NiFe WARS · Issue #3 · Companion site

Three ways into the Galactic Treaty

The QR code on the Classified Intel page opens an archive nobody can finish reading without the book in their hands. Here is how it could look, how it plays, and what it does for blind bag sales.

Prepared for Scott, Ian, Kostas, Luis · Lorecraft

The problem worth solving first

Any puzzle we print gets solved on Reddit by Tuesday

That is true of every code, every cipher, every hidden word. Somebody buys the book, cracks it, posts the answers, and the hunt is over for everyone who comes after. Most comic ARGs die exactly there.

We already own the fix. Every blind bag ships with an NFC chip in the back cover, already bound to a COLLECT account. Make the deepest layer of the treaty require a tap from your copy, and a screenshot of the answers is worth nothing. You cannot post a chip.

What that buys us

The words hidden in the pages can leak freely, and it costs us nothing. Owning a physical copy becomes the last key. The leaderboard fills with verified owners only. And the one thing standing between a reader and the end of the treaty is a book they have to buy.

Shared across all three directions

How it plays

Redaction and encryption are two different things here, and the difference carries the whole loop. Censored lines wipe away on contact. Encrypted ones do not move until you bring a password up from the book.

  1. You get in for freeScan, land, and the surface redactions come off as you pass over them. Enough to feel the mechanic and see that the document is real.
  2. You hit the wallThe substantive articles refuse. Quotas, purity levels, the espionage clause, the signature. These are encrypted, and hovering does nothing but tell you what clearance you are missing.
  3. The book is the keyPasswords are printed inside issue #3. Gear names, sound effects, glyphs on the Blueprint. You need the pages open beside you.
  4. Every unlock points at the next oneWhat you decrypt is not an endpoint. Article IV names a shaft that Article IX has no record of. The text you just recovered tells you where to dig next.
  5. Wrong answers cost youThe Registry runs intrusion detection. Failed attempts burn the channel and lock you out on a cooldown, so nobody brute forces their way through.
  6. Your copy finishes itThe signature line and the handwriting over the compliance stamp need an NFC tap. That layer cannot be given away.

Direction one

A

Adallium Matrix

The treaty does not sit on a page. It condenses out of falling pink code, and encrypted spans are the places where the code refuses to resolve. They keep churning while everything around them settles into words. Decrypt one and the rain inside it slows, aligns, and locks.

This is canon, not decoration. Lumina rendered the world as a green combat matrix in issue #1 page 19. Pink is what Adallium sees. Reading the treaty through pink rain means reading it the way the power in her blood reads everything.

Article IV · Extraction Limits Registry yield, Zone 2, current cycle: 0000000000000000000 tons across 000000 shafts.

Specimen A · live. Encrypted spans churn until a password lands.

Why it wins

Nothing else on the internet looks like a pink Adallium matrix. It photographs well, it loops well on TikTok, and the decryption moment is genuinely beautiful instead of a bar sliding off a word.

What it costs

Legal prose is hard to read through moving code. The rain has to recede for body text and only churn at the locks. Get that balance wrong and the document becomes unreadable.

Direction two

B

Registry HUD

Similar to Yael’s HUD mask, we put you inside that system. The interface borrows the book’s own vocabulary: the rounded frames, tick scales and reticles Caanan drew on page 6. What you are reading through it is the Joint Registry archive, and access quality degrades the deeper you push.

The lockout has a reason on the page. Article IX makes obstruction of an inspection a material breach, so the Registry watches who reaches into it. Every wrong password registers as an unauthorised probe, and enough of them close the channel until it cools.

Joint Registry · Zone 3 · Archive Signal 41%
Article X · Prohibited Activities
Standing operations logged: [ ENCRYPTED · KEY REQUIRED ]
⚠ Trace risk rising · 2 attempts remaining

Specimen B · the book’s HUD vocabulary, straight off page 6.

Why it wins

It answers “a place you break into” most literally, and it is the only direction whose interface already exists in the art. Every mechanic has a story reason, so nothing reads as bolted on.

What it costs

Sci fi HUDs are a crowded look. This only stays distinctive if it copies Caanan’s exact vocabulary rather than the generic version everybody ships.

Direction three

C

The Only Copy

Article VI puts the Joint Reserve in Zone 3 under shared custody. So there is one original of this treaty, and what you are looking at is a scan of it. Paper, seals, stamps, a hundred and seventy years of handling.

Decryption becomes physical. Drag a schematic transparency over the page until the glyphs line up. Hold a light source over a blank margin. The passwords from the book tell you which overlay to fetch and where to put it.

Joint Registry · Zone 3 · Original · Do not remove
Article VII. NiFe refined to or above ninety four percent purity is weapons grade and prohibited in any quantity.

Purity recorded at the Zone 2 deep works: ninety nine point four percent.
Intended application: no schematic was ever filed.
Compliance
In full
accordance

Specimen C · the document as an object, not a screen.

Why it wins

It matches where the brand already lives. Metal cards, blind bags, real weight in the hand. A treaty you handle sits beside those better than a treaty you scroll.

What it costs

Most build time of the three, and drag interactions are the hardest to get right on a phone. Nearly all the QR traffic will be phones.

The part that pays for itself

Points, and what beating it earns

Scoring rewards the things we actually want: reading carefully, getting there early, and owning the book.

Scores onWhy that
Clean streakNo failed attempts. Rewards finding the answer over guessing at it.
Time to crackMeasured from your first unlock, so late buyers still compete fairly.
Early positionFirst 100 and first 500 carry a multiplier. Being fast matters even after answers leak.
Verified copyNFC tap doubles your standing. Owners outrank spectators, permanently.
The perk we should give

A digital Clearance Card that lands in the COLLECT account beside the metal cards. It costs nothing to mint, it displays in a shelf collectors already care about, and it is the only card in the catalogue nobody can buy. Every other card is a purchase. This one is proof you cracked it.

Two extensions worth deciding on later. Cover variants could each carry a different fragment, so a full decrypt needs collectors to pool what they hold across all sixteen. And one article can stay locked until issue #4 ships its key set, which turns the treaty into a reason to come back rather than a thing you finish once.

Before anything gets built

What we need from the team

DecisionWhoWhy it blocks
Pick a directionEveryoneA, B, or C. They can borrow from each other, but one has to lead.
Is #3 frozenIanPasswords key to exact pages and exact printed words. Lettering moves, the puzzle breaks.
QR destinationSettledgalactictreaty.lorecraft.io. Nothing to set up on your side, and the code can go to print without waiting on DNS.
COLLECT accessKostasNFC verification and the Clearance Card both read from that system.
The final lineNateThe handwriting over the compliance stamp. Last thing anyone decrypts, and the best beat on the site.
Art dropKostasMap spread, coloured pages, logo lockups. No generated imagery, since every issue prints that the art is not AI.

Build notes

How it gets made

It launches at galactictreaty.lorecraft.io, on Next.js and Vercel with Supabase behind it. That is the same stack collect.nifewars.com already runs, so nothing here is unfamiliar ground.

Running it on a Lorecraft domain means the QR code can go to print today. No DNS to arrange, no dependency on the nifewars.com setup, no waiting. If you later want it living under your own domain, it points there with one record and the printed code keeps working through a redirect.

One thing that is not optional: every password check happens on the server. Put the keys in the browser and anybody who opens developer tools reads the whole treaty in ten seconds, and the puzzle is over before it launches.

Lorecraft · August 2026 · Draft for discussion