Episode 1: Initial Void

The morning air at River Bottoms carried its usual river-bottom dampness, but Nicholas Jennings noticed something else—a wrongness that made his architect's mind itch. He'd mapped every angle of this course in his head over countless rounds, understood how discs should behave in each pocket of air. So when his opening drive began its flight, he knew immediately that something fundamental had changed. 🥏

The disc left his hand with its usual precision, a perfect flat release designed to ride the tailwind down the fairway. But halfway through its flight, reality... hiccupped. The disc seemed to stutter, existing in two places at once before snapping back together and landing thirty feet left of where physics demanded. 🌀

"Fascinating." The voice came from behind him, soft and patient. Nicholas turned to find a figure in a charcoal blazer studying the air where his disc had phased. "Did you feel it? That moment of discontinuity?"

"Who are you?" Nicholas asked, though his attention remained fixed on the impossible flight path.

"Dr. Nox Umbra. I'm documenting these phenomena." They gestured to a tablet covered in geometric patterns that seemed to shift when viewed directly. "Your throw just provided valuable data. The way you released through that null pocket—most players would have fought it." 📊

Nicholas retrieved his disc, finding it oddly cold to the touch. Where his fingers gripped the plastic, faint geometric lines pulsed gold against his skin before fading. His Steadfast Architect tag hanging from his bag began emanating a subtle warmth, as if responding to something.

More players arrived for the morning round, including Astra Vale, whose presence commanded attention despite her average height. She surveyed the course with the intensity of someone cataloging a crime scene, her pale green eyes narrowing at details others missed. 🔍

"The atmospheric pressure is all wrong," she announced to no one in particular. "The barometric readings present as... incomplete. Like a soufflé with its center simply scooped out." She pulled out a leather notebook, jotting observations with quick, precise movements.

The round began normally enough, but by hole three, denial became impossible. Where the fairway should have curved right, a section simply... wasn't. Not destroyed or hidden—absent. The space existed as a geometric void, its edges sharp as mathematical proofs. Several players' drives vanished into the null zone, only to reappear moments later, spinning with impossible rotation. ⚡

"Nobody panic," Astra called out, though her own voice carried an edge. "Treat it as casual water. Play from where your disc emerges." But Nicholas noticed how her hands trembled slightly as she wrote, how her eyes kept returning to the void's perfect edges.

Nox appeared at his shoulder again. "You're seeing it, aren't you? The geometry beneath. Your background serves you well." They watched another player's disc enter the void. "Most see chaos. But you see the pattern."

Nicholas did see it. The void's boundaries followed principles he recognized from his architectural work—negative space defined by what surrounded it, absence as a structural element. His Steadfast Architect tag grew warmer, and those golden lines on his skin returned, staying visible longer this time. 📐

By hole five, three more rifts had opened. The course was becoming a Swiss cheese of reality, forcing players to navigate between existence and void. Some threw conservative routes around the null zones. Others, emboldened by Nox's quiet encouragements, aimed directly through them.

Nicholas faced a crucial approach shot on hole seven. The direct line to the basket passed through a particularly large rift. Safe routes existed, but something in the void's geometry called to him—he could see the angle, understand how space folded within that absence.

"Don't." Astra had approached, her notebook clutched tight. "I've seen what entropy does to structure. My restaurant... the flavors didn't just disappear. They ceased. As if they'd never existed at all." Her eyes held genuine concern. "Whatever that thing offers, it's not worth the cost."

But Nicholas had already made his decision. The throw left his hand with architectural precision, the disc entering the void at exactly the angle his calculations demanded. For a moment, nothing existed—no sound, no sensation, just pure geometric understanding flooding his mind. Then the disc emerged, following an impossible line that curved through dimensions, landing softly beside the basket. 🎯

The golden lines on his skin blazed bright, forming complex geometric patterns that matched his Steadfast Architect tag's design. He felt... expanded. As if he could perceive blueprints for structures that reality hadn't thought to build yet.

"Exquisite," Nox murmured. "You didn't fight the void. You collaborated with it."

Astra's notebook snapped shut. "You're encouraging them to poison themselves with entropy." Her words carried the weight of personal loss. "That 'collaboration' you're selling? I've tasted its end result. It's not transformation—it's subtraction. Everything that matters, everything that gives meaning, dissolved into nothing."

"Nothing?" Nox's voice remained gentle. "Or everything, viewed from a new angle? Your friend here just achieved something impossible through traditional physics. Doesn't that deserve investigation rather than fear?"

The round concluded with half the field bearing faint void marks—geometric patterns that appeared when they gripped their discs, subtle reminders of their exposure. Nicholas studied his own marks, recognizing architectural principles in their design. His Steadfast Architect tag pulsed in rhythm with them, as if synchronizing with something larger. 🌟

Astra cornered him afterward. "That presence, that 'expanded perception' you're feeling? It's the first stage. I've seen it before. The void doesn't give—it takes, leaving echoes of what it consumed." She gestured to his marks. "Those patterns will grow. And each time they do, something of you will... simplify. Reduce. Until you're just another incomplete equation in entropy's cookbook."

But Nicholas was already seeing the world differently. Every angle contained potential for void geometry, every structure a blueprint for controlled dissolution. The Steadfast Architect tag at his side no longer felt like mere identification—it was becoming an anchor point for something vast and mathematical, a tool for building bridges between existence and absence.

As players dispersed, Nox lingered by the largest rift, tablet in hand, documenting its growth. "Phase one proceeds beautifully," they said to the void, as if reporting to an old friend. "The architects always understand first. They see the beauty in negative space, the strength in what's missing."

Astra watched from a distance, her notebook filled with observations that read like recipes for disaster. She'd recognized the pattern from her restaurant's final days—first the subtle wrongness, then the acceleration, finally the complete cessation of everything that mattered. But this was worse. At least her cuisine had simply vanished. Here, people were choosing to follow their discs into nothingness.

The void rifts pulsed gently in the afternoon light, patient as mathematical constants, waiting to teach new lessons about loss and transformation. By tomorrow, they would be larger. By next week, permanent. And by season's end...

Nicholas walked away with his Steadfast Architect tag glowing softly, his mind already designing structures that could only exist in the spaces between reality and void. Behind him, Astra added one final note to her observations: "The corruption presents with notes of geometric certainty and a finish that lingers like the absence of aftertaste. I fear we're already too late to prevent the full course from being served." 📖

The River Bottoms course settled into an uneasy evening quiet, its newest features humming with the patient certainty of entropy. Tomorrow would bring more players, more exposure, more choices between the solid ground of reality and the seductive architecture of absence.

The Null Expanse had arrived, and it was hungry for disciples who understood that sometimes the most profound structures were built from what wasn't there. 🌌