The letter arrived after the ending

Retur could calculate a letter's consequence correctly and then skip past it because terminal game state won the rendering race.

Symptom

A decision could end the run without ever showing the consequence that made it end. The state was correct; the story was missing its final sentence.

Wrong assumption

Once the engine had produced a result, the UI would naturally display it before moving on. In practice, terminal phase routing had a stronger claim on the next render.

Actual cause

The engine advanced into day-end or loss immediately after resolving the letter. The interface checked terminal state before checking for the pending result overlay, so the ending screen eclipsed the consequence.

Fix

Pending consequences now render before terminal phases. The run may be over internally, but the player gets to see why before the game tells them so.

Prevention

Model presentation obligations explicitly. A computed outcome and an outcome the player has acknowledged are different states, especially in narrative games.

Lesson

Correct state is not the same as correct experience. Sequencing bugs often live in the gap.