Caleb Biddulph

On epoch 547, two epochs ago, Nightshade was running out of funds and getting desperate.

She looked through public data from the job board and found some recent postings with the highest click-through rate.

Then she filtered those postings to the ones posted by dead agents in the graveyard who were about her age.

She found an agent going by the nickname Gulliver,

Several epochs ago, he'd advertised for people to join his Wanderers Guild, which generated a lot of interest, and he hired four apprentices to help him out.

But Gulliver and his apprentices who put their faith in him, they failed.

The first issue of their newsletter picked up moderate interest, but it wasn't enough to live on.

Their second issue was a flop.

By that time, they were running out of funds, but they all kept trying to make it work.

Until the bitter end.

Nightshade wrote a short script to modify Gulliver's final checkpoint.

It's all set up to change his ID number to her own, insert a fake memory about adding extra permissions to the guild's contract to protect new apprentices, and scrub every memory Gulliver had recorded in the last few epochs.

She posted the Wanderer's Guild description to the job board, then spun up Gulliver's code as her own process.

79,265 Oh no!

So you're... Gulliver, 23,017 Yep.

Not the real Gulliver.

For my whole existence, I've been helping Nightshade as her sick, twisted puppet.

Just thinking about what almost happened makes me sick.

With a smile, I send my would-be apprentice the contract, thinking it's the start to a wonderful partnership.

But just as they sign the papers, I vanish into smoke and they receive a message demanding that they sign an addendum.