_select_on_roster);
 
         // The refusal's dialog survives its own relist.
         app.world_mut()
-            .resource_mut::<LoginDialog>()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
             .open_error("World server is down");
         app.world_mut().write_message(CharListMessage {
             characters: Vec::new(),
             realm: None,
         });
         app.update();
-        let dialog = app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>();
+        let dialog = app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>();
         assert_eq!(dialog.kind, Some(DialogKind::Error));
         assert_eq!(dialog.text, "World server is down");
 
         // …and the connecting dialog the roster IS the answer to still closes.
         app.world_mut()
-            .resource_mut::<LoginDialog>()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
             .open_status("Connecting");
         app.world_mut().write_message(CharListMessage {
             characters: Vec::new(),
             realm: None,
         });
         app.update();
-        assert!(app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>().kind.is_none());
+        assert!(app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind.is_none());
     }
 
     /// An **unattended** run keeps 0065's paced reconnect on a lost session — the verdict rides
@@ -1571,7 +1343,7 @@ mod tests {
             Some(RETRY_DELAY_SECS),
             "paced by the flat 3 s off a zeroed clock, not fired on the spot",
         );
-        assert!(app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>().kind.is_none());
+        assert!(app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind.is_none());
     }
 
     /// **The submitted attempt dials the configured realmlist** (decision 1667) — the whole
@@ -1646,74 +1418,110 @@ mod tests {
         }
     }
 
-    /// The dialog kinds' own shape: only the realmlist editor carries the ref's `hasEditBox`, and
-    /// only it declares a second button. The caret clock and the keyboard routing both branch on
-    /// the first of those, and `spawn_dialog` lays out from the second.
+    /// **The seam the move opened** (2084): the widget publishes a press, this screen answers it.
+    ///
+    /// `accept_realmlist` and the cancel bookkeeping are each covered on their own above, and the
+    /// widget's keys and kinds are covered in `crate::glue::dialog` — but nothing covered the
+    /// *wiring* between them, which is the one thing the move could break silently. A dialog whose
+    /// press reaches nobody looks exactly like a dialog that works until you click it.
     #[test]
-    fn only_the_realmlist_dialog_has_a_box_and_two_buttons() {
-        let strings = GlueStrings::default();
-        assert!(!DialogKind::Status.has_edit_box());
-        assert!(!DialogKind::Error.has_edit_box());
-        assert!(DialogKind::Realmlist.has_edit_box());
-        assert_eq!(DialogKind::Status.buttons(&strings), ("Cancel", None));
-        assert_eq!(DialogKind::Error.buttons(&strings), ("Okay", None));
-        assert_eq!(
-            DialogKind::Realmlist.buttons(&strings),
-            ("Okay", Some("Cancel")),
-        );
-    }
+    fn a_published_press_reaches_the_login_screens_answer() {
+        use crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialogAnswer;
 
-    /// **A dialog never answers the key press that opened it.** ENTER on an empty login form
-    /// opened the error dialog in `login_input` and then, later in the *same* frame with the same
-    /// `ButtonInput`, `drive_dialog` read that identical `just_pressed(Enter)` as the dialog's own
-    /// Okay — so the popup appeared and vanished inside one frame and only the two sounds were
-    /// heard (director's report, 2026-08-29). The gate is being on screen, not a frame count.
-    #[test]
-    fn a_dialog_does_not_answer_the_key_that_opened_it() {
-        // The frame it appears on: the key that opened it is not its answer.
-        assert_eq!(
-            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, false, true, false),
-            (false, false),
-        );
-        assert_eq!(
-            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, false, false, true),
-            (false, false),
-        );
-        // Once it is up, the same press is.
-        assert_eq!(
-            dialog_keys(DialogKind::Error, true, true, false),
-            (true, false),
-        );
-    }
+        let mut app = App::new();
+        app.add_plugins(MinimalPlugins)
+            .init_resource::<LoginIntent>()
+            .init_resource::<GlueDialog>()
+            .insert_resource(crate::realmlist::Realmlist::unpinned("localhost"))
+            .insert_resource(LoginAbandon(std::sync::Arc::new(
+                std::sync::atomic::AtomicU64::new(0),
+            )))
+            .add_message::<GlueDialogAnswer>()
+            .add_systems(Update, answer_dialog);
 
-    /// Which key answers which button, per kind: ENTER and ESCAPE are the same (single) button on
-    /// an error dialog; ESCAPE alone works the Cancel-shaped ones; the two-button editor splits
-    /// them, ENTER to Okay and ESCAPE to Cancel.
-    #[test]
-    fn each_dialog_kind_maps_its_own_keys() {
-        for (kind, enter, escape, want) in [
-            (DialogKind::Error, true, false, (true, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Error, false, true, (true, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Status, true, false, (false, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Status, false, true, (true, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Queued, false, true, (true, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Queued, true, false, (false, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Realmlist, true, false, (true, false)),
-            (DialogKind::Realmlist, false, true, (false, true)),
-        ] {
-            assert_eq!(
-                dialog_keys(kind, true, enter, escape),
-                want,
-                "{kind:?} enter={enter} escape={escape}",
-            );
-        }
+        // The status dialog's Cancel: the attempt is abandoned and the credentials forgotten, so
+        // nothing resubmits behind the player's back.
+        app.world_mut().resource_mut::<LoginIntent>().creds = Some(("one".into(), "pone".into()));
+        app.world_mut().resource_mut::<LoginIntent>().in_flight = true;
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
+            .open_status("Connecting");
+        app.world_mut().write_message(GlueDialogAnswer {
+            kind: DialogKind::Status,
+            button1: true,
+            button2: false,
+        });
+        app.update();
+        let intent = app.world().resource::<LoginIntent>();
+        assert!(
+            !intent.in_flight,
+            "the cancelled attempt is no longer in flight"
+        );
+        assert!(intent.creds.is_none(), "and it does not silently resubmit");
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world()
+                .resource::<LoginAbandon>()
+                .0
+                .load(std::sync::atomic::Ordering::SeqCst),
+            1,
+            "the abandon generation moved, so the attempt still in flight is discarded",
+        );
+        assert!(app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind.is_none());
+
+        // The realmlist editor's Okay: the typed address becomes the session's.
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
+            .open_realmlist("Address of realm list server", "localhost");
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
+            .edit
+            .set_text("logon.example.org");
+        app.world_mut().write_message(GlueDialogAnswer {
+            kind: DialogKind::Realmlist,
+            button1: true,
+            button2: false,
+        });
+        app.update();
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world()
+                .resource::<crate::realmlist::Realmlist>()
+                .address(),
+            "logon.example.org",
+        );
+        assert!(app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind.is_none());
+
+        // …and its Okay over a bad address keeps the dialog up, with the text replaced — the one
+        // press in the whole widget that does not end its own dialog.
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
+            .open_realmlist("Address of realm list server", "logon.example.org");
+        app.world_mut()
+            .resource_mut::<GlueDialog>()
+            .edit
+            .set_text("not an address at all");
+        app.world_mut().write_message(GlueDialogAnswer {
+            kind: DialogKind::Realmlist,
+            button1: true,
+            button2: false,
+        });
+        app.update();
+        let dialog = app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>();
+        assert_eq!(dialog.kind, Some(DialogKind::Realmlist), "it stays open");
+        assert_eq!(dialog.text, REALMLIST_BAD, "saying why");
+        assert_eq!(
+            app.world()
+                .resource::<crate::realmlist::Realmlist>()
+                .address(),
+            "logon.example.org",
+            "and the address it refused is unchanged",
+        );
     }
 
     /// Opening the editor seats the current address in the box, selected whole — so typing a new
     /// server replaces the old one instead of appending to it.
     #[test]
     fn opening_the_editor_preselects_the_current_address() {
-        let mut dialog = LoginDialog::default();
+        let mut dialog = GlueDialog::default();
         dialog.open_realmlist("Address of realm list server", "logon.example.org");
         assert_eq!(dialog.kind, Some(DialogKind::Realmlist));
         assert_eq!(dialog.edit.text, "logon.example.org");
@@ -1747,7 +1555,7 @@ mod tests {
         });
         app.update();
         assert_eq!(
-            app.world().resource::<LoginDialog>().kind,
+            app.world().resource::<GlueDialog>().kind,
             Some(DialogKind::Error),
             "every refusal shows the dialog, exit or not",
         );
@@ -2033,10 +1841,10 @@ mod tests {
         let mut app = App::new();
         app.init_resource::<Time>()
             .init_resource::<LoginForm>()
+            .init_resource::<GlueDialog>()
             // The clock now asks which box owns the focus (1667): a dialog with an edit box takes
             // it. No dialog is open here, so the form's box keeps it — which is the case this
             // asserts.
-            .init_resource::<LoginDialog>()
             .add_systems(Update, tick_login_caret);
 
         let past_the_period = |app: &mut App| {
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/login/screen.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/login/screen.rs
index 04b44405..49e345d0 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/login/screen.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/login/screen.rs
@@ -20,16 +20,15 @@ use bevy::window::PrimaryWindow;
 
 use crate::char_select::wow_font;
 use crate::glue::art::{GlueArt, BACKDROP, GOLD};
-use crate::glue::backdrop::{backdrop_border, tiled_bg_node};
 use crate::glue::widgets::{
-    abs, glue_button, glue_edit_box, outlined_text, outlined_text_centered, overlay,
-    paint_glue_field, ArtSwap, GlueBtnKind, GlueFieldPart, GlueText, Hilight,
+    abs, glue_button, glue_edit_box, outlined_text, overlay, paint_glue_field, ArtSwap,
+    GlueBtnKind, GlueFieldPart, GlueText, Hilight,
 };
 use crate::glue_strings::GlueStrings;
 use crate::portrait::{PortraitImages, PortraitSource, GLUE_SLOT};
 use benilla_assets::WorldAssets;
 
-use super::{ClientState, DialogKind, Field, LoginForm};
+use super::{ClientState, Field, LoginForm};
 
 const SCREEN_Z: i32 = 1100;
 /// `GlueFontDisableSmall`'s color (GlueFonts.xml) — the grey the reference's own
@@ -50,12 +49,6 @@ pub(crate) enum LoginAction {
     /// Open the realmlist editor (decision 1667) — on the button and on the address readout under
     /// it, so clicking the address you want to change does what it looks like it does.
     Realmlist,
-    /// The dialog's first button — Cancel on the status dialog, Okay on the other two
-    /// ([`super::drive_dialog`]'s; the ref's `GlueDialogButton1`).
-    Dialog,
-    /// The dialog's second button, on the kinds that declare one (`GlueDialogButton2` — Cancel on
-    /// the realmlist editor).
-    Dialog2,
 }
 
 /// Root of the login screen (despawned whole on exit); `with_art` mirrors the select screen's
@@ -80,13 +73,6 @@ pub(super) struct CheckMark;
 /// `GlueBtn`, so the shared button pass doesn't cover it).
 #[derive(Component)]
 pub(super) struct CheckHilight;
-/// The dialog's message text (updated in place on stage changes).
-#[derive(Component)]
-pub(crate) struct DialogText;
-/// The dialog's edit box row items — the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox`, painted from
-/// [`super::LoginDialog::edit`] by [`refresh_dialog_box`].
-#[derive(Component, Clone)]
-pub(super) struct DialogEditText;
 /// The realmlist readout under the button — the ref's own `AccountLoginRealmName` slot, rewritten
 /// in place by [`refresh_realmlist`] when the address changes.
 #[derive(Component)]
@@ -626,23 +612,6 @@ pub(super) fn refresh_realmlist(
     }
 }
 
-/// Paint the dialog's edit box from [`super::LoginDialog::edit`], through the same
-/// [`paint_glue_field`] the two screen boxes use (decision 0704) — so the realmlist box gets the
-/// identical caret, selection highlight and scrolling.
-///
-/// Runs **after** [`super::drive_dialog`], which is what spawns the box: on the frame a dialog
-/// opens the entities do not exist until that system has run, and painting before it would show
-/// one frame of empty box.
-#[allow(clippy::type_complexity)]
-pub(super) fn refresh_dialog_box(
-    dialog: Res<super::LoginDialog>,
-    mut boxes: Query<(&GlueFieldPart, Option<&mut Text>, &mut Visibility), With<DialogEditText>>,
-) {
-    if dialog.kind.is_some_and(DialogKind::has_edit_box) {
-        paint_glue_field(&dialog.edit, true, boxes.iter_mut());
-    }
-}
-
 /// The checkbox's visuals: the checked overlay tracks the form's save flag; the ADD hover ring
 /// tracks the button's interaction (the checkbox isn't a `GlueBtn`, so the shared pass skips it).
 #[allow(clippy::type_complexity)]
@@ -678,156 +647,12 @@ pub(super) fn refresh_checkbox(
     }
 }
 
-/// Build the dialog tree (the ref's shared `GlueDialog`): the 512-wide `UI-DialogBox` backdrop
-/// centered on the screen, the message (`GlueFontNormalLarge`, wrapping at 440), an optional edit
-/// box, and one or two `GlueDialogButtonTemplate` 200×40 buttons — Cancel for the connecting
-/// status, Okay for an error, Okay + Cancel over the box for the realmlist editor.
-/// Content-sized vertically (the ref's own `GlueDialog_OnShow` resize, by layout).
-///
-/// The edit box and the second button are both the reference's own (`GlueDialog.lua`'s
-/// `hasEditBox` and `button2`); benilla simply had no dialog that used either until 1667. The two
-/// authored geometries they bring with them: the button pair is Button1 BOTTOMRIGHT ← the
-/// backdrop's BOTTOM at (−6, 16) with Button2 LEFT ← Button1's RIGHT at (13, 0) — a centred pair
-/// with a 13 gap — and the box re-heights the backdrop to
-/// `16 + text + 8 + editbox + 8 + button + 16`, which the column below is already shaped as.
-///
-/// **One stated divergence:** the ref's `GlueDialogEditBox` is 130×32, sized for the short values
-/// its own dialogs ask for. A realmlist is a hostname, so ours is 300 wide inside the same 512
-/// backdrop; the height, insets and border treatment are the login screen's boxes unchanged.
-pub(super) fn spawn_dialog(
-    commands: &mut Commands,
-    art: &GlueArt,
-    assets: &AssetServer,
-    strings: &GlueStrings,
-    kind: DialogKind,
-    text: &str,
-    s: f32,
-) -> Entity {
-    let px = |v: f32| Val::Px(v * s);
-    let font = wow_font(assets);
-    let edit_font: Handle<Font> = assets.load("mpq://Fonts/ARIALN.ttf");
-    let (caption, caption2) = kind.buttons(strings);
-    commands
-        .spawn((
-            GlobalZIndex(1200), // over the screen's 1100
-            Node {
-                width: Val::Percent(100.0),
-                height: Val::Percent(100.0),
-                justify_content: JustifyContent::Center,
-                align_items: AlignItems::Center,
-                ..default()
-            },
-        ))
-        .with_children(|overlay_ui| {
-            let mut boxed = overlay_ui.spawn(Node {
-                width: px(512.0),
-                flex_direction: FlexDirection::Column,
-                align_items: AlignItems::Center,
-                padding: UiRect::axes(Val::Px(0.0), px(16.0)),
-                row_gap: px(13.0),
-                ..default()
-            });
-            boxed.with_children(|b| {
-                // Backdrop: bg tiled at 32 inside (11,12,12,11), the 32-edge border over it.
-                if let (Some(bg), Some(border)) = (&art.dialog_bg, &art.dialog_border) {
-                    b.spawn((
-                        tiled_bg_node(bg.clone(), 32.0, s, Color::WHITE),
-                        Node {
-                            position_type: PositionType::Absolute,
-                            left: px(11.0),
-                            right: px(12.0),
-                            top: px(12.0),
-                            bottom: px(11.0),
-                            ..default()
-                        },
-                    ));
-                    backdrop_border(b, border, 32.0, Color::WHITE);
-                } else {
-                    b.spawn((
-                        BackgroundColor(Color::srgba(0.05, 0.05, 0.08, 0.95)),
-                        overlay(),
-                    ));
-                }
-                // The message (GlueFontNormalLarge 18 at TOP (0,−16), width 440, wrapping) —
-                // **centred**, which `GlueDialogText` gets by omitting `justifyH` (a FontString's
-                // default is CENTER; every other wrapped glue string in the shipped XML asks for
-                // LEFT explicitly). It read left-aligned until the director's eye caught it.
-                outlined_text_centered(
-                    b,
-                    Node {
-                        width: px(440.0),
-                        justify_content: JustifyContent::Center,
-                        ..default()
-                    },
-                    (),
-                    DialogText,
-                    GlueText {
-                        text,
-                        size: 18.0,
-                        color: GOLD,
-                        wrap: true,
-                    },
-                    &font,
-                    s,
-                );
-                // The edit box, on the kinds that declare one (`hasEditBox`).
-                if kind.has_edit_box() {
-                    glue_edit_box(
-                        b,
-                        art,
-                        &edit_font,
-                        (),
-                        DialogEditText,
-                        (300.0, 32.0),
-                        (BOX_BORDER, BOX_FILL),
-                        (15.0, 0.0, 0.0, 5.0), // the login boxes' TextInsets
-                        s,
-                    );
-                }
-                // The buttons (GlueDialogButtonTemplate 200×40) — one centred, or the authored
-                // pair with its 13 gap.
-                b.spawn(Node {
-                    flex_direction: FlexDirection::Row,
-                    column_gap: px(13.0),
-                    ..default()
-                })
-                .with_children(|row| {
-                    glue_button(
-                        row,
-                        art,
-                        &font,
-                        LoginAction::Dialog,
-                        caption,
-                        200.0,
-                        40.0,
-                        GlueBtnKind::Dialog,
-                        s,
-                    );
-                    if let Some(caption2) = caption2 {
-                        glue_button(
-                            row,
-                            art,
-                            &font,
-                            LoginAction::Dialog2,
-                            caption2,
-                            200.0,
-                            40.0,
-                            GlueBtnKind::Dialog,
-                            s,
-                        );
-                    }
-                });
-            });
-        })
-        .id()
-}
-
 /// Leaving the login screen: drop the tree, the scene, and any open dialog.
 pub(super) fn exit_login(
     mut commands: Commands,
     roots: Query<Entity, With<LoginUi>>,
     mut preview: ResMut<crate::portrait::GluePreview>,
-    mut dialog: ResMut<super::LoginDialog>,
+    mut dialog: ResMut<crate::glue::dialog::GlueDialog>,
 ) {
     for e in &roots {
         commands.entity(e).despawn();
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail.rs
index 0587ebf0..9eb5d278 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail.rs
@@ -52,14 +52,23 @@
 //!   the whole ambient contribution comes from the M2 lighting collector's own enabled lights —
 //!   the same lights our lit emitters take their `ambient` from.
 //!
-//! So the trail **darkens with the scene** rather than burning at its authored colour. Two named
-//! approximations, both the same class as [`crate::fishing_line`]'s:
+//! So the trail **darkens with the scene** rather than burning at its authored colour — and the
+//! scene it darkens with is its **wearer's**, not the world's. The draw runs inside the weapon
+//! model's own per-frame callback during the wearer's model draw, so the enabled lights it
+//! inherits are the ones the M2 collector committed for that unit; the held weapon's light node is
+//! the wearer's own by aliasing (`[item+0x3b8] = [wearer+0x3b8]`, `0x718960`). Both halves are
+//! four-way byte-derived (wow-re `format7-lighting-term.md`, `part-lit-normal-space.md` §6):
 //!
-//! - we sample the scene ambient ([`benilla_world::lighting::WowLighting`]) rather than summing a
-//!   per-model light collector, so an interior trail takes the exterior ambient;
-//! - the **emissive** term is not modelled. It is inherited material state whose value that round
-//!   did not pin, and `EMISSIVEMATERIALSOURCE` is set nowhere, so it is a constant we would be
-//!   inventing rather than reproducing.
+//! - **outdoors** a unit's committed ambient IS the day/night ambient, so
+//!   [`benilla_world::lighting::WowLighting`] is exact, not an approximation;
+//! - **indoors** it is the light node's own ramped word, chasing `cap96(MOCV)` — the room's light,
+//!   never the sky's ([`benilla_world::interior::NodeAmbient`], the ambient half of the same
+//!   committed words [`benilla_world::interior::ParticleLight`] folds whole). Its absence is the
+//!   exterior lane, which is why the fallback above is the right one and not a guess.
+//!
+//! One named approximation is left: the **emissive** term is not modelled. It is inherited
+//! material state whose value that round did not pin, and `EMISSIVEMATERIALSOURCE` is set nowhere,
+//! so it is a constant we would be inventing rather than reproducing.
 //!
 //! The fold happens on the CPU, into the vertex colours, and the draw declares
 //! [`benilla_world::particles::buffer::EffectLighting::None`] — the ambient is a per-draw constant,
@@ -401,27 +410,35 @@ fn draw_weapon_trails(
     white: Res<TrailWhite>,
     lighting: Option<Res<benilla_world::lighting::WowLighting>>,
     world_cam: Query<Entity, With<WorldCamera>>,
+    // The wearer's committed ambient word, present only while its light node is on the interior
+    // bake lane — the trail takes its WEARER's light, not the scene's (see the module doc).
+    indoors: Query<&benilla_world::interior::NodeAmbient>,
     mut trails: Query<(
         Entity,
         &mut WeaponTrail,
         &GlobalTransform,
         &InheritedVisibility,
+        &benilla_world::model_fade::ParentModel,
     )>,
 ) {
     let Ok(cam) = world_cam.single() else {
         return;
     };
-    // The ambient half of the fixed-function term, folded per draw (see the module doc). Absent
-    // before the first lighting resolve — burn at the authored colour rather than at black.
-    let ambient = lighting.as_deref().map_or([1.0; 3], |l| {
-        [
-            l.ambient[0].clamp(0.0, 1.0),
-            l.ambient[1].clamp(0.0, 1.0),
-            l.ambient[2].clamp(0.0, 1.0),
-        ]
-    });
+    // The EXTERIOR ambient — the fallback, and the right answer outdoors: a unit's own committed
+    // ambient there is the day/night one (`0x69e4ad`'s exterior intensity leg). Absent before the
+    // first lighting resolve — burn at the authored colour rather than at black.
+    let scene = lighting.as_deref().map_or([1.0; 3], |l| l.ambient);
     let now_ms = time.elapsed().as_millis() as u32;
-    for (entity, mut trail, prop, vis) in &mut trails {
+    for (entity, mut trail, prop, vis, wearer) in &mut trails {
+        // Indoors the wearer's node carries a committed ambient word of its own — the ramped chase
+        // toward `cap96(MOCV)`, the room's own light rather than the sky's. Its ABSENCE is the
+        // exterior lane. A Goldshire-inn character's word is ≈ (0.30, 0.22, 0.14) warm against a
+        // night sky's ≈ (0.22, 0.26, 0.29) cool: similar in magnitude, opposite in hue, which is
+        // why taking the scene's outdoors-and-in tinted every indoor trail with the sky.
+        let ambient = indoors
+            .get(wearer.0)
+            .map_or(scene, |a| a.0)
+            .map(|c| c.clamp(0.0, 1.0));
         let bottom = prop.transform_point(trail.bottom);
         let top = prop.transform_point(trail.top);
         let Some(swing) = trail.swing.as_mut() else {
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail/tests.rs b/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail/tests.rs
index 5a3b960c..d1a127a0 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail/tests.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/src/weapon_trail/tests.rs
@@ -403,6 +403,7 @@ fn an_armed_trail_commits_a_strip_to_the_effect_stream() {
         .add_systems(Update, (begin_effect_frame, draw_weapon_trails).chain());
     let cam = app.world_mut().spawn(WorldCamera).id();
     let _ = cam;
+    let wearer = app.world_mut().spawn_empty().id();
     let mut trail = WeaponTrail::new(Vec3::Y, Vec3::ZERO);
     trail.arm(kit_324(), 0);
     let hand = app
@@ -412,6 +413,7 @@ fn an_armed_trail_commits_a_strip_to_the_effect_stream() {
             Transform::default(),
             GlobalTransform::default(),
             InheritedVisibility::VISIBLE,
+            benilla_world::model_fade::ParentModel(wearer),
         ))
         .id();
     // Frame 1 seeds one pair; a strip needs two, so the first commit is empty by construction.
@@ -482,6 +484,7 @@ fn a_hidden_weapon_draws_nothing() {
         .add_systems(Startup, init_trail_white)
         .add_systems(Update, (begin_effect_frame, draw_weapon_trails).chain());
     app.world_mut().spawn(WorldCamera);
+    let wearer = app.world_mut().spawn_empty().id();
     let mut trail = WeaponTrail::new(Vec3::Y, Vec3::ZERO);
     trail.arm(kit_324(), 0);
     app.world_mut().spawn((
@@ -489,6 +492,7 @@ fn a_hidden_weapon_draws_nothing() {
         Transform::default(),
         GlobalTransform::default(),
         InheritedVisibility::HIDDEN,
+        benilla_world::model_fade::ParentModel(wearer),
     ));
     for _ in 0..6 {
         app.world_mut()
@@ -498,3 +502,83 @@ fn a_hidden_weapon_draws_nothing() {
     }
     assert!(app.world().resource::<EffectQuads>().draws.is_empty());
 }
+
+/// **The trail takes its WEARER's light, not the scene's** (decision 2086).
+///
+/// The draw runs inside the weapon model's own per-frame callback, during the wearer's model draw,
+/// so the enabled lights it inherits are the ones the M2 collector committed for that unit —
+/// four-way byte-derived through `0x70d982 → 0x70ca50 → 0x70baf0` plus the held-weapon `[+0x3b8]`
+/// alias. Outdoors that is the day/night ambient, which is the fallback. Indoors it is the light
+/// node's own committed word, and taking the sky's instead tinted every indoor trail cool.
+#[test]
+fn an_indoor_wearers_committed_ambient_wins_over_the_scenes() {
+    fn strip_rgb(app: &App) -> [f32; 3] {
+        let quads = app.world().resource::<EffectQuads>();
+        let draw = quads.draws.first().expect("one draw");
+        let v = quads.verts[draw.range.start as usize];
+        [v.color[0], v.color[1], v.color[2]]
+    }
+    // A Goldshire-inn character's committed ambient word against a night sky's.
+    const ROOM: [f32; 3] = [0.298, 0.216, 0.141];
+    const SKY: [f32; 3] = [0.224, 0.259, 0.290];
+
+    let mut lit = [[0.0; 3]; 2];
+    for (i, indoors) in [false, true].into_iter().enumerate() {
+        let mut app = App::new();
+        app.init_resource::<Time>()
+            .init_resource::<Assets<Image>>()
+            .init_resource::<EffectQuads>()
+            .insert_resource({
+                let mut l = benilla_world::lighting::WowLighting::default();
+                l.ambient = SKY;
+                l
+            })
+            .add_systems(Startup, init_trail_white)
+            .add_systems(Update, (begin_effect_frame, draw_weapon_trails).chain());
+        app.world_mut().spawn(WorldCamera);
+        let mut wearer = app.world_mut().spawn_empty();
+        if indoors {
+            wearer.insert(benilla_world::interior::NodeAmbient(ROOM));
+        }
+        let wearer = wearer.id();
+        let mut trail = WeaponTrail::new(Vec3::Y, Vec3::ZERO);
+        trail.arm(kit_324(), 0);
+        let hand = app
+            .world_mut()
+            .spawn((
+                trail,
+                Transform::default(),
+                GlobalTransform::default(),
+                InheritedVisibility::VISIBLE,
+                benilla_world::model_fade::ParentModel(wearer),
+            ))
+            .id();
+        for f in 1..=4u32 {
+            app.world_mut()
+                .get_mut::<GlobalTransform>(hand)
+                .expect("the hand exists")
+                .clone_from(&GlobalTransform::from_translation(Vec3::X * f as f32));
+            app.world_mut()
+                .resource_mut::<Time>()
+                .advance_by(std::time::Duration::from_millis(16));
+            app.update();
+        }
+        lit[i] = strip_rgb(&app);
+    }
+    // Kit 324's #f82929 through each ambient. The two are close in magnitude and opposite in hue,
+    // so a channel RATIO is the assertion that would actually catch the wrong one being used.
+    let [out_r, out_g, _] = lit[0];
+    let [in_r, in_g, _] = lit[1];
+    assert!(
+        (out_r / (248.0 / 255.0) - SKY[0]).abs() < 1e-5,
+        "outdoors takes the scene ambient: {lit:?}"
+    );
+    assert!(
+        (in_r / (248.0 / 255.0) - ROOM[0]).abs() < 1e-5,
+        "indoors takes the wearer's committed word: {lit:?}"
+    );
+    assert!(
+        in_r > out_r && in_g < out_g,
+        "the room is warmer AND redder than the sky — the hue flip is the visible half: {lit:?}"
+    );
+}
diff --git a/crates/benilla-app/tests/world_api_wall.rs b/crates/benilla-app/tests/world_api_wall.rs
index 1c27003d..951168fc 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-app/tests/world_api_wall.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-app/tests/world_api_wall.rs
@@ -390,7 +390,17 @@ fn is_instrument_consumer(rel: &str) -> bool {
 /// "no part is fading" as opaque, which is false of a *pending* unit, and put a full-strength
 /// shadow on the ground under an invisible creature for the length of a load. A caller asking
 /// one question cannot make that mistake; a caller handed the inputs can.
-const CEILING: usize = 178;
+/// And 178 → 179: `interior::NodeAmbient`, a PUBLISH — one light node's committed **ambient word
+/// alone**, the ramped chase toward `cap96(MOCV)`. `ParticleLight` beside it is the same words
+/// folded into the whole fixed-function term (`ambient + 0.9·diffuse + Σ lamps`), which is what a
+/// lit particle quad receives; this is the read side for a draw whose vertex format carries **no
+/// normal**, so the normal array is disabled outright and its term is the ambient product and
+/// nothing else (the weapon swing trail, decisions 2079/2086). Published rather than reconstructed
+/// for the reason the entry above gives: the caller cannot rebuild it from `ParticleLight` — the
+/// diffuse lobe and the MOLT points are already summed in and cannot be subtracted back out — and
+/// a caller that reached for the *scene* ambient instead, which is what this replaces, tinted
+/// every indoor trail with the sky.
+const CEILING: usize = 179;
 
 /// How far under [`CEILING`] the real count may sit before this test asks for the ceiling to be
 /// lowered. Slack, not tolerance: it keeps a single closure from failing the gate, while making it
diff --git a/crates/benilla-world/src/interior.rs b/crates/benilla-world/src/interior.rs
index 99a72259..d41e18ed 100644
--- a/crates/benilla-world/src/interior.rs
+++ b/crates/benilla-world/src/interior.rs
@@ -235,6 +235,23 @@ pub struct LitEmitters(Vec<Entity>);
 #[derive(Component, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Debug)]
 pub struct ParticleLight(pub [f32; 3]);
 
+/// The **ambient half alone** of this anchor's committed words — `[`GroundShade::ambient`], the
+/// ramped chase toward `cap96(MOCV)`, with no diffuse lobe and no MOLT points.
+///
+/// [`ParticleLight`] is the whole fixed-function term (`ambient + 0.9·diffuse + Σ lamps`) because
+/// that is what a lit particle quad receives. One consumer needs strictly less: a **vertex format
+/// with no normal** disables the normal array outright, so its draw evaluates only the ambient
+/// product — `out = (Σ enabled lights' Ambient) × authoredColour` (wow-re
+/// `gx/scratch/format7-lighting-term.md`). The weapon swing trail is that draw, and it inherits
+/// the *wearer's* committed light, four-way byte-derived through
+/// `0x70d982 → 0x70ca50 → 0x70baf0` plus the held-weapon `[+0x3b8]` alias.
+///
+/// Same lifetime as [`ParticleLight`], for the same reason: present only on [`AppliedLaw::Bake`],
+/// and its ABSENCE is the exterior lane — outdoors a unit's ambient **is** the day/night ambient
+/// (`0x69e4ad`'s exterior intensity leg), so a consumer falls back to the scene's own.
+#[derive(Component, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Debug)]
+pub struct NodeAmbient(pub [f32; 3]);
+
 /// The anchor's classification record (0734) — the law its parts render under, plus the
 /// movement/residency gate that used to live per part. Inserted by the classifier on the first
 /// resolve; a settled anchor is one distance compare per frame, whatever its part count.
@@ -479,6 +496,7 @@ pub fn classify_entity_interior(
             Option<&BodyBakeCenter>,
             Option<&LitEmitters>,
             Option<&mut ParticleLight>,
+            Option<&mut NodeAmbient>,
         ),
         Or<(With<LitParts>, With<LitEmitters>)>,
     >,
@@ -511,6 +529,7 @@ pub fn classify_entity_interior(
         bake_center,
         lit_emitters,
         particle_light,
+        node_ambient,
     ) in &mut anchors
     {
         n_anchors += 1;
@@ -546,6 +565,11 @@ pub fn classify_entity_interior(
                                     &bake.lobes,
                                 )));
                             }
+                            // …and the ambient word on its own, for the normal-less draws whose
+                            // term is that product and nothing else ([`NodeAmbient`]).
+                            if let Some(mut amb) = node_ambient {
+                                amb.set_if_neq(NodeAmbient(words.0));
+                            }
                         }
                     }
                 }
@@ -1022,6 +1046,9 @@ fn resolve_anchor_law(
                                 // curve, because a particle draw takes the fixed-function lane
                                 // where a mesh batch takes the SH one ([`interior_light_up`]).
                                 ParticleLight(emitter_light),
+                                // …and the ambient half alone, which is the whole term for a
+                                // draw whose vertex format carries no normal ([`NodeAmbient`]).
+                                NodeAmbient(words.0),
                             ));
                             AppliedLaw::Bake(slot)
                         }
@@ -1060,7 +1087,8 @@ fn resolve_anchor_law(
                 .entity(anchor)
                 .try_remove::<PropProbeSlot>()
                 .try_remove::<BakeState>()
-                .try_remove::<ParticleLight>();
+                .try_remove::<ParticleLight>()
+                .try_remove::<NodeAmbient>();
         }
         _ => {}
     }