morsla | Places Between: final session

The final Places Between installment ran last night - the end of the beginning, perhaps, as the story now forms the prelude for future tales. It reminded me just how long it's been since I did any storytelling - apart from helping out at UniCon, I haven't really done anything since Footsteps on the Shrouded Path; the five-part Abyssal cycle.

I'm glad I wrote so much of the background to Melbourne-that-isn't all those months ago, as I ran the entire session on the fly - no notes, no prepared ending. I think it worked well, and it achieved the original aim of making me think about the setting in more detail... I was worried that my imagination had atrophied, but I think it's okay again now.

Kay, Siobhan and Bryanna were three of the more unusual residents of the city - Talents, with fealties divided between Street, Sky, River and Tunnel, and still unsure of their place in the world. Siobhan had been approached by Graham Nar, a man in his late fifties, who offered her money in exchange for help - help in finding his daughter. Siobhan first spoke to Kay, and later discovered Bry through a chance meeting - and the three began looking for the missing girl.

Her name was Istacia, and her house was a mess. An apartment on Little Collins street, it had been picked over by police after a hurried departure. Checking Istacia's phone, they contacted a man named David, and followed him home from work. As the girls sat outside his house, wondering how to approach him, they heard a crash from inside - and running into the property, they saw a wall of earth, battering its way through the back wall. The creature was a golem, uprooted from the front garden in an attempt to abduct the occupant. It wasn't too bright, though, and Kay pulled the unconscious man from its arms as the creature ran off down the laneway.

Bryanna directed the group to Flinders Street, where a man called Surgeon ran a shop on the riverfront. It was long after midnight when they arrived, but Surgeon was wide awake - brushing off their inquiries, by claiming to never sleep. It was true - but they would not discover the real reasons for his state of readiness until later the next day. Surgeon was another Talent, and swiftly healed David of his injuries. David woke abruptly, memories of a dark figure crushing him still fresh in his mind, and he nervously listened to the girls explain their case. He knew Istacia, and knew her father, but didn't volunteer any information on her whereabouts - wanting only to get away from the world that had turned so strange. By the time the sun rose the next morning, he had vanished.

Later that morning, Siobhan and Bryanna set off to find the golem, or some trace of its creator. Their search led them into the stormwater drains to the city's east, and though they did not realise it, Bryanna began to unconsciously lead the pair through pockets of Elsewhere, trapped in the tunnels. They lost track of time, and covered far more ground than they realised. On the surface, a storm had begun - flushing more water into the tunnels, and washing away the trail that they followed. Eventually, the pair found a man named Halcyon, standing on a raft, and he told them where they were. They had crossed the city, somehow, and travelled across to the west.

While the other two explored, Kay had gone home to recover from the night's activities - licking her wounds, after grappling with the golem. She recieved an urgent phonecall from a girl directing her into the city - not a voice or number that she recognised, but the caller knew her by name. Following a series of directions messaged to her phone, Kay found herself in an unlocked office building on Collins Street, where she met her mysterious caller.

Kay's first glance of Eris was in the reflection on a glass door, but on whirling around she could not find any trace of the girl. Eventually, she coaxed the stranger into speaking. Eris was a thin, pale girl, about nine years old. She had wispy orange hair, steel-framed glasses, and always seemed to be hiding around the corner - quietly calling out from nearby office cubicles. She implored Kay to help her - to find Istacia as soon as she could, but to not tell Graham where the girl was. She had an uncanny knack of knowing where people were, and when they would call Kay's phone... and as Kay inched closer, she saw that the girl had no body - for she only appeared in reflections.

Beneath the city, Bryanna and Siobhan had discovered the Vault of Lost, and were attempting to bargain with its Guardian. The Guardian of this chamber was Sliver - another of Bry's acquaintances, and one who would never leave the safety of Tunnel. He had gleaming multifaceted eyes, and needle-sharp teeth, and told them in whispered tones that they would not find Istacia here - for the girl had lost, but was not lost herself. Instead, those seeking her had become lost themselves. Hearing moans from a pile of lost possessions, they found a lost companion - David, once again in a bad way, looking as though he had been soundly beaten. Sliver looked disapprovingly at the group, who were messing up his catalogue - wondering why, of all days, this was the one where living creatures interrupted his work.

Kay called the others, finally getting through to them, and told them to return to the surface at once - Eris was getting frantic, and the two were driving around the streets. Eris directed the car in a peculiar pattern of movements - each designed to bring her closer to contacting the missing girl. As the other two finally emerged at street level, Eris took control of the car - leaving the occupants unable to stop the vehicle as she accelerated towards the river, and plunged the car into the murky water. They sank through the waters, settling on the muddy bottom as the water seemed to peel away from them - opening out into a dome of air, down below the surface.

Siobhan was the closest to River, and stepped out of the car first - looking around at the dome of air that protected them. As the others cautiously left the car, a strange figure pushed in through the wall of water - clad in an lead boots, an assortment of flotsam and jetsam, and wearing an old diving helmet on his head. His nickname was Bowerbird, and he wandered the river looking for discarded items - collecting the blue ones, and casting the others into the sea. He was a friend to Surgeon and Eris, and led the group to the Sandridge Bridge pylons. There they found a small door, leading downwards.

Beneath the river, Surgeon waited for them. At his side was a figure covered by a white sheet, and he questioned the girls on why they had come this far, and what their intentions were. At length, he appeared satisfied with their answers, and began to tell them why their world was changing so quickly.

Long ago, before the city had truly taken form, two creatures forged its spirit. They were husband and wife, after a fashion - halves of a soul, but not always destined to share common purpose. One was old, and one was young, and together they created a balance within the city. Over time, they forgot who they were - and they began to live in their city, unaware of their role in making it.

Istacia was always the first to forget. In the times when her mind wandered, Nar took to learing about the ways of the humans they lived amongst. He took on a name, and it tied him into the city. Now called Graham, he looked at the girl that he had travelled with, and decided that she must be his daughter. Istacia did not know any better, for she had also forgotten her past - but as the city grew grayer, and the mundane occupants grew in number, Graham's power grew as well. He could not remember all of his history, but he tasted power in control - and began to solidify more of his nature, binding the suburbs to his will.

When her memories came back, fleeting and fragmented, Istacia would run away. As the mists closed in again, she would forget that she was running - settling into her new life, finding work, and new friends. David was one such friend, and the recent events were one such memory lapse - but now Graham was too close to controlling the city to let her wander unchecked. He had grown too focussed on the broader events in the city to track her down, so he approached a newcomere to the city - an obvious Talent, known as Siobhan, and paid her to track the girl down. This time, when he found her, he planned to lock her away - she would not oppose him any more.

The three girls, David, and Eris, were asked to take care of Istacia. She lay under the sheet beside Surgeon - unconscious, and with no memory of her powers. Without her, Surgeon warned, there would be no balance in the city - no colour amongst the grey, as she embodied the soul of the Talents. He urged them to flee, and to hide Istacia until she remembered who and what she was - for in the act of finding her, they had unknowingly shown her location to Graham. The older Talents of the River domain - Surgeon, Bowerbird, and the spirit Swims-with-no-ripples would hold off Graham's allies, and buy what time they could.

As they fled, torn from the river by the spirit's magic, they saw an explosion send up a collumn of water from base of the old bridge. Escaping to Bryanna's house, they passed police and ambulances heading south to the river, and Bryanna opened a gateway to deposit the group in the middle of a club - in the seething mass of people, where it would be hardest to track them. The energy of the crowd woke Istacia, who began to remember what she was, as the final curtain closed on the game.

That's the end of the beginning, for the Places Between. I'll be running occasional one-off stories in the setting, some months down the timeline, after the girls manage to lose Graham Nar's minions for a while. I have a living, breathing mythology to layer across and beneath the city, now, and characters to populate it. Who knows where it might go next?