Dreams of Alpha Lupi

Dreams of Alpha Lupi is a collection of prose found in the Grimoire cards of Destiny. Parts of it originally appeared in the Alpha Lupi ARG that was released prior to the official announcement of the game.

The work was written by Robert Reed and appears to be written from the perspective of the Traveler (with the possible exception of the verse on the Darkness).

Earth's Moon
The best voices - voices that truly matter - never allow themselves be heard. This lesson is worth learning again and again.

Forever.

Your voice moves as a whisper, murmuring inside larger winds. Only the trusted few can absorb what is necessary. Wise and sly and perfect, your instructions drop, leaving nothing but the hard sweet rime of enlightenment. The path is set. Your voice is unleashed.

Mercury
One face is blistered, the other plunged into a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing atmosphere. But something transpired, kicked what was wet and fertile into space, stealing away everything of value. Or perhaps what thrived here for a day or for ten million years decided to leave, peeling its wet organics off the bones.

Venus
You see history hidden between the barren rocks and within the high acid clouds. You see the ruin ready to claim its birthright.

Sunlight starves. The fierceness chills and thins and runs sweet. A new ocean emerges, thick and salty and hot, from springs and geysers that drench the dead ground.

You wonder: will this world's second birth be its finest?

The Sun
The blaze sits inside a nest of little worlds, still too distant to share its heat but plainly staring out at you. A face emerges, drawn from plasmas and radiation...

There must be meanings in its roar.

You listen hard and carefully, and sometimes a lucid melody seems to rise out of random noise. Joy builds, and the first hope in ages transforms you.

It seems important, even critical, to tell every star from here to the black between the galaxies that you will be strong again.

Mars
Life waits inside this world's bones.

Your voice flows across the red rock and through the dead valleys, speaking in code and goads.

Ancient volcanoes swell, exploding at their peaks and splitting wide along their shoulders. Ash clouds blacken the starved air. A fossil ocean of ice softens and collapses. Geysers erupt, tall as mountains, throwing up steam and clouds.

Every moment matters. And from a great distance, in the midst of a thousand careful disasters, you watch the transformation with your own eyes.

The rose has blossomed.

Jupiter
Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits. Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves skyward, shattering the icy crust. New worlds awaken in the swirling depths.

You build homes around this half-born sun ripped by storms and supersonic wind.

Saturn
A cold giant shows its night face to you. Distant moons slide past - icy little comets enslaved by a splendid master.

The lightning bolts and high clouds sweep away, and you burrow into a sea of liquid hydrogen that boils out of the long gash.

You put yourself on the perfect trajectory, and for a fraction of an instant you allow yourself the luxury of confidence.

The Traveler
You have lived as invisibly as possible, flicking from solar system to solar system, making grand plans, overseeing the culturing of civilizations, before leaving in a blink. But you have no recollection of ever wanting worship or even thanks from those blessed by you.

But memory is heavy now.

It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.

Now, your flight is rapid, your vast mind infected with such dread and toxic doubt that you find yourself afraid of the simple act of thought.

And it is your children you must turn to now, in time of need.

The Traveler 2
This has been such a long chase. This will be the place you will fight. Fight and win.

But do you really know why you go where you go, and where this journey is taking you?

The chase leads you where you need to be, you believe.

Unless...you are being pushed.

The Traveler 3
The knife had a million blades.

And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your flesh away.

Very little was left, you are sure, because you feel insignificant now. The hard slick heart of your soul: That is what remains. A body small as a river stone, and just as simple. You picture yourself as a piece of indigestible grit, a nameless nothing hiding among other nameless stones. Perhaps you glitter like a gem, yes. Pride makes you hope so. If only you could see yourself. But you have no eyes. Not the dimmest sense survives. What lives is memory, and what slim portion of these thoughts can you trust?

The knife stole much more than your body.

Darkness
The universe is a beast.

The body is made from tiny stuff, from near-nothings. From atoms swimming through a blood of crackling sparks. Simple, eternal Laws shape the beast. The largest galaxy is ruled by principles of mass and motion. Electrons are slaves to charge and to chance. And this is why the universe feels inexhaustible, eternal.

No sun complains about its death. Life is the problem. Life can be woven from flesh or circuit or thoughtful light. Origins don't matter. But small, half-smart creatures have a fierce talent for denying the inevitable, for balking and complaining about injustices that don't exist and consequences that should be borne in silence.

Riis
This world is rich with family.

You pause to rest. Life is a balm. You must cherish it where you find it.

You do not mean to stay, but longing and kinship forestalls your departure time and time again. These little gardeners are such careful stewards of fragility. They sing songs of disasters averted and loved ones lost. They fashion heavy elements combed from the bones of old stars into objects of peace and beauty.

You must force yourself to be cruel. Your presence is portent.

Trivia

 * Alpha Lupi is the name of the brightest star in the Lupus constellation. It's translation is "Alpha Wolf", a motif that appears multiple times within the game.
 * "Electroweak matter" refers to the combination of electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces, which has not existed since the early formation of the universe.
 * Neutronium is a hypothetical material made completely from Neutrons, believed to be the material found in Neutron Stars.
 * Some of the poems include references to the track names in Music of the Spheres. For example, the poem for Earth's moon says "The path is set." This is in reference to the track from Music of the Spheres that represents Earth's moon, entitled The Path. Another example is the poem for Mars saying "the rose has blossomed" which is in reference to the track from Music of the Spheres that represents Mars, entitled The Rose.
 * The work is based on the pre-Copernican beliefs of the cosmos, such as the seven celestial spheres of Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Important to note is that the Grimoire card "Ghost Fragment: Earth" includes the Alpha Lupi piece on the Sun, as there is no Grimoire card for the Sun.
 * Although the work was mainly written by Robert Reed, the versions in Destiny's Grimoire contain minor edits by Seth Dickinson, which removes several lines and/or words.