Science, story, and the landscape between them.
The blue was just beginning. It was found at certain time of year in a valley a mile from town. Everyone knew. It was part of a larger clock. Some waited, others continued as normal. Some forgot - forgot they were once part of something larger that held.
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The dream-wright who worked above the laundry in the Tannery Quarter had one rule: she asked a single question before accepting any commission. When the answer came back, she sat with it for three days. Then she declined. Three weeks later she heard that someone else had not.
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Branching slightly differently from the traditional 1400s, this version of Europe made some losses and some gains in their scientic endeavours.
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Is Reality All in Your Head? Have you ever wondered if the world you see is the actual world? We naturally assume our senses are giving us a faithful broadcast of reality. But what if they’re more like a simplified dashboard, showing only what we need to survive?
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We walk through life feeling like distinct selves, encapsulated in our own skin. Our thoughts are private, our experiences our own. This sense of being a separate "I" is one of our most fundamental experiences. But is it real?
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We’ve been taught that the brain produces the mind, much like a generator produces electricity. If the brain is damaged, the mind is damaged. This seems logical. But what if we have it backwards? What if the brain doesn't produce consciousness, but transmits or filters it?
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In 1996, a surgeon gave a group of patients with severe knee pain a procedure that involved anaesthetic, incisions, and nothing else. Two years later, they were walking better. What the placebo effect actually tells us about the brain.
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In the hustle of daily life, we are almost entirely identified with our thoughts. We say, "I am angry," or "I am worried," as if our entire being is defined by these transient mental events. But what if there is a part of you that is simply aware of the anger, without being the anger itself?
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In Aethelgard, coins were glass, and every soul had its price. The currency, blown from the whispering sands of the River Lethe, held a man’s essence captive—a murky smear for a lie told, a brittle clarity for a vow kept. This was not commerce; it was a slow, public vivisection of the spirit.
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The coin the man offered was not murky, not false. It was empty. In thirty-one years of crossings, the ferryman had never seen an empty coin. He handed it back and said come back tomorrow. The man came back every morning for seven days.
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