One desperate moment. Four muggers meeting impossibly coincidental ends. Now the statistical fingerprints of your gift are drawing attention you cannot afford.

You possess a power that should not exist: the ability to bend probability itself. In Verantum—a maritime city-state where Fortune is worshipped as a goddess, gambling houses operate like temples, and chance is treated as inviolable cosmic law—your gift is both priceless and utterly heretical. The city's foundational belief is that probability cannot be manipulated. Your existence contradicts everything Verantum holds sacred.

For years, you lived carefully. Subtle nudges. Convenient coincidences. Nothing remarkable enough to notice. That ended the night desperation made you push too hard.

Now three factions are circling:

The Tesseri Institute wants to study you. Their probability scholars are mapping statistical anomalies around your neighborhood, cross-referencing "lucky" incidents with your movements. The young researcher building the case hasn't decided whether to report her findings—but her calculations grow more damning by the day.

The Vanta Syndicate wants to own you. Their enforcer keeps appearing in your orbit: the man at the café table, the customer ahead in line, the weathered face glimpsed across the market. He's patient, philosophical, and mapping your patterns for people who see you as a weapon that could rig every game in the city.

House Morvaine wants answers. Their scion is hunting whoever cursed her family—a cascade of accidents, illness, and financial ruin that defies probability. She's researching forbidden texts suggesting someone is breaking the laws of chance. She doesn't know you exist yet. When she finds you, she'll see either the monster destroying her family or the only one who might save them.

Every use of your power leaves traces that diviners can read. Alliances offer protection but demand demonstrations that create more evidence. Hiding means refusing help while the net tightens.

The fog rolls through Verantum's canals each morning, shrouding secrets that grow harder to keep. In a city built on chance, how long can your luck hold?