A Living Totem
A short story written by Matt Gardner with PlotWeaver: Cards of Creation, a storytelling game made by Mod Hob Cooperative.
This story uses a Monomyth Plot Pattern, written in 25-minute timed acts with all story cards drawn at random. For more information, visit www.plotweavergame.com
Act 1: The Ordinary World
Story Elements: The Every Person, Village Market, Finding One’s Purpose, and Fantasy
The bunker was a tomb they had finally vacated; the farmers’ market was the gathering spot they were building to replace it.
Fern stood behind a stall made of salvaged rebar and fresh-cut cedar; her hands, once stained with the grease of bunker vents, were now stained with the beautiful deep purple of elderberries. She was no longer a scavenger, but a provider of nutrients. To the young folks, she was a hero of the old world. To herself, she felt like just another person trying to remember how to be a neighbour instead of a survivor.
The market was overwhelming at times. The aroma of wild mint and drying herbs replaced the recycled air of the underground. People bartered with “Time Credits” and old-world seeds. Fern’s biggest flaw remained her hyper-vigilance; she still tracked the exits, still flinched at the sudden caw of a crow, and still felt the weight of a ghost-rifle on her shoulder.
“Fern, you’re drifting again,” Reg called out from the next stall over, where he was trading hand-bound story journals for fresh eggs and produce. “The war is over. The sun won’t bite today.”
Fern smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her ‘purpose’ for years had been to keep the lights on and the radiation out. Now that the lights were solar and the air was sweet, she felt a profound, quiet displacement. She was relatable and empathetic to the folks who came to her stall, but she was bored with berries. She missed the thrill of the ‘find.’
That was about to shift, because of a small, shimmering object brought to her stall by a child. It wasn’t a berry or a tool. It was something odd, strangely impossible, iridescent, and pulsing with a faint, rhythmic heat. It wasn’t a relic of the old world; it was something entirely new, something Magical. ‘Where had they found this?’, she thought. Her curiosity piqued.
As Fern touched it, she felt a spark she hadn’t felt since Howard left. The market’s chatter faded. Her purpose wasn’t here among the stalls. It was out there, where the world was clearly becoming something they hadn’t yet named.
