The cartographer of drowned roads
The kingdom's maps are wrong on purpose. You have been hired to find out who is redrawing them.
Setting
Vennmarch, a river kingdom built on the bones of an older one. Every spring the floods move the roads, and every spring the Cartographers' Hall issues corrections. Three villages that existed last year are no longer on any map, and the people in them have stopped being remembered.
Main character
- Sennet Aur
A courier who has carried corrections for eleven years and has begun keeping a private list of what she delivered.
How it opens
The correction arrives by courier at dawn, sealed twice. You break the wax and find the Vale of Aster removed — not crossed out, not annotated, simply absent, the paper smooth where a valley used to be.
You have walked that valley. You remember an inn with a blue door. When you say the name aloud to the courier, she looks at you with polite confusion and asks you to repeat it.
A branch can end when
- The Vale of Aster is put back on the map, whatever it costs to do it.
- You learn what the corrections are holding back, and decide they are worth it.
- You are corrected yourself.