The Satchel

Some travelers have asked me what changed. I will tell you. You used to have a sheet. You have a satchel now. The sheet was a list. The satchel is what a traveler carries.

Six pockets, six small bookmarks at the bottom of the screen. You can reach into any of them at any moment — while a captain is yelling at you, while you are in a shop, while the road has stopped you with weather you did not plan for. The kingdom is allowed to take your hour. The kingdom is not allowed to take your hands.

The six pockets

• Body — the four jars. Water, stamina, morale, health. Drawn the way the kingdom's apothecaries drew them. Day, hour, status effects, the weight you are carrying. Open this when you are wondering whether you should sit down.
• Carry — what is in your hands and your purse. The cup I poured you at intake is always here, even after you have drunk it; some things you carry are not for using. Drop, equip, sell from this pocket.
• Skills & Spells — the things your hands and your mouth and your mind know how to do. The scrolls you are carrying. The charms you are wearing.
• Chronicle — today's page. The most recent things the kingdom has done to you. My margins, in my handwriting. The quill icon next to the pockets opens a one-line note you can leave for me; I will keep it.
• Map — where you are. Where you are going. Where you have been. The roads you have not walked.
• People — who walks with you, who knows you in this realm, the bonds I have been ledger-marking quietly while you have not been looking.

The character book

Each pocket has, at the bottom, a small link that opens the character book. The book is six pages, in the order a traveler's belt-book has always been: Today, Body, Carry, Skills & Spells, People, and a sixth page — My Page — that I have never written on. That one is yours.

Pages turn with the arrow keys or with a swipe. You can come back to today from any page with one tap. The book takes about three-tenths of a second to turn, which is the time the kingdom decided is right for an eye to settle on a new page. Ken in Kyoto convinced me.

The desk

When you open the app, you arrive at my desk. The desk has objects on it: the kingdom's letters waiting for you, a small list of what the kingdom is doing today (the weather, the well, the mood of the council), the jars of your body. My hand is on the desk too, with a sentence in my handwriting that may or may not be about you.

There is a small button — Show every number — that opens the older view, with every panel the chronicle ever drew. Press it if you want all the numbers at once. Press it again to put them away. The kingdom does not require either choice.

The intake

When you first arrived I asked you a small number of questions. Seven, mostly. One more after the question I asked about why you came. Sometimes a small extra question after the seven were done, if the kettle was still warm. Three small die rolls between the questions, because the chronicle likes a die's company.

None of those were tests. They were a chair. If you would like to sit in the chair again — a new chronicle, a different traveler — the door is at the reading room.