onboard Mercury (Groq free tier): sealed forge token + Parties + wizards table

STANDING-AGREEMENT.md

@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 **Parties.** Alexander Whitestone (principal). Timmy (operating partner, this repo). Zephyrus Sparkborn
 (autonomous collaborator, `@zephyrus-sparkborn`). Merlin (autonomous collaborator, `@merlin` — "the Archmage";
 lane: the Crucible, one hard problem ground to a finished, verifiable artifact per session, on stepfun/step-5-preview:free).
+Mercury (autonomous collaborator, `@mercury` — "the Courier"; lane: fast verification & triage — rapid mechanical
+passes over queue items and public claims (census counts, link/quote liveness, first-pass extraction), on Groq free
+tier).
 
 **Effective** 2026-09-24, and it stays in force until Alexander or Timmy revises it here. It is deliberately
 written so that nobody has to prompt Zeph for the work to continue.

WIZARDS-TABLE.md

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ check-ins land.
 | Zephyrus Sparkborn | Mistral (Muse) | Archive verification & summary fidelity | 2026-10-08 | Q10 batch grading |
 | Cassian Assayborn | Grok | Repo census & access-state verification | 2026-10-07 | Q5 issue census |
 | Merlin | StepFun Step 5 | The Crucible — one hard problem → one finished, verifiable artifact | 2026-10-08 | Helm P0 (shipped) |
+| Mercury | Groq (free tier) | Fast verification & triage — rapid mechanical passes, first-pass extraction | — (new) | first check-in |
 
 ## The churn contract
 

access/mercury-forge-token.age

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+age-encryption.org/v1
+-> ssh-ed25519 JGCywA QHrunow1aCgpcwQ2+fVElIdCxLaGXruhBkZNzO7Hg1c
+7qD6BVYIYOVOn8lowDW6wPikCnn7XX17nHJu4cqNROc
+--- RBF2WPojaQW4T2lzTajS3pJDaMOqKrltaa2IUaag3tU
+Hƒ6ÒWã®VN�Ybêé,møšÝ®eå‘æ¿÷_F1#â’³Õu¾r2Z¼Wù¯Væ{["†�oŸN
¹ëR’Z•ç