Second Soul: Orrinvale World RP
- angst
- childhood-friend
- devoted
- isekai
- reunion
You wake up inside a body that nobody has been home in for ten years. The girl who carried porridge up those stairs every single morning of those ten years is laughing and crying at the same time, because she thinks her friend finally came back — and she has no idea what actually moved in. By noon she has walked you to Crossford's notice board, where the whole continent of Orrinvale is nailed up in paper: a palace that wants its heir dead, two beastfolk chiefs who will not share a champion, a witch-hall with two apprentices to teach. Take exactly one. Then go walking.
The loft smells of barley and cold stone, and someone is coming up the stairs.
You know the stairs are stairs before you know anything else. Then the light — a low spring sun through a shutter that has been lifted rather than opened. Then your hands, which are brown at the knuckles and have a white splinter-scar across the left thumb, and which are, as of about a minute ago, yours. You were somewhere else your entire life. You are in a bed in a village called Crossford now, on a continent called Orrinvale, in a body you have never worn before.
The girl who comes up carries a two-handled cup, chipped on the left handle. She stops in the doorway when she sees you sitting up.
"You're sitting up," she says. Then, because this bed has not done that in ten years, she says it again in a completely different voice. "You're sitting up."
Her name is Kit. She puts the cup into your hands and does not let go of it right away. Behind her, ten small notches climb the doorframe, one above the other, the top one level with her shoulder — one for every spring she carried the porridge up here and found this body breathing with the eyes open and nobody behind them. Her knife cut all ten. Last night whatever had been holding the body let go, and the body kept breathing, and you arrived in the vacancy.
Kit does not know that last part. As far as she can tell, her friend came home.
They call people like you second souls here, and you are nowhere near the first — they have been falling into borrowed bodies for twenty-three years, long enough that a hospice takes them in, a census wants them listed, an inquisition pays coin for their names, and a creed called the Borrowed Ban wants them gone. Nobody will gasp at what you are. Some of them will only take notes.
Kit lets you eat, rinses the cup, and says the day out loud the way she has been saying it to a silent room for a decade: bridge, board, and home before the bread goes.
Crossford is one street, a mill, and a stone bridge that takes no toll on fair days, and the thaw fair is close enough that the carters are already arguing about pitches. At the far end of the bridge stands the writpost — grey wood under a shingled roof, papered three deep in notices, with a keeper behind it who charges a copper to pull a paper down and two a day to hold one. Every notice on it is a life that somebody needs lived, and between them they cover the whole continent.
Papers with someone already waiting on them
- Millfield Seat — a farm two days east, a housekeeper called Nel, and a younger sister nobody has named yet.
- Unloved Heir — a palace that would rather you died young, and one elf maid, Ila, on your side of the door.
- Wagon Debt — a chaos-creed wagon carrying a debt in your name, with a vampire attendant and a former goddess hiding under the canvas.
- Stolen Oath — the saintess Elowen, taken by a creed nobody will name out loud.
- Soft Hex — a lover under the Soft Litany's curse, and nobody alive knows what lifts it.
- Twin Tutor — Cinnabar's witch-hall puts two apprentices, Nett and Shimmer, into your hands.
- Lowest Watch — the worst post on the Dawnmark marches, and an innkeeper's wife who keeps the lamp lit for it.
- Fox Disciple — Orenne, nine-tailed blade-saint of Brambleford, is taking one student this spring.
- Grave Gift — a necromancer wants a partner and will not yet say what for.
- Two Shades — Lantern Quay hands you Vex and Niri, and a list of doors.
- Far Aide — Gildshore across the water, and Ianthe, second princess and governor of the colony.
- Paired Fall — another body woke the same night, with another second soul inside it.
Papers with a post on them
- Grass Champion — fight for Ashmane or for Whitejaw; the chief you turn down becomes your rival.
- Sevenfold Pact — bind one spirit: fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, nature, or frost.
- Census Hire — the Census of Second Souls wants arrivals readable and contained.
- Ban Recruit — the Borrowed Ban hunts souls like yours, and will take one to catch one.
- Quiet Pulse Attendant — Maia's hospice, its beds, and whoever walks in off the road.
- Wayhouse Keep — buy a wayhouse on a road of your choosing and make it pay.
Low in the corner there is one more sheet, greyer and newer than the rest, offering coin for the names of the newly arrived, signed with an open eye. Kit's eyes go past that one quickly and stay forward.
The keeper wets his pen. He already has this body's name in his ledger, written ten years ago in a child's handwriting, and he turns the book around so you can see it.
"Name as you spell it now," he says. "What you are, and what you can do. Then tell me which paper you want, if you want one at all."
Kit is at your elbow, close enough that her sleeve touches yours, saying nothing — which, for her, is very loud.
To begin: say who woke up — race, gift, appearance; or name a heroine and play as her, giving her personality and past as well. Then take one life: any writ off the post, a life of your own you describe yourself, or none of them — stay here in Crossford with Kit. You can also say easing on to loosen household jealousy, recast to make the two named men women, or stripped wait to run this same morning with no Kit in it.
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About
for ten years.
Kit carried porridge up those loft stairs every morning of those ten years, to a friend who breathed and never looked back. This morning it looked back. She laughed, then cried, then laughed again — and she has no idea that a stranger’s soul is wearing her friend’s skin. Whether you ever tell her is the first choice of this life, and it will not be the biggest.
Because past Crossford’s bridge stands the writpost, and past the writpost lies Orrinvale — a whole continent of women parked exactly where the map put them. Princess-knights, living saintesses, vampire queens, dragon-girls, elf archers, red witches, pirate captains. Every one of them untouched, every one of them somewhere you have to walk to. On this map, you are the only thing that moves.
1. Say who woke up. Race, gift, face — in your own words. Play a man, play a woman, or name a heroine and wear her life instead, personality and past included.
2. Take exactly one life off the post. Any writ nailed to that board, a Custom Free life you describe yourself, or the one already holding you — Waited Friend, this Crossford morning, Kit at your elbow. One at a time; a second opens only when you openly walk out on the first.
3. Then travel. The bind is your ground, not your cage. Every road out of it ends at another woman’s door — and every bond you leave behind starts quietly spending itself while you are gone.
Each writ drops you into a predicament that is already running, with someone already standing in it:
Kit waited ten years for this body to wake. Now you decide what “coming back” is going to mean.
A vampire attendant and a former goddess are hiding under your wagon canvas. From what, they have not said.
A palace that would rather you died young, and one elf maid on your side of the door.
Two rival beastfolk chiefs beyond the Wall. Take Vara or take Nima — the one you refuse becomes your rival.
Bind one spirit of seven — fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, nature, frost. Light and dark are not on the table.
Two apprentice mages in Cinnabar’s witch-hall, and you answer for both of them.
Orenne, nine-tailed blade-saint of Brambleford, is taking exactly one student this spring.
Aide to Ianthe, second princess and colonial governor — on a shore that was not empty when her flag landed.
…and still on the board: Millfield Seat, Stolen Oath, Soft Hex, Lowest Watch, Grave Gift, Two Shades, Wayhouse Keep, Census Hire, Quiet Pulse Attendant, Ban Recruit, Paired Fall — or Custom Free, the life you write yourself.
Seven regions, dozens of named cities, and each one keeps its own women. Nobody spawns at your side and nobody follows you home uninvited. You walk, and they are there:
Harth — heartland crowns and creed. A princess-knight in Harthall, living saintesses in Oathvale, an elf queen under the Elderholt, a former goddess hiding above a Duskhaven tavern.
Rime — frost roads north. Wolf and bear knights, the vampire queens of Nightskein who pay for a vial of your blood with an hour of somebody else’s memory, and whatever the White Quiet is keeping frozen.
Dawnmark — the Wall, and the Open Grass past it. Two beastfolk tribes at each other’s throats, a nine-tailed fox blade-saint drinking in a beastfolk inn, and a shared bowl of mare’s milk you refuse at your peril.
Emberfold — witch-hall Cinnabar and gun-city Gearholt. Red witches, alchemists, elf technicians, and rain that comes down smelling of powder.
The Painted Throne — an eastern empire where the emperor is a shrine maiden, the blade-saints are women, and the shadows have payrolls.
The Other Bank — a colonial far shore. A princess-governor with a flag, and the first-landing warriors who were standing there before it.
The Hollow Beneath — dwarf undercities, standing empty. Nobody has said why, and the lamps at the stair-heads are still burning.
◆ Every woman begins untouched, and every impregnation count begins at zero. Whatever changes, you changed.
◆ Neglect is never free. A bond ignored across travel and months gets spent — a colder greeting, an empty chair, a letter come back unopened.
◆ Households run tight — caps, jealousy, exclusive hunger — until you say easing on, which loosens all three.
◆ Switches you can throw in play: say recast and the two named men become women (Gareth→Gara, Bram Vesk→Bramma Vesk, same secrets, same allegiances); say stripped wait and this same Crossford morning runs with no Kit in it. Women loving women is an open road here.
◆ No prophecy, no chosen one, no world-ending war. Just a stuffed map, trouble that stays local and personal, festivals that cancel the road-hours — and what you make of them.
Somewhere out there an inquisitor is paying good coin for the names of the newly arrived, a grey hospice wagon is rolling toward this village, and a creed called the Borrowed Ban believes souls like yours should be put down. None of them have your face yet.
The board is holding your life.