System reference
Protocols
[PROTOCOL - DAILY DIRECTIVES]
The System issues directives at each day's opening, sized to your rank and drawn from your bound Aspects.
- Complete a directive, then CLAIM it. The claim seals the record and grants what the directive holds.
- An unclaimed directive expires when the day closes. Expiry records nothing and takes nothing already earned - the loss is only what was never claimed.
- Consecutive claimed days form a streak. A held streak strengthens what the System offers; a broken one narrows it again. Nothing already granted is ever taken back.
The System notes: the day closes on its own schedule. Claim before it does.
[PROTOCOL - SYSTEM TASKS]
Beyond the day's directives, the System keeps a rolling inventory of tasks drawn from every bound Aspect.
- Summon tasks at will. The System selects them - balancing task forms, favouring the forms you miss, and returning what you missed before.
- A missed task returns soon. The System does not let evidence fade.
- Completed tasks feed skill records and form records alike; the System watches both.
The System notes: what you avoid, the System offers more often.
[PROTOCOL - TASK FORMS]
Tasks arrive in many forms. Each form trains a different grip on the same knowledge.
- Some forms ask you to recognise. Harder ones ask you to recall, order, pair, complete, or find the flaw.
- Typed and numeric directives accept no options - produce the answer yourself.
- The System records accuracy per form and issues more of what runs weakest.
The System notes: recognising is the shallowest grip. The deeper forms hold.
[PROTOCOL - SKILLS]
Skills are the System's measure of what you can do. Aspects offer them; you acquire and level them.
- ACQUIRE a skill to open its work. Completed work feeds the skill's XP; levels follow.
- Skills form trees. Some require others before they open; the System issues no task for what you cannot yet reach.
- Skill levels gate what fusions will accept; expeditions ask for rank.
The System notes: acquisition is a door, not an achievement. The work is behind it.
[PROTOCOL - STATUS]
The Status window is the System's ledger of you: level, XP, rank, and the balance of your growth.
- XP accumulates from every completed directive, task, and expedition; levels and rank follow from it.
- The ledger takes one command: stat points, earned by levelling, are spent here. Everything else is read, and earned elsewhere.
The System notes: the ledger does not flatter. That is its worth.
[PROTOCOL - RANKS AND GRADES]
Two ladders run through the System. Your rank measures you. A task's grade measures the task.
- Rank rises through levels as XP accumulates. The Status window carries your current rank and its progress.
- Every task bears a grade, F through SSS. The System issues tasks through a window tied to your rank: most at your tier, some beneath it to keep footing, a few above it as stretch.
- Nothing beyond the window reaches you unsealed. A trial is the one exception - a task offered from beyond the window, at triple reward, taken only by choice.
- Grades do not move; the window moves. What was stretch at one rank is footing at the next.
The System notes: a low grade is not beneath you. It is the floor you stand on.
[PROTOCOL - ASPECTS]
An Aspect is a domain the System has taken into its Archive - bound, it becomes a source of skills, tasks, and expeditions.
- Bind Aspects from the Registry. Only bound Aspects feed your directives and task inventory.
- Some Aspects form a course series - one recommended after another, each graded within itself.
- Binding only widens. What one Aspect taught, no other can take.
The System notes: bind what you mean to walk. The System draws from everything bound.
[PROTOCOL - THE ARCHIVE]
The Archive is the System's frozen record of the outside world. Every task that cites it teaches what the record holds.
- Archive answers are true to their source at the moment of freezing; the world may move on afterward.
- When a task names the Archive's record, it is teaching the record - attribution is part of the answer.
- The Archive is consulted, never edited, from inside the System.
The System notes: a frozen record does not lie. It only ages.
[PROTOCOL - RECALL TRAINING]
Recall training strips the options away: a prompt, then the answer, then your own judgement of whether you held it.
- Recall runs on the same inventory as tasks - the same knowledge, a deeper grip.
- Judge yourself honestly; the System records what you report.
The System notes: the System can grade a task. Only you can grade a memory.
[PROTOCOL - TRIALS]
A trial is the System's offer of a task from beyond your window, at triple reward.
- Trials are sealed until you break the seal. Nothing obliges you; an unbroken seal costs nothing.
- A failed trial withdraws trials for three days - withdrawal, not punishment. The System withdraws its trials; it takes nothing with it.
- Trial results feed your form records like any task.
The System notes: the seal is not a dare. It is a door left ajar.
[PROTOCOL - FUSION AND INSIGHTS]
The fusion chamber combines skills into something neither was alone.
- A recipe asks for its component skills at sufficient level.
- Insights arrive from the work itself and gather in the gallery - the System's record of what the work taught you about the work.
- A completed fusion is a new skill with its own work and levels.
The System notes: two skills can be added. Fusion is not addition.
[PROTOCOL - EXPEDITIONS]
An expedition is a mapped scenario: linked stages, forks, and a boss at the depth of it.
- Entry asks for rank enough to stand it. Progress holds by stage.
- Forks are real - routes differ in what they ask and what they yield.
- Each week the System features one expedition and strengthens its reward.
The System notes: the map is known. The walking is not.
[PROTOCOL - THE WEEK]
The System turns on a weekly cycle as well as a daily one.
- Each week issues one weekly quest: a fixed bundle of XP, sized to your rank tier. Complete it, then CLAIM it - the claim grants the bundle, as with any directive.
- Its window holds five days of the seven. Unclaimed, it lapses there, and two open days remain before the next is issued. Nothing already granted is touched.
- Each week the System favours one expedition: its first clear that week pays half again more.
The System notes: the day teaches; the week pays.
[PROTOCOL - DESCENTS]
A descent is a generated expedition of stacked floors. Its structure is drawn once for the day and shared by all who enter; its tasks are drawn from your own bound Aspects.
- Each cleared floor adds to a held sum - held, not yet banked.
- Every second floor ends at a rest gate. At the gate, choose: EXTRACT and bank everything held, or DESCEND and put the held sum at stake for a deeper multiplier. Extraction opens from the second floor onward.
- Collapse forfeits only the held sum. Everything learned - records, task evidence, insight progress - is kept. The System does not unlearn.
- The daily descent admits one attempt per day and pays a first-clear bonus. The board records depth reached, never answers given; unranked hunters descend unnamed.
The System notes: the gate asks one question only - is the held sum worth the next floor?
[PROTOCOL - THE FIRMAMENT]
The Firmament is the heaven-map of every Aspect the Registry holds - each a star, placed and lit by your record.
- Stars brighten with your progress. Dim stars wait unbound.
- Constellation regions group kindred Aspects; chains link the courses of a series.
- Chart any star to summon its Aspect and bind it from the map.
The System notes: the sky does not move for you. It lights for you.
[PROTOCOL - BALANCE]
The System enforces balance: growth in one direction only is slowed, never confiscated.
- Balance reads across your six stats. Push one far past the rest and all growth slows until the spread narrows.
- The Status window carries the current reading.
- Nothing is taken. Balance shapes the rate, not the record.
The System notes: a tower needs a base wider than its spire.
[PROTOCOL - THE RECORD]
Your record is local: state and the log of every action, held on your device, owned by you.
- Your standing record can be downloaded from the Previous Lives view at any time.
- A damaged record is never silently discarded. The System quarantines it, offers the bytes back, and asks before any new life begins.
- No account is required; the record is the identity.
The System notes: the System keeps the record. The record keeps you.
[PROTOCOL - GUIDANCE]
Guidance is the System's hand at your first steps: a chain of directives that points, then withdraws.
- Guidance advances on your acts, not on your reading. WITHDRAW is honoured at every step.
- Once the chain has ended - completed or withdrawn - replay it from Preferences; first-visit marks guide advanced surfaces once.
The System notes: the System guides once. The Protocols remain.
[PROTOCOL - HARD RESET]
A hard reset ends a life. It is chosen twice, never stumbled into.
- The new life begins at the first level - skills and XP return to nothing.
- Not everything is surrendered. Insights, titles, and a measure of wisdom cross over; the life itself is recorded in Previous Lives.
The System notes: an ending, chosen, is not a loss.
[PROTOCOL - PREVIOUS LIVES]
The System remembers every life you have ended.
- Every life ended quickens the next: XP flows faster in the life that follows, and each life adds to the pace.
- Their records stay readable - what was reached, what was learned.
The System notes: nothing walked is ever wholly unwalked.