← Back to CTP ConThe First Crossing
Clipsy’s first journey beyond his world
Scroll to begin ↓
There are places where worlds sit closer together than they should.
Nobody notices them. Most of the time.
A strange flicker where there should be none. A sound with no obvious source. Something small going missing, only to turn up somewhere you are certain you already checked.
For us, those things are easily forgotten. For a Keepling, they are impossible to ignore. Especially for Clipsy.
Clipsy came from somewhere else. Where exactly is harder to explain.
The place Keeplings call home does not appear on any human map. It has no road leading to it and no stars we would recognise above it. But it is there. And Keeplings have lived there for as long as any Keepling cares to remember.
They are small creatures with an inconvenient amount of curiosity. They collect. They trade. They argue about which things are rare and which things merely look rare.
A bent piece of metal can be worthless to one Keepling and the centrepiece of another’s collection. A stone can be ordinary until someone discovers there are only three others like it. And sometimes, the story attached to a thing can make it more valuable than the thing itself.
Keeplings understand this instinctively. Clipsy perhaps more than most.
If something unusual appeared nearby, Clipsy would find it. If something had been hidden, he wanted to know why. And if there was even the slightest possibility that something was rare… well. That was usually when the trouble started.
Keeplings have a name for it.
The first sign was a sound.
A faint crackling noise came from a part of Clipsy’s world where there should have been nothing. Clipsy stopped. The sound stopped too. He took another step.
Ahead of him, suspended in empty air, was a thin line of light. No bigger than a scratch.
It pulsed once. Something came through. Not an object. A feeling. Then another.
That strange anticipation before opening something when you don’t know what is inside. The satisfaction of finally finding what you’ve been searching for. The tension of an exchange that could still go either way. The rush of a game balanced on one last move.
Thousands of tiny moments. Thousands of lives Clipsy could not see. Collecting. Trading. Playing.
Somewhere on the other side of the crack, unimaginably far away, something was happening. And somehow the feeling of it had reached him.
Clipsy’s ears rose. The crack flashed. That was when Hoard Mode activated.
Clipsy approached the light. Images began to move inside it. Only fragments.
A flat surface covered in brightly coloured objects. Tall shapes stacked one upon another, each covered in strange markings. Something thin flashed under the light. Then the image disappeared.
A transparent wall. Something precious-looking behind it. Gone again. A figure passed by covered in shining armour. Behind it moved something far larger, with a shape Clipsy couldn’t make sense of before the image vanished.
The crack widened. More light spilled through. Movement. Shapes. Colour. Rows upon rows of things he had never seen. Things he did not understand. Things that, therefore, obviously required immediate investigation.
Clipsy touched one paw to the crack. Nothing happened. He pressed harder. The line of light split open.
For approximately half a second, Clipsy considered whether this might be dangerous. Then something on the other side caught the light.
And that concluded the risk assessment.
The crack became a rift.
The rift became a portal.
And Clipsy vanished from his world.
He fell through darkness for several seconds. Or several minutes. Possibly both. Time behaves strangely between worlds.
Then gravity remembered him.
Clipsy dropped out of the air, hit something soft, rolled twice and landed face-first underneath a table.
Footsteps passed in every direction. Voices filled the enormous space. Music played somewhere in the distance. Another voice boomed from above, loud enough to flatten Clipsy’s ears.
He crawled forward. His head appeared from underneath the hanging cloth. And for the first time, a Keepling saw our world.
Everywhere he looked, things had been gathered. Not randomly. Carefully. Deliberately.
Thin, brightly coloured objects sat in clear little pockets, row after row. Small creatures stood perfectly still behind glass. There were boxes covered in symbols he couldn’t read, stacks of flat pictures, tiny pieces of painted metal and strange machines with buttons.
Some things were wrapped in clear shells so perfectly fitted that nobody could touch what was inside. Clipsy leaned closer. That was odd.
What was the point of finding something wonderful if you weren’t allowed to hold it?
Whatever the creatures in this place were, they had very complicated rules about collections. But he understood the collections themselves. He could feel that they mattered.
Whatever this place was… it was enormous. And it was full of treasure.
Nobody knows exactly when the first person saw him. There are several versions of the story.
One says he was found with both paws against a display case, staring so intently that he hadn’t noticed the crowd behind him. Another claims he disappeared beneath a vendor’s table with several brightly wrapped objects clutched to his chest.
Clipsy strongly disputes this version. According to Clipsy, they were already on the floor.
A third account says he climbed onto an empty chair beside a group of players and watched their game as though he had been invited.
Whatever happened, one thing became clear quickly. Clipsy had no intention of leaving. Not yet.
The force that had pulled him toward the rift was everywhere. Not inside the objects. Between the people.
Two strangers stopped because one had something the other recognised. Someone carefully explained a game. A small hand held up a treasured object while an older face lit up with recognition. Two people leaned over the same table and each walked away carrying something different.
Clipsy had felt these moments from another world. Here, surrounded by them, they were stronger.
So Clipsy stayed. At first, he mostly watched. Then he began to learn.
The strange creatures were called humans. The colourful little rectangles were cards. Some were worth almost nothing. Others caused several humans to lean over them and make very serious faces.
The transparent shells were for protection. Clipsy understood the explanation. He remained unconvinced.
He learned about figures, pins, plushies, comics and games. He learned that humans had entire collections dedicated to creatures that did not actually exist in their world. Clipsy found this confusing.
He discovered that some humans kept boxes sealed for years without ever opening them. This was worse than the transparent shells. He discovered cosplay. This raised several questions that have still not been answered.
Humans could spend twenty minutes arguing over the value of a card, then give another one away without hesitation because someone else wanted it more. That interested him.
It wasn’t simply because humans collected things. It wasn’t the games, the trades or even the treasure. It was what happened around them.
Someone finding the missing piece. Someone discovering something new. Someone recognising something they had loved years ago. Someone sitting across from a stranger and getting up later knowing their name.
Tiny sparks. Most too small for anyone to notice. But together… they had reached another world.
Every now and then, when enough people gathered, when the room became loud enough and thousands of tiny sparks appeared at once, Clipsy felt it.
A vibration in the air. So faint he sometimes wondered if he had imagined it. He would stop whatever he was doing. His ears would rise. And for just a moment, somewhere nearby…
The First Crossing
Clipsy’s first journey beyond his world
Scroll to begin ↓There are places where worlds sit closer together than they should.
Nobody notices them. Most of the time.
A strange flicker where there should be none. A sound with no obvious source. Something small going missing, only to turn up somewhere you are certain you already checked.
For us, those things are easily forgotten. For a Keepling, they are impossible to ignore. Especially for Clipsy.
Clipsy came from somewhere else. Where exactly is harder to explain.
The place Keeplings call home does not appear on any human map. It has no road leading to it and no stars we would recognise above it. But it is there. And Keeplings have lived there for as long as any Keepling cares to remember.
They are small creatures with an inconvenient amount of curiosity. They collect. They trade. They argue about which things are rare and which things merely look rare.
A bent piece of metal can be worthless to one Keepling and the centrepiece of another’s collection. A stone can be ordinary until someone discovers there are only three others like it. And sometimes, the story attached to a thing can make it more valuable than the thing itself.
Keeplings understand this instinctively. Clipsy perhaps more than most.
If something unusual appeared nearby, Clipsy would find it. If something had been hidden, he wanted to know why. And if there was even the slightest possibility that something was rare… well. That was usually when the trouble started.
Keeplings have a name for it.
The first sign was a sound.
A faint crackling noise came from a part of Clipsy’s world where there should have been nothing. Clipsy stopped. The sound stopped too. He took another step.
Ahead of him, suspended in empty air, was a thin line of light. No bigger than a scratch.
It pulsed once. Something came through. Not an object. A feeling. Then another.
That strange anticipation before opening something when you don’t know what is inside. The satisfaction of finally finding what you’ve been searching for. The tension of an exchange that could still go either way. The rush of a game balanced on one last move.
Thousands of tiny moments. Thousands of lives Clipsy could not see. Collecting. Trading. Playing.
Somewhere on the other side of the crack, unimaginably far away, something was happening. And somehow the feeling of it had reached him.
Clipsy’s ears rose. The crack flashed. That was when Hoard Mode activated.
Clipsy approached the light. Images began to move inside it. Only fragments.
A flat surface covered in brightly coloured objects. Tall shapes stacked one upon another, each covered in strange markings. Something thin flashed under the light. Then the image disappeared.
A transparent wall. Something precious-looking behind it. Gone again. A figure passed by covered in shining armour. Behind it moved something far larger, with a shape Clipsy couldn’t make sense of before the image vanished.
The crack widened. More light spilled through. Movement. Shapes. Colour. Rows upon rows of things he had never seen. Things he did not understand. Things that, therefore, obviously required immediate investigation.
Clipsy touched one paw to the crack. Nothing happened. He pressed harder. The line of light split open.
For approximately half a second, Clipsy considered whether this might be dangerous. Then something on the other side caught the light.
And that concluded the risk assessment.
The crack became a rift.
The rift became a portal.
And Clipsy vanished from his world.
He fell through darkness for several seconds. Or several minutes. Possibly both. Time behaves strangely between worlds.
Then gravity remembered him.
Clipsy dropped out of the air, hit something soft, rolled twice and landed face-first underneath a table.
Footsteps passed in every direction. Voices filled the enormous space. Music played somewhere in the distance. Another voice boomed from above, loud enough to flatten Clipsy’s ears.
He crawled forward. His head appeared from underneath the hanging cloth. And for the first time, a Keepling saw our world.
Everywhere he looked, things had been gathered. Not randomly. Carefully. Deliberately.
Thin, brightly coloured objects sat in clear little pockets, row after row. Small creatures stood perfectly still behind glass. There were boxes covered in symbols he couldn’t read, stacks of flat pictures, tiny pieces of painted metal and strange machines with buttons.
Some things were wrapped in clear shells so perfectly fitted that nobody could touch what was inside. Clipsy leaned closer. That was odd.
What was the point of finding something wonderful if you weren’t allowed to hold it?
Whatever the creatures in this place were, they had very complicated rules about collections. But he understood the collections themselves. He could feel that they mattered.
Whatever this place was… it was enormous. And it was full of treasure.
Nobody knows exactly when the first person saw him. There are several versions of the story.
One says he was found with both paws against a display case, staring so intently that he hadn’t noticed the crowd behind him. Another claims he disappeared beneath a vendor’s table with several brightly wrapped objects clutched to his chest.
Clipsy strongly disputes this version. According to Clipsy, they were already on the floor.
A third account says he climbed onto an empty chair beside a group of players and watched their game as though he had been invited.
Whatever happened, one thing became clear quickly. Clipsy had no intention of leaving. Not yet.
The force that had pulled him toward the rift was everywhere. Not inside the objects. Between the people.
Two strangers stopped because one had something the other recognised. Someone carefully explained a game. A small hand held up a treasured object while an older face lit up with recognition. Two people leaned over the same table and each walked away carrying something different.
Clipsy had felt these moments from another world. Here, surrounded by them, they were stronger.
So Clipsy stayed. At first, he mostly watched. Then he began to learn.
The strange creatures were called humans. The colourful little rectangles were cards. Some were worth almost nothing. Others caused several humans to lean over them and make very serious faces.
The transparent shells were for protection. Clipsy understood the explanation. He remained unconvinced.
He learned about figures, pins, plushies, comics and games. He learned that humans had entire collections dedicated to creatures that did not actually exist in their world. Clipsy found this confusing.
He discovered that some humans kept boxes sealed for years without ever opening them. This was worse than the transparent shells. He discovered cosplay. This raised several questions that have still not been answered.
Humans could spend twenty minutes arguing over the value of a card, then give another one away without hesitation because someone else wanted it more. That interested him.
It wasn’t simply because humans collected things. It wasn’t the games, the trades or even the treasure. It was what happened around them.
Someone finding the missing piece. Someone discovering something new. Someone recognising something they had loved years ago. Someone sitting across from a stranger and getting up later knowing their name.
Tiny sparks. Most too small for anyone to notice. But together… they had reached another world.
Every now and then, when enough people gathered, when the room became loud enough and thousands of tiny sparks appeared at once, Clipsy felt it.
A vibration in the air. So faint he sometimes wondered if he had imagined it. He would stop whatever he was doing. His ears would rise. And for just a moment, somewhere nearby…