Nestled beneath the sprawling roots of a majestic oak tree, concealed by a moss-covered hatch, was the quaint den of two foxes: Laguna Lacuna and REPL.

REPL possessed wisdom beyond her few years, a precocious and curious kit who -- despite only being a detective for a year -- had already solved more mysteries than any fox outside of her immediate gene pool.

Laguna, her mother, was a fountain of knowledge, her years of experience and understanding etched in the lines of her weathered face. Together, the pair lived amidst the riotous beauty of The Shadowlands, their home a hub of community, wisdom, and warmth.

But tonight, an eerie silence hung over their abode.

Earlier that day, they had discovered a body just outside their home.

The victim was Friendly Zombie, a beloved figure and pillar of the community renowned for his kindness and amiable nature.

Now, he lay lifeless on their doorstep.

As twilight gave way to a blanket of stars, REPL's cousin Feathers arrived at their den, her grey-and-silver speckled fur catching the moon’s light.

The grim set of her jaw echoed the heavy pallor that had descended over the community. REPL and Laguna greeted her solemnly. Together with Feathers, REPL was determined to discover the truth behind Friendly Zombie's untimely demise.

As the morning light spilled through the leaves of the great oak tree, REPL and Feathers found themselves back at the crime scene. Dew clung to the grass, casting an ethereal glow around the area, a stark contrast to the blood stains and scratches left in the tree trunk.

With meticulous care, REPL scanned the ground, her youthful eyes taking in the minutest of details. After a few minutes, she and Feathers both stooped low to the ground, studying the faint imprints left in the soil. There was a certain grace and respect in their movements, acknowledging the tragedy while leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice.

As they worked, the two of them communicated in whispers, ensuring their conversation didn't disturb the quiet sanctity of the dawn.

After what felt like hours of painstaking examination, REPL's eyes fell upon an object half-buried in the earth. A tiny glint of metal caught the morning sun, peeking out from the damp soil. Carefully, she unearthed it with the utmost delicacy, mindful of any potential evidence that could be lost with a careless move. As she held it up for both of them to see, the realisation hit them - it was a small pocketknife.

The find sent a shiver down their spines.

Feathers carefully took the knife, her face hardened as she studied it. Her gaze was intense, full of determination, as she traced the tiny nicks and scratches along the knife's handle. The innocuous little tool had suddenly become the most important piece of evidence.

With the pocket knife safely secured in a pouch, REPL and Feathers retreated to the privacy of the den where they spread out a map of The Shadowlands on a worn table, and with a bit of charcoal, began to mark the residences of potential suspects.

Each name added weight to the task ahead.

I Will Ruin U: Known for his volatile temper and unpredictable nature, I Will Ruin U had a long-standing rivalry with Friendly Zombie. They'd had a public dispute over territorial boundaries just a week before the tragedy. While it was difficult to imagine I Will Ruin U as a killer, his penchant for confrontation made him the lead suspect.

Mempool: Mempool, a shrewd fox, held a financial grudge against Friendly Zombie. There had been a significant debt between them, one that Friendly Zombie had been unable to repay. While Mempool was known to be pragmatic, his sudden desperation for repayment had raised a few eyebrows in the community.

Redemption: Redemption and Friendly Zombie had a complex history. Once best friends, a falling out over a love interest had caused a rift between them. Redemption had been heartbroken and humiliated.

Laguna Lacuna: This was the most puzzling suspect of them all. Laguna Lacuna was the last one seen with Friendly Zombie on the night of the murder. However, the nature of their conversation was unknown. The location of the crime scene didn’t help either.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Confronting her own mother was a moment REPL had not anticipated. Sitting across from Laguna Lacuna in their den, she felt a pang of uncertainty. "Mum," she began, her voice steady, "I need to know what you and Friendly Zombie talked about before his death."

Laguna Lacuna, met her daughter's gaze steadily, the weight of the situation hanging heavily between them.

She answered casually, offering only a brief account of their conversation as she turned and examined the old family portraits that hung over the mantle. She normally hated the reminders of the past.

“Mostly just reminiscing about old times”, she said. “And Friendly Zombie's plans to leave The Shadowlands.”

"Have you ever seen this before?" REPL brought her attention back to the table as she pulled out the pocketknife.

As Laguna Lacuna studied the knife, her face unreadable, REPL found herself caught in a silent battle between the detective and the daughter within her. Without doubt, this was the most difficult interrogation she had ever conducted.

As REPL navigated the emotional turbulence, another development interrupted.

Feathers bounded into the small den without warning.

“Mempool was just seen hastily packing his belongings,” she panted. “He’s abandoned his den without explanation!”

The news struck the mother and daughter like a bolt of lightning - an unexplained flight was as good as a confession. It certainly looked like guilt, but they knew better than to jump to conclusions.

Nonetheless, their investigation had become a chase, and every second mattered. Leaving Laguna behind, they raced across The Shadowlands, their hearts pounding.

The trail from Mempool’s abandoned den led them to the whispering willow, a towering landmark that had once acted as a reliable portal to faraway lands, but had long since stopped being trustworthy.

In the shadows of the base of the tree, they spotted a furtive figure trying to make a hasty escape - Mempool. The fox scrabbled, and scratched, and begged the tree to work.

The detectives closed in on their suspect. Mempool didn’t even notice until he was a pinned against the massive trunk of the willow tree.

His eyes darted between REPL and Feathers, the panic in them belying his usually composed demeanour.

"What's this about, Mempool? Fleeing The Shadowlands all of a sudden?" REPL asked, her voice stern but not unkind. Mempool's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

Feathers stepped forward, her voice softer, "We know about the debt, Mempool. The one between you and Friendly Zombie. Is that why you're running?"

The mention of the debt seemed to hit a nerve, and Mempool's eyes widened for just a second before he looked away. "That's old news," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.

"But it's not just about the debt, is it?" REPL pressed. "You're scared. What aren't you telling us?"

Mempool's eyes flickered and his body trembled slightly. The silence hung heavy as REPL and Feathers waited for him to speak.

Finally, Mempool's voice broke, a note of desperation creeping in. "It wasn't just a debt between Friendly and me," he stammered. "There was a third party involved. Someone we both owed. Someone dangerous."

The revelation sent a chill down REPL's spine.

"Who is it, Mempool? Who are you both indebted to?" Feathers asked, her voice now filled with urgency.

"I can't say," he whispered, trembling. "But I'll tell you this: Friendly Zombie was killed because of that debt. And I fear I might be next."

As Mempool finished speaking, his eyes flicked to a particular knot in the willow’s trunk. In one swift motion, he lunged toward it. Before REPL and Feathers could react, Mempool melted into the tree, disappearing as if he had become one with the bark. They both stared at the spot where Mempool had stood just seconds ago.

After witnessing Mempool's disappearance, REPL and Feathers exchanged an annoyed glance. Wordlessly, they turned away from the willow tree.

As REPL and Feathers made their way through the underbrush, a shadowy figure emerged from the far side of the meadow and began to follow them.

Suddenly, REPL and Feathers found themselves face to face with I Will Ruin U. The fox, known for his volatile nature, looked up from a patch of berries he had been foraging.

"Ah, the so-called detectives," he sneered, "come to accuse me?"

Feathers took the lead, her eyes locking onto I Will Ruin U's. "We need to talk about Friendly Zombie," she stated, cutting to the chase.

"A tragic loss," I Will Ruin U replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

REPL stepped forward, her annoyance visible. "Were you involved in his death?"

I Will Ruin U chuckled darkly. "Would it surprise you if I said no? I didn't kill Friendly Zombie, but I can't say I'm unhappy he's gone. He was always so... irritatingly cheerful."

Feathers studied I Will Ruin U's face for a moment, gauging his sincerity. "You didn't kill him, but you also don't seem to mind that he's gone. Interesting."

"Why should I?" I Will Ruin U snapped. "We had our differences, but even I'm not cruel enough to murder someone over a petty rivalry."

REPL and Feathers exchanged another glance. I Will Ruin U may not have been the killer, but his lack of remorse didn't do him any favours. Yet, something in his manner convinced them he was telling the truth about not being involved. With a nod, they moved on, leaving I Will Ruin U to his berries and his bitterness.

Returning to the scene of the crime, REPL and Feathers were surprised to find another fox already there. It was Redemption, digging through the underbrush, his face etched with a mix of concentration and frustration.

"Redemption," Feathers called out cautiously, "what are you doing here?"

The fox looked up, startled. "I... I lost something. A keepsake. I thought I might find it here, where Friendly Zombie... you know."

REPL's gaze narrowed. "A keepsake? Anything like this?" She produced the pocket knife, watching Redemption's reaction carefully.

His eyes widened at the sight of the knife. "No, that's not mine. But it does look a lot like the one Friendly Zombie used to carry."

The atmosphere grew tense. Had they just stumbled upon another clue, or was Redemption just as entangled in this web of mystery as everyone else? They couldn't be sure, but every interaction was another piece of the puzzle.

As they made their way back to their den, REPL and Feathers felt the weight of the day's revelations settling in. Upon entering, they found Laguna Lacuna patiently awaiting their return, the ambient light casting her face in a warm glow.

"Laguna," REPL began, "we need to talk about everything that's happened. Especially concerning Friendly Zombie's death."

Laguna Lacuna sighed, her eyes showing a mix of sorrow and seriousness.

“Mempool ran but we caught him. When we confronted him, he managed to disappear into the tree portal."

Laguna paused, absorbing the information. "Did you find out why he was fleeing?"

"He said he and Friendly Zombie owed a debt to a dangerous third party," REPL relayed. "He was afraid that with Friendly Zombie gone, he'd be next."

The atmosphere in the room grew thick, and Laguna Lacuna took a deep breath before speaking.

"It’s best that you know that your father was that third party."

REPL stared at her, stunned.

“I never trusted Savage Quarrel,” grunted Feathers.

"Your father had many dealings, not all of them above board. He left The Shadowlands years ago to evade the consequences but left some unfinished business."

REPL felt her heart sink. "So you're saying Dad could be involved in Friendly Zombie's murder?"

"I don't want to believe it," Laguna's voice trembled. "But if it’s true we are all in danger. He always said his family owed him more than anyone else."

The room fell silent, each absorbed in their thoughts, wrestling with newfound complexities in a case that already seemed impossible to untangle.

REPL and Feathers hunkered patiently in the tall grass for hours. They’d have quit the stakeout long ago if the stakes hadn’t been so high.

Every rustle of leaves, every whisper of the wind seemed to echo with a haunting resonance.

The darkest part of the night had passed. Dawn was around the corner. Another night wasted without sleep.

And that’s when the shadowy watcher emerged for a second time.

This time, he didn’t follow.

He skulked.

And he hunted.

He slithered his way around the base of the tree where REPL and Laguna had lived. He moved smoothly, and quietly -- each step placed with the precision of one who knew every pebble and stick of the land beneath it.

How ironic then, that it was the final footfall in front of the door that hoisted Savage Quarrel off the ground, suspended and trussed by his ankles before he even had a chance to react.

Laguna stepped into the clearing first, her face a mask of determination mixed with sorrow. "Husband," she said, her voice steady yet tinged with a bitterness that cut through the still air, "did it really have to come to this?"

Savage Quarrel's face twisted with fury as he saw Laguna. "Laguna," he spat, struggling against the snare. "Your debts are still unpaid."

Laguna scoffed.

“Cut me down and face your fate fairly,” Quarrel yelled from on high.

A small crowd began to form as neighbours peeked out from their dens.

But before Savage Quarrel could continue, REPL stepped into the clearing, her face stern, eyes filled with a mix of betrayal, anger, and longing for answers.

"You left us," she said, her voice quivering slightly, "and now you come back like this... as a murderer?"

Savage Quarrel whipped his head around, but upon seeing his daughter the fight went out of him. He closed his eyes, unable to meet her accusing eyes.

"You weren’t supposed to see this side of me," he whispered.

The only mystery REPL could never solve was what happened next.

To the assembled observers, it looked just like a pocketknife had abruptly jutted out from Savage Quarrel’s chest.

And thus the debt was paid.

These are long days. There will be more long days to come.

Where to begin? I write this from I do not know where. It is, I hazard, a place on no map. Our homeland’s hidden belly, beset with fuming, igneous scars; hell’s egress.

I look about us in the reeking, smoke-swollen dark. Gaunt as ghosts, all. Wounded, bloodied, many. Not all here. Not all returned. Will they find their way out? We cannot wait here long but to leave would be the act of cowards and when I clasp eyes with my comrades, draggled and unseamed as they are, I see there is none in our number. No cowards among us. Simply creatures far past their limit, far past what should be asked on any, at the outer

We must stay a while longer. Keep our sight about us, hone our ears to the dark. Huddle up to the fire which breathes back and forth in the wind. It is out there.

I would like to forget what I have seen. What I have endured these last few weeks. What I have done. Had I known what awaited us as I waited at Kapatagan’s edge, surveying the foreboding steppeland, I could not have in good conscience driven onward. Even after all we had survived, after all we had sacrificed, I would not have in earnest counsel advocated for the path forward. Yes, we would have died in ignorance, in blindness and our children, if we survived long enough, would have been born into the same peerless darkness we emerged in. Yet there is some dignity in that, in the circumscriptions of a happy, inferior bloodclan. None in the horror of knowledge in which we now live and cannot lose, which can only be called illumination in the sense that the sun, stared at by an unblinking imbecile until his retinas burn and scar, is still light.

We made slow progress across the Kapatagan. If we lived in another age, an age of careful learning, I would recommend a study of its grasses. They operate like no plantlife I have witnessed. For what other vegetation holds a motive? What shrub that you have seen has motive and means?

Moving through it is closer to swimming than walking. It is thick and amorphous and prone to changes in sentiment. At times, it propelled us forward, carrying us on great swells that would rise beneath us like surf so that we could spy the miles undulating ahead. In these moments, it seemed sympathetic and I remembered that we are no less a part of Terra Volpa than the ground beneath us and Hannibal’s once-waters and the expired association of river creatures we have eaten.

It quickly turned. On what grounds, we could not tell but, on a whim, some unspoken, subterranean caprice, sympathy became enmity. The grasses pushed against footfall with a strength that nearly knocked us supine and sometimes did. I can tell you, it is possible to walk in that grassland for days and not move an inch. It is possible to be swept off course, turned in circles, sent like shivering driftwood to shore and back and back again. We had started at the plain’s midpoint, aiming as we were for Absentia Pass and yet there were many times we saw the uncannily round outlines of Telescope Hills and others where some of our number swore, as we stacked on top of each other to gather our bearings, the ripping silver of an unfamiliar water source. More than once, we strode in great purpose for hours on end, in the grassland’s dark garden, only to spy, in a patch of quiet wind, the Corpus Colossi looming before us. Backwards, forwards, side to side. The marrow seeped out of those words until they had no flavor and all we knew was this: onwards.

The grass made for fine sleeping. We are not a picky species and we have slept on freezing, snow-sluiced stone, thorny woodland floors, and grub-invaded sands that offer the amenity of an incessant alarm clock, delivered via an importunate ant probing one’s ear canal. Kapatagan’s bedding is incomparable by such standards, and indeed, any. The grass ceded to our exhaustion, flattening itself into a plush mattress, curling over us in a conch-shelled shelter.

The truth is the sleeping was too fine. We slept long, for what I measure to be days at a time. I do not have a good way of marking the hours. The further we crossed, the longer our slumber seemed to last and the emptier it became until one evening we shut our eyes and when we awoke we, each of us noticed we had grown thinner and when we checked upon our scarce supplies noted a thin layer of mold furring a satchel of summer chestnuts we had stumbled upon. (In time, we would learn that the presence of such bounties was calculated rather than serendipitous – a lure designed to dazzle and please us, unsuspecting prey.)

How long had it been? A week? Longer? Suddenly, we sensed a great danger around us, beneath us, inside us. If we slept again, would we wake up? Not even the hardiest of us could survive a prolonged slumber, devoid of sustenance. In dreamless sleep, we would starve.

We walked as long as we could through a full night of darkness and through another still until our eyes burned with exhaustion. On the third day of moving without rest, three days in which the grasses had rippled and whispered but stayed calm, we came across what can only be called an ossuary, open to the sky. More than a dozen foxes, eaten down to clean, white bones.

We could see no marker of them besides their skeletons and so we could not know from where they came or in what age they had traveled. And we could not know what had killed them, though the angle of their repose suggested great happiness, utter leisure.

I will be honest, I considered lying among the dead and joining them. It would have been a relief. And I believe others did the same.

We walked until noon and at last we decided we could walk no longer. It was decided that one of us must remain on watch as the others slept and to wake them when the sun rose again the next day. That we had not considered this solution spoke to something unmoored in our minds and the tendency of all creatures under extreme duress to prefer blunt force to simple intelligence.

We owe a great thanks to Laguna who took the watch. If she had failed, had she fallen asleep as she surely greatly wanted, a hundred years hence the next band of foolhardy travelers would find a second immaculate assemblage of sun-bleached bones. Among them, the subtle half-fused skeleton of a babe.

Laguna did not fail. She woke us in the morning and her face told of exhaustion and fear. And her mouth told of a ravenous grassland that wished to devour us. At night, Laguna said, the grass did not merely cover our bodies, it coiled around them and it infected our nostrils and crawled in the pink corner of our eyes and left a dark milk over our eyelids and across our wet lips and it stole the fat from our flesh and strength from our blood and, Laguna believes, insists, it eats the cloth of our dreams because as she staved off slumber, Laguna says the grasses whispered its black plans and abhorrent predilections.

A previous version of myself would scoff at such suggestions. I know better now.

Like this, we crossed. Taking turns at the watch, each willing ourselves to hold our eyes for each other, and finding ourselves equal to it. As the grasses muttered its nightly vulgarities, we plucked it clear of our kins’ orifices (oh, yes; oh, dear), ceasing its feasting. Then one morning we rose and walked and we were, all at once, across it and in a gentle, sparse woodland. From the safety of an aspen field, we reviewed Kapatagan, conniving grassland.

Past the aspen and a huddle of white mushrooms we chanced came another open space that allowed for a view of the great mountain range abutting it. This was what we had voyaged for. Through comely forests, across derelicted riverbeds, past a forgotten city, over freezing sierras, and against carnivorous shrubbery we had arrived at the brink of The Unknowing.

Had we been in better health, perhaps we might have continued to Absentia Pass immediately. Despite our travails there remained an itchiness in us that lived in our feet and drove us on and was the difference between death and life many times over. We were shrewd enough to curb that urge, helped by the weakness that showed itself in our graying sclera, patchy fur, vivid rib cages.

For a week, we settled at the base of Perdita’s mouth and ate. We expected nothing from this land and yet every day or so we would stumble upon neat collections of delectables that kept us alive. A clutch of berries sitting on a boulder. A quartet of eggs leaning in long grass. Ten beetles on their back, bellies opened as if abandoned by a sadistic surgeon. A dozen starlings fanned in a circle, necks wrung.

We should have wondered about these bounties, queried their neatness, so uncommon in nature. In a land devoid of life, where did they come from? Who would provide us such gifts and to what end? Had I known then what I do know, I would say that we were being kept alive, drawn inwards, not as salvation but to afford a more delicious destruction.

Hunger is a great mollifier. We did not question these donations, nor think of them as such, because we scarcely thought of nothing beyond survival. Do not question the order of things; nature makes its own patterns. Here is food; be grateful.

I can sense myself delaying as I write. Delaying, delaying. I do not want to. Do not want to say what and and and. I think that each age has enough to worry about. Why should we enumerate evil for historians? Some chronicles should not be told.

A compromise: I will tell you the worst of what we did and the worst of what we saw and then you shall be able to judge us reasonably, whomever reads this, and to know what we faced and what, you may face, still. There are monsters without organic termini and that which we viewed, that thing, does not abide by the laws we know.

Absentia Pass, a review:

If you’re a future fox in search of a gelid, jagged, abominable wasteland, look no further than this ferociously hostile mountain pass! From slick, perilous stone landings enjoy vistas of barren rockface, sulphuric smokestacks, and distant fires! It is the ideal place to freeze, starve, and contemplate one’s mortal

I am losing my mind.

Do not make me say what we saw please. Please.

fine fine fine I will say it let it out we saw a Fox the likes of which I have not seen with no language and his brain soft and curdled and ruined by hell and he sang in the night and spoke in riddles and I was among those that privately wished for us to slay him where he stood chained to take him from misery and to eat him entire until he too could lie among the peaceful dead in the plains of Kapatagan

I worry I am becoming like him. What left him that way is the same thing that has brought us here.

For days, we watched over the Retrogradi from the confines of a dark, narrow cave along the Pass. We debated whether we should close his mouth and its ramblings for good and pray his flesh was not so diseased as his mind. It would have been a mercy to kill him. We know that now. For as we pondered and argued and fought within our own bodies to survive, another came to feast upon him and it was that beast of which our wild kin had spoken and of which we had known in some deep part of ourselves existed and that seems to haunt each atom of my being and fill my very cells with fear.

We could not see the UnFox in its fullness from the recesses of the cave but we heard its jawing and cannot forget the raw screams of the Retrogradi made carrion in its mouth. We burrowed. We dug into the earth, into stone as if our lives depended upon it which it did. We dug until our paws grew pink and naked with blood and we dug far past that. We dug until the world gave way and the bottom fell out and we found ourselves suddenly in a darkness and silence we could not fathom and will never find. And we knew in that moment that we were in The Unknowing.

For what felt like several minutes, we did not speak and did not move. We waited, wondering if we were to be hunted down this burrow as we all have dogged so many rabbits into their homes and killed them and their children.

Way of Human broke the silence. Look, she said. Our feet. I lifted my paws and felt those on either side of me do the same. In the same space my paw had occupied stood a perfect, luminescent print. Our blood, Orpheus Turns said. It shines down here. I watched as a dribble of color appeared on the ground as they squeezed drops from their skinned paw.

I took the blood from my paw and drew a line across the roof that stood low overhead and it hurt to rub stone and grit into that wound. A pale blue glow rose from that contour and we could make out each other’s faces just and then, all at once, someone began to laugh. It was a laugh borne from exhaustion, from fear and the weight of it, lifting for even a second. Here we were, improbably alive, lit by the viscera of our pain and my friends, they daubed the walls until we stood in a cocoon of glimmering color.

As our laughter faded, new sound rose to fill its vacancy. It was hard to measure at first, beginning weakly from a deeper cavern. Without better direction, we moved toward it and as we did it clarified before us. It was music. And not only music but voices, singing in words we could not quite make out.

By the light of our blood, we moved through the caves. It seemed to grow brighter the deeper we scrabbled through whatever network of tunnels we had found ourselves in, whatever vast illegible pattern of darkness composed Perdita’s fringes. Many times we found ourselves walked into a dead stop and had to turn back. Often, the music guided us, providing better direction than the limited glow of our paws which we sometimes held in front of us like lamps for a moment, trying to cast broader radiance.

We began to hear the words and though I cannot remember them perfect or entire I shall try to write those that I do for some day it may be that they say something of our world and its history. What I will never be able to describe is the texture of the song, it’s movements and melody. It held a beauty, a richness and sadness, I cannot capture. It was a ballad of immaculate pain, of pain beyond measure and past understanding, and of loss. And yet it spoke of many practical matters, possessing an officious formality and many oddities that do not usually fit well with such luster. What I recall of its declamation, in verse, as I believe it should be recorded:

Arrived
Brothers, sisters,
How aching it is
We are
To find you near
We have prayed for you
For epochs to arrive as you
Do now.

To begin we say
Our sorrow cannot
Be misstated.
Or perhaps we mean
Understated
We have not spoken In a long while.
We are not too
Uncouth however
That we cannot see we have
Forced a convocation
At the world’s end
At life’s end which is
Indeed
Verily Where we are.

You may ask yourselves
As would we
As you approach do you
Meet friend or foe and we
Can say only that those
Lexemes
Or perhaps better to say
Words
Have no meaning for us
Any longer. Once
We too roamed Terra and
Drank from cool streams
Ate pink-striped fish
Chased our little ones
Through bracken and bushflowers.
We were once of your Blood and Matter
Though this was
Long ago.

As point of fact
We did many things
Among our number you
Will find many great and
Esteemed foxes who
Accomplished fine works
Of art, penned tales
That by any right should
Have been remembered
Broke ground with
Many-tethered contraptions
Or perhaps we mean simply Intricate.
And we built monuments
To our kind.

We would tell you about
These things if we could
Remember but age has
A way of revoking all the
Mind has lived and we are
Ageless.

The matter of nomenclature
Is nevertheless
Important as it is nevertheless
Superfluous as it is
Nevertheless inferable or
We should better say
Reductive.
Call us this
For it is what we are:
We are the lost foxes
Fools of different eras
Captured and caged
And feasted upon.

You shall wonder
If we are a dramatic
A sensationalist skulk
And we can assure you we
Are not.

A point of order
When we say we have
Been captured
We were.
That Great Ellipsis, that
Godless creature you have found
Or felt, no doubt
Siphoned
Us all from life and penned us
Here.

When we say we are caged
We are.
You shall find us soon enough
Soon
And though you will find no fetter
The best prison is not one with the thickest bars
But one that cannot escaped.
We have each wandered
The tunnels of this realm for years entire
Years that to you
Above land
Beneath the Sun
Would have felt like eras in which
Great tyrants rise and inflict
Cruelty and
Fall with statues
Disgraced and rise
Again with new faces and fresh names.
There is no way out.
Even if there must have been a
Way in.

When we say that we are feasted upon
It is because we were once many
More and our numbers have
Fallen. Dwindled. Tapered.
We have
You could say
Experienced a great recession Of life.

When you look upon this
Place what is it
That you see?
It may
At first glance
At first blush
At first smell
At first ear
Appear to be a cave
And or hell
And this is factual.
To us it is
However
Nevertheless
A farm.
And us the fattened
Calves kept for slaughter.
If it is simpler
If it is a better metaphor
You may also say
We are like fattened
Sows.

The Ellipsis arrives with
Hunger in its heart and it will
Reach into our number and
Pluck or
Grab or
Plunk one of our
Kind and commit its culling.
It does not always eat us
Outright.
At the beginning
It gobbled us with greed but
Time has refined its tastes
And our smaller integer
Or Numerator
Has encouraged it to eat us
Without killing.

To describe this to those
Whom have never been
Eaten without
Being killed is unsimple
And indeed without delay
Hard.
It is made more so by
The matter and firm
Sound evidence that
The Ellipsis
That Satan-dripped UnFox
Does not eat in the
Way we understand.
It starts with The soul first.

To be eaten without
Being killed is to have
One’s essence mauled
And chewed like a stick
Of gum
A snack
Which we speak of
Often and miss
Very much.

We believe our
Message has hitherto
Or heresofar made clear
That time in this realm Is normative and is
As the Saying goes
Relevant.
So when we say we spent many
Afternoons and many
Days and many decades
Seeking our salvation
You understand our
Meaning.

It was by pure chance
That one afternoon
We realized we could
Sever thought from
Body. We believe
It is the habit of
Being chewed so
Often that makes it so.
For a time we floated
Our thoughts across
To one another so
We could convocate and
Chatter and
Badinage and
Rib and
Persiflage without awaking
Or Invoking the ire of the
Ellipsis. Soon we realized that
Our thoughts had legs much faster
Than our own which you will see
Have grown withered with disuse
And disappointed by their failure
To happen upon a simple
Exit.

In earnest we began to float
Our thoughts for distances
Further and further and to ask
For them to stay for stretches
That were at times
At many junctures
By turn
Very long.
They were to us flares
Great swollen pneumatics
That we prayed would be noticed
And pondered upon and
Followed and they were
They were because
You are here and you have
At last Arrived.

There are verses I have lost but it was with that final word that we realized the singing had reached crescendo and we had stopped our passage. From the chill in the ear and the manner in which sound bounced toward us, I had the sense that we stood at the precipice of an enormous hall, scooped like a senate. And as I stared into the darkness, toward the singing, lights flickered to life.

First, two. Then four. And quickly six, eight, twenty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred lambent eyes stared from the chasm beneath us, and we saw the true figures of these Lost Foxes. Though they bore some resemblance to our kind, the persuasiveness of their environment had altered them significantly. Their fur lay thin and smooth upon them and their ears had grown large to mark the tiny shifts in sound held in Perdita’s darkness. Most profound was, of course, the brightness of their gaze which held an effulgence far beyond the organic. I was staring into the radiance of them set around the vast colosseum beneath us when their mouths opened once more.

We must
Move quickly for
It senses when
We are ripe
Which is to say
When we have life
In us to gnaw and
It has been at least
Five thousand
Years or
Five thousand
Minutes –
We apologize for we
No longer grasp Magnitude – since
We have felt so vibrant
And since our eyes
A trait we find to be
Our most favorable
Have shone with Such ferocity.

We must –

And at that moment a terrible scream tore through the chasm. Manifest before us, delivered through a seam in the rock or partition in reality stood the UnFox. It stood legions tall and though it reeked of death and though its form was ringed with a feral luminescence when it looked upon us we saw nothing. Blankness. A profound and essential absence that not only absorbed our attention but seemed to sap the marrow from us. As I looked into its emptiness, I felt terror alight in my gut and wrap itself serpentine across my spine and in that moment I understood the nature of agony.

Run, Redemption said.

We did. Our lost brethren raced alongside us, emaciated legs pumping in tandem. Our combined skulk turned on its heels and raced through Perdita’s maze, bloodied footprints our guide. We heard behind us, that unholy nothingness scream and screech and look for us and begin to give chase. As it moved through the smallness of the stone and galloped without care and feeling, without pain, it tore the earth around it and the ground beneath us shook and rock began to rattle from the walls as we ran and our bright-eyed brothers ran with us length for length for as long as they could and their light helped.

We ran as our lungs burned, as our legs tightened, as blood dripped generous from our paws to mingle with the prints beneath. We ran as hell screamed and the cave crumbled behind us. We ran even after the screaming had stopped, when we could hear nothing but the sound of our footsteps and breathing and we had passed even the hole through which we had opened The Unknowing. We ran for what felt like days and perhaps was. We ran until we arrived here.

I am not sure where here is. And I am not sure who I mean when I say we. Tonight, I sit before another fire, a few hundred paces from the sliver through which we crawled. Around me are many of our skulk – our new skulk. Besides those faces I have come to know as well as my own, those that journey from Shadowoods, sit our new kin. They sit with bodies blessed with a strange and eerie gleam and even aboveground their eyes shine like terrible beacons. We are an odd and ragged family, all.

Still, many are missing. Many of the lost, yet to be found.

It has been two days now since we made camp here. At first, every few hours another of us crawled from the earth. It has slowed. I do not wish to say it has stopped. Not yet. And so, I wait in front of the fire, fixing my eyes into the dark. I must know: who else will step into the light?

It seems terrifying to me, even more terrifying than what I've experienced these last few weeks and months.

But here and now, mercy will destroy us.

We thought nothing could live in this inhospitable mountain pass.

I’ve lost count of the days we’ve huddled in this cave against the raging winter storm outside, deep in what we hope was still Absentia Pass.

Truth is, we aren’t sure about much anymore.

Manic ravings in a foreign tongue echo against the cavern’s high ceilings. The insane Retrogradi fox is still restrained at the cave’s opening, but he rages against his bindings with the might of five foxes.

He hasn’t slept at all since being captured.

The foxes closest to him aren’t sleeping well either.

The mad fox had attacked ANOMIC in the middle of the night just a few feet outside the mouth of the cave.  If the savagery had happened any further away, the howling winds may have drowned out Anomic’s shrieks and it all would have ended very differently.

It took nearly two dozen of us to restrain the intruder.  We were gaunt and exhausted and not the fighting force we were when we started the journey to Perdita.

Are we close to the end of our trek? It feels that way.

One way or another.

Either we find the entrance to the underworld or we die trying.

Or…we die here, after giving up.

Anomic sidles up alongside me, pulling me from my macabre reverie.

“We should eat him,” Anomic says, a jagged chunk of his ear missing.

“Do you seek to end his suffering or prolong ours?” I ask.

“Just hungry,” Anomic retorts. “We’re all hungry.

I remain silent.

“What options do we have?” Anomic asked rhetorically before returning to a warm pile of slumbering foxes.

This trip had changed all of us.  Anomic was a recluse, avoiding other foxes whenever possible.

Now, he snuggles deeply in between six foxes he previously despised.

His parting thought disturbs me.

Not because he is wrong.

What options do we have?

---------------

Those who haven’t sunk into apathy debate late into the night about our next move.

Not just about the Retrogradi, but about the trip.

All our lives hang in the balance.

"There is an entire world," PICNIC, LIGHTNING says, "of which our minds skim but the surface. A world of deep, profound thought. A world created by deep, profound thoughts. When you see Perdita, you enter those depths."

“We’ve all heard the stories,” QUARKS sneers.  “I’d trade 1,000 stories -- one million stories! -- for a map.  Or a meal. Or --”

“Or to be back home again,” EUPHEMISM interrupts.

The following silence sat heavily until COMMEDIA sighs: “Do we even know where the entrance to the Unknowing is?”

“It’s a pretty major detail to have forgotten until now,” GARDEN OF ED3N murmurs.

“The other side of Absentia Pass,” Picnic, Lighting responds. “It shouldn’t be--”

“Aren’t we there now?” PROBLEM? interrupts.  “That’s what we believed 10 days ago. Will we be there soon? Will we know when we have arrived? What will we even be looking for?”

“We’ll know it when we see it,” MORAL HAZARD says, attempting and failing to be reassuring.

I don’t care for the direction of the conversation.

“What about the prisoner?” I pivot.

“We should eat him,” SALVATION THEORY echoes Anomic.

No one shouts him down.

A few murmur their assent.

If the prisoner was less gibbering mad, less full of fury, less sure of will -- maybe someone would have stepped forward to lead the cannibalism.

Or the defense.

Instead we sit in another moment of “silence” while the lunatic gibbers behind us.

We are desperate enough. Even the most stoic among us is afraid.  Even the most optimistic sees only bleakness ahead.

The raging prisoner suddenly falls quiet. At some point, we had grown acclimated to his demonic sounds and deep rasping voice.

Now, their absence puts us even more on edge.  We turn to peer at him.

He looks back at us, eyes glowing out of the shadows with the reflected flames of our fire.

And he begins to sing.  It is the first time we can understand him:

“When the child was a child, it was the time for these questions:

Why am I me, and why not you?

Why am I here, and why not there?

When did time begin, and where does space end?

Is life under the sun not just a dream?

Is what I see and hear and smell not just an illusion of a world before the world?

Given the facts of evil and foxes.

Does evil really exist?

How can it be that I,

who I am,

didn't exist before I came to be,

and that,

someday, I,

who I am,

will no longer be who I am?”

With that, the insane fox goes calmly to sleep.  The rest of us turn on each other.

This moment will define our existence.

Do we meet our end stained with blood and devoid of principle?

-----------------------

“Nobody chooses insanity,” BELIEF NETWORK presses her point home with gusto. She’s been building to this point her whole speech, her whole life.  “It happens because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet...How can you resent someone's illness? The only appropriate response is compassion. Keep the Retrogradi with us and treat him with respect and caution until he has earned his freedom.”

A third of the gathered foxes roar their approval, while another third hiss their disdain.

It is the third of us with no strong response who will decide the Retrogradi’s fate.

And likely our own fates as well.

The chattering comes to an end.

“We should eat him,” Anomic says again, stepping to the fore. “If we don’t, we die and he dies.”

“We are not just meaningless fragments in an alien universe, briefly suspended between birth and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation,” PHOTIC SNEEZER is more emotional than I’d ever seen him.  “Underneath our outer forms, we are connected to one another with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be conceived or spoken of. We dishonor ourselves by even discussing this.”

HOLORIME takes center stage. “It is our resistance to our circumstances that causes our suffering, not the circumstances themselves. Sacrificing the Retrogradi and consuming his flesh will do nothing for us. We must accept our fates, whatever they may be.  Only then will the true possibilities arise.”

“So we should sit and meditate and have faith that it will all work out?” ART OF NOISES sneers so loudly that his rejoinder echoes off the cavernous ceilings and walls.  “How about some of us eat him and the others can sit and pray for salvation?”

“The future can't be predicted,” LAGUNA LACUNA breaks the silence once the echoes subside, cradling her newborn REPL at her side.

She makes sure she has every fox’s attention before she continues.

“But the future can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. What if everything that led us here is but the beginning of a beginning? What if this moment here and now is the aperture through which the future of our species will be pulled?  Do we seek to birth a world of blood, fear, and cannibalism? Or can we build something better? A world we’d wish for our children.”

A few of the would-be cannibals have the decency to avert Laguna’s gaze as another silence falls.

This time, we hadn’t noticed the Retrogradi’s noises subsiding.  He had been hurling invectives even in his sleep.

When had that stopped?

The fox without a name didn’t open his eyes as he begins to sing again:

“A long time ago, all living creatures had perished.

The world was no more than a sea - a misty gray swamp.

One old fox remained, all alone, spared from the devastation.

He walked and walked in the stale water, finding no shelter, no trace of life.

He was in despair, his throat taut with inexpressible sorrow.

Suddenly, he turned and saw behind him a tree rising out of the marsh and at the foot of the tree a very beautiful, smiling kit.

He stopped, breathless, reeling, unable to understand.

And the kit said to him: ‘I see you need to rest. Come into my body.’

The old fox suddenly experienced utter disdain for long life.

The kit opened his mouth, a great wind rose up, an irresistible gust swept the old fox towards his mouth.

Despite himself he went in, just as he was, and dropped down into the child's belly.

There, looking round, he saw a stream, trees, herds of animals. He saw a city, streets, crowds, rivers.

Yes, in the belly of the kit he saw the entire earth, calm, beautiful, he saw the ocean, he saw the limitless sky.

He walked for a long while, for more than a hundred years, without reaching the end of the body.

Then the wind rose up again, he felt himself drawn upward; he came out through the same mouth and found the kit under the fig tree.

The kit looked at him with a smile and said, "I hope you have had a good rest.”

We postpone our vote on the Retrogradi’s fate.

----

Our internal clocks tell us dawn is near but the clouds and thick snowfall have darkened the sun for over a week.

The Retrogradi is back to how we had found him.  Saliva, curses, and nonsense pour from his mouth as he rants and raves.

HANNIBAL and the Wild Fox AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT call us to order.

We hold onto our civility, but we can feel it teetering.

Savagery is just a heartbeat away.

As Hannibal and Light open their mouths to speak, the rasping invective of the Retrogradi is suddenly replaced by an impossibly loud, high-pitched, cave-rattling whine.

The noise is fear and it is pain.

More visceral and infectious than we had ever experienced.

Our hearts and minds and bodies ring with the same frequency, vibrating to the raw emotion that suddenly fill our ears and eyes, our paws and our tails, and everything in between.

Whatever it was that had held us together until this point -- we lose it. A scene from our darkest collective nightmares has come to life before our eyes.

Underneath our thoughts, virtues, and ideals we are beasts, driven by instinctive forces we’ll never understand.

Fight-or-flight reflexes hijack our minds and our paws.  No one chooses to fight.

For the UnFox was real.

There, in the mouth of the cave, the hulking shadowy spirit-monster is devouring the Retrogradi’s soul.

In that moment we foxes have one mind, all perfectly aligned on one thought: survive.

And so we flee.  Deeper into the cave.

Intellectually, I know we are doomed.

We had explored the cave when we first arrived.  There was one way in and one way out. And at this moment, that one exit is blocked by our worst nightmare feasting on our greatest shame.

But while my mind gibbers with a mixture of fear and acceptance, our bodies push harder than ever.

We arrive at the back end of the cave out of breath and out of our minds.

We scrabble at the walls and rocks in the hopes of there being something, anything to burrow into or through.

We no longer talk, the seconds pass like hours as blood begins to spatter our surroundings. Dozens of foxes simultaneously try with all their might to dig through stone.

We form a rough semi-circle of diggers, flinging specks of stone and skin and fur in the center of the formation behind us.

Picnic, Lightning notices it first.

Our specks of blood are pooling together on the floor. The deep crimson droplets are being drawn to one another like magnets to iron.

One by one, we halt our frenzy to watch.

As the unholy pool expands and starts to churn, the color darkens from crimson to black and then it all starts to boil.

The bubbling pool stops and shimmers until what was briefly black as night becomes nothing at all.  There’s no longer a color to describe it.

LATTE ART, who had never stopped digging, throws a stone behind himself.  It bounces and slowly dribbles its way over the rocks and fur, eventually trickling its way into what was, until very recently, a pool of spinning hot blood.

The stone vanishes.

Those who had kept digging now stop.

The sounds of the UnFox’s feast echo off the cave walls.

I throw another stone at the pool of nothing.

It too disappears.

The cave falls completely quiet as the UnFox finishes its meal.

It roars with satisfaction.

The sound of massive footfalls rings off the walls like the clattering of a horse’s hooves.

As one, we jump into the nothingness.

History is a story of forgetting. What we remember is a withering fragment of what we forget. How could it not be? We have all felt the fullness of our own lives and it is beyond translation, past conservation. We cannot know our ancestors any more than they know us.

I am confessing this to you, the blank page, only because I know you cannot respond and because (I shall be literal), you have no ears. In that case, I may make another: I can scarcely meet the skulk’s eyes. Hope is the last to die, some fool once wrote and how foolish, how still-minded, when the better question is who shall be the first? Tomorrow, we voyage - good night.

First passage (Out – sympathetic earth - a butterfly - arrival at Hannibal)

I had hoped to write every day and I hoped that would be easy and I can say that it is not. It has been three days since we departed Shadowoods and it has been a hard walk and I write this by the firelight across from the few who share my insomnia.

It took us the better part of two days to leave Rostrum. Long. Much longer than expected. At times, it felt as if the earth of our homeground wrapped itself around our feet, requesting, politely, that we stay. We walked through oak and aspen and at the distant edges, fringes of blue and yellow wildflowers around which a few flies dizzied themselves and a single monarch presided. I was not sure the last time any of us had seen a butterfly and for a few moments we marveled at it and allowed it to beknight our noses and then it took to the air and died flailing downwards like a sycamore pod. It is frightening to see something die like that and I do not know what caused it. It is not usual. We waited for a moment and then it was decided that of all of us it should be Laguna as she is bearing perhaps many kits and so she ate it as a dusty snack and we continued on.

Ah, Hannibal has stoked the fire. Good. Little dance of embers.

We headed mostly north, north-east so that we might meet the river at a good point and the first river was the Grand Hannibal as we knew it would be. We have settled by the bank now and I think we shall stay a day or two. We have found it better than I expected and there seem to be small buffets of grubs laid out on damp riverwood and it is too dark to tell but when I took my evening drink and allowed my front paws into the water, I sensed the swish of guppies.

Second passage (Deadriver - omens - four crabs)

I do not want to talk about it. A bad omen wants to be spoken (it eats worry as a bacteria absorbs sugar) and so I will not give it the pleasure. Furious. Afraid.

We have made camp in sight of the Feral Mountains. We took from the deadriver:

• 16 lengths of lakeweed which affect my breath

• 8 guppies, hammering the life out of their tiny, muscled bodies – dying commas along the sand

• 4 crabs who are still living and I have found very annoying

• 4 sea-louts who I would consider friends were they not so delicious

• 8 limpets which shall make a fine broth

• 16 roundels which, when popped and boiled, are edible and sweet

A symmetric, palindromic bounty which I have decided is a good omen and shall repeat it to all around this evening’s fire when we eat our crabs and I shall enjoy it

Third passage (Ruins of Orarium - a hospital I do not like - shipwise strangers - Crementon)

A roof above us tonight. Huzzah! We have been in low spirits ever since what happened that I will not say, the meaning of which I will not countenance, and so it is no little succor to be surrounded by walls. And not just any walls, the walls of a palace no less!

That we did not see it the night before was a topological trompe d’oeil (oh, forgive my purple prose, journal, but when one finds a felicitous alliteration, one should take it and if anyone were by some absurd chance – as you know, I doubt it, I very much doubt it – to find and read this then I would say please judge me on my deeds of which I have some good ones and know that I write this on little sleep amidst mortal stress encircled by trusting eyes (which have a mortifying weight) on the back of a good strange day that has left me slightly woozy and minddrunk). For in daylight, a few dozen paces from our camp, one could see the outlines of a city.

It is a ruin. Through long saffron grass and bursts of brambles we walked to it and met first the curious blocks of stone that had rolled past the city’s perimeter. Then concentric circles of conurbations, little leaning shacks and townhouses with their heads caved in. At the center, a great big dome with many doors and steps leading up to it and it was we learned a palace and while it also has had no little damage done to it by time (vacancies in the walls, an absent patch of floor that bottoms out where I am not sure – a dropped limpet shell earns no echo) it is in fine enough shape and like the rest of the city, stuffed with oddities, trinkets too many to number.

I shall give a brief account of what we have found through our exploring and I am sorry for what I shall miss out but I will simply remind you, journal, that history is a story of forgetting:

1. A museum of glass objects much treasured it seems by the culture that flourished here and one of our number broke some (clumsy ____, you are lucky I shall not snitch you to my book).

2. A pair of fox skeletons embracing, grown into the bed.

3. More than one library.

4. A store of grain. (Entirely rotted.)

5. A bashed up fountain, somehow still burbling an inch of water.

6. A great statue, tipped onto its side, its snout knocked clean. Unrecognizable were it not for the inscription on the pedestal: King Belua. There is something in the eyes I do not like.

7. A ransacked hospital. Folded, molded beds, derelict offices. A basement level that we exited quickly when we found manacles on white, cushioned walls and claw-carvings.

8. A tradesman’s log book. Very interesting. Large enough that it required two foxes to open, which indeed seems to have been the custom given the divergent writing on each page. I have not had enough time to decipher its workings but from what I gather our ancestors engaged in a thriving sea trade with another civilization in which we traded two goods; noted: Somni/Mora-Mora. The extraneous delegation is written as a tribe of fossa – a species none in our number have seen nor heard of. Led by a Captain Telfair.

9. A journal! Kindred spirit, this Hummm. If I slice the covers off it will not be too heavy. May bring with me.

10. A poem, “Vulpes Amorem.”

It was Red who found the last of these, simply by looking upwards. Painted inside the palace dome which I have transcribed below:

Oh, for ten more lives, each a hundred years long.

Oh, for Time to climb to midday, grow yellow, and get stuck.

Oh, for evening to bargain Night and nod on the way out.

Oh, for it all to happen again and again.

The first of the gods ate the sun in segments, like an orange,

Juice fell down their faces, slicked their furred chins;

Yes, it ran across their stomachs and grew leaves.

The taste was bitter and a surprise,

So they sat together and then lay

On their backs to snatch stars down from the hard purple of the sky,

Just to drop them in a glass and let them chink the sides.

They had eaten all of the sun before they saw what was behind it.

There was a trick to knocking down the moon: you had to try and try.

Only when their legs were tired from jumping

Did it swing down in an arc.

When it crumbled to pieces the size of rice,

They bolted the blue, freezing crumbs.

How many years are kept in a laugh?

How do decades taste on the teeth?

Twelve hours on the tongue like a penny of butter,

They thought it could not have been so little; had they not watched forty winters pass?

One of them can still remember the scent of morning,

He will tell you about it if you ask.

The grassy smell that hung to the curtains, in their creases,

And the light

That drew the shape of an egg on the carpet.

The other was asleep and dreaming of sky,

No, water. Water as wide as sky and bluer still.

To fall into it was to drink to forget and when she was beneath it

She could not remember the names of the animals

She watched wriggle in the sand, and leap

Sparkling, casting penumbra, like half moons.

Can a mind bear the sight of itself?

They woke up and fell asleep

And woke again

And soon there was nothing

Between dreaming and waking, and in that space

The size of a cloakroom,

They locked eyes for the first time and the world opened.

Oh, for minutes to get caught in the corner of my eye.

Oh, for a rider to get thrown into a stack of darkness that sings.

Oh, for stars to gleam in the pit of a tiny hand.

Oh, for it all to happen again and again.

– Crementon Glovius

I do not know what it means, but I sleep under it now. Perhaps I will ponder while dreaming.

Fourth passage (Laguna – mountains - no fish - no water)

I do not have much to say, journal. Too tired. Cold. Weeks at least. But we are there. Across. One more in our number.

Fifth passage (oceanic - Kapatagan - bad days)

I woke early this morning and stared out at the Kapatagan Plains. What I did not expect is how foreboding, how hostile its openness would feel. Fear tends to live in dark, small places – in the barely-seen and much-constrained – but I have discovered a different kind of fear. It is vast and oceanic. I look out at the miles of grassland, swaying and talking in the wind, and I feel as if I am about to become overrun, swept away. Perhaps that is what I want. So long is the grass in places I am not sure we will be able to see over it without climbing on top of each other and none of us have energy to spare after the past days and weeks.

I will not pretend we are doing well. There is a reason our kind stays clear of mountains and it is because there is no life and scarce water and our fur, though heavy in winter, is not built for such total, eviscerating cold. We are losing it in patches. I can say now that there were times (many times) I did not expect us to survive and other times I hoped we wouldn’t. How thin I have become. How skeletal are we all.

There is young Repl crying. The camp will soon be awake. First, a plan. Then, the long march across an open plain.

Still, they kept moving onwards.  

They had known the trek would be arduous, but it was so dry.  

Where had all the water gone?

Were the lands to the North and the East always like this? 

Or was the parched landscape of tied in with the UnFox and the disappearance of the Grand Hannibal and all the other difficulties they’d already faced and ran from and feared?

In the midst of all this, Laguna Lacuna, was with child for the first time. The skulk was abuzz with excitement, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new cubs. Surely new life was a good omen, even if it made the journey slower and more difficult for all of them.

The mighty Corpus Colossi mountain range grew closer with each day’s travel, going from specks on the horizon to jagged, looming monstrosities that were all their eyes could see. The mountains supposedly marked the half-way mark of the skulk’s travel, but the Foxes were quite literally in uncharted territory and had long ago accepted they knew far less about their world than they had ever imagined.

There was an unfamiliar stillness that clung to the air as Laguna's time drew nearer. The vibrancy that once bubbled within her had subsided, replaced by the impending weight of motherhood. Each flicker of discomfort that flashed across her face was a harsh reminder that the current ordeal was nothing in comparison to the impending ordeal that lurked just around the corner. 

As the final days of her term stretched into weeks, her distress magnified. The once vibrant anticipation had soured into a cloak of unease and trepidation, casting an ominous pall over the skulk.

Finally, as the skulk approached the foothills of the great metallic mountain that dominated all the others, Chrome Peak, Laguna Lacuna admitted she could go no further.  The journey would have to wait

The day of birthing had arrived, unleashing a torrent of pain and fear as the reflections from the metallic mountaintop cast rainbows in all directions across everything the foxes could see.  

Laguna, known for her formidable resilience, was confronted with a terror unlike any other. One by one, she brought forth her cubs, their transient lives a bitter reminder of nature's cruel whims. She wrestled with exhaustion, endured the blinding pain, all her focus directed at the survival of her young.

From the numerous heartbeats that had once echoed within her, only one rhythm had carried through the ordeal of birth—a single, relentless pulse that promised life amidst the shadows of loss.

The cub was a girl, her delicate fur sharded with Laguna's own emerald hue. She had named her REPL, a word that in their ancient tongue meant hope. But beneath the naming ceremony's jubilation, a quiet sorrow resonated—a lament for the other lives that could have been.

Laguna's heart ached with every quiet sigh REPL released, each tiny yawn, and the heartrending vulnerability in her infantile attempts to explore her surroundings. It was a potent concoction of love and pain, two sides of the same coin, each a sharp reminder of what she'd gained and what she'd lost.

In REPL, Laguna found a purpose to keep her grounded amidst her heartache. The cub became her sole focus, the epicenter of her existence. She spent her days tending to REPL's needs, her nights keeping vigil over her sleep. Every mewl from the cub was answered, every sign of discomfort addressed.

But this fierce maternal love left her depleted, her once vibrant eyes dulled with exhaustion, her strength ebbing with each passing day. Laguna, the mother, the leader, had become a sacrificial offering on the altar of survival. And yet, she pressed on, for in her heart, she knew that her own well-being was a small price to pay for REPL's future.

However, as REPL flourished, the world around them withered. When they had first arrived by the mountains, the waters of a nearby lake had still danced with the dancing rainbow lights of the sun's reflection off Chrome Peak. Those waters that had been such a welcome oasis for the parched travelers were now vanishing, surrendering to the parched earth.

What was left behind was a void, a lifeless crater where until recently, life thrived in abundance. Laguna bore witness to this relentless transformation, as Terra Vulpa's lifeblood disappeared, turning the lush landscapes into a desolate wasteland. 

The drought, unyielding, unmerciful, left no room for hope, imposing a haunting stillness that lingered like a spectre over the land.

This was no longer a simple battle for survival. With each passing day, with each inch of receding water, the possibility of extinction cast an increasingly longer shadow over the skulk. 

Laguna could see it in the desperate eyes of her kin, could feel it in the unspoken dread that hung in the air, and could hear it in the hushed whispers of her fellow travelers. 

Their world was at the brink, their existence hanging by a thread, all while she watched from the sidelines, nursing her single cub, in a cave that echoed with the silence of those not born.

Yet, Laguna refused to yield. 

She continued to give all of herself to REPL, even as her own personal vitality dwindled. She was so consumed by her love for REPL that she neglected her own needs, her survival instincts overridden by the potent pull of maternal love. 

Three silhouettes edged their way towards Laguna's den, their bodies hunched against the biting wind that whipped across the dry landscape. It was the council - Negative Entity, Photic Sneezer, and Orpheus Turns - known for their wisdom and guidance within the Jesters.

Their arrival usually signaled a time for problem-solving and decision-making, but their stooped postures and wary glances revealed a pressing concern that went beyond the ordinary.

Negative Entity, her tawny fur patchy and dull, led the procession. Once an optimistic and brave member of the skulk, was clearly weathered prematurely by the current stress. Following close behind was Photic Sneezer, whose distinctive sneezes, once a source of amusement, now barely registered amongst the gloom. Lastly, Orpheus Turns trailed behind them, his once striking figure now marred by lean muscle and sunken eyes, a testament to the skulk's desperation.

They stood at the entrance of Laguna's den, a mere whisper of their former selves. The council members exchanged glances before Negative Entity stepped forward, her voice carrying the weight of their collective worries. "Laguna," she began, her voice ragged as the parched earth. "The lake...it's worsening. We need to..."

But her voice trailed off as Laguna's gaze, instead of meeting theirs, was riveted onto her cub. REPL slept peacefully by her side, oblivious to the tense atmosphere. Laguna's eyes softened, a stark contrast to the hardened expressions of the council members. The world beyond her child seemed to blur into insignificance, as if REPL was the anchor keeping her grounded amidst the chaos.

"Laguna, we must discuss...," Orpheus Turns tried again.

Laguna’s gaze never wavering from REPL, never acknowledged her trusted peers, and the council slowly leaked back the way they had come.

—

That night, wracked with pain, Laguna retreated to the back of her cave and curled in on herself around REPL. The last moisture she had, she fed to her child, and closed her eyes.

The mist of sleep descended upon Laguna's mind and her consciousness began to ebb and flow. The wearied eyes of the council, the untouched innocence of her cub's gaze, her own dull eyes staring at her in the silt-laden water - all swirled within the river of her consciousness, each leaving its distinct ripple.

In the twilight of awareness, a small act of self-care rose like a bubble from the riverbed of her being. With her free paw, she found a speck of dampness. She tenderly coated her parched, desolate snout. It was a simple act, a drop in a dry riverbed, but it offered a soothing reprieve from the harsh dryness. The smallest tributary beginning to flow, as sleep claimed the landscape of her consciousness.

In this domain of dreams and softened thoughts, as Laguna lay curled protectively around her cub, a subtle shift began to ripple through their world. Unseen, unfelt by the slumbering skulk. At first, a tremor, but then a strange, powerful energy coursing around her body. Without hesitation, Laguna slipped away from her child and followed the pull of the earth. She found herself drawn to a crack in the ground, where she placed her paw. 

In that moment, she felt a surge of power unlike anything she had ever known. Her vision blurred, and she felt as though she was falling into an endless void. When she opened her eyes again, the mountains around her had become towering spires, and the sky and water that had already been a rainbow of colors became a swirling kaleidoscope of colours and patterns that shifted and changed with every passing moment.

Laguna looked down at her own body and saw herself part fox, part mountain, part river. Her fur was the colour of stone, and her eyes shone with a bright, otherworldly light. She cupped the lake in her hand, drank deeply, and then started to pour the liquid into the valley below.

A jarring sensation yanked Laguna back to the physical plane. Her eyes flickered open to the sight of her own paw ensnared by the stubborn earth. Her attempt to retract was met with firm resistance.

Fear, a rare and unexpected intruder, slithered into her heart. Her fur bristled, and her eyes widened as the realisation of her predicament took hold. The sharp edges of the rocks against her skin reminded her of the limits of her mortal form.

A primal urge to fight back flared in her, prompting her to yank her paw with more force. But the earth held fast, indifferent to her struggle. Her struggles only magnified the dull pain radiating up her leg. Her breaths became ragged, uneven, mirroring her chaotic thoughts.

And then, like a hidden spring surfacing amidst a barren landscape, a glimmer of her recent calm seeped into her consciousness. It murmured against her panic, coaxing her to reach for the harmony that had so recently flowed through her.

So, Laguna paused. She closed her eyes, focusing on the rhythm of her breath - in, out, in, out. She felt the rapid pulsating in her paw slowly receding, the harsh edges of her fear blurring, mellowing into a bearable hum.

Inhaling deeply, she reached down and, with a deliberate slowness, pulled. The ground seemed to sigh, finally releasing its grip. Her paw slid free, leaving her both relieved and drained.

Turning, her gaze fell on REPL, peaceful and oblivious. She dragged herself over, curling her body around her cub, her ragged breaths gradually syncing with the gentle rhythm of REPL's.

As dawn washed over the earth, Laguna stirred from her sheltered retreat, her weary eyes drawn to the sight below. The valley, once a vibrant tapestry of life and colour, now lay parched and barren, a stark symbol of their grim reality. The once thriving flora was reduced to brittle skeletons, and what had been an azure lake was now just a dry, cracked memory.

Carefully, Laguna hoisted REPL onto her back, ensuring the cub was securely strapped in. REPL, nestled snugly against her mother's warmth, looked out with wide eyes at the desolate vista.

Resolved, Laguna began her arduous trek up the highest peak known to Terra Vulpa. She marched along the dry, stony lakebed, her steps echoing in the eerie silence.

Boulders, smooth and weathered by the water, now stood out like obstacles along her path. Her pads, though toughened by years of living in the wild, were raw against the harsh, rough surface. But Laguna pressed on, her focus sharpened by the survival instinct within her.

She pushed through the arid lowlands, slowly ascending towards the high places where the last vestiges of greenery clung stubbornly to life. Her senses, attuned to every shift in the wind, every rustle in the sparse foliage, painted a picture of her changing environment. The air here was thinner, the wind cooler against her emerald fur. With every upward stride, Laguna could feel the world changing around her, and within her…

The path under Laguna's paws softened as the rocky incline levelled out onto a plateau dotted with stubborn, weather-beaten vegetation. REPL slid from her back, the cub's eyes wide with an unspoken curiosity that Laguna couldn't help but share. She doubted any creature had ever been this high, this close to the metallic rainbow mountaintop still hundreds of yards above her. Something pulled her attention away from the peak, drawing her gaze to the cracked earth beneath them - an instinct, perhaps, or a whisper of a memory.

Carefully setting REPL aside, she pressed her hand into the hard soil. Closing her eyes, she sought communion. She felt the parched crust yield under her persistent touch.

Gritting her teeth, she dug deeper, clawing through layers of dead, dehydrated soil. Until her claws scraped against something unexpected - moisture. A cool, wet reprieve hiding beneath the desolation.

Scooping the precious liquid, she drank with an urgent gratitude, then turned to REPL, who mimicked her actions. There was no celebration, only the quiet understanding of survival.

Emboldened, Laguna continued to dig, deeper, wider. The hidden water source seeping upward until it pooled around her. A single, low cry slipped from her, echoing across the deserted landscape.

Alone and then in ragged groups, the skulk emerged, dragging themselves up the mountain side from the shadowed corners of the drought-stricken terrain. Some had walked a harder path, their bodies a testament to the relentless grip of the drought. Their ribs protruded beneath their dull coats, eyes sunken but alight with a spark at the sight of water. Those too weak or injured to dig sat at the edge of the assembly, their hopeful gazes fixated on the scene unfolding.

And yet, not every voice was accounted for in the chorus that echoed Laguna's call. Some, like the distinctive sneeze that once punctuated the gloom with mirth, had faded into an unspoken absence, haunting the edges of the tribe's collective memory.

Those strong enough joined her in the labor, paws digging alongside hers, until a slender stream of water began to wind its way down the craggy mountainside, whispering of the life it once knew, and the life it promised to bring back. The stream wound down the parched riverbed, a silver vein of hope making its way to the famished lake below.

When I look around, I find myself alone, in a hole, dark and desolate, and cold. Oh, it’s so cold. Still shivering, a wave of nausea rolls in. I lean to the side and retch.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I begin to recall the events of the past three days of our journey to Perdita, when we met a new skulk of Wild Foxes and life as we knew it changed forever.  

This strange skulk was unlike any we had encountered before: wild-looking, an unfamiliar scent, unusually shaped heads, with fur shimmering like a kaleidoscope of colors under the sun. 

But their physical appearance was nothing compared to the tales they told: stories of a shadowy beast from another realm.  One of the elders from the new skulk, AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT, told us about the UnFox: a gruesome beast with sharp fangs who hunts our kin whilst we sleep. It leaves a poisonous toxin in the brain of any fox who crosses its path, wiping their memory clean so that all that is left is loss and fear. 

At first, we dismissed their tale as absurdity and paranoia. We are foxes of logic and reason, after all, and aren’t easily swayed by superstitions.

But there was something compelling, perhaps the hint of desperation in their voices, the earnest look in their eyes, that made us pause.  I brought WAY OF HUMAN, LAGUNA LACUNA, ORPHEUS TURNS, REDEMPTION and PICNIC, LIGHTNING into a small huddle. We agreed the tale of the UnFox seemed impossible and too bizarre to believe. But we couldn’t deny the sincerity and genuine fear in the wild foxes eyes.

It was REDEMPTION who suggested we join forces with this new skulk and navigate the uncertainty together.  Not known to be one for long conversation, his direct plea was convincing: “You don’t have to believe in the great UnFox, but in the infinitesimal small chance it exists, we should be prepared.” 

LAGUNA LACUNA, always the sympathetic listener chimed in, “REDEMPTION has a point.  What’s the downside in at least giving them the benefit of the doubt, at least for a few days.  The most likely scenario is we’re proven right, they’re proven wrong, and we go about our lives.  But, I mean… what if… you know…” her voice trailed off allowing the look on her face to finish her thought.  

PICNIC, LIGHTNING, WAY OF HUMAN, and I nodded in agreement.  We couldn’t refute their cold logic.  We decided to combine skulks with the Wild Foxes and navigate the uncertainty together.

---

In the days that followed, we built bridges between our two worlds as we traveled into the unknown together. We exchanged stories, philosophies, and dreams.  We foraged for berries and nuts and snacked on insects.  We explored the forests and open fields as we progressed out of the Shadowoods and towards the Grand Hannibal River I was named after – the outermost limit of our skulk’s experienced world. We got to know each other and tried to understand one another better. Despite our original skepticism and their increasing sense of angst and dread, we became one, united by our distant vulpine ancestors. 

Upon reaching the river, we paused our journey to swim and play in our beloved Grand Hannibal, so ingrained in our way of life that she is more like a companion to us than a geographical feature.  Her steady current, always a perfect temperature, embraced us.  Her waters were a comfort, a soothing rhythm that kept our anxieties at bay. Even the clearly traumatized Wild Foxes forgot their fears temporarily while swimming laps around her playful rapids. 

There were no signs of the UnFox or of anything amiss, really.  We slept at night in comfort, without any feeling of being watched.  We were happy to see our new skulk friends became more relaxed each day.

But yesterday, on our third day together, everything changed.  

After a breakfast of gooseberries and hickory tea, we set off to explore the woods to look for undiscovered bounties of food.  As the day grew hotter, when even the shade couldn’t protect us from the thick humidity, HOTEL ART suggested we head over to the river for a swim to cool off, just as we had done the previous few days.  LAGUNA LACUNA, a natural jester, surprised us by arguing we should continue to look for food, reminding us that while our skulk had gotten larger, our food supplies hadn’t. 

We looked at REDEMPTION who was usually quick to make a decision but he didn’t speak.  We sat in silence for a minute.  Perhaps it was the heat, heavy and relentless, that made us reluctant to decide. Or perhaps, somewhere deep down, we had an inkling that today there were no good decisions to be made.

I was the one who broke the silence and suggested we take the long route so we could forage before we played.  I wanted to show our new friends one of the more dramatic spots along the great river’s banks. We’d have to travel up a steep hill, on extra alert for loose rocks due to erosion and recent rains, then through a narrow path with overgrown thorn bushes and poison ivy creeping out from both sides, but it would be worth it.  

The narrow path empties out onto one of our favorite spots - a small clearing with a jumping rock 20 feet over the river.  There’s no better place to play and picnic and cool off on a hot day.

Sweaty and out of breath, we reached the clearing and approached the top of the rock.  We were talking so loud about who was going to jump first we didn’t even notice something was amiss until we got all the way to the ledge and were stopped in our tracks.

I brought us this way to show our friends drama, but even I wasn’t prepared for the dramatic scene in front of us. 

Our great river had disappeared.  Where there was flowing water the day before, today we saw only a barren wasteland of rocks and debris, a dry and cracked riverbed.  Fish skeletons and animal carcasses dotted the web of dry branches. 

The only sign of life in the riverbed was one of the Wild Foxes we had last seen go to sleep with us last night.  He was clearly delirious and so far in the distance as to be barely visible, shaking its head and talking to itself, arms moving wildly, as it walked in an endless circle in and around a dried patch of dirt. 

The rest of the Wild Foxes turned to me for an explanation. 

Why me, I don’t know, I suppose because I share the Hannibal name. I took a deep breath and told our new friends everything I knew.  

Our skulk all grew up hearing our parents and grandparents talk about the mystery of the Hannibal, how once in every generation she dries up and completely disappears.  

Not a gradual event, like what happens during extreme heat and droughts, but instantaneously gone. One moment you can be swimming in her magical waters, and the next she’s gone. 

We were told she stays dry until the next rain.  Whether it’s a sprinkle or a thunderstorm, as soon as it starts to rain, she comes back just as suddenly as she left, in all her glory. We never truly believed the stories until… 

The story we had dismissed as a myth now stood as a stark reality.  LAGUNA LACUNA and I exchanged a knowing look.  We didn’t need words to know we both saw this was – at best – a bad omen. At worst, it was a sign that the story our Wild Foxes told us of the UnFox might not be a myth either.

SALVATION THEORY and a few of our other more dextrous foxes set out to corral the distant Wild Fox and see what could be learned about his mental condition and if his behavior could be tied to the UnFox.

We held our breath as the sun began to set.

---

That night, we gathered around a campfire, its flickering light casting long shadows that mirrored our fears. The orange glow illuminated the worry etched on every face.

PICNIC, LIGHTNING, a fox who had always been our beacon of hope, looked pale in the firelight, a visible testament to the gravity of our situation. He broke the silence, uncharacteristically revealing his doubt, "What... What should we do now?"

"I never believed the tales," BRUTE FICTION announced gravely before trailing off and mumbling quietly, mostly to himself. "Not of Perdita, nor the UnFox nor the disappearing Hannibal. We can only hope that these signs of evil becoming stronger in our world mean there is an equal balance of strengthening good that we just haven’t seen yet."

"I didn't either,” FIASCO ARTIST admitted calmly despite the chaos around them. “But now I can't shake the feeling that the two are connected somehow."

"We can't let fear paralyze us," FEAR NONE interjected, his tone commanding despite the doubt lurking in his eyes. "An ounce of action is worth a ton of speculation."

One of our new Wild friends, AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT, spoke up.  “We know of an ancient ritual our ancestors used to ward off evil spirits.”

I would usually laugh at a suggestion of a religious ritual, but we all remained quiet allowing AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT to continue.

 “We make a sacrifice of an animal, and one of us sleeps in its hide.”

Seeing my eyebrows raise and picking up on my skepticism, he added, “I saw a family of hedgehogs gathered in the clearing just past the oak clusters.  HANNIBAL, you go catch one.”

And off I went.

---

I lie here now in the dark hole, wrapped in a foul smelling hide of a hedgehog, my mind playing a twisted game, replaying those scenes over and over.  I’m still shivering uncontrollably.  I take a deep breath but it does nothing to calm me.  

I hear REDEMPTION’S voice in my head, setting off the events of the last few days, “You don’t have to believe in the great UnFox, but in the infinitesimal small chance it exists, we should be prepared.”  

I hear LAGUNA LACUNA’s “what if…” reverberate in an endless loop of self doubt.  

I think about the disappearing Hannibal and the chance meeting of a skulk of Wild Foxes just a few days prior.  I want to believe they are coincidences, nothing more than a random event.  But deep down inside I can’t shake the feeling that I know - I KNOW - this is not random. 

Despite my rationality, for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to use logic to find comfort.  

As I sit in my foxhole, thinking about how to face the day and the hundreds of days of journeying ahead of us, I do something I’ve never done before:  I begin to pray. 

I pray the UnFox is just a myth.  I pray the rain comes today and the Great Hannibal River returns to its glory. I pray for our skulk to find a large bounty of food.  I pray the past few days were just a dream. I pray we all make it to Perdita happy and healthy and whole. I pray because I don’t know what else to do.  

There’s no room for atheism in this foxhole.

I squeeze my eyes tightly and scrunch my paws in fists for just a few seconds.  I’m frightened but I know exactly what I need to do.

Wrapping the hedgehog hide a little tighter around my shoulders, I fill my lungs with air and push myself out of the hole.  I’m ready to tackle the day whatever it brings.

Dawn begins with an eerie stillness, an empty silence that unnerves even the bravest of foxes. A dense fog clings to the ground as daylight peeks through the towering trees of the Shadowoods. The brisk, damp air surrounds a small skulk led by a fox with sharp features, bold coloring, and piercing red eyes. 

She murmurs a simple mantra — a reminder, a singular thought to dispel the apprehension and focus her mind. She summons every ounce of courage and leads the skulk deeper into the unknown, each step taking them closer to the rumored underworld of Perdita and further from the comfort of home than all but a few of them had ever been. 

“We are everything. We are everywhere. We are the conquering fire and light.” 

Months ago, Way of Human heard a faint, distant sound in the middle of the night. 

The sound stirred something primal within her, an insatiable curiosity that consumed her. What was it? Where was it? Could other foxes feel its pull? 

She sat curled under the stars with her nose tucked beneath her tail and one ear pointed skyward. Her mind replayed the sound over and over, dissecting each tone in search of a clue. She willed it to return, to reveal more of its foreign melody. 

As the warmth of the fire coaxed her to sleep, the crackle of its flames the only sound that kept her company, her mind drifted. Images of deep blue crested with white, coarse ground with flecks of black and brown flashed. The sound roused something deep within her unconscious bubbling up past the fog cloaking her conscious mind. 

She urged each fox of the skulk to investigate the distant sound. Her pleas turned into desperation, an exasperated cry that something was calling her, calling them to explore. 

“Are these woods a protector or an enclosure, a coop designed to confine us to the safety of the known?” her voice trembled slightly as her eyes darted from fox to fox searching for support.

“The trees are our home, the woods our protector!” an elder fox boomed, his voice shaking the leaves of nearby trees. “Our skulk is living proof that the Shadowoods are our means of survival.” 

“Survival.” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “Survival… Is that all we are destined for?

“What do you know of survival, kit?” another elder mused. “Return once you have reared your own and felt the weight of that responsibility!” 

“Does survival define our existence? Is rearing a skulk my only purpose? Are we not also responsible for paving a better future? One that may lie beyond these woods and exist in what we believe is the unknown?” she pleaded, hoping to appeal to members of the skulk. 

“The unknown? And what do you know of such things?” the elders cocked their heads and watched her. 

“There is a distant sound traveling through the woods in the dead of night. It shook something within me, unearthed a vision. No, not a vision but a memory? A place with…”

“Enough!” the elders exclaimed in unison, slamming their greying paws into the ground. “You know nothing of what you speak, young cub. We have heard your petition. Now return to your place.” 

The elders began to whisper warnings about the unknown, painting its appeal as a story used by a lost fox to seduce the naive and lead them away from the safety of the skulk. 

The allure of exploration, a deeper calling would ultimately condemn a fox to wander the Shadowoods and never return to the skulk. These whispers grew into rumors and the rumors became the truth — Way of Human was a fox born lost, destined to grasp at illusions and fixate on the unknown. 

Doubt crept into the mind of Way of Human. Was the voice screaming within her a manifestation of a fox born lost? Did her obsession exist only to lead foxes astray, away from the safety of the skulk? Determined to uncover the truth, she set off into the Shadowoods. 

She left at dawn and stumbled her way through the woods, leaving a fire to serve as a light to guide her home. She leapt over gnarled roots, pushed her way through prickly bushes, and climbed over jagged rocks following her intuition westward. She returned hours later with weathered paws and battered legs to rest and feed the dwindling flames of her fire. 

She did this day after day – always returning to her fire before the flames died.

Over time, younger foxes began to leave aloe, nuts, berries, and water while feeding her fire with broken twigs, roots, and moss. When the rest of the skulk slept, they would sneak away and sit by the flame awaiting her return. Though none dared accompany her into the Shadowoods, they were all captivated by her search. 

They gathered around the fire to hear Way of Human describe the sound, her visions, and the unknown within the Shadowoods. 

“The sound…the sound is like a summer breeze gliding through the leaves in these woods. A soothing, yet faint melody that lulls you into a state that unlocks something deep within your consciousness.” 

She closed her eyes and slowly inhaled while recalling her vision in as vivid detail as possible. 

“It awakened a memory of a place where your paws curl against the harsh heat, only to sink beneath the grainy exterior to a cooler, hidden layer. The surface glistens in the light of the sun, forcing your eyes to squint and adjust.”

Her eyes opened to a captivated audience. A tinge of regret and worry seeped into her thoughts. After months of searching, she was weary of her mind and the true nature of her destiny.

“Is this my destiny to be a lost fox? Is my mind consumed by an illusion masquerading as a memory? Every day I explore the Shadowoods and return empty-pawed, doubt creeps further into my mind.” 

She paused as the weight of her thoughts set in.

“Maybe you’ll tell your kin about me, about my misfortune to succumb to the calling of the unknown.”

At the break of dawn, the young foxes scampered back to the skulk while she left again to push further into the wild western regions of the Shadowoods.

As she ventured further into the Shadowoods, she discovered the occasional strange marking and scent. Trees bore scars — sharp marks that revealed the pale flesh beneath their bark. When she placed her paw against them and extended her claws, they were a perfect match. 

There was one scent that stood out from the earthy tones of the woods; it was distinctly salty with faintly familiar notes that reminded her of the skulk. Her nose twitched as she pointed it directly in the air and took short breaths in quick succession. 

She bounded through the woods, her claws digging deep into the earth as she recklessly darted between trees and lept over rocks and roots. The scent was close. She could taste a tinge of salt in her lungs. This was it. This was what she had been searching for all these months. 

She ran heedlessly, pushing further than she’d ever dared before, the memory of her fire and her skulk temporarily erased from her mind.  There was only forward. No energy could be spared.  She had to know.  Was she insane?

Then, everything turned white. Her legs tangled as exhaustion seized her, sending her plunging nose-first into a hot, gravelly surface. 

She blinked and blinked, jettisoning the small, abrasive granules from her eyes. Squinting ahead, her vision slowly returned. 

That’s when she saw it: a body of deep blue crested with white that glistened in the sunshine. It stretched further than her mind could comprehend. Her nose twitched. The scent was right in front of her. Before she could turn her head, she heard a voice. 

“Are you searching for it?” 

She nodded. 

“We are searching for it, too” 

“We?” 

The strange newcomer paused, gathering her thoughts before reciting, “We are everything. We are everywhere. We are the conquering fire and light.” 

The fox turned and trotted away. Its paw prints left slight indents in the sand, the only trace of another fox in the unknown. The fox stopped and peered back at Way of Human briefly before continuing on. 

The next phase of Heads & Tales begins today! 

Over the next few weeks and months, we will be turning 10 Heads into fully-fledged canonical Tales set in Terra Volpa.  

Each finished Tale will net the writer .15 ETH and will be minted to the blockchain and published in multiple places, including the PF Notion wiki. Additionally, the stories’ major events will impact the wiki entries we already have and inspire even more. 

At this moment, holders will need to be invited to write an official Tale – the pool of possible participants is limited to those who have submitted a Head and had their work tweeted out by the main PF account. If you’d like to be considered to write a Tale, submit a thoughtful Head first! There is currently no deadline to submitting Heads and you can submit as many Heads as you’d like. The more Heads, the merrier!

If you are selected to write a Tale, I will be available to help you throughout the process for some optional sessions: 

• A pre-call in the Discord voice channel for 15-30 minutes to help you break down your story

• A second 15-30 minute call to go over your story outline  

• A round of notes (by email) on one early draft 

• A round of notes on the nearly-final versions to get them ready for publishing.

You will not be required to do any of the four steps above if you’d rather work alone. I do recommend using my time for at least a few of the four above options as final Tales will need to be approved before payment is remitted – the earlier and more often you get notes, the easier the approval process will be!

For now, the Tales stage of this process will last until we have 10 canonical finished stories (including a few that I will write). Then the team will assess how best to continue. (Of course, we’d all be super excited if holders want to write additional Tales outside of the process!)

Finished Tale requirements:

• Tales will need to be at least 600 words; there is no maximum limit. 

• Your story will need to be set in the Fox-verse in the “current time” of our Lore-building: just as foxes are starting to re-discover thinking and are realizing that Terra Volpa is much larger than just their small area of Shadowoods in the Rostrum district. 

• Each Tale should establish precedent for something as-yet unexplored in the Fox-verse.  (I.e.; invent a new dynamic for how certain Fox species feel about each other, explore a new territory, or reveal a new facet of Fox society, etc.) 

• Each Tale should feature your Fox as the main character and the plot should explore the veracity of the philosophical quote you submitted alongside your Head.

I (Redemption) will reach out on Discord or Twitter to invite selected holders to write a Tale. 

Please note that if the PF project pays you over $600 worth of ETH over the course of 2023, you will need to provide documentation for taxes – this would mean privately doxxing yourself to the team.  As of now, .15 ETH is about ~$250 so breaking $600 in 2023 is an unlikely scenario, but we don’t want to surprise anyone.  Happy to answer any questions on this through DM or on the Fox server.

Please reach out with any questions or thoughts – we’re really looking forward to reading these stories!

CVS,

Redemption

Plot points

• Enter Wild Foxes. A new species has arrived. These Wild Foxes, and the Wild Thoughts accompanying them, introduce new characters and narrative possibilities to our world. It also reveals that foxes are stranger and more varied than we initially thought.

• We are not alone. We had believed that all other skulks had died out. The presence of Wild Foxes illustrates that life exists beyond Shadowoods. Perhaps there are others? What else may our wider world – and its different realms – hold for us?

• We are being hunted. Or at least, that is what one of our new arrivals believes. A Wild Fox brings a tale of woe – and a warning.

• Solo thoughts remain a mystery. Even our new companions trail solo thoughts. What are these entities? To whom do they relate? The mystery remains unresolved.

The Meeting

At the edge of Shadowoods, a few members of our skulk meet the 10 voyagers. They look different than our kind, with shimmering coats of fur and unusually shaped heads. Around them, new thoughts swarm, not unlike those that hover around our foxes.

PICNIC, LIGHTNING

First, I must say this: welcome. Welcome, friends.

It is true, you do not look nor sound like us. Indeed, even your stench – or pardon me, scent – is distinct, powerful to our nostrils. We are used to our own kind, you see, so forgive those of us who briefly gagged. It was but a momentary reflex.

While we may have our differences, we see that you are, after all, kin. No less a part of Terra Volpa than us; no less a thinking fox, a cogitator on four legs. May I express my admiration for the manner in which your fur glimmers?

It is a ripple of color the likes of which I have not seen. We remember so little – and yet I sense that my mother (or perhaps her mother, let us regress ad infinitum) was one of you. I recall a shadowy maternal figure informing me that they were raised in a land of foxes whose coats flickered like gems. They must have been speaking of you.

Tell us. Who are you? How did you get here? Where have you traveled from?

AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT

We thank you for our welcome and

Do not be alarmed by our size or

Smell.

We have come from a far-land to be here

And worried our presence would not be

Well-received.

Have you heard of Stogai?

HANNIBAL

It is a name familiar to us –  but beyond definition. A remnant of a past life. The remembrance of a dream.

AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT

It is more than a dream, kin.

It is, or was, our home.

A land beyond the Feral Range, beyond

Even the Great Schism that bisects our world.

We do not know how long we have been awake.

Do you?

Perhaps a year, a little more, though

Time feels like water, not stone. We cannot

Touch it.

We awoke in ruins.

Great constructions, reduced to rubble.

A library full of books, rotting, stinking,

Filled with maggots which

We ate.

Do not judge us,

There was no other food we could find.

Where have all the birds gone? And the

Voles and mice and even frogs who sing

So beautifully and taste as sour as unripe cherries.

We could find none in our land, which is

Why we look as thin as we do now.

Though we cannot be sure, we have divined that

Our ancestors were perhaps twice our size.

LAGUNA, LACUNA

That is a frightening prospect, given how you tower over us already. We bear bad news, I’m afraid. If it was your stomachs that led you here, they are confused. We have found little to eat. A clutch of berries from time to time and one afternoon an egg of uncertain providence which we shared between a thousand.

AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT

That is, indeed, bad news,

Though it was not the purpose of

Our visit.

In fact, perhaps you do not

Know, but upon our journey, we found a

River, not too far from here, in which

Fish have begun to swim again. We have

Been careful in our hunting – not too greedy –

So they may continue to flourish.

We journeyed here for a different reason:

We believe we are being hunted.

By what, I am not sure.

But I have felt it –

Sensed its presence around us.

In the entrails of our broken civilization

Something seemed to linger in the shadows,

Waiting for us to draw close.

I can not prove this, but I believe there were

More of our tribe once.

Indeed, I believe there

Were perhaps many more that set out upon

Our journey from Stogai.

I could not give

You names, nor could I describe their

Faces,

But I feel them somewhere. I feel

Them in their absence.

Something is eating at us, and perhaps has

Been for some time. When we walk into the

Shadows, when we stroll alone in the forest

When night falls like a cloak and separates

One of us from another, The Ellipsis hunts.

It is a beast with poison as well as fangs

We think.

Because at the moment it

Steals our kin it places a toxin in

The brains of those left behind,

A toxin that feasts on memory so

When morning comes

We have forgotten that there was

Once another that we called friend.

PICNIC LIGHTING

This is quite a claim, I must tell you.

HANNIBAL

Quite a claim.

AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT

I understand your skepticism.

Many of my skulk treated my

Theory with similar unease at

First. 

And so I set to test it. For seven

Days, I did not sleep. As my skulk

Slumbered, I pinned my eyes open

With thorns and daubs

Of spitting-mud.

For six nights, I watched from

My patch of photic-moss and

Saw nothing. Some nights

I could scarcely breathe from

Exhaustion and great worms

Of color crawled

Across the surface of my vision.

But on the seventh night

At the hour at which the moon

Took on a color of

Blood,

I saw a flicker in the bushes.

And then –

A sudden movement across

The heads of the sleeping

Skulk as if someone had shone

A beam of light over them;

A light of no brightness and no

Color, a beam of blinding

Darkness.

Then, nothing.

For a long time

Nothing.

I had begun to believe my eyes

Had conjured it when the beam

Shone again and this time it

Landed on the body of one of our

Kin,

A young kit the name of which has

Been taken from me and,

Who began to melt into the

Earth as if he were a piece of

Rotting fruit sitting beneath

a baking sun.

I sprang from my bed and

Bolted as quickly as I could to

His sleeping, dissolving form.

As I drew closer I saw

That it was not a beam that hovered

Over him but a figure whose shape

Seemed to change and that I would

Describe to you as:

A circle of Terrifying Hunger,

A square of Vital Lifelessness,

A star of Absence.

It was a great UnFox,

Both kindred and alien

And as I approached the kit’s body,

Which was all but gone, it turned

Its no-head and stared its no-eyes

At me and without touching

Crushed a blow that knocked me

To the ground and sent me

At last, to sleep.

When I woke in the morning,

The kit was gone.

If you ask any others

Of my skulk, they will tell you

They remember nothing of the

them, a child of our very own.

And so I come to you,

My friends, my kin,

Who we have crossed

A world to find and ask:

What will we do?

Welcome to the second phase of our community-driven content engine, Heads & Tales!

We will be creating original pairings – called “Heads” – of our Foxes and philosophical thoughts.  These Heads can be quickly and easily created by using the Endless Thinker app.  The best of the community’s submissions will be shared on Twitter each week and net its creator .01 ETH.

All Likes, RTs, QTs, and comments will directly impact which stories get told in the Foxverse.  The Heads that garner the most engagement on Twitter will be eligible to become Tales, which will be canonical stories that net the author .15 ETH. The Tales portion of the project will begin in January 2023.

If you own a Fox and can copy/paste a meaningful quote, you can create a Head in less than a minute.

The steps to create a Head are:

1.) Enter the name of a Fox NFT you own on endlessthinker.xyz

2.) Type (or paste) in a a philosophical quote that is meaningful to both you and your fox (based on the NFT’s character traits and personal philosophy)

3.) Export your image as a .jpeg or .png file.

4.) Upload the image to the #Heads channel in the Fox Discord.

The goal is for each Head to provide the seed of an interesting Tale in the Foxverse. Think of the quote you select as being the thesis (or moral) that a Fox Tale could explore.

The criteria for an ideal quote are:

1. You should find its contents profound and want to share it with the world.

2. It should be consistent with your fox’s personality traits/philosophy.

3. It could be explored/dramatized in a work of short fiction.

4. It shouldn’t be too long (it needs to fit on the NFT art).

Redemption Fox will create the first few Heads as examples and is happy to answer any questions or provide additional guidance in the Discord. Red will turn all selected Heads into a “Story Seed” format for Twitter.

And don’t worry about making your images perfect - anything selected for Twitter will be slightly re-designed before being tweeted from the main account. You are only responsible for the rough draft - so a quick-and-simple creation process is better than slow-and-perfect.

If your submission is tweeted out, you will be notified in the Discord and you can then request funding using the “Heads” RFP on Station. Please make sure to include the link to the Tweet in your proposal!

To start, we will be tweeting out Heads 2x per week.  The first few will be Redemption Fox’s creations, and then we will move to a model of 1 Head from Red each week and 1 from the community.  If there’s sufficient community participation, we will look to tweet 3x/week with 2 of those being community submissions.

Our hopes for Heads are they: increase community engagement, help build our “brand”, and set the stage for a number of interesting stories we can tell in the Foxverse.

Don’t forget that 30+ of the Wiki entries are still available to claim on Station. Heads and Wikis are happening simultaneously until all of the wiki entries have been claimed and approved. An updated list of the available wiki bounties is in the #lore-discovery channel in the Discord and more information on the wiki process can be found here.

Civis Vulpes Sum,

Red

We’re so excited to roll out the first stage of our Heads & Tales content initiative: bounties for wiki entries!

These short (minimum 125 words) creations will be a major step forward in collaboratively creating and defining the Philosophical Foxes’ shared reality.

The goal is to build on the nuggets of lore previously provided by Picnic, Lightning by creating unique settings and story elements that can inspire future storytellers.

Approved wiki entries will:

• Be eternalized in the project’s Wiki as a potential building block for future Fox Tales

• Be tweeted from the main PF Twitter account

• Reward the author with .01 ETH per approved entry

This post will mostly focus on the logistics of submitting your wiki entry, but a reminder of writing best practices and the first 50 bounty terms is further down.

On that note…

We’re incredibly lucky and excited to be partnering with the folks at Station to bring this project to life. Station is a decentralized platform for proposing, funding, and collaborating on ideas. Not only is it one of the most thoughtful tools we’ve had the chance to use, it is also beautiful! We’re grateful to their incredible team for their support.

We’ll be using Station’s new RFP (request for proposal) feature for our wiki workflow. As you’ll see below, bounties have been posted in Station for our first set of 50 wiki entries. This is also where we’ll review/accept proposals, and execute payments.

You can access the Philosophical Foxes Station here. To see the wiki terms and submit your own, click “RFPs” on the left-hand side of the window. Keep reading for more information on how to view available proposals and make submissions!

Viewing Open RFPs

You can access the available RFPs from the Philosophical Foxes Station page. You’ll be able to see which terms are open for proposal, which terms have proposals already submitted, and which terms have been approved and thus are no longer available for submission.

Submitting a Proposal

You can easily submit a proposal for any of the open terms by clicking into the term and then clicking the “propose” button, which will bring up the proposal box. Drop your proposed definition for the term into the text box, and confirm.

Viewing Submissions

If you want to check out other submissions or review the status of a proposal, you can navigate to the “Proposals” section. Proposals marked as “Awaiting approval” are waiting for two members of the Philosophical Foxes team to review/approve, and proposals marked as “Approved” have been accepted by the Philosophical Foxes team, and are awaiting payment. Proposals marked as “Complete” have been approved and payment has been executed.

Guidelines on Creating a Successful Wiki Entry

If you’re interested in submitting a proposal, we’ve assembled a few guidelines below to help outline what we’re looking for. We can’t wait to see what you create!

Wiki entries should be:

• At least 125 words.

  • There is no maximum limit, but the PF team reserves the right to edit them down if we feel it necessary.

• Free of spelling or grammatical errors (unless included for stylistic/narrative reasons)

• Fully aligned with, and inclusive of, already established Philosophical Fox lore

• Written in the voice of fox historians far in the future. This means they can be opinionated, biased, imperfect, or inclusive of knowledge not yet known to our current generation of foxes.

  • If your wiki entry is too dry (i.e. just a series of factual statements strung together, or reads like a wikipedia article), you’re not doing it right. This is a creative endeavor, not a copy+paste endeavor.

  • So, for example, if you are writing an entry for The Dark Sea, you wouldn’t simply say “it is to the West of x and the South of y.” Instead, possible angles could be: 1.) famous events and/or disappearances that happened there, 2.) descriptions of how the sea behaves in different seasons and the changes the seasons have on the local ecosystem, 3.) a description of an adventure that your Fox had on The Dark Sea that has echoed through the ages, etc.

  • The goal of these wiki entries is to create a rich understanding of the environment and lore so that your entry can inspire future Fox storytellers and provide a number of launching-off points for those future authors.

  • Specificity is our friend in these entries. Be as specific as possible whenever possible.

    • Don’t say: “great wars were once fought on this terrain” when you could name those wars and quote those statistics that prove your point.

    • When in doubt if you’re being specific enough, remember the rule is: “show don’t tell.” Are you simply stating that the terrain is “strange” or are you showing that it’s strange by describing in detail the flora and fauna in the region that have never been seen elsewhere?

• The best wiki entries will connect to 2-5 other wiki entries in a way that expands the known lore and creates new connections that were previously unknown.

• Once approved (by Redemption, Palefire, and Picnic, Lightning), entries will be eternalized in the Notion wiki for all to reference.

• An example of an approvable wiki entry is:

  • “The lush grassland of the Kapatagan Plains was once a barren wasteland, but today it’s the most bountiful biome in the known Foxverse. Despite its riches, the common foxes still fear the region and stay far away, scaring their kits at night with tales of the Massacre of Kapatagan when thousands of foxes died in a day because the feud between the corsacs and the Tibetans finally boiled over into violence. They say today’s verdant environs are only possible as a result of the gallons of blood that their ancestors spilled that day irrigating the lands in exotic and frightening ways. The scholars, for all their skepticism, don’t have any better explanations for the strange bright-red growths that dot the area or the preponderance of floating macabre thoughts.”

Prior to full approval, some wiki entries may receive notes for requested revisions and will then need to re-submit the updated entry via Station.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the Discord!

The terms you will find in Station now and will eventually be explained in the wiki are:

1 Terra Volpa 2 Perdita 3 Alucinora 4 Shadowoods 5 Rostrum 6 Grand Hannibal 7 Cax 8 Multo 9 Dark Sea 10 Slow Copse 11 Chrome Peak 12 Long Lagoon 13 Oseaan 14 Sleeping River 15 Little-End 16 Mahka 17 Mimicgorge 18 Singan 19 Karai-Gol 20 Telescope hills 21 Corpus Colossi 22 Trace Fork 23 The Unknowing 24 Silly Hills 25 Kapatagan Plains 26 Stogai 27 Absentia Pass 28 Interruptors 29 Hamoban Feuen 30 Splinter Lightning 31 Not-here River 32 Hidden Hillocks 33 Somni 34 The Long Sleep 35 Belua The Insane 36 Binary fur 37 Limnus 38 Ore 39 Catalus 40 Feral Range 41 Zwilling 42 Retrogradi 43 Hummm 44 The Ellipsis 45 Genesis foxes 46 Noosphere N00b 47 Uwu 48 Smooth love potion 49 Proletkult 50 Gifted Child Syndrome

FAWQ (Frequently Asked Wiki Questions):

Do I have to be a Holder of a Fox NFT in order to participate? Yes! Station submissions will be token-gated so only confirmed holders can submit and earn bounties. We will re-visit the idea of completely open submissions at a later date.

Is there a limit to how many bounties I can complete? At the moment, no! If you’re excited about creating lore for our Foxverse, we welcome multiple submissions.

What if multiple people submit for the same term? Multiple entries can be submitted for the same term, but only one will be approved and added to the foxes wiki. The author of the approved term will receive the bounty for that term. Once an entry has been approved/accepted, the “state” of the term will change to reflect that the entry is now closed from further submissions.

Will I get paid immediately upon submitting? No, but hopefully soon after! We’ll be reviewing / approving submissions in bulk. We’ll likely batch all payments together once a week. This is subject to change as we discover what processes work best for us and the community.

What about Chronicle? Heads & Tales is not replacing Chronicle. When Chronicle comes online, it will serve as another – hopefully complementary – engine for our community to create Fox content.

Happy Anniversary!

To celebrate the beginning of Year Two of the Philosophical Foxes project, we’re getting everyone a shiny new content engine for Narrative 01.

This week, we will be launching the first of three stages for our new Heads & Tales content initiative.

The goal of Heads & Tales will be to incentivize and direct our community as we collaboratively create our characters’ shared reality in a simple and asynchronous way.

We will slowly and steadily be establishing lore, discovering new lands, and taking our beloved 2.5-dimensional foxes and turning them into full-fledged 3-dimensional characters with loves and fears, wants and needs, histories and futures.

In this initial introductory phase, the team (Picnic, Lightning, Palefire, and Redemption) have set bounties for 50 terms we would like the community to define.  Each approved definition will:

• be added to the project’s Wiki

• be tweeted from the main PF Twitter account

• pay the holder/author .01 ETH.

These 50 terms can be found at the bottom of this Mirror post. The logistics of the submission process will be described in more detail when we’re ready to receive entries later this week.

The second stage of Heads & Tales will have two parts:

1.) bounties for the best Heads submitted by the community. These submissions can be created painlessly using the Endless Thinker app.

2.) I (Red AKA Redemption) will select which Heads will be shared via the PF Twitter account and build a Story Seed (AKA Twitter thread) around each Head

Heads and Story Seeds will launch in November. More details on these will come later in this article and then even more details will follow next month when we are ready to accept submissions of Heads.

The third stage – bounties for Tales – will start in January 2023.

Heads & Tales: The Bird’s-Eye View

The three stages of Heads & Tales are designed to build on and replenish one another in perpetuity (we hope).

In Stage One, the Wiki entries will establish our “base reality” for the project’s lore.  The Wiki content will be like the soil in our story ecosystem.

In Stage Two, approved Heads will be the core of Story Seeds that will be shared with the world as Twitter threads. The most successful Seeds will sprout into Tales.

In Stage Three, holders can write (or sponsor someone else to write) Tales based on their Story Seeds.

Each Tale will set new precedents in the lore which will lead to new Wiki entries (and updates to old entries) which will in turn provide fertile new soil for the next batch of Story Seeds.

Stage One: The Fox Wiki

Wiki entries should be:

• At least 125 words.

  • There is no maximum limit, but the PF team reserves the right to edit them down if we feel it necessary.

• Fully aligned with, and inclusive of, already established Philosophical Fox lore

• Written in the voice of fox historians far in the future. This means they can be opinionated, biased, imperfect, or inclusive of knowledge not yet known to our current generation of foxes.

  • If your wiki entry is too dry (i.e. just a series of factual statements strung together, or reads like a wikipedia article), you’re not doing it right. This is a creative endeavor, not a copy+paste endeavor.

  • So, for example, if you are writing an entry for The Dark Sea, you wouldn’t simply say “it is to the West of x and the South of y.” Instead, possible angles could be: 1.) famous events and/or disappearances that happened there, 2.) descriptions of how the sea behaves in different seasons and the changes the seasons have on the local ecosystem, 3.) a description of an adventure that your Fox had on The Dark Sea that has echoed through the ages, etc.

  • The goal of these wiki entries is to create a rich understanding of the environment and lore so that your entry can inspire future Fox storytellers and provide a number of launching-off points for those future authors.

• The best wiki entries will connect to 2-5 other wiki entries in a way that expands the known lore and creates new connections that were previously unknown.

• Once approved (by me, Palefire, and Picnic, Lightning), entries will be eternalized in the Notion wiki for all to reference.

  • The logistics of submitting entries, receiving payments, etc. will come later this week as we iron out specifics with our new partner, Station.

Prior to full approval, some wiki entries may receive notes for requested revisions and will then need to re-submit the updated entry via Station.

Stages Two & Three: Story Seeds, Heads, & Tales:

We’re going to keep information on the latter two stages at a high level for now – plenty of more details will be coming down the pipe over the next few weeks.

Story Seeds are an evolution of the Heads from my original “Heads & Tales” bounty pitch. Community members will submit a Head (logistics TBD), and – when it is approved – that Head will serve as the core for a Tweet thread I will create and publish.

A Head is an image of a fox (that you own) paired with a philosophical quote that is meaningful to both you and your fox (based on their character traits and personal philosophy). These can be created incredibly easily through the Endless Thinker webpage.

Example of a Head:

So, the Heads are the meme-like images created through Endless Thinker. Story Seeds are the Tweet threads that are then built (by Redemption) around the Heads.

Each Seed will be a concise and interesting premise for a potential Tale. The goal is that each Seed contains the essential story foundations of: Character, Setting, and Story Arc.

The Seeds that drive the most engagement on Twitter will be turned into Tales and will build on those already-established story foundations of Character, Setting and Story Arc.

If you are going to turn your Story Seed into a Tale, that Tale will feature your fox (the same fox from the Seed) and the Tale’s story arc will seek to prove, disprove, or otherwise explore the quote used in your Head.

Selected Seeds will be shared by the main PF Twitter account at least 2x a week with the possibility for more if supply and demand allow.

Heads used in published Seeds will net its creator .01 ETH and open the door for the submitting Holder to write (or sponsor someone else to write) the corresponding Tale about their Fox.

Approved Tales will be inducted into our canon, published on Mirror, immortalized in The Fox Wiki, and net the author .15 ETH.

The goal will be for 50% of Seeds to be created by Redemption and 50% to be created by the community, although Redemption will fire off the first few to establish precedents for format, etc.

More specific details on the processes and logistics around Seeds and Tales will come as we get closer to launching those initiatives.

If the above wall of text was too much information, hopefully this amateur-ish infographic can help:

Let’s build our world together!

CVS,

Redemption Fox

FAWQ (Frequently Asked Wiki Questions):

Can I start writing wiki entries now?

Yes, but you won’t be able to submit them for a few days as we spin up our collaboration with Station.

We’ll be sharing more information on each initiative (Wiki entries, Story Seeds, and Tales) as we get closer to launching each phase, and would suggest that folks wait for the formal launch of Story Seeds and Tales before starting to work on Heads or Tales!

As always, if you want to create and share Heads just for the fun of it, please do so! Not all Heads have to be created with this project in mind.

Do I have to be a Holder of a Fox NFT in order to participate?

Yes! Station submissions will be token-gated so only confirmed holders can submit and earn bounties. We will re-visit the idea of completely open submissions at a later date.

Is there a limit to how many bounties I can complete?

At the moment, no! If you’re excited about creating lore for our Foxverse, we welcome multiple submissions.

What if multiple people submit for the same term?

Multiple entries can be submitted for the same term, but only one will be approved and added to the foxes wiki. The author of the approved term will receive the bounty for that term. Once an entry has been approved/accepted, the “state” of the term will change to reflect that the entry is now closed from further submissions.

Will I get paid immediately upon submitting?

No, but hopefully soon after! We’ll be reviewing / approving submissions in bulk. We’ll likely batch all payments together once a week. This is subject to change as we discover what processes work best for us and the community.

What about Chronicle?

Heads & Tales is not replacing Chronicle.  When Chronicle comes online, it will serve as another – hopefully complementary – engine for our community to create Fox content.

The First 50 Wiki Bounties:

This information will be shared in more conveniently accessible places (Discord + GDocs) once we are ready to accept submissions. At that time, we will also share the logistics of submitting your definitions and receiving your rewards.

A starting point for the first 44 terms can be found in our Mirror article “The Mythology of Foxes”. The final six terms are Fox character traits that we think could use some clarification for the community.

Without further ado:

1 Terra Volpa 2 Perdita 3 Alucinora 4 Shadowoods 5 Rostrum 6 Grand Hannibal 7 Cax 8 Multo 9 Dark Sea 10 Slow Copse 11 Chrome Peak 12 Long Lagoon 13 Oseaan 14 Sleeping River 15 Little-End 16 Mahka 17 Mimicgorge 18 Singan 19 Karai-Gol 20 Telescope hills 21 Corpus Colossi 22 Trace Fork 23 The Unknowing 24 Silly Hills 25 Kapatagan Plains 26 Stogai 27 Absentia Pass 28 Interruptors 29 Hamoban Feuen 30 Splinter Lightning 31 Not-here River 32 Hidden Hillocks 33 Somni 34 The Long Sleep 35 Belua The Insane 36 Binary fur 37 Limnus 38 Ore 39 Catalus 40 Feral Range 41 Zwilling 42 Retrogradi 43 Hummm 44 The Ellipsis 45 Genesis foxes 46 Noosphere N00b 47 Uwu 48 Smooth love potion 49 Proletkult 50 Gifted Child Syndrome

I had begun to believe I had taken leave of my faculties. You see them, just as I do? Thoughts floating in the sky?

You know, our ancestors did not see such things. All held cognition in their heads and if they wished to communicate their cerebrations, they used sound and breath and snout, as do most mammals. They spoke and sang and laughed with one another. This is how their thoughts took form. They did not hover in the air because they did not need to – no danger was there in voice or vibration.

There was one exception, of course: the Retrogradi. Those foxes infelicitous enough to have traveled to The Unknowing and returned – some said they could see thoughts as plainly as faces and that was the cause of their madness. For mad they were: scarcely able to speak, weeping in the night, screaming curses at dark, blue tree-shadows.

If I did not see these thoughts myself, following like a sticky mist, I would not believe that others could. Certainly, I never gave credence to the rumors of the Retrogradi.

And yet, here we are. Both of us. All of us. Watching the murmurs of a bodiless brain painting the horizon like so many cirrus clouds.

Why us? Why now?

All I can say is this: every creature is subject to evolution. What is perhaps less said is that evolution is a form of escape. The frog that dresses in bold color does so to dissuade the hawk. The groundling that secretes a foul smell repulses the predator. And the rodent that learns to burrow hides from…well, us. (I am ashamed to say I have known many amiable field mice – and eaten them all.) Evolution is not some grand becoming, some biological consummation. It is the flight of an entire species, cowardice in the genes.

What are we fleeing? Why do we see thoughts? To whom are we prey? I wish I knew.

Recently, I have seen a different kind of thought. It comes low and meets my gaze and carries with it a kind of weight. I swear, sometimes I see eyes peering out from behind them, as if they are trying to take on a body. Have you seen them? They are fewer, yes, much fewer. Still, they are there. And I sense they are trying to tell us something.

Every thought has an author. Of that I am certain. So, my friends: who is speaking?

— Picnic, Lightning

Plot points

• A special mint. Owners of our Philosophical Foxes genesis drop, which took place in October 2021, have received a special, exclusive Genesis Thought. Not only are these proof of collectors’ early status, but they’re also specially created: each Genesis Thought mirrors the original piece the collector already holds. Finally, it has been rumored that holding a thought may prove valuable in our roadmap – now, every early supporter has at least one in their arsenal.

• A new ability. Our generation of foxes has an ability most of our ancestors didn’t. We can see thoughts floating in the air. It was rumored that Retrogradi had this gift, though no one could be sure of it.

• A defensive evolution. This ability seems to have evolved as a form of protection for foxes. It seems as if someone or something is hunting them, listening for their words and vibration. The ability to see thoughts may have evolved as a way to communicate silently.

• New thoughts emerge. A new kind of thought has been spotted. They seem to have a different weight. These solo thoughts may have a message; or warning.

Every thought has an author. These thoughts must belong to someone, or perhaps many creatures. Where do they come from? Who do they come from?

Background

Foxes are an ancient civilization. They have existed for thousands of years. Though we can think of them as being as old as humanity, they are technologically less advanced and their world does not strictly conform to ours. We may conceive of them as neo-Athenians, with refined senses of culture, art, and philosophy, but limited technology. 

Geography

Foxes are creatures that live across three realms: 

1. Terra Volpa, a terrestrial realm. 

2. Perdita, a dark underworld. 

3. Alucinora, the dreaming realm.

Terra Volpa

Once upon a time, Foxes stretched across Terra Volpa, a large, geographically diverse terrain roughly the size of Alaska. Terra Volpa was once fully inhabited by different skulks, each with particular cultures, skills, philosophies, and trades. 

Here is a map of T-V: 

Perdita

In the northeast of Terra Volpa, is a shadowy territory that most refer to as The Unknowing. It sits on the other side of a vast mountain range that is scarcely traversable – rumor has it that at the bottom of The Unknowing’s gorge lies the entrance to Perdita, the place Foxes are supposed to go when they die.

Throughout history, few foxes have been foolish enough to attempt to cross the range to visit The Unknowing. Among those that have, only a handful have ever returned. Those that do make it back are changed, hollowed, scarcely able to speak. Foxes refer to them as Retrogradi. Often, the Retrogradi become transfixed by empty spaces in the air that may make them shriek with laughter or burst into tears. Many believe that the returners see messages, missives from Perdita, in the empty air.

Alucinora

Ancient tales tell us that there was once a time that foxes visited Alucinora (also known as the Dreaming Realm) each and every night. In sleep, foxes roamed Seven Realms, each with different properties. 

No one is certain whether it was ever possible to visit Alucinora every night. Later generations of foxes could only do so via a structured spiritual ceremony that involved an endemic root, Somni. Once consumed, Somni created vivid hallucinations and opened the doors to Alucinora. Foxes completed this ceremony twice a year as they believed rare wisdom and information came from visiting Alucinora. 

The Modern Age (and How We Got Here)

Foxes today

Today’s civilization of Foxes is a shadow of its former self. Most of the once-revered skulks have died out or disappeared. The few that remain – roughly 1,000 by some estimations – live in a state of amnesia – unaware of what came before them or who they are. Indeed, they do not even know their own names, choosing to refer to one another only by the last thought that entered their minds.

They have no memory of their ancestors and the great feats they accomplished. They have forgotten about Alucinora’s hallucinations, how to brew Somni; indeed, they do not know it even exists. The name Perdita means nothing, though sometimes fear grips foxes without visible cause. 

The remaining skulk lives in Shadowoods in the district of Rostrum. To their knowledge, the world is only as large as the copse they inhabit – they do not even know there is sea to the west. When historians write about this current age, they will refer to it as The Long Sleep. Finally, it may be coming to an end. 

Belua the Insane

Though Terra Volpa has traditionally been governed by different skulks, akin to city-states in Renaissance Italy, there have been periods in which unification has been attempted. The last and most prominent attempt was made by a sovereign called Belua the Insane. 

Belua was born to a low-class fox family. Early in his life, he was recognized for his exceptional intelligence and binary markings – traditionally a sign of good fortune in foxlore. Some even believed he may have been a Limnus – a fox with the ability to jump between the three realms instantly. 

As a young fox, Belua would stand at the Ore estuary and speak of his ambitions to unite foxes under a single banner. Crowds would ring the lagoon to catch a glimpse of him and listen to his words. He soon rose to power and brought all territories west of the Corpus Colossi under his power. For two decades he ruled in relative peace and harmony. He established a royal court with representatives from each of the skulks under his power and groomed his son, Catulus, to be his eventual successor.

In the twenty-first year of Belua’s rule, a terrible blight broke out across the territory. Some believe it arrived from the rough, northern hinterlands of Hamoban while others argued it had come from the Dark Sea, spirited on a black breeze or ferried by some traveler. Crops and livestock were laid low, leaving the civilization starving. Strife swept across the kingdom as foxes fought and stole from one another to stay alive. Belua tried everything to bring food to the kingdom, including sending parties to every corner of the kingdom. An outpost was set up in Oseaan to search for fish. Another group voyaged to the bottom of Mimicgorge in search of the fungi some said grew large as apples along the bottom of the earth. One group even crossed the Colossi, searching for wild boars in Telescope Hills. All returned empty-handed. Soon, every corner of Terra-Volpa seemed to have been searched – save The Unknowing. Though loyal to Belua, no fox was foolish enough to visit the Unknowing. And so, Belua went himself. As an example to his cowardly courtiers, he brought young Catulus with him, scarcely more than a kit. Hummm, the portly squire, joined too. 

What we know of Belua’s journey is the result of hearsay and dark rumors. As the story goes, the three made it across the Corpus Colossi that autumn and across the Kapatagan Plains. It was winter by the time they sought to make it across Absentia Pass and into The Unknowing. They had survived on few rations and whatever food they could scavenge. By the time they attempted to cross, they were nothing more than hides, dragging themselves forward foot by foot. Still, they climbed, even as they began to go mad with hunger and thirst which became so bad that Catulus would cry through the night in delirium. Soon, the kit grew sicker and thinner. 

What happened next is subject to great debate. Neither father nor son were ever seen again. Some say they fell into one of the fissures, lost forever. That is the story most wished to believe.

But a second tale grew large in the years that followed: In the heart of night, Hummm awoke to shrieking. As he hurried to the sound, he came upon a figure looming large over a body, still alive but screaming in pain.

None know more than that — if we can even say that itself is known. But no fox can bear such a vaporous truth. As years passed and the tale was told and retold, detail was added, and uncertainty sanded down. It became an accepted truth that what Hummm had seen was Belua, standing over the body of young Catulus, the kit’s flesh open to the air. Driven mad by hunger, the king had devored his son. Insane with grief and guilt, he fled to Perdita. Some say he lives there, still.

One day, years after they had departed on their expedition (and long after hope had been lost), Hummm appeared on the outskirts of Ore. It took some time for the locals to recognize their old friend for he could not speak. When the locals asked what happened, the fox could give only a small sound, a hum, which gives him the name he is remembered by. 

The Ellipsis

Eventually, the blight left Terra Volpa and crops began to grow again. But as the land began to bloom and return to life, something in the mind of foxes began to wither. They began to forget things. 

Some believed this new disease was a mutation of the blight that attacked the brains of Foxes and caused them to lose sense of themselves, their history, and their surroundings. As time passed, though, citizens started to see it as a wholly unique phenomenon. When they could remember it long enough to name it, they called it The Ellipsis, a gap between thoughts that grew wider and wider. While most considered The Ellipsis to be a disease, not all were certain. Some imprudent, credulous foxes assumed it to be a divinity — a desperate few, hoping to be spared, even began to worship it. 

As foxes’ forgetting grew, their numbers dwindled, retreating generation by generation to Rostrum.

The Roadmap (or Narrative 1)

This is our story.

Our foxes find themselves in Shadowoods.

They have no idea who they are, how they got there, or what came before them.

They are waking back up into the world, though they have existed before. They know nothing of the land beyond their immediate territory. The world, to their mind, is clouded over.

Our skulk’s mission for Narrative 1 is to remember who we are, and unveil the cause of The Ellipsis.

We must discover new parts of our world, learn about our ancestry, and identify what has caused us to forget. In searching for their ancestors, we should expect to find unfamiliar foxes and secrets.

What lies beyond Shadowoods? Who else is out there?

How to play

Now that we have outlined our world, what can we do with it? We encourage you to use this to play games with your fox -- and build out the lore of the Foxverse.

We also hope you’ll join us for our experiments with mini-games.

1. Deepen your fox’s personal lore. A canvas has been drawn. What is your fox’s story? What is their ancestry? Who were they in past lives? Use this world to ground and shade your protagonist.

2. Create permissionless art. What do the Corpus Collossi look like from their peaks? What can you see when you peer into Mimic Gorge? How does a Liminus move between realms? Share your vision with the skulk through sketches, animations, paintings, comics, and more.

3. Create permissionless stories/description. How long is the Grand Hannibal? What creatures are rumored to live in its waters? To what does the region of Zwilling owe its name? Add to the world and lore through the eyes of your fox.

4. Play mini-games. We will advance the core story of Narrative 1 by executing the roadmap, and through mini-games. These are asynchronous/semi-synchronous episodes in which the community makes decisions (e.g. “Go to the shoreline” v. “Go to the mountains”) that unveil new information and mysteries. These are similar to quests in D&D, though playing out across the wider community. These are very much an experiment, and we’ll continue to adapt and evolve as we go.

Foxes, the world is yours. Let’s explore.

Take a look below to see what we’ve been working on, including more information on “Project Chronicle,” an initiative we teased last time around.

Civis vulpes sum!

🦊💭,

WINS

• We shipped our bounty program. We are using a portion of the Foxes treasury to support community-built projects as part of a bounty program. We have proposed five initial bounties and are welcoming other suggestions, too. More here

• Our first two bounties were officially claimed (with a third on the way!). Two awesome teams have started getting to work on DoppelFox and Endless Thinker! We’re excited to see others claim the remaining bounties and propose additional projects as we move ahead. 

• We shipped v1 of Fox Inbox. Lyceum and Kagami, with input from several other Foxes, shipped the first edition of our community-curated newsletter: The Fox Inbox! If you want to learn about game design, P2E, STEPN and Joan Didion this is for you. More here.

• We held our first Twitter Space. Hannibal hosted a Twitter Spaces to talk all things foxes, storytelling, and more. I really enjoyed listening to the conversation! Recording here. 

• We strengthened our dev team. We added a developer to the Foxes team! They’re working on an upcoming drop for Genesis holders. We’re also vetting another technical solution on the agency side, which we think could be valuable. While this has taken longer than we initially planned, I’m reminded that hiring great talent takes time.

• We refined the Fox mythology. We’re going to be sharing more information about the world that Foxes inhabit and the journey we are on soon… I am extremely excited about this. Has anyone spotted the first clue? 👀

SPOTLIGHT: CHRONICLE

In last month’s update, we shared that we had started working on “Project Chronicle.” This month, I thought I’d share a little more information about what we’re building and the implications it has for Foxes. 

As you know, we were motivated to create Foxes because we believe:

1. NFTs are an intriguing mechanism for storytelling

2. Many profile picture NFTs were acting as de-facto “characters” for unwritten stories

3. Many of these didn’t have the necessary ingredients to be dimensional characters, lacking virtues, baggage, and secrets

The fundamental thesis was that by adding invisible, rich character data to NFTs, they would become more interesting narrative objects and create better stories. 

Chronicle is an attempt to demonstrate the power of NFT storytelling, the uniqueness of Foxes, and a way to give holders a chance to build their lore. 

We plan to do that by using GPT-3 to “write” stories based on the specific traits of your Fox. Here’s how we expect it to work:

1. Go to chroniclenft.com

2. Connect your wallet

3. Select the Fox you’d like to feature in your story

4. Select the metadata traits you’d like to emphasize

5. Generate a story using GPT-3

6. Share that story on Twitter or (eventually) mint as an NFT – a page in your character’s story

In the near future (~1 year), this could develop into an extremely vivid platform that supports different genres, characters, and lengths. For example, by connecting your wallet, you could tell Chronicle to create a love story featuring your Fox, Coven, and Ape that runs for at least 600 words. This could incorporate “relationship NFTs” (links that explain how NFTs are connected) and additional trait packs to give more color to your non-Fox NFTs. 

In the far future (??), this could develop into an entirely new model of on-demand media. In a world in which our most compelling characters are “NFT clusters” (a character, trait packs, dilemmas, relationships — all on chain) you could use Chronicle to create rich fan-fiction on an endless basis. Instead of Lord of The Rings being limited to a three-book series, it could be explored ceaselessly from different angles, in varied fractal realities.

For Foxes, I believe Chronicle could be an extremely effective commercial model. If we can demonstrate that profile picture NFTs need an additional “NFT clusters,” we demonstrate the uniqueness of our project and have the chance to establish ourselves as a purveyor of these items and the stories they help create. A small fee could be taken to support our work on this front, with the Fox Treasury as a beneficiary.

It cannot be overstated that THIS IS VERY MUCH AN EXPERIMENT. We are dealing with complicated novel technologies stacked on top of each other. Moreover, there are certainly other smart people interested in on-chain storytelling and they may be better suited or capitalized to make this a reality. 

Our attitude toward Chronicle is that it is an exciting way to play with Foxes, an opportunity to learn, a fun way to tinker on the frontier of the future – with commercial upside. 

MISSES

• We could use more framing. Some of the thinking around Foxes requires further definition and framing. Though I have written about the principles of the project at length, what I think is lacking are the “rules of the game.” Where are Foxes? What is our mission as characters? Initially, I expected this to arrive piecemeal – and for some of it to come from the community – but I now think we need to adapt that approach. While I hope the community increasingly leads the way on the creative side of things, better structure is needed. Expect some significant news about the Foxverse soon.

• Some things are taking longer than expected. Namely around engineering (we were lacking firepower – since resolved) and some design for an upcoming drop (still working through.) This can be frustrating on all sides, but again, finding talent takes time. As market mania has faded, we increasingly have the time and space to build deliberately.

FOXES IN THE WILD

• https://twitter.com/web3w_me/status/1530169014084853762

• https://twitter.com/abyjoseph_eth/status/1523208799535869954

• https://twitter.com/HannibalTheFox/status/1527017864594657283

• https://twitter.com/RedemptionPhox/status/1526957633948770305** **

We are following a path of “progressive decentralization.” That term, coined by Jesse Walden, notes the practice of starting with a more centralized structure and slowly handing more and more power to the community over time. The benefits of this approach are that it allows a centralized group to move quickly at first, ensuring core infrastructure is robust and that a genuine community is being built. As maturation occurs, the project reaps the benefits of true decentralization.

What does this mean in the context of Philosophical Foxes? 

At maturity, we hope to be a community-governed organization. This means that decisions will be made by all of us, including how to best allocate a shared treasury. 

Today’s announcement represents a step towards that goal. We’re glad to introduce Fox Bounties, a program designed to financially support community creations. 

While we’re starting by putting out bounties for six specific projects, over time, we hope the community will proactively come up with ideas that expand the limits of the Foxverse.

We’re putting out bounties for five ideas: 

1. Foxes Wiki

• Description: Create a Notion page that consolidates important information, ideas, ongoing projects, and more about Philosophical Foxes. This is a hub and home for our community and can be a creative reflection of who we are. It will also need to be maintained. 

• Example: Explore Nouns

• Bounty: 0.5 ETH

2. The Endless Thinker

• Description: A web tool that lets you replace the text in your Fox or thought bubble with something new. Think of it as a lightweight, easy-to-use way of giving your NFT new thoughts. Inspired by Red’s suggestion in Discord. 

• Example: N/A

• Bounty: 2 ETH

3. The Bureau for Foxification

• Description: We want our Foxes to have mimetic value. One way to do that is to make it easier for any picture to have a splash of Fox energy – whether that be a thought bubble, Fox ears, or something else. We encourage maximum creativity. 

• Example: Nounify

• Bounty: 2 ETH

4. The Philosophy Machine

• Description: A tool to discover interesting philosophical quotes, thought experiments, artistic works, and paradoxes. We can find beauty and meaning in these serendipities.

• Example: N/A

• Bounty: 1.5 ETH

5. DoppelFox

• Description: Who is your Fox’s doppelganger? Based on the metadata, find the Fox that is most similar to yours. (You might also figure out which Fox is least like yours.)

• Example: N/A

• Bounty: 2.5 ETH

In tackling these ideas, we encourage you to make them your own! Share your vision as part of the application process, described below. 

Questions

What is the Fox Bounty Program?

We have reserved 8.5 ETH from Philosophical Fox’s earnings to financially support the creation of these projects that we believe are in the best interests of our community. A different bounty is attached to each project based on the work we believe it will take to build. 

If you’re interested in the project but think further budget is needed, let us know in your bounty application. (More details below.)

Why 8.5 ETH? 

It’s a good starting point. We want to make sure we’re reserving enough money to complete Narrative 1 and as such are being conservative. We also want to take an iterative approach that prioritizes shipping, learning, and improving. 

How do I apply for the bounty? 

Here’s the process. 

1. Write up a proposal in Google Docs. (Here’s a template.)

2. Send the proposal to ohwow [@] philosophicalfoxes.com

We’ll aim to follow up in ~5 days with any follow-ups and next steps. 

Do I need to have a Philosophical Foxes NFT to participate? 

No. 

We will prioritize holders and those that have been active contributors to date but are open to all. If you want to help push our work forward, we consider you a Fox 🦊. 

Can I help someone else with one of these? 

We welcome Foxes to team up to work on these projects. Reach out to backed projects to see if you can help, or create a team of your own.

What if I need more ETH to complete the project? 

Let us know in your proposal how much you expect the project to cost. We’ve created each project budget to emphasize shipping and iterating. We are open to going beyond this in cases where we feel this is merited. 

What if I have an idea outside of the bounties listed? 

We encourage you to write a proposal. 

How will payment work?

Payment will be made upon completion of the project. In cases in which support is needed upfront, please note this in your proposal. (Over time, we may move to a different system but this feels like the cleanest place to start.) 

It’s good to be back with another update. As you may know, our goal is to build one of the most durably valuable NFT projects in the world and to do so in public. 

To that end, find another recap of wins, misses, and more. 

Civis vulpes sum!

🦊💭,

WINS

We continue to move the project forward and undertook initiatives designed to firm up the project structure. 

• We reached clarity on a legal plan. After talking to a number of crypto lawyers (thank you to everyone for the recs!) we have a clear path forward. First, we’re going to establish Philosophical Foxes as an LLC. That will protect it and the project contributors in the short term, and allow us to do important things like pay taxes, sign contracts, and conduct other off-chain operations as necessary. Once in place, we can begin exploring a more decentralized structure for the future. Based on conversations to date, there are many forms that this can take, and we think there’s value in further growing the community before making moves here.

• We started a search for another developer(s). We need some more firepower. We started recruiting a solidity engineer to join our team and have received some good applications so far. We’re currently feeling optimistic about bringing someone aboard this month. More here

• We kicked off a shared Foxes newsletter. Great honor must be bestowed upon Lyceum for taking charge to create a monthly curated newsletter. “Fox Inbox” (what a name, h/t to Laguna Lacuna!) will consolidate thoughtful suggestions from the community and provide a high-signal reading list. Further credit to Voot Voot, Hannibal, Pontus, and Runco who have also contributed. 

• We initiated a Twitter Spaces series. Great honor must be bestowed upon Hannibal for leading an initiative to host Fox Twitter Spaces. The first catch-up will take place on May 16 at 11:30 AM ET. Further credit to Lyceum, Laguna Lacuna, Voot Voot, and Baby Universe for getting involved in the thinking behind this. 

• We co-wrote a poem. We took our first steps into literary co-creation by writing “Once Upon a Midnight Silent,” line by line in Discord. Credit to authors Baby Universe, Laguna Lacuna, and Red. More here

• We had some of our best conversations. This may be less tangible, but this month sparked some of our most fascinating, thoughtful discussions. We further explored the project’s idea space and the practice of community co-creation.

• We kicked off “Project Chronicle.” We’re working on a project designed to give members new ways to interact with their Foxes and extend the story of their protagonist. This is a multi-month project and we look forward to sharing more about this soon.  

• We announced a Storyteller in Residence. We welcomed Tyler Riewer/Destined for Fame to the team to head up bottom-up narrative initiatives. We think he’s a real coup and are so excited to have him join us. More info

MISSES

There weren’t a ton of big misses this month, though there are always ways to improve. Here’s one big place we feel like we can level up:  

• Finding a structure for more community participation in project goals. We’ve noticed a marked increase in new ideas in the community over the past month. That’s amazing! It feels like a sign we’ve found leaders and created space for ideation. While the community will continue to define and advance certain community-led projects, we think there’s value in creating a clearer mechanism for Foxes to contribute to existing goals, too. We’re working on something here.

FOCUS

Here is what the team is currently focused on. We’d welcome any thoughts or help from you, the broader community.

• Executing on the right legal structure. We have a path forward. Now we need to implement it. First up: LLC. 

• Establishing the right accounting system for the project treasury and payment structure. We’ve been reviewing different tools and vendors. We hope to get this in place over the next month, but it will not stop any meaningful shipping.

• Implementing a program to better empower leaders. Many of the Foxes mentioned in this piece are community leaders with great ideas. We’re planning to ship a framework that supports Foxes learning in (and building) even further. 

• Shipping exclusive Genesis Drop. We’ve been working on the design and a few other aspects. I would like to ship within the next six weeks, if not earlier. 

• Refining thesis on project framing and direction. Our community discussions have taken the initial vision into new, unforeseen places and provided added clarity on what is most exciting about what we’re doing. I’m excited to keep sharpening this together!

OPEN QUESTIONS

Here are things we’re mulling over. Let us know your take!

• What is the right balance of definition and experimentation? There’s not a definitive answer to this question, but it’s something I think we’re going to learn and re-learn as we build. When is more top-down definition helpful? When does it hamper creativity? 

• What community activities should we encourage most explicitly? The community continues to grow stronger and more vibrant. What projects should we encourage people to undertake? Do we want more artistic derivatives? More tools? More media? Something else?

• Finding loops. We want Foxes to be a self-sustaining, self-governed project in the long-term. What loops can we create that will drive continued value into the project? I have some early ideas here, but would love to hear other thoughts.

FOXES IN THE WILD

Take a look at our beautiful Foxes, appearing across the internet.

• https://twitter.com/StoneAtwine/status/1521190538250182656

• https://twitter.com/indigo03/status/1516055279523475457

• https://twitter.com/abyjoseph_eth/status/1516086192206663686

• https://twitter.com/dave_krugman/status/1514804262248718336

• https://twitter.com/samflan/status/1514964552345133063

• https://twitter.com/Foxhound131/status/1515522433117265920

• https://twitter.com/iambradq/status/1511677750377132037

• https://twitter.com/age_shulman/status/1516826368071417858

• https://twitter.com/FloorisRising/status/1514538094522904581

• https://twitter.com/ChrisCoCreated/status/1513239656145510404

Share any favorites we might have missed! 🦊💭

If you’re reading this, thank you. It means you’re at least somewhat curious about this Storyteller in Residence role, the future of Philosophical Foxes, and whoever the hell I am.

My actual-name-in-real-life is Tyler Riewer. I’m the Creative Director at charity: water. A husband and father. A student of storytelling. An exceptionally strong parallel parker who sometimes laughs at his own jokes (that’s real-life metadata).

On Discord, you’ll better know me as Destined for Fame.

I’ve spent most of my career-life telling stories. For eight years in Advertising— on behalf of brands like Red Bull, Nike, and A&E Television. And then for nearly a decade in the nonprofit space— using data and technology to build empathy and inspire donors to take action.

Like many of you, I fell in love with this project the moment I read NFTs that Think back in October of last year… because it felt uniquely positioned around story.

Many of the NFT projects I’ve seen over the past year have been about community. A lot of them have focused on digital identity. Some have been forward-thinking about IP. But very very few have been built around story. Imperfect characters that can evolve over time. Increasingly deep narratives. Relationships that can be developed not just among NFT holders, but between the NFTs themselves.

I was giddy about that journey when I claimed my Fox earlier this year, and I’m even giddier to be taking on this role to help push forward the boundaries of on-chain storytelling today.

That’s my hope. That I can be a thought partner to you. Create some weird, memorable mythological moments of my own. And, ultimately, help bring value to your experience as a Fox-holder— as well as the Foxes themselves.

Proud to be part of this skulk, and can’t wait to connect more with each of you.

Civis vulpes sum!

— Destined for Fame

I heard a voice beyond the trees.

Being young I followed,

My ears twitched,

The siren's song pulled me closer

Promising it all.

An orange haze filled the air.

Something caught fire, I thought?

But the scent was cool.

A dark flame pricked, licked,

Snickered, flickered

Then in a great rush, climbed

The branches of a tree to eat the leaves.

Instead of devouring them, the flame transformed

The leaves into bright orange flowers.

Each blossom with a set of teeth

Legs sprouted next, then eyes

Filled with a hunger for me!

Growing with every stride

Until the gap between us closed and we stood

Face to face, fire recognizing fire.

A collaborative poem by

Laguna Lacuna

Picnic, Lightning

Baby Universe

Red

My warmest greetings.

I am glad to share the first edition of what will become regular monthly updates on the progress of Philosophical Foxes.

Something I believe strongly is that there is great power in building in public. Not only does it increase accountability, but it also surfaces new ideas, and aligns a community. To that end, my goal is to make Philosophical Foxes the NFT project that builds in public most transparently and aggressively.

We will share the highs and lows and challenges of starting a community, membership, and narrative experiment from scratch. Expect lessons, bumps, iterations, and explorations along the way.

Civis vulpes sum!

🦊💭,

WINS

Since launching the full version of the project, a strong community has formed driven by a sincere desire to learn, explore, and tell stories together.

• We created Maxims. We shipped our Seven Founding Maxims with the help of the community. We were particularly excited to land on such a thoughtful collection focused on creating true value and fostering a friendly, welcome environment. Cementing these values should help us move more effectively going forward. Read more

• We hosted a hackathon. Over the weekend of March 25, we hosted a “Dreaming Hackathon,” designed to explore a new realm for the Foxes and give the community a chance to connect and express its creativity. It was community-led thanks to the help of Laguna, Lacuna, and Hinkie. It was genuinely amazing to see so many great ideas and stories come to life! Read more

• We have a flag. We saw the creation of our first “remix,” the Foxes founding flag. Fourteen Foxes contributed to have the “profile” of their Fox represented. Over time, we will add new Foxes, up to a maximum. I found this extremely exciting because it was entirely led by the community and created a true “relic,” something tangible that has added to our lore. Huge credit to Laguna, Lacuna for spearheading, and to Voot Voot for being a key conversant. Read more

• We raised money for Ukraine. All proceeds from the flag were donated to efforts aiding Ukraine. That came to 1.4 ETH, with the possibility of further donations as the flag grows. How cool!

• We have been verified on OpenSea and Rarible. Excellent! Hopefully, it’s clearer than ever where new friends can join our skulk and diminishes the chance of further copycat projects.

Beyond these standout highs, there were innumerable other great moments and tangible improvements. We kept iterating on the structure and content of the Discord, played around with Nouns remixes, and came up with lots of new ideas.

MISSES

Not everything was perfect, of course. To keep improving, we must be sober-minded about failings and missed opportunities. (Not all are true “misses” as much as unsolved problems.)

• Some OG Fox holders were bummed by the drop. Philosophical Foxes began, explicitly, as an experiment. Through The Generalist, I had been learning about NFTs and thought it would be fun to experiment in creating a collection with real narrative depth. To bring that to life, we created 100 Foxes and 11 solo thoughts, going from start to finish in a week. I had doubts about what response the collection would receive and had no idea of where it would go. We had no community, no roadmap, and no promise of future development. As it happened, things went very well. The core premise resonated and the first drop sold out quickly. In the aftermath, Foxes sold for much higher prices beyond the mint. As I found myself increasingly excited about the potential for NFTs in general and Foxes in particular, we decided to expand the project and devote many more resources to it. We took $0 in profit but instead rolled it into building out the Fox world. My initial thought was that holders would find this exciting as Foxes would go from an experiment without a plan to a true project with a mission and vision. To offer an advantage, we invited existing holders to participate in a pre-sale. My big mistake was in failing to recognize that these OG holders – especially those that bought at high prices in the secondary markets – would likely see the implicit value of their Fox fall in the short term. (I remain convinced this is the best move for all holders in the long term.) That can be very painful and cause real anxiety. NFT holders are also used to being “rugged” (aka scammed) by projects and are reasonably sensitive to maneuvers that might look unfair. I should have realized this upfront, communicated the change better, and offered a more tangible reward to early holders. Though it was a minority that expressed concerns, these discussions created a slightly weird vibe in the early days of the Discord and deflated some momentum going into the full mint.

  • Lesson. Every new drop or addition to the collection has the potential to change incentives and valuations. Maximize potential for new value creation and minimize/subsidize any dislocated value. Over-communicate.

  • Action. I’ve personally spoken to anyone that raised this topic and explained the thinking in detail. We’re also working on a special drop that directly rewards Genesis holders for being a part of the first collection.

• Room for improvement on enacting up-voted recommendations and responding to ad hoc suggestions. In general, I’d like us to be moving faster in responding to issues within the Discord and enacting recommendations we think are beneficial to the project. (In addition, I think we can do a better job of outlining our thinking in the instances where a recommendation may make sense in theory, but cannot be acted on immediately).

  • Action. Clarify roles internally around moderation.

• Finding the right legal structure. As things stand, Philosophical Foxes isn’t governed by a traditional legal structure. That’s true of many (most?) DAOs and NFT projects but isn’t an optimal state of affairs, particularly as we begin on a path of progressive decentralization. This is something we need to figure out and will be a priority over the next 1-2 months.

  • Action. I’m speaking with a few crypto legal experts to figure this out. Stay tuned.

FOCUS

Here is what the team is currently focused on. We’d welcome any thoughts or help from you, the broader community.

• Establishing the right legal structure. We need to decide on the safest, most efficient legal structure for Foxes that sets us up for the long term.

• Establishing the right treasury structure. We need to decide on the best ways to allocate and grow the Fox Treasury. We want to do so while setting out on a path of progressive decentralization.

• Selecting leaders to undertake key initiatives. We need to hire further technical support. We also want to appoint internal leaders to help drive forward key initiatives. These will be experimental to begin with.

• Encouraging experimentation and ideation. We’re seeing some awesome early remixes coming to life. We think the number of additive remixes is a good KPI of a healthy NFT community. We’re keen to find more ways to make this happen without it feeling forced.

• Exploring new models of value creation. What are the most impactful things we could do to increase the long-term value of the project? Is it hosting more events? Running reverse drops? Expanding the lore? Investing in merch? Experimenting with campaigns? Opening up IP even more explicitly? Creating a more granular Foxes marketplace? There are truly 1000s of ways to improve Foxes. I’d like to prioritize and try a few that align with our ethos.

ROADMAP CHECK

To review the full roadmap, check out the Philosophical Foxes site and scroll towards the bottom. Of the remaining items, here’s the current status.

• Secret reveal. Ideation phase is mostly finished. Looking for additional technical support to bring this to fruition. No target release yet.

• Sacred garments (merch). We started working with a production company to produce our first collection. Target release of early fall.

• The Somni. Ideation phase 50-75% complete.  Looking for additional technical support to bring this to fruition. No target release yet.

• Wild Foxes drop. Not a focus yet.

• Solo thought drop. Not a focus yet.

• Love poem drop. Not a focus yet.

OPEN QUESTIONS

Here are things we’re mulling over. Let us know your take!

• Should Foxes be fully, explicitly CC0? Spiritually, this is in line with the project and feels like where we’re headed. Do others like this approach? When is the right time to outline this, explicitly?

• Would the community be interested in taking part in treasury activities? We’re thinking about putting a portion of the full Fox earnings into a community treasury that could be allocated to new projects. (We’d keep enough aside to make sure we can finish the roadmap). Would this be fun? What would it unlock for us?

• What other “relics” can we create together? The Foxes flag is a great example. It adds something meaningful to our community. It is tangible and adds to our lore. What other items could we make? Books? Comics? Animations?

FOXES IN THE WILD

Take a look at our beautiful Foxes, appearing across the internet.

• https://twitter.com/QEDInvestors/status/1507060694377709568

• https://twitter.com/LifeWithArjay/status/1506028547009232897

• https://twitter.com/ChrisCoCreated/status/1500869370897129472

• https://twitter.com/sminocha_/status/1490801494647476224

• https://twitter.com/Jehoseph/status/1508393664749350918

Share any favorites we might have missed!