covenant

cw: forced transformation, gaslighting, religious exploitation, loss of agency

There was a time before everyone had the implant embedded when they came of age—an era when one's thoughts were trapped in their mind, and only the physical and tangible were held as reality.

There was a time before the minds of the dead were preserved in the network, crystalline and perfect—an era when every death was final, and none walked back from its ebon gates with bodies anew.

There was a time before silence cut off our lonely wintry home the rest of humanity—an era when missives were passed from star to star, and cities soared on the back of nuclear wings.

Listen. There is a vestige of those times, hidden deep in the arbor. A shrine, or a needle, or a gravestone—it doesn't matter which. Follow the steps with exquisite care, bring it an offering, and your implant will guide you to her without fail. It was hers, after all—her gift to you. It knows the way home.

Go to her with a wish in your heart—with a clear vision and a readiness to negotiate—and she will make it so. You only need speak her incantation:

I consent.

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covenant is a game about negotiation, consent, and mind control for two players. One portrays the Pilgrim, who wants to achieve their deepest desire by becoming someone more suitable; the other portrays the Saint, who wants to remake the world and sees the Pilgrim as a malleable instrument to achieve their ends. 

The Saint will change the Pilgrim irrevocably; it's only a matter of how much—and whether the Pilgrim consents—and whether their consent even matters, in the end.

covenant is the first part of the saint duology that ends with heresy. It is a hack of geostatonary's There is no self, there is only you, which itself is a hack of Avunvain's Pythia. As such, it is released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.