| Designation: | City of Ruin | ||
| Type: | Puzzle (Chess), Entity (Non-corporeal) | ||
| Anomaly: | Algorithmic Ectoentropy; Transfer of Foreign Memory | ||
| Homeostasis: | — | Not Applicable | |
| Awareness: | -9 | Pattern Screamer | |
| Hazards: | Usage of the Item may lead to encounters with an hostile reality bender. | ||
| Required Gear: | None | ||
| Dimensions: | N/A | ||
| Position: | Base 19 | ||
Usage
The main purpose of the Item is retrieval of intelligence regarding historic anomalies and parasciences from the entities contained therein, designated Denizens. Whilst Denizens are unable to lie or hide information, their own knowledge is often unreliable and tends to mix fact with folklore, or favours explanations that fit into their political and religious dogma. Information can be retrieved independent of language, however, the recipient should have a minimum of competency in the corresponding field of research in order to properly communicate it and judge its plausibility.
Unassisted human exploration of the Item is possible, but not recommended. It requires considerable amounts of chess intuition to find even a single Denizen, much less to expose them to a matter of interest whilst staying sufficiently focused. For this purpose, the majority of exploration is computer-assisted or entirely automated, wherever possible. Insights that help reduce the complexity of the game tree can assist in more efficient orientation, but solving the puzzle is not the ultimate goal.
Examination to the point where access is gained will provoke hostile action by an entity designated the Unsinger. Under current circumstances, Project MENOETIUS will neutralize this threat. Should Project MENOETIUS fail and an approach of the Unsinger be detected, the area surrounding its target must be evacuated within 24 hours. The target is not to be moved and no mobile assets are to remain within visual range of the Unsinger. No engagements of the entity are to be attempted. Personnel targeted by the entity may receive euthanisation if requested, but this will not prevent the Unsinger's approach. For more information on the Unsinger, see Appendix A.
The Item's base form in ForsythβEdwards notation and the construction instructions for the generalized form are together less than 4 KB of plain text and can be safely stored in any secured, access-controlled encrypted medium without risking Unsinger interference.
Report
The City of Ruin is a currently unsolved chess composition on an unbounded board. It is the modified version of a solved, non-anomalous grotesque (a form of chess puzzle with an initial position that is either impossible or would require very unlikely and nonsensical moves to accomplish) generalized to an infinite chess board. Circumstantial evidence suggest that the City of Ruin was intended to be played under historic chess rules without castling and pawn two-square moves, yet this makes no difference in practice.
Its anticipation composition is an extreme more-mover, requiring 2805 moves until a mate for White is achieved. This makes it the to date longest known forced win, disregarding the FIDE seventy-five-move rule. It is currently unknown whether the Item offers the chance of a forced mate or stalemate for either Black or White under optimal play, but it could be proven that length of any ending sequence, should it exist, is strictly smaller than πΒ² (meaning neither player can delay the end by an arbitrary number of turns an arbitrary amount of times).
The infinite game tree of the City of Ruin is an anomalous causal construct from which pattern-based structures and entities can be inferred. The entities take the form of a metacognitive mental model of their opponent within an observer contemplating the problem. Whilst a chess player's mental model of a their opponent is usually restricted to knowledge of the game state and own skills, these conceptualizations posses knowledge, skills and personalities foreign to the player. Due to being hypothetical, these entities are non-sentient, but observers know to some certainty how they would react if they were, and can thus mentally picture them interacting. All other structures inside the City of Ruin are extrapolated from what a resident of the City of Ruin would know about their home-town.
It is currently assumed that the City of Ruin used to be a real city in the Ottoman Empire before it was erased by the Unsinger. Its proper name is therefore unknown and deemed irrecoverable. It used to be a prosperous port city during the height of power of the Ottoman Empire in the early Era of Transformation and was host to multiple influential mysticists and mediaeval Islamic alchemists, many of whom hold valuable esoteric knowledge.
It is speculated that research within the original City of Ruin has lead to the discovery of an "Ultimate Violation", which was what evoked the Unsinger's initially and motivates its determined pursuit of the Item. The exact nature of this discovery is unknown. It possibly could have been independently and separately discovered elsewhere, however all such occurrences are now unreality due to the Unsinger's interference. The City of Ruin is the only known event in which not all traces of such a discovery even existing were erased, most likely due to being tied to an infinite, emergent property of fundamental logic.
It can not be ruled out that the Item's current condition was caused deliberately in an attempt to escape the Unsinger. If this is indeed the case, it would mean an unprecedented ability to directly write data to the akashic records. However, since any agent in the Item's game tree must necessarily know the rules of chess, this attempt could only save individuals who were aware of the rules of chess. This is in accord with the noted lack of uneducated and lower-class citizens that can be found within the City of Ruin. No scholar capable of performing such a feat has been encountered within the City of Ruin yet.
Appendix A: Unsinger Threat Actor Record
The Unsinger is an extrareal entity of unknown origins. Its only known goal is to prevent the discovery of the "Ultimate Violation", and it will ignore everything that does not directly oppose it in this endeavour. It is a potent reality bender and appears to be aware of the City of Ruin's whereabout at any time.
Only during active attacks can the Unsinger be observed and physically interacted with; it remains incorporeal otherwise. When preparing an attack, fine particles of an unknown substance will emanate from nearby matter. These particles will all be drawn into one place where they slowly coalesce into the Unsinger's body over a period of no less than 72 hours. The von KΓ‘rmΓ‘n vortex streets created by this process cause nearby objects to audibly resonate. The force of vibration increases with the speed at which new emanations are drawn in, which accelerate over time and may cause minor damage.
The Unsinger's size is dependent on environmental pressure and gravity, although its overall mass appears to be zero. Its body consists of a contorted torso without legs that ends in two long trails of free-floating particles. It has two arms reminiscent of the burrowing claws of pangolins. Multiple sets of mandibles protrude from on top of the torso, which cover a spherical part with a brightly glowing depression in it; albeit being described as an eye, there is no indication that it acts as a sensory organ, nor does the Unsinger at large displays signs of progress cephalization.
Many features of the Unsinger are noticeably floral. During the coalescing phase, the Unsinger is covered in layered scales like a perulate budding plant, which spread open as it progresses, turning into erect thorns near completion. Its mandibles also don't lock like common in arthropods, but instead fold like blossoms do. The implications of this are unclear.
All observed Unsinger behaviour is solely focused on searching and destroying the City of Ruin. For this purpose, it will attack any area that contains persons or computers actively working at exploring the City of Ruin's conceptual space. Cessation of the activity will not prevent the Unsinger from completing its attack.
No actual completed attack of the Unsinger has ever been observed, neither are any other targets besides the City of Ruin known. This is very likely due to retroactive erasure of all things inside the attack's area of effect from reality. Therefore, no such targets have ever existed and subjects who successfully escaped one of the Unsinger's attacks can not remember why they were attacked or what they were doing in that area.
The Unsinger can turn selectively intangible, making it effectively immune to physical forces and able to penetrate through barriers and enclosures. Alternative modes of attack using DEWs have proven futile and are absorbed without reaction. As consequence of this, Project MENOETIUS has been initiated to develop anomalous means to defend against the Unsinger.
Appendix B: Discovery
The composition for the Ruined City was discovered amongst notes written with modern ink on a torn page of the Somnambulist's Almanac with the following poem:
It came to the Lost City, where the Lost People be,
By the shore of a Shoreless river that turns to a Tideless Sea.
It came to this Nameless City, where the Nameless People stay,
In the year of Ever-never, in the time of Night-and-Day.Hark! how the world-storm shrieks without;
Hear! fierce and long the myriad shout
Shun that demon! itβs blinding stare,
Itβ s wrath, itβs woe, itβs grey despair.Now they are mute in this Ruined City β they are all away
In the Land of the Never-ever, in the time of Night-and-Day.
The poem is commented by the original scribe, who describes it as a cautionary tale of an "Archon" which seeks to destroy those in search of forbidden knowledge or who access the Akashic Records carelessly. It also mentions that the original poem doesn't use the term "Demon" ("Ψ―ΩΩ ΩΩ") but "Djinn" ("Ψ¬Ω").
The Unsinger drawn atop the initial capital of the poem
The author of the notes is unknown and is likely to have been erased by the Unsinger. The page was discovered in the archival section of Vault-SCORPIO inside an envelope with "DANGER UNREALITY INFOHAZARD - SCHEMA EYES ONLY" written over it. The envelope's fields for sender and addressee are both empty, although it features a postal stamp confirming reception.
