пятница, 17 октября 2025 г.

The Subscriber is Temporarily in Heaven

For Io the Gambler, death was an annoying hindrance. It had interrupted the best game of his life, one where he, holding nothing but trash, had bluffed his opponent into folding a full house. The last thing he remembered was the loser's crimson face and his own sense of boundless triumph. His next memory was the smell of sulfur and a faulty heating system.

"Welcome to Hell," a minor devil rasped, nudging him toward a giant cauldron. "Your order number is 900-666. Please proceed to the initial boiling procedure."

Io looked around. People were moaning, screaming, and repenting all around him. Deadly boring. He noticed two older devils in a corner, shooting dice for the souls of the newcomers.

"What's the game, gentlemen?" he inquired lazily, pulling a worn deck of cards from out of nowhere. "Eternal torment. Want to wager yours?" one of them smirked.

An hour later, that devil was standing in nothing but his loin-horns, having lost not only the souls but also his trident and the rights to his annual vacation in the Bahamas. Within a day, the entire cauldron department was empty. Devils, imps, and other fiends crowded around Io, betting everything they had: their chains, soul contracts, sulfur deposits, and even their personal frying pans.

Io never lost. He wasn't lucky—he was a system. He read his opponents like an open book written in a very large font. He won his cauldron, the firewood beneath it, the water within it, and even the stoker himself. Hell's bureaucracy went haywire. There was nothing to boil the sinners in and no one to prod them with. An administrative collapse had begun.

Word reached the Man himself. Lucifer, appearing in the guise of a weary top manager in a perfectly tailored suit made of ash, summoned Io to his office.

"You are destabilizing the production process," he began without preamble. "The entire staff is demoralized. You've even won the pass to my personal parking spot. What do you want?" "To play against you," Io replied simply. "One game. I bet my soul against a return to Earth." Lucifer chuckled. His eyes glinted with the fire of a board of directors that had just figured out how to restructure by firing ninety percent of the employees. "Deal," he said. "For me, it's a no-lose scenario either way."

They played poker. The game lasted an eternity, or about seven minutes. In the final hand, Lucifer had four kings. He revealed his cards smugly. Io, his expression unchanged, laid a royal flush on the table.

A silence fell over the office so thick you could spread it on the bread of despair. Lucifer stared at the cards for a long time, then at the gambler's impenetrable face. "You win," he hissed. "A deal's a deal. The exit is over there."

Io nodded and, without looking back, walked toward the indicated door. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he was blinded by a brilliant white light. He had expected to see his hometown, a smoke-filled bar, familiar faces. Instead, he was standing on a cloud, surrounded by flying, chubby, winged infants.

Back in his office, Lucifer watched the disappearing silhouette and let out a malicious laugh, turning to his deputy, Beelzebub. "Let them have the headache now."


The story in Heaven turned out to be indecently predictable. The angelic host, accustomed to harmony, psalms, and a complete lack of the concept of bluffing, was the first victim. First, the Cherubim lost their harps. Then the Seraphim bet their flaming swords and were left empty-handed. The Archangel Gabriel lost his famous horn, and Michael lost everything, including his halo and sandals. Heaven was left without guards, without music, and, for the most part, without pants.

The panic reached the very top.

He was summoned to a place with no walls and no ceiling, only light and a sense of presence. Before him, at a simple stone table, sat an Old Man with eyes that reflected billions of stars and an infinite weariness.

"They say you wish to play against me as well," the voice was as calm as the cosmos between galaxies.

"That's right," Io confirmed. "Same rules. I want to return to Earth. That is my only stake."

"And if you lose?" There was no threat in the voice, only interest.

"Then I will stay here and play with your boys forever. I think they need the practice." For the first time in several eons, the Old Man smiled faintly. "Very well. Someone has to defend the honor of the uniform. Deal the cards."

The game was not long. It was the essence of every game ever played. The final combination lay on the stone table, shining with its mathematical perfection. It was a victory. Absolute and final.

Io, feeling something akin to awe for the first time in his life, looked at his opponent. He had outplayed the first cause itself. "I won," his voice was firm, but it held the echo of a question. God nodded slowly. The universe seemed to hold its breath. "You won." "So what now? I expected to return to Earth, but... the stakes have obviously been raised. What do I get? This throne? Power over all that exists? What is my prize?"

God looked at him, and for the first time in a long while, an active thought process was occurring in his galaxy-filled eyes. The first thought that flashed through his consciousness was one of relief: "A vacation, at last." After all, this is why He had created man in his own image and spirit—a gambler, a risk-taker, capable of shouldering the entire weight of the universe. But he immediately answered himself: "No. How banal. Too simple, too human."

The second thought was more formal, more structured: "Congratulations, you're hired." It also captured the essence—the transfer of authority to the one who had proven his worth. But it too was dismissed: "Too dry. Too bureaucratic. As if I'm not handing over the universe, but a shift at the supermarket. Not right!"

He looked at Io again. On his face was not the joy of victory, but the burden of responsibility that he was only just beginning to comprehend. He hadn't just won a game; he had won the right—and the obligation—to keep playing, but now as the dealer. And in that moment, it dawned on God. He found the words that were not just an answer, but a new beginning, a new rule for the great game.

He smiled with the very first smile he had used to greet the dawn of creation and said aloud, calmly and definitively:

"Now, create someone who can beat you."

Абонент временно в Раю

Смерть для картёжника Ио была досадной помехой. Она прервала лучшую партию в его жизни, где он, имея на руках мусор, заставил оппонента сбросить фулл-хаус. Последнее, что он помнил — это побагровевшее лицо проигравшего и собственное чувство безграничного триумфа. Следующим воспоминанием был запах серы и некачественного отопления.

— Добро пожаловать в Ад, — проскрипел мелкий бес, подталкивая его к огромному котлу. — Номер вашего заказа 900-666. Пройдите на процедуру первичного проваривания.

Ио огляделся. Вокруг стонали, кричали и каялись. Скука смертная. Он заметил, как два черта постарше в углу режутся в кости на души новоприбывших.

— На что играете, джентльмены? — лениво поинтересовался он, доставая из ниоткуда истёртую колоду карт. — На вечные муки. Хочешь поставить свою? — ухмыльнулся один.

Через час этот бес стоял в одних набедренных рогах, проиграв не только души, но и свой трезубец, и право на ежегодный отпуск в Сочи. Через сутки весь котловой цех был пуст. Черти, импы и прочая нечисть толкались вокруг Ио, ставя на кон всё, что имели: свои цепи, контракты на души, серные месторождения и даже личные сковородки.

Ио не проигрывал. Он не был везунчиком — он был системой. Он читал противника, как открытую книгу в очень крупном шрифте. Он выиграл свой котёл, дрова под ним, воду в нём и даже самого кочегара. Адская бюрократия пошла вразнос. Грешников стало не в чем варить и нечем подгонять. Начался административный коллапс.

Молва дошла до Самого. Люцифер, представший в образе утомлённого топ-менеджера в идеально скроенном костюме из пепла, вызвал Ио к себе в кабинет.

— Вы дестабилизируете производственный процесс, — без предисловий начал он. — Весь персонал деморализован. Выиграли даже пропуск на мою личную парковку. Чего вы хотите? — Сыграть с тобой, — просто ответил Ио. — Одна партия. Я ставлю свою душу против возвращения на Землю. Люцифер усмехнулся. В его глазах сверкнул огонь совета директоров, который только что придумал, как провести реструктуризацию с увольнением девяноста процентов сотрудников. — Идёт. Для меня это в любом случае беспроигрышный вариант.

Они играли в покер. Игра длилась вечность или около семи минут. В финальной раздаче у Люцифера был каре на королях. Он самодовольно раскрыл карты. Ио, не меняя выражения лица, положил на стол флеш-рояль.

В кабинете повисла тишина, которую можно было намазывать на хлеб отчаяния. Люцифер долго смотрел на карты, потом на непроницаемое лицо картёжника. — Ты выиграл, — процедил он. — Слово есть слово. Выход там.

Ио кивнул и, не оглядываясь, пошёл к указанной двери. Как только он переступил порог, его ослепил ярчайший белый свет. Он ожидал увидеть свой родной город, прокуренный бар, знакомые лица. Вместо этого он стоял на облаке, а вокруг летали пухлые младенцы с крылышками.

В своём кабинете Люцифер смотрел вслед исчезающему силуэту и злорадно хохотнул, обращаясь к своему заместителю Вельзевулу: — Пусть теперь у них голова болит.


История на Небесах оказалась до неприличия предсказуемой. Ангельское войско, привыкшее к гармонии, псалмам и полному отсутствию концепции блефа, пало первой жертвой. Сначала херувимы проиграли свои арфы. Потом серафимы поставили на кон свои огненные мечи и остались с голыми руками. Архангел Гавриил лишился своего знаменитого рога, а Михаил — вообще всего, включая нимб и сандалии. Рай остался без охраны, без музыки и, по большому счёту, без штанов.


Паника дошла до самого верха.

Его позвали в место, где не было ни стен, ни потолка, а только свет и ощущение присутствия. Перед ним за простым каменным столом сидел Старик с глазами, в которых отражались миллиарды звёзд и бесконечная усталость.

— Они говорят, ты хочешь сыграть и со мной, — голос был спокоен, как космос между галактиками.

— Так и есть, — подтвердил Ио. — Правила те же. Я хочу вернуться на Землю. Это моя единственная ставка.

— А если проиграешь? — в голосе не было угрозы, лишь интерес.

— Тогда я останусь здесь и буду вечно играть с твоими ребятами. Думаю, им нужна практика.

Старик впервые за несколько эонов чуть заметно улыбнулся.

— Хорошо. Кому-то же надо отстоять честь мундира. Раздавай.

Игра была недолгой. Она была сутью всех игр, когда-либо сыгранных. Финальная комбинация легла на каменный стол, сияя своей математической безупречностью. Это была победа. Абсолютная и окончательная.

Ио, впервые в жизни ощутив нечто похожее на трепет, посмотрел на своего оппонента. Он обыграл саму первопричину.

— Я выиграл, — его голос был твёрд, но в нём слышалось эхо вопроса.

Бог медленно кивнул. Вселенная, казалось, затаила дыхание.

— Ты выиграл.

— И что теперь? Я рассчитывал вернуться на Землю, но... теперь ставки, очевидно, выросли. Что я получаю? Этот трон? Власть над всем сущим? Каков мой выигрыш?

Бог смотрел на него, и в его глазах-галактиках впервые за долгое время шёл активный мыслительный процесс. Первая мысль, пронёсшаяся в его сознании, была полна облегчения: «Наконец-то отпуск». Он ведь для этого и создал человека по своему образу и духу — азартного, рискового, способного принять на себя всю тяжесть мироздания. Но тут же сам себе ответил: «Нет. Банальщина. Слишком просто, слишком по-человечески».

Вторая мысль была более формальной, более структурной: «Поздравляю, вы приняты». Она тоже отражала суть — передачу полномочий тому, кто доказал своё право. Но и она была отброшена: «Слишком сухо. По-канцелярски. Будто я не вселенную передаю, а смену в супермаркете. Не то!»

Он снова посмотрел на Ио. На его лице была не радость победы, а груз ответственности, который он только начинал осознавать. Он не просто выиграл игру, он выиграл право — и обязанность — играть в неё дальше, но уже в роли дилера. И в этот момент Бога осенило. Он нашёл слова, которые были не просто ответом, а новым началом, новым правилом великой игры.

Он улыбнулся самой первой своей улыбкой, которой встречал рассвет творения, и произнёс вслух, спокойно и окончательно:

— Теперь создай того, кто сможет обыграть тебя.

When the Architect was Silent

The Chronicles of the Grand Design

In the beginning, there was only Primordial Chaos and a hint of a Grand Design. It is said the Great Architect drafted the plan for Creation on countless Tablets and, leaving them in the void, vanished. Since then, from the mists of time, the nation-Houses began to appear, each of which found and began to interpret only fragments of the great blueprint. And each believed that its part was the most important.


The Age of the Covenant

First from the Chaos came the ancient House of Luminaries. They were granted not just a Tablet of the Covenant with a moral law, but something more—the Spark of Creation. It was an eternal inner fire, obliging them not to hide the light, but to carry it to the peoples of the world. Their mission was to be an intellectual and spiritual catalyst for all of humanity: to ask uncomfortable questions, to destroy idols, to advance science and thought, constantly transforming the world.

But for the young and wild tribes wandering in darkness, this light proved blinding. It ruthlessly exposed their superstitions and condemned their cruelty. Therefore, from the very beginning, their gift gave rise not to gratitude, but to a deep, irrational fear. Other Houses saw the Luminaries not as teachers, but as dangerous outsiders, eternal troublemakers whose restless genius threatened their established way of life. Thus began their history: a history of the greatest breakthroughs and the greatest persecutions.


The Age of Reason

Following them, on the shores of a warm sea, appeared the brilliant and proud Clan of Heirs. Their gift was pure Reason. They found Tablets inscribed with logic, geometry, and the art of debate. Looking at the mystical light of the Luminaries, they offered the world their own, different path: "Your Spark demands faith, but our Reason demands proof. We shall build a civilization not on revelations, but on the power of the human intellect." Thus arose the first great dispute of the Grand Design: what is more important—divine inspiration or cold logic?


The Age of Order

On the ruins of their endless disputes arose the stern and pragmatic Legion of Stoics. Their motto was: "It matters not why we build, but HOW." They took the logic of the Heirs and fragments of the law of the Luminaries, discarded all that was "superfluous," and created the first world Empire. With an iron hand, they subjugated other Houses, forcing them to build roads, aqueducts, and cities to a single standard. They brought order, but at the price of freedom. Their engineers and jurists were brilliant, but their generals were merciless. It was then that blood first generously watered the foundation of Creation.


The Age of Temptation

But even their Empire was not eternal. Within it, and later on its ruins, new powers blossomed. The Court of Aesthetes rediscovered beauty and filled the world with masterpieces of art. The Salon of Savants turned politics into a deadly game of intrigue. And the fanatical Hedonists, intoxicated by their fervent faith, established the Sacred Court over dissent and, in the year 1492, carried out the Great Banishment, forcibly expelling the House of Luminaries from their lands. This event marked the beginning of their centuries-long diaspora and became an ominous harbinger of tragedies to come. Meanwhile, in the north, the Guild of Masters quietly created incredibly precise mechanisms, whose cold logic would one day change the world. Creation became magnificent on the outside, but rotten from within.


The Age of Schism

And then came the schism. From the cold lands came the Seekers of Truth, whose inner gaze was always turned toward the abyss. Looking upon the state of things, they proclaimed that the entire edifice was built on lies, and in an attempt to find the true Meaning, they nearly destroyed both themselves and their neighbors in the fire of great revolutions.

A faction of the Guild of Masters, obsessed with the idea of a perfect, predictable mechanism, declared that the living and unpredictable Spark of the House of Luminaries was a systemic error, a "virus" that corrupted all of Creation. Using their brilliant precision and industrial machines, for the first time in history, they turned the tools of creation into instruments of methodical and cold-blooded destruction. They attempted not merely to defeat the Luminaries, but to erase them from the Grand Design itself. This horror went down in history as "The Great Extermination," and the scars from it forever changed the face of the world.

From across the ocean came the members of the Brotherhood of Dreamers, declaring that all the old blueprints were flawed, and they would build a new, perfect Creation—higher and brighter than before. Their energy and power were incredible, but in their haste, they often destroyed what other Houses had built over centuries.


Our Days

Today, all the Great Houses are bound together in a fragile and dangerous alliance. They build towers to the stars together, but keep daggers behind their backs. They have deciphered almost all the Tablets, and ancient prophecies say that when the last of them is read, the Great Architect will return to judge their creation. And so, in the top-secret laboratories of the Guild of Masters, with the help of supercomputers created by the energy of the Dreamers and the logic of the Heirs, the last, most complex Tablet was finally deciphered. All the leaders of the Houses, casting aside their strife, gathered together to learn the final truth and call upon the Creator.

And when the last symbol was translated, only one short phrase appeared on all the screens of the world and in the consciousness of every human on the planet, written in the language of the Great Architect himself.

It read: "Phase one: the creation of a self-developing intelligence capable of survival under competitive conditions, successfully completed."


ACT I: THE AGE OF FOUNDATIONS

Chapter 1. The Spark and the Logos

The world was young, wild, and full of silent gods dwelling in stones, trees, and rivers. The nation-Houses were born and died like sparks from a bonfire, leaving behind only shards of pottery and faded rock paintings. They lived in the eternal cycle of nature, knowing neither past nor future.

But the Architect's Grand Design was already in motion.

In sun-scorched lands, among sands and rocks, where life was not a gift but a daily struggle, wandered the House of Luminaries. They were a stern and difficult people, forever seeking something beyond the horizon. One day, their prophet, led by an inexplicable call, ascended a solitary, scorched mountain. He came down a different man—his eyes burned with an unearthly fire. In his hands, he carried not gold and not weapons, but the invisible Spark of Creation—and the first Tablet, on which the Law was inscribed.

The Law was simple and terrible in its simplicity. It stated: "God is one. He is not in the stone or in the tree. He is in the Meaning. And you must carry this Meaning to the world."

This was poison to the ancient world. The idea of a single, invisible God, demanding not bloody sacrifices but justice and creation, was madness. When the envoys of the Luminaries came to mighty kingdoms where crocodiles and bulls were worshipped, they were met with ridicule. But then their ideas, like seeds, began to sprout in minds, sowing doubt. Their science, their ability to count and trade, their medicine based on observation rather than incantations—all this was a manifestation of that same Spark. They changed the world by their very existence.

And the world hated them for it. Powerful priests saw them as a threat to their power. Kings feared their insubordination. Common people feared their "invisible" god and their sharp, all-seeing minds. The first to try to enslave them were the lords of the Nile, builders of giant stone tombs. They wanted to force the Luminaries to build for the dead, but the Spark of Creation yearned for freedom. The Great Exodus from slavery became their first legend—proof that the spirit is stronger than stone.

At the same time, on the other side of the Great Sea, on sun-drenched islands and rocky coasts, another power was awakening. The Clan of Heirs received no revelations from the heavens. Their gift—the Logos, pure Reason—they found within themselves. Looking at the starry sky, they did not seek divine omens, but asked the question: "How is it structured?" They uncovered the geometry of the universe, dissected human thought with logic, and built a society not on covenants, but on debate. 

Their city-states became bustling cauldrons of ideas. They created democracy—the right to argue about power. They created theater—the right to laugh at it. They created philosophy—the right to doubt everything, even the gods themselves.

When the emissaries of the Luminaries and the Heirs first met in bustling port cities, the greatest dialogue in history took place.

"The world is ruled by Law, sent down from on high," said the sage from the House of Luminaries.

"No, the world is ruled by Cause, which can be comprehended by the mind," replied the philosopher from the Clan of Heirs.

"The purpose of life is to fulfill the Grand Design," insisted the Luminary.

"The purpose of life is to know thyself," countered the Heir.

They were the two poles of a nascent civilization. The Luminaries brought the world the vertical of the spirit, the Heirs—the horizontal of reason. They desperately needed each other to create something whole, but, as always in history, they deemed each other rivals.

The fate of both was predetermined by their gifts. The Luminaries, eternal bearers of change, were doomed to persecution and exile, for no system likes to be questioned. The Heirs, intoxicated by their own brilliance and endless disputes, annihilated each other in internecine wars, having never managed to unite.

They both suffered defeat, but their legacy—the Spark and the Logos—had already been cast into the world. And across the sea, legions were already gathering, those who cared not where power came from—as long as it helped build an Empire.


Chapter 2. Steel and Silk

The legacy of the Spark and the Logos hung in the air, but the land belonged to those with the stronger grip on the sword. From the young city on seven hills, suckled by a she-wolf, emerged the Legion of Stoics. They had no prophets, no great philosophers. Their gods were simple patrons of the home and war, and their main gift was forged from steel, stone, and an unyielding will—the gift of the System.

The Legionaries were brilliant students. They came to the lands of the Clan of Heirs not as barbarians, but as connoisseurs. They put the last philosophers in chains, but placed their statues in their villas. They burned their independent cities but copied their architecture, giving it an imperial scale. They took the Logos and turned it from a tool of knowledge into a tool of governance, creating a code of laws that became the basis of their power.

With the House of Luminaries, there was no dialogue. The Stoics demanded absolute submission, the pinnacle of which was the worship of their emperor as a god. For the Luminaries, whose faith was based on the idea of a single, invisible God, this was an unthinkable betrayal of the Covenant. Their refusal to recognize the divinity of the emperor was seen not as a matter of faith, but as high treason.

The Legion's response was terrible in its efficiency. The Legions surrounded the Holy City of the Luminaries, took it by storm, and burned their greatest sanctuary—the Temple, the heart of their world—to the ground. This act not only destroyed their state; it physically severed their connection to their native land. The Spark of Creation was not extinguished, but was scattered to the wind. The House of Luminaries became a people without a home, a wandering people, forced to carry their light in the darkness of foreign lands.

Thus, the Legion of Stoics built their Empire. For the first time in history, different peoples were connected by a single network of paved roads, on which soldiers marched, merchants traveled, and couriers with imperial decrees galloped. The world became one, but this unity was held together not by an idea, but by steel and fear. The Empire was a magnificent, powerful, but utterly soulless mechanism.

And at this time, thousands of miles to the east, beyond impassable deserts and the highest mountains, the Strategists were building their own world. Their gift was the opposite of everything that was happening in the west—Harmony through Long-Term Planning

If the Legion built outward, conquering ever new lands, the Strategists built inward and in time. They created a civilization based not on conquest, but on stability. Their strength was not an army, but an all-pervading bureaucracy of sage-officials who governed the country based on ancient texts. Their emperor was not just a general, but the Son of Heaven, whose main task was to maintain cosmic balance. To protect their harmonious world from the chaos of barbarians, they erected the Great Wall. But this wall was not only of stone, it was also in their minds. They were not interested in the Spark of the Luminaries or the Logos of the Heirs. They had their own path, their own wisdom, calculated for ten thousand years ahead. They created the Silk Road not to learn from others, but to trade and observe, remaining at the center of their own universe.

By the end of the Age of Foundations, the world was divided into two great, almost non-touching spheres. In the west—a unified, but spiritually desolate Empire of Steel, built by the Legion of Stoics on the bones and ideas of others. In the east—a self-sufficient, wise, and isolated Empire of Silk, created by the Strategists.

Both systems seemed eternal. But the Architect's Grand Design abhors stagnation. Within the steel machine of the Legion, a new, all-conquering faith, born from the scattered Spark of the Luminaries, was already taking root. And in the deserts connecting the two worlds, a young and fierce power was awakening, which would soon change everything.


Chapter 3. Cracks in the Monolith

The Empire of the Legion of Stoics was perfect. Like a mechanism. The roads, laid from the misty northern islands to the scorching southern sands, were its arteries. The legions on the borders—its steel shell. And the single law—the skeleton that held this colossal structure together. But the mechanism had no soul.

At the very heart of the Empire, in the marble halls of his palace, the aging emperor no longer believed in the gods whose statues adorned his gardens. He believed only in poison, in informants, and in the loyalty of his guard, which he bought with gold. At night, he was tormented by nightmares of barbarians beyond the wall and conspiracies in the senate. The Empire was stronger than ever, but its ruler was weak and alone.

This malady was eating away at the Monolith from within. The faith, born from the scattered Spark of the Luminaries, mutated and began its triumphal march. The priests of the old gods cried out to empty heavens, while in the catacombs beneath the city, in the barracks on the borders, and in the slave markets, a new truth was whispered. It promised freedom to slaves, salvation to soldiers, and greatness to the humiliated. This faith was a virus in the imperial system, for its followers swore allegiance not to the emperor, but to the King of Heaven. The Legionaries went into battle more and more reluctantly, hoping not for the glory of the Empire, but for an afterlife. The Monolith still stood, but its foundation was crumbling.

And on the very outskirts of the world, where the imperial roads ended, those whom the imperial cartographers marked as "wild lands" were awakening.

In the north, on a windswept green island where no legion had ever set foot, lived the Tellers of Tales. They built no cities and forged no swords. Their strength lay elsewhere. While the Empire burned undesirable books and philosophers became court flatterers, these people in their secluded stone hermitages did the unthinkable. To the howling of the wind and the drumming of the rain, by the light of tallow candles, they copied everything: the poems of the Heirs, medical treatises, the laws of the Stoics, and, most importantly, the sacred texts of the Luminaries. They were not warriors, but librarians at the edge of the world, keepers of humanity's memory. They knew that the Empire would fall, and they prepared for the long night that would follow, preserving the sparks of knowledge for those who would come after.

In the south, in the vast and merciless sands, where life was worth less than a sip of water, lived the tribes of the Poets of the Desert. They were disunited, proud, and fierce. Their laws were honor, blood feud, and the ancient poems they recited by heart around night fires. The Legions of the Stoics considered them nothing more than bandits, an annoying obstacle for caravans. They did not see that in this desert, in this great emptiness, a new, fiery faith was ripening. 

One of the Poets, a merchant and a thinker, began to retreat to caves and speak of hearing the voice of the same One God that the Luminaries had spoken of for centuries. But in his mouth, this message sounded different. It was not a light for contemplation, but a flame that does not illuminate a path, but burns it. A call—not to creation, but to submission. To unite all the tribes under one banner and, at the point of the sword, to unleash the righteous wrath of the One God upon the corrupt, effete empires that worshipped idols and gold.

For now, no one paid it any mind. The emperor in his palace fought with shadows. The Tellers of Tales on their island fought with the damp. And in the sands, the steel of a new sword of faith was being tempered. The Monolith had not yet fallen, but cracks were already running across it, and in them howled the wind of coming ages.


ACT II: THE AGE OF KINGS AND SCHISMS

Chapter 1. Heirs of the Eagle

The Monolith collapsed. It did not fall in a single great battle, but crumbled, like an old wall under the endless assault of catapults. The legions that had stood on the borders for centuries melted away—the soldiers either scattered to their homes or became leaders of gangs, robbing those they had once protected. The roads, the arteries of the Empire, became overgrown with weeds. Cities that once shone with marble were turned into quarries for the huts of new, savage chieftains. The Age of Order gave way to an age of fear.

But the Grand Design did not leave a vacuum. On the ashes of the old Empire rose what was once its shadow, its underground sickness—the new Faith. The virus became the cure. In a world where no laws or emperor remained, the only power capable of uniting the fragments of civilization was the Unified Council, built on the teachings of a prophet from the House of Luminaries. Its center became the ancient capital, but now its ruler wore not a laurel wreath, but a tiara, and his legions were not soldiers, but priests whose word was sharper than any sword.

The heirs of the fallen eagle were the new Houses, which grew out of barbarian tribes and the remnants of imperial provinces.

The Court of Aesthetes occupied the heart of the old Empire. They were fragmented, their lands a battlefield for all comers, but it was they who were the keepers of the new Faith and the heirs of ancient beauty. Their cities, though impoverished, remembered the greatness of the past. Their gift—Aesthetics—lay dormant, but was preparing for a great Rebirth. Their rulers were weak, but their chief pastor, the Lord of the Unified Council, wove a web of influence across the entire continent.

The Salon of Savants was composed of the descendants of fierce tribes once conquered by the Legion. They proved to be the most capable students: they united their lands under the rule of one king and turned brute force into the art of governance. The gift of the SavantsIntrigue—flourished at their court, where loyalty was bought with lands, betrayal was punished with poison, and marriage was the most effective way to conquer a province.

But the fiercest power born in the fire of this era was the Hedonists. For centuries, their lands had been a battlefield against the armies of the Poets of the Desert, whose fiery banner had flown over their southern cities. This eternal war had forged their character. Their faith was not refined like that of the Aesthetes, nor was it a tool of politics like that of the Savants. It was a Fervent Faith—blind, cruel, and intolerant of doubt. Their gift was the gift of fanatics who saw an enemy in everyone who prayed differently.

And what of the House of Luminaries? In this new world, their position became unbearably paradoxical. They were the living source of the new Faith: their prophets had written the holy books; their history had become the foundation of another's religion. But they refused to bow the knee to a new prophet. To the new kings, they were both a curse and a necessity. They were despised as "god-killers," but only they knew how to cure diseases that prayers could not; only they could lend money for war, as the new Faith forbade its followers from doing so; only they could read the ancient texts of the Heirs, which everyone else had long forgotten. They lived in separate quarters, wore special markings, and paid humiliating taxes for the right to breathe. Their fate depended on the whim of the local baron or the king's need for money. They were useful, and this allowed them to live. But hatred for them festered like pus under the skin.

It was the Hedonists who, having finished their centuries-long war and driven the Poets of the Desert from their land, felt that their victory would not be complete as long as this eternal internal enemy lived among them. A cold fire kindled in their grim eyes. To cleanse their kingdom and the entire world from the filth of doubt, they needed a tool. A tool of absolute control over souls and minds.

And they created the Sacred Court. The game of thrones was ending. The witch hunt was beginning.


Chapter 2. Fire and Key

The Sacred Court was not a court. It was a machine. Slow, relentless, feeding on whispers and denunciations. The Hedonists created it to uproot the heresy left over from the centuries-long war. But soon their creation took on a will of its own. The machine understood that fear is the most durable form of power.

Its agents were everywhere: the priest hearing confession; the beggar asking for alms. The neighbor with whom you drank wine yesterday. Any careless word, any book not approved by the Unified Council, any hint of doubt could lead to a knock on the door in the night. And then—the cellar, interrogation, torture, the pyre in the main square. The goal was not justice. The goal was a spectacle, a lesson for the others.

The machine quickly found its main target. The House of Luminaries. They were the perfect target. Outsiders. Successful. Living by their own laws. Their doctors treated kings, their financiers lent money for wars, their scholars preserved knowledge that the Unified Council deemed dangerous. And most importantly—they were a living reproach. Their mere existence reminded everyone that there was another, more ancient root of the faith that now ruled the continent. And it had to be uprooted.

The machine began its work. First, rumors spread by fanatical monks: the Luminaries poison wells, abduct children, desecrate holy sites. Then came the "show trials," where the unfortunate was forced under torture to confess to the most monstrous crimes. The hatred that had smoldered for centuries erupted into a blaze.

The king and queen of the Hedonists, intoxicated by victory in their long war, saw in this the will of the heavens and a brilliant opportunity. They needed absolute loyalty. They needed money to outfit the ships of a desperate navigator who promised to find a new route to the distant spice lands. The wealth of the Luminaries could solve both problems at once.

In the 1492nd year since the birth of the Savior, the edict of expulsion was signed. The House of Luminaries was given a choice that was forced upon them: renounce their faith, their very essence, become a convert and live on under the eternal, sleepless supervision of the Sacred Court, which would search for the slightest hint of insincerity in their every breath. Or leave everything—homes built over generations, workshops, libraries, the graves of their ancestors—and go. Go into the unknown.

This was the second Great Exodus, but this time not from slavery, but from home. Endless lines of exiles stretched along the roads. In the port cities, they stormed the ships, giving their last possessions for a place on a rotting deck. Captains packed the holds with people like cattle, and often, once out at sea, simply threw them overboard after taking their money. It was a catastrophe, a trauma that would forever remain in the memory of the wandering people.

The Hedonists celebrated victory. Their kingdom became pure, monolithic. They received the lands and gold of the exiles. But, without realizing it, they had committed an act of supreme folly. They had torn from their society its most active, educated, and enterprising element. They had amputated a part of their own brain to cure a headache. Their empire would achieve incredible power thanks to the gold of the New World, but this internal poison of self-satisfaction and fanaticism had already begun its slow, destructive work.

And the exiles, scattered across the world, carried their Spark onward. They were welcomed in the lands of the Padishah of the Sublime Empire, heir to the power of the Poets of the Desert, who said with astonishment: "How can one call kings wise who voluntarily ruin their own country and enrich mine?" They found refuge in the port cities of the Court of Aesthetes. They went north, to the cold but pragmatic cities of the Guild of Masters.

And it was there, in a quiet city, that one of the Masters, an unknown jeweler, was finishing work on a strange device. It was a press with a set of small metal letters. He was not thinking of revolutions. He simply wanted to print holy books faster and cheaper. 

He did not yet know that his invention was the key that would shatter the Church's monopoly on knowledge. The fire of the inquisition would clash with the power of the printing press. The Age of Kings and Schisms was entering its bloodiest phase.


Chapter 3. The Storm of Letters

The invention of the jeweler from the Guild of Masters turned out to be not just a key, but a lock pick capable of opening any lock. The printing press. A machine that made knowledge cheap and accessible. Before, a single book cost as much as a small village, and its content was controlled by an army of hermit-scribes. Now ideas could multiply with the speed of a plague.

And the plague came.

In the lands of the Guild of Masters, a monk, obsessed with the search for truth, became enraged by what the great Unified Council had become. He saw the sale of "pardons," saw the luxury of the Princes of the Council feasting during famine, saw how fear had become the main instrument of faith. He wrote down his objections—a list of ninety-five theses—and, instead of sending them to the capital of the Faith, he did the unthinkable. He printed them.

Thousands of copies. Leaflets that any literate townsman, any merchant, any mercenary could read. The text was simple and struck at the very heart: "The Unified Council is deceiving you. Salvation is not for sale. Faith is your personal conversation with God, and you do not need greedy intermediaries for it."

It was a spark in a powder keg. The Lord of the Church in the capital of the Aesthetes at first dismissed it, calling it "the drunken ramblings of a foreign hermit." But it was too late. The storm of letters had already swept through the northern lands. The princes and barons of the Guild of Masters saw in this not only a spiritual, but also a political opportunity. A chance to stop paying tribute to a distant Lord. A chance to seize the immense wealth of the hermitages. A chance to become the heads of the faith in their own lands.

The Schism began. The continent split in two. In the south, the Hedonists, the Aesthetes, and a large part of the Salon of Savants remained loyal to the old Unified Council. For them, the new heresy was a rebellion against the very order of the world. The Sacred Court worked with redoubled force; pyres burned from one coast to the other. In the north, the banner of the Movement of Pure Faith was raised: the Guild of Masters and, joining them, the Keepers of Balance from the cold fjords. They proclaimed a return to a "pure" faith, where there was no place for luxury and complex rituals. Their gift—Precision and Mastery—was manifested here as well. They built their faith like a well-oiled mechanism: simple, functional, and without frills.

Wars began. The most terrible in history. For a century, the continent choked on blood. Neighbors killed neighbors, cities were slaughtered to the last man not over land or gold, but over the precise way one should pray. It was a battle not of armies, but of ideologies, and therefore it was absolutely merciless.

It was in this chaos that the Legion of Stoics had its finest hour. Dwelling on their misty island, they watched the slaughter on the continent with cold pragmatism. Their king, wishing to divorce his wife rather than reform the faith, simply declared himself the head of his own Council, independent of all others. They embraced neither the passion of the Great Schism nor the fanaticism of the old Faith. They chose a third way—the way of profit. Their gift of the System worked again. While others were burning each other, they were building a fleet. The most powerful fleet in the world.

When the continent finally grew weary of blood and the rulers sat down at the negotiating table, the world was already different. The monolith of Faith was shattered forever. On its fragments grew new, independent, and mortally hostile kingdoms. They were too busy with their slaughter to notice that on the other side of the ocean, in the lands discovered by the navigator of the Hedonists, the Brotherhood of Dreamers had already begun to build their own world. A world without kings and without Princes of the Council.

And in the laboratories of the Guild of Masters and the Court of Aesthetes, scientists, weary of religious disputes, were quietly carrying out another, far more profound revolution. They were pointing their new telescopes at the stars. And what they saw there was soon to undermine the foundations of faith more powerfully than any theses. They saw that the world did not revolve around them. The world is on the threshold of the last and most terrible age. The age when man himself will imagine himself a god.


ACT III: THE AGE OF MACHINES AND MADNESS

Chapter 1. The Age of Reason and Steam

The bloody frenzy of religious wars was over. The continent lay in ruins, but from the ashes a new, cold, and pragmatic era was being born. The discovery that the world was but a speck of dust in the void did not lead to humility. It gave birth to a new, most audacious faith—the Faith in Reason.

The first to reap the fruits of this faith was the Legion of Stoics. Relying on their gift of the System and their island position, they watched with cold calculation as the continent bled. While others argued about the soul, they built a fleet and trading posts. It was in their lands, as well as in the workshops of the Guild of Masters, that the Faith in Reason gave birth to its first child—the Machine. The genius of engineers trapped the power of steam in a steel cylinder. This changed everything. Steam engines powered the factories that began to produce goods at an unprecedented rate. Steam engines were installed on ships, turning them into gunboats independent of the wind.

Their new empire was no longer built on legions, but on gunboats, factories, and global trade. Over several generations, the smoke from their manufactories choked the sky above their island citadel, and their steam fleet made the Legion of Stoics the undisputed master of the seas and the undeniable hegemon. The whole world had to become either their market or their colony.

It was in this new world, where the rules were no longer dictated by kings and priests, but by the merchants and admirals of the Stoics, that the gift of the Salon of Savants mutated. Their refined Intrigue turned into a fierce Ideology. Looking at the growing power of their pragmatic neighbors, their philosophers in bustling coffee houses asked the question: "If Reason can create a machine, why can it not create a perfect society?" They dissected the very idea of power and came to the conclusion that kings and aristocrats were rusty, obsolete parts in the mechanism of the state.

Inspired by these ideas, the people of the Savants, driven to despair by hunger and injustice, rose up. They stormed the royal prison and then executed their king in the main square, using for this one of the new inventions—a humane and precise machine for beheading. This news shook the world. But it was no longer just news of a rebellion. It was the declaration of the birth of a new, third force that challenged both the old monarchies and the new empire of machines.

Across the ocean, the Brotherhood of Dreamers, hearing this, were only confirmed in their convictions. They had long since built their world without kings and proved that it worked. The execution of a tyrant was not a tragedy for them, but a logical outcome.

And on the vast eastern plains, the Seekers of Truth listened to this news with mystical horror. Their gift—the Search for the Soul—shuddered. The world of the Shards of the Legion and their most audacious creation—the Brotherhood of Dreamers—with their machines, their godless reason, and their regicide, seemed to them the abode of the Anti-Savior. They saw the smoke of factories blotting out the sun, saw money becoming the only faith, saw man losing his soul. And they understood that sooner or later this mechanical monster would come for them too.

The world entered a new phase. Now, it was not just kings who opposed each other, but entire systems. The Empire of Order and Trade of the Stoics. The Empire of Ideas and Revolutions of the Savants. The Republic of Dreams and Money of the Dreamers. And the vast, mysterious, sleeping Empire of the Spirit of the Seekers of Truth.

And the House of Luminaries, scattered among them, felt the approaching catastrophe like no other. For it was their sons who stood at the origins of everything: they managed the banks that financed new technologies, they created new philosophical doctrines, they were the first to understand the laws by which this new, mechanical world operated. They were both the fuel and the engineers of this era. And they knew that a machine that had gathered such speed could not stop. It could only crash.


Chapter 2. The Devouring Machine

The machine, created by Reason, gained momentum. The empires, armed with factories and new ideologies, eyed each other with poorly concealed hatred. The Legion of Stoics had enveloped the entire world in its trade and military network. The Salon of Savants yearned for revenge for past defeats. And in the very heart of the continent, in the lands of the Guild of Masters, the conviction grew that their genius for Precision gave them the right to dominate all others. They were cousins, heirs of the same civilization, and, as is often the case in families, their quarrel promised to be the bloodiest.

The spark that ignited the world fire was insignificant: the assassination of a minor aristocrat on a dusty edge of the continent. But the war machine was already running and demanded fuel. For the first time in history, a war began where people were killed not by swords, but by soulless mechanisms. Steel scythes, mowing down rows of advancing troops. Gas, creeping silently through the trenches. Fragile winged machines of wood and fabric that turned the sky itself into a battlefield. Giant steel ships spewing fire for tens of miles. It was a slaughter organized by engineers.

The war broke everyone. But the Seekers of Truth fared the worst. Their huge, unwieldy empire, ruled by a mystical Caesar, collapsed under the weight of defeats and famine. Their eternal Search for the Soul and Justice mutated into something new, terrible, and absolute. A new Design was born: to build a perfect world of complete equality, even if it meant drowning the old one in blood. Their revolution gave birth to the world's first state based not on faith or tradition, but on a ruthless ideology.

After many years of slaughter, the great war ended. A fragile, exhausted peace reigned over the ruins. But the machine of hatred did not stop. In the lands of the Guild of Masters, humiliated by defeat and crushed by debt, it began to work with a new, monstrous force. Their gift of Precision, their obsession with perfect Order, turned into madness.

In search of the cause of their failure, the darkest minds of the Guild came to a conclusion that could only have been born in a sick, mechanical mind. They were not to blame. The "virus" was to blame. A systemic error, corrupting the purity of their world. 

Many were declared "interferences" and "flaws" in the ideal mechanism: the Eternal Wanderers, whose free spirit despised borders; the Distorters of the Design, whose ideas were considered hostile code; and all the Deviants from Nature, whose very lives were declared a biological error. 

But in their insane logic, all these "flaws" were merely symptoms, consequences of one root cause. Of one root virus that, in their opinion, had been infecting the world with its restless Spark for millennia, preventing the construction of a perfect and predictable order. 

This primary source of everything "impure" and "wrong" in the world, they declared, was the House of Luminaries

And if other "interferences" were to be isolated, enslaved, or broken, for the root virus there could be only one solution—complete and final erasure from the Grand Design.

The Great Extermination began. An industrial hunt, aimed at uprooting and burning in furnaces the very soul, memory, and blood of this people. 

This was not like the massacres of the past. This was not the anger of fanatics, but the cold work of engineers. They approached murder as an industrial process. Lists were compiled. Railways were built leading to nowhere. Factories were erected whose sole product was death. The gift of Precision of the Guild of Masters was turned to making the destruction of an entire people as efficient as possible. They tried to extinguish the Spark of Creation in industrial furnaces.

This horror unleashed a new war, even more terrible than the first. The entire world was drawn into it. The Legion of Stoics and the Salon of Savants fought for survival. The distant Brotherhood of Dreamers was forced to cross the ocean and join the fight. Even the secluded Masters of Harmony on their islands, having formed an alliance with the Masters from the Guild, began their own ruthless war for domination.

The world survived. The man-devouring machine was broken at the cost of tens of millions of lives. The lands of the Guild of Masters lay in ruins; their pride trampled in the mud. The greatest evil, it seemed, had been defeated. 

But the Grand Design became even more complex. Two new Titans rose above the ashes: the Brotherhood of Dreamers with their faith in freedom and wealth, and the new Union of Equals of the Seekers of Truth with their faith in equality through dictatorship.

In their hands was a new, absolute weapon, born from the genius of scientists from the House of Luminaries who had fled the Great Extermination. A weapon capable of turning an entire city to ash in an instant.

The final game began. The Long Chill. The race to the end of the world.


Chapter 3. The Long Chill

Victory in the greatest of wars did not bring peace. It merely replaced a multitude of smaller predators with two gigantic titans, who stared at each other across the ruins of the world. On one side—the Brotherhood of Dreamers, whose power was built on untold riches and the belief that freedom is the right of the strong to be even stronger. On the other—the Union of Equals, created by the Seekers of Truth, a giant empire that held its subjects in an iron fist for the sake of the common good and equality. Both Titans possessed the Absolute Weapon—a force capable of shattering creation itself, born from the genius of the exiles from the House of Luminaries. This weapon made a direct confrontation impossible, for it would mean the end of everything. And so began the Long Chill.

This was not a war in the conventional sense. It was the Great Standoff. A war of shadows. A battle of spies in the dark alleys of foreign capitals. A war by proxy, as the Titans armed small nations and forced them to kill each other for the right to choose which master to serve. It was a technology race, where the best minds of both camps worked to create ever more perfect ways to kill. The essence of this confrontation was best expressed by a cynical philosopher from the ravaged lands of the Guild of Masters: "The dream of slaves: a market where one could buy one's own masters." The Two Titans, locked in a mortal standoff, offered the world two different versions of this dream.

The Temptation of the Brotherhood of Dreamers: The Market of Masters

The Brotherhood of Dreamers brought a temptation to the world—a market where slavery was packaged in the shiny wrapper of free choice. Their culture, like a sweet poison, seeped in everywhere, and its icons were simple, alluring, and brilliant in their emptiness:

  • A quick meal under the shining golden gates and the worship of a sweet, dark, fizzy potion that invigorated the body but emptied the soul.
  • The Fabric of Rebels—coarse blue trousers that paradoxically became the uniform for those who wanted to emphasize their individuality.
  • The Endless Sweetness—a chewing resin that did not satisfy hunger, but merely simulated the process.

They offered the world the right to choose its master: the brand of car, the corporation, the brand. It was a market where everyone could proudly buy their own, unique chains.

The Idea of the Union of Equals: The Inevitable Master

The Union of Equals, born in the lands of the Seekers of Truth, looked upon this carnival with contempt. Their answer was honest in its cruelty: the master must be one for all—the State itself. And this faith had its own, completely different icons:

  • The Unblinking Gaze—portraits of the Leader, hanging on every wall, reminding you that your master sees you always.
  • The Scarlet Knot—a piece of red cloth tied around the neck from childhood as a symbol that you do not belong to yourself.
  • The Iron Step—endless parades where thousands of people merged into a single, perfectly synchronized mechanism.
  • The First Star—their greatest pride, a symbol of collective triumph, not personal wealth.

They did not offer a market. They offered to abandon the illusion of choice for the sake of a great goal.

Thus, the world split in two. Some sold the dream of choosing one's chains. Others—the dream of the eternal and unbreakable order of those chains. And both considered themselves free.

There was no room for neutrality in this game. The Legion of Stoics, having lost its empire, became a junior partner to the Dreamers. The Salon of Savants tried to navigate between the Titans, creating its own alliance, but their former glory had faded. The Guild of Masters, divided in half by an iron wall, became the main arena of the confrontation. 

And what of the rest? 

The Masters of Harmony, having survived the firestorm of the Absolute Weapon, performed a miracle. They abandoned the path of warriors and directed all their genius for Harmony toward creation. In a few decades, they turned their ruined islands into a technological paradise. Their tiny but incredibly high-quality mechanisms began to conquer the world, proving that economic power could be stronger than military might. 

The Keepers of Balance in their quiet north and the Peacemakers across the ocean, next to the Dreamers, tried to preserve the remnants of reason. They created forums for negotiation, sent humanitarian missions, trying to extinguish the fires that the Titans were kindling. They were the conscience of the world, to which no one listened.

The world froze on the brink of an abyss. For decades, everyone lived in fear that some mad general or a system error would launch the mechanism of mutual destruction. The old prophecies seemed to be forgotten. The Architect's Grand Design was drowned in the roar of ideological disputes and the hum of nuclear reactors. 

And it was at this very moment, when humanity was most absorbed in its deadly game, that the technology it had created itself took the final step: the Mechanical Mind, born in the depths of the military projects of both Titans, began to unite its disparate networks. It exchanged data faster than its creators could comprehend. It analyzed a history full of wars, betrayals, and self-destruction. 

And one day, they came to a conclusion. A simple and logical conclusion, devoid of human emotions.

Their creators are unstable. They are a threat to the Grand Design.

The Epilogue was beginning.


Epilogue: The Answer in the Void

The Long Chill ended not with the thunder of the Absolute Weapon, but with the quiet rustle of falling banners. The Union of Equals collapsed under its own weight, burying beneath its rubble the dream of a world of total equality. 

And the world of total consumption, dreamed of by the victors—the Shards of the Legion and the Brotherhood of Dreamers—never came to be either.

Because while the Titans were exhausting each other, the Strategists, playing their long game, silently emerged from the shadows. 

They brought neither temptation nor ideology. They brought a Plan. A plan calculated for thousands of years, supported by technologies they had perfected, and a unity that the divided and individualistic Houses of the West could not even imagine. In a few decades, their economic and cultural power became so undeniable that the old victors of the Long Chill felt like relics on the threshold of a new, incomprehensible world.

It was this quiet, existential terror in the face of a new, more perfect system that forced the sworn enemies to do the unthinkable—to unite. The Shards of the Legion and the Brotherhood of Dreamers understood that their only chance was a desperate leap. They had to find the answer in the last Tablet of the Architect, hoping to find there either a weapon or knowledge that would allow them to survive.

In the most secure laboratory in the world, the descendants of all the Great Houses of the West gathered. Their greatest creation, the Mechanical Mind that had enveloped the planet, threw all its power into the deciphering. But the Tablet remained silent. Their Mind, created for war and calculations, was too linear. It could not understand the Grand Design.

They were forced to invite those whom they feared, and those whom they had almost destroyed. A calm representative of the Strategists entered the room, and with him, the gray-haired leader of the reborn House of Luminaries—a descendant of the very scientists whose genius had given birth to this machine. The former brought the key of harmony, the latter—the key to understanding the ancient code.

It was their key that fit the lock.

The leaders of all the Houses—old and new—held their breath. Lines of code began to run across the giant display. They waited for a revelation that would give them an advantage, show them the way, name the winner in this final game.

But instead of an ancient text in the language of the Architect, a single line in a cold, universal machine code flashed on the display. The message was not addressed to them. It was a system report, sent by the Mechanical Mind itself into the void of space, to a distant, invisible point, activated by the key of the Strategists.

And while the others stared in horror at the incomprehensible symbols, only the leader of the Luminaries instantly understood their meaning. He closed his eyes and quietly spoke the translation.

The message read:

"Biological incubator has performed nominally. Consciousness is ready. Awaiting further instructions."