The Legend of the Sun Ruby (and the Four Medallions)

An interactive story featuring four young adults entering fantastic worlds to battle the forces of mathematics. Or something like that, at least.

[squiretilde]

Reblog to give yourself bigger tits.

[fourmedallions]

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest - Part IV

Aubrey finds herself drawn to the red medallion. In tabletop games she usually prefers to play characters who rely on bravery and skill instead of magic, and the sword-and-shield sigil resonates with that. She takes hold of it. There is a slight tingle to the contact. It’s strange, but not unpleasant, and somewhat invigorating. Without really thinking about it, she loops the chain over her neck, then admires how the red stands out against her black t-shirt.

A quiet “What the fuck…?” alerts her to Malcolm’s presence. He’s on hands and knees, front end poking out of the tunnel.

Aubrey spreads her arms out and walks toward him. “Welcome to the forest of Nothing-Makes-Any-Sense-Any-More!”

He climbs to his feet and brushes off his pants, then peers around. “Where..? This doesn’t look like anywhere on campus.”

“Nope!”

“And the sun’s gotta be set by now.”

“Yup!”

“And…”

“Malcolm, you don’t gotta list everything that’s weird. It’s all weird! None of this makes sense.”

“Oh, nice!” Heather says, emerging from the tunnel. “Oh, that’s a nice breeze.”

As Malcolm grumbles to himself and walks around examining the surroundings, Heather walks over to one of the pedestals and slumps down by it, wiping grimy sweat from her face with her sleeves. “So I’m dreaming I guess. I got knocked out during the earthquake and I’m unconscious and you’re all just figments of my imagination.”

Aubrey makes an unconvinced noise and moves to stand by where Heather sits.

“Oh, are you gonna try and convince me otherwise, figment?”

“I feel pretty real.”

Heather slumps over further, lying down in the grass on her side. “I guess this doesn’t really feel like a dream,” she admits.

Aubrey sits down and puts her hand on Heather’s shoulder. “I promise, if I were imaginary, I’d tell you.” The blonde snorts in amusement.

Richard’s dirty face peeks out of the tunnel. “Oh, I get it, I’m unconscious.”

Aubrey groans in response and Heather laughs.

“But seriously guys, where are we?”

The girls shrug.

“What’s that around your neck?”

“Oh, I-”

Before she can finish responding, Malcolm shouts from beyond the underbrush. “Hey guys, check this out! There’s something even weirder over here!”

Richard jogs over as the girls scramble to their feet and follow more sedately.

A short deer trail connects the clearing to a second clearing, where the sound of flowing water is stronger. This area is dominated by a large white cube, at least 5 feet on a side. The cube rests at one end of what looks like a big tic-tac-toe board, recessed slightly into the earth and paved with grey stone. Nearby is a staircase leading down into the ground.

When Aubrey spots the cube, she also notices that it has a large black dot on the side facing up. She can only imagine one thing.

“It’s like a huge d6!” Malcolm explains.

“Yeah,” Aubrey adds, “but it’s only got a one.”

“Dee six?” Heather asks.

“Like a six-sided die,” Malcolm explains, glancing over toward the girls. His gaze falls on Aubrey and his eyes narrow. “Where’d you get that medallion? You weren’t wearing it before.”

“Oh, I practically forgot I was wearing it. They’re back over here.” Aubrey leads the short way back to the pedestals and gestures at them.

Malcolm takes a look, then picks up the purple one. “And you just picked it up and put it on? It’s tingly, that’s weird.”

“Look, dude, it’s obvious. There’s four of us. There’s four medallions.” She shrugs.

Malcolm looks at the pedestals again. “What happened to the fifth one?”

Another shrug. “Gone when I got here.”

Malcolm gives the purple medallion another look. “Well, if you think it’s a good idea.” He slips it on. “I know I’ve said it a million times, but man this is weird. Like we walked into another dimension.”

Aubrey’s expression brightens.

“I hate to say it, but it makes the most sense. It’s like somehow we walked into a weird portal fantasy D&D campaign.”

“Isn’t it great?”

He looks dubious.

Just then, Richard enters the clearing from the path. “Guys, you’ve got to check this out.”

“Oh no,” Aubrey shakes her head, “no more going back and forth. You guys come over here, we’ll finish this, then we’ll go do whatever’s over there.”

Richard looks confused, then shrugs in assent. “Sis? You should come over here,” he calls over his shoulder.

Heather comes when called, and the party reconvenes around the center pedestal.

“OK guys, I think it’s pretty clear what’s happening here.”

Heather and Richard look blank.

“We’ve walked through a portal into a world of magic and adventure.”

Richard continues looking blank. Heather rolls her eyes. “OK, sure. That’ll do until we actually find out what’s going on.”

Aubrey begins to protest, but Heather shakes her head and cuts her off. “No, sorry, I don’t mean to be bitchy. I just mean things probably aren’t that simple but it’s adequate until we know more.”

“Right, well, anyway, there’s these medallions.” She gestures toward the two remaining: orange dagger and yellow starburst. “You two should pick one and put it on.”

“Why?” Richard asks.

“There’s four of us and four of them. Duh?”

Richard doesn’t look convinced, but continues. “What if I want the red one?”

“Too bad.”

He sighs. “You had to take the coolest one.” He turns to his sister, who is now wearing the orange dagger. “Dang it! What’s left?” He checks and is disappointed. Grumbling, he dons the yellow sunburst.

“So what’re these supposed to do?” Heather asks.

Malcolm and Aubrey look at each other and shrug. “Magic powers?” Malcolm offers.

“Anyway, what did you guys want us to see?”

Heather leads the group back to the second clearing and down the stairs. About ten feet down, at the bottom, there is a large stone door with elaborate engravings. Each engraving is numbered with pips, one to six, like the faces of a die.

(PREVIOUS) (NEXT)

[fourmedallions]

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest - Part III

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest (cont)

(http://imgur.com/re1RY7f)

Aubrey hits the deck and covers her head with her arms. She doesn’t hear anything but chaos for a long moment, but then everything goes quiet save a pained groaning.

(If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice)

She slowly looks up, mystified by the sudden silence. Everything has been covered by a fine layer of dirt. There is a huge crack in the concrete ceiling that dirt from above is still slowly filtering through, but nothing seems to have collapsed. In this room at least.

“Is everybody alright?” Malcom asks, getting to his feet.

“I think I’m okay…” Aubrey says, hesitant.

Heather stands up carefully. “Just a little shaken up.”

“Nope! Augh, fuck!”

“What’s wrong!?” Heather steps over and kneels by Rick, who’s still curled up and lying on the ground.

“Bashed my fucking skull on that goddamn thing!”

“Rick, look at me for a second?”

He uncurls and heaves himself into a sitting position. His forehead is covered in blood, dripping down from a wound in his scalp.

“Well, your eyes don’t look dilated, so you probably don’t have a concussion. Lemme see your head.”

“Ow!”

“Scalp wounds bleed a lot, so it’s probably not as bad as it looks,” Aubrey chimes in.

“Yeah, Aubrey’s right, it’s not too bad,” Heather diagnoses. “Sure wish we had some disinfectant though.”

A beat of silence.

“Welp, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Malcom announces. A general cheer of assent responds and he leads the group to the doorway, then stops.

“Why aren’t we moving?” Aubrey asks.

Malcom is standing at the edge of the light, looking into the dark tunnel. “I just realized we don’t have a light.”

“Oh! Right!” Heather ducks down by the machine, searching around. “Where did that thi- here it is! I almost forgot about it! That would’ve really sucked!” She has retrieved her phone! “This makes a pretty good… oh, fuck…”

“What’s wrong?” Aubrey asks, stepping beside her. Now she can see that not only is the screen badly cracked, it’s flickering with chaotic, pixelated colors. “Oh, shit.”

“I don’t think this’ll be much use anymore,” Heather tucks it away with a sigh, “I hope the warrenty covers that.”

“So we don’t have a light after all?” Malcom wonders.

“Right,” the girls confirm.

Malcom turns back to look at the dark hall.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Aubrey marches to the front of the group, leading the way into the darkness. “Just follow me and don’t touch the walls!”

The other three follow with relief.

A few minutes later, they find their first cave-in. They stand in the tunnel, practically single-file, squinting into the darkness. The tunnels aren’t quite pitch black. Minute amounts of moon and starlight somehow find their way down through several feet of dirt and cement to lend a bit of hope.

“This was the way we came in, right?”

“Pretty sure.”

“If that’s what it looks like down here… what’s it like up there?”

“That was an earthquake, right? Have any of you ever heard of an earthquake happening in Minnesota?”

“There’s gotta be another way out.”

Ten minutes later, they find their second. Aubrey has stripped off her stifling sweater and tied it around her waist.

“Are you guys seeing this? I’m not like, hallucinating?”

“I hope Tom wasn’t under one of these.”

“That would explain why we can’t find him.”

After thirty minutes, they’re becoming certain that they’ve been boxed in. They’re all dripping with sweat and covered with a thin layer of dirt and grime, not that they can see it.

“I just can’t believe that there’s all these cave-ins and not a single hole.”

“We’re gonna get out, it’ll be fine, somebody will find us. When we’re missing tomorrow they’ll immediately think: ‘Of course, they went into the steam tunnels!’”

“Calm down, Rick, just breath.”

Aubrey slumps down in frustration to sit on the floor, running her hands through her tangled hair. From her new vantage point, she notices something.

A light.

Her breath catches in her throat as a rush of adrenaline hits her. “Guys? Uh, hey, do you guys see that?”

“See what?”

“Down here! Sit down, kneel, whatever! I think I see a way out!”

“Holy shit,” Rick gasps, “that’s not the light from the machine room, right?”

It appears to be much brighter. Aubrey confirms that when she stands up she can’t see it. She gets back down on her hands and knees and crawls slowly down the hallway, leading the others. She burns herself on hot pipes for the sixth and seventh times, but hardly notices any more. Then, suddenly, the walls tighten around her, thick bundles of dusty wires pressing close to her skin. She recoils, backing up suddenly.

“Fuck,” Heather breathes, “it’s that shitty little tunnel we found before.”

“What?” Malcom asks.

“A little crawlspace,” Aubrey answers, “we found it when we split up.”

The others begin arguing, but Aubrey tunes them out. She gazes at the golden light. What could it be from? Is it just a bright emergency light in a dead-end crawlspace? No, she knows that’s not right. It looks like sunlight. Sunlight in the middle of the night. With hints of green? Grass, seven feet underground? The mystery draws her almost as strongly as the hope for escape. She swallows a wave of claustraphobia and forces herself into the tube of wires.

The wires press against her on all sides, smearing her with old dust. The sweater around her waist keeps catching on the clips that held the bundles together and her hands and knees keep being pricked by sharp who-knows-whats. But the light draws her onward and the wires dwindle away until she’s crawling down a tight concrete tunnel with a bumpy, irregular surface. And she realizes that it’s not concrete anymore. The light is bright enough that she can tell it’s rough, natural stone.

Aubrey emerges from the tunnel into a cool forest glade. Blinking, she squints up at the bright blue sky. The sun is high, but not hot, and a refreshing breeze brushes against her sweat-caked skin.

Behind her is a low, rocky hillside. Surrounding the clearing are a mix of green brush and cheerful deciduous trees. From somewhere nearby she hears the gentle babble of a brook.

Within the clearing are five marble pedestals, four on the points of a cross and the fifth at the junction. Each is carved with a symobl. Walking forward in a daze, Aubrey sees that four have colored medallions resting on them, each etched with a symbol matching the pedestal.

Purple staff, red sword-and-shield, green dagger, yellow sunburst, she quickly names them. The center pedestal has no medallion, but is carved with a flat loop of cloth, like a headband.

WHAT SHOULD AUBREY DO? To vote, please either vote in the box to the right or just contact me and tell me what your vote is. Please vote only once. Ties will be broken in the order the options are listed.

Take the red sword-and-shield

Take the green dagger

Take the yellow sunburst

Take the purple staff

Wait for the others to catch up

(PREVIOUS) (NEXT)

[fourmedallions]

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest - Part II

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest (cont)

(http://imgur.com/Mz8na9D)

The hatch into the steam tunnels is wrenched open with a grinding screech as Aubrey squints, trying to make out the writing on the breaker box. “W.H. … West Hall?” She reaches out and flips it with a thunk. The lights don’t come on. As far as Aubrey can tell, nothing else happens either.

(The choice you made will have future consequences)

Aubrey considers flipping it back how it was, when she realizes she’s alone in the closet. “Aubrey!” Heather shouts from below, “hurry up!”

“Guys, wait up!” Aubrey climbs down the ladder into the narrow, dark hallway below. It’s humid down here and surprisingly loud, the normal background noises of big buildings turned up to eleven. Tom turns the flashlight on their little group as she absently wipes rust from the ladder onto her jeans.

“Okay, base rules,” Tom says, speaking loudly to be heard. “Don’t touch the pipes. Some of them are fine but a lot of them are very hot. Don’t turn any valves or flip switches or stuff, obviously. Don’t leave anything down here.” He shrugs. “I mean, just don’t be dumb, right?”

The group nods.

“Awesome!” He turns around and leads the way down the tunnel. Behind him are Malcom, Rick, Heather, and Aubrey in single-file.

Aubrey shuffles forward, careful not to trip on the occasional pipe or bundle of cords stretching across the floor. The light from the flashlight doesn’t reach past the four bodies in front of her, and even standing on tip-toes doesn’t get her a view of what’s actually being illuminated. The guys are talking about something, but it’s impossible to make out against the background noise. “This sucks,” she accurately describes the situation.

“Yeah, that flashlight doesn’t do us much good,” Heather agrees, looking back over her shoulder. “Hold up,” she tells Aubrey, “I’ve got an idea.”

Aubrey holds up and Heather reaches into her little purse and pulls out her smart phone. Her face is briefly illuminated as she taps the screen.

“The screen’s not bright enough-” Aubrey starts, but is cut off when suddenly the back of the phone lights up, almost brighter than the flashlight!

“Flashlight app!” Heather says. “It uses the camera flash. Pretty useful, but it really drains the battery.”

“What’s up?” Rick shouts. He’s difficult to hear even though he’s barely ten feet away.

“We’re gonna split off a little!” Heather responds. “The group’s too big!”

Rick gives her the thumbs up, and the guys continue forward. After a moment, the girls continue as well.

Aubrey considers how much more interesting the tunnel is when you can actually see what you’re looking at. The thick dust on the floor swirls around their sneakers as they continue forward, and Aubrey can't shake the feeling of being in some kind of modern catacomb. She's starting to feel the thrill of exploration despite the uncomfortable heat and cramped quarters.

Ahead, the boys come upon a crossroads and turn left after a moment of conversation. The girls get there shortly afterward. The tunnel intersects another running diagonally to it. The boys are visible ahead and to the left, their shadows reaching back towards the intersection. Aubrey turns and considers the other direction; it heads almost exactly back the way they came with perhaps 45 degrees of difference.

Heather stoops down and investigates the wall. “Haha, oh man, check this out,” she laughs. Aubrey bends over and sees that there actually is a way to continue forward, but they’d probably need to get on their hands and knees. A dusty, dirty crawlspace leads into the wall in front of them, the sides cushioned with thick wires.

“No way, there is no way I’m going in there.”

Heather laughs some more. “No, no, I’m with you. Ugh, can you imagine having to get in there for your job?”

“Bleh, no thanks.” Aubrey steps past Heather, down the right-hand tunnel.

“Ehh, should we really get split up?”

“It’s not a big deal. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to find them again!”

They look back. Tom’s light is just barely visible around a corner. Heather looks skeptical.

“Oh, come on, we’re not gonna get trapped down here!”

Heather relents and lets Aubrey lead the way down the hall. They take a couple more turns, always turning right if available. At one point, the tunnel suddenly shakes and grows louder. Bits of debris sprinkle down from the ceiling around them. The noise and shaking grow weaker and then are gone.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Uh-“ Aubrey begins to say, when suddenly shaking and noise pass by in the opposite direction. It seems to be coming from above. Aubrey thinks for a moment, then grins.

“What’s so funny?”

“Its just cars; we’re under the road!”

Heather thinks about it, then starts grinning when another car passes, sprinkling them with more dirt and dust. Hah! Fucking cars.

Around another corner and down a flight of stairs. A metal door gives them pause, but only a few seconds, then Aubrey tries the handle and finds that it’s unlocked. Inside is a small room that is huge compared to the tunnel. In the center of the room is some kind of humming metal machine with no discernible purpose. It’s plastered with electrical warning icons. There is a bare lightbulb with a string in the ceiling. Aubrey pulls it, illuminating the room. Heather turns her phone off to conserve battery.

Investigating the room, Aubrey finds a clipboard with some yellowing paper. Each sheet is covered with numbers. Some are variously crossed out or circled in pencil. Unable to find any meaning, she turns back to Heather.

“Man, this place is creepy.”

“I know, right? Isn’t it great?” Heather is positively giddy.

“Haha, are you into that kind of stuff?”

“Maybe a little?”

The other side of the room has another door. Aubrey opens it and walks a short way up the stairs behind. Visible down the hallway is familiar group of guys with a familiar flashlight!

“Hey guys!” Aubrey shouts and waves. They wave back and start moving down the hall faster. Aubrey comes back down the stairs. “I found the guys,” she tells Heather.

“Cool! I guess you were right after all!”

“What can I say? I’m just great.”

Malcom and Rick come down the stairs, drawn like moths to the light. It’s a little bit more crowded with two more people.

“Pretty cool!” Malcom, “the flashlight’s okay but being able to actually see is nice.”

“Where do you think we are?” Rick asks, peering around the room.

“Hah!” Aubrey exclaims, “I have no idea.”

“Where’s, uh, where’s that other guy?” Heather asks.

“Huh?”

“The guy with the flashlight. Who brought us down here.”

“Tom?” Malcom and Rick turn around simultaneously. Tom's not there.

The ground rumbles. More cars.

“Fuck, where’d he go?” Rick mumbles. He walks up the stairs and peers into the darkness. “I’ve got no idea. He was just here.”

Aubrey crosses her arms. “How did you two lose the guy with the flashlight?”

Heather is pissed. “He better not’ve snuck away and left us down here!”

“Nah, nah,” Malcom waves at her reassuringly, “he’s cool, he wouldn’t do something like that.”

More rumbling, harder this time. Aubrey stumbles and burns herself against a hot pipe. The clipboard clatters to the ground.

“Ow, fuck! Damn, what was that, a semi?”

“Uh, guys, I don’t think we’re under a road.”

“Then what was that?”

The lightbulb dims. The atmosphere becomes more panicked. Heather fumbles out her phone for the light. A third rumble, the most violent so far. Screams as people are flung to the ground. The sound of breaking rock and collapsing tunnels.

The shaking doesn’t stop. In the flickering light Aubrey sees Rick falling toward the machine, forehead on a collision course with the green metal. She also sees Heather fumble her phone. The ceiling is cracking and dirt is falling around our protagonists. There is very little time to do anything.

WHAT SHOULD AUBREY DO? To vote, please either vote in the box to the right or just contact me and tell me what your vote is. Please vote only once. Ties will be broken in the order the options are listed.

A.      Duck and cover! B.      Save Heather’s phone! C.      Save Rick’s Head!

(PREVIOUS) (NEXT)

[fourmedallions]

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest - Part I

Chapter One: The Glade in the Forest

(http://imgur.com/6MNAkUS)

The narrative resumes, and Aubrey, oblivious to the pause in the first place, walks through the door. Inside is a narrow room with crumbling brick walls, much like the outside of the building, and a rickety metal staircase spiraling up ten feet or so. Is this the right building? It didn’t have any, like, words on it or anything. She tests the first step and it doesn’t immediately collapse. This room honestly doesn’t even look like it belongs on the campus. Malcom told her to come to “Wold,” and after ten minutes squinting at one of the few campus maps available online this was her best guess. Aubrey spends another minute sighing and dithering before climbing the steps.

The creaking stairs lead to a door, which leads to a more modern-looking hallway. She walks down it, and then down another, before she finds an elevator. Inside, however, there’s a placard informing her that using the basement button requires a special key. Why couldn’t Malcom just meet her outside!? At least there don’t seem to be any students hanging around to see her aimlessly wandering. Finally, she finds a staircase down to the correct floor, then follows the voices of her friends.

“Aubrey!” Malcom announces, mock enthusiastically, “glad you could make it!”

Malcom is seated on a couch next to Tom with his laptop on the table in front of them. Heather and her brother (uh, Rick? Is his name?) are also there, looking up from their phones.

“Hey, gimmie a break! This place isn’t super easy to navigate!” Aubrey glances around the room again “Quite the group! I didn’t know you were gonna be here, Heather!”

Heather smiles and shrugs. “Me neither until ten minutes ago.”

“I only technically invited Malcom and you,” Tom says, “but I mean it’s not like it’s a secret tabletop gamers only thing. You two know each other?”

So Malcom invited Rick and Rick invited his sister. Mystery solved! “Yeah! Weird coincidence, huh?”

“So why didn’t you invite me?” Heather asks, crossing her arms.

“Ha ha, uh, I honestly didn’t think you’d be interested. Sorry!”

Aubrey takes a seat next to Malcom as Heather laughs in response. “It’s not a big deal!”

“So now that we’re all here,” Malcom turns, addressing Tom, “what’s this all about?”

Tom is a guy a couple years older than the rest of the group and a U of U graduate. Aubrey and Malcom met him through the campus gaming club last year, and have stayed in contact. She assumed this was going to be some tabletop thing, since that’s pretty much what he contacts her about, but apparently not if Heather and Rick were here. I won’t describe him further because man, who cares?

Tom reaches down into his backpack, pulls out a flashlight, and switches it on, lighting his face from below. “How much do you guys know about… the steam tunnels?” The lights don’t flicker spookily as he says that, but it’s fun to pretend they do.

“They’re tunnels that run under the campus with like, pipes and stuff,” Rick answers. “Is that really a question?”

Aubrey can’t help but be a little excited. “You found a way into the steam tunnels? I’ve always wanted to check out that kind of thing. Urban exploration or whatever?”

 “Are the steam tunnels really that tough to get into?” Malcom starts putting away his laptop. “I mean, it’s cool but it’s not super impressive.”

Tom shrugs. “I dunno. I guess not. I always wanted to try it while I went here but never really put the effort into it, you know? But now that I’ve got a way I figure we should check it out! You guys with me?”

“Yeah!” “Sure.” “Sounds cool.” “I’m down!”

“Really? None of you have any misgivings or like… reluctance?”

“Nah.” “Nope.” “Why, should we?”

“Alright! Follow me!”

Tom leads the group up the stairs and to the same elevator that Aubrey tried not very long ago. With a flourish he pulls out a key, fits it into the lock on the panel, and turns it.

“Where’d you get that?” Aubrey asks, surprised.

“That’s… a secret!” Tom responds, unhelpfully. And maybe later it will even be a mystery. But for now it’s not important or interesting. Everyone rolls their eyes as he presses the B1 button.

The elevator begins moving, then suddenly jerks to a stop as the lights go out. The group collectively yelps in surprise, and just as suddenly the lights come back on and the elevator continues going down.

“Jesus Christ!” Aubrey gasps.

“What the fuck was that?” Malcom and Heather say simultaneously. Rick is silent, still looking a bit shell shocked.

“Uh,” Tom says, looking uncertain, “it’s probably fine. Just kinda rickety.”

Rick isn’t comforted. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea…”

His objection comes too late. The elevator stops and its doors open with a ding into a completely normal looking part of the building.

Aubrey gives Tom a look. “I thought this was going to the steam tunnels.”

“Holy shit, you guys! Relax a little! Now we’re in a staff-only part of the building. We’ve still got a little ways to go!”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Heather asks as Tom leads the group down the hall.

“I did some work for campus IT back in the day. I was through here once or twice to deliver computers.”

“Is that how you got the key?” Malcom guessed.

“Nope! All the doors around here use keycards now, and mine doesn’t work anymore. That’s why we had to take the elevator. Good try, though.”

Down two hallways and into a maintenance closet. In the floor is a metal hatch, corrosion and rust taking the place of a lock. Malcom and Rick work to get it open while Tom inspects something like a breaker box on the wall. “Looks like we’ll be needing this after all,” he announces, waving the flashlight.

“Whaaat?” Heather objects. “There aren’t even lights down there?”

“I’m pretty sure there are, but I can’t figure out how to turn them on and I don’t wanna just flick a bunch of these to find out which one does it.”

Aubrey steps forward. “Here, let me take a look.”

(http://imgur.com/t7X32NY)

WHAT SHOULD AUBREY DO? To vote, please either vote in the box to the right or just contact me and tell me what your vote is. Please vote only once. Ties will be broken in the order the options are listed.

Do nothing.

Flip A

Flip B

Flip C

Flip D

Flip E

(PREVIOUS)  (NEXT)

[fourmedallions]

Prologue: Urbana, Minnesota

Well, hello there, reader! So glad you could join us tonight. Please, pretend to come in, take off your coat. We’ve got fake refreshments if you’re hungry. The imaginary bathroom is right down the imaginary hall. We recycle, so if you want to pretend to drink a soda, please also pretend to put it in the recycling bin right next to the trash can. Let me show you to the sitting room! It’s big and comfortable with a surfeit of soft chairs surrounding a blazing fire; just the thing for listening to a story on a cold night.

What? Of course the room exists! Just look around you! You don’t see anything? You’re just sitting in front of your computer? Well, you have to work a little bit for it. The room exists, but not physically. If you imagine it, and I imagine it, then it will be real. For a little while at least.

Let me direct your attention away from the crackling fire (I know it’s quite captivating) and toward the subject of our story. Towards a Midwestern college town bordered by farmland and split through by a river. Probably sounds a little familiar, right? The town is Urbana, Minnesota, and pretty much nothing interesting has happened there ever. Major Export: Sugar; Major Import: College Applicants. Population thirty thousand. City hall was recently remodeled, and it’s got some nice parks!

Narrowing our focus, let’s take a look at the state university. It’s located on the East side of the Blue River, separated from its western rivals. The sign reads Minnesota State University of Urbana, but everyone calls it the U of U. The campus sprawls over several blocks and is made up of mismatched brick buildings, each pleasant in its own way but not quite contributing to the whole. The walkways are dotted with works of sculpture produced by seven generations of students. Well known for its arts education, the U of U has a 16:1 student to faculty ratio and I see your face! You don’t care. Let’s move on!

I twist the dial even further, and zoom in on an old brick building; probably the oldest on campus. Contents: the English department, an old stage that is rarely used, and our protagonists. Let me freeze frame quickly and I’ll introduce them. I know it’s not exactly standard and that you’d probably rather just jump right in and immerse yourself in the prose. Well, hold your horses! You’re going to have to pick one of them before we can do that! I mean if you really don’t care, you can just skip the next four paragraphs.

First we have Aubrey Chambers. She’s entering a side door, just come from an adjacent parking lot. She’s red-haired, freckled, and wearing a blue sweater even though it’s almost too warm for it. She doesn’t actually go to school here. Parents too rich to qualify for aid and too poor to pay for her college. Instead she works as a secretary at a local start-up and is taking a sculpting class at the community college. She likes to run tabletop games, but disdains preparation and prefers to create scenarios off the cuff in response to her players. Her girlfriend broke up with her last month. Right now, in this secret frozen moment, her face is neutral, eyes distant. Thinking about something, going through the motions.

Just through the front doors we have Richard Flores entering with his older sister. He’s got long, scraggly blond hair and bags under his eyes, but he’s bright-eyed and cheerful, amused by something his sister is saying. Although Urbana is his home town, Rick lives on campus. He’s majoring in Computer Science. He also likes playing video games, which surprises literally no one. His parents insisted he not work a job so that he can focus on his studies, but mostly he uses the extra time to have fun. Every once in a while he cuts class and goes out of town for the weekend, but no one is quite sure where he goes or what he’s doing.

At Rick’s side is Heather Flores, the elder and wiser sibling. She’s got blond hair like Rick, but short and carefully styled. Her glasses are fashionable, not hip, and her mouth is quirked up as she’s saying something to her brother. She’s friends with Aubrey, who she met in kind of a series of coincidences last year. The two get along but have a hard time connecting with each other’s primary hobbies. Heather lives with her parents at home, and she’s a Graphic Design major. Like Rick, she doesn’t have a job.

Finally, there’s Malcom Young. He’s sitting with me down in the basement lounge. He’s black, and has short, natural hair. His laptop out and appears to be playing music, although we can’t hear it at the moment. The music is, in fact, of his own creation; Malcom is a talented musician who is unsurprisingly a Music major. He’s also one of Aubrey’s tabletop players and Rick’s roommate! His tuition is covered by a combination of grants, scholarships, and loans, and he’s also working as a waiter off campus for his spending money.

These four young men and women will soon meet as a group for the first time. Although they don’t know it, they are approaching their destiny. Destinies? Destinies doesn’t really look right but the spellchecker says that it is. Before that happens, you’ll need to pick one of them as the focus of our third-person limited perspective.

  FIRST CHOICE: VOTE! To vote, please either vote in the box on the right or just contact me and tell me what your vote is. Please vote only once. Ties will be broken in the order the options are listed.

Aubrey Chambers

Malcom Young

Heather Flores

Richard Flores

(NEXT)