📋 URGENT: Situation at Hex 17
The Department of Lost Purposes
Has lost its own purpose.
The building—a narrow five-story structure wedged between a Translation Beetle rental kiosk and a shop selling "Memories of Spheres You've Never Visited"—has forgotten what it was supposed to be departmentalizing. The clerks (2d6 of them, all identical except for their number of eyes) continue filing, stamping, and processing documents with admirable dedication, but no one remembers what for.
⚠️ THE PROBLEM
Objects, concepts, and visitors entering the building are beginning to lose their purposes too.
- Three merchants have forgotten what they're selling
- A Befouler of Ponds forgot which ponds need befouling
- A Journeyman of the Guild of Sharp Corners as found weeping, unable to remember why angles matter
🎲 Current Symptoms in the Building
Roll d6 upon entering:
| Roll | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | You remember your purpose but forget your name |
| 2 | You remember your name but forget why you came here |
| 3 | All your skills work backwards for 10 minutes |
| 4 | You gain someone else's purpose (roll random encounter) |
| 5 | Your purpose becomes "to document everything you see" (cannot stop taking notes) |
| 6 | No effect, but you're convinced something important is missing |
💰 THE OFFER
The Head Clerk (Mx. Nil, pronouns: forgotten) offers 3d6 silver pence to anyone who can:
- Find their Department's original purpose
- Invent a convincing new purpose
- Or at minimum, stop the purpose-drain from spreading to Hex 16 (the Pleasure Palace's clients are beginning to forget what pleasure is, which is bad for business)
🔍 Clues Scattered About
- A rubber stamp that prints only the word "PROBABLY"
- Files labeled with tomorrow's date
- A manual for operating something called a "Meaning Engine"
- A queue number machine that only dispenses 37s
- A map showing this building on every sphere simultaneously
⏰ DEADLINE
If Not Resolved in 3 Days:
The Department relocates to a different hex, leaving only:
- A sign reading "Gone to Find Ourselves"
- A lingering sense that something important was supposed to happen here
What Is This?
This is the kind of thing we'll be publishing. Fragments. Situations. Things that are probably nothing to worry about.
Until they are.
—Probably Nothing Press
Filing reports from between the spheres since five minutes ago
P.S. — The Translation Beetles say hello. They've been saying it for seventeen hours. We're not sure they remember how to say anything else.
It's probably nothing.