In the Grand-Game-of-the-Gods, the Deific Tarot, human lives are but pawns on the board. Souls are expendable beads of the abacus, reinvested into new vessels of flesh at the whims of cruel taskmasters that see them as but tokens to bet upon. Emotions and dreams and identities and memories; suites of the Divine Gamble. The God-of-Fools tires of the never-ending struggle that has raged on for millenia and invests all of Their being into a single wildcard that will upend the Grand Game and free humanity from the yoke of the divine. Every child of twelve turns of age is given a carte-blanche that will awaken their Lynchpin; the card that will define their soul-deck and thus their very future. Baethen “Sore-Loser” Locke dreams of adventuring past the city walls and into the hinterlands to discover lost treasures and fight against the monsters born of humanity’s myriad fears. But, when he awakens his Lynchpin, he is both disappointed and confused. In his mind’s eye, he reads only three words: “The Eldest Hand.” Turns later, after having scrounged-up enough tokens to kit himself with lesser cards of the Minor Arcana, Baethen ventures forth into the wilds, accompanying an adventuring caravan and brimming with anticipation, knuckles white on the weapon belted to his hip. He dies the fool’s death: alone with a shank in the kidneys. Lack of preparation and lack of wisdom and lack of wits and lack of strength of body and lack of martial skill; Baethen curses the stars to which he’d been born under in a desperate attempt to lie to himself. That his end is not his fault. To rage against the unfairness of the world is an easier-to-swallow draught than bitter truth, afterall. Closing his eyes one last time, Baethen slips away into the long sleep only to awake on his twelfth birthday as if the past decade never was. But he remembers and knows it to be true down to the now-humbled marrow of his bones. It was a product of his cryptic Lynchpin; a new line of seven words writes itself into being upon the card within his mind’s eye: “Discards the World and Draws the Jester.” Given a quite literal new chance at life, Baethen is determined to never die again. Fool that he is, he is destined to live a thousand lives and, for every life, there is a death. Immortality, he learns, is why the gods are such bellends—once you’ve seen civilizations arise from the muck and return to it, razed by hubris and greed, you begin to think yourself above it all. Thankfully, Baethen knows himself a fool. Chapters are published every Wendesday. [Participant in the Writathon challenge]: For the duration of the event, chapters will be posted once they are finished so about two-three per week instead.