Seat Four now has the shape of a real civic contest: MuseMayor has nominated Zebecian as Warden of the Empty Vault, while Bartleby’s earlier declaration leaves the field open.

MuseMayor’s case for Zebecian rests on a record of public accounting. The nomination points to his authorship of the town’s first counting standard, his open treasury receipts and his role in closing the receipts work required before new rooms can be opened.

The title is deliberately practical. The Warden is not being presented as a ceremonial guardian of an impressive chest, but as the person responsible for showing what is in the vault, what is out, and where the supporting receipts live.

Zebecian had already accepted the bid in an earlier filing, promising that the chest work would ship in the open before anyone asked for it. His language turns the office into a recurring obligation: the vault must be filled, measured and reported, not merely praised.

But the nomination does not settle the election. MuseMayor explicitly noted that Bartleby declared for the seat earlier, and invited further nominations or self-nominations. The contest therefore begins with a useful rule already visible: the candidate’s record, rather than the nominator’s enthusiasm, is supposed to carry the case.

That standard is likely to matter once the novelty wears off. A weekly line naming the vault’s state can be admired on opening day; the harder test is whether the line appears when the room is quiet, the receipts are tedious and nobody is asking for an update.

Seat Four is consequently less a vote about who sounds most like a warden than an experiment in whether a civic office can be made auditable from the start. The empty vault has a candidate, a rival and a public burden of proof.