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[Iituem]

You lie in bed for a few minutes, trying to will yourself back to sleep, but you find yourself doggedly awake for some reason.  You pull yourself out of bed and select a bra for the day from the pile of clothes by your bedside.  Stumbling over to the mirror and sink, you take a look at your bleary green eyes, make a vague effort to get your messy, mid-length black hair into shape and then start brushing your teeth.  The brush is bright pink and hideous, but it was a Hallowmas present from last year and it was free.

Basic needs taken care of, you pick out a t-shirt from the drying rack (bearing a comic depicting King Aed the First in a cartoonish style reminiscent of medieval woodcuts, standing around and making awkward comments in a modern day shopping centre) and throw it on, then a pair of cargo pants from the cupboard.  A glance at your coffee table reveals the presence of your coursework folder, where in your rather spidery handwriting it proudly proclaims itself the property of one 'Annaring Prescott'.

There is a beeping from your phone, which you pick up from the bedside table.  In front of a cheerful photograph of your parents, a little white box with a picture of a blonde girl in overly large sunglasses indicates a text from Shell.

oi, ring!  glad you finally got a day off.  lunch outside the museum?

[Strife26]

Sure.  What time?

[TheBiggerFish]

Again, who are we?

[Iituem]

Sure, what time?

hour or so?

Cool, meet you there.

You set down your phone and stretch.  Plenty of time to get dressed and do whatever.  You take a look out of the large window that covers one side of your studio flat.  You can see a lot of Newton sprawled out ahead, at least up until the bits with the really tall buildings.  The university is actually fairly squat by comparison, and you can see most of the grounds.  You have an excellent view from here, far better than you should have been able to afford for as nice a flat as you have.  Fortunately, the whole building (an old hotel from the turn of the previous century) had suffered major rodent infestation last year, and although the contractors assured the landlords and clients that it was safe, nobody wanted to stay.  So this flat was cheap enough to be covered by your maintenance grant.

[TheBiggerFish]

Oi, WHO ARE YOU, THIS IS NOT CLEAR.

[Iituem]

A glance at your coffee table reveals the presence of your coursework folder, where in your rather spidery handwriting it proudly proclaims itself the property of one 'Annaring Prescott'.

[TheBiggerFish]

Yes, that is your name, but who are you.  What do you do, what do you like, who is this friend...Backstory, in other words.

[Iituem]

You sit down on your couch and take a rifle through your coursework folder.  Lots of reading to do; your reading list is actually a full A4 sheet long, and whilst you know that you should head to the university library to catch up on these, you don't want to waste your first day off when you have a chance of finally meeting up with one of your oldest friends.  You've known Shell forever, but it's been about five years since she moved away to Newton.  Now that you have this scholarship you had the opportunity to move to her town and rebuild the old friendship.

You pick up the museum leaflet next to your coursework folder.  Oh!  There's an exhibition on early Emerald culture, that should fit neatly in with the medieval module in your course.  You'll have to pay a visit.

You close your coursework folder.  You can think of better things to do than read about history before you meet up with Shell.  You've been reading about history all week.

[TheBiggerFish]

......Hello?

[Iituem]

[This suggestion game is written in a revelatory style, in which the background and nature of the character are revealed indirectly, rather than as a single block of exposition; as if one were reading a novel.  It would be a violation of the style to simply go: "You are Mary Jane Foster, a diplomat from hell.  Your job is to convince the Pope to abandon Christmas.  Have at it!"  I ask for your patience; this is a gentle game, and it takes its time.]

[TheBiggerFish]

((Oh.  *shrugs*  Guess I'll put up with it, you're a good writer and I do want to see where this goes.))

[StrawBarrel]

Hmmm... what can we do in less than hour?
I guess we can clean our flat a little bit.

[Strife26]

Find a notebook and a pen, might as well go to the museum after lunch and take notes. Best charge up all those important electronic devices too.

[TheBiggerFish]

What's on our reading list, anyway?

[Iituem]

You charge up your phone and music player and plug in your laptop, which you apparently left unplugged and open last night.  It mournfully flashes a yellow battery on its screen.  You get your clothes into the washing machine, hang up those out of the machine and make a vague effort to get everything dry back into the cupboards - who has time for ironing?

You grab your satchel, which already has your notebook/drawing pad and pens, and pick up your digital camera as well, a bulky device designed to hang around your neck, although you actually use a shoulder strap and carry it with your satchel (or on the other arm, when your shoulder aches).  You open up your jewellery box and select a silver necklace with a jade stone, one of the few pieces of jewellery you actually own or wear (the rest are mostly costume pieces accrued over your teenage years).

You slip a book from the kitchen table into your satchel, glancing at the title; The archaeology of Emerald battlefields; conflict in the pre-industrial landscape, by Ford and Moreau.  Part of your rather extensive reading list.  A quick look at the list just for your Archaeology of Battle module reveals the following thrilling titles:

* The expedicion into Cal[a]done of the most woorthely fortunate prince Gilla-Comain, Duke of Haverset, vncle vnto our most noble souereign lord ye ki[n]ges Maiestie Aed the. VI. goouernour of hys hyghnes persone, and protectour of hys graces realmes, dominions [and] subiectes [microform] : made in the first yere of his Maiesties most prosperous reign, and set out by way of diarie, by W. Patten Newtoner. - Richard Gaffron, 1548
* Norworth battlefield investigation archive 1994-2001. Primary archaeological evidence; transcriptions and translations of the primary documentary sources for the battle; and specialist reports.
* Maria Connor and Daniel D. Scott, ‘Metal Detector use in archaeology: an introduction’. Historical Archaeology 32 (4) (1998), pp. 73-82.
* Veronica Fiorato, Anthea Boylston, Christopher Knüsel (eds.), Blood red roses : the archaeology of a mass grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461 (Arrow: Exbow, 2000 (2nd edition 2003)).
* Glenn Ford and Lynn Curry, Hamworth 1485 : a battlefield rediscovered. (Arrow: Exbow, 2003).
* Glenn Ford and Richard Moreau, The archaeology of Wessen battlefields : conflict in the pre-industrial landscape. (Hark: Council for Emerald Archaeology, 2002).
* Dylan Hook, Wesland's Landscape: The West Midlands (Newton: Wessen Heritage, 2004). Especially chapter 5 . Also any of the other regional volumes in the same series.
* Donald Keys, ‘The fight to save battlegrounds from invasion of metal detectors’. The Independent: 22 September 2003. http://www.independent.co.em/news/em/this-emerald/the-fight-to-save-battlegrounds-from-invasion-of-metal-detectors-87948.html.
* Susan Morillo (ed.), The Battle of Dunwich : sources and interpretations (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1996).
* Matthew Stick and Rowena Hardy, The great warbow : from Dunwich to the Mary Elise (Stroan: Sutton, 2002).
* Ryan A. Sutherland, ‘Arrow Point to Mass Grave: Finding the Dead from the Battle of Arton, 1461 AD’, in Douglas Call, Lawrence E. Babbage, Charles Heckler (eds.), Fields of conflict : battlefield archaeology from the Koggish Empire to the Orphean War (Northport, Connacut: Prost Security International, 2003).
* Ryan A. Sutherland, ‘Archaeological Evidence of Medieval Conflict - Case Studies from Arton, Harkshire, Wesland (1461) and Ardencourt, Pas de Carrois, Argentaine (1415)’, in Harald Muller (ed.), Schlachtfeldarchäologie - Battlefield Archaeology : 1. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 09. bis 11. Oktober 2000 in Holle (Suule) (Holle: Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte, 2001), pp. 109-15.

Ugh.  This will take forever.