Introduction
This is, to my knowledge, the ONLY history of the Society of the Blue Crucible. If I could, I would open things up by giving you a series of facts about said Society. Founded in such-and-such year by so-and-so, etcetera etcetera. I don’t think that will really work though. The Blue Crucible is not something that you can understand intellectually, and if I gave you just the facts, at best you wouldn’t understand at all, and at worst you’d think I’d gone dangerously insane. You need to cultivate an alternate way of thinking to make sense of it. Don’t worry, it took me months, and I consider myself to be pretty smart. None of it is intuitive.
The main thing I had going for me is that I am both open-minded and a skeptic. You will need both of these traits to understand what I have to tell you. If you don’t think you are either of these things, I advise you to put this down with no judgement. It should go without saying by now, but this work is a cognitohazard. There are things I wish I didn’t know that I can now never un-know. But if you don’t think you can approach this work without bias, even bias towards what you might consider to be ‘reality’, please just get rid of it. You will create fractures that you are unable to deal with, and your quality of life will be much worse as a result. Again, no judgement; only the people who are meant to understand this will, and I only hope this warning is enough to filter out the unready. If you have any doubts, DO NOT FORCE IT.
You probably think this is an oddball way to start off a story, and you’re absolutely right. If you’re still with me, I’m going to start at the very beginning, and with any luck you’ll see where I’m coming from. If at any point you think I’ve gone off the deep end, put this down. The first few chapters are, I think, acceptably mundane. After that, I take no responsibility for what you find.
Or what finds you.
