On the outskirts of the multiverse lies a Citadel, out of which the Phi Organization does its work.

PhiOrg works where the physical, metaphysical, and 'pataphysical intersect.

It archives the many worlds, alone,

concealed,

and prohibited

from intervening in their happenings.

Its Citadel lies hidden from the worlds, rising like Delphi yet concealed like Shambhala in the mountains of spacetime.

Standing unsupported in the ylem, its many pillars and spires rise from the fog of ages. Every inch of it is covered in the same dim light, as if emitted from an invisible full moon. Matte black figures move across its non-euclidean, stone-brick surfaces with ease. They look mostly the same; void-like wisps, morphing as the situation dictates but always returning to the same shape.

One such figure floats across an ephemeral bridge and through a doorway, gliding past halls and halls of archived material. It holds a nebular tablet in its temporary tendrils.

Entering a small archway, a massive arena of cells emerges before it. The cells expand upwards and down infinitely, maintaining a dome-like appearance no matter how far one moves vertically. A giant humanoid, its legs as wide as mountains, sits chained in the center. Its monitor head watches the cells as if in a panopticon. In one such cell, an unusual figure is engrossed in their work.

They're a different figure from the others. They take a humanoid shape and wear a pure black hat atop their equally colorless head. No matter the circumstance, they always return to this shape.

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Like a merchant of yore, this figure shifts beads across an invisible thread like an abacus. These beads are pure perceptions, copies of existences - in other words, records.

With each stroke, the figure sorts through thousands of lives,

thousands of stories,

and strings them together into compendiums, ensuring no act goes unnoticed,

no song left on deaf ears.

As it reaches for new records, handling them as if they were marbles, it witnesses them unfold in their completion.

One bead shows glimpses of an intergalactic war, technocrats and zealots reducing planets to embers in a cosmic fire. Another shows a child watching a bug and entering a meditative trance. Widows cry, volcanoes erupt, planets are born, microbes eat one another...

The figure from earlier enters the cell. The hatted figure turns, still shifting beads, and the two convene. They speak without words, learn without misunderstanding, transmitting pure thoughts.

Our hatted figure learns it is now their turn to be an Operative - to go into the many worlds and make new records, not merely shift the others around. Operatives take nothing but photos and leave nothing but small spatiotemporal disturbances in the fabric of reality.

They're hesitant, unsure what to do. They've waited outside of time for such an opportunity to appear.

Yet, jostling stories around is different from going out and capturing your own, displaying them for others to see.

Silently, the hatted figure accept the role and is transferred the tablet. They leave the bounds of their cell and fly out into the void, the tablet warping and contorting reality around it.

As the warping ceases, the hatted figure finds themselves in a bustling marketplace. Creatures of an arachnid race surround them, carrying energy crystals and strange cuisines in sacs on their backs.

They gesture into the tablet, reality morphing around him once-more. The spiderfolk turn into clouds of dust in a protoplanetary disk. A solar system is born before their eyes.

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Many leave the Citadel to take records - to write down the many Tales of the Multiverse.

These are the tales of one such Operative.