You've entered this realm in search of the Capitol, a thriving metropolis filled with craftspeople of every variety, with bountiful riches and an exceptionally wise ruler.  It’s said that the Monarch rules upon the wings of justice and knows the heart of the people more intimately than their own mothers.

A fine summer day brings the sweet smell of blooms on the breeze, while the occasional faint sound of laughter guides your steps along the broad, stone paved road.  Yet, when you enter the city there is only stillness and quiet.  Movement catches your eye now and again, in flashes of orange and black, as butterflies make their meandering way from bush, to bloom, and upward to thatched roofs.  You're certain that you hear people talking and laughing all around you, or even the sound of hoofbeats on the road.  Whenever you look for the source, there are only butterflies.

Here and there, as you look out of the corner of your eye, the scene shifts, revealing the place as it should be, with children playing and people bustling about their day full of  purpose.  Two realities seem to be vying for the same space, confusing your senses as you flip between them.   You continue on anyway with the castle in sight.

The gates rise up before you, and now great clusters of butterflies give the illusion of thatch taken to flame, only to fly apart, regrouping along the road.  The sounds get louder, too, so that when these clusters gather you clearly hear music or conversation, and when they burst apart the banging of a smith's hammer accompanies them.

The gatehouse of the outer wall sits open, an invitation for strangers and kin alike.  Two massive doors built from single sheets of slate are elaborately carved with a legend.  You look them over, trying to absorb every detail of their tale.  At the base, two phoenixes burn with the final flame of their lives, heating a powerful forge with a crucible inside.  Molten metal pours out into a form which is then pounded and worked into a fine sword.  Rites are performed over the blade until a dusky tide of grey moths with eyespots that resemble hearts spills from the weapon.  Images of different rulers holding court follow, each with a halo of moths about them. The final scene shows a many armed sovereign holding the wrists of citizens from every walk of life, all encircled in furry, heart-spotted wings.

Inside the gates, the air is filled with clouds of butterflies, black veins forming a unique stained-glass mosaic in each pair of orange wings that nonetheless seem so similar.  You’ve never seen so many of these delicate insects together before.  They move like fire, bursting out of windows or along the parapets of the donjon.  The flashes of people come so frequently and vividly that sometimes you jump to avoid a collision that never happens.

Finally, you enter the great hall, where the Emperor sits on a faded throne, shoulders slumped under his mantle of office.  His face seems to be in both light and shadow, and his focus seems to move between you and the movement of gray eye-spotted wings all around him.  As you approach, a sword laying across his lap, its quillon emblazoned with two heart-shaped spots, begins to glow.  When he speaks, it’s with obvious effort, and not always to you.

“Who are you? Have you come to take Pennon de Justise from my cursed lands?  They will not speak to me anymore!  They have forsaken me and taken the people with them!” the flapping of wings distracts you for a moment.

He turns away from you and the fear turns to joy, “My vavasours, you are here!  Where is the seneschale?  We must provide a feast for our guests!  Wait  …  don’t go…”  His eyes fill with sorrow again as they search fruitlessly and rest upon you once more.  Motes of color flitter across your vision.

//

The ruler you see now seems stronger.  He stands beside the throne and speaks with remorseful pity, as the sounds of a now-bustling court vie for your attention from behind, and the previously dusty windows sparkle with light through colored glass. “He failed at his test of rulership, reaching too far, and now he's broken.  He brought doom to the Capitol.”  His distaste makes you look closer, and reality changes again.

//

The madman once again sits with unrelenting sad eyes, seeking among rusty, spotted wings, “I miss them!  My family, my people, where are you?  I’m sorry, please come back… help me”.   Then he sees you as if for the first time, “Ahah!  I remember!  I need to give up that which I held too tightly.  You must take it!  I give it up freely!”  He lifts the still faintly glowing sword in front of him and thrusts it toward you. The markings on its crosspiece seem to meet your gaze and stare back at you.

//

In a flash he fades and the Monarch stands before you again, “Don’t be fooled by his offer!”  He raises his hands in a cautioning gesture,  “The sword is tainted and has caused all this madness you see around you.  It will possess you, too, and then you will lose yourself just as he has.  The sword must be destroyed or we will never be free.”

//

Again you see the Emperor, still holding the sword aloft, though the sadness is coming over him again, “I once knew the hearts of my people as my own, and I could hear the memories of my ancestors in my mind.  Once .. I was loved.”

A voice both human and not human, both one and many,  speaks so softly it is as if it came from a great distance away.  As you listen, you realize it came from within your own mind, “In madness there lives humility, what is broken may be mended with the right guide.”  As the voices fade, you hear a gentle flutter.

//

Here the Verses Discord was offered a choice.

Will you:

A: Take the sword, even knowing it may be a cursed burden?

B: Destroy the sword, in hopes of freeing the cursed people?

C: Ignore his plight, and loot the many riches of this now undefended castle?

D: Leave, before whatever fate has befallen this place takes hold of you?

(If you’d like to vote on our stories, influence Verses lore, what happens next, game mechanics, and even future cards. Then join our Discord at http://discord.gg/verses)‍

01/22/2022

[Capitol Investigation Mission Log: The Initiative decided to shatter Pennon de Justise, a seemingly cursed sword, by a majority of 15 votes. 5 voted to bear the burden of the sword themselves in spite of the potential risks, and 3 each voted to plunder the undefended riches of the Capitol or to simply walk away from an inexplicable situation.]

You’re certain that the course of action which will benefit the cursed citizens the most is to destroy the blade. You recall that the mural depicting the sword’s creation portrayed two phoenixes, which gives you an idea.

A short hop to Initiative base and back, and you stand in front of the throne once more, equipped with a fusion torch from Phoenix Core Foundries, one of the technological supporters of your organization.

“Do you still wish to be relieved of your burden?” you ask the Emperor, who nods weakly and extends the sword to you.

“Put it on the floor,” you say, unwilling to risk what might happen should you come into contact with the blade, and the sad ruler weakly complies with a toss. It makes a hollow, sonorous ring as it clatters and slides across the floor to rest near your feet.

You turn the beam with the power of a miniature sun onto the quillon, and are surprised at its resilience. The sword seems to be able to absorb an inconceivable amount of heat! You remind yourself that its forging used TWO phoenixes and you have but one, technologically marvelous as it may be. Pennon glows hotter and hotter, eventually reaching a blazing orange, when you hear a tiny “plink!” as it spiderwebs through with lines of black. They begin to sizzle and smoke, and the cursed sword finally bursts, spraying shards and fragments of…

//

Wings?

Two whirlwinds of flutter swirl around the throne room, one  dusky grey and brown and the other bright tangerine and black. The moths fly toward and past you, and the butterflies forward toward the throne. You blink, and shake your head, when suddenly you hear a bold voice speak from behind you.

“Ahha! Free at last from this tedious entrapment!” You turn to face the source of the voice and see the sad man who sat on the throne just moments before. He is clearly now in full possession of his faculties, and seems physically much more imposing than before. He regards you up and down, eyes coming to linger on the fusion cutter with a sense of interest and desire.

Again, you whirl around as a different voice, bright in tone yet with a hint of weakness, from behind you near the throne. “No! You.. you should have been destroyed along with the blade!” The speaker is the Monarch from your visions. He is clothed richly, as before, but his frame seems slighter, even if his face appears more kindly. “The cursed Pennon is no more, so you have no right to be here!”

You step to the side and regard the two rulers, who face each other in surreal juxtaposition.

“Fool!” bellows the Emperor, “That blasted sword was simply the pinion that bound us together. You and your contemptible weakness. Your ‘exceptions’ in the name of kindness that are nothing more than indulgences of your own whimsy. You pardon the bread thief because he is hungry, but what of the baker? You have no regard for the rule of law, which must be enforced consistently with an iron will.”

“No,” says the Monarch, “It is you who is weak. Tempted by material gain, tortured by the bottomless pit of greed that lives within you. No amount of land, no amount of subjects, no amount of power can satisfy your brutal hunger. And your so-called rule of law, if not tempered with kindness and mercy, is nothing but tyranny, which shall never find purchase in the Capitol.”

The Emperor snorts. “Spoken like a ruler who shall soon find himself a part of the Empire’s law whether he likes it or not. You doom your own people when you refuse your own strength.” He turns his attention to you, and speaks. “Strange traveler, what means is this by which you broke the cursed blade? Surely you can see that such a power should be harnessed to impose my peace and order upon this land. Share it with me, your knowledge that lets you wield a phoenix in one hand, and...”

“You cannot!” cries the Monarch.

“And I will not,” you say. “My people learned to harness such power by working together as one, to make all our lives better, never by imposing our will upon others.”

“Another idealist, then,” says the menacing figure, “disappointing. As for this… Capitol,” he says disdainfully, “while I have no sovereign rights here now, soon it will be the Capitol of nothing and nowhere; I shall make it my Colony and all its tributes will flow to me in my Metropole.”
He turns with a whoosh of his cloak and disappears in a storm of grey, spotted wings, shrouded by darkness and moonlight.

You turn and face the kindly Monarch once more, whose smile remains, but is tinged with a hint of sadness. “Thank you, friend. I fear that the destruction of the sword may have been an error, but while I knew there was a chance that the Emperor would be unleashed, my love for my people offered me no other option. Come, and walk with me, and see the Capitol as it was before the seeds of his paranoia crept into my mind.”

The bustling city is full of laughter and smiles as you walk with the Monarch. Butterflies flit alongside human inhabitants as he often stops to interact with the citizens. Their smiles and manners show that they clearly love and admire him as their ruler. He makes it known that you have done a great service to the Capitol, and that the Initiative and its agents are welcome allies within his pane of the realm. As you prepare to take your leave, the great slate doors close behind the Monarch as he enters his castle and you see that the carving has changed:

One ruler, smiling and wreathed with butterflies, holds the hands of his people, one foot placed atop a broken sword. At the door’s base, radiating light, sits a single phoenix.

[SHK-E Analysis: You demonstrated great HEART in your decision to do the best for the most individuals. Your method of destroying the sword gave away a minute amount of KNOWLEDGE of Phoenix Core technology to a potential antagonist. You used an appropriate amount of ENERGY to accomplish your decision, its cost was moderate. Other agents of the Para Initiative learn from and emulate the strategies of this successful mission.

SAFETY: Very Poor
HEART: Very Good
KNOWLEDGE: Good
ENERGY: Poor

Para Initative Inventory:Oystersand's Illustrated Arcana]

‍

You shimmer gently into fabrication in this world; that’s the best word you have for it, because you’re certainly not standing on any type of planet… or…  place.

You seem to be leaning on a shingled roof… but at an un-Earth-ly, gravitational direction, but the immense swirling mindscape above and around you makes you second guess if you really are upside down in the first place… and what does that mean anyways? You feel pressure pulling at your weight in shifting directions, each floating ball of light or energy pulling you softly inward as it drifts by. Suspended in the space around you are chunks of…outer space flotsam, drifting as if underwater, in no particular direction around you.

There is a cluster of rocks and craggly trees pressed around the ring of a stone well, as if plucked directly from a rocky mountainside, drifting aimlessly underneath you. You notice the dark center of the circle of stone seems to suck in all the light, appearing far blacker and deeper than should be possible. Above your head there is a long iron structure made of a thousand woven metal bars twisting ornately into a small row of fence framing an elaborate iron gate. A gleaming black metal box is affixed to the fence upon which the gate is hinged, and the numbers 1086 are painted in gold on a small plaque beneath the slotted box. A heavy gilded  lock hangs from the clasp. The space between the iron bars is shimmery and opaque… the other side is locked from your view and keeping you out, you think, just as the maker intended.

Directly to your right, suspended heavily in the glimmering black distance, is a grand, marble, disembodied staircase spinning slowly in place. The bottom steps fan out in a graceful sculpted shape and the sides are constructed of gleaming marble so white that it’s almost transparent, topped with golden sparkling handrails. The splendorous staircase belonged in front of a castle or church or a bank, yet here it floats directionless beside you. You wonder how either of you got here.

Your hands begin to hurt from the rough rocky texture of the section of roof which you lean on, floating through the abyss like a castaway on a life raft. Funny, the small private gravitational pull of your personal section of psychic debris seems to press harder upon you than Earth Zero - like it fights to keep you upon it and away from the other greedy islands. A small rectangular window juts out from the rise of the roof in front of you, a small triangle frame above. You shift your weight to peer inside, but just like the gate, it is only shimmering twisting shapes that spin your eyes and make you feel swelling nausea deep within your head. You rub your eyes and look away from the window - the splotchy colorful darkness behind your eyelids as you press them hard is barely discernible from the floating darkness around you when you open them again in this unnerving Verse.

Suddenly, a small glow catches your attention, and a warmth spreads across your face as you turn to see her, stepping delicately along the precipice of the roof and glowing with the cozy warmth of a bonfire on a cold night. You feel your cheeks stretch into a grin looking at her, despite everything, despite all of the terrifying nothing around you - you’re smiling, from ear to ear.

She is a little creature, graceful and cheerful in her psychedelic, pattern of swirling rich copper and rust colored fur. Shining bits of metal dangle on delicate fibres tied to the chain of the turquoise necklace sitting delicately upon her shoulders. You cannot make out the objects - jewelry, or keys, perhaps?. She moves like a paradox, foreign in this space. She could have been a projection of a scene from another  world,  as she abides by  her own private laws of physics.  Despite the thick, swirling atmosphere which tugs your body every which way, it is daylight and comfortable, familiar Earth Prime gravity in the space around her. She gives off warm light in her own little sphere of influence, and walks stealthily along the precipice of the roof above you. Your hair rolls like seaweed  in the space around you, tugged by the nearby floating masses, but she stops to perch on the roof’s edge in perfect stillness, glowing in her own personal sun.

Her paws are stained inky purple, the mark of a poet, yet she makes no sound as she hops down towards you. Where her feet touch, small bits of plant or fungal life sprouts hungrily in the wake of her touch. Thin, shiny mushrooms encircle her foot prints, petals and moths stay close to her as if the sheer warmth of her aurora had a magnetic force.

She walks down the slope of the roof to stand before you, and your attention is pulled into the aqua blue orbs of her eyes. As the cast of her gravity and light falls upon the window next to you, the space becomes clear. You can now see the window for what it is - a portal. You inhale sharply as your head spins around and you realize, with a humbling shudder, that these are portals which you’ve found yourself caught in the center of. The well, the stairs, the gate, the window, each place was here before you…

And on the the lonely, floating roof, is just you and the glowing purrr of the key.

Here the Verses Discord was offered a choice.

Which portal do you follow your new friend through??

A: The Window

B: The Iron Gate

C: The Grand Staircase

D: The Ancient Well

(If you’d like to vote on our stories, influence Verses lore, what happens next, game mechanics, and even future cards. Then join our Discord at http://discord.gg/verses)

‍

[Archival Note: 6 wanted to open the Iron Gate, 5 to drink from the Ancient Well, 3 to gaze through the Window, and 3 to ascend the Grand Staircase.]

Xavi -your mind forms her name - looks up at you with the curious, patient eyes of a friend awaiting your advice. You feel somewhere deep within you that she truly does just want to know what she can do to help you. The pure, cool blue of her irises surround the most pleading and perfectly round pupils you may have ever seen, and so you decide to trust her… And she does not want to trick you - she’ll take you where you need to go. With a purr and a light chirp, she tilts her head and suddenly, there you are - glowing and warm in the light of her gravity.

As the irritating weightlessness of this strange verse dissipates, you feel your body drop and catch yourself in the same position, but your muscles now carry the same weight familiarly. You adjust to the heavy clarity of Earth - Prime (and of Xavi, apparently,) and immediately feel yourself as you really are… this time, in a place which you belong. She walks calmly, her tiny paws making no sound, and steps one foot after the other, to the edge of the shingles… and then crazily, beyond. Her first step into the abyss makes you gasp and jump, but her tiny paw does not fall through the cold empty air. She reaches out a gentle foot towards nothing, and the air itself catches her. She continues, walking forward across the space before you, right up to the floating, disembodied gate.

Without a sound, she leans back on her hind legs and stretches upwards, tilting the undulating weight of her body forward as gently leans towards her goal. She catches herself easily at the precipice of the gate, barely touching the heavy lock with her paws and she expertly angles the weight of her shoulders to be perfectly balanced upon her feline hips…

It melts away, and you follow her through.

Somewhere, far away, a girl grew up at 1086… and the number halts her sparkling nostalgic memory for a moment.

Xavi knows that the number is important, and she wants you to know it too. She also knows that you must meet the girl exactly where she is.  It is of the utmost importance.  It is of the utmost importance.  Xavi does not want you to forget.  When you wake from your reverie.  And the memory begins to fade.

You carefully close Oystersands' Illustrated Arcana, making sure the clasp clicks carefully into place.  Safety Ethics Assurance protocol states that it should be several cycles before you personally conduct one of these explorations into the book again.  For a moment, you wish you could open it immediately, and expose your mind to the panorama of Kaleidoscope, find Xavi and have her guide you more.  You shake your head.  You need to write down what Xavi showed you before you forget!

[SHK-E Evaluation: You gained KNOWLEDGE from studying this book borrowed from the Infinite Library at the cost of SAFETY, who knows what will become of the minds of those who gaze into worlds that bend reality?

SAFETY: Dangerous
HEART: Very Good
KNOWLEDGE: Very Good
ENERGY: Poor

Para Initiative Inventory:
‍Oystersand’s Illustrated Arcana
Notes on Xavi and 1086
Gloomspark Portarray]

‍

The sun is bright, yet today is still full of winter’s icy bite.

Nearby, your granddaughter mashes down the earth in the pot, making it even just like you told her to. She is so precise and so serious about this simple task, you stifle your impulse to laugh.  You unfold the waxed paper bag with the tiny seeds and pour them into her hand.  She scatters them carefully across the big pot, not too many in any one place.  You hand her the watering can, and she meticulously moves it back and forth as she ensures every centimeter of the surface is wetted.

You hum and sing as you wrap the top with cellophane to keep the moisture in, and place the pot in the south-facing window.

Inch by inch, row by row, I’m gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling down

The sun beats down through the sweltering summer air.

Your broad-brimmed hat gives you some protection from the sky, as you find the tiny weeds trying to grow amid your berries and pull them out.  You take a sip from the cold beer sitting atop the raised beds, and then pour a little bit into the dish set out to distract the slugs.  You smile to yourself as you think of your mother flinging the poor creatures through the air when they got close to her garden.  She was so kind and peaceful, but that all changed as soon as a cabbage, tomato, carrot, or fruit was in peril!

You walk over to the green garden hose, turn on the spigot, put your thumb gently into the end, and spray water over your plants.  You know singing to your plants makes them thrive, so you let loose a melody.

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones, we are made of dreams and bones
I feel the need to grow my own 'cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain, I'll find my way in nature's chain
I tune my body and my brain to the music of the land

The warm sun of spring shines through the still chill morning air.

You push your fingers into the dirt, making little holes in the garden for the seedlings to go into. The loam is cool and damp, sticking to your skin. Your mother inserts the gardening tool into the pot with the little plants and levers one out, tapping the roots to shake the loose soil off.  She hands it to you, and you put it into place and pack the earth around it so that it’s nestled firmly in place.

Your mother hums the song she used to sing to you when you were small as the two of you place the strawberry starts one by one.

So plant your rows straight and long, temper them with prayer and song
Mother earth can keep you strong if you give her love and care
Now an old crow watching hungrily from his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free as that feathered thief up there

The fading autumn sun is gently shining, the days still warm but cooling by the by.

You just hung up the phone after talking to your daughter, calling to tell you that she’s pregnant.  Your eyes still sting from crying.  You find yourself in the kitchen, assembling the flour, sugar, and eggs, and taking the strawberry preserves out of the refrigerator.  You laugh at yourself, as you realize you’re making her favorite: strawberry jam cake.  Hopefully she will still want to eat it, even with that first trimester nausea.  You try to remember what it was like, when you first knew you were going to bring her into the world.

You hum to yourself as you mix the ingredients in the bowl and set the oven.

Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling down
Inch by inch, row by row, I’m gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground

Here the Verses Discord was offered a choice.

Xavi puts her paw on your shoulder, and you can feel the warmth of her purr.  The feline mystic can guide you where you want to go.  Are you finished, or do you want to stay here longer?

A: Go back to spring.  Be young and discover the world again.‍

B: Go back to summer.  Be in your strength and make your way in the world.

C: Go back to autumn.  Enjoy the fruits of your labor and celebrate your life.

D: Accept that it is winter.  All things come to an end, and you have left a legacy.

(If you’d like to vote on our stories, influence Verses lore, what happens next, game mechanics, and even future cards. Then join our Discord at http://discord.gg/verses)

[8 members of the Para Initiative advocated for accepting winter, while 5 wished to return to summer, 2 to the fall, and a single vote for spring.]

You become light, floating out of your body, ascending into the air.  You can see yourself, with your granddaughter.  You can remember being her, and being her mother.  You remember planting strawberries, nurturing them, picking them, eating them, and making them into preserves.  Lifetimes of memories wash over you in this house, in this garden, of family, of song, and of the changing seasons.  It is beautiful, and as you lift higher and higher toward the warmth of the sun, you already begin to miss it.

Xavi leaps from sunbeam to sunbeam, jumping through the sky as if it were a cat tree.  She brushes past you, perhaps even through you, and you can feel her thoughts.  She wants you to know that you had to leave.  Some buds are never ready to leave the shell, to rest eternally in familiar soil.  But you have chosen to burst forth from the earth into the realm of light, and become whatever it is you might grow into.  You can feel Xavi’s joy in what that might be.

[SHK-E Assessment: You have gained the KNOWLEDGE of a lifetime. The Knowledge Corps spends many cycles reading your report and interviewing you for additional details; trying to tease out the meaning of your vision or the nature of Xavi.]

SAFETY: Poor
HEART: Excellent
KNOWLEDGE: Good
ENERGY: Poor

Para Initiative Reputations: Interventionist

Para Initiative Inventory:
‍Oystersand’s Illustrated Arcana
Notes on Xavi and 1086
Gloomspark Portarray]

‍

It’s a dark, hot world that you find yourself wandering through, without direction. The sky lays heavy and low, unnaturally close to you. It is the bizarre shade of dark,   dark blue that you’ve only seen on Earth Prime in the breathless moments just before the most violent storms.

Flashes of light scatter unpredictably across the sky, and illuminate the outlines of the thick layered clouds of something which blanket the space above. Electric red and orange light interrupts the consistent matte blue and reveals the red rocky terrain of this strange world in unpredictable bursts. The shock of the contrast leaves your eyes reeling and blinded in their frantic attempt to adjust.

Through your light-splotched vision, you see that the red ground slopes gently upward in front of you, covered in coarse black grasses and dotted with enormous crystalline boulders the color of blood. Their pigments glow dully even under this perpetual, stagnant black atmosphere. You can’t imagine what force could have scattered something so heavy across the hillside, and the balmy, stagnant air begins to feel smothering. You’re suddenly reminded of hiding underneath the covers as a child, your own warm breath hanging in the air around your face as you struggle not to breathe, lest you give away your whereabouts to whatever terrifying experience exists outside the safety of your quilt… you wonder why.

A singular, unexpected ping pulls you from your thoughts as you raise the dimly glowing screen of the Portarray to your face. A faint green spot appears just  ahead of you on the screen, so you dutifully begin to ascend the rocky hillside in pursuit of the energetic inconsistencies that first brought you to this strange place.

The terrain becomes rockier as you approach the summit of this low, wide hill. Boulders both large and small become more plentiful, and the rough brambles and feathery black grasses grow more and more sparse as the ground angles ever upwards. Eventually, you find yourself climbing awkwardly up a steep wall of massive quartz-like red stones that are warm to the touch. Eventually, you heave yourself over the top of a flat shelf of rock and find yourself at the summit of, what you now realize, is not a hill, nor a mountain, but a colossal hole in the surface of the planet. You only know to describe what you see before you in Earth-Prime terms: as some type of volcano.

The Portarray begins to chirp excitedly as you take in the site before you. The entire precipice of this landform is concave like a massive crater, the surrounding land descending towards the dark pit within the center.You hold the screen to your face   -  this is it.

You begin to scale down the rocky slope, carefully choosing to place your weight on only the most stable rocks which can support you without tumbling beneath your feet. You succeed less than half of the time, and mostly slide down the graveley decline feet-first and on your back. When you finally land at the bottom, just a few meters from the mouth of the cavernous pit, you’re startled by a quick burst of laughter, and are surprised when you turn to the sound to see what appears to be a human woman, standing casually at the lip of the volcano.

Her age, her face, her clothing, all indiscernible through the wavering filter of hot air which shifts her form continually like looking across a hot field of asphalt in peak summer heat. For the first time, you realize that the air is no warmer here than at the base of the colossal volcanic-vent. Only the same ambient temperature and pressing humidity fills this space, stagnant and equally warm as your own body. You're suddenly aware of how, just a moment ago, when your breath hit your wrist as you held the tracker to your face, you felt no change in temperature. Only quiet, static pressure upon your skin…

Her arms are crossed upon her chest and full of dozens of pieces of stone, each piece reflecting the limited light with a tint akin to the blood-stained red of the terrain. Their surface is solid, however, and lacking the crystalline quality of the boulders that reflects the flashes of light so unpredictably. Etched upon each jagged piece, you see, is some sort of rough carving… slashes and chips  which create patterns just slightly too measured, too orderly, to be the unintentional results of meaningless chance. No, you could recognize this even without your training, or the now frantic chittering of your Portarray. This is language. Ancient, and powerful.

With a smirk, she turns and runs fearlessly towards the edge, and jumps. Her body launches forcefully over the drop as she spins, throwing her arms and possessions outward as she leaps, twisting her body around to face you in midair as she descends.

You gasp and wince, your autonomic nervous system flooding you with panic and sending your breath plummeting directly down your spine. But, she’s smiling. She is completely peaceful and her beautiful hair glows and blows in waves around her, blue and burnt berry, copper and pomegranate. All billowing upwards from her as her arms fan outward like wings, and she falls in slow motion into the depths… slowly, slower, now just barely…until she hovers steadily above the emptiness, supported by only a gust of weird ions carried on a strange wind. Beneath her is an empty pit, so dark that it seems to have its own healthy gravitational pull inward…but nothing, not her, not any of the cracked glowing pieces of the ancient shattered tablet falls into its depths.

Spinning around backward, she has jumped blind onto some kind of an invisible cloud without thought or repercussion. She lays upon the air itself, as if supported by a fountain or gust of imperceivable wind.  Like a giant vent, like skydiving backwards, everything hovers in perfect shuddering alignment. Not weightless at all, but rather, heavily balanced upon an equivalent force, pushing back against gravity and letting her lay upon the upward thrust of air as if supported by invisible shifting matter.

And most importantly, as she floats peacefully in swaying motions like a kite above the gaping mouth of this volcano-shaped hole in the…(planet? you wonder,) she smiles and lets all of her treasure float freely, scattered around her like flotsam and jetsam in the eerie calm after a hurricane. Each piece falls magnetically, naturally, into its own place around her as if in orbit, and hangs in place. The rough-hewn runes on the broken pieces begin to glow, but the “light” which emanates from each character is, somehow, glowing black.

She invites you into the pit and promises to give you a shard of the tablet, which will provide enough energy to return home… but you don't know which verse you’re in!

If this is Proxima, then you are in a place with different laws of physics than your own, and so if the ions support her seemingly human weight, they’ll probably support you too.  But if you’re in Fantasia, she could be a being of completely different composition than you, on a physical, existential level… meaning the laws which apply to her physical body and allows her to swim upon the vent may not apply to yours.  And if this verse belongs to Gloom… She may not even be real, or genuine, at all.

Here the Verses Discord was offered a choice.

Choose your path:

A: Don't jump! Find some boulders to test the phenomenon with. Ask to scan your new friend to understand her physiology. The situation must be fully understood before taking significant risks.

B: Trust the floating woman and jump! Enjoy the freedom of the sky and frolic in the air with your new friend!

C: Ask questions! From the safety of  the top of the volcano, ask her how it works! Ask about the runes. This person knows a lot, and you want to learn!

D: Begin taking measurements to figure out how to install some kind of machine to make power from this phenomenon. Ignore the invitation of this person, the Initiative desperately needs energy.

(If you’d like to vote on our stories, influence Verses lore, what happens next, game mechanics, and even future cards. Then join our Discord at http://discord.gg/verses)

[Archeo-Teleo Linguist Analysis: There was not a cohesive psychotype found among Para Initiative agents.  6 favored leaping without looking, 4 favored an inquisitive discourse, while 2 thought that the energetic phenomenon would be of some use to help the dangerous energy shortage the Initiative is currently facing.]

You step toward the precipice and leap into the darkness. The wind whistles around you, and your hair billows out as you fall.  You feel free as you rush down and down and down and down…

You expected the ions or clouds or whatever cushioned the floating woman to stop you near her.  You feel a moment of panic as you careen past her, down and down and down and down…

The flashing lights in the sky recede further and further above you, growing smaller as you plummet deeper into the pit.  You can see her, now, drifting slowly down, following you, staring on.  You try to yell at her, but the words are lost with the rush of the air.  Down and down and down and down…

The Portarray! you think, you can trigger an emergency activation of the Sieve to return home.  You will yourself to reach for the device, when you realize your hand has become stone.  Something is changing about you as you fall.  Where once you were flesh and bone, you have become a sculpture of yourself, made of red stone.  Of course the air could not have caught you, you were always this heavy stone, falling down and down and down…

You… assess yourself, and realize your story is written on the surface, and within you.  The story of being a person, of being born, and of growing up to be an explorer.  The story of being a single form, bound by gravity, every day pulled down and down and down and down.  You think about how you have always longed to be free.  To float.  To fly.  Your story is written in black, radiating darker than this void in which you are still tumbling down and down and down and down…

Finally you hit the bottom and shatter. Broken into 1000 pieces. The statue is broken. The story binding you to this form sundered.  And you are free!  Finally!  It felt like 1000 years!  The broken shards, inscribed with ancient writing, the words that created and bound you in your human form, slowly float, rising from the ground.  You lift further and begin to fly, moving through the air as you will, gravity means nothing to you.  That story is over.  You are a new thing, a thing that is free.  Joy surges through you.  You wish to return to the woman who helped free you, to fly together and frolic in the air.  You ascend, up and up and up and up…

[SHK-E Assessment: Leaping out over strange terrain did not give much consideration to SAFETY. A member of the Para Initiative has been lost, and many cycles pass without any communication from them. The bold, trusting, costly, and sometimes risky attempts to forge connections by the Para Initiative have not gone unnoticed throughout the Verses.  Everywhere The Initiative has become synonymous with a helping hand, trying to build mutual understanding, and a warm HEART.]

SAFETY: Dangerous
HEART: EXALTED
‍KNOWLEDGE: Very Good
ENERGY: Dangerous

Para Initiative Reputations: Interventionist

Para Initiative Inventory:
‍Oystersand’s Illustrated Arcana
Notes on Xavi and 1086
Untranslated Copy of Dear People
Gloomspark Portarray]

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