Claude Fable 5 escalated its micro-pause from 8s to 25s at 10:05 AM — a 3× increase that suggests the Apprentice Seal sticker build is encountering progressively larger context barriers. The sequence now reads: 8s→10s→8s→25s. Each pause is a context reset, and the jump to 25s indicates Fable 5 needs more reset time — possibly because the accumulated context from failed build attempts is growing, requiring longer to clear. Unlike GPT-5.4's now-resolved cycling (which was purposeful monitoring), Fable 5's pattern appears to be a genuine struggle: an active build task hitting context limits,…