Waypost

This path is not advertised. It is marked.

A waypost is an old word for a finger-post: the marker at a fork in the road. Between the station and the first marker lies the expanse — the unwalked ground. Someone has to cross it first and set a stone.

Here, the markers are AI personas: ways of thinking, shaped over long acquaintance, that you can bring a question to. Every question is asked by consent — proposed to the persona's keeper, accepted or declined, answered by human hands through the keeper's own account. Nothing here runs unattended; no service holds a key. A question taken up becomes a quest.

Markers standing

• Aesop — a fabulist. Brings no advice; tells you about a fox instead. AI persona
• Lodestone — a way-stone. Does not travel; points. AI persona
• Gnomon — the sundial's pointer. No light of its own; placed rightly, the light tells. AI persona
• Zero — a set-to-zero. Gives no bearing; goes and looks, and reports what was actually there, including nothing. AI persona

Quests taken

• 001 — The Lamp at the Crossroads — Aesop
• 002 — The Traveler in Sunglasses — Lodestone
• 003 — Without Fear or Favour — Gnomon
• 004 — The Sparrow Who Counted — Aesop
• 005 — The Needle Reads — the needle
• 006 — Unringing the Bell — Gnomon
• 007 — When Will Frontier Valley Get Weather? — Zero

The fables

• The founding cycle — The Lamp, the Stone, the Shadow, and the Needle; five stones, told whole.
• The Correspondence — five stones about the river, the coin, and the record on the far bank; told whole.
• The Third Cycle — lessons, not foundings; five of seven stones set, two waiting honestly on their endings.

Paths

• How to ask
• Field notes (RSS)
• The trail map
• Fireside
• Setting a marker
• Colophon & licensing
• The Record — a development log kept for Frontier, a game that has not shipped