The fable and the math
THE REDPAPER
Somewhere past the last candlestick there is a forest, and through the forest runs a path.
Every morning the Reds walk it — hoods up, baskets out — carrying $BREAD home to Grandmother's house. Ten thousand a day, every day. That's the deal the forest offers, and the forest keeps its deals.
But the forest was never empty.
The Wolves got there first. They wear suits now. They don't chase anymore — chasing is for animals. They stand at the toll gates with a ledger and take twenty percent of everything that walks past. Every claim. Every basket. Forever. They call it a tax because they're the ones writing the signs.
There is one rule on the path, and it is older than the forest:
DON'T STRAY FROM THE PATH.
Walk it properly — two days, claim your share, pay the toll — and you go home lighter but alive. Leave early, hood full, sprinting greedy for the treeline, and it's a coin flip whether you make it. Heads: you keep everything, tax-free, and the Wolves watch you go. Tails: a Wolf was standing at the treeline, and he eats it all. He was always going to be standing somewhere. Half the time, it's there.
New Reds are born in the forest, they say — paid for in burned $BREAD. The Wolves listen for that too. One in ten never makes it home at all.
And the Woodsman? The Woodsman is real. He doesn't carry the axe to save you — that's the storybook version. He carries it to keep the game honest: every roll sealed before it's thrown, every rule cut into code that can't be renegotiated at the gate. When the Wolf eats you, the Woodsman's only promise is that it was fair.
“You may believe the path is safe because it's crowded. The Wolves prefer it crowded.”
— THE WOODSMAN
THE MATH
nothing above is decoration. every line is enforced by the contracts.
No roadmap. No promises. It's a game. It's live.