What’s Past is Prologue

It’s true. All of it. Legends are real and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. The City straddles the banks of a river flowing into a vast lake. For over two hundred years it sat on those banks, growing from a small hamlet to a bustling harbor trading town to the busy metropolis it is now. To most of the world the City was a center of trade, business, and the arts, but underneath the glow of streetlights, behind closed doors, or sometimes even out of the corner of your eye another version of the City exists. Most don’t see. Most don’t want to see it, preferring instead to live their lives as if everything was normal. But there are those who know that the City is not a normal place, that legends and myths lurk throughout and they are not always in the shadows. Sometimes they are the clerk at the local bodega. Sometimes it’s the old woman feeding pigeons in the park. Sometimes it’s the peppy high school kid. Sometimes it’s your brother, your mother, or your lover.   If the world knew of them some might call them freaks, others monsters or heroes depending on their point of view, but the most commonly accepted term is Rifts, for they represent a rift between this world and the one that our myths and legends come from. These people, these Rifts, they live out a modern day version of their legend, or Mythoi if one wants to get technical. You might be asking yourself about right now how the people whose legends haven’t awakened don’t know about the Rifts. You might wonder if there was some secret organization that keeps the secret of the Rifts from them and you’d be wrong. It’s nothing so mundane as that. It’s the mist, you see, a veil that casts its shadow over the city, hides the inexplicable from view. The mist keeps the sleepers unaware of Rifts whose Mythoi have awakened.   And then it happens. An event that irrevocably changes a person’s life forever. It could be something as small as picking out your Christmas tree or something big like a car accident. What triggers a person’s Mythoi is different for everyone and there’s no telling beforehand what it is. What is known is that person’s life will never be the same. What they choose to do with their new lives is up to them. Some choose to go it alone, others find like-minded souls and band together.   For one group, mismatched as they are, they chose to help where they can. It started with Excalibur, who probably has a given name but if she does she hasn’t told anyone. To the world she’s just Excalibur and woe betide the person who attempts to call her anything else besides that (though she will accept madame or the more diminutive ma’am). No one is quite sure when Excalibur came into her Mythoi and she isn’t telling but it’s obvious to the casual observer that she is comfortable with her status as a Rift. A natural leader, or just someone that few are willing or able to say no to, Excalibur set out to make a difference for both Rifts and non-Rifts alike.   Her first recruit, for lack of a better term, was Mitosis. Some might remember him from his boxing days, back when he was more commonly known as Francis Burke, famous in the ring for his right hook and infamous out of it for his disarming smile and way with the members of all sexes. He’d been featured on the gossip rags more than once that landed him in trouble. He and Excalibur had actually known each other before he had driven his car into the back end of the chemical truck that had caused his change and it was she who literally pulled him out of the gutter of shame, self-loathing, and liquor. Once a lapsed Catholic, he found his faith again after the accident and while he may not strictly follow all of its tenets, Mitosis has found a form of solace in his reclaimed faith as a way to cope with his new life and the monster (as he sees it) he’s become.   Dee Lestrange has searched for the truth her entire life, refusing to let anything get in her way of finding it, even though she’s not entirely what the ‘truth’ really is beyond the mist that hangs over the City like a heavy blanket. Perhaps it was that drive that pushed her Mythoi to the surface, perhaps it was opening one decrepit tomb too many. Regardless, dreams led her from the darkness, teasing out clues for whatever she’s looking for. Sometime she gets lucky and steps into the right room without trouble but more often than she would like she’s forced to hold negotiations at the point of her guns. Dee’s antique dealership, despite its (well deserved) dubious reputation, often serves as a base of operations for the group. Excalibur often relies on her for her knowledge of relics and her common sense, a quality that Excalibur finds sadly lacking in most people these days.   Flicker sauntered into Dee’s shop one day in full hipster glory, pretending indifference, claiming that she was just there for ‘the aesthetic’ while her girlfriend Krysanthymum searched for the perfect Beltane gift for her Circle’s elder. Her hipster aloofness stopped the instant she saw the arched eyebrow of the group’s de facto leader and heard Excalibur drawl out her given name of Miranda. Flicker’s parents were aggressive social climbers and moved in the same circle as Excalibur, a fact that brought out the manners that Flicker tossed to the side when in the presence of others. Flicker’s ever present earbuds disappeared into her hoodie whenever the older woman was present and she wasn’t neck deep in the digital world. No one can match Flicker in her ability to dive into the digital world and pull out whatever information she requires, especially when it involves the dark future for the City she’s caught glimpses of.   Kitsune just showed up in Dee’s store one day. No one really remembers when they came or really why they stays. Kitsune’s existence is fluid, difficult to pin down day to day. Ultimately they live in the moment and the only thing really anchoring them to this world is their attachment to Katuri, a student at a local high school. One can often find Kitsune at PS 192 in an effort to remain close to Katuri. Kitsune’s lack of public record is a well known frustration for Flicker as she’s used to being able to pull information seemingly out of thin air. One gets the impression that Kitsune purposely taunts Flicker with glimpses of who they are only to shift to a different mode, forcing Flicker to go back to square one. Though Kitsune has proven more than capable of taking care themself, Mitosis can’t help but be protective of them, something that has put him at odds with the rest of the group as he will go off mission if he feels that Kitsune is in danger.   On the surface it would seem that beside their connection as fellow Rifts there isn’t much to hold these five together but between Excalibur’s determination to be an activist for social change, Mitosis’ hope for redemption through service, Dee and Flicker’s search for the truth, and Kitsune’s own mysterious reasons for doing what they do, that the group banded together to help the citizens, both awakened Rifts and the sleepers of the City. Case by case they aim to make the City a better place, tending to be more successful than not. That being said there is a darker secret hiding in the mist. Dee and Flicker have a clearer vision of it than the others but all of them have seen and experienced enough of the City to know that the mist that covers them all is holding greater secrets. Whether those secrets mean good or ill for the City only time will tell.