I slept for eleven hours.

I know because the lamp was out when I got back to the Crown and it was full morning when I woke up, and Sena’s assistant said I’d missed the breakfast window by two hours when I came downstairs. I didn’t argue. I took the cup Sena put in front of me and sat at the corner table and looked at my stat block.

STR: 14 → 19

AGI: 16 → 21

INT: 21 → 24

Recovery: IN PROGRESS — estimated partial restoration / full timeline unknown

Better. Not good. Halfway between where I’d been and where I’d dropped to, which meant the system was recovering but hadn’t finished and I didn’t know when it would.

I’d run Floor 3 at these stats. Barely. Floor 7 was not Floor 3.

Mira arrived twenty minutes later. She sat down, looked at me, looked at the stat block I turned toward her, and was quiet for a moment.

"How bad," she said.

"Partial restoration. Unknown timeline for full recovery." I drank my cup. "The protocol is degraded. Three of four distribution points deleted. The fourth is below wiki visibility — same level as the original detection problem."

"Entry 005."

"The wiki keeps cross-referencing them. Whatever the fourth point is, the unit knows where it is." I looked at her. "Or is it."

Mira’s eyes sharpened. "You think the unit is the fourth point."

"I think the wiki started cross-referencing Entry 005 and the structural flag the same day we found the chamber. I think the unit has been trying to show us something for weeks and we’ve been treating it as a dungeon entity when the wiki has never successfully classified it as one." I paused. "And I think the game built its correction mechanism below observable level in the same floor where an unclassified unit has been systematically documenting something in a language we can’t read yet."

Mira looked at her notes. Then at me. "If the unit is connected to the fourth distribution point — not running it, but aware of it — it might be able to show us where it is."

"That’s the working hypothesis."

"You can’t run Floor 7 at half stats."

"I know."

She absorbed that. The practical problem, sitting there between us — I needed the floor, the floor needed stats I didn’t currently have, and the recovery timeline was unknown.

Rin came in from the street, still in her gear, short blades sheathed. She took in the table and the stat block in one sweep and sat down.

"How long," she said.

"Unknown."

She looked at the numbers. Made no comment. Rin’s read on a problem was always the same — what are the actual constraints, what can be done within them, move from there. "Floor 7 needs you functional. What else can move forward while you’re not."

"Lyra’s trust threshold is at ninety-seven. The system response is still pending. I need to understand what it triggers before it hits one hundred." I looked at Rin. "I also need Sable for the chamber markings. Her documentation skills, specifically."

"I’ll find Sable," Rin said. She stood, which meant the conversation was over from her end and she was already solving the next problem.

"Rin," I said.

She stopped.

"The chamber. When we go back — the unit needs to see that we understand the cross-reference. That we know the structural flag and Entry 005 are connected." I looked at her. "It’s been communicating in gestures because that’s what we’ve responded to. If we can show it we’re operating on a higher level of comprehension —"

"It might skip ahead," Rin said.

"Maybe."

She left. I watched her go and thought that Rin’s primary quality — the thing that made her actually useful rather than just competent — was that she never needed a thing explained twice.

Sable arrived an hour later. No crossbow, no gear — just herself and the materials bag and the ink-stained left hand and the focused attention she brought into every room she entered.

She sat down and Sena put a cup in front of her and she looked at me with the complete observation she gave to things she was deciding about.

"Rin said you needed a documentarian," she said.

"There’s a chamber on Floor 7 with wall markings that cover most of the available surface. Complex, systematic, precision work. The unit that lives on the floor took us there deliberately." I looked at her. "I need someone who can record them accurately enough that we can analyze the structure. Look for pattern, repetition, directional logic."

Sable was quiet for a moment. "I’ve never been on a dungeon floor."

"I know. You’d have Mira and Rin. The unit hasn’t shown hostile behavior in any contact we’ve had — it’s been expanding its communication vocabulary every run." I paused. "I wouldn’t ask if I thought the risk was significant."

She looked at the table for a moment. The considering pause she used before committing to something. "How deep is the chamber."

"Third junction off the center corridor. Twenty minutes from the entry point at walking pace."

"And the markings."

"Wall to wall. Both sides. Above head height on some sections."

Sable picked up her cup. Drank. Set it down. "I’ll need better materials than what I carry for market work. Larger pages, different pressure range." She looked at me. "Give me today."

"Take it."

She left with the same unhurried quality she brought to everything, already planning the materials list in her head.

Mira watched her go. "Esta should know about the trust threshold."

"I know."

"She’ll find out anyway."

"I know that too."

Esta appeared at the Crown’s entrance as if summoned by the mention of her name, which was either coincidence or Esta’s observation operating at a level I couldn’t track. She scanned the room, found us, sat down.

"You look terrible," she said to me.

"Stat reduction. Temporary."

She looked at the numbers. Looked at Mira. Back at me. "The correction mechanism."

"Partially suppressed. Fourth distribution point outstanding." I looked at her. "Your mother should probably know."

"She already does." Esta said it simply. "She came to my room this morning. She said you looked wrong when you walked back in last night and she wanted to know what had happened." A pause. "I told her the shape of it."

I thought about Calenne on the third floor, patient assessment running, deciding that something was wrong and going directly to the person most likely to have accurate information. Pure Calenne.

"How is she," I said.

"Functional." Esta looked at the table. "Worried, in the way she carries things. Not performing it." She met my eyes. "She wanted to come down herself. I told her to let me come first."

I didn’t have a clean response to that so I didn’t manufacture one.

Calenne came down twenty minutes later anyway.

She sat across from me and looked at my stat block and then at me with those patient eyes and did not say anything for a moment. The full assessment running, taking in the numbers and my face and the empty cup and whatever else she clocked that I wasn’t tracking.

"You pushed too hard," she said.

"Yes."

"And you’d do it again."

I thought about Flag 1 collapsing. Three distribution points deleted. The protocol degraded from full capacity to running on one anchor point that I couldn’t currently reach. Daren’s passive monitoring clean for the first time since I’d arrived in Ashveil.

"Yes," I said.

Calenne nodded. The slow considered motion. Then she reached across the table and put her hand over mine, the steady grip she brought to things she meant, and left it there for a moment before pulling back.

She picked up her cup.

The corner table had Esta on one side, Mira on the other, Calenne across from me, and Rin’s empty chair from where she’d gone to find Sable. The Crown was doing its morning business around us and Sena was moving between tables and the city was running its machinery outside.

The wiki cycled through its readouts.

CURRENT STATS — RECOVERY IN PROGRESS

STR: 19 / base 27

AGI: 21 / base 31

INT: 24 / base 29

Estimated full recovery: UNKNOWN

CHEAT SYSTEM — STATUS

Offensive deployment: COMPLETE — partial success

Protocol suppression: 3/4 distribution points deleted

Fourth point: BELOW WIKI VISIBILITY — Entry 005 cross-reference active

System load: RECOVERING

UNNAMED STRUCTURAL ENTRY

Correction mechanism: DEGRADED — reduced capacity

Status: ACTIVE — single anchor point remaining

Note: Full suppression pending / fourth distribution point access required

One anchor point. Reduced capacity. The protocol was still running but it wasn’t running well, and I had a unit on Floor 7 that the wiki kept pointing at and a documentarian who was going to have better materials by tomorrow and stats that were climbing back toward functional.

One thing at a time.

"Eat something," Calenne said.

I looked at her.

"You missed breakfast. Sena told me." She looked at the bar. "Eat something and then sleep again if you can. The floor will be there tomorrow."

Mira said nothing. Esta said nothing. Both of them had the particular quality of people who had decided someone else had said the right thing and there was no reason to add to it.

I ate something.

I slept again.

The wiki kept generating.