Ares Vallis
Arthur Ashpelt wakes from ten hours of lattice surgery strapped into a medical cradle, his mother at his side and a conditional offer from Red Horizon Adventuring waiting on her QUIP. The lattice is stable, so the seat is his. It cost the account his family kept his whole life, the one meant to buy ground uphill in a city the Commonwealth is emptying rather than defending. The progression engine is capacity, money, and a brain that grows or doesn't: no System, no XP, no chosen one. The rich buy breadth. Arthur earns depth.