"The Map"

Welcome!

I'm morganth, also findable at @morganth@social.tchncs.de.

The purpose of this blog is to gradually transcribe my journal from the solo journalling RPG “A Visit to San Sibilia” (https://jimmyshelter.itch.io/a-visit-to-san-sibilia). It's an excellent game and I encourage you all to give it a try.

Blanket CW for the whole story: The POV character is a white, British man from the late 19th century, and carries some of the prejudices you would expect of a character from that era. He expresses period-appropriate sexism and xenophobia. No explicit racism (although racism is of course inherently bound up with xenophobia), and no homophobia (no character has a canon sexuality; feel free to imagine your own).

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

A Few Technical Notes

(This post is probably of interest only to people who have played, or at least read the rules for, “A Visit to San Sibilia”.)

My character prompt was “Cantankerous Cartographer”, which I thought was delightful, and you'll see how strongly it affected the story.

I haven't read any other visits to San Sibilia, but I suspect mine is a bit longer than the average. This is for a couple of reasons:

-As I'm transcribing the thing, there's one chapter that I'll have to split into two, or possibly even three. This is because at the time I was pushing the story in one direction, but that direction doesn't work with the ending I ended up with, so I need to go back and add some events to remove the contradiction.

-At least once I skipped a “the world changes” prompt because it was too soon.

OK, technical stuff over. All subsequent posts will be in the character's voice.

Day 1

Hrmph. So this is the much-rumored San Sibilia, is it? Doesn't seem so unmappable as all that. Streets, districts, a river running through the middle of it, all of the usual. Expect I'll spend a week or so to make a decent map, maybe two or three if I decide it's worth some sightseeing.

Mind you, it was a devil to find, that much is true. Some accounts didn't even agree on what country it was in. But I dug into the old stories, some of the hand-written accounts, and eventually pieced together directions to a nearby town where I was able to hire a coach. Fellow didn't want to go, for some reason, but I made it worth his while.

Found a very respectable guest-house not far from the river. Run by an old widow—her name keeps slipping out of my mind, for whatever reason, but she made it clear that only proper people will be staying here. Suppose I'll have to meet her other tenants at breakfast and suchlike. Nuisance really but one has to.

Scarcely had I unloaded my map-making tools and hung up my wardrobe and taken a few steps out the door, when who did I run into but an old chum from school, Biffy! I had no idea he had been looking for this place as well, and based on a few comments he made, I rather suspect he hadn't been. Of course we said we must meet for a sherry once I got settled in. One says these things.

The first order of business will be to explore each of the major neighborhoods in order, just to get a sense of the place.

Day 2

Bureaucracy in San Sibilia is clearly a lot more efficient than those incompetent paper-pushers back in old Blighty. A letter arrived from the city at the guest-house this morning. Seems they already know I'm here, and have somehow divined that I'm here to map this place. They let me know in no uncertain terms that creating any “map or other cartographic document” is strictly “prohibited, forbidden and not allowed” and threatened me with “expulsion or imprisonment.” Bureaucrats, they talk the same in any country, eh?

Well, that certainly explains the reputation of this city as being “unmappable.” All that rubbish about the streets changing course, buildings coming and going on a whim, maps rewriting themselves to be false...No, it's just against the rules.

I'm not going to let those sons of unwed mothers stop me, of course. I'll have to be a little bit more discreet about it. My equipment will remain at home and I will rely on my eyesight. But I am here to map this city and map it I shall.

Day 5

Met up with Biffy for coffee in La Bohamin. One can't put these things off forever. We talked of old times, mostly, of the parties and boat races and Professor Alexandrovich with that accent we could never understand. The coffee was foul, of course, and I didn't touch what passes for buns here.

Biffy eventually let his curiosity overcome his reserve and asked me what I was doing here. I didn't want to say the truth out loud—never know who might be listening in a cafe like this—so I just said it was a pleasure trip. Which in a way it is.

I haven't made any sketches yet, but I'm getting ready to. I have a good sense of the city's layout at this point. The river is key, of course. There's curiously little traffic in and out by roads. But much is shipped in and out of Bislo by boat.

Hrm. Must find out what those factories actually make.

Day 6

They're still watching me, I'm sure of it. I was walking the streets of Saint Roche today, not far from my guest-house, and there was a strange juggler. The items he was juggling seemed to change, but I never saw him switch one for another—his hands must have been too fast. But sometimes one was a dagger, and sometimes there was a manacle, or a large iron key.

A threat, surely. The authorities are telling me that they know I'm still planning my map, and signaling that they intend to arrest me, or worse.

I briefly wondered what the other people watching the juggler were seeing in his hands. Foolishness, of course. They had to be seeing the same items. It was trickery.

But I'd prefer not to see him again.

Day 9

Went for a walk in Scylla Park today. That's the big one, by the river. Funny thing, though. There have always been artists here and there around this city, sketching and painting city scenes. Landscapes and the like, don't you know. Sell them to fellows to hang on their walls. I like a good hunting scene myself, although actually my walls back home mostly have maps on them.

I digress. All of a sudden, all of the artists in this blasted park—in the whole city, seems like—are doing portraits instead. Some of them had sitters, just out on the grass in their finery getting painted, and there's nothing so wrong abut that, although it strikes me a trifle vain. No, what bothered me were the sketchers.

The sketchers were scattered throughout the park, dressed quite informally, and just sketching passers-buy. Faces, mostly, from what I saw, but also body postures and even activities, if you can believe such a thing.

I don't want to be sketched by these people to whom I haven't even been introduced. Setting aside the decorum of the whole thing, it's a matter of personal safety. Suppose I were to be sketched while I, myself, was sketching out a map, or making note of how a street runs? If it made its way to the government I could be expelled or worse.

I will not fail at my task. But they aren't making it easy.

Day 11

I decided that the best course of action is to double down on being a tourist. The more I seem like I just want to take in the sights, the less the authorities will believe that I'm still committed to mapping the place. So after my morning eggs (too greasy. Must speak to the widow about that), I set off to visit the local historical society.

It's a small museum, very dusty, not flashy at all—a proper museum, in other words, not the sort of thing they're building nowadays that are just vulgar displays of wealth.

I was planning on just playing the part of the tourist, walking around, looking at this and that. But I got glimpses of something in this city's history that made my blood run cold. Nothing definite, of course. A rune here, an ancient symbol there, and I realized with a start that some of the shapes I was seeing reminded me of routes I have walked in the recent days.

Is this city built of ancient runic shapes? Is that why they don't want it mapped?

Dinner was a perfectly adequate chop out of a pub. Thank heavens they have some hallmarks of proper civilization here.

Day 15

The whole city is in the middle of some sort of harvest festival. Odd, that, because it's not exactly a farm community. Far as I can tell, the chief exports are university graduates, art and music that are far, far too modern, and whatever comes out of those factories. (Must figure out what those factories actually make one of these days.) But this festival is all fruits and grains, and of course wine and beer.

Reminds me a bit of something from my childhood. I think it's the dancing—I seem to recall the same dances at a festival that I went to as a little boy. But that was a thousand miles away in a totally different culture, and I only saw it in that one town. Why would it pop up here?

Memory's playing tricks on me, I expect.

Day 17

One must indulge in cultural things while one is abroad, I suppose. That's why I ended up at the theater tonight.

Well, that's not entirely why. I've been talking over dinner with another of the boarders here, a Miss Diviou. Foreign, you know, and we don't know any of the same people. But the roof constitutes an introduction, eh wot?

At any rate, she wanted to go to a play that's sort of a culmination of the harvest festival, and of course she wouldn't dream of going unescorted, so I said I'd do the proper thing and take her.

The play was an unusual thing. Didn't understand half of it, to be perfectly honest. Something to do with ancient rituals to thank somebody or other for the forest's bounty, and a retelling of what I assume must be an old folk tale that the locals know so well they didn't feel the need to explain it.

The interesting thing was what came after. Miss Diviou and I were on our way back to the boarding-house. Must have been midnight. I was counting my steps and plotting out the turns for the map—Miss Diviou is rather good cover, come to think of it, must remember to use her more often. Then three hooligans stepped out from around a corner.

I naturally assumed they intended an assault on Miss Diviou's honour, and readied myself to defend her. But instead they feigned concern that we must be lost, and insisted on guiding us to the nearest main square. They surrounded us, and we really had no choice, so off we went. They took us this way and that, and eventually we ended up at a square quite near the boarding-house, but by then I'd quite lost track of the route and my step count.