Rapunzel in Pity Me 1.0: Prologue
Rapunzel: I guess this is my log for posterity and I don’t know who’ll ever read it but, here goes.
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I’m the daughter of Geoffrey & Nancy Landgraab and twin to Malcolm.
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I wanted to explore freegan values but Mum hated that. While I was in a major teen mood-swing, Malcolm hacked Dad’s agent database and signed me up for the Candidate Teen project. By the time the agency worked out that I shouldn’t be there, it was too late and I was locked in.
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I had to survive with hardly any outside contact, earn enough to build a huge house and become a responsible young adult. I freaked out when I got locked up but the one person that kept me going was my Fairy Godmother. I know – she’s not really a fairy godmother. She’s a watcher for the agency but she helped me and encouraged me and…
Watcher: (polishes halo) …yes, but you did all the hard work
Rapunzel: writing, painting, gardening plus selling all the paintings done by my unknowing club members.
Watcher: It’s weird that no-one but us remembers all that
Rapunzel: I know, but I still had to deal with the Fame issue. Everyone knew I was famous but couldn’t remember why. It wore off after a while though.
Watcher: You’re getting ahead of yourself.
Rapunzel: Right. So – I made it out of the Tower and then got debriefed (snigger – ooh missus!) by Dad’s agency. One of the agents, M, was an alien and she was the most helpful.
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The Candidate Teen Project was a training project to generate agents with enough skills to go in and help the City of Glassbolt get back to normal. You must’ve read the original news – so long ago now – about the nuclear disaster there.
I was given some time to consider whether to go for it or leave and do my own thing. Saving the world was always something I’d fancied having a go at. So I said yes, on one condition…
Watcher: Me!
Rapunzel: …yes, you! I know you got a few things wrong before but I really didn’t want to rely on someone I’d never met before. Although, come to think of it, we’ve never actually met.
Anyway, M takes me to this dynastic house and we go through a wormhole generator to Sixam.
And then back to our world but to Newcrest and no-one remembers!
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To avoid people working out who I really am, my name’s been changed to Middlemas. Watcher suggested a few and I liked this one
Watcher: It’s one of my ancestral names – welcome to the family!
Rapunzel: Nice!
I got this great house and still loads of money left over. I have called it Pity Me because I did have a low moment when reality set in. I rallied but the name stuck.
The agency has built houses on all the other lots in my neighbourhood.
There’re 2 fishing spots a short jog away, plus a park next door with a barbeque and 2 sets of monkey bars. There’s even a jungle gym down the way – a great place to raise kids…
Watcher: Not straight away. First you need to get that job. You’ve got connections that should give you a head start.
Rapunzel: Culinary Career – I knew there was a reason you had me do all that cooking in The Tower.
Watcher: Yes. And you remember all those books you read on fishing? Time to put it into practice! Fried fish is the only thing you can eat around here apart from basil until Autumn comes.
Rapunzel: Ah – food is going to be a problem with no fridge or oven. There’s that food van in the park!
Watcher: You can’t buy from there. We’re not sure why Alex Moyer is working it but we think the mob controls it and is putting “additives” in the food or using cheap radioactive ingredients. Until you’ve reached the top of your career, we just need to avoid that for now.
Just fish, grill, repeat. And work hard, really hard.
Starting Status – Year 1: Start of Summer
Founder: Rapunzel Middlemas, Culinary career level 4, relationship status – Single & Lovin It!
Notes
I used my unfinished Dynasty household in an alternative simverse to facilitate Rapunzel’s transition to her next project.
Middlemas is one of my paternal ancestral names. They were from North East England – Northumberland and County Durham. Working as agricultural labourers, they became miners in the industrial revolution period. Pity Me is a suburb of Durham City, a mining area, desolate and a hard place to live during the late 1800s.
