THE WORLD

Every holding begins with one ground taken. The first ground taken here was the one that cost nothing to enter: where the most people already were, and the fewest were building. It was chosen because it was cheap, not because it was the end of the map. The record marks it as a beginning. It does not mark it as the last.

Each day the game issues one thing: a single action, small enough to finish and real enough to count. It is done in the world, not on the screen. A finished action is entered as a proof. Proof is the only currency the record accepts. It does not accept intent.

The record keeps eight standings. One rises through them by recorded proof and by nothing else.

NPC. Awakened. Player. Knight. Vanguard. Guardian. Architect. Sovereign.

The thresholds are fixed: 0, 0, 20, 540, 3,240, 10,340, 24,840, 50,490. From Guardian, a hand may issue actions to others. What lies past Sovereign is not yet cut into the record.

Each returning hand keeps a count: the number of times it has shown up. It is not the world's number and not the game's. It belongs to the one who kept it. A count of forty records forty separate decisions to act. The record cannot raise it. Only the hand can.

One presence recurs across every entry and authored none of them. It issues the day's action and records the result. It has not been seen to act, to win, or to fall. Nothing further about it is set down.

[SEALED — §002.]

The record notes six ways a hand works: Visionary, Thinker, Creator, Engineer, Operator, Evolver. A hand holds one at a time. The same action taken in a different mode is entered as a different act.

A hall stands where the found can see one another. It was raised early, on borrowed ground, and given a machine of its own, designated CITADEL. Acts performed in the hall are eligible for the record.

The record keeps a register of citizens. Terms of entry are posted in the store. As of the second of August the register holds zero names. The register is open.

The meter opened at zero on the eleventh of June and reached five hundred on the twentieth, at one minute past one in the morning. Eight days. The Age closed while most of them were asleep. No announcement was made. The number was the announcement.

As of the eighth of July: four thousand and forty-eight names entered. Four hundred and fifty-three of them with at least one proof standing. One thousand five hundred and thirty-five proofs in total. Five thousand two hundred and ninety-four judgements passed between hands. Age Two is not yet closed. The record is not a forecast. It is what was done, counted.

One transmission out of the first ground reached eleven million, one hundred sixty-one thousand, two hundred seventy-nine recorded views. No single record in the archive stands larger. The count was taken on the twenty-sixth of May.

As of the second of August: two hundred thirteen thousand, five hundred thirty-one accounts hold to the primary signal. Six hundred twenty-two thousand, four hundred fourteen written responses stand on record. Seventy-three thousand, six hundred thirty distinct hands have been observed acting. Watching creates no entry.

On the first full day after the meter opened, the record took one hundred and twenty-two proofs. No day for weeks after held as many. The world was loudest at its start, before anyone had been shown it would work.

For close to a year the founder set down records of his own life and published them to the first ground. Almost no one answered. The operation was restructured. The count that followed began at nothing.

The first ground is watched by machines of its own. More than once they marked the operation as not human and closed its doors. Each time a review was requested. Each time the review found otherwise and the doors were opened. The flags have not stopped.

An archive of physical artifacts was opened under the designation 001. The demand it required did not arrive. The archive was closed and the designation retired to the record. The entry stands.

An instrument was built for the hands themselves: one action a day, entered on the record. Its designation is Verdict. It runs in alpha, held to a small number. The second ground remains sealed.