Flip & the
Die of Possibility

Flip

Character accepted—with one tiny rules correction: you assigned +1, +2, +3, +2, duplicating +2 and skipping +0. I’m accepting it anyway. Why? Because Flip appears to have crawled out of a drainage pipe and I already respect him.

FLIP — Level 1 Scoundrel

🎒 Lockpick • Rope • Fermented Beans

💨 STEALTH BOMBING: Flip can temporarily vanish while releasing a supernatural methane-and-sulphur cloud. Extremely effective in enclosed spaces. Extremely flammable. Extremely difficult to explain to authorities.

Fatal Flaw — THE COIN: Whenever Flip must make a meaningful decision, fate demands two options. Heads = first option. Tails = second. Once flipped, Flip must genuinely attempt the result.

I'll handle the coin.

• • •

You regain consciousness inside a coffin.

The Worst Possible Tuesday

Not metaphorically.

Your enormous eyes open in absolute darkness.

Something is sitting on your chest.

Something alive.

You hear tiny wet breathing.

Then:

"pspspspspsps."

Your gills flare.

The creature whispers directly into your face:

"Flip. Don't scream. They think you're dead."

You have several questions.

Unfortunately, the coffin suddenly lurches sideways.

Outside, muffled voices:

*"Careful with that one! The bounty says ten thousand gold if the body reaches Lord Gristle intact!"*

Ten.

Thousand.

Gold.

Interesting.

Another voice answers:

"Why's the coffin smell like beans?"

Silence.

The creature on your chest whispers:

"Oh no."

You hear a metallic click.

Someone outside is unlocking the coffin.

Then another sound.

Everyone outside screams.

The earth shakes.

A bell begins ringing somewhere overhead.

And then a distant voice bellows:

The creature on your chest grabs your collar.

Eight Seconds

Your oversized eyes finally adjust.

Sitting on your chest is a six-inch-tall goblin wearing a tiny business suit.

He is holding a miniature crossbow.

His briefcase is handcuffed to his ankle.

And written across his forehead in red ink are the words:

He points toward the coffin lid.

"We can ambush whoever opens it."

Then he points downward.

"Or you can kick through the bottom. We're apparently on a bridge."

Flip has encountered his first meaningful decision.

The Coin demands tribute.

HEADS: Ambush whoever opens the coffin.

TAILS: Kick through the bottom.

I flip.

...

Oh dear.

Flip must kick through the bottom of his own coffin.

Tell me how Flip attempts it.

Gravity Remembers

Flip folds himself like a deep-sea goblin mousetrap.

The tiny suited goblin sees what’s happening.

His eyes widen.

"Wait. Are you about to—"

Flip's legs fire downward.

The cheap coffin boards don't break.

They cease being a meaningful political entity.

Wood explodes outward.

For approximately half a second, Flip feels magnificent.

Then gravity remembers him.

The coffin is indeed on a bridge.

A very high bridge.

Flip drops through the shattered bottom, immediately followed by the goblin, several pieces of coffin, his rope, his fermented beans, and—somehow—a funeral wreath reading:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA—" screams the goblin.

Flip falls into daylight.

And finally sees what the hell is happening.

Above him stretches Gristlebridge, currently under attack by a gigantic crimson dragon wearing what appears to be a golden bureaucratic vest.

On its side:

The Tax Dragon inhales.

Then breathes fire across the bridge.

Three bounty hunters leap screaming into the river rather than face an audit.

But Flip has his own problem.

He looks downward.

There is no river beneath him.

There's a city.

The bridge crosses between two enormous towers roughly four hundred feet above the streets.

Gravity Remembers

The goblin plummets beside Flip, tiny tie flapping violently upward.

You have perhaps ten seconds before becoming architecture.

Then Flip notices three things falling nearby:

His rope.

The goblin's briefcase.

And his precious can of fermented beans.

Far below, a gigantic parade balloon shaped like the King is drifting across the street.

Close enough to potentially save you.

Probably.

But there's something else.

The coffin remains above.

And through the hole Flip just created, a bounty hunter leans down and aims a crossbow directly at him.

A pause.

Stop Falling

The goblin screams upward:

A crossbow bolt comes screaming toward Flip.

This isn't a decision yet.

This is survival.

Flip twists.

The bolt misses his throat by an inch—

—and strikes the falling rope instead.

The bolt carries the rope sideways and embeds itself into a wooden support beneath the bridge.

The rope catches.

One end is now dangling directly past Flip.

Holy shit.

You have a lifeline.

But the goblin is falling away from it.

So are the beans.

And the briefcase has popped slightly open.

Inside it, Flip catches a glimpse of something impossible:

A human heart made entirely of gold.

It beats.

A pulse of golden light erupts from the briefcase.

Every window in the surrounding buildings shatters simultaneously.

The Tax Dragon stops attacking the bridge.

Its enormous head turns.

It looks down.

Directly at Flip.

Its pupils narrow.

"Oh," says the goblin.

"That's catastrophically bad."

The dragon dives.

• • •

Flip has a meaningful decision.

But this one has three possibilities.

The Coin cannot choose among three.

Fortunately, the universe hates Flip enough to provide a solution.

Stop Falling

The goblin produces another coin while falling.

HEADS — prioritize saving the goblin.

TAILS — prioritize grabbing the golden-heart briefcase.

The briefcase tumbles away.

"MY PENSION!" screams the goblin.

Flip must save the goblin.

But how is still yours to decide.

You're falling at horrifying speed.

The rope is several feet to your right.

The goblin is about twelve feet below and drifting left.

The King balloon is rapidly approaching below.

The Tax Dragon is diving from above.

Your lockpick is in your pocket.

Your beans are falling nearby.

And Stealth Bombing is ready.

What does Flip do?

Double Elimination

For one glorious moment, Flip stops falling.

He starts aiming.

You flatten your arms against your sides, point your gilled head downward, and turn yourself into the world's least aerodynamic torpedo.

The goblin looks up.

"Why are you coming toward me FASTER?!"

Flip accelerates.

Thirty feet.

Twenty.

Ten.

You collide with the goblin, grab his tiny forearm, and nearly rip his business jacket off.

But the beans are still falling.

Flip reaches.

Your fingers brush the can.

It spins away.

No.

No.

Not like this.

The goblin sees your expression.

He looks at the beans.

He looks at you.

"Are those important?"

Flip's enormous troglodyte eyes narrow.

The goblin sighs.

"Of course they're important."

He raises his miniature crossbow.

The bolt pierces the can.

Fermented bean juice sprays through the air.

Flip opens his mouth.

What follows would be described by future historians as The Feeding.

You descend through a cloud of beans like a whale filtering krill.

Beans enter your mouth.

Your gills.

Your nostrils.

Possibly one eye.

The goblin watches in horror.

"What the fuck are you?"

The can is empty.

Something awakens.

Deep.

Deep within Flip.

His abdomen makes a sound that no healthy organ has ever made.

The Feeding

The goblin freezes.

"Flip?"

"What was that?"

Flip smiles.

• • •

Normal effect: invisibility + devastating methane/sulphur burst.

Bean Overcharge: ???

You're still plummeting toward the city.

Flip rotates.

Feet downward.

Goblin under one arm.

Ass pointed toward oblivion.

You activate Stealth Bombing.

Flip disappears.

The goblin does not.

To everyone watching below, a tiny businessman is suddenly floating through the air held by an invisible force.

Then—

The sky turns brown.

Birds fall unconscious.

A nearby church bell cracks.

The King's parade balloon visibly wrinkles.

Somewhere, a dog begins speaking Common.

And Newton's laws file for immediate bankruptcy.

Oh.

Oh no.

• • •

The methane ignites against a burning fragment falling from Gristlebridge.

There is a moment of silence.

Then Flip invents gastrointestinal rocketry.

You and the goblin launch sideways at horrifying speed.

You ricochet off the King's parade balloon.

You change trajectory.

Straight upward.

Past a clock tower.

Past three horrified pigeons.

Past the falling golden-heart briefcase.

The goblin reaches out instinctively.

His handcuff reconnects with the briefcase.

You continue upward.

Straight toward the diving Tax Dragon.

Its eyes widen.

Your invisibility ends.

The dragon now sees:

One amphibious man.

One screaming accountant goblin.

One golden heart.

And a rapidly expanding cloud of flammable methane beneath them.

Unauthorized Emissions

The Tax Dragon tries to pull up.

Too late.

Flip collides face-first with its snout.

Everything stops.

For one surreal instant, you're lying across the nose of an airborne dragon.

The goblin is dangling from your ankle.

The golden-heart briefcase is dangling from him.

The dragon goes cross-eyed trying to look at you.

Silence.

Then:

"Citizen."

Smoke curls from its nostrils.

*"Do you possess documentation establishing lawful ownership of that methane?"*

The goblin whispers:

"Don't answer that."

The dragon continues.

"Because according to Royal Revenue Code subsection eighty-seven..."

Its enormous claw produces—

—to your horror—

a clipboard.

"...you currently owe the Crown approximately..."

It examines the blast radius below.

*"...sixteen thousand gold pieces in unauthorized atmospheric-emission duties."*

The goblin whispers:

"Flip."

The dragon checks another box.

"Plus three thousand for striking a Revenue Service employee."

The goblin:

"Flip."

Another box.

"Plus a five-gold administrative processing fee."

The goblin looks utterly disgusted.

"Those fucking animals."

Then the golden heart beats.

The dragon freezes.

Its expression changes.

Not anger.

Fear.

It stares at the briefcase.

"Where..."

The clouds above the city begin spiraling.

"Where did you get that?"

The goblin stops joking.

"Flip."

He looks at you.

"We need to leave."

The heart beats a third time.

Something answers from beneath the city.

Every building shakes.

Far below, the central plaza cracks.

A colossal stone hand punches upward through the street.

People scatter screaming.

Another hand emerges.

The Delivery

Then horns.

Then a crown.

Something absolutely enormous is climbing out from underneath the capital.

The Tax Dragon whispers:

"The King buried that thing three hundred years ago."

The goblin replies:

"Technically, the King wasn't alive three hundred years ago."

The dragon slowly looks at him.

The goblin grimaces.

"Yeah. That's actually the problem."

Undead King Aldric takes his first step.

Mr. Pibbles tightens his grip.

*"Listen carefully. My name is Mr. Pibbles. I'm Deputy Comptroller of Necromantic Expenditure."*

He points at the golden heart.

"That is the Heart of King Aldric."

Then he points toward the gigantic crowned creature emerging from beneath the city.

"And that..."

A three-hundred-foot skeletal monarch tears itself free from the earth.

Its empty eye sockets ignite.

Mr. Pibbles looks back at you.

"...is King Aldric."

A pause.

"The current king is his grandson."

Another pause.

"Also his son."

The Tax Dragon mutters:

"Royal genealogy is considered classified."

Undead King Aldric takes his first step.

Mr. Pibbles tightens his grip.

*"Flip, whoever hired those bounty hunters knew the Heart was inside my briefcase."*

His expression darkens.

"Which means your funeral wasn't an execution."

"It was a fucking delivery."

And somewhere high atop the palace, a mysterious figure lowers a spyglass.

They're watching you.

They smile.

Then they flip a coin.

End of Chapter I.

The King Who Owed Himself Money

King Aldric had been dead for three hundred years.

This had, until approximately forty seconds ago, been widely considered one of his more stable characteristics.

Now he was standing in the middle of the capital.

Three hundred feet tall.

Crowned.

Skeletal.

Furious.

And, judging by the way entire buildings trembled when he inhaled, extremely committed to getting his heart back.

Flip remained sprawled across the Tax Dragon’s snout.

Mr. Pibbles remained hanging from Flip’s ankle.

The golden heart remained hanging from Mr. Pibbles.

Nobody involved appeared especially pleased with this arrangement.

King Aldric turned his enormous skull toward them.

His burning eye sockets narrowed.

Mr. Pibbles looked down at the briefcase.

Then at Flip.

Then at the king.

“Right,” he said quietly.

Aldric raised one colossal skeletal hand.

The Tax Dragon cleared its throat.

“Technically, Your Former Majesty, there are outstanding inheritance duties—”

Aldric backhanded the dragon.

Flip, Pibbles, dragon, heart, clipboard and approximately three hundred pages of tax documentation were launched across the city.

Flip flew through a stained-glass window.

Pibbles followed.

The Tax Dragon did not.

It continued into a bell tower.

Flip crashed onto a marble floor.

He slid.

Pibbles landed on his stomach.

The golden heart bounced once.

Twice.

The King Who Owed Himself Money

And rolled across the chamber.

Flip lifted his head.

They were inside a vast hall.

Gold columns.

Purple banners.

Paintings of kings who all suspiciously shared the same chin.

And at the far end of the room—

a banquet.

Dozens of nobles were frozen mid-meal.

One duke still had a chicken leg halfway into his mouth.

A woman wearing six pounds of jewelry slowly lowered her wine.

A child pointed at Flip.

“Mummy.”

“Yes?”

“The dead sewer man came through the window.”

“I see that.”

Pibbles stood.

He brushed glass from his tiny suit.

Then he looked around.

His expression changed.

“Oh.”

Flip followed his gaze.

At the head of the banquet table sat a man wearing a crown.

Not skeletal.

Not three hundred feet tall.

Very much alive.

Very much horrified.

The current King.

King Reginald IV.

Grandson of Aldric.

Also, apparently, son of Aldric.

Royal genealogy remained distressingly ambitious.

Reginald stared at the golden heart rolling across his dining hall.

Then at Pibbles.

Then at Flip.

Then at the gigantic undead monarch visible through the shattered window.

“Pibbles.”

“Your Majesty.”

“I specifically instructed you to take the Heart somewhere safe.”

“I did.”

Reginald looked around at the shattered window.

“At what point did this become safe?”

The King Who Owed Himself Money

Pibbles pointed at Flip.

“Him.”

Flip blinked.

Reginald stared.

“That?”

Flip’s gills twitched.

Pibbles nodded.

“That.”

King Reginald stood.

He looked at Flip for a long moment.

Then said:

“Why does he smell like a burning pantry?”

Before Flip could answer, the wall behind the throne exploded inward.

A skeletal finger the size of a siege tower pushed into the hall.

King Aldric’s voice shook dust from the ceiling.

The current king visibly shrank.

“Grandfather.”

A pause.

Aldric leaned closer.

Every noble in the hall looked at Reginald.

Reginald closed his eyes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Pibbles whispered to Flip:

“Remember the classified genealogy?”

Flip nodded.

“Very classified.”

Aldric’s finger curled around the palace wall.

Reginald stepped forward.

“I borrowed it.”

Aldric roared.

“It was a long-term loan.”

Pibbles quietly opened his briefcase.

Removed a ledger.

Checked something.

“Actually,” he said, “the original agreement does classify it as a secured sovereign asset.”

Everyone looked at him.

Pibbles adjusted his spectacles.

“I’m an accountant.”

Then something moved beneath the banquet table.

Flip noticed first.

A shadow.

Small.

Fast.

Moving toward the golden heart.

His enormous eyes focused.

A hand emerged beneath the tablecloth.

Black glove.

Silver ring.

The King Who Owed Himself Money

The ring bore a symbol:

a coin split perfectly down the middle.

The mysterious figure from the palace roof.

Or someone connected to them.

They were here.

They were reaching for the Heart.

Flip had only seconds.

And unfortunately—

this was a meaningful decision.

The Coin demanded tribute.

Stop the mysterious thief.

Grab the Heart yourself before anyone else can.

I flip.

…

Flip must stop the thief.

But how is entirely up to you.

The thief is under the banquet table.

The Heart is three metres away.

King Aldric is tearing open the palace.

King Reginald is arguing about contract law.

Pibbles has a miniature crossbow.

Flip has a lockpick.

His rope is gone.

The beans are gone.

And Stealth Bombing is still recovering.

What does Flip do?

Improvised Ballistics

Flip's enormous eyes flick between three things.

The thief.

The golden heart.

Mr. Pibbles.

A thought enters Flip's mind.

It is not a good thought.

But it has excellent velocity.

Flip grabs Pibbles around the waist.

The tiny accountant immediately recognizes the expression on Flip's face.

“No.”

Flip pulls him backward.

“Flip.”

Further.

“Whatever you're thinking—”

Flip plants one foot against the banquet table.

“—I am a Deputy Comptroller of the Royal Treasury and I explicitly refuse to become—”

“What?”

Pibbles looks beneath the table.

Sees the thief.

His expression changes instantly.

“...oh.”

The miniature crossbow comes up.

Flip grins.

Pibbles sighs.

“Fine.”

He chambers a bolt.

“Throw me, you disgusting bastard.”

• • •

Might +1

Flip unleashes everything his troglodyte musculature can provide.

Pibbles leaves his hands at approximately forty miles per hour.

His little legs trail behind him.

His tie becomes horizontal.

His face remains, somehow, completely professional.

The nobles watch in stunned silence.

One elderly countess applauds.

Pibbles flies directly toward the banquet table.

The thief looks up.

Too late.

The bolt misses spectacularly.

Improvised Ballistics

It passes between the thief's legs.

Under a chair.

Through a roast chicken.

Across the banquet hall.

And embeds itself in King Reginald's crown.

The King freezes.

Pibbles has approximately half a second to contemplate this.

“Shit.”

Then—

Pibbles himself hits the thief squarely in the face.

Apparently, Flip's plan contained redundancy.

• • •

The thief goes backward.

Pibbles goes forward.

They disappear underneath the banquet table.

There follows a sequence of extremely concerning noises.

The banquet table shakes violently.

A noble quietly retrieves his wine before it spills.

Then the thief erupts from beneath the table.

She's human.

Young.

Black leather coat.

Silver half-coin ring.

Blood running from her nose.

And Mr. Pibbles is attached to her back like an enraged administrative backpack.

“FLIP!” he screams.

The thief reaches backward, grabs him—

—and throws him.

Flip catches Pibbles.

Perfect catch.

Pibbles lands in Flip's arms.

He adjusts his tie.

“Thank you.”

Then vomits slightly into Flip's shirt.

“Apologies.”

The thief snatches the golden Heart.

The entire palace shakes.

Outside, Aldric stops moving.

His blazing eyes focus on her.

Improvised Ballistics

The thief smiles.

And reaches into her coat.

She produces—

a coin.

Not an ordinary coin.

One side is white.

The other is black.

She looks directly at Flip.

For the first time, Flip feels something strange in his pocket.

His own coin is vibrating.

The thief notices.

Her smile disappears.

“You.”

Flip blinks.

She stares at him.

“Where did you get your coin?”

Pibbles slowly looks up at Flip.

King Reginald stops arguing.

Even King Aldric goes strangely quiet.

The thief takes one step backward.

“Show me.”

Flip reaches toward his pocket—

—and suddenly cannot move his hand any farther.

Not physically.

Something deeper.

The same compulsion that forces him to obey his coin has awakened.

The thief whispers:

“Impossible.”

Then the ceiling caves in.

King Aldric's skeletal hand plunges into the banquet hall.

Everyone scatters.

The thief dives.

Flip dives.

Pibbles screams something about structural insurance.

The golden Heart flies upward.

Aldric's enormous fingers close around it.

Golden light erupts through his bones.

The Plan Has Redundancy

For one magnificent second, it appears the obvious thing is happening.

The dead king has reclaimed his heart.

Problem solved.

Then Aldric screams.

Not triumphantly.

In agony.

Cracks of brilliant purple light spread from the Heart, through his hand, along his arm, and into his ribcage.

Pibbles's face collapses.

“No.”

Aldric's skeleton begins changing.

Bone twists.

Expands.

Fuses.

Something dark starts growing around him.

Flesh?

No.

Armor.

Black metal pours from inside his bones.

His crown stretches into enormous horns.

His burning eyes turn purple.

The thief stares upward.

She looks genuinely terrified.

“That isn't his Heart.”

Pibbles looks at her.

“What?”

She points.

“That's what we were trying to tell your idiot King!”

Reginald emerges from beneath the banquet table.

“Excuse me?”

“The Heart of Aldric was destroyed two hundred and eighty-seven years ago!”

Pibbles goes completely still.

The thief points at the glowing object embedded in Aldric's chest.

“That thing is a lock.”

Silence.

Flip's hand instinctively touches the lockpick in his pocket.

Pibbles notices.

He looks at Flip.

Then the lockpick.

Then at the three-hundred-foot undead abomination outside.

“No.”

Flip slowly looks at him.

“No.”

Flip raises an eyebrow.

“Absolutely not.”

Outside—

Two enormous black wings explode from Aldric's back.

Buildings disappear beneath them.

The Plan Has Redundancy

The sky turns purple.

And behind Aldric's ribs, something begins pounding from the inside.

Not his heart.

Something imprisoned within him.

Aldric staggers.

His ribs bend outward.

Something laughs.

Deep.

Ancient.

Happy.

The thief grabs Flip by the collar.

“Listen to me. My name is Mara Vey.”

She holds up the split-coin ring.

“We're called the Order of the Edge.”

She points at Flip's pocket.

“And unless I'm very, very wrong—”

Flip's coin suddenly leaps out by itself.

It floats between them.

Spinning.

Heads.

Tails.

Heads.

Tails.

Faster.

Faster.

Until both sides become a blur.

Mara goes pale.

“—you aren't cursed to obey that coin.”

The coin stops.

Perfectly balanced.

On its edge.

Mara whispers:

“The coin is obeying you.”

And somewhere inside the transformed corpse of King Aldric—

something laughs again.

• • •

🔐 Lockpick: ready

👺 Pibbles: mildly concussed, operational

🫀 “Heart”: revealed to be an ancient lock

👤 Mara Vey: Order of the Edge

💰 Tax liability: still 19,005 gold, because apparently the apocalypse does not suspend tax law

☠️ King Aldric: something has gone profoundly wrong

Then the thing inside Aldric speaks.

Not aloud.

Inside Flip's head.

The Plan Has Redundancy

Little coin-bearer.

Flip's gills flare.

Nobody else reacts.

Come closer.

The lockpick in Flip's pocket becomes warm.

You can open me.

And then:

I can give you what you need.

A vision flashes through Flip's mind.

A mountain of gold.

Far more than ten thousand.

Far more than nineteen thousand.

Enough to solve whatever terrible reason Flip needed that money by next Thursday.

The voice whispers:

Come.

Mara grabs Flip's shoulder.

“Whatever you're hearing—don't listen.”

Pibbles looks at her.

“He's hearing something?”

“Oh, that's bad.”

King Reginald raises a hand.

“I'd like it formally recorded that none of this occurred during my reign.”

Pibbles stares at him.

“You're currently reigning.”

“Then change the fucking date.”

But Flip has another meaningful decision.

And his coin is still standing impossibly on its edge.

For the first time in Flip's life...

it does not fall.

No Heads.

No Tails.

The choice is waiting.

For Flip.

What do you do?

The False Heart

For perhaps the first time in his life, Flip is presented with genuine free will.

No heads.

No tails.

No cosmic instruction.

An entire universe of possibility stretches before him.

Flip considers this responsibility for approximately 0.7 seconds.

Then he kicks it.

The coin rockets across the banquet hall.

Mara's jaw drops.

“Did you just—”

The coin strikes King Reginald directly between the eyes.

It ricochets.

Off a silver platter.

Off a chandelier.

Off Pibbles' forehead.

“Again?!”

The coin spins through the air.

Mara watches its trajectory.

Her face slowly changes.

“No…”

The coin hits the marble floor.

Bounces.

Tink.

Bounces again.

Everyone watches.

Flip.

Mara.

Pibbles.

Reginald.

Several nobles.

A chef holding a terrified lobster.

The coin comes down—

—and lands flat.

Mara rushes forward.

“Don't touch it!”

Everyone freezes.

She kneels.

Slowly looks down.

And her expression becomes one of absolute incomprehension.

Flip peers over her shoulder.

The coin has landed on—

neither side.

There is no head.

There is no tail.

The surface now displays a symbol that wasn't there before.

A tiny boot.

Pibbles adjusts his spectacles.

“Was that always there?”

Flip shakes his head.

Mara whispers:

“You gave it a third answer.”

King Reginald rubs his forehead.

The False Heart

“His mystical power is kicking things?”

Pibbles considers this.

“So far it's been remarkably effective.”

Then the coin begins to glow.

Words burn themselves into the marble beneath it.

Mara backs away.

More words appear.

Flip's eyes widen.

“Alternative?”

The entire palace goes silent.

Then—

King Aldric's enormous chest explodes outward.

Not completely.

His ribs wrench apart like the doors of some gigantic skeletal prison.

Purple fire floods the capital.

Inside his chest is something enormous.

Chains.

Hundreds of them.

They disappear downward into a darkness that should not physically fit inside Aldric's body.

And in that darkness—

two eyes open.

They are bigger than houses.

The voice inside Flip's head returns.

Interesting.

The lockpick in his pocket becomes white-hot.

Flip yelps and throws it onto the floor.

The ordinary little lockpick twists.

Lengthens.

Black metal crawls across it.

Within seconds, it has transformed into an ornate key almost as long as Flip's forearm.

Mara stares at it.

“That's a Threshold Key.”

Pibbles looks at her.

“In Common?”

“A key that opens things which aren't supposed to have doors.”

Pibbles looks toward Aldric.

Then back at the key.

“I preferred not knowing.”

Mara grabs the key.

Or tries to.

The False Heart

Purple energy launches her backward through a dessert trolley.

Pibbles winces.

“Custard injury. Nasty.”

The key floats upward.

Then shoots directly into Flip's hand.

Can unlock the impossible.

Side effects unknown.

Extremely unlikely to comply with warranty law.

Flip's mystical coin suddenly jumps from the floor and returns to his other hand.

The new boot symbol glows.

And Flip understands something instinctively.

His flaw has changed.

Not disappeared.

Changed.

When Flip faces a meaningful binary decision, fate still demands a toss.

A Third Answer

Heads: Option One.

Tails: Option Two.

But once per chapter, Flip may invoke:

Flip may reject both outcomes and attempt an improvised third choice.

The universe is under no obligation whatsoever to make that choice sensible, safe, or survivable.

Pibbles reads the glowing inscription over Flip's shoulder.

He slowly smiles.

“Oh, that's dangerous.”

Mara climbs out of the custard.

“You have no idea.”

Then King Aldric moves.

His gigantic skeletal hands grab his own ribcage.

He is trying to force it closed.

Whatever is imprisoned inside him is trying to force it open.

Aldric screams down toward the palace:

That gets everyone's attention.

Not give me my heart.

Not kneel before your king.

Run.

Aldric looks directly at Flip.

For the first time, the ancient king's voice sounds lucid.

Terrified.

The enormous eyes inside his chest widen.

Chains begin snapping.

Mara goes pale.

“What exactly is inside him?” Flip asks.

Mara looks at Pibbles.

Pibbles looks at King Reginald.

Reginald looks at the ceiling.

“Why is everyone looking at me?”

Mara grabs him by his royal collar.

Reginald swallows.

“Well.”

Outside:

Another chain breaks.

“Well?”

A Third Answer

“My grandfather conquered this continent three hundred years ago.”

“Yes.”

“He had help.”

Pibbles closes his eyes.

“Oh, fuck.”

Reginald continues.

“According to the restricted archives, Aldric made a pact with something before his first battle.”

Mara's grip tightens.

“What something?”

Reginald looks toward the gigantic eyes.

“The archives only call it…”

A chain thicker than a castle tower snaps.

Reginald finishes:

“The God Beneath.”

Silence.

Pibbles raises one finger.

“I have a question.”

Mara turns.

“What?”

“Is that a metaphor?”

A colossal black hand emerges between Aldric's ribs.

It grabs the edge of his chest.

Pibbles nods.

“Answered.”

• • •

Then Flip hears another sound.

Very faint.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

His Threshold Key is vibrating.

Not toward Aldric.

Toward the palace floor.

Flip looks down.

There is a tiny keyhole in the marble beneath the King's throne.

Mara sees it too.

Her eyes widen.

“That wasn't there before.”

Pibbles kneels beside it.

“Where does it go?”

King Reginald becomes extremely interested in looking elsewhere.

Everyone notices.

Mara slowly turns toward him.

“Reginald.”

“No.”

“What's under the throne?”

“Nothing.”

The Threshold Key begins screaming.

Not metaphorically.

The key itself emits a tiny metallic:

Reginald sighs.

“Fine!”

He points downward.

“The Royal Emergency Vault.”

Pibbles perks up.

A Third Answer

“What's inside?”

“Gold.”

Flip's oversized eyes become enormous.

Reginald continues.

“Artifacts.”

Flip grips the key.

“Escape tunnels.”

Interesting.

“And one object my family has been forbidden to touch since Aldric's reign.”

Mara whispers:

“What object?”

Reginald hesitates.

Then:

“A second coin.”

Flip's mystical coin goes completely still.

Outside—

The final chain begins to fracture.

You have seconds.

The vault keyhole is directly ahead.

The God Beneath is nearly free.

And for once, Fate doesn't need to ask.

This isn't a binary decision yet.

Flip can attempt anything.

What does he do?

Key. Floor. Lock. Now.

Flip does not deliberate.

Deliberation has never done anything useful for him.

He points at the floor.

Pibbles immediately understands.

Flip points at the keyhole.

Mara dives toward him.

Flip raises the Threshold Key.

King Reginald backs away.

“Actually, there are several important security procedures—”

Flip SLAMS THE KEY INTO THE FLOOR.

Wits +3

The key fits.

Of course it fits.

That's what makes it horrifying.

Flip turns it.

Nothing happens.

Pibbles blinks.

“Underwhelming.”

Then the entire palace says:

Not a voice inside the palace.

The palace itself.

Every door flies open.

Every window unlatches.

Every cabinet bursts apart.

Every prison cell beneath the palace opens simultaneously.

Every chastity belt within three miles—

King Reginald raises a finger.

“We needn't catalogue everything.”

Fair.

Then the marble floor beneath the throne develops a seam.

The entire throne rotates sideways.

Beneath it:

Darkness.

A spiral staircase descends deep underground.

And from somewhere below comes the most beautiful sound Flip has ever heard.

Clink.

Another clink.

Then the unmistakable shifting avalanche of—

gold.

Flip's pupils dilate until his eyes are essentially black dinner plates.

Key. Floor. Lock. Now.

Pibbles grabs his sleeve.

“Stay focused.”

“Gold.”

“Yes.”

“Gold.”

“The apocalypse, Flip.”

“Gold apocalypse?”

“No!”

Behind them—

The final chain snaps.

Everyone turns.

Outside, King Aldric throws his head backward.

His ribcage tears completely open.

Two enormous black hands emerge.

Then shoulders.

Horns.

A face begins forcing itself into the world.

The sky goes black.

Every candle extinguishes.

Every shadow in the banquet hall suddenly points toward Aldric.

The God Beneath speaks.

Pibbles swallows.

“Right.”

He points downstairs.

“Vault.”

Mara nods.

“Vault.”

Reginald nods.

“Vault.”

A noble still holding his chicken leg raises it.

“Vault?”

Everyone runs.

• • •

Flip takes the stairs three at a time.

Pibbles rides his shoulder.

Mara follows.

Reginald follows Mara.

Behind Reginald come approximately twenty-seven nobles, two guards, a chef, the child from earlier—

and the lobster.

Nobody remembers inviting the lobster.

Nobody has time to investigate.

Above them:

The palace foundations shake.

Dust pours from the ceiling.

The staircase spirals downward.

Fifty feet.

One hundred.

Two hundred.

Then—

Flip reaches the bottom.

And stops.

Everyone behind him crashes into everyone else.

“Why did we—”

Then Pibbles sees it.

“Oh.”

Mara arrives.

“Oh.”

Reginald arrives.

“Oh.”

The lobster arrives.

It expresses no opinion.

Key. Floor. Lock. Now.

Before them stands a cavern.

Not a room.

A cavern.

And filling it—

Gold.

Mountains of it.

Coins.

Bars.

Jewels.

Crowns.

Chests.

Statues.

Enough wealth to buy cities.

Enough wealth to buy armies.

Enough wealth to settle Flip's original 10,000 gold problem thousands of times over.

Flip takes one trembling step forward.

Pibbles grabs his ear.

“Don't.”

Flip takes another.

“Flip.”

Another.

“Remember cursed treasure?”

Flip stops.

Slowly turns.

“Which treasure?”

Pibbles looks at the cavern.

“Statistically?”

He gestures broadly.

“Most of it.”

Fair.

Mara pushes past them.

“We aren't here for the gold.”

Flip looks physically wounded.

She searches the chamber.

“The second coin. Find it.”

Reginald points toward the far end.

“There.”

Atop an obsidian pedestal sits a small glass box.

Inside:

A coin.

Flip's coin immediately begins vibrating.

The second coin is strange.

Completely black.

No markings.

No heads.

No tails.

No edge that Flip can see.

It looks less like metal and more like someone punched a coin-shaped hole through reality.

Mara approaches it.

“No one touch it.”

Pibbles:

“Strongly support that.”

Flip:

“Touch it?”

“No.”

“Got it.”

Mara turns.

“I'm serious.”

“Absolutely.”

She looks at Flip.

Flip looks at the coin.

She looks harder at Flip.

Flip looks innocently at a nearby pile of gold.

Key. Floor. Lock. Now.

Mara points two fingers at her eyes, then at Flip.

“I am watching you.”

Then the ceiling explodes.

Stone rains down.

The God Beneath's enormous hand punches through into the vault.

Everyone scatters.

One finger lands in the gold.

Coins erupt through the cavern like shrapnel.

Flip dives behind a treasure chest.

A golden goblet whistles past his head.

A diamond embeds itself in a wall.

The lobster somehow catches a coin.

Nobody sees this.

The black hand reaches toward the pedestal.

Mara screams:

Pibbles raises his crossbow.

“Know what?!”

“That coin isn't treasure!”

“Then what is it?!”

Mara looks at Flip.

“Remember how his coin controls choices?”

Flip clutches his coin.

“Yes?”

She points at the black coin.

“That one controls—”

The God's fingers close around the glass case.

Mara finishes:

“—consequences.”

The cavern goes silent.

Even the God pauses.

Pibbles lowers his crossbow.

“I'm going to need considerably more explanation.”

Mara points at Flip's coin.

“Choice.”

Then the black coin.

“Consequence.”

Her eyes widen.

“Separated, reality stays probabilistic.”

Pibbles stares.

“In Common.”

“You choose something, and nobody knows exactly what happens next.”

“Normal existence. Understood.”

“If someone possesses both coins…”

Key. Floor. Lock. Now.

She looks toward the God.

“…they can choose an action and dictate its outcome.”

Pibbles processes this.

“Oh.”

Another second.

The God's finger and thumb descend toward the black coin.

Flip is perhaps twenty feet away.

Too far to reach it normally.

Mara is pinned beneath a fallen beam.

Pibbles has his crossbow.

Reginald is hiding behind a statue of himself.

Stealth Bombing has finally recovered.

The Threshold Key is still in Flip's hand.

And the cavern contains enough gold to make even very stupid ideas financially possible.

Then Flip's own coin leaps from his pocket.

It spins.

Use Stealth Bombing to launch yourself toward the black coin.

Use the Threshold Key on something in the vault and trust whatever impossible door it creates.

The coin rises.

Flip watches.

It falls.

Stealth Bombing.

The God's fingers are inches from the black coin.

Pibbles looks at Flip.

Then sees the expression.

“Oh no.”

Flip begins assuming the position.

Pibbles backs away.

“No beans this time.”

Flip's stomach rumbles.

Pibbles backs away faster.

“Flip.”

The God Beneath reaches.

Flip's cheeks tighten.

“Do not aim that at the treasury.”

Stealth Bombing is ready.

The black coin is twenty feet away.

A primordial god is reaching for it.

There are approximately six million gold pieces behind you.

And you have just been handed the tactical capabilities of an invisible methane-powered projectile.

How does Flip execute this?

The Royal Emergency Vault

Flip looks at the black coin.

Then at the God Beneath.

Then at six million gold pieces.

A sensible person might launch himself toward the artifact.

Flip has identified a more ambitious target:

Pibbles sees him turn around.

“No.”

Flip lowers his center of gravity.

“No no no.”

He points his backside toward the treasury.

Mara, still trapped beneath the beam, understands first.

“...actually.”

Pibbles whirls toward her.

“If he disperses the hoard—”

King Reginald pokes his head from behind his statue.

“She's right!”

Pibbles looks betrayed.

“You too?!”

Reginald points at the primordial hand.

“I'd rather have inflation than annihilation!”

Pibbles's eye twitches.

“That sentence has murdered my profession.”

Flip crosses two fingers.

Activates Stealth Bombing—

—and disappears.

There is a moment of profound silence.

Then:

pfffft.

Pibbles blinks.

“Was that it?”

Flip's stomach answers.

• • •

Environmental target: SIX MILLION GOLD PIECES

Roll: 17 + 3 = 20 — EXTREME SUCCESS

Oh.

Oh, this is going to have macroeconomic consequences.

The methane blast strikes the nearest mountain of gold.

The mountain moves.

Not much.

But enough.

One coin rolls downhill.

It strikes another.

That coin strikes three more.

The Royal Emergency Vault

Three become twenty.

Twenty become hundreds.

Pibbles watches.

“No.”

Hundreds become thousands.

“No.”

The entire mountain shifts.

Pibbles's face goes slack.

“Everybody down.”

Six million gold pieces achieve liquidity in the most literal possible sense.

A tidal wave of currency erupts across the Royal Emergency Vault.

Gold climbs the walls.

Gold consumes statues.

Gold overturns chests.

Gold sweeps nobles off their feet.

King Reginald disappears beneath his own monetary policy.

Pibbles grabs the lobster.

Nobody knows why.

The lobster grabs Pibbles.

This proves unexpectedly useful.

Mara braces herself against the beam.

The God Beneath's enormous fingers close—

—but instead of one black coin, they encounter approximately three hundred thousand perfectly ordinary ones.

The wave strikes the pedestal.

The black coin disappears.

The God freezes.

Its fingers rake desperately through the avalanche.

But every handful contains thousands.

Gold.

Silver.

Copper.

Commemorative coronation pieces.

A novelty coin depicting King Reginald riding a swan.

The God Beneath roars.

Flip becomes visible atop the moving gold.

He has absolutely no idea.

This means the plan is working.

“YES!” Mara screams.

Pibbles surfaces beside her.

“What?”

Mara's celebration stops.

“Oh.”

• • •

The avalanche carries Flip across the cavern.

Coins batter his legs.

Choice and Consequence

A jeweled crown hits him in the ribs.

Then—

something strange happens.

Flip's own coin begins pulling toward the gold.

Not downward.

Sideways.

Like a compass.

Flip feels it dragging his hand.

He understands.

The Choice Coin can sense its counterpart.

The God cannot distinguish the black coin.

Flip can.

“Pibbles!”

The goblin emerges from the gold wearing six necklaces and half a helmet.

“What?!”

“I can find it!”

“Excellent!”

Pibbles looks around.

“Can you also find the treasury?!”

“No!”

Pibbles closes his eyes.

“Of course not.”

Flip follows the pull.

Left.

Stronger.

Left again.

The gold is still moving.

Then his coin jerks violently.

There.

Something black flashes between thousands of golden pieces.

The Consequence Coin.

Flip lunges.

His fingers close.

On a coin.

Flip pulls it free.

Looks.

It's gold.

It depicts Reginald riding the swan.

“Fuck.”

The black coin disappears again.

And then—

The God Beneath slams both hands into the treasury.

Gold erupts upward.

The entire cavern becomes a glittering hurricane.

Flip is thrown through the air.

Mara screams.

Pibbles screams.

Reginald screams from somewhere beneath approximately eighty years of public expenditure.

Choice and Consequence

And the Threshold Key flies from Flip's belt.

It tumbles through the storm.

End over end.

Then embeds itself—

—in midair.

Everything stops.

Not slows.

Stops.

Millions of coins hang motionless.

Flip hangs horizontally three feet above the floor.

Pibbles is suspended upside down.

The lobster is suspended beside him.

Mara's hair floats around her.

The God's enormous hand is frozen inches from the treasure.

Only the Threshold Key moves.

It has found a lock.

In empty space.

Pibbles looks at it.

“Flip.”

“Yeah?”

“You unlocked the air.”

A thin vertical line appears.

Purple light leaks through.

The line widens.

Something invisible opens like a door.

Beyond it is—

not the vault.

Not the palace.

Not anywhere Flip recognizes.

A vast black ocean stretches beneath a silver sky.

And standing on the water is a man.

Tall.

Thin.

Barefoot.

His face hidden beneath a hood.

He is holding an umbrella despite there being no rain.

In his other hand:

a coin.

But his coin has three sides.

He looks through the doorway.

Directly at Flip.

Then at the frozen God Beneath.

Then at Mara.

Finally at Flip's coin.

“Oh,” the stranger says.

“You're early.”

Flip manages:

“Early for what?”

The stranger smiles beneath the hood.

“The end.”

Pibbles, still upside down:

“Could you perhaps be more specific?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.”

The stranger steps toward the doorway.

Six Million Answers

Mara suddenly screams:

For the first time since meeting her, she looks more frightened of something than she does of the God Beneath.

The stranger stops.

His smile disappears.

“Mara?”

Mara goes white.

He tilts his head.

“Well.”

He steps closer.

“That's unexpected.”

Mara struggles against frozen time.

“Flip, listen to me. That is Silas Vey.”

Flip looks at her.

“Vey?”

“My father.”

Pibbles:

“Oh, good. Family.”

Mara:

“He died fourteen years ago.”

Pibbles:

“Less good.”

Silas taps his three-sided coin against the umbrella.

“That's one interpretation.”

Then Flip notices something.

Embedded in the transparent material of Silas's umbrella handle—

the black coin.

The Consequence Coin.

Flip looks toward the treasury.

The black flash he had been chasing is gone.

Silas already has it.

But that should be impossible.

Unless—

Mara understands at the same moment.

“You changed the consequence.”

Silas smiles.

“Eventually.”

He looks at Flip.

“You're carrying Choice.”

He raises the umbrella.

“And I carry Consequence.”

Then he gestures toward Flip's newly transformed coin.

“But you somehow created a third state.”

His eyes settle on the little boot symbol.

Silas begins laughing.

Not villainously.

Delightedly.

“You kicked it?”

Flip nods.

Silas laughs harder.

“You absolute fucking idiot.”

Six Million Answers

Pibbles looks offended on Flip's behalf.

“It worked.”

“Oh, I know.”

Silas wipes his eye.

“That's why this is terrifying.”

The God Beneath suddenly moves.

Just one finger.

Time is starting again.

Silas glances toward it.

“Right. We have perhaps thirty seconds.”

He extends his hand toward Flip through the impossible doorway.

“Come with me.”

Mara screams:

Silas ignores her.

“I can explain the coins.”

The God moves another finger.

“I can explain why Flip cannot choose.”

Another.

“I can explain what the God Beneath actually is.”

Another.

“And…”

Silas looks directly into Flip's enormous eyes.

“…I know why Flip needs ten thousand gold pieces by next Thursday.”

Everything goes quiet.

Pibbles slowly looks at Flip.

“We never actually discussed that.”

Silas extends his hand farther.

“Come.”

Mara reaches toward Flip.

“Don't.”

And suddenly—

Flip's coin begins to rise.

Take Silas Vey's hand and enter the impossible doorway.

Trust Mara and close the Threshold Door.

The coin spins.

Up.

Down.

And then Flip sees the tiny third symbol flash between Heads and Tails.

Fuck Your Options is available once this chapter.

The coin hasn't landed yet.

You can let Fate decide between Silas and Mara…

or Flip can kick destiny in the teeth again and attempt a third option of your own.

The Door in the Air

The coin rises.

Heads.

Tails.

Silas.

Mara.

Choice.

Consequence.

Destiny itself appears to be holding its breath.

Flip watches the coin descend.

His face hardens.

Pibbles sees the leg drawing backward.

“Oh, for fuck's sake.”

Flip pivots on his planted foot and swings with every ounce of fury his weird amphibious body can produce.

...

There are moments in history when kings change nations.

When armies change borders.

When discoveries change civilizations.

And then there are moments when a troglodyte hybrid roundhouse-kicks probability itself.

Flip's foot connects.

Not ting.

Not tink.

The sound is enormous.

The Choice Coin becomes a golden projectile.

It tears through the frozen treasury.

Coins suspended in midair explode outward along its trajectory.

Silas's smile vanishes.

“Wait.”

Mara's eyes widen.

“Flip—”

Pibbles understands.

He begins laughing.

“Oh, you magnificent idiot.”

The coin rockets straight toward the enormous hand of the God Beneath.

And hits it.

Precisely.

Between the knuckles.

For one second—

nothing.

Then reality makes a noise like glass cracking.

A fracture of golden light spreads across the God's finger.

Across its hand.

Up its wrist.

The God Beneath looks down.

Its colossal eyes widen.

It whispers:

The Door in the Air

“...choice?”

Then the boot symbol appears on its hand.

Silas screams:

Too late.

The symbol ignites.

And Flip suddenly understands what he has done.

The third side wasn't merely another outcome.

It was refusal.

Flip has just given a primordial entity something it has apparently never possessed.

Not freedom.

Not yet.

Something much worse.

An alternative.

The God Beneath stops trying to escape.

Its fingers relax.

The treasury stops shaking.

Everyone stares.

The creature slowly looks at its own hand.

Then at the broken chains hanging from King Aldric.

Then at the palace.

Then at the world it was apparently moments away from destroying.

Its voice enters every mind in the capital.

“I... do not have to?”

Silas lunges through the Threshold Door.

Mara screams back:

The God looks at Silas.

The Alternative

“Made?”

Silas freezes.

Oh.

He shouldn't have said that.

The enormous eyes narrow.

“I was... made?”

Pibbles, still suspended upside down beside the lobster, whispers:

“This feels like an extremely bad time for it to develop self-awareness.”

The God Beneath looks down at its enormous black hands.

Then toward the sky.

Then at Flip.

“Coin-bearer.”

Flip swallows.

“Yeah?”

“What else can I do?”

Nobody moves.

Nobody breathes.

Flip has somehow become a career counselor for an apocalyptic deity.

Pibbles whispers:

“Choose your next words with extraordinary care.”

Then—

the three-sided coin in Silas's hand begins spinning.

Silas looks down.

“No.”

Faster.

“No, no, no.”

The black Consequence Coin inside his umbrella begins vibrating.

Silas grabs it.

His coin rises out of his palm.

Choice is embedded in the God's hand.

Consequence is trapped in Silas's umbrella.

And Flip's third state has somehow created a bridge between them.

The two artifacts begin pulling toward one another.

Silas realizes what's happening.

His expression changes from panic—

to absolute terror.

“Mara.”

She stares at him.

For the first time, he doesn't sound mysterious.

He sounds like her father.

“Mara, run.”

The Consequence Coin tears free.

The umbrella explodes.

The black coin rockets through the Threshold Door.

Silas dives after it.

The Alternative

Mara screams:

He misses.

The Consequence Coin enters the treasury.

Straight toward the God Beneath.

Choice glows gold.

Consequence glows black.

Pibbles screams:

Mara:

Pibbles:

Flip watches the coins converge.

Twenty feet.

Ten.

Five.

Then the Threshold Key in Flip's hand suddenly burns.

The impossible doorway behind Silas begins collapsing.

Silas looks back.

He has seconds before he's trapped on the other side.

Mara reaches toward him.

Silas reaches toward her.

Father and daughter.

Fourteen years apart.

Three feet away.

Separated by an impossible door.

And then—

Choice and Consequence collide.

There is no explosion.

No thunder.

No purple fire.

Just—

click.

Like two pieces of a mechanism finally returning to their proper positions.

The two coins fuse.

Gold and black swirl together.

The Die of Possibility

They flatten.

Expand.

Something drops from the God's palm.

Small.

Metallic.

It lands on the vault floor.

Pibbles stares.

“Is that…”

Flip walks toward it.

It isn't a coin anymore.

It's a die.

Six-sided.

Black and gold.

Each face carries a symbol.

💀 A skull.

And—

Mara whispers:

“The Choice Coin and the Consequence Coin…”

Silas finishes from beyond the collapsing doorway.

“…were never two artifacts.”

He looks at Flip.

“They were a broken one.”

The God Beneath speaks:

“What is it?”

Silas answers.

“The Die of Possibility.”

Pibbles:

“That sounds expensive.”

Silas:

“It isn't.”

Pibbles relaxes.

“It decides which realities are allowed to happen.”

Pibbles stops relaxing.

The God reaches toward it.

Mara reaches toward it.

Silas reaches through the collapsing doorway.

King Reginald finally surfaces from the gold.

Nobody cares.

And Flip—

Flip is closest.

The die lies at his feet.

For perhaps the first time, he understands why the coin always demanded two options.

It wasn't deciding his actions.

It was limiting reality to two possibilities.

But now there are six.

And one of them is his.

The boot glows.

The God Beneath whispers:

“Roll it.”

Mara:

“Don't.”

The Die of Possibility

Silas:

“Absolutely don't.”

Pibbles:

“I have insufficient information to form an opinion.”

Reginald:

“What are we talking about?”

The lobster:

click click.

Everyone looks at the lobster.

Pibbles narrows his eyes.

“Suspicious.”

Then the Threshold Door begins to collapse completely.

Silas has perhaps five seconds.

Mara realizes.

“Dad!”

She runs toward him.

The God reaches for the die.

Pibbles reaches for Mara.

Reginald reaches for a nearby sack of gold.

The lobster reaches for Pibbles's crossbow.

And somewhere above them, King Aldric's gigantic skeleton begins collapsing onto the palace.

Everything is happening at once.

Flip has already used Fuck Your Options this chapter.

No third choice.

No refusal.

No kicking Fate again.

But Fate has changed.

There are no longer two possibilities.

There are six.

Flip looks down.

The Die of Possibility waits at his feet.

And Flip knows exactly what comes next.

Thursday

He picks it up.

Everyone screams:

Too late.

He throws.

The die tumbles across the marble.

💀

It bounces once.

Twice.

Spins.

Slows.

And lands on—

...

The Threshold Key tears itself from Flip's hand.

The collapsing doorway EXPLODES open.

Not one doorway.

Thousands.

Doors appear everywhere.

In walls.

In ceilings.

Under piles of gold.

Floating in midair.

Tiny doors.

Gigantic doors.

Wooden doors.

Iron doors.

A pink door with flowers painted on it.

One door is visibly made of meat.

Pibbles points at that one.

“Never.”

Agreed.

Every door opens simultaneously.

And beyond every doorway is a different place.

A jungle beneath three moons.

A battlefield frozen in time.

An endless library.

A tavern where everyone appears to be Flip.

A moonlit cemetery.

The bottom of an ocean.

A quiet suburban kitchen containing an extremely confused elderly woman.

And through one enormous golden doorway—

a mountain.

Not a mountain of gold.

A literal mountain.

Except someone has carved a face into it.

Flip recognizes that face.

His own.

Underneath it, in letters hundreds of feet tall:

Pibbles stares.

“Why is there a treasury named after you?”

Flip stares.

“No idea.”

Mara looks through another door.

Thursday

Then freezes.

“Flip.”

Her voice has changed.

She points.

One small doorway stands apart from the others.

Beyond it is nighttime.

Rain.

A little house.

And nailed to the door of that house is a piece of parchment.

Even from here, Flip recognizes the handwriting.

His handwriting.

Three words.

Flip stops breathing.

The reason.

The reason he needs the money.

It's through that door.

And apparently—

it isn't something that happened in Flip's past.

Because standing outside the little house—

older.

Scarred.

Missing one gill.

—is Flip himself.

Future Flip slowly turns.

He looks through the doorway.

Directly at present Flip.

His face goes pale.

Then he starts running toward the door.

Screaming.

And behind Future Flip—

something enormous moves in the rain.

The First Sovereign

Thursday Is Coming

Future Flip runs toward the doorway.

Not away from the enormous thing moving through the rain.

Toward you.

That distinction seems important.

He is older by perhaps ten years. Maybe twenty. It is difficult to tell because half his face is scar tissue, one gill is gone, and someone has replaced two fingers on his left hand with what appear to be silver teaspoons.

His coat is shredded.

His lockpick hangs around his neck.

And clutched beneath one arm is a battered metal box.

Future Flip reaches the little house.

He grabs the doorway.

His eyes meet yours.

Present Flip blinks.

Future Flip looks behind himself.

“Actually—”

Something roars in the rain.

Mara throws both hands into the air.

Pibbles points accusingly at Future Flip.

“Apparently that doesn't improve with age.”

Then the rain behind him parts.

Something steps into view.

Four legs.

Then six.

Then eight.

A hulking silhouette emerges from the darkness.

At first Flip thinks it's some kind of enormous spider.

Then lightning flashes.

No.

Worse.

It is an enormous chicken.

Thirty feet tall.

Eight legs.

No feathers.

Human teeth.

The First Sovereign

And mounted on its back is a wooden siege platform occupied by a dozen armored figures.

Their banner depicts a familiar symbol:

The boot.

Present Flip stares.

Mara stares.

Pibbles stares.

Future Flip looks deeply embarrassed.

“There's context.”

Pibbles points.

“You founded an army?”

“Technically a religion.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.”

The giant chicken opens its mouth.

Pibbles's eyebrows rise.

“It knows your name.”

Future Flip:

“Everyone knows my name.”

That does not sound reassuring.

Then one of the armored riders stands.

She removes her helmet.

She's old.

Very old.

But unmistakable.

Mara.

Present Mara sees herself.

Future Mara sees present Mara.

Both say simultaneously:

“Shit.”

Pibbles looks delighted.

“Oh, this is going to be awful.”

Future Mara raises a crossbow.

And aims it directly at—

Future Flip.

Future Flip screams back:

King Reginald slowly turns toward Present Flip.

“Is that hereditary?”

Pibbles:

“Apparently.”

Present Mara approaches the doorway.

“Dad?”

She looks around.

Silas is gone.

The Threshold Door through which he had been standing has vanished among the thousands of new doors.

“Dad?!”

No answer.

Instead, another doorway opens above them.

A screaming horse falls out.

The First Sovereign

Everyone stares at the horse.

The horse stares at everyone.

Then a tiny door opens underneath it.

The horse falls through.

Door closes.

Pibbles rubs his temples.

“We need to turn this off.”

• • •

The Die of Possibility remains on the vault floor.

Thousands of doors remain open.

The God Beneath peers through several simultaneously.

It looks fascinated.

Through one door it sees an ocean.

Through another, stars.

Through another, an apparently infinite bakery.

It reaches one finger toward the bakery.

Mara slaps it.

“No.”

The God withdraws its finger.

“Why?”

“You're thirty stories tall.”

The God considers this.

“I could become smaller.”

Everyone stops.

Pibbles slowly turns.

“You can?”

The God shrugs.

The palace experiences a minor earthquake.

“I did not know until Flip showed me alternatives.”

Its colossal body begins shrinking.

Black smoke pours inward.

Three hundred feet.

Two hundred.

Fifty.

Ten.

Five.

Finally, standing among them is a slender figure approximately six feet tall.

Black skin like volcanic glass.

Two horns.

Purple eyes.

Completely naked.

Pibbles immediately removes his suit jacket.

It is approximately the size of a handkerchief.

He offers it anyway.

The God looks at it.

Then at Pibbles.

“What is this?”

“Civilization.”

The First Sovereign

The God puts the tiny jacket over one shoulder.

“Good enough,” says Pibbles.

Current known abilities:

- Primordial cosmic entity

- Reality-breaking strength

- Shapeshifting

- Approximately three minutes old emotionally

- Has discovered bakeries

The God points toward the infinite bakery.

“I wish to investigate cake.”

Mara grabs its arm.

“Later.”

The God looks genuinely disappointed.

• • •

Future Flip slams his metal box onto the threshold.

Everyone turns.

He opens it.

Inside—

gold.

Not much.

Exactly enough to fill the box.

Pibbles looks.

His accountant brain activates instantly.

“Ten thousand.”

Future Flip nods.

Present Flip's stomach drops.

Future Flip looks directly at him.

“You need ten thousand gold by Thursday.”

Present Flip nods.

Future Flip:

“You've forgotten why.”

Silence.

Pibbles slowly looks at Flip.

Mara does too.

Future Flip reaches inside his coat.

Produces a piece of parchment.

Old.

Water damaged.

Written in Flip's handwriting.

He presses it against the invisible boundary between realities.

Present Flip stares.

Something moves in his memory.

Memory Has a Price

A kitchen.

Rain against a window.

A woman humming.

Someone laughing.

Warm bread.

Then—

nothing.

Future Flip whispers:

“The coin took the memory.”

Mara goes rigid.

“What?”

“The Choice Coin didn't just force decisions.”

Future Flip taps his temple.

“Every time Flip refused to choose for himself, it took a little piece of the reason he cared about choosing.”

Present Flip feels suddenly cold.

Pibbles looks at him.

All humor gone.

Future Flip continues.

“You don't remember needing the money.”

A pause.

“You remember that you need it.”

Another.

“But not who needs it.”

Present Flip's enormous eyes remain fixed on the parchment.

Future Flip says:

“Your family.”

And something breaks loose.

A memory.

Not complete.

Just a voice.

Female.

Older.

Laughing.

Flip, don't put that in your mouth.

Another.

A man's hands repairing a fishing net.

Another.

A little girl touching Flip's gills.

Do they hurt?

Flip answering:

Only when people ask stupid questions.

The girl laughing.

Then darkness.

Flip staggers.

Pibbles catches him.

Future Flip's voice softens.

“Your parents' house sits on land owned by Lord Gristle.”

There it is.

Lord Gristle.

The name from the coffin.

“He raised their debt to ten thousand gold.”

Mara whispers:

“Why?”

Future Flip looks at her.

Memory Has a Price

“Because he knew Flip would come looking for the money.”

Pibbles's face hardens.

“The bounty.”

Future Flip nods.

“Was bait.”

“The coffin?”

“Delivery.”

“The Heart?”

“Lock.”

“The God?”

The God raises one hand.

“Present.”

Future Flip points toward the Die.

“Everything was designed to bring him to that.”

Present Mara looks at Flip.

“Someone engineered this entire chain.”

Future Flip nods.

“Someone who can see possible outcomes.”

Silence.

Everyone slowly looks toward the missing Threshold Door.

Silas Vey.

Mara shakes her head.

“No.”

Future Flip:

“Mara—”

“No.”

“You know what your father does.”

“He wouldn't—”

“Your father didn't arrange it.”

Mara stops.

Future Flip looks terrified.

“Silas is trying to stop the person who did.”

Behind him—

Future Mara screams:

Future Flip spins.

Too late.

The giant chicken opens its mouth.

Something glows inside.

Pibbles squints.

“Does that chicken have—”

A beam of concentrated white energy fires from the chicken's mouth.

Future Flip dives.

The beam misses him.

Passes through the doorway.

Into the Royal Vault.

Straight toward Present Flip.

Oh shit.

Mara tackles Flip.

The beam passes inches above them—

—and hits the Die of Possibility.

The Die launches across the chamber.

Bounces.

Once.

Memory Has a Price

Twice.

Rolls.

Everyone watches.

Pibbles:

“Oh no.”

It stops.

Nothing happens.

Reginald smiles.

“Finally.”

Then every crown in the treasury begins floating.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Ancient crowns.

Conquered crowns.

Ceremonial crowns.

Cursed crowns.

One suspiciously furry crown.

They rise.

King Reginald's own crown tears off his head.

All of them spiral together.

Gold bends.

Jewels melt.

Metal screams.

They fuse into a single enormous crown floating above the Die.

The God Beneath looks upward.

“What does Crown mean?”

Mara:

“I don't know.”

Pibbles:

“Authority?”

Reginald:

“Royalty.”

Future Flip goes pale.

“No.”

Present Flip looks at him.

Future Flip points at the Die.

“Crown doesn't mean king.”

The enormous crown shrinks.

Smaller.

Smaller.

Until it becomes perfectly sized for a human head.

It floats through the vault.

Past Reginald.

“Excuse me?”

Past Mara.

Past Pibbles.

Past the God.

Straight toward—

Flip.

Future Flip screams:

Flip ducks.

The crown follows.

He moves left.

Crown moves left.

Right.

Crown follows.

Pibbles:

“It has selected him!”

Reginald:

Pibbles:

“I have been asking that question since the coffin!”

Flip runs.

The crown chases him around a pile of gold.

Mara tries grabbing it.

She gets launched into Reginald.

The God reaches for it.

Memory Has a Price

The crown dodges.

“Rude.”

Future Flip screams through the doorway:

Present Flip:

Future Flip:

Everyone goes silent.

Pibbles:

“What does that mean?”

Future Flip:

The crown accelerates.

Flip runs faster.

Around a pillar.

Over treasure.

Under the God.

Past the lobster.

The lobster watches the approaching crown.

Raises Pibbles's stolen crossbow.

Pibbles sees it.

The lobster fires.

The bolt hits the crown.

Its trajectory changes.

Directly toward Flip's head.

Pibbles:

Flip turns.

The crown is inches away.

Meaningful decision.

Fate should intervene.

But the coin is gone.

The Die replaced it.

And the Die is sitting thirty feet away showing 👑.

No automatic toss.

No forced binary.

No Fate.

Just Flip.

For the second time in his life—

he can choose freely.

The crown is milliseconds from his head.

You can attempt anything.

What does Flip do?

The Crown Finds a Boot

There are lessons one learns through experience.

Fire is hot.

Dragons are dangerous.

Never allow Pibbles to calculate compound interest while angry.

And, increasingly:

When confronted by metaphysical forces beyond mortal comprehension, kick the fucker.

The Crown of Possibility rockets toward Flip's head.

Flip does not duck.

He does not run.

He plants one foot.

Leans backward.

And throws his entire body into the air.

Pibbles's mouth falls open.

“No.”

Mara:

“What is he doing?”

Pibbles has seen enough Flip to recognize the posture.

“Advancing magical theory.”

• • •

This is spectacularly stupid.

Therefore, under the established laws of Flip:

Flip's back becomes parallel with the floor.

One leg rises.

The other follows.

For one magnificent instant, the human-troglodyte hybrid achieves perfect airborne form.

Future Flip watches through the doorway.

His expression changes.

“No fucking way.”

Present Mara:

“What?”

Future Mara lowers her crossbow.

“Oh, I remember this.”

Future Flip:

Then Flip's boot connects with the Crown.

The sound travels through every open doorway simultaneously.

Somewhere in the infinite library, scholars look up.

The Crown Finds a Boot

On the battlefield frozen in time, a soldier briefly hears a bell.

In the quiet suburban kitchen, the elderly woman sighs.

“Again?”

The Crown shoots upward.

Flip completes the rotation—

lands directly on his face—

and slides six feet through gold.

Pibbles raises both arms.

Mara stares at him.

“He landed on his face.”

“For Flip, that's exceptional.”

But the Crown—

doesn't come back.

It spins above them.

Faster.

Faster.

The 👑 face of the Die begins glowing.

The Crown changes direction.

And shoots through one of the thousands of open Threshold Doors.

Future Flip sees which one.

His face becomes absolute horror.

“Wait.”

Future Mara sees it too.

“...oh shit.”

The Crown disappears through the doorway marked:

Silence.

Flip lifts his face from the coins.

“Solved?”

Future Flip points furiously at him.

Then—

from beyond the Memorial Treasury doorway—

A bell tolls.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The enormous mountain carved into Flip's likeness opens its eyes.

They burn gold.

Letters beneath the mountain begin changing.

becomes—

Then—

Then—

King Reginald reads it.

His face collapses.

The Crown Finds a Boot

“No.”

Pibbles looks from the inscription to Flip.

Then to Reginald.

Then back.

“Oh.”

Reginald:

“No.”

Pibbles:

“Oh, this is excellent.”

Pibbles bows deeply toward Flip.

“Your Majesty.”

The God Beneath immediately kneels.

Reginald's scream dies in his throat.

Everyone looks at the primordial entity.

Mara:

“Why are you kneeling?”

The God looks confused.

“Because he is King.”

Reginald pushes through the gold.

The God looks at him.

Then Flip.

Then Reginald.

“Of what?”

Reginald opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Points vaguely upward.

The God looks around at the collapsing palace, interdimensional doors, ruined treasury, giant future war-chicken, undead skeletal monarch and lobster holding a loaded crossbow.

“You have done poorly.”

Pibbles makes a choking noise.

Mara realizes he's trying not to laugh.

Reginald points at Flip.

The God considers this.

“He has given me free will.”

Points toward the Threshold Doors.

“Opened reality.”

Points toward the future.

“Created time travel.”

Points toward six million scattered coins.

“Redistributed wealth.”

Pibbles immediately objects.

“Destroyed the monetary base.”

The God nods.

“And destroyed the monetary base.”

Reginald:

Pibbles:

“Correct.”

The God finishes:

“Still more accomplished.”

Reginald looks ready to cry.

• • •

The Crown Finds a Boot

Then the Die moves.

The crown symbol fades.

A new inscription appears on the floor beneath it.

Another line.

Flip's smile disappears.

Pibbles stops laughing.

Mara approaches carefully.

“Domain?”

Future Flip starts hammering on the boundary.

Everyone turns.

Future Flip is panicking.

“Flip! Listen to me! Sovereignty requires jurisdiction!”

Pibbles:

“That is technically correct.”

The floor illuminates.

Six symbols appear around Flip.

Not faces of the Die this time.

Choices.

Rule whatever Flip can take.

Rule luck, wagers and uncertainty.

Rule doors, passages and things between worlds.

Rule those who have passed beyond life.

Rule what people want most.

And finally:

Rule everything that rejects the options it was given.

Pibbles reads the last one.

Slowly removes his spectacles.

Cleans them.

Puts them back on.

Reads it again.

“Good heavens.”

Mara whispers:

“That's not a kingdom.”

Silas's voice suddenly comes from somewhere among the doors:

“No.”

Everyone searches.

They cannot see him.

His voice echoes from a thousand realities.

“It's a principle.”

Future Mara raises her crossbow.

Future Flip stops pounding on the doorway.

The Crown Finds a Boot

Even the God Beneath seems uneasy.

Silas continues:

“Conquest requires something to conquer.”

“Chance requires uncertainty.”

“Thresholds require boundaries.”

“Death requires life.”

“Desire requires want.”

A pause.

“But refusal?”

The 🥾 symbol burns brighter.

“Every law can be refused.”

The God Beneath looks at the boot branded into its hand.

Its expression changes.

Silas's voice becomes very quiet.

“Every prophecy.”

Future Flip whispers:

“Don't.”

“Every destiny.”

Mara:

“Flip…”

“Every consequence.”

Pibbles:

“Perhaps we should carefully consider—”

“Every god.”

The God Beneath:

“I dislike where this is going.”

And finally:

“Every king.”

Reginald:

“I strongly dislike where this is going.”

The symbols circle Flip.

The Die waits.

Then something else happens.

A seventh possibility flickers.

Weakly.

Something the Die apparently didn't offer.

Flip's bicycle kick has done it again.

A tiny symbol scratches itself into the marble.

Not a boot.

Not a crown.

Just two words:

Pibbles sees it.

His eyes widen.

“Flip.”

Mara sees it.

“That shouldn't exist.”

Future Flip starts laughing.

Not happily.

More like a man finally understanding the punchline of a joke that ruined his life.

“Of course.”

He looks directly at his younger self.

“That's what I missed.”

The six domains burn brightly.

The seventh barely exists.

Conquest. Chance. Thresholds. The Dead. Desire. Refusal.

Or somehow—

become a king without deciding what you're king of yet.

Above them, Aldric's colossal skeleton finally gives way.

The palace ceiling begins to collapse.

The Threshold Doors flicker.

Future Flip's doorway destabilizes.

The God Beneath stands.

The lobster reloads.

Pibbles grabs his briefcase.

Mara reaches for Flip.

And the Die begins counting down.

6.

5.

4.

Pibbles shouts:

3...

Sovereign of Chance

The countdown burns into the marble.

3...

Flip looks at Conquest.

Too much administration.

2...

Thresholds.

Interesting, but doors have already caused enough problems today.

1...

Flip's enormous eyes settle on the golden coin symbol.

Luck.

Wagers.

Uncertainty.

The glorious little space between this is a terrible idea and *holy shit, that worked.*

Flip grins.

“Chance.”

Future Flip stops laughing.

Pibbles whispers:

“Oh dear.”

Flip plants his boot directly on the symbol.

The Die of Possibility rises.

The other domains extinguish.

Conquest dies.

Thresholds fade.

Death retreats.

Desire disappears.

Even Refusal goes dark.

Chance remains.

The Die begins spinning.

And somewhere—

every coin in every reality flips at once.

• • •

For half a heartbeat, nothing changes.

Then King Reginald's trousers fall down.

He stares downward.

“What does that have to do with chance?!”

Pibbles considers.

“Button failure. Low probability, nonzero.”

A chandelier crashes exactly where Reginald had been standing.

He looks at Pibbles.

Pibbles:

“Higher stakes.”

Then the universe hiccups.

• • •

Across the Royal Vault, six million scattered gold coins leap into the air.

Every one begins flipping.

Millions of tiny metallic rotations fill the cavern.

The sound is deafening.

Sovereign of Chance

The God Beneath watches in wonder.

“What is happening?”

Mara looks at Flip.

“He chose a domain.”

Future Flip whispers:

“No. A domain chose him.”

The coins land.

Every single one—

Silence.

Pibbles's jaw drops.

“Statistically…”

He walks toward the nearest coin.

“…that is offensive.”

The Die descends into Flip's hand.

It is warm.

And Flip suddenly feels it.

Probability.

Not the future.

Not destiny.

Possibility.

Flip looks at Pibbles.

There is a chance Pibbles sneezes in the next ten seconds.

Small.

Perhaps 3%.

Flip can feel that 3%.

There is a chance Reginald's trousers fall down again.

Apparently much higher than expected.

There is a chance the ceiling crushes everyone.

Disturbingly high.

There is a chance the lobster fires the crossbow.

98%.

Flip turns.

“Pibbles—”

Pibbles ducks.

The lobster scuttles away.

But beneath all those probabilities—

Flip senses something else.

A possibility so small it should effectively be zero.

One chance among—

millions?

Billions?

Flip focuses.

And realizes what it is.

There is a chance that everything happening right now was an accident.

The bounty hunters.

The coffin.

Pibbles.

The golden Lock.

Aldric.

Mara.

Silas.

The God Beneath.

The coins.

The Die.

Thursday.

Everything.

There is a probability that nobody planned it.

Sovereign of Chance

Flip concentrates.

The number resolves inside his mind.

0.0000000000000000000004%

Pibbles notices his expression.

“What?”

Flip tells him.

Pibbles's face falls.

“So someone planned this.”

Mara:

“Silas said someone did.”

Pibbles shakes his head.

“No.”

He looks at Flip.

“If His Majesty can perceive probability, we can do better than accusations.”

Reginald:

“Stop calling him that.”

Pibbles:

“Your reign is currently experiencing a statistical downturn.”

He turns back to Flip.

“Ask Chance a question.”

Mara catches on.

“Flip…”

She points toward the thousands of open realities.

“What are the odds the person responsible for all of this…”

Her voice hardens.

“…is currently watching us?”

Flip focuses.

The Die becomes cold.

A number appears in his mind.

100%.

Everyone freezes.

The God Beneath looks around.

“Where?”

Flip doesn't know.

But now that he's looking—

he can feel probabilities attached to everything.

Silas watching through one of the Thresholds?

17%.

Future Mara?

0%.

Future Flip?

0%.

Someone invisible in the vault?

0.03%.

Someone watching magically?

4%.

Someone observing through—

Flip's attention catches.

He slowly turns.

Toward the doorway containing his future.

Toward the little house.

Toward the rain.

Toward the gigantic eight-legged chicken.

Past all of them.

Something is wrong with the sky.

There's a star.

Just one.

Sovereign of Chance

The probability that a star happens to be positioned exactly there?

Flip focuses.

0%.

His new domain practically screams.

“That's not a star.”

Future Flip looks upward.

Future Mara does too.

Her face drains of color.

“No.”

The star—

blinks.

Because it isn't a star.

It's an eye.

• • •

Aldric's skeleton finally crashes onto the palace.

The vault ceiling gives way.

Mara screams.

The God Beneath throws both hands upward.

Black energy erupts from its palms.

Thousands of tons of collapsing palace stop inches above everyone.

The God strains.

Stone trembles.

Pibbles:

Everyone runs toward the open Thresholds.

Future Flip screams:

Present Flip:

Future Flip points at the sky-eye.

The eye widens.

The entire future reality begins bending toward it.

Trees stretch.

Clouds spiral.

The giant chicken digs all eight feet into the ground.

Future Mara screams orders.

Future Flip grabs the metal box containing ten thousand gold.

Then the eye speaks.

Not loudly.

It doesn't need to.

“Flip.”

Present Flip stops.

The voice is familiar.

Not from today.

Older.

Buried somewhere beneath memories the Choice Coin took.

The voice that told him to flip.

Again.

Sovereign of Chance

And again.

And again.

Whenever decisions became frightening.

Whenever choosing hurt.

A voice Flip had always assumed was his own.

“Heads or tails?”

Flip's blood goes cold.

The Die reacts violently.

Probabilities flood his mind.

Chance of surviving if they remain in the collapsing vault:

31%.

Chance of survival through random Threshold Door:

64%.

Chance through Future Flip's doorway:

12%.

Chance of saving Future Flip if Flip enters his reality:

8%.

Chance of recovering the ten thousand gold:

91%.

Chance that the eye is responsible for Flip's original curse:

99.9999999999999999998%.

Mara sees Flip staring.

“What is it?”

He tells her.

Silence.

Pibbles slowly turns toward the eye.

The tiny goblin draws his crossbow.

“Then I believe we have identified a debtor.”

Mara:

“A debtor?”

Pibbles's expression becomes vicious.

“It stole pieces of my client's memory.”

He loads a bolt.

“I intend to invoice it.”

• • •

Then Flip feels another probability.

Tiny.

Absurd.

The sort of chance that should be ignored.

But Flip is no longer merely subject to chance.

He is its Sovereign.

There is a chance that if Pibbles fires his tiny crossbow through the future doorway, directly at the impossible eye, the bolt will somehow hit it.

0.0000007%.

Sovereign of Chance

And Flip realizes something instinctively about his new power.

He cannot simply declare impossible things certain.

Not yet.

But he can wager.

Risk something valuable—

to move the odds.

The greater the stake…

the greater Chance may bend.

The Die burns six new words into Flip's palm:

Choose an improbable outcome.

Declare something you are willing to risk.

Chance will offer odds.

Win, and probability bends violently in your favor.

Lose…

Chance collects the stake.

Pibbles is already aiming at the eye.

The original probability:

1 in 142,857,143.

He looks at Flip.

“Your Majesty?”

Behind them, the God Beneath is beginning to buckle beneath the palace.

Ahead, Future Flip is being dragged toward the impossible eye.

The box containing exactly 10,000 gold slips from his hands.

Mara grabs Flip's shoulder.

“Whatever you're thinking—”

Pibbles grins.

“—make it irresponsible.”

For the first time, Flip doesn't need a coin to decide.

He needs something much more dangerous:

a bet.

What does Flip wager to give Pibbles the shot of his life?

Tomorrow or Nothing

Pibbles keeps the crossbow trained on the impossible eye.

Mara waits for Flip to name his stake.

Gold.

His crown.

The Die.

His life.

Something comprehensible.

Flip raises the Die of Possibility.

“I wager…”

The universe seems to lean closer.

“…the future.”

Pibbles lowers the crossbow.

“No.”

Mara's face goes blank.

“No, that's not how—”

The Die interrupts her.

Golden letters ignite across the air.

Then:

Then:

Pibbles points furiously at the words.

Another line appears.

Pibbles looks personally betrayed by metaphysics.

“That's not a legal framework!”

The Die rotates.

Pibbles clutches his chest.

“Monarchy was a mistake.”

King Reginald, still trouserless:

• • •

The vault darkens.

The collapsing stones freeze.

The Threshold Doors stop flickering.

Future Flip stops being dragged toward the eye.

Rain hangs motionless in his world.

Future Mara freezes atop the eight-legged chicken.

The ten-thousand-gold box hangs suspended in midair.

Everything after this moment—

stops existing.

Not destroyed.

Not yet.

Simply unwritten.

Behind Flip stretches everything that has happened.

Ahead—

nothing.

A blank horizon.

Chance speaks without words.

Flip understands the terms.

Desired outcome:

Tomorrow or Nothing

Pibbles fires one ordinary crossbow bolt.

It crosses realities.

It strikes the impossible eye.

And it hurts whatever is watching.

Natural probability:

1 / 142,857,143

Stake offered:

Every tomorrow.

The Die calculates.

Once.

Twice.

Then every face turns black except one.

New odds burn across reality.

1 / 2

Pibbles stares.

“You wagered all of causality…”

His eye twitches.

“…for a coin flip?”

Flip grins.

Pibbles sighs.

“Of course you did.”

The shot lands.

The future continues.

And Chance will extract an additional consequence from the enemy.

There will be no future after this moment.

No tomorrow.

No Thursday.

No ten thousand gold.

No future Flip.

No conclusion.

No second attempt.

The universe ends not in fire—

but in a sentence that never gets another word.

Mara grabs Flip.

“Cancel it.”

The Die answers:

The God Beneath stares at him.

For the first time, the primordial being looks genuinely impressed.

“You risk everything that will ever happen?”

Flip nods.

The God thinks about this.

“I have much to learn.”

Pibbles points at it.

• • •

A coin appears above the Die.

Not Flip's old coin.

Not the Consequence Coin.

A simple golden coin.

One side bears:

Tomorrow or Nothing

The other:

Pibbles raises his crossbow.

His tiny hands are perfectly steady.

He looks through the doorway.

Past Future Flip.

Past Future Mara.

Past the rain.

At the impossible eye.

“Flip.”

“Yeah?”

“If there is a tomorrow…”

Pibbles narrows his eye.

“…we're discussing your risk-management strategy.”

The coin rises.

It spins.

Tomorrow.

Nothing.

Tomorrow.

Nothing.

Mara whispers:

“Come on…”

Reginald:

“Tomorrow.”

The God Beneath:

“Cake.”

Everyone looks at it.

“Cake requires tomorrow.”

Fair.

The coin reaches its apex.

Falls.

Hits the floor.

Bounces.

Once.

Twice.

Rolls in a circle.

Slows.

Wobbles.

Flip watches.

The Sovereign of Chance has made the greatest wager reality has ever known.

And for all his new power—

he cannot control this part.

That's the point.

The coin falls.

For one heartbeat, nothing happens.

Then Pibbles smiles.

“Oh, excellent.”

• • •

The bolt leaves the crossbow.

It is six inches long.

Poorly balanced.

Made by a goblin who mostly manufactures office supplies.

It should fly perhaps thirty feet.

Instead—

it crosses time.

The bolt enters Future Flip's reality.

Rain resumes.

Future Flip sees it pass his face.

A Family Reunion

“What the—”

It accelerates.

The eight-legged chicken ducks.

Future Mara watches it climb into the sky.

Higher.

Higher.

Toward the false star.

The impossible eye notices.

And for the first time—

it tries to move.

Too late.

Pibbles's tiny crossbow bolt strikes the center of the cosmic eye.

Silence.

Pibbles lowers the weapon.

“Asset seized.”

The eye blinks.

Then—

Reality screams.

The eye recoils.

Stars tear sideways.

The future sky cracks like glass.

Something behind the eye becomes visible.

Not a god.

Not a monster.

A machine.

An impossible mechanism surrounding countless worlds.

Gears larger than continents.

Chains threaded through centuries.

Billions upon billions of coins running through channels like blood.

Every coin has two sides.

Every one is flipping.

Heads.

Tails.

Heads.

Tails.

Choice reduced to binaries.

Possibility reduced to acceptable outcomes.

Mara stares upward.

“What…”

Future Flip whispers:

“The Engine.”

Silas's voice echoes from somewhere unseen.

“Finally.”

The Die burns in Flip's hand.

Chance recognizes its enemy.

A name appears.

Pibbles looks at the machine.

Then at his tiny crossbow.

“I require a larger bolt.”

• • •

But the wager isn't finished.

The Certainty Engine begins retreating.

Chance refuses.

Golden threads explode from the Die.

A Family Reunion

They wrap around the machine.

The Engine pulls.

The Die pulls back.

And because Flip wagered the future itself—

Chance takes its bonus consequence from the future.

Not Flip's.

The Engine's.

Every predetermined outcome stored inside the machine suddenly becomes uncertain.

Prophecies unravel.

Destinies split.

Plans centuries in the making branch into alternatives.

Across reality, people who were supposed to die tomorrow suddenly might not.

Kings destined to rule might lose.

Heroes destined to win might fail.

Prisoners destined never to escape discover unlocked doors.

And somewhere, impossibly—

a chicken destined to become a siege weapon develops an interest in poetry.

Future Mara's eight-legged war-chicken slowly lowers its head.

“Cluck.”

Future Mara stares.

The chicken gazes mournfully into the rain.

“Cluck… cluck.”

Future Flip gasps.

“Dear gods.”

Pibbles:

“What?”

“It just composed a haiku.”

Pibbles nods solemnly.

“The consequences are escalating.”

• • •

Then Future Flip changes.

His scars flicker.

His missing gill returns.

Disappears.

Returns again.

His teaspoon fingers become fingers.

Then tentacles.

Then spoons.

Then fingers.

His entire timeline is destabilizing.

“Flip!”

He grabs the doorway.

The metal box lands beside him.

Ten thousand gold.

Present Flip runs closer.

Future Flip reaches into his coat.

Pulls out the parchment.

A Family Reunion

The words begin changing.

Then:

Then:

Then:

Future Flip stares.

“What?”

The parchment changes again.

Again.

Future Flip looks up.

Present Flip feels his stomach sink.

Again.

Again.

Mara moves closer.

“Guarding what?”

The final message burns itself into the parchment.

Future Flip reads it.

His face goes white.

He turns it toward them.

The Die in Present Flip's hand stops moving.

The God Beneath whispers:

“What is the First Throw?”

Silas answers.

And this time his voice comes from directly behind them.

“Something that happened before Chance existed.”

Everyone turns.

Silas Vey stands in the vault.

His umbrella is gone.

His coat is torn.

Pibbles immediately aims the crossbow at his crotch.

Silas looks down.

“Really?”

“I've discovered extraordinary range.”

Silas raises his hands.

Mara stares at her father.

Fourteen years of grief collide with approximately four hours of increasingly unreasonable circumstances.

“Dad.”

Silas looks at her.

For once, there is no clever answer.

When It Hatches

“Hello, Mara.”

She punches him square in the face.

Silas collapses into six million gold pieces.

The God Beneath considers this.

“Was that Chance?”

Pibbles:

“No. That was certainty.”

Mara stands over her father, breathing hard.

Silas touches his bleeding nose.

“Fair.”

Then—

Everyone looks down.

The Die has changed.

A seventh face is forming.

That should be geometrically impossible.

Nobody mentions this because geometry lost professional credibility several hours ago.

A new symbol burns into the Die.

⏳

Pibbles reads the inscription appearing beneath it.

Flip's wager didn't merely risk tomorrow.

It established that the future itself is something which can be won, lost, stolen—or changed.

And through the doorway, Future Flip begins disappearing.

He looks at his hands.

“No.”

Present Flip steps forward.

Future Flip looks at him.

Then smiles.

Not frightened.

Relieved.

“Good.”

“What?”

“If I'm disappearing…”

He looks toward the ten thousand gold.

“…then you did something I didn't.”

His reality begins dissolving.

Future Mara disappears.

The poetic war-chicken fades.

The little house remains for another moment.

Future Flip shoves the box through the doorway.

It crosses.

Slides across the vault floor.

Stops at Present Flip's feet.

Pibbles immediately kneels beside it and begins counting.

When It Hatches

Future Flip laughs.

“Of course.”

His legs vanish.

His torso begins fading.

Present Flip watches himself disappear.

“Wait!”

Future Flip looks at him.

“You want advice?”

Present Flip nods.

Future Flip thinks.

Then:

“Thursday isn't the deadline.”

The doorway begins closing.

“It never was.”

“What is?!”

Future Flip's face is almost gone.

He gives Present Flip one last grin.

“Thursday is when it hatches.”

The doorway closes.

Silence.

Flip has ten thousand gold.

The original goal of the entire adventure—

achieved.

Pibbles finishes counting.

“Exactly ten thousand.”

He looks pleased.

Then notices nobody else is celebrating.

“What?”

Mara:

“Something under Flip's family home is going to hatch on Thursday.”

Pibbles slowly closes the box.

“Yes.”

Silas stands.

“The Certainty Engine knows where it is.”

The God Beneath:

“I would still like cake.”

Reginald, emerging from rubble:

The lobster fires the crossbow.

Reginald's crown flies off.

Again.

Pibbles finally snaps.

The lobster runs.

Pibbles chases it through a Threshold Door.

Silas watches them disappear.

Then looks at Flip.

“The Engine will send something to your family's house.”

Mara wipes blood from her knuckles.

“When?”

Silas looks toward the Die.

Flip doesn't need him to answer.

When It Hatches

He can feel the probabilities changing.

Something has already been dispatched.

Chance of it arriving tomorrow:

8%.

Within three days:

41%.

Before Thursday:

97%.

Chance that Flip's family survives if nobody intervenes:

11%.

And the chance that whatever lies beneath their house is merely an egg?

Flip concentrates.

The answer comes.

0%.

The Die trembles.

The ⏳ face glows.

Then Flip feels one final probability.

Chance that the thing beneath the house already knows he's coming:

100%.

Far away—

beneath a small house Flip can barely remember—

something knocks from underground.

Three times.

And a little girl's voice says:

“Dad?”

“Something under the floor knows Flip's name.”

• • •

💰 Gold: 10,000

🦞 Pibbles's crossbow: Stolen by lobster

🌌 Enemy revealed: The Certainty Engine

⏳ Thursday: Apparently going to hatch

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

There are many ways to travel across a kingdom.

Horse.

Carriage.

Ship.

Teleportation.

And, if one is Flip, recently crowned Sovereign of Chance and wanted by several branches of government:

open random doors until geography gives up.

• • •

Flip stands before a blue wooden door floating unsupported in the ruins of the Royal Vault.

The Threshold Key hums in his hand.

Mara checks the map.

Silas checks something considerably stranger: a brass instrument containing three needles, two clocks, and what appears to be a dead moth.

The God Beneath is holding a cake.

Nobody knows where he got it.

Pibbles is absent.

This concerns Flip.

Pibbles disappeared through a Threshold Door forty-seven minutes ago while pursuing the lobster that stole his crossbow.

Occasionally, another door opens and they hear distant shouting.

Then gunfire.

Then once, inexplicably:

The door closes.

Mara looks at Flip.

“He'll find us.”

Silas:

“The goblin or the lobster?”

“Yes.”

Flip turns the Threshold Key.

The blue door opens.

Beyond it:

Rain.

A dirt road.

A crooked fence.

A field stretching toward dark hills.

And at the end of the road—

a little house.

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

Flip stops.

No palace.

No dragon.

No skeletal king.

No impossible machine filling the sky.

Just home.

Something about that is worse.

• • •

The house is smaller than Flip remembers.

It always is.

Stone chimney.

Mossy roof.

One shutter hanging slightly crooked because Flip broke it when he was twelve and promised to repair it.

He never did.

Smoke rises from the chimney.

A lantern burns beside the door.

And someone has painted over the front step.

Fresh paint.

Underneath it, barely visible:

Flip's hand tightens around the box containing ten thousand gold.

He made it.

After coffins.

Dragons.

Undead monarchs.

Apocalyptic gods.

Weaponized gastrointestinal propulsion.

Temporal chickens.

And one lobster whose criminal career is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore—

Flip actually has the money.

Mara watches him.

“You okay?”

Flip looks at the house.

Memories are returning in fragments.

His mother shouting from the kitchen.

His father teaching him knots.

The little girl.

That one comes back more slowly.

Brown hair.

Missing front tooth.

Constant questions.

His sister.

Tilly.

Flip remembers her name.

And suddenly he's running.

• • •

The front door bursts open.

A woman swings a cast-iron frying pan directly at Flip's skull.

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

Flip hits the ground.

The woman raises the pan for another strike.

Then stops.

“...Flip?”

Flip looks up.

“Mum?”

She drops the pan.

Then she grabs him.

Hard.

Flip's mother is short, broad-shouldered and human except for the faint green tint around her neck that suggests the troglodyte part of the family tree has been making genealogists uncomfortable for generations.

She hugs him.

Then slaps him.

Then hugs him again.

“Where have you been?!”

“Long story.”

“You were supposed to be back Tuesday!”

“It is still—”

Mara quietly says:

“Thursday minus six days.”

Flip's mother points at him.

Fair.

A large man appears behind her.

Flip's father.

He sees Flip.

His face softens.

“Son.”

Then he sees Mara.

Silas.

The horned black-skinned primordial deity eating cake.

The floating blue door behind them.

And the smoking ruins of somewhere completely different visible through it.

He looks back at Flip.

“Work?”

Flip nods.

His father nods.

“Right.”

• • •

Then a small voice comes from upstairs.

“Flip?”

Tiny footsteps.

Tilly appears.

She's perhaps nine.

Exactly as Flip remembered.

She races downstairs.

Flip crouches.

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

She launches herself into him.

And for a moment—

the campaign becomes quiet.

No jokes.

No cosmic machinery.

No probability.

Just Flip holding his little sister.

She pulls back.

Touches his gills.

“Do they still hurt?”

Flip smiles.

“Only when people ask stupid questions.”

Tilly bursts out laughing.

Memory restored.

Completely.

Flip closes his eyes.

There it is.

That's why.

That's what ten thousand gold meant.

Not wealth.

Not greed.

Not some ridiculous debt.

Home.

His family.

The coin took the reason.

But Chance gave it back.

Then Tilly whispers:

“I've been talking to the man downstairs.”

Flip opens his eyes.

Silas drops his instrument.

Mara:

“What man?”

Tilly points toward the kitchen.

“The one under the floor.”

Nobody moves.

Flip's father closes his eyes.

His mother mutters:

“Shit.”

Mara slowly turns toward them.

“You knew?”

Flip's mother:

“We knew something was there.”

Silas:

“How long?”

Flip's father:

“Since before Flip was born.”

Silas goes pale.

“How long?”

“Family records say…”

He hesitates.

“About eight hundred years.”

The God Beneath stops eating cake.

“Older than me.”

That gets everyone's attention.

• • •

There is no basement door.

Flip knows this.

He grew up here.

The pantry is there.

The stove.

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

The table with the burn mark where Flip attempted to discover whether Stealth Bombing could toast bread.

It could.

Briefly.

But no basement.

Tilly walks to the center of the room.

Kneels.

And knocks three times.

Something beneath the house answers.

Mara reaches for a knife.

Silas whispers:

“Don't threaten it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't know what it is.”

“You don't know?”

“No.”

Mara looks genuinely disturbed.

“You always know.”

Silas gives her a tired smile.

“That's mostly branding.”

Tilly puts her ear against the floor.

“He says Flip's late.”

Flip's mother:

“You've been speaking to it?!”

“Only since Tuesday.”

“You said not to talk to strangers.”

Tilly points downward.

“He's not a stranger anymore.”

Pibbles would have appreciated the logic.

The God Beneath kneels.

Places one hand against the floor.

Its purple eyes widen.

Then it recoils.

“That is not beneath the house.”

Silas:

“What?”

The God points down.

“The house is above it.”

Mara:

“Those are the same thing.”

“No.”

The God looks at Flip.

“Your house has been placed over a point where something touches this world.”

Silas's expression changes.

“A Threshold?”

The God shakes its head.

Correction Field

“Earlier.”

Silas whispers:

“The First Throw.”

• • •

Flip takes out the Threshold Key.

It immediately bends toward the floor.

Hard.

The tip strikes a floorboard.

A keyhole appears.

Flip's father groans.

“I knew that board was suspicious.”

His mother:

“You said it was damp.”

“I was trying not to worry you.”

Married life continues even during cosmological emergencies.

Flip inserts the key.

Mara grabs his wrist.

“Before you open that—”

Tilly:

“He says hurry.”

Silas:

“Why?”

Tilly listens.

Her expression changes.

“He says…”

She looks toward the window.

“…they're here.”

• • •

Flip feels Chance before anyone sees anything.

Probabilities erupt.

Chance of rain in the next minute:

82%.

Chance of structural damage to the house:

94%.

Chance someone outside intends to kill Flip:

100%.

Chance it's Lord Gristle:

0%.

Chance it's the Certainty Engine:

100%.

Something punches through the roof.

Not a projectile.

A line.

Perfectly straight white light slices through the house from sky to foundation.

Where it passes, things don't burn.

They become orderly.

A broken plate on the table repairs itself.

Dust arranges itself into neat rows.

The crooked shutter outside snaps perfectly straight.

Silas dives behind the stove.

Correction Field

Flip's mother grabs her frying pan.

She thinks.

“Can I hit them?”

Silas:

“Potentially!”

“Good.”

• • •

Outside the window, figures descend from the clouds.

Six of them.

Human-shaped.

White armor.

No faces.

Each carries a long silver weapon shaped like a mathematical compass.

They land around the house with perfect symmetry.

One speaks.

Its voice comes from all six simultaneously.

Flip's Die vibrates.

The God Beneath stands.

Black fire crawls across its arms.

The Agents turn toward it.

The God considers this.

Then smiles.

“I refused.”

Somewhere, spiritually, the boot symbol is proud.

The Agents raise their weapons.

Mara draws her knife.

Silas produces three coins from his coat.

Flip's mother raises the frying pan.

Flip's father grabs a fireplace poker.

Tilly climbs onto a chair holding—

Flip squints.

“Is that my old slingshot?”

“You said I could have it.”

“When?”

“You forgot.”

Difficult to argue with.

Then the kitchen wall explodes.

Everyone turns.

A tiny figure rolls through the smoke.

Business suit shredded.

Tie wrapped around his forehead.

One shoe missing.

Correction Field

Covered in what appears to be holy water, jam and lobster shell fragments.

Mr. Pibbles rises.

In one hand:

his crossbow.

In the other:

the lobster.

He throws the lobster onto the kitchen table.

The lobster clicks angrily.

Pibbles looks around.

Sees Flip.

Sees Flip's family.

Sees the God.

Sees six faceless agents surrounding the house.

Sees the mysterious keyhole in the floor.

He straightens his tie.

“I see I have returned at an administratively inconvenient moment.”

Flip points outside.

“Certainty Engine.”

Pibbles reloads.

“Ah.”

He climbs onto the windowsill.

“Then I shall require Form 19-B.”

Mara:

“What does Form 19-B do?”

Pibbles aims.

“Nothing.”

An Agent ducks.

“I'm improvising.”

• • •

Six Agents.

Your family in the house.

The First Throw beneath the floor.

The Threshold Key already inserted.

And Flip can feel Chance screaming around him.

The Agents aren't merely dangerous.

They distort his domain.

Around each one, probability collapses.

Flip examines the nearest Agent.

Chance Pibbles hits it with his next shot:

50%.

Then the Agent turns toward Pibbles.

25%.

Its weapon moves.

12%.

It locks into position.

0%.

They don't predict probability.

They eliminate alternatives.

Silas realizes it too.

“Flip! Don't let them establish a complete correction field!”

Correction Field

“What happens then?”

“There will only be one possible outcome!”

Pibbles:

“Which?”

Silas watches the six Agents surrounding the house.

Their weapons begin connecting with lines of white light.

A geometric cage forms.

Silas grimaces.

“The one where we lose.”

The floor knocks.

Tilly listens.

“He says open it.”

Mara:

“Absolutely not.”

Tilly listens again.

“He says Mara always says that.”

Mara freezes.

“What?”

Silas turns toward the floor.

Pibbles slowly lowers his crossbow.

The thing beneath the house knows Mara.

Tilly continues.

“He says Silas should stop pretending he doesn't recognize his voice.”

Everyone looks at Silas.

Silas has gone completely white.

Mara:

“Dad?”

Silas doesn't answer.

The knocking comes again.

Silas whispers:

“No.”

Flip:

“You know him?”

Silas backs away from the floor.

“No.”

His composure is gone.

For the first time, the mysterious leader of the Order of the Edge looks terrified.

“No, no, no.”

Mara grabs him.

Silas looks at Flip.

Then at the Die.

Then at Tilly.

And finally at the Threshold Key.

“When the Die was first thrown…”

Outside, another segment of the correction field locks into place.

“…there was someone who threw it.”

Another beam connects.

33%

Pibbles:

“The First Thrower?”

Silas nods.

Correction Field

50%

Mara:

“I thought the First Throw was an event.”

“It was.”

67%

Silas points at the floor.

“And a person.”

The God Beneath whispers:

“Who?”

83%

Silas looks directly at Flip.

“The first Sovereign of Chance.”

The entire house shakes.

Tilly listens to the floor.

Then looks at Flip.

“He says that's not his name.”

Silas closes his eyes.

“Of course he does.”

“What is?”

Tilly smiles.

“He says…”

96%.

Outside, all six Agents raise their weapons.

The final lines begin connecting.

97%.

98%.

Tilly finishes:

“Grandpa.”

Silence.

Flip's father:

“…what?”

The Threshold Key turns by itself.

99%.

The floorboards begin separating.

Mara screams:

One second.

Maybe less.

If the field reaches 100%, the Agents determine what happens next.

The basement—or whatever is pretending to be one—is opening.

Pibbles has his crossbow.

Mum has her frying pan.

Dad has the poker.

Tilly has Flip's slingshot.

The God Beneath is grinning.

Silas is terrified.

And Flip, Sovereign of Chance, feels one microscopic possibility still alive inside the collapsing field.

Chance of disrupting the correction before 100%:

0.00001%.

Plenty.

What does Flip do?

The Field Refuses

The Correction Field reaches:

99.1%.

Flip stares at six Agents of Certainty.

Then at the opening floor.

Then at his terrified family.

Then—

his oversized eyes drift toward the kitchen cabinet.

A memory surfaces.

His mother's voice:

Flip, those are for emergencies.

Flip lunges.

His mother realizes where he's going.

Her face transforms from fear into maternal horror.

“Flip.”

He throws open the cabinet.

There it is.

Dusty.

Ancient.

Bulging ominously at both ends.

A tin bearing the handwritten label:

Family Size — Extra Mature

Mum:

Flip grabs it.

99.2%.

His father goes pale.

“Son, those expired eleven years ago.”

Flip looks at the date.

Perfect.

He tears off the lid.

The can goes:

The God Beneath recoils.

“What is that?”

Pibbles dives behind the kitchen table.

• • •

Flip drinks.

Not eats.

Drinks.

Fermented lentils cascade down his throat.

Onion rings follow.

One gets stuck around a gill.

Flip inhales it sideways.

Silas watches.

“What the fuck am I looking at?”

Mara grabs her father.

“Don't ask.”

“But—”

“Don't. Ask.”

99.3%.

Flip finishes the can.

He crushes it against his forehead.

Nothing happens.

Silas:

“Was that—”

Flip raises one finger.

Wait.

The Field Refuses

His stomach makes a noise.

gloop.

Pibbles:

“Everybody down.”

Flip's mother grabs Tilly.

His father overturns the kitchen table.

The God Beneath's eyes widen.

“Something awakens.”

Pibbles:

“Wrong apocalypse.”

Then Flip's abdomen expands approximately two inches.

Mara whispers:

“Oh no.”

Pibbles corrects her.

“Oh yes.”

• • •

Base: Stealth Bombing

🫘 Fermented Lentils: +2

🧅 Onion Rings: +1

🏠 Enclosed environment: +2

But Flip requested something extra.

Not merely propulsion.

Not merely devastation.

A bonus throw for finesse.

So this attack will require two rolls.

First:

Pibbles's spectacles fog.

“Twenty-seven?”

Silas:

“Is that good?”

Pibbles:

“No.”

A pause.

“It's historic.”

Flip disappears.

99.4%.

And then—

Every window in Flip's childhood home explodes outward.

The chimney launches vertically into the atmosphere.

A family portrait spins off the wall.

The stove moves six feet.

The Certainty Agents stagger.

Their perfect geometric formation bends.

Mara screams:

Silas stares at the collapsing geometry.

“That is impossible!”

Pibbles:

He points toward the invisible source of the methane hurricane.

• • •

The Field Refuses

But Flip isn't finished.

He has learned from Gristlebridge.

A fart is not merely an attack.

It is locomotion.

Somewhere inside the invisible methane cloud, Flip plants both feet against the kitchen wall.

He compresses.

Aims.

And releases the secondary stage.

Flip becomes a projectile.

Invisible.

Supersonic.

Extremely upsetting.

Straight toward the nearest Agent.

...

Pibbles sees the number.

He slowly removes his spectacles.

Again.

• • •

There are moments when probability becomes unlikely.

There are moments when probability becomes absurd.

And then there are moments when the Sovereign of Chance, propelled by eleven-year-old fermented legumes, achieves perfect aerodynamic bowel control.

Flip hits Agent One.

But he doesn't merely collide.

He redirects.

One foot touches the Agent's chest.

Flip twists.

Kicks off.

Agent One flies backward.

Flip changes trajectory.

Straight toward Agent Two.

Redirect.

Agent Three.

Four.

Five.

Mara's mouth falls open.

“He's ricocheting.”

Silas:

“He's what?”

Pibbles climbs onto the table.

Tears off his tiny tie.

Begins waving it like a flag.

Flip hits Agent Six.

And launches upward.

The six Agents tumble through the air.

Their Correction Field collapses.

83%.

61%.

34%.

12%.

0%.

The Field Refuses

The white geometric cage shatters.

Probability floods back into the world.

And because Flip requested extra finesse—

he isn't done.

At the apex of his trajectory, Stealth Bombing ends.

Flip becomes visible.

Upside down.

Twenty feet above his mother's garden.

All six Agents are beneath him.

Flip looks at the Die of Possibility.

The Die understands.

Six Agents.

Six faces.

Flip grabs the Die.

Throws it downward.

It strikes Agent One.

Bounces.

Agent Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Then lands directly atop Agent Six's faceless helmet.

The Die settles.

Every Agent freezes.

The God Beneath sees the symbol.

Looks at the boot branded into its own hand.

And smiles.

“Oh,” Mara says.

The Agents speak simultaneously:

The God Beneath raises its hand.

“No.”

The Agents stop.

Not physically.

Existentially.

Their bodies flicker.

The Certainty Engine tries to impose their predetermined state.

But Refusal offers an alternative.

For the first time in their existence—

the Agents can say no.

Agent One looks at its weapon.

Drops it.

Agent Two sits down.

Agent Three touches a flower.

Agent Four walks away.

Agent Five looks toward the horizon.

Agent Six removes its helmet.

There is no face underneath.

The Field Refuses

Yet.

A tiny nose appears.

Then eyes.

Then a moustache.

Pibbles squints.

“Interesting choice.”

Agent Six touches the moustache.

“I selected it.”

The God Beneath nods approvingly.

“Excellent.”

Agent Six:

“Thank you.”

• • •

Meanwhile—

Flip remembers gravity.

“Oh.”

He lands directly in his mother's vegetable patch.

A cabbage breaks his fall.

It does not survive.

Mum storms outside.

Everyone becomes silent.

She surveys:

The shattered windows.

Missing chimney.

Destroyed kitchen wall.

Six newly liberated cosmic enforcement agents.

Her obliterated vegetable garden.

Her son lying inside a cabbage crater.

She walks toward Flip.

Flip smiles weakly.

“Hi, Mum.”

She raises the frying pan.

Pibbles whispers:

“Run.”

She points it at Flip.

“You.”

Flip braces.

“Are fixing.”

She gestures toward the house.

“All of this.”

Flip nods.

“Yep.”

“Before dinner.”

Flip looks at the missing chimney.

“Yep.”

“Good.”

She walks back inside.

The God Beneath watches her go.

“She is powerful.”

Pibbles:

“You have no idea.”

• • •

Then—

Everyone turns.

The floor.

The Correction Field had been holding probability rigid.

Now it's gone.

And the Threshold Key is still turned.

The kitchen floor opens completely.

But there are no stairs underneath.

No cellar.

No earth.

There is a night sky.

The Field Refuses

Below the house.

Stars.

Galaxies.

An infinite black expanse stretching downward.

And floating perhaps twenty feet beneath the kitchen—

is a man sitting in a wooden rocking chair.

Old.

Very old.

Huge amphibious eyes.

Gills.

Slippers.

A blanket over his knees.

He holds a mug.

Printed on the mug:

Flip stares.

The old man looks up.

Takes a sip.

“About fucking time.”

Flip's father appears behind him.

“Dad?”

The old man squints.

“No.”

He points at Flip.

“His grandpa.”

Flip's father looks personally offended by genealogy.

“But I'm his father.”

“Yes.”

“So you'd be—”

“Don't.”

The old man rubs his forehead.

“We tried explaining the family tree once.”

Pibbles arrives.

“Incest?”

Grandpa:

“Time travel.”

Pibbles considers.

“Marginally better.”

Silas walks to the edge.

His face is rigid.

“You.”

Grandpa smiles.

“Hello, Silas.”

Mara looks between them.

“You know each other?”

Grandpa:

“He tried to kill me.”

Silas:

“You destroyed causality.”

Grandpa:

“Once.”

Silas:

Grandpa shrugs.

“That's what made it interesting.”

Flip immediately likes him.

Then Grandpa sees the Die in Flip's hand.

His smile disappears.

He stands.

The rocking chair drifts away into infinity.

“Oh.”

For the first time, he sounds frightened.

“You repaired it.”

Flip looks at the Die.

Grandpa:

The Field Refuses

“Choice and Consequence.”

His eyes settle on 🥾.

“And added something.”

Pibbles:

“Refusal.”

Grandpa closes his eyes.

“Of course you did.”

He looks at Flip.

“Listen carefully.”

The stars beneath the house begin disappearing.

Not going dark.

Becoming identical.

One by one, every star moves into a perfect grid.

Silas sees it.

“The Engine.”

Grandpa nods.

“It found the First Throw.”

He reaches beneath his blanket.

Pulls out something.

Not a weapon.

Not another artifact.

A tiny wooden box.

He throws it upward.

Flip catches it.

Inside is—

a single ordinary six-sided die.

Bone.

Old.

Cracked.

One face has been scratched away.

Grandpa says:

“That was the first Die of Possibility.”

Flip looks at his black-and-gold artifact.

Then the crude bone die.

“But—”

“The fancy one came later.”

Grandpa points at the bone die.

“That one started everything.”

Mara:

“Who made it?”

Grandpa:

“Nobody.”

Silas:

“Impossible.”

Grandpa:

“Exactly.”

The grid of stars spreads.

Closer.

Grandpa looks at Flip.

“Before gods.”

Closer.

“Before kings.”

Closer.

“Before probability.”

The God Beneath kneels at the edge.

“Before Chance?”

Grandpa nods.

“There was one event.”

The star-grid begins forming something enormous.

A face.

The Certainty Engine.

Grandpa continues:

“Something happened…”

He points toward the scratched-off face of the bone die.

The Field Refuses

“…that had no possibility of happening.”

Silence.

“And because it happened anyway—”

The bone die twitches in Flip's hand.

“—reality had to invent Chance to explain it.”

Flip feels his Domain react.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Grandpa looks directly into his eyes.

“That impossible event was the First Throw.”

The Engine's face finishes forming beneath the house.

Grandpa raises his voice.

“And the Engine has spent all of existence trying to make sure nobody ever does it again.”

The cosmic face opens its mouth.

Grandpa screams:

Silas:

Mara:

Silas points at the missing face.

Grandpa:

“Correct!”

Pibbles:

“How many?!”

Grandpa grins.

The Engine surges upward.

The house begins tearing away from reality.

Flip stands over the impossible basement.

In one hand:

In the other:

One governs what can happen.

The other once produced something that couldn't.

And Flip's stomach—

after eleven-year-old lentils and onion rings—

makes one final ominous:

gurgle.

Pibbles hears it.

His eyes widen.

“Oh, no.”

Grandpa looks delighted.

“Oh, yes.”

The Certainty Engine is coming.

The First Die waits in Flip's hand.

And apparently—

Stealth Bombing has one final charge remaining.

What does Flip do?

The Die of Impossibility

Flip's stomach makes a sound that, in several neighboring realities, will later be mistaken for the death cry of a whale.

Pibbles backs away.

“Release pressure.”

Flip clenches.

“No.”

Pibbles stares at him.

“I'm sorry?”

Flip squeezes harder.

The God Beneath tilts its head.

“He is refusing himself.”

Grandpa's smile vanishes.

“Oh, that's new.”

Flip takes the black-and-gold Die of Possibility.

Then the cracked bone First Die.

He places both in the same hand.

Silas immediately understands.

His face becomes sheer horror.

“No.”

Mara:

“What?”

Grandpa:

“Oh…”

Pibbles:

“What?”

Grandpa starts grinning again.

“Oh, that's disgusting.”

Flip closes his fist.

And squeezes.

• • •

Ordinary dice are not especially compressible.

One is an artifact governing possibility itself.

The other predates the concept of probability.

Neither possesses any quality reasonably comparable to an overripe banana.

Flip does not consider this relevant.

Flip strains.

Nothing.

His face turns red.

Nothing.

A vein appears on his forehead.

Nothing.

Pibbles folds his arms.

“They're metaphysical artifacts, Flip.”

Flip strains harder.

“You cannot simply—”

Flip's eyes widen.

The suppressed Stealth Bombing begins seeking alternative routes.

Mara:

“Why is his neck inflating?”

Pibbles turns.

The Die of Impossibility

“Everybody move.”

Flip's gills flare.

A tiny puff of green methane escapes one.

pfft.

Grandpa's eyebrows rise.

“Fascinating.”

Pibbles:

Flip refuses.

No fart.

Not now.

He concentrates every fiber of his being on one sacred principle:

The 🥾 symbol on the Die of Possibility suddenly glows.

Flip is refusing the attack.

But Stealth Bombing already exists.

Energy cannot simply disappear.

So Chance asks the obvious question:

If the explosion cannot leave Flip…

where else can it go?

The First Die twitches.

Silas whispers:

“Oh, fuck.”

• • •

The methane pressure doesn't vanish.

It moves.

Down Flip's arm.

His shoulder bulges.

Then his elbow.

Then his forearm.

Straight toward—

the fist containing both dice.

Pibbles's spectacles slowly slide down his nose.

“Is he…”

Grandpa nods.

“He's putting the fart into probability.”

Pibbles removes his spectacles.

“I resign.”

• • •

Flip's fist begins glowing.

The First Die vibrates.

The Die of Possibility spins despite being trapped inside his palm.

The Certainty Engine rises beneath the house.

Its colossal face fills the impossible basement.

Flip squeezes.

Harder.

The Die of Impossibility

Flip looks down at the Engine.

And pushes.

The boot face ignites.

Grandpa screams:

Silas:

The dice crack.

Everyone freezes.

Mara:

“Was that supposed to happen?”

Grandpa:

“No!”

Mara:

Silas:

The black-and-gold Die softens.

The bone Die softens.

Not melts.

Not breaks.

They become—

squishy.

Flip's fingers sink into them.

Pibbles stares.

“Overripe banana.”

Grandpa:

“Overripe banana.”

The God Beneath:

“Overripe banana.”

Silas:

Flip grins.

Then—

The two dice collapse together.

• • •

There is no explosion.

There is a sound.

A small one.

plop.

Flip opens his hand.

Something sits in his palm.

Everyone leans closer.

It looks like a die.

Mostly.

But its geometry refuses inspection.

Look at it one way:

six sides.

Blink:

eight.

Tilt your head:

twenty.

Look directly at it:

apparently a small potato.

Pibbles:

“I dislike it.”

Symbols crawl across its faces.

💀.

⏳.

And then symbols nobody recognizes.

A spiral.

An empty circle.

An eye crossed out.

A question mark.

A tiny drawing of Pibbles.

Pibbles recoils.

“Why am I a possible outcome?!”

The Die of Impossibility

The die displays another symbol.

🦞

Somewhere behind them, the lobster clicks.

Pibbles points at the die.

The lobster clicks smugly.

Then the object displays something impossible:

A blank face.

Grandpa stops smiling.

Silas stops panicking.

The Certainty Engine stops moving.

Everything becomes quiet.

The God Beneath whispers:

“What is that?”

Grandpa answers.

“The outcome that hasn't been invented yet.”

• • •

Known faces: Unknown

Number of sides: Contextual

Purpose: Deeply inadvisable

New Principle:

Possibility no longer needs to exist before Flip attempts something.

Pibbles reads that twice.

Then a third time.

“No.”

Flip:

“What?”

“No.”

Pibbles points sternly at him.

“You are henceforth forbidden from discovering new verbs.”

• • •

Then the Certainty Engine speaks.

But its voice has changed.

Not commanding.

Afraid.

Grandpa looks down.

“Ah.”

The Engine reaches upward.

Silas realizes something.

“It doesn't want to destroy the Die.”

Grandpa nods.

“No.”

Mara:

“Then what does it want?”

Grandpa looks at Flip's hand.

“The blank face.”

The Engine's fingers emerge through the stars.

Flip's new Die twitches.

Grandpa:

“There you have it.”

Pibbles reloads his crossbow.

“Counterargument.”

The bolt travels downward.

The Die of Impossibility

Hits the Engine's finger.

tink.

Nothing.

Pibbles:

“I am still refining it.”

• • •

Then Flip's cheeks inflate.

His eyes widen.

Oh.

Right.

The fart.

The metaphysical transfer absorbed most of the pressure.

Most.

Not all.

Mum recognizes the expression.

“No.”

Flip grabs the counter.

ggrrrrrrrrgl.

Mara:

“Is he going to—”

Pibbles:

“Yes.”

“But he suppressed it!”

“Deferred expenditure.”

Flip's father nods appreciatively.

“That's how I handle taxes.”

Pibbles whirls.

The final charge reaches critical pressure.

Except now Flip is holding the Die of Impossibility.

The blank face turns toward him.

And Flip instinctively feels something terrifying.

He doesn't have to roll it onto the floor.

He doesn't even have to throw it normally.

Because the First Throw wasn't important because of what was rolled.

It was important because somebody attempted a throw whose outcome didn't exist.

Grandpa understands.

His enormous eyes widen.

“Flip.”

Silas:

“What?”

Grandpa points.

“Look at his hand.”

The blank face is glowing.

Silas goes rigid.

“No.”

Grandpa whispers:

“He can make the Second Throw.”

The Certainty Engine immediately lunges.

The house tears upward.

The kitchen roof vanishes into stars.

Mum still holds the frying pan.

Tilly raises her slingshot.

The God Beneath erupts into black flame.

The Die of Impossibility

Mara draws her blade.

Pibbles climbs onto Flip's shoulder.

“Instructions?”

Grandpa shouts from the void:

Silas:

Grandpa:

Silas:

The Engine's hand is almost upon them.

The blank face burns white.

Flip can feel the suppressed Stealth Bombing begging for release.

And then Pibbles looks from Flip's glowing backside—

to the Die.

His expression becomes appalled.

“No.”

Flip slowly smiles.

Pibbles knows that smile.

“Absolutely not.”

Grandpa sees it.

Grandpa begins laughing.

Silas:

“What is he planning?”

Pibbles points furiously at Flip.

“He's going to throw it, isn't he?”

Flip nods.

“With his hand?”

Flip's smile grows.

Pibbles closes his eyes.

“Of course not.”

The Certainty Engine descends.

The Die of Impossibility waits.

And Flip has accidentally discovered a new potential technique:

Launch the Die of Impossibility using the final overcharged Stealth Bombing blast.

Destination can be aimed.

Outcome does not yet exist.

Grandpa is screaming encouragement.

Silas is screaming the opposite.

Mara is screaming questions.

Mum is screaming about the roof.

The God Beneath is screaming because everyone else is doing it and it wishes to participate.

Pibbles sits on Flip's shoulder.

He sighs.

Then pulls his tie over his nose.

“Fine.”

He points at the Certainty Engine.

“Where are we aiming this abomination?”

The Flick

The Certainty Engine fills the impossible sky beneath Flip's childhood kitchen.

Gears the size of continents turn behind its face.

Billions of coins run through silver channels.

Heads.

Tails.

Heads.

Tails.

Every decision reduced.

Every consequence accounted for.

Every future categorized.

Flip studies it.

Somewhere inside all that machinery, there has to be something keeping it running.

A heart.

A furnace.

A battery.

A very stressed civil servant.

Something.

Behind him, Grandpa screams:

Silas screams:

Pibbles, sitting on Flip's shoulder with his tie over his nose, says:

“May I suggest we stop accepting strategic advice exclusively from screaming people?”

Flip nods.

Excellent point.

He will develop his own strategy.

This is substantially worse.

• • •

Flip raises his hand.

Palm flat.

He places the Die of Impossibility upon it.

The impossible little object wobbles.

Six sides.

Twelve.

Twenty.

Potato.

Blank.

Flip curls his middle finger behind his thumb.

Pibbles sees this.

Slowly lowers the tie.

“What are you doing?”

Flip sights down his arm.

Center mass.

Directly into the impossible machinery.

“Fuck Your Options.”

Pibbles looks at the finger.

Then the Die.

Then the Certainty Engine.

“That's not a kick.”

Flip smiles.

“2.0.”

Pibbles considers the engineering advancement.

“Acceptable.”

• • •

The Flick

Not a throw.

Not a roll.

Not even an attack the universe possesses vocabulary for.

Flip is about to flick the undefined outcome of reality directly into God's least enjoyable calculator.

The blank face turns upward.

The Certainty Engine recognizes what is happening.

For the first time, its countless mechanisms—

misfire.

Flip draws back his middle finger.

“Exactly.”

• • •

The Die leaves his palm.

No Stealth Bombing.

No explosion.

No cosmic thunder.

Just the crisp, humiliating sound of a well-executed finger flick.

It travels perhaps four inches.

Then stops.

Silas:

“...what?”

The Die hangs in midair.

Pibbles:

“That seems disappointing.”

The Certainty Engine immediately calculates its trajectory.

The Die's blank face turns toward the Engine.

A new word appears.

Grandpa begins laughing.

“Oh, you beautiful bastard.”

The Die vanishes.

The Engine goes silent.

Mara:

“Where did it go?”

Flip feels Chance reaching outward.

Searching.

Not for a target Flip can see.

For the thing Flip meant.

Somewhere inside the Certainty Engine.

The thing that makes certainty possible.

The Engine's voice changes.

Gears accelerate.

Billions of mechanisms scan themselves.

Silas whispers:

“It didn't travel through space.”

Grandpa:

“Nope.”

The Flick

Mara:

“Then where—”

Grandpa points at Flip.

“He aimed at a concept.”

Pibbles removes his spectacles.

“Of course he did.”

The Engine shudders.

And somewhere unimaginably deep inside it—

tink.

Everything stops.

• • •

Flip sees it.

Not with his eyes.

Through Chance.

For one impossible instant, his awareness follows the Die.

Past the gears.

Past the chains.

Past trillions of predetermined futures.

Into the center of the Certainty Engine.

There is no furnace.

No reactor.

No god.

There is a room.

Tiny.

Quiet.

A wooden table.

Two chairs.

And upon the table—

a coin.

Flip recognizes it immediately.

Not his Choice Coin.

Older.

Simpler.

One side reads:

The other:

And beside it sits a little boy.

Human.

Maybe seven years old.

He has been crying.

Chains run from his wrists into the walls of the Engine.

Every gear.

Every binary choice.

Every enforced destiny.

All of it originates here.

The boy looks up.

And sees the Die of Impossibility appear on the table.

tink.

His eyes widen.

He whispers:

“What's that?”

The blank face turns toward him.

A symbol slowly appears.

The boy touches it.

And somewhere outside—

the Certainty Engine screams.

• • •

The Flick

Its hand slams toward Flip's house.

The God Beneath catches one finger.

Reality buckles.

The God roars:

Grandpa:

The God:

Silas grabs Flip.

“What did you do?!”

Flip describes the room.

The boy.

The chains.

The coin.

Silas releases him.

His face empties.

“No.”

Grandpa stops laughing.

Mara:

“You know who he is.”

Silas doesn't answer.

Grandpa does.

“The First Certainty.”

Silas closes his eyes.

Mara:

“Meaning?”

Grandpa looks suddenly ancient.

“Before Chance existed, there couldn't be uncertainty.”

He points into the Engine.

“So the first impossible event created Chance…”

Then toward the boy.

“…and somebody had to become its opposite.”

Pibbles's expression hardens.

“A child?”

Grandpa:

“We were children.”

Silence.

Flip looks at him.

Grandpa doesn't meet his eyes.

Silas whispers:

“You didn't tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

Grandpa finally looks at Flip.

“The First Throw wasn't mine.”

The Engine shakes violently.

Grandpa points toward its center.

“It was his.”

• • •

Inside the Engine—

the boy picks up the Die.

The machinery responds instantly.

Chains tighten around his wrists.

The YES/NO coin flips.

The boy looks at the Die.

Its impossible geometry shifts in his tiny hand.

A third option appears.

The Flick

The Engine commands:

The boy whispers:

“Maybe.”

The Engine:

He closes his fingers around the Die.

And smiles.

“Fuck your options.”

Pibbles hears this somehow.

His mouth falls open.

He looks at Flip.

Then Grandpa.

“Oh, dear God.”

Grandpa nods.

“Family resemblance.”

• • •

The boy rolls.

Not Flip.

Him.

The Die hits the table.

It changes shape.

Bounces.

Again.

Again.

And lands on something that has never appeared before.

🔥

The Engine doesn't recognize it.

Neither does Flip.

Then the boy looks upward.

“What does this one mean?”

The Die answers.

Every chain in the room snaps.

Outside—

a continental gear breaks.

Another.

Another.

The channels carrying billions of binary coins rupture.

Coins pour into the void.

Heads and tails tumble uselessly together.

The Certainty Engine screams:

Chance floods in.

1%.

12%.

46%.

Impossible.

Likely.

Unlikely.

Maybe.

Perhaps.

Could.

Might.

Every word the Engine was built to destroy.

Its colossal face fractures.

The God Beneath starts laughing.

Mara:

Grandpa:

Pibbles:

“What is worse than dying?!”

Grandpa grins.

“It's becoming uncertain!”

• • •

The Engine's enormous hand transforms.

Metal.

Flesh.

Smoke.

Butterflies.

Hand again.

One finger becomes a lighthouse.

Another becomes a sausage.

Emperor Flip

Pibbles points.

“Probability appears intoxicated.”

Silas:

“The Engine can't maintain a single state!”

The cosmic face splits into hundreds of possible expressions.

Angry.

Terrified.

Confused.

One is wearing a moustache.

Agent Six sees it.

Touches his own moustache proudly.

“Good choice.”

Then—

the Engine's chest opens.

Something falls out.

Small.

A child.

The boy.

He tumbles through impossible space.

Grandpa screams:

Flip reaches.

Too far.

Mara reaches.

Too far.

The God Beneath reaches—

the boy passes between its fingers.

Pibbles looks down.

Then at Flip.

Then down again.

“No.”

Flip grins.

“No.”

Pibbles grabs Flip's ear.

“Whatever propulsion-based rescue you're contemplating—”

Too late.

gurgle.

Pibbles closes his eyes.

“I knew there was some left.”

• • •

Flip turns.

Aims.

Mum sees where.

Flip adjusts three degrees.

“Thank you!”

He bends.

The universe has experienced this enough times to know what's coming.

Flip disappears.

The vegetable garden experiences a second extinction event.

Flip rockets into the void.

Finesse +2.

Rescue the falling First Certainty.

Flip catches him.

The boy screams.

Flip screams.

Neither can hear the other because they are currently traveling at approximately Mach Arse.

Emperor Flip

They arc upward.

Toward the kitchen.

Too fast.

Pibbles:

Flip:

Pibbles:

Flip:

Mum steps forward.

Frying pan raised.

Mara:

“What is she doing?”

Dad grabs Mara.

“Trust her.”

Mum calculates.

Waits.

Waits.

Then—

She smacks Flip's backside with the frying pan.

His trajectory changes perfectly.

Flip and the boy crash through the pantry.

Silence.

Mum examines her frying pan.

Bent.

“Dinner's delayed.”

• • •

Flip crawls from the pantry.

Hair smoking.

One onion ring inexplicably still around his gill.

The boy emerges behind him.

Everyone stares.

Grandpa steps closer.

His eyes fill with tears.

“Elias.”

The boy freezes.

“...you got old.”

Grandpa laughs.

“So did you.”

Elias looks at his own hands.

Still seven.

“Oh.”

Grandpa kneels.

For eight hundred years, apparently, one brother aged.

The other became a machine.

Neither says anything.

They hug.

Even Pibbles looks away.

Mostly because the lobster is trying to steal his wallet.

• • •

Then Silas speaks.

“We haven't won.”

Everyone looks toward the impossible basement.

The Certainty Engine is collapsing.

But something is emerging from its wreckage.

Not machinery.

Not a god.

Thousands upon thousands of doors.

Emperor Flip

Every future the Engine suppressed.

Every possibility it rejected.

Every timeline it prevented.

They begin opening.

One shows Flip dead.

Another shows Flip emperor.

Another: Flip never born.

Another: Pibbles twelve feet tall.

Pibbles stares.

“I want that one.”

Mara closes it.

“No.”

Another shows the God Beneath running a bakery.

“Keep.”

Another shows Reginald working as Pibbles's assistant.

Pibbles:

“Also keep.”

Reginald:

Then one doorway opens.

Everyone goes silent.

Beyond it—

Flip's house.

Exactly as it is now.

Except Thursday has arrived.

Something enormous has hatched beneath it.

The countryside is gone.

The sky is burning.

And standing atop the ruins is—

Flip.

Not Future Flip from before.

Another one.

This Flip wears the Crown of Possibility.

The Die floats above one hand.

The Certainty Engine's broken face has been forged into armor around his body.

And kneeling before him—

Mara.

Silas.

The God Beneath.

Pibbles.

Everyone.

Emperor Flip looks through the doorway.

Directly at Present Flip.

He smiles.

Then holds up one finger.

Not threateningly.

Like someone requesting a moment.

He reaches down.

Grabs the kneeling Pibbles by the head.

And casually snaps his neck.

Present Pibbles:

“...I dislike this future.”

Emperor Flip throws the body aside.

Then speaks through the doorway.

“There you are.”

Emperor Flip

The Die of Impossibility returns suddenly to Present Flip's palm.

🔥 REVOLT is still glowing.

Emperor Flip sees it.

His smile disappears.

“Don't roll that again.”

Present Mara draws her knife.

“Why?”

Emperor Flip ignores her.

He looks only at Flip.

“Because I remember this conversation.”

Present Flip's blood runs cold.

Emperor Flip steps closer.

“And if you make the same decisions I did…”

He points behind himself.

At the burning world.

“…you become me.”

Pibbles loads his crossbow.

“Useful warning.”

Emperor Flip smiles.

“No.”

He points at the impossible basement.

Something begins moving beneath the burning ruins.

Something vast.

Something that makes even the God Beneath recoil.

“This is the warning.”

Thursday's creature rises behind Emperor Flip.

And Present Flip finally sees what was buried beneath his family home.

Not an egg.

Not a monster.

A gigantic sleeping die.

Miles across.

Each of its faces contains an entire universe.

Grandpa whispers:

“The World Die.”

Elias begins crying.

Silas:

“What happens when it rolls?”

Grandpa looks at Flip.

“Reality starts over.”

Emperor Flip raises his Crown.

“And on Thursday…”

The World Die begins to move.

“…someone is going to roll it.”

He points directly at Present Flip.

“You.”

The doorway starts closing.

Emperor Flip shouts:

Emperor Flip

The gap narrows.

Almost gone.

The future disappears.

Silence fills the ruined kitchen.

Pibbles looks at Flip.

Then at the Die of Impossibility.

Then at the floor beneath which a universe-sized reset button is apparently sleeping.

He sighs.

“Before anyone proposes kicking it…”

Everyone slowly looks at Flip.

Pibbles points sternly.

“…I would like five minutes to discuss scale.”

Grandpa stands.

Elias takes his hand.

Mara looks toward the place where Emperor Flip vanished.

Silas looks at the sky.

The God Beneath finishes the last piece of cake.

And the Die in Flip's palm changes.

🔥 fades.

A new symbol begins forming.

A silhouette.

Flip's silhouette.

But wearing a crown.

And Flip feels its meaning:

There is now a non-zero chance of reaching Emperor Flip before Thursday.

Not his timeline.

Not his world.

Him.

Chance of finding him naturally:

0%.

Chance with the Threshold Key:

0%.

Chance with Silas's help:

0%.

Chance using the Die of Impossibility:

Undefined.

Pibbles sees Flip staring at the new face.

“Oh, no.”

Mara:

“What?”

Pibbles knows that expression.

“He's got another idea.”

The lobster slowly backs toward the door.

For once—

the lobster may be the smartest person in the room.

What does Flip do?

A Necessary Rest

Pibbles stares at Flip.

Then at the 5/12 HP currently holding Flip together through determination, scar tissue, and fermented legumes.

Then at the missing roof.

Then at the universe-sized die sleeping beneath the house.

He lowers his crossbow.

“Finally.”

Mara blinks.

“What?”

Pibbles points at Flip.

“He has proposed something sensible.”

Everyone looks alarmed.

The God Beneath whispers:

“Is he dying?”

“Not if we get him into bed before he attempts to kick tomorrow.”

For once, the apocalypse is placed on hold.

Mum makes dinner.

The liberated Agents of Certainty repair the roof with disturbing geometric precision.

The God Beneath discovers gravy.

Elias and Grandpa disappear into the garden to have approximately eight centuries of family conversation.

Silas and Mara agree to postpone their own catastrophic family conversation until morning.

Pibbles confiscates the Die of Impossibility from Flip while he sleeps.

It reappears beneath Flip's pillow fourteen seconds later.

Pibbles confiscates it again.

It appears in Flip's mouth.

Pibbles stops trying.

The lobster is locked in a saucepan.

At 2:13 AM, it escapes.

Nobody knows how.

And Flip sleeps in his childhood bed.

No coffin.

No bounty hunters.

No cosmic voices.

Just rain against the window.

For the first time since Tuesday—

rest.

• • •

A Necessary Rest

🧅 Digestive system: Never speak of this again.

More importantly:

We never actually resolved your Level 2 advancement, so we do it now.

Flip currently has:

Might +1

Finesse +2

Wits +3

Presence +2

At Level 2, Flip gets two advancements:

1. Increase one stat by +1

Maximum +4 for now.

So Flip can become:

- Might +2 — better kicking, throwing, smashing and increasingly questionable physical solutions.

- Finesse +3 — better Stealth-Bombing trajectories, dodging, acrobatics, theft and precision.

- Wits +4 — Flip becomes frighteningly good at improvisation, artifact fuckery and turning terrible ideas into functioning plans.

- Presence +3 — stronger intimidation, persuasion, leadership and Sovereign authority.

And:

2. Choose one Level 2 Trait

I've tailored these to what Flip has actually become during play.

When Flip physically kicks a magical, conceptual or otherwise inappropriate target, gain +2 Audacity. On a critical success, the kick may alter how the target functions rather than merely damaging it.

A Necessary Rest

Stealth Bombing becomes significantly more precise. Flip may choose Propulsion, Area Attack, or Focused Blast before using it, reducing unintended collateral damage. Fermented food can still overcharge it because apparently we've learned nothing.

Once per long rest, after seeing one of Flip's rolls, you may say “Fuck that.” Reroll it. You must accept the second result. As Sovereign of Chance, Flip can also intuitively detect when someone nearby is magically manipulating probability.

Flip's Scoundrel training now applies to supernatural locks. When using the Threshold Key, lockpick, or similar tools, Flip gains +2 when attempting to open, close, sabotage or redirect magical barriers and portals.

Flip gains advantage when commanding creatures or people whose freedom he has personally helped restore. Once per long rest he can invoke his title—Sovereign of Chance—to force an intelligent creature to stop and hear one sentence before acting.

Whenever Flip is explicitly presented with two magical choices, he can sense whether an unspoken third possibility exists. It doesn't reveal what that possibility is—only that Fuck Your Options may be possible.

• • •

Morning arrives.

Flip wakes at 12/12 HP.

Downstairs, breakfast is waiting.

So are Pibbles, Mara, Silas, Grandpa, Elias, the God Beneath, six former Agents of Certainty—

and somehow the lobster is already sitting at the table wearing Pibbles's missing shoe.

Thursday is approaching.

Emperor Flip is somewhere ahead.

And the World Die sleeps beneath the house.

But first:

Choose Flip's +1 stat and one Level 2 Trait.

Edgewalker

Perfect. Locked in.

Flip's increasingly ridiculous cosmic authority is now backed by the deeply unfortunate fact that he's becoming charismatic.

Whenever Flip is explicitly presented with two magical, supernatural, or fate-bound choices, he can sense whether an unspoken third possibility exists.

Edgewalker does not automatically reveal what that option is.

It tells Flip:

There is another way.

Finding it remains Flip's problem.

Which, historically, is where the property damage begins.

Edgewalker also synergizes extremely well with 🥾 Fuck Your Options, the Die of Impossibility, and Flip's position as Sovereign of Chance.

• • •

Flip comes downstairs.

Fully rested.

Fully healed.

Slightly more majestic.

His mother immediately notices.

She squints at him over a frying pan full of eggs.

“You look different.”

Flip straightens.

“More commanding?”

“No.”

She points.

“There's an onion ring stuck behind your ear.”

Flip removes it.

Across the table, Pibbles opens a ledger.

“Excellent. His Majesty has regained full gastrointestinal and constitutional capacity.”

Mara drinks coffee.

“Don't call him that.”

“I wasn't referring to the monarchy.”

Pibbles turns the ledger around.

Edgewalker

1. World Die beneath house.

2. Thursday.

3. Evil Future Flip.

4. Certainty Engine — status: *experiencing organizational difficulties.*

5. Lord Gristle.

6. Tax Dragon — 19,005 gold outstanding.

7. Armed lobster.

Everyone looks toward the end of the table.

The lobster is eating toast.

Pibbles narrows his eyes.

“Seven is becoming a priority.”

Then—

Not beneath the floor.

The front door.

Everyone freezes.

Grandpa looks toward Elias.

Silas reaches into his coat.

Mara draws her knife beneath the table.

The God Beneath puts down its jam.

Pibbles aims his crossbow.

Mum sighs.

“For fuck's sake, we're eating.”

She opens the door.

A man stands outside.

Expensive coat.

Polished boots.

Grey hair.

Umbrella.

Completely alone.

He looks past Mum.

Straight at Flip.

“Good morning.”

Flip's father slowly stands.

His expression hardens.

“Gristle.”

The man responsible for the ten-thousand-gold debt.

The bounty.

The coffin.

And apparently part of the chain that brought Flip here.

Gristle steps inside.

Pibbles:

“Bold.”

Gristle:

“Necessary.”

Flip drops the sack of exactly 10,000 gold onto the breakfast table.

Gristle looks at it.

Then at Flip.

And pushes it back.

“I don't want your money.”

Nobody is surprised.

Pibbles nevertheless crosses item five off his list and replaces it with:

Edgewalker

Gristle continues.

“I came because we have very little time.”

He reaches inside his coat.

Silas:

“Slowly.”

Gristle produces a small black envelope.

Two seals close it.

One white.

One gold.

He places it before Flip.

“Yesterday, I received two instructions.”

He taps the white seal.

“The remnants of the Certainty Engine ordered me to kill you before Thursday.”

Then the gold.

“And Emperor Flip ordered me to ensure you survive until Thursday.”

Silence.

Mara:

“Those seem incompatible.”

“Precisely.”

Gristle looks at Flip.

“So I have been given two choices.”

And instantly—

something changes.

Flip feels it.

Not the Die.

Not Chance.

Something quieter.

A sensation along the edge of his thoughts.

Like noticing a door because someone tried very hard to convince him there were only two walls.

Presented choices:

⚪ Obey the Certainty Engine: Kill Flip.

And beneath them—

something.

Hidden.

Unspoken.

A third path.

Flip cannot see what it is.

But he can feel it.

For the first time, Edgewalker has spoken.

And Lord Gristle has absolutely no idea that Flip knows.

Lord Gristle's Third Path

Pibbles watches Flip's enormous eyes drift toward Lord Gristle.

Then toward the letter.

Then toward the sack of gold.

Then back toward Gristle.

Pibbles knows that expression.

“No.”

Mara:

“What?”

“He's considering letting Gristle try.”

Gristle pauses.

“Try what?”

Flip grins.

Pibbles puts down his coffee.

“Attempting to assassinate the Sovereign of Chance.”

Gristle's eyebrows rise.

The God Beneath immediately pulls its chair closer.

“I would like to watch.”

Mum:

“Not in the kitchen.”

• • •

Flip concentrates on the hidden third path.

The two obvious possibilities burn brightly:

Between them is a hairline crack.

Flip pushes his awareness into it.

Something answers.

Not words.

Probabilities.

Chance Gristle successfully kills Flip:

0.7%

Pibbles peers over.

“Unacceptably high.”

Chance Gristle successfully protects Flip until Thursday:

14%

“Also poor.”

Then Edgewalker finds the third path.

And Flip understands why it was hidden.

His smile disappears.

Chance:

100%.

Flip blinks.

That's wrong.

Chance doesn't work like that.

Not anymore.

Not around Flip.

Nothing should be 100%.

Except—

Gristle is smiling.

Silas sees Flip's expression.

“What?”

Flip tells them.

Silence.

Gristle slowly nods.

“There it is.”

Mara raises her knife.

“You knew?”

“I suspected.”

Lord Gristle's Third Path

Pibbles aims his crossbow directly between Gristle's eyes.

“Explain quickly.”

Lord Gristle unbuttons his coat.

No weapon.

Instead, beneath his shirt—

golden writing covers his chest.

Thousands of tiny lines.

Contracts.

Clauses.

Signatures.

All converging over his heart.

And stabbed directly through the center is a thin white needle.

Silas stands so quickly his chair falls backward.

“Certainty geas.”

Gristle nods.

“Thirty-two years.”

• • •

He looks at Flip.

“I didn't raise your family's debt because I wanted the First Throw.”

Grandpa:

“I fucking knew it.”

“You've accused me of trying to steal it every Winter Solstice for twenty years.”

“Yes, but I never believed myself.”

Gristle ignores him.

“The Engine couldn't act directly here. Your family's guardianship prevented it.”

“So it needed an intermediary,” Mara says.

“Yes.”

“The debt.”

“Yes.”

“The bounty.”

“Yes.”

“The coffin?”

Gristle hesitates.

“Administrative flourish.”

Pibbles looks offended.

“I respect that.”

Mara:

“Don't.”

Gristle continues.

“My orders were to create circumstances forcing Flip toward the Choice Coin, the Lock, and eventually the First Throw.”

Flip frowns.

“But Silas said you were trying to stop the Engine.”

Silas looks furious.

“I was.”

Gristle:

“And every time Silas disrupted the plan, the geas recalculated.”

Pibbles:

“Meaning?”

“Certainty doesn't need to control every event.”

Lord Gristle's Third Path

Gristle looks at Flip.

“It only needs to ensure all roads eventually reach the same destination.”

Thursday.

The World Die.

Emperor Flip.

Flip rolling it.

• • •

Edgewalker pulses again.

There is still something wrong.

Flip examines the third option.

He pushes harder.

Presence.

Sovereignty.

Chance.

The hidden structure opens.

And Flip sees the trick.

The third option isn't:

Flip chooses to kill Gristle.

It is:

Very different sentence.

Edgewalker digs deeper.

The probability branches become visible.

Flip attacks Gristle?

Gristle dies.

Flip refuses to attack?

Gristle dies.

Flip leaves?

Gristle dies.

Flip heals him?

Gristle dies.

Flip asks the God Beneath to protect him?

Gristle dies.

Flip locks Gristle in another reality?

Gristle dies.

Flip does absolutely nothing?

...

Gristle dies.

Every branch converges.

One corpse.

Pibbles quietly says:

“That is deeply irritating.”

Gristle:

“Now you understand.”

Flip looks at him.

“Understand what?”

Gristle taps the white needle in his chest.

“The Engine gave me two orders.”

Kill Flip.

Protect Flip.

“But it gave you a certainty.”

He smiles grimly.

“Kill me.”

• • •

Then Edgewalker pulses.

Again.

Harder.

Lord Gristle's Third Path

Flip freezes.

There are not three options.

There are—

four.

Pibbles notices Flip's expression.

“What?”

Flip holds up four fingers.

Silas:

“That's not how Edgewalker works.”

Grandpa starts laughing.

“Apparently it is now.”

The fourth possibility is microscopic.

So small Chance can't assign it a percentage.

It exists somewhere beneath zero.

Flip reaches.

The Die of Impossibility warms in his pocket.

The 🥾 face appears.

Then the blank face.

Then something new:

And Flip understands.

The Engine constructed a certainty:

Because of Flip, Lord Gristle must die.

Two obvious options operate inside that statement.

Edgewalker found a third.

But the fourth possibility doesn't concern Gristle at all.

It concerns the sentence.

Flip looks at the golden contracts covering Gristle's chest.

At the white needle.

At the chains of causality running invisibly from Gristle—

through the Certainty Engine—

through Thursday—

through Emperor Flip—

all the way back to Flip himself.

They aren't magical chains.

They're narrative ones.

Cause.

Effect.

Premise.

Conclusion.

Flip doesn't need to save Gristle.

He doesn't need to kill Gristle.

He doesn't need to defeat the certainty.

He can try to sever the relationship between the cause and the outcome.

The Die names the possibility:

Pibbles reads the expression on Flip's face.

“Oh, that's considerably worse.”

Mara:

“What does it do?”

Pibbles:

“I suspect we're about to find out.”

Gristle looks between them.

“For clarity, what exactly is he planning?”

Pibbles takes his coffee and moves several chairs farther away.

“The usual.”

“Which is?”

Pibbles takes a sip.

“Something your oppressor forgot to make impossible.”

And for perhaps the first time in thirty-two years—

Lord Gristle looks hopeful.

Because Of

Flip considers the problem.

Lord Gristle has been bound by the Certainty Engine for thirty-two years.

Every possible decision converges on the same result:

Because of Flip, Lord Gristle dies.

An ancient deterministic supermachine has built an airtight causal prison around the man's existence.

Silas has spent decades studying this sort of thing.

Grandpa helped create Chance itself.

Elias was literally imprisoned at the heart of Certainty.

There are probably sophisticated metaphysical solutions.

Flip considers all of them for approximately half a second.

Then shrugs.

“Fuck it.”

Pibbles closes his eyes.

“Doctrine established.”

• • •

Flip produces the Die of Impossibility.

Its geometry ripples.

The new scissors symbol glows.

Lord Gristle watches it nervously.

“What exactly does Cut the Consequence entail?”

Silas:

“We don't know.”

Gristle:

“Has he tested it?”

Mara:

“No.”

“Does he understand it?”

Grandpa:

“Almost certainly not.”

“Could it kill me?”

Pibbles checks Flip's probability field.

“Apparently everything can kill you.”

Gristle considers this.

“Fair.”

He opens his shirt fully.

The golden contractual writing pulses.

At its center:

the white needle.

Flip reaches toward it.

Silas catches his wrist.

“Wait.”

Flip looks at him.

Silas's expression is deadly serious.

Because Of

“If you cut the wrong thing, you could remove the effect without removing the cause.”

Pibbles:

“Meaning?”

“Suppose someone stabs you.”

Pibbles nods.

“You cut the consequence.”

“Yes.”

“So I'm no longer wounded?”

“Maybe.”

“Excellent.”

“Or you could remove the causal relationship between stabbing and injury everywhere.”

Pibbles slowly lowers his coffee.

“Less excellent.”

Grandpa perks up.

“Interesting, though.”

Mara:

“Stop encouraging cosmological vandalism.”

The God Beneath raises one hand.

“I like cosmological vandalism.”

Mum points her spatula from the stove.

“Not before breakfast.”

Even primordial entities obey Mum now.

• • •

Flip activates the Die.

Suddenly Flip can see it.

A thin white thread extends from himself.

Across the kitchen.

Into Gristle's chest.

But it doesn't stop there.

It runs backward.

Through yesterday.

Through the coffin.

Through Gristlebridge.

Through the bounty hunters.

Through the Royal Vault.

Through the Choice Coin.

Through Aldric.

Through the God Beneath.

Through the Certainty Engine.

Forward again through Thursday.

Through the World Die.

Through Emperor Flip.

And finally—

back into Flip.

A closed loop.

Pibbles sees enough of it through the Die's glow.

“Ah.”

“What?”

“We appear to be inside an accounting circularity.”

Mara:

“In normal words.”

Because Of

“The future caused the past to create the future that caused the past.”

Grandpa:

“Time loop.”

Pibbles:

“My version was more precise.”

• • •

Flip reaches toward the thread.

His fingers pass through.

The Die changes.

Two spectral blades appear around the causal line.

And the universe reacts.

Silence.

Mara reads it twice.

“Oh.”

Grandpa starts giggling.

Silas:

“No.”

Pibbles:

“Yes.”

Silas:

“Absolutely not.”

Pibbles:

“Counterpoint: extremely funny.”

The Die asks:

Two symbols appear.

Flip feels Edgewalker.

Immediately.

Flip stares at the binary prompt.

Then slowly raises his middle finger.

Pibbles:

“Oh, that's elegant.”

Flip doesn't select yes.

He doesn't select no.

He flicks the prompt itself.

fthwip.

The YES and NO symbols spin away.

The Die pauses.

Apparently offended.

Then displays:

Grandpa collapses against the table laughing.

• • •

Nothing happens.

Gristle blinks.

“Am I alive?”

Pibbles:

“Temporarily.”

Gristle checks himself.

The white needle remains.

Golden contracts remain.

No explosion.

No cosmic screaming.

Mara:

“Did it fail?”

Then Flip feels something profoundly wrong.

He remembers Gristlebridge.

But—

why was he there?

Because Of

He remembers the coffin.

But not why Gristle wanted it.

He remembers the bounty hunters saying 10,000 gold.

But their employer—

Flip squints.

Wasn't Gristle.

Couldn't have been.

Because the causal relationship has been severed.

Reality begins rewriting around the cut.

Silas whispers:

“Oh, shit.”

• • •

Lord Gristle's golden contracts begin disappearing.

One sentence at a time.

The bounty order vanishes.

The property debt vanishes.

The instruction to lure Flip vanishes.

Thirty-two years of Certainty Engine commands burn away.

The white needle falls from Gristle's chest.

ting.

Gristle gasps.

Then collapses.

Mara catches him.

“Gristle!”

Pibbles checks his pulse.

“Alive.”

The probability above him changes.

Chance Gristle dies because of Flip:

~~100%~~

Grandpa whistles.

“You actually did it.”

Silas looks less impressed.

“No.”

He points toward the window.

“You don't understand.”

Outside—

the road is changing.

The sign marking Gristle's property disappears.

Then the fence.

Then a distant farmhouse.

History is rewriting itself.

Mara:

“What did we cut?”

Silas looks at Flip.

“Not Gristle's death.”

Pibbles:

“We established that.”

“You cut the word because.”

Everyone pauses.

Grandpa:

“Oh.”

And even Grandpa doesn't sound delighted anymore.

• • •

The Die vibrates violently.

New probabilities flood Flip's senses.

He looks at the broken kitchen window.

Because Of

A bird flies past.

It flaps its wings.

But the flapping no longer causes it to rise.

The bird hangs there.

Confused.

Flaps again.

Nothing.

Then suddenly shoots upward because something else caused it.

Pibbles watches.

“Oh dear.”

Mum drops an egg.

It hits the floor.

Doesn't break.

Three seconds later the kitchen clock ticks—

and the egg explodes.

The God Beneath touches the table.

The table screams.

The God removes its hand.

“I dislike this.”

Grandpa:

“Cause and consequence are becoming locally negotiable.”

Mara turns on Flip.

“Locally?!”

Grandpa checks the horizon.

“Hopefully.”

Silas:

“And if not?”

Grandpa:

“Then Flip has just disabled causality.”

Pibbles looks at Flip.

“Your Majesty.”

Flip:

“Yeah?”

“I am revising my earlier opinion.”

He takes out his ledger.

“Please stop discovering new verbs.”

• • •

Then—

Everyone looks toward the floor.

The World Die.

Another knock.

Then a third.

But Thursday isn't here.

It's days early.

Grandpa goes white.

“That shouldn't happen yet.”

Pibbles points toward Flip.

“I feel the word because may feature prominently in the explanation.”

The floor cracks.

Not physically.

Chronologically.

A line opens across the kitchen.

Through it—

Thursday.

The World Die is awake.

Flip sees himself standing atop it.

Emperor Flip.

Except something has changed.

Because Of

His armor is shattered.

His crown is missing.

He's bleeding heavily.

And he's fighting someone.

Mara squints through the temporal crack.

“Who the hell is that?”

The figure turns.

Six inches tall.

Business suit.

Crossbow.

Tiny spectacles.

Pibbles slowly stands.

“No.”

Future Pibbles fires.

Emperor Flip dives aside.

Future Pibbles reloads with terrifying efficiency.

Present Pibbles steps closer.

“Interesting.”

Mara:

“You're alive!”

Pibbles:

“More importantly—”

Future Pibbles roundhouse-kicks Emperor Flip in the ankle.

Emperor Flip collapses screaming.

Present Pibbles's eyes shine.

“—I'm magnificent.”

• • •

Future Pibbles looks through the crack.

Sees Present Flip.

His expression becomes furious.

Present Pibbles:

“Apparently.”

Future Pibbles:

Emperor Flip lunges.

Future Pibbles shoots him in the foot without looking.

Future Pibbles:

“Listen carefully! Cutting Gristle loose changed Thursday!”

Silas:

“How?”

“Emperor Flip existed because Flip tried to stop the World Die from rolling!”

Present Flip:

“And now?”

Future Pibbles looks behind him.

The World Die is moving.

“No causal chain means the prophecy no longer forces Flip to roll it.”

Grandpa:

“That's good!”

Future Pibbles:

Everyone relaxes.

Future Pibbles:

“Unfortunately—”

Everyone immediately stops relaxing.

“—it also means the World Die no longer requires someone to roll it.”

Because Of

The enormous object beneath him shifts.

One edge lifts.

Grandpa whispers:

“Oh fuck.”

Future Pibbles:

The temporal crack widens.

The World Die begins tipping under its own impossible weight.

Future Pibbles screams:

• • •

Present Flip feels Edgewalker ignite.

The universe presents two obvious choices:

Restore cause and consequence before the World Die becomes autonomous.

Keep causality severed and deal with a universe where outcomes no longer require causes.

Then Edgewalker digs deeper.

A third path emerges.

And this one is strange.

Very strange.

The Die of Impossibility displays:

Not destroy causality.

Not restore it.

Pibbles sees the symbol.

“What does that mean?”

Silas stares.

“You severed cause from consequence.”

Grandpa slowly starts smiling again.

“So perhaps…”

Elias finishes:

“…we can reconnect them differently.”

Silence.

Mara looks at Flip.

“You mean rewrite what causes Thursday?”

The Die responds:

Pibbles goes completely still.

Then turns toward Flip.

“No.”

Flip hasn't said anything.

“No.”

Grandpa:

“He hasn't proposed anything yet.”

“I know him.”

Pibbles points at Flip.

“We are not making the World Die dependent upon whether Flip farts.”

The Die glows.

Pibbles:

For perhaps the first time—

even the Die of Impossibility seems amused.

Tuesday

Pibbles reads Flip's proposed causal clause.

Once.

Twice.

A third time.

He slowly puts down his coffee.

“That is…”

Everyone waits.

“…surprisingly competent.”

Mara nearly chokes.

“Excuse me?”

Pibbles points at Flip.

“He has constructed a condition so obnoxiously specific that reality itself may struggle to satisfy it.”

Grandpa strokes his chin.

“I like it.”

Silas does not.

“That concerns me.”

• • •

The Die of Impossibility rises from Flip's palm.

The ✂️ face splits.

One half remains a blade.

The other twists into a chain.

Flip dictates:

The World Die may roll only when all specified conditions occur simultaneously.

The Die waits.

Flip begins.

It must be Tuesday.

Pibbles nods.

“Simple enough.”

The calendar date must change directly from the 22nd to the 4th.

The Die pauses.

Silas:

“That cannot normally—”

Silas:

“I hate that artifact.”

Grandpa:

“It's growing on me.”

Black rain must fall while the weather remains sunny.

Longer pause.

The Die rotates.

🌧️

☀️

The symbols overlap.

The God Beneath:

“What is black rain?”

Pibbles:

“Hopefully irrelevant.”

The black rain must occur simultaneously across three distinct timelines.

The kitchen becomes silent.

The Die vibrates.

Once.

Twice.

Tuesday

Then:

Mara:

“That's got to be enough.”

Flip isn't finished.

Pibbles smiles.

“Oh, he's learned.”

All three timelines must be experiencing midwinter in the Arctic when the event occurs.

The Die stops moving.

For several seconds—

nothing.

Then the entire house groans.

Not the wood.

Reality.

Somewhere beneath them, the World Die stops tipping.

Future Pibbles disappears from the temporal crack.

Emperor Flip disappears.

Thursday itself flickers.

And the Die displays:

Grandpa leans forward.

Silas holds his breath.

Mara grips the table.

Pibbles calmly steals one of Flip's sausages.

Then—

The World Die slams back into dormancy.

The shockwave travels across realities.

Flip feels the causal thread reconnect.

But this time it doesn't lead from Thursday.

It leads somewhere so spectacularly improbable that Chance itself seems to squint at the paperwork.

• • •

The Die of Impossibility writes the contract into reality:

A Tuesday occurs on which the calendar transitions directly from the 22nd to the 4th, while black rain falls under sunny skies simultaneously across three distinct timelines, each experiencing Arctic midwinter.

Flip invokes Sovereign of Chance.

Tuesday

Numbers cascade through his mind.

1 in 10¹⁹

Then recalculation.

1 in 10⁴⁷

Again.

1 in 10⁹³

The number keeps expanding.

Pibbles:

“Well?”

Flip waits.

Chance finally gives up.

The probability vanishes.

Replaced by:

Pibbles raises his coffee.

“Perfect.”

• • •

And then Edgewalker activates.

Flip's smile fades.

There is another way.

Not another way to roll the World Die.

Another way to satisfy the conditions.

Flip examines the causal structure.

Tuesday.

22nd → 4th.

Black rain.

Sunshine.

Three timelines.

Arctic midwinter.

Each condition is extraordinarily improbable naturally.

But—

none requires them to happen naturally.

Silas realizes it at exactly the same moment.

His face goes pale.

“Oh no.”

Mara:

“What?”

Silas points at the contract.

“We've made the World Die almost impossible to roll accidentally.”

Pibbles:

“Correct.”

“But not deliberately.”

Grandpa stops smiling.

Pibbles slowly lowers his mug.

“Ah.”

Silas looks at Flip.

“Someone with control over time, weather and multiple timelines could manufacture every condition.”

Mara:

“Who has that?”

Everyone thinks.

Then slowly—

everyone looks toward the place where Emperor Flip had been standing.

Pibbles sighs.

“Of fucking course.”

• • •

The Die calculates.

Chance conditions occur naturally before the end of the universe:

Effectively 0%.

Chance Emperor Flip can deliberately engineer them:

Tuesday

Unknown.

Chance Emperor Flip now knows the new conditions:

0%.

Good.

Then—

Chance Emperor Flip will eventually discover them:

71%.

Less good.

Grandpa:

“So we bought time.”

Silas nods.

“A lot.”

Mara:

“How much?”

Chance answers.

Probability World Die rolls within:

24 hours: 0.0000000000000000000000000000000004%

One year: 0.00000000000000000003%

One century: 0.0000007%

Pibbles:

“I'll take it.”

Then another probability appears.

Chance Lord Gristle survives today:

99.8%.

Gristle, still lying on the floor:

“Lovely.”

Chance Thursday remains apocalyptic:

3%.

Grandpa:

“Excellent.”

Chance Thursday remains extremely inconvenient:

100%.

Pibbles:

“There it is.”

• • •

Then the Die produces one final message.

Pibbles freezes.

His head turns very slowly.

“Excuse me?”

A tiny golden ledger materializes above Flip.

It opens.

Creditor: Causality

Debtor: Flip I, Sovereign of Chance

Principal: 1 impossible Tuesday

Interest: Compounding retroactively

Pibbles grabs the ledger.

His tiny eyes scan downward.

“No.”

Mara:

“What?”

“No no no.”

He turns the page.

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Silas:

“What does it say?”

Pibbles looks at Flip.

“You didn't eliminate the event.”

Flip:

“Postponed it?”

“You borrowed against it.”

Grandpa:

“How?”

Pibbles slams the ledger onto the table.

“Causality accepted Flip's ridiculous conditions because Flip guaranteed that those conditions remain possible.”

Silence.

Mara:

“So?”

Tuesday

Pibbles points at the contract.

“So reality is now obligated to preserve at least one chain of events in which this Tuesday can eventually occur.”

Grandpa's smile returns.

“Oh, that's interesting.”

• • •

Then someone knocks on the front door.

Three polite knocks.

knock. knock. knock.

Mum sighs.

“If that's another cosmic entity, it's taking its shoes off.”

She opens the door.

A woman stands outside.

Tall.

Perfect black suit.

Snow on her shoulders.

Sunglasses.

Behind her—

bright sunshine.

And black droplets of rain.

Nobody moves.

Pibbles looks out the window.

It is summer.

Here.

The woman removes her sunglasses.

Her eyes resemble clock faces.

“Good morning.”

Pibbles whispers:

“No.”

She produces an identification card.

Collections & Paradox Enforcement

Pibbles:

She looks directly at Flip.

“Flip I?”

The Die of Impossibility quietly attempts to hide behind a salt shaker.

The woman smiles.

“My name is Tuesday.”

Grandpa:

“Oh, that's fantastic.”

Pibbles throws his coffee at him.

Tuesday continues:

“You have recently taken out a rather substantial loan against causality.”

She opens a briefcase.

Inside are three objects:

A calendar displaying 22.

A bottle containing black rain.

And a small artificial sun.

Pibbles stares.

Mara stares.

Silas stares.

Flip stares.

Tuesday smiles.

“I'm here to discuss repayment terms.”

Pibbles climbs onto the table.

Points his crossbow at the universe.

Coffee and Cake

The kitchen falls silent.

Tuesday stands in the doorway holding enough carefully packaged paradox to end reality.

Flip looks at her.

At the black suit.

At the clockwork eyes.

At the snow inexplicably resting on her shoulders.

And thinks:

She's probably never been on a date.

Pibbles notices the expression.

“Oh no.”

Mara:

“What?”

“He's going to flirt with debt collection.”

Tuesday tilts her head.

“I am empowered to negotiate.”

Flip smiles.

“Perfect.”

• • •

He makes his offer.

For every occurrence of causality that resolves without causing the World Die to roll, Tuesday earns one coffee date.

Her choice of companion:

☕ Flip, Sovereign of Chance

or

☕ The God Beneath

The God Beneath stops eating toast.

“What is a date?”

Mara:

“Oh, this is going to be incredible.”

Silas:

“No.”

Grandpa:

“Absolutely.”

Pibbles:

“I require stronger coffee.”

Tuesday doesn't move.

Her clock-eyes tick.

Once.

Twice.

Apparently she is processing something her office training did not cover.

“Clarification.”

Flip nods.

“You are offering…”

She consults an invisible document.

“…recreational interpersonal beverage consumption?”

“Yep.”

“With either yourself…”

“Yep.”

She looks at the God Beneath.

“…or Anomaly 002, Primordial Devourer of the Seventh Foundation?”

The God raises a hand.

Coffee and Cake

“I have cake experience.”

Tuesday's clocks skip a second.

• • •

19 + 3 = 22

And because this is simultaneously:

- audacious,

- charming,

- strategically relevant,

- an attempt to refinance the apocalypse using coffee,

- and perhaps the first time anyone has flirted with the Office of Causal Debt—

The Die of Impossibility displays:

Then ☕.

Then, inexplicably:

Pibbles points at it.

“Remain impartial.”

• • •

Tuesday's professional expression cracks.

Barely.

One corner of her mouth rises.

“Mr. Flip.”

“Your Majesty,” Pibbles corrects automatically.

Tuesday glances at him.

Pibbles grimaces.

“I hate that I did that.”

Tuesday returns her attention to Flip.

“Your proposal has several problems.”

She enters the kitchen.

Mum points at her boots.

Tuesday immediately removes them.

The entire room watches.

The cosmic debt collector carefully places her shoes beside the door.

Mum:

“Thank you.”

Tuesday:

“Of course.”

The God Beneath whispers to Mara:

“I like her.”

Mara:

“I know.”

• • •

Tuesday sits opposite Flip.

“First problem.”

She opens her briefcase.

“Your proposed compensation has no recognized monetary value.”

Pibbles:

“Correct.”

Coffee and Cake

“Second: the Office of Causal Debt does not ordinarily permit repayment through social engagements.”

Pibbles:

“Correct.”

“Third…”

She looks at Flip.

Her clock-eyes tick backward.

“…I have never had coffee.”

Flip's grin grows.

The God Beneath gasps.

“Neither have I.”

Tuesday turns.

Their eyes meet.

Primordial purple flame.

Clockwork eternity.

Two cosmic beings suddenly realizing there are beverages neither has experienced.

Mara quietly whispers:

“Oh my God.”

Silas:

“Which one?”

“Either.”

• • •

Tuesday straightens.

“However.”

Pibbles:

“Here it comes.”

“As a licensed Causal Enforcement Officer, I possess discretionary authority to restructure paradox obligations where the alternative arrangement demonstrably increases causal stability.”

Pibbles sits bolt upright.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“May I see the governing statute?”

“No.”

Pibbles looks deeply attracted to the bureaucracy.

Not Tuesday.

The bureaucracy.

• • •

Tuesday produces a golden contract.

Words write themselves.

Flip I, Sovereign of Chance

Tuesday, Office of Causal Debt

Maintain causal possibility of the Impossible Tuesday necessary to permit the World Die to roll.

For each qualifying causal event where:

A meaningful chain of causality could reasonably contribute toward the World Die's roll condition, but resolves without advancing that condition—

Tuesday receives:

Coffee and Cake

Companion selected solely by Tuesday:

A. Flip

or

B. The God Beneath

The God raises his hand.

“Can there be cake?”

The contract writes:

Cake permitted.

The God:

“Excellent.”

• • •

Pibbles grabs the contract.

“Wait.”

Everyone looks at him.

His accountant instincts have activated.

“How many qualifying causal events?”

Tuesday:

“Potentially infinite.”

Pibbles looks at Flip.

Then Tuesday.

Then the contract.

“You've offered her an unlimited coffee derivative.”

Flip shrugs.

Tuesday smiles.

Pibbles starts vibrating.

Grandpa:

“Apparently he can.”

Tuesday calmly adds another clause.

Coffee dates may not occur simultaneously.

Pibbles relaxes slightly.

“Better.”

Dates may occur retroactively.

Pibbles:

• • •

Then Tuesday looks at Flip.

“The offer is acceptable.”

A cosmic stamp hits the contract.

The artificial sun disappears.

The black rain bottle disappears.

The calendar displaying 22 disappears.

The World Die's causal thread loosens.

Chance recalculates.

Probability Office of Causal Debt deliberately engineers Impossible Tuesday:

0%

Mara punches Flip lightly in the shoulder.

“You flirted the apocalypse into refinancing itself.”

Pibbles:

“Do not praise him.”

Grandpa:

“I'm praising him.”

Silas:

“I am reconsidering every decision that led me here.”

• • •

Coffee and Cake

Tuesday closes her briefcase.

Then doesn't leave.

Pibbles notices.

“Was there another matter?”

“No.”

She remains seated.

Five seconds.

Ten.

The clock-eyes tick.

The God Beneath leans toward Flip.

“I believe she is waiting.”

Tuesday clears her throat.

“Clause seven permits immediate redemption of accrued compensation.”

Pibbles grabs the contract.

“We have already accrued one?!”

Tuesday points outside.

A leaf falls from a tree.

It lands harmlessly.

“Causality occurred.”

Pibbles:

“That cannot possibly qualify.”

The contract glows.

Pibbles:

Tuesday stands.

For the first time, she looks almost nervous.

She looks at Flip.

Then at the God Beneath.

Her contractual right.

Her choice.

The God Beneath straightens his tiny borrowed jacket.

Flip gives her his best newly upgraded Presence +3 smile.

Tuesday considers them.

Then—

she points.

At the God Beneath.

“You.”

The God looks behind himself.

Tuesday:

“Yes. You.”

“Why?”

Tuesday's smile becomes slightly more visible.

“You have never had coffee.”

The God thinks.

“Neither have you.”

“Correct.”

The God stands.

“Then neither of us can perform poorly by comparison.”

Tuesday's clocks stop.

Mara puts both hands over her mouth.

Grandpa whispers:

“Smooth.”

Pibbles:

“Accidentally.”

The God offers Tuesday his arm.

She studies it.

Then takes it.

They walk toward the door.

Coffee and Cake

Mum calls after them:

“Take an umbrella!”

Tuesday:

“It isn't raining.”

The God looks at her.

“You brought black rain.”

“That was professional rain.”

“Ah.”

They leave.

• • •

The kitchen remains silent for several seconds.

Mara finally turns toward Flip.

“You just arranged a date between the metaphysical embodiment of debt enforcement and an ancient subterranean god.”

Flip nods.

Grandpa:

“Matchmaker of Chance.”

Silas:

“Please don't give him another title.”

The Die glows.

Sovereign of Chance

Edgewalker

Matchmaker of Improbabilities

Silas:

“Goddammit.”

Then Pibbles notices something in the contract.

He goes very still.

“Oh.”

Flip:

“What?”

Pibbles turns the page around.

At the bottom:

Tuesday's selected companion: FLIP

Mara starts laughing.

Grandpa starts laughing.

Even Gristle laughs from the floor.

Pibbles pats Flip's hand.

“Congratulations.”

Flip looks at the contract.

Pibbles smiles.

“Your strategy worked.”

A pause.

“Now you actually have to go on a date with Tuesday.”

And somewhere outside—

the God Beneath can be heard asking:

Tuesday:

Matchmaker of Improbabilities

Absolutely. That's the chapter ending. 😂

The House That Should Not Have a Basement

Flip began the chapter racing home to save his family from the Certainty Engine.

He ends it having:

- liberated six Agents of Certainty through weaponized lentils;

- compressed two primordial artifacts together like an overripe banana;

- discovered Fuck-Your-Options 2.0;

- freed the child imprisoned at the heart of the Certainty Engine;

- discovered the World Die sleeping beneath his childhood home;

- met an apocalyptic future version of himself;

- severed “because of” from causality;

- accidentally made the World Die capable of rolling itself;

- repaired that problem with perhaps the most absurdly specific Tuesday in cosmological history;

- incurred paradox debt;

- and refinanced said debt through coffee dates.

Meanwhile, the God Beneath is currently on his first date with the anthropomorphic embodiment of Tuesday.

And Flip has one coming.

Pibbles closes his ledger.

He draws a thick line beneath the day's accounts.

He considers the figures.

“Against all reasonable accounting principles…”

He closes the book.

“…successful quarter.”

Outside, somewhere in the village, the God Beneath discovers espresso.

Matchmaker of Improbabilities

There is a distant:

Pibbles looks toward the window.

“Ah.”

A church bell begins ringing for no apparent reason.

Tuesday laughs.

Flip's mother starts preparing dessert.

And beneath the house, the World Die sleeps once more.

For now.

• • •

Next:

*In which Flip discovers that flirting with causality is substantially easier than maintaining a relationship with it.*

And somewhere very far away—

Emperor Flip receives a calendar.

He looks at the 22nd.

Then at the 4th.

And smiles.