unclaimed-recollection / 00 - Overview.md# Unclaimed Recollection A series of 31 illustrated first-person short stories, set in Aurevia and the Reach. ## The premise A man is found sitting in a niche on the lower level of the Deep Archive at Halloway Station. He is awake and unhurt, but he remembers nothing, and he carries no keycord and no bead. The Archive's log has no entry for him. As far as the world's paperwork is concerned, he does not exist. His name, as far as anyone can tell, is Sevran Hallow. The series follows what happens next: the people who find him, the guide assigned to keep him moving and fed, and the slow, practical business of becoming someone the Reach can recognise. The reader learns the world alongside him. ## The setting The stories take place in Aurevia, a city of rail and bells, and in the Reach, the mountain country along the lines that run out of it: Halloway Station, Tern Junction, the Saddle Line, and the small settlement of Pinecliff. Trains are the arteries of the place. The Field Guild hires explorers and guides to work the ruins of an older world. People carry keycords and beads that say who they are and where they stand, and stations are known by their chimes. You do not need to know anything about the wider Virelia world to read these. The stories explain what they need, as it comes up. ## The voices Every story is told in the first person, and the narrator changes from story to story. - **Sevran Hallow**, the man found in the Archive. - **Odran Maresh**, a guide from Pinecliff. - **Anka Dorrin**, a Field Guild medical officer. - **Resa Maresh**, Odran's sister, who runs a kitchen and a platform. Other voices join later, including Zahir Dasan, Teodan Sethra, Ayuk Veln and Idrin Orek, so the people around Sevran get to tell their own side of him. ## The tone These are quiet stories about kitchens, trains, forms, tea, weather and the small decisions that add up to a life. Each story carries up to five illustrations. ## How the collection is organised There are three acts, each with its own cover page. | Act | Stories | Length | |---|---|---| | **Act 1** | 01-10 | Ten stories of about 3,000-5,000 words | | **Act 2** | 11-21 | Eleven stories, a little longer | | **Act 3** | 22-31 | Ten stories, the longest of the three | The files are numbered in reading order, and the act cover pages (`01 - ! Act 1`, `11 - ! Act 2`, `22 - ! Act 3`) sit at the start of each act. ## How to read it Read the stories in numerical order. Some stories overlap in time, showing the same hours from two different people, and Act 1 in particular does not move in a straight line. A story may start slightly before, or at the same moment as, the one you just finished. That is intended, and it settles itself as you read. Start with **01 - The Flat Bell**.