Lore

## **INTRODUCTION i**

People are so special, so amazing.

And it’s all because you think. So much! Your thoughts and imaginations are so powerful, it’s incomprehensible. Surely you’ve heard of the placebo effect, a phenomenon born from perception and expectation. To think, that you can manifest real, physical change through pure, genuine belief. Entire worlds, and people, and myths and legends dwell in your minds, take the form of vastly different mediums, and even manifest into something eternal and enduring. Belief has magic.

*And oh, you are capable of such great things because of it.*

### **AN INVITATION...**

Through one of a litany of ways, you received the message. Perhaps through a text from an unknown number, an email from an unidentifiable source, a printed letter with no return address. No matter the means, their content was all the same.

> "*Do you have the will to change this life of yours? Would you like to go someplace new?*"
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The same short note, the same two questions, concluded with a time and a place. An unassuming location in the heart of New York City, and a month’s time to get there.
Perhaps it called to your sense of adventure, perhaps it struck a chord, a yearning to escape. Or perhaps you’d never even seen or heard of this message prior to the day, you were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever the reason or the circumstance, you all found yourselves there in the end.

**June 2018**

A large mosaic mural at the center of a park surrounded by wrought iron gates. There were hundreds, if not thousands of sights more interesting for a summer tourist to go out and see. Its subject matter was inconspicuous and didn’t lend much thought to passersby. But the letter put care into noting its form: a compass rose.

And so a small crowd gathered, the city’s bells tolled the beginning of a new hour, and the edges of the compass peeled away, just briefly, into nebulas and starlight.

Open sky enveloped every fiber of your being after that. Clouds overhead, clouds underhead, and then green, vibrant green, suddenly met your feet as you descended upon an island. A floating island. The landing was unceremonial but safe, and not shortly after the cognitive dissonance took over. This was an island suspended in the sky after all, and this was not where the surprises ended.

## **INTRODUCTION ii**

Don’t you think it’s incredible, the way a mind works? It can believe just about anything in earnest, spin any lie into truth, any line of reasoning into heartfelt fact, any fantasy into reality. People can bring forth grand changes, astounding creations, cataclysmic results, all from the sheer power of cognition and faith.

To think, all the endless possibilities, the infinite potential that dwells within you all. Good or bad, ambiguous or clean-cut, the objectivity is just as boundless as the connotations you can weave, the meaning you can ascribe. Put enough into it and you can inspire great things, awful things: unconditional love, visceral hate, unending war, magnanimous empathy. Anything you can think to put into the world, you can and you do, no matter how big or small, likely or unlikely. Yes, in this way, and in so many others, *belief has magic*.

*And oh, you are capable of such awful things because of it.*

### **ANOTHER INVITATION...**

Ah, Earth. How has it been these past several months? Business as usual, or, well as usual as it can be. Why do you ask? If there’s been a shift in energy, some disturbance in the force, it hasn’t particularly concerned you. You’ve lived here your entire life, so you're at least a little naturally attuned to any irregularities that could occur.

Maybe it takes you by complete surprise then, when you look into your reflection. It’s just a mirror, a pool of water, a shop window, but as you peer into it, your visage shifts to that of a hooded stranger. And their voice speaks back, demanding.

> *“Do you sincerely possess the desire to live? Prove to me that you should.”*
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The same figure and voice, the same question and demand, concluded with curt instructions. Gather your things, and return to the same place you met this entity in a month’s time:

**May 25th, 2019**