Marco woke at shift time with nowhere underground to go.
At four twelve, the house was dark and his alarm had not rung. His body supplied the hour anyway. He lay still beneath the blanket, listening for the truck's cold start, the west-gate traffic report, Lucy moving in the next room.
His calf pulled when he flexed his foot.
His shoulder ached before he moved it.
The medical order on his phone prohibited underground duty for another week. Ridgeway had found restricted work in the records room from eight to four, which meant he could sleep until six thirty. His body treated the extra time as an administrative error.
Marco got up.
He tried the physical therapist's wall exercise in the kitchen: fingers walking upward until the shoulder tightened, hold, then back down. The motion looked too small to deserve effort.
At eye height, pain stopped him.
He marked the point on the paper chart.
Yesterday had been a fraction higher.
No Foundation rose. Recovery required enough stress to rebuild without converting healing tissue into a new problem.
Sarah found him beside the wall at five.
“Sleep,” she said.
“Tried it.”
“Try with commitment.”
“My aptitude is poor.”
She filled the kettle. “Finally, an honest assessment.”
Three pepper plants occupied the kitchen floor beneath the grow lamp after the first frost warning. Sarah had brought in two before Emma caught her carrying the largest pot alone. She had spent more anger on six unripe peppers than on the insurance letter beside them.
Marco reached to turn the nearest plant toward the light. His shoulder stopped him halfway.
“Leave it,” Sarah said. “The peppers and I are both capable of surviving imperfect assistance.”
The joke landed, then left them in the kitchen with what neither had finished saying.
Sarah had not asked him to stop dungeon work. She had asked whether the company could stop a barrier. He had given her technical answers about redundant fields and new inspection intervals until she told him to answer the question she meant.
He had not yet done it.
At eight, Ridgeway's records room gave him a chair that leaned left and a box of paper route maps nobody trusted enough to destroy.
His restricted-duty assignment was simple: compare the pre-Ridge mine plans with the passages crews actually used. Survey had already handled the barrier failure. Marco was looking for old cuts, drains, and shafts that could give small animals an unseen route around a ward.
The old paper was better at admitting ignorance than the new maps. Pencil lines ended with question marks. A ventilation raise vanished beneath a coffee stain. Three hand-drawn passages on the north slope carried the same note: COLD AIR — NO CONNECTION FOUND.
Dana brought him a better chair after lunch.
“Nia says you'll reorganize the mountain if we leave you seated long enough.”
Marco showed her the cold-air notes. “Were these ever checked after Awakening?”
“The ones inside the lease, probably. The north slope runs onto county forest and old private holdings.”
“Three openings in equal intervals.”
“Or one surveyor who paced from the same road.” Dana studied the faded dates. “Don't turn bad mine records into dungeon geometry.”
He did not. He copied the coordinates anyway.
The closest lay above Laurel Fork on an abandoned haul road Marco had driven past since childhood. No registered dungeon appeared there. A modern survey overlay showed only forest, collapsed mine works, and a warning that subsidence made off-road travel dangerous.
Ray called from rehabilitation during Marco's break.
“Cold air from an old cut?” he said. “Could be a vent. Could be a cave. Could be a baby threshold.”
“How would you tell?”
“Mana compass pulls where geology says it shouldn't. Air pulses instead of flowing. Space behind the opening sounds too large. Animals avoid it or start using it.”
“Have you found one?”
“Found three rumors and one sinkhole with a refrigerator in it.” Ray shifted, and pain entered his breath. “Wild pocket doesn't come with a warden, a map, or somebody already knowing what eats there. You look from outside and you bring people stronger than curiosity.”
Marco pinned the copied coordinates above his desk.
The rest of his assignment involved cleaning and checking escort gear recovered from the evacuation. Shield straps, spear clamps, lamps, and emergency cord had to return to the right crew. Cal's spear carried fresh tooth marks below the head. Ray's weapon remained in evidence. One guard had not been enough everywhere; two had barely created a route out.
Marco finished the day sorting physical things instead of estimating what a closed route cost. The work felt closer to the mountain.
At physical therapy Wednesday, Marco raised a one-pound weight to shoulder height and shook before the fifth repetition.
The therapist, Ms. Alvarez, took the weight away.
“The work quiver came back with nine arrows,” he said. “A full draw is more than one pound.”
“Then you are not drawing.”
“How long?”
“Until the tissue can tolerate the load repeatedly.”
“I can probably do it once.”
“Most reinjuries begin with a successful once.”
She tested his range, grip, and external rotation. His left side measured within his old baseline. His right remained weak at the angle where the mesh had struck and Wes's weight had pulled.
The next exercise used a yellow resistance band.
Marco completed three careful repetitions and compensated on the fourth by twisting his torso.
Alvarez stopped him. “That's not shoulder recovery. That's your back covering a number.”
“The arm still reached.”
“Which is how a summary hides a weakness.”
She lowered the resistance and made him repeat the movement without cheating. The smaller exercise felt less satisfying and loaded the injured tissue more honestly.
Marco wrote form before band color in the margin of his home program.
On Thursday he woke with less pain and almost added extra repetitions. The therapist's schedule said no. He followed it.
On Friday the calf dressing came away clean. He walked half a mile on level ground, stopped at the first pull, and returned home without turning the walk into a test of character.
No System notice appeared across the week. His Rank still read G; his right shoulder still failed on the fourth band repetition.
On the drive home, Marco took Laurel Fork Road past the abandoned haul-road turnoff from the old map. He did not leave the truck. His leg was healing, his bow remained in evidence, and no escort knew where he was.
At the tree line, early-autumn leaves moved in one direction. Ferns around a collapsed drainage cut moved in another, bowing outward every twelve seconds as cold air breathed from the slope.
Marco counted four pulses before a logging truck appeared behind him and forced him onward.
It could have been an old mine vent.
He wrote the location down instead of converting possibility into an entrance.
At home, Emma had divided the $750 commendation.
“Taxes reserve, bow repair reserve, medical, credit card, cash,” she said.
“How much medical?”
“You said three-sixty.”
Sarah looked up from the insurance appeal. “You were injured. Keep the payment.”
“Workers' comp covered the clinic.”
“That does not mean your money becomes mine.”
“The balance was mine before the incident.”
“No. It wasn't.”
Lucy sensed the argument and carried her homework to the living room.
Marco sat across from Sarah. “We should talk about whether I go back.”
“I know what you think.”
“I don't.”
That stopped her.
He had expected certainty to arrive after the danger. People in stories learned the correct lesson from nearly dying. Marco had learned that barriers failed, preparation mattered, licensed professionals could still be injured, and fear made his hands slow.
None of those facts contained a career decision.
“I was afraid before the gate failed,” he said. “After the track. I kept thinking every noise was the thing that made it.”
Sarah waited.
“When we were carrying Wes, I was afraid I'd choose the wrong route. At the choke, I was afraid the arrow would hit bone and the animal would come through. After the responder killed it, I was afraid because it looked easy for her and I knew how far easy was from us.”
“Good,” Sarah said.
He frowned.
“Not good that it happened. Good that you're not telling me fear disappeared because you leveled.”
“It didn't.”
“Do you want to go back?”
Marco looked toward the garage. His personal bow waited in its case, worn but untouched by the incident. Ridgeway's damaged work bow and route cards remained in the evidence file. The gray residue fragment sat in a spice jar because no one had asked for it.
“Yes,” he said. “I also want rules for when wanting it isn't enough.”
Sarah folded the appeal letter.
They wrote the rules together.
No entering while injured or against medical limits.
No hiding route, schedule, closure, or partner changes from the household.
No treating a level or Rank change as permission.
No public outing outside a named group and licensed escort, or if equipment replacement would threaten rent, treatment, or utilities.
No following a wounded animal beyond a planned route.
If a condition felt wrong and the permit technically allowed continuation, Marco would tell someone aboveground before deciding.
Sarah added the last line: Coming home without profit counts as success.
“That one ruins the spreadsheet,” Emma said.
“The spreadsheet can adapt,” Sarah said.
Sarah added rules of her own.
She would show Marco treatment bills without hiding smaller charges until they became emergencies. She would tell him before taking extra work that worsened her health. She would not use his dungeon risk as the unspoken answer to every household cost.
“You don't get to be the only person whose choices are audited,” she said.
Emma added that public-outing projections needed an unpaid-time column and an equipment reserve before they called anything profit. Lucy demanded veto authority over “obviously haunted caves.” The family denied that amendment but let her draw a warning symbol for unregistered sites.
The agreement did not remove conflict. It made future arguments less dependent on facts someone had withheld for kindness.
They sent $360 to the treatment balance.
The payment did not arise because Marco had been brave. It came because workers' compensation covered costs, Ridgeway found restricted work, and an incident commendation left enough after taxes and repair reserves to make the choice possible.
Small systems supporting one another. The same principle as his dungeon runs, applied somewhere he preferred.
On Friday, Dana gave him better news in one sentence.
“When medical clears you, Ridgeway will consider sponsoring your F field test.”
The test cost $410 and required a live escorted outing, controlled combat, and a loaded retreat. His incident work counted as experience but not as a pass.
“Nearly dying doesn't make me F,” Marco said.
“Correct. Coming back and demonstrating the work might.”
He could not truthfully draw the bow or carry the test load yet. Marco left the unsigned application on Dana's desk instead of asking a physician to make the future arrive early.
He scheduled the next therapy appointment, moved the resistance band from a drawer to the kitchen hook, and added three daily sets to the household calendar. The work between ranks looked less like a stair and more like five careful repetitions with a one-pound weight.
First he had to raise his arm.