NaNo2020 WEBCAM: What Binds Us

Setting
Our story starts in the heart of a... very average basement. To be specific, the very average-seeming basement of one Annisa Lane. It's been a tradition for our main protagonists to gather in this "normal" basement every year the day before school starts, and to attempt to speak to the dead via ouija board. Of course, ouija boards don't actually work, and they've never actually been able to talk to anyone. But still, the sentiment of it all remains, and still, they take part in this tradition year after year, sitting in a circle on the basement floor with their fingertips on a planchette. And thus that was how this year started, like any other; another afternoon spent in that completely normal basement.

But alas! Does it seem the basement is not as normal as we thought? Of course it isn't, what a boring story that would be. A half-way finished basement, the main area is hardwood with a large, black leather couch facing an entertainment/gaming system. A giant TV mounted on the wall opposite the couch, with a low shelf with an assortment of remotes, controllers, and DVDs (because some people still use those). A cheap coffee table is placed half-heartedly, almost tentatively in the awkward open space, although more often than not, it is shoved off to the side and ignored. Behind the couch is a ping-pong table, littered with graph paper and textbooks; it seems that someone has commandeered it as a desk. Annisa seems to be the only Lane who uses the basement on a regular basis, with her things scattered throughout the space.

But in the back corner of the basement is a dark door, which is strange because the rest of the house has light maple doors and moldings. It's almost as if no one in the house notices it; there are cobwebs in the corners, completely untouched, and a healthy amount of dust coats the handle, directly contrasting the rest of the squeaky clean suburban home. The hinges seem to be completely rusted over, and it would take a considerable amount of effort and strength to open it. There is no visible lock on the door, and seemingly no security at all; so why does it seem so mercilessly abandoned?

Behind this mysterious door is a relatively large room, about 15 feet deep and 10 feet wide. In the center of the room, illuminated by sunlight coming from... somewhere is a large and heavy work table, with large blueprints, straight-edges, and pencils scattered across the surface. Most of it seems to be abandoned, with a thin layer of dust covering everything. In the center of the table sits a glass box with a large jewel on display, a rich purple in color. The glass box is still perfectly clean, without even a speck of dust on its surface. Lining the walls of the room are large bookshelves, crammed with dusty, leather-bound tomes, all of them without any titles or authors on the spines. Upon closer inspection of the books, they seem to all be journals, crammed with the scrawling of a madman- the words seem to be either gibberish or bookended by context that renders it illogical.

The jewel itself, however, is most certainly the most notable aspect of the room. It seems to swallow and emit the light around it at the same time, and you could easily fall into a trance just staring at it. Of course, as with any good fantasy book, the jewel isn't as it seems, but rather, it's a portal of sorts. A dimension door created by Noah Lane, when you touch it, the atoms in your body begin to decompose and your DNA is rearranged as you are placed into an alternate dimension.

What alternate dimension, you may ask? Well, that leads us to the second setting; the kingdom of Astrealla. A small peninsula kingdom, a majority of its land is a lush forest or small farming villages. Its main economy is in agriculture and fishing, with very little tourism or trade with other kingdoms. Despite its minimal contact with outside kingdoms, Astrealla is extremely well known for its beautiful landscapes. However, rather than the rich green tones we're accustomed to seeing in our reality, the colors of the foliage range anywhere from a pastel cherry blossom to a rich plum, staying within the warm pinks and purples with the occasional red. The grass is still green, and the sky is still blue, and everything else seems normal... but leaves of any sort are quite an unnatural color. At least, to us.

The capital city of Astrealla, L'Vehan, lies at the eastern foot of the mountain range stretching across the widest portion of the peninsula. A lavish city where the wealthiest of the kingdom live; this is where the politicians, successful merchants, and those who work in the King's Court go home to their families. The streets are cobblestone, with tall and narrow houses and shops lining the various streets, all piled on top of one another like the bottom of someone's messy closet, everything haphazardly stacked on top of one another. At the center of the city are high, golden walls, circling around the magnificent Ivy Palace. Home of King Zorell and his wife, Queen Vikka, only those who are granted an audience with either the King or the court are allowed inside the walls, and only those who work in the King's Court (Astrealla's government) are allowed inside the doors of the castle itself. Some speculate this is because the King is paranoid and possibly losing his mind, but the real reason for these strict laws is still unknown.

The rest of the kingdom is relatively unproblematic and borderline boring, although there are certainly a few cities and landmarks worth noting. Towards the Northwest, on the coast is the city of Fillia, the kingdom's center for energy. The trademark of the Fillians are their ashy, gray skin, due to the amount of smoke and dust in the air. Workers pick the leaves of the Fillian Bush, a large tree whose leaves are known for burning at temperatures much higher than coal or wood, nearly 5 or 6 times hotter. In turn, they use this fire to boil water, creating steam to operate the technologies the kingdom has. This is how the kingdom has running water, basic electricity, and simple gas stoves.

Directly north of L'Vehan across the Matelli Mountains lies the agricultural hub of Wichitt, on the banks of the Lux River and the Lake of Luck. With cleverly placed dams and a sophisticated irrigation system, Wichitt is unique in that all of its inhabitants live underground in order to maximize the number of crops that are able to be planted on the surface. Because of their underground city and the architectural/engineering limits, they tend to be shorter in stature than those who live in the rest of the kingdom, with paler skin and better eyesight.

Towards the Southwest by Regino Bay is Dhari, a large fishing village. Well... it's not so much a village as it is a city, but the rough and tumble, rustic nature of it all certainly just makes it seem like an abnormally large village. The residents of Dhari have the heaviest accents of the entire kingdom, speaking in a borderline dialect that may be hard to understand if you weren't immersed in the culture. Right on the coast, it could be compared to a sea-shanty town in our world, and is where a majority of Astrealla's seafood is sourced. On top of its fishing economy, they are experts in the construction of sea vessels, from small rowboats to elaborately lavish yachts to warships.

Finally, there are three notable islands under King Zorell's rule. In Regino Bay is Mirror Island, completely covered in dark purple trees. The island gets its name from the single fountain built in the center of the island. No one knows exactly how it got there, or who built it, but the water flowing through the fountain is thick and viscous, taking on a silvery sheen and thus, it strongly resembles a mirror. Further out past Mirror Island is an island simply called The Dark, an island completely shrouded in heavy fog. Those bold enough to venture out to The Dark never come back, and there seem to be no records of any signs of life. Technological attempts to see through the fog have failed, despite the King's Court's best efforts, and very little is known about the island. And lastly, Hypheria lies to the east, the location of King Zorell and Queen Vikka's summer home, Hyperia Hall. When they are staying at the Ivy Palace, the summer home is still occupied by their two grown children, Mikaela and Faedya. Their daughters have always been hidden away from the public eye, and they rarely venture outside the large estate, and the subjects who live on the island don't question it.

Main plot
Our story begins in the very seemingly average basement of one Annisa Lane. As is tradition, the day before the new school year starts finds our three main characters, Annisa, Monona, and Christine, sitting around a ouija board, preferably accompanied by a bowl of chips and some juice boxes. Even though they may be seniors, none of them are stupid enough to turn down a delightful juice box, provided by Annisa's equally delightful mother. But this year, something's different. Of course, none of them actually expect to be able to talk to the dead, but every year, there's still a glimmer of hope. True to their respective natures, Monona attempts to talk to Maya Angelou, Christine hopes to talk to Ted Bundy, and Annisa... well, during a normal year, she'd be more than delighted to speak to John Kennedy, but this year, she'd attempting to talk to her recently deceased brother, Noah Lane. And to their shock, while Angelou and Bundy refuse to make an appearance, Noah certainly has quite a bit to tell his sister and her friends. He urges them to investigate a mysterious room at the back of their basement, behind a door that the Lanes have never seemed to have seen before. Unfortunately, the connection is broken by Monona's phone ringing before he can finish telling the girls just what lies behind the door. The three agree to thoroughly investigate the room after their first day of school. (chapter 1)

After a horrible first day, Christine is in a horrible mood as the three reconvene in Annisa's basement, in front of the door. While Monona attempts to pull the door open normally, Christine kicks it down in no time flat, exposing the dusty workroom to the trio. Annisa's eye is immediately drawn to the crystal in the center of the room, while Christine examines the various blueprints and Monona heads straight for the books. But as Annisa touches the glass case of the jewel against Christine's warning, everything goes black. (chapter 2)

When Monona's vision returns, she's... not where she's supposed to be, wearing the strangest dress she's ever seen, in a bed that is most definitely not hers. A voice beckons her, and when Monona glances out the window of a bedroom that isn't hers, she realizes she's in a tower... like Rapunzel. Still dazed, Monona stumbles out of the bedroom, nearly falling into the arms of an old woman. Obviously, she has absolutely no idea where she is, or what happened to Annisa's basement, or why the hell she's wearing a dress, of all things. The old woman insists that Monona is going crazy, wondering if "her darling" had a nightmare and why she's spitting such profanities, and why she isn't wearing her corset. Finally, Monona calms doing, and begins grilling the old woman on just exactly where she is, who she may be, and what's going on. Over a plate of cookies and a cup of tea, she learns that she is apparently the woman's daughter, and they are hiding in the tower from someone named King Zorell on Mirror Island. (chapter 3)

When Annisa comes to, she's alone and cold, in a dark space. After an ear-shattering shriek, a hunched over old man seems to appear out of nowhere, sending Annisa in a panic. Something at her back startles her further, and after whirling around to find no one, she passes out once more. After coming to a second time, Annisa sits up in a bed of feathers and silk, with the old man from before pouring her a glass of water. Similarly to Monona, she questions the man about where she is, who he is, and what happened to her basement. He explains that her brother, Noah, had been messing with magic and science in a way that distorted and bent realities, and that she had been transported to a realm that Noah had discovered through his experiments. Unfortunately, his research was spotty at best, and Annisa had been put into the body of Astrealla's biggest threat to the King's Court and its citizen's lives, the Dark Wonder. (chapter 4)

Christine has the intense misfortune of returning to consciousness at lunch, nearly face-planting into a plate of food. When she glances up at a man in a crown sitting at the head of the table, she realizes several things at once. First and foremost, she certainly isn't in Annisa's basement anymore. Secondly, she has... something in between her legs that wasn't there before, and she's wearing tough, leather riding gear. And finally, the man in the crown is yelling at her. Through some quick thinking and improv, she realizes that she has landed in the body of someone named Chris, and the man in the crown is a king, who also happens to be Chris' father. Someone named the Dark Wonder is threatening the kingdom, and it's up to her to go and defeat them. After a strange encounter with several people and horses named Jeffery, Christine sets off to find more information from several seers living in the mountain range. (chapter 5)

For the first time in her life, Monona feels helpless. Between the constant hovering of her "mother" and the confined space of the tower, she can't help but go crazy. Finally, sick of "mother" and fed up with her constantly mothering, Monona escapes out of her bedroom window, determined to find a way to get back to their normal world. (chapter 6)

Annisa is shaken awake by the old man, who informs her that the world may collapse or implode due to Monona's actions. Realizing that her friends are also in this world, Annisa immediately suggests she find both of them and they find a way to return to their reality together, but the man informs her that if she tried, this reality would implode and they would never find their way back to the real world. He explains that there is a storyline that they have to follow and see through to the end, and if they stray too far away from the storyline, the reality would implode. Again, a very terrible thing. Finally, as the man leaves her alone to her thoughts, Annisa realizes that the story will end with either her or Christine dying at the other's hands. (chapter 7)

In the mountains, Christine finds the seers and they reveal to her that they are, in fact, not actually seers, but the authors of the story she's living in. Among them is Noah, who tries his best to explain to Christine what the hell is happening in Astrealla. He cautions her to stay with the storyline as much as possible for as long as possible, before sending her to Dhari. In Dhari, she acquires a boat, before setting sail for Mirror Island. (chapter 8 )

On Mirror Island, Monona is completely and utterly lost in its forest. After wandering for several days with little food in the bag she grabbed, she finally finds the fountain. Facing off with a boar on the island, she topples into the fountain, before passing out. (chapter 9)

Annisa is sent to do her first evil task as the Dark Wonder, setting fire to the fields of Wichitt. As Astrealla's only food source burns, Annisa attempts to secretly put out the fires, but finds that she is physically unable to. Her vision turns spotty, and reluctantly, she returns to her hideout on The Dark, where she finds Monona passed out in her bed. Panicking, she asks Ivan, the old man, where Monona is supposed to be. But because the storyline has already been messed up so much, Ivan can no longer decipher where they are in the story from the cave drawings on the walls, which are now constantly changing. After a brief discussion, Ivan tells Christine to deliver Monona to Kaela and Faedya in Hypheria. (chapter 10)

When she arrives on the shores of Mirror Island, Christine is greeted by a distressed and frantic Mother. Mother explains that Monona left just a few days prior, even though Christine was supposed to defeat a massive boar and save Monona from the tower. Realizing the Monona messed up the storyline, Christine notices the splashing of the silvery liquid around the fountain. Intrigued, Christine steps into the fountain, before her vision goes black and she passes out. (chapter 11)

(A very rough explanation of the rest of the story is below- if I managed to make it past this point, it will probably be updated/edited)

With Monona safe in on Hypheria and Christine in the Dark Wonder's hideout, Annisa realizes that in order for the story to end with both her and Christine alive, she needs to find the knife at the bottom of the Lake of Luke, King Arthur style, and have either. But while fighting through the angry and vengeful villagers of Wichitt and the King's Court's army, she can feel the real Dark Wonder starting to take over her thoughts and actions. Realizing that the longer they stay in Astrealla, the more their characters will start to take over their bodies, Annisa hurries to find the knife with Ivan's help. After she retrieves the knife, she seeks out Christine, where she begs her to cut off the giant wings on her back. Realizing that her best friend is literally asking her to cut off a physical part of her body, Christine adamantly refuses. To Annisa's dismay, the real Prince Chris begins to take over Christine's body, and upon seeing the Dark Wonder, began to lash out with his sword. As Annisa attempts to defend herself from the Prince's rage, Monona appears with Noah in tow, and Noah stabs Prince Chris with a quill. The world around them dissolves, and the three of them (plus Noah) find themselves back in the workroom.