Main idea

The only signal received is the lockout. It arrives hours after the spending that caused it, and it doesn't distinguish the skill launched three times from the one launched once. Nothing else shows up: no error, no slowdown, no message — a wasteful skill produces exactly the same result as a frugal one.

The breakdown therefore doesn't exist on its own: it has to be built, step by step, by attributing a share of the total to each. As long as that view hasn't been manufactured, the only available reaction to the ceiling is to wait, or to work less.

Why it matters

This separates a consumption problem from an ordinary defect: it doesn't announce itself through a malfunction but through a working capacity that shrinks.

And it explains why the subject is put off for so long — there is no moment at which it presents itself as an incident to handle.

Nuances and limits

Knowing the breakdown doesn't always designate a target: if three skills share the spending equally, the constructed view says no more than the lockout did.

And that view remains a reconstruction, not a reading: what it attributes to a step is estimated.

Open questions

• What signal, before the lockout, would say that a run has just cost ten times what it should have?