Far from the city of whispered stories, another world took shape. It was not a world of words, but of sound. A single, resonant note, struck in the opening move of the game, had been allowed to evolve. It fractured into harmonics, then into melodies, then into complex, interwoven symphonies. The inhabitants of this world were not beings of flesh and blood, but of pure music. They were the Listeners, and their reality was an endless, evolving composition. They communicated not through language, but through harmony and dissonance. Their history was not written, but played. A great cataclysm was a jarring, discordant crash. A period of peace was a long, sustained chord of impossible beauty. In this world, to be in tune was to be. To be silent was to cease to exist.