The Keeper
I saw this five moves ago.
You are Gabriel Okafor: uploaded cyber-monk, empty robes and sacred gold geometry, alone at Mystery Court with Kaiser and a sealed letter from The Architect. You do not scramble for tempo. You read the future, commit to it, and let enemies discover that the answer was waiting.
Most operatives ask what you can do right now. The Keeper asks a harder question: what will matter two, three, or five turns from now?
Study reveals the enemy's exact future — one more turn per stack — and it costs you: you stand Exposed in the present to see it. Prepared Lines lock damage cards onto those future turns. When the queue fires, victory feels like chess-by-prophecy: the opponent made the move you already answered.
Study & Prepared Lines
Build Study — it caps at 5 and decays a point each turn — to read the enemy's exact future and unlock how many turns ahead you can commit. Slot damage cards onto the turns you've read; each one fires automatically at the start of that turn, before you act, and stacking several onto a single turn multiplies every one of them.
You read the turn the enemy commits and stacked your answer onto it. The prepared cards fire from the queue before the enemy can move — each amplified by the size of the stack. The enemy walks into damage you scheduled turns ago.
Foresight isn't free. Studying deep stacks Exposed on you now, and Study decays a point every turn — bank a future you never cash and it slips away. Queue carelessly and the stack auto-strikes the lowest-Integrity enemy a beat too late.
Six routes to checkmate
Every Keeper build studies the future and schedules the answer, but each lane rewards a different kind of patience.
Checkmate Lines
A stack of prepared cards fires at the top of that turn, before the enemy acts, and closes the fight.
Inevitability
Consecutive prepared hits on the turns the enemy attacks compound the delayed payoff — a line that only tightens.
Five-Move Gambit
Max Study reads five turns out exactly and stacks the deepest queue — the biggest release, paid for in Exposed.
Deep Study
Each Study stack reveals one more future turn, exactly — study, queue cleanly, and never guess.
Sanctuary Timing
In-identity recovery and Firewall buy the rounds you need while the queue sets — never a turtle.
Kaiser Preservation
The uploaded cat and monastery chrome buy the turn prophecy needs.
Study, read, prepare, resolve
No stances, no poses — one patient engine. Every turn feeds the next.
Study
Digital Rosary-class cards build Study — capped at 5, decaying a point each turn. Studying deep costs you Exposed now to see later.
Read
Each point of Study reveals one more enemy turn, exactly. Studied turns are certain; everything past your reach stays hidden. Never a percentage.
Prepare
Slot damage cards onto the turns you've read, up to your Study reach. Pile several onto one turn and every card in that stack hits harder.
Resolve
Prepared cards fire automatically at the top of their turn — before you act, on the enemy with the least Integrity. The answer was waiting.
Gabriel Okafor, still keeping watch
Thirty-seven years digital. Empty brown and burgundy robes. A crystal emitter. Kaiser, the uploaded cat. A sealed letter from The Architect. The Keeper preserves thresholds because some futures should not be crossed unprepared.
Readable prophecy, not hidden state
The in-game surface keeps forecasts above enemies and the prepared queue adjacent to Keeper, using card thumbnails rather than abstract counters.
Skill Tree
Specialize across runs into deeper forecasts, stronger prepared payoffs, safer recovery, or Kaiser-backed preservation.
Card Database
Every Keeper card, rendered through the same catalog frame as the game so wording and art stay honest.
Study the line. Prepare the answer. Let the future arrive.