Prologue

"Listen, I don't know if you think I'm stupid, I'm not going to sell my soul to an otherworldly being for power," I told the otherworldly being who'd shown up in my apartment. "That's just common sense. Do you think I'm stupid? Is that your impression of me?"
"I'm not…" the being stared at me, then huffed, seeming upset. "I don't want your soul! I'd have nothing to do with it!"
"Oh, so you're just sending me on a journey across the cosmos for free?" I said, waving the brochure it had given me at it. "Just out of the goodness of your heart?"
"No, read the brochure again," said the being. "It's an entertainment thing. Also a family thing. Also, listen, come on, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. You can't tell me you're going to pass this up!"
I opened the brochure and read it again. "I mean, I don't know. My brothers would be absolutely useless without me. So would my dads, to be honest. They'd be distraught."
"Time's stopped when you're on the trip," replied the being. "They won't even notice you're gone."
"What about my goats?" I asked it. "Will they notice I'm gone?"
They stared at me. "Your goats? Your goats don't even know you've been at college, Sevvie. Their brains aren't that complex."
"Call me Seva," I told the being. "Only my friends can call me Sevvie."
The being sighed. "Okay, so I'm going to call this a no. Bye, have fun in your boring life, where you'll never get to learn magic or anything, you'll just stay a normal-"
"Wait," I said, stopping them. "Okay, you lied to me. You never mentioned the magic thing."
"What the hell sort of worlds did you think I was going to give you, if magic wasn't going to be on the table?" asked the being. "Are you serious? Are you kidding me right now, or-?"
"You came into my house at an unreal hour in the morning, gave me a literal brochure, and then told me I could go on some sort of wacky adventure but only if I was willing to like, totally abandon my friends and family for who knows how long!"
"Fine!" shouted the being. "I guess the universe needs another overpowered version of your brother running around! Yeah, sure, fine! Is there anyone else you want to bring?"
"Who are you letting me bring?" I asked, trying to make sure that I had this right. "Cadis, yeah?"
"Yeah," sighed the being. "Cadis."
"And Sasha and Jiro," I said. "My brothers have to come. But not my dads, because I have no clue what they would even do if they were forced to go on a magical adventure. I guess they could…" I scrunched up my forehead, trying to think of how my dads would react to this. Because I was really stupid when I was a kid, I never came up with seperate names for my two male parents, resulting in the great situation where Jiro and I called both of them dad. Sasha at least called my younger dad Papa, which was at least less confusing but also like, kind of weird since he was eighteen.
One of my dads knew martial arts, and they were both doctors, so that might have been okay, but there were probably worlds with like, healing magic and stuff? So that would probably quickly become obsolete. ...Cadis, Jiro, and Sahsa also didn't really have any useful life skills, now that I thought about it. Like, sorry to talk trash about my best friend (and probable future brother in law) but Cadis had all the programming skills of a sophomore CS Major. Jiro possessed the same. Sasha was planning to become a doctor like our dads, but was currently a freshman bio major.
But if I was being honest I didn't really have any skills that would help in this either! I had read too many fantasy books for my own good, though not as many as frigging Jiro, and I knew how to take care of goats. That was basically it. But I was still going to accept this being's offer, because what was the worst that could happen? Actually, wait-
"So, wait, is there like, an actual chance of me dying here?"
The being sighed. "It's right there, in big red letters." They opened the brochure and pointed to what was written in normal-sized and black letters. "IF YOU DIE WHILE ON THE JUMPCHAIN, YOU WILL RETURN TO YOUR HOME WORLD IN FULL HEALTH. THAT'S THE JUMPCHAIN GUARANTEE!"
"These are neither big nor red?" I told them.
"Hey, you know what! Welcome to your Cosmic Warehouse!"
We were very suddenly in a large warehouse that didn't really look very special at all. The only furniture were a few chairs, located pretty close to us. Jiro, Sasha, and Cadis were sitting in them.
"HI GUYS!" I shouted at them. "We're going on a magical adventure!"
"No, we aren't!" replied Cadis, leaping to his feet. "What the hell- did you drug us, Sevvie? How did we get here? We have midterms on Thursday!"
"You don't have to worry about midterms anymore!" I told Cadis. "We're going on a magical adventure outside of the cosmos itself. There we'll see many fantastic things and gain various powers. Or at least that's what this person says." I pointed a thumb at the being, who was still there.
"No!" shouted Cadis. "Our dads will literally die of worry. Or at least yours will!"
Cadis and I actually originally met way back in first grade because we were the only kids with two dads in our school and we both were getting "social skills classes". I guess the district figured they should just shove the two kids with gay parents together and hope they have something else in common. But luckily that actually turned out to be a good decision and we've been friends ever since!
"No, time is frozen," I told Cadis. "They won't worry, they won't even know we're gone."
Cadis seemed slightly appeased by this. "I mean, I guess we'll kind of miss them."
"Maybe there's some way we can call them or something," I lied, pretty sure that wasn't an option.
"I'm okay with it," said Sasha. "Papa and I just got in a big fight last night on the phone anyways." He huffed and blew a strand of long black hair over his face. "Yeah, let's go."
With the three people I had to convince vaguely okay with this, I looked to the being. "Okay, um. I'm ready to go. What do we do?"

They handed me two pamphlets, one that read "WAREHOUSE" and another that read "BODY MOD". "First, you need to fill out your supplements. If you decide to use just these two, I'm authorized to give you an "extra life" per world. But if you're not interested in that, I have a wide variety of supplements for you to choose from."
They gestured to a large rack full of brochures that had definitely not been there before.
I reached for the most glittery looking brochure first, and just as I pulled it from the shelf the being's expresion turned to one of panic and snatched it from me before I could look at it. "I don't know how that one got there!" they said. "Not available for you! Pick something else!"
"What was it?" I asked.
"Not something I'm allowed to give you!" replied the being. "Hoo boy why did I even leave that on the rack??? Pick something else. Or stay with the original tw- actually, wait. No. I can't give that to you anyways, I don't think."
"What? Why?"
They pointed at my brothers and best friend. "I let you bring those assholes along. Not sure if you qualify anymore."
"You don't even know your own rules?" I asked the being.
They rubbed their temples. "I'm not really… I mean, I… listen. I don't think you're going to die."
"Thanks for that vote of confidence," I told the being. "Anywho, um. This one looks interesting. The Supplement Modifier."
"Well, if you pick this one, you don't get your warehouse and your bodymod until the end of your first jump."
I had already read that in the brochure, and nodded. "Yeah, I mean, that's fine." It looked honestly the most interesting out of all of them, at least of the ones I was allowed. Like, I wasn't big into any of the others. There was a whole row of weird sex ones. Gross.
"Okay, then you need to go through the book of Universal Drawbacks before you pick your first jump," said the being. "Good Luck!"

Because this all concerned Jiro, Sasha, and Cadis, I asked them what they wanted. And hey! What they wanted was BAD!
Like, seriously, was One Life to Live their way of saying that they didn't actually want to be there? It was honestly kinda rude. Cadis explained it to me that it gave one of them an out if they missed their home world too much but I just had mental images of my siblings getting shot in the face, dying, and then me spending the rest of the time alone.
The Drop-Out option really concerned me, too. …. but I was the one who was letting them pick this.
They also had objections to a drawback I thought they'd be okay with, "And 8 Shall Be The Number of the Chosen". "What happens if Sasha and I meet someone special and we're already at 8 people?" asked Jiro.
"What, isn't Cadis special enough for you?" I asked. Jiro and Cadis looked awkwardly at each other. "Oh no, did you two break up?"
"We've been talking about polyamory…" started Jiro, and I sighed. That was exactly what my brother needed in his life. More boyfriends. More frigging-!
"That was what I got into a fight with papa with," admitted Sasha finally. "I feel much the same as Jiro, but you know how papa is."
Yeah, I did have sort of an idea. I loved my dads a lot- but the one Sasha was talking had been kind of insufferable when I came out as aromantic and asexual. Like, he eventually got it, and realized that I didn't think I was losing out on anything, but… sigh.
Dads, huh?
Yeah, I thought it'd be good to get away from them for a while.
"Anyway, um!" I told them all. "I think it's time to pick our first destination!" I looked at the being. "Where are the brochures for that?"
"Okay, so for your first two jumps, you get to pick from this rack," they told me. "After that, you'll get a whole new rack. It will then cycle out each and every jump, unless you redeem this special coupon, which I am only giving to you once, to "freeze" the rack so you can choose from it twice."
I looked over the brochures. Darksiders… fuck no. Watchmen… maybe. Probably not, though. Magic the Gathering Zendikar… sigh, why couldn't it have been Ravnica? But still, a strong maybe. Mass Effect, no thanks. Alan Wake, no, I hadn't even really heard of that. Young Justice…another strong maybe. Franken Fran was a definite no, I really was not into body horror. Oh no, Sasha was looking at that pamphlet like he wanted to go there. No, Sasha, that's not a good place to become a surgeon!
I wasn't even going to dignify Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers with a no.
"Okay, guys, help me decide," I said again. "The ones I'm 'Maybe' on are Watchmen, Zendikar, and Young Justice."
"Mass Effect isn't even in the running?" asked Cadis with a sigh.
"Nope," I told him. "Not at all."
"Now I wish I'd forced you to play it," he said. "Then you'd be interested in going there."
"Cadis, the only place where our favorite video games intersect is The Sims."
"But we play them like two different genres of game," replied Cadis. "I spend hours building houses for my families and then carefully manage them, and you…"
"I just drown them and laugh," I said. "Wow, I hope that universe isn't somewhere out there!"
"Why don't we read the brochures and see what's in them?" asked Jiro.
I looked to the being. "Hey. Can we do that?"
"Yes?" said the being. "Why would that not be an option?"
"Okay, cool," I said. "I'll take Young Justice, other people take other stuff."
Jiro grabbed the Zendikar pamphlet, Sasha got Watchmen, and Cadis, who had nothing better to do, grabbed the Mass Effect Pamphlet.

"Okay, I'm really interested in what you all thought, but I've made my decision," I told the others. I plopped the paper on the table and pointed out several options listed. "There are a lot of powers here which I think could be super important in the future. Toggle, Incomprehensible, Immortal, Drain No… plus it's got magic, tech, combat, and other skills on offer. Unless any of you found something real good in those other brochures, I think we should go here first and then choose from one of those two next."
"Yeah, that seems like a good decision," said Jiro. "I would like to go to Zendikar at some point, though. We can buy lands there, including one that duplicates books."
Of course that's what my brother would be interested in. Why did I ever doubt him?

2026 Retrospective:
I plan to write a new version of Sevvie’s jumpchain as part of Sevvie month, but am waiting on one CYOA to be finished before I start on her. While we wait for that to happen, let’s take a look at Sevvie’s first jumpchain attempt.
I wrote this chain for the 2018 Daily Jumpchain Challenge and wowza. That’s 8 years ago. This was even before I started working at Secure-24 - I was still at the library. What a difference 8 years has brought.

Cypher: You’re telling me.

I don’t have much to say about this prologue. It introduces us to Sevvie, who is initially skeptical about this whole concept, and her pointless relatives. In fact, the title of this story is “The Adventures of Sevvie and her Pointless Relatives”. At least it establishes the tone early - this won’t be a serious take on jumpchain, but a light-hearted romp across the cosmos with Sevvie, a person who never came up with separate names for her two dads.
Sevvie goes with the fabled Universal Drawbacks Supplement, a supplement by SJ-Chan to give you more points by giving you drawbacks that you suffer in every jump, in addition to specific ones per jump. I won’t go off into a tangent here about my respect for SJ-Chan or how many people really objected to this thing existing. I don’t use it in more more recent chains, but I think it’s a fine document and now contains JumpSeed, which was the inspiration for Unnamed Story. People really tended to get angry at SJ-Chan’s challenge chain suggestions, because they saw jumpchain as like a real thing that might happen to them, I guess, instead of a logic puzzle or writing prompt.

Casimir: I feel like that was a tangent.

Sorry.
Anyways, Sevvie gets +300 CP per jump, but in exchange can never be a drop-in, her companions have permadeath, and her enemies want to kidnap and humiliate her. Her companions will also strongly identify with their in-jump identities, not their previous ones. For this combination, her companions all get +900 CP per jump, which is wild and means they usually get more CP than her!
Oh, apparently Sasha, Jiro, and Cadis picked those drawbacks. That actually kind of makes sense.
This story is perhaps the origin of me describing jumpchain documents as pamphlets, brochures, etc. Before this I tended to describe them as series of options depicting on a big screen with a large touchscreen console.

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