A Crumpled Poem

**A Crumpled Poem** is a Dancer legacy card obtained during the event a Discarded Mystery.

Studying the letter with any Heart card (e.g. Health, Vitality) will start the Dancer on the path of the Thunderskin, while studying it with any Moth card (e.g. Passion, Glimmering) will start the Dancer on the path of the Moth.

The study takes 60 seconds, and separates the story to two paths.

## The path of the Thunderskin

Requires studying *A Crumpled Poem* with Heart.

#### Consider the Crumpled Poem as a Physical Challenge

*Is this some sort of code? Are there hints here towards an unusual set of dance steps?*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*The directions are coming clear. There are steps, certainly - steps I begin to feel - and the steps end somewhere - somewhere beneath waking life. Somewhere I'm different. I rotate my shoulders: why does it feel as if my skin does not quite fit?*

* Gives 2 Vitality.
* Removes *A Crumpled Poem*.
* Unlocks Dream, initialized with *A Dream of Another Self*.

### Dream

Automatically starts *A Dream of Another Self* when unlocked.

#### A Dream of Another Self

*In my dreams, it's coming clear. This is a dance one cannot perform alone, nor with a partner. This is a dance one dances with a doll.*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*I've performed the steps, with a rag doll, but it wasn't quite right. When I peeled the doll's fabric away like skin, I felt relief, but then, of course, it fell apart... Something is wrong - wrong with the doll, or the world, or me.*

* Gives Temptation: Change.
* Adds The New Form aspect to the temptation.
* Unlocks Explore, initialized with *A New Partner*.

### Explore

Automatically starts *A New Partner* when unlocked.

#### A New Partner

*Sometimes in the afternoon I prowl the street-markets. I danced the dance of the poem, and I ruined my rag doll. There must be a better doll out there, so I can stamp those steps again.*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*I found it! Sold as flotsam for a half-shilling. It's not exactly right, but it's close. Its surface, its scars, the shape of its limbs.*

* Gives 1 Reason.
* Gives 1 Marruvine Idol.

## The path of the Moth

Requires studying *A Crumpled Poem* with Moth.

#### Consider the Crumpled Poem as a Dream-Challenge

*I think I dreamt something like this, once, on a night when the moon dappled the sheets of my bed - when I dreamt that my hands were not exactly hands, that something more than blood pulsed under my skin - and that skin was not the skin I wear. What if I could find something of that dream again?*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*I lie awake half the night, convinced there is something in my room. A little after midnight it occurs to me that I am that something; and I fall gratefully into sleep.*

* Gives 2 Glimmering.
* Removes *A Crumpled Poem*.
* Unlocks Dream, initialized with *A Dream of an Older Self*.

### Dream

Automatically starts *A Dream of an Older Self* when unlocked.

#### A Dream of an Older Self

*Tonight I'll cut a lock of my hair before I sleep. I read that in the poem. Snip; snip.*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*I dreamt of a great Wood at the heart of the first continent where we moved among the trees, dark and light and dark again, up and down and into the fire. I dreamt that once we were something else - or something else was us. Once perhaps we were things with wings. Sometimes, now, my shoulder blades itch.*

* Gives Temptation: Change.
* Adds Old Form aspect to the temptation.
* Unlocks Explore, initialized with *An Old Partner*.

### Explore

Automatically starts *An Old Partner* when unlocked.

#### An Old Partner

*When the moon is out I slip over the fence into the locked park, looking under branches in the hollow places. I don't know why, yet.*

* Takes 60 seconds.

*I found a package dropped in the mud. I knew at once it was what I was looking for. Perhaps it was meant for me, perhaps I stole it, as one might steal an abandoned baby. In the winged dream of the Wood, I danced with something a little like it.*

* Gives 1 Reason.
* Gives 1 Wingèd Doll.