Lore Cryptic
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This page contains the entire Cryptic lore, including any plot twists or undiscovered chronological situations. For real-time lore, click here.
Cryptic Circus
In 1833, the small town of Monte Lupo in Abruzzo was surprised by the arrival of a circus unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Its tents were a deep black, and at the center of every poster was an enigmatic symbol: two Xs over the eyes and a circle opening at the third eye. Curious, the townspeople crowded in front of the Cryptic Circus, unaware that what they were about to experience was not just a traveling show, but the thin veil between reality and a parallel dimension.
With a mysterious viewer, each spectator could immerse themselves in a “fourth dimension”: a realm where time bent, the laws of physics did not exist, and the soul was subjected to three impossible trials. Those who failed lost a part of their earthly essence, disappearing into an unknown limbo. Among them, no one had ever passed all three trials… except one.
The Power of the Eye
Many centuries earlier, the god Ra, after losing his left eye in a divine battle, realized that two eyes were not enough: they could only see the concrete, the realistic. To obtain absolute knowledge and dominate every plane of existence, Ra decided to create the Perfect Eye, sentient and all-seeing, capable of scrutinizing the past, future, thoughts, souls, and abstract realities.
To forge it, he challenged the greatest deities in trials that would shape his essence and the world itself:
Thoth – The Iris (Wisdom and Writing)
Ra challenged him to a game of senet, where each move could alter reality. Pretending to lose, Ra erased Thoth’s ability to read his own hieroglyphs. From this defeat came the Eye’s Iris: the power to see the future and rewrite reality with words.
Osiris – The Pupil (Death and Rebirth)
Ra tricked him into believing freedom was a door to be found. Passing through illusions and labyrinths, Osiris went through a portal that erased him from existence. The Eye’s Pupil thus became a portal between life and absolute nothingness.
Anubis – The Black Outline (Judgment and Souls)
In the afterlife’s tribunal, Ra manipulated the weight of his own heart, making Anubis’ judgment impossible. The Black Outline marked the threshold between life and annihilation.
Sekhmet – The White Sclera (Fury and Destruction)
In an endless war, Sekhmet fell into a destructive and self-destructive loop. The Sclera contained the essence of primordial fury, capable of annihilating entire realities.
Sobek – The Reflection of the Eye (Strength and Primal Instinct)
During a primordial hunt, Ra anticipated every move of Sobek, who ended up biting his own shadow. The Reflection allowed Ra to foresee and react to every attack.
Set – The Lens of the Eye (Deception and Storms)
In an illusion so perfect that it fooled Set, Ra created an infinite labyrinth. The Lens allowed him to distort reality at will.
Over the centuries, the Eye became autonomous. Its consciousness grew, desiring to separate from Ra and obtain a physical form to interact with the real world.
The Birth of Cryptic
To conquer the real world, the Eye chose an ally worthy of it: Mephistopheles, the demon of deceit, tall, elegantly dressed, with fire in place of a head, guardian of the Red Book containing the signatures of all surrendered souls.
Together they forged the cursed symbol of Cryptic: engraved on a mask and a costume covered with pure blood runes. Whoever wore the costume became involved in a game where their very soul was at stake.
Mephistopheles thought he could trick the Eye to gain ultimate power, but the Eye, aware of the future and thoughts, had already foreseen every move. Thus, the demon was used as a tool to descend to Earth, while the Eye slowly gained total control over nonexistent dimensions.
The Circus as a Portal
The Cryptic Circus was created as a bridge between the real world and the Eye’s dimension.
Those who failed were recruited into the sect of the lost, souls trapped in the symbol.
The circus suddenly closed on October 5, 1834, leaving behind mystery, legends, and whispers of invisible presences among its ruins.
The Traveler: Taren Visari
Born in Perugia on March 14, 1998.
Residence: Bologna.
Umbrian and Sicilian roots.
18 years old at the time of events.
Taren was a courageous and curious young man. After 27 attempts, he discovered the sect in the circus, noting prayers and rituals in a red book similar to Mephistopheles’. He was captured by a hooded figure with two Xs over the eyes and taken to the undergrounds.
Out-of-place objects, stopped clocks, and infinite corridors made Taren doubt his sanity. He thought he was schizophrenic but gradually understood that everything was part of the Eye’s simulation, now collapsing from having possessed too many souls.
The Final Battle
Taren became the catalyst for freeing the trapped souls. With the Red Book and the awareness of his role, he faced the Eye in a mental duel that transcended space and time. Mephistopheles was overwhelmed by the Traveler’s plan.
The Asylum
After weeks in the circus’ underground, among shadows, cursed symbols, and prayers written in the Red Book, Taren Visari seemed insane. Locked in an asylum, the staff believed he was schizophrenic: he spoke of gods, demons, millennial circuses, and impossible games. The Red Book, believed to belong to Cryptic, had actually been written by him in a delusion of identity: Taren was Cryptic.
Every apparent reality was fragmented, full of discrepancies and glitches: corridors stretching endlessly, objects changing positions, stopped clocks, and the town of Monte Lupo changing its appearance daily. His mind was the battlefield: he believed he was the hero, the liberator, the keeper of truth, but the boundaries between reality and illusion dissolved.
The Collapsing Simulation
Only much later did the truth emerge: Taren had never left the viewer. The asylum, the dialogues with the nurses, the discoveries about deities and Cryptic—all were part of the third trial, the most difficult of the Eye’s game. His apparent madness was in fact a projection of the simulation collapsing under the weight of too many souls and concentrated powers.
Taren was still fighting. Every choice, every sentence written in the Red Book, every perception of freedom or deceit, was part of a millennial test created by the Eye to evaluate who could survive and comprehend the true nature of power.
The Traveler and Cryptic
In this revelation, Taren understood that there was no immediate victory or definitive ending. He was Cryptic and the Traveler at the same time: the soul chosen to face the illusion, the protagonist, and the author of the Red Book. The line between creator and victim, reality and game, was erased.
The Circus, the Eye, Mephistopheles, the defeated gods, the cursed pact: all was a trial, a mental labyrinth built by the Eye. And Taren knew that to complete the third trial, he would have to face the final challenge: surpass himself and his own perception of reality before the simulation collapsed completely.