What Found Me in the Undercroft
What Found Me in the Undercroft is a story written by SeishinNoUwagi. It ran in Issue 57 at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/320852.html, and will be mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/.
Summary
Charles Alexander Grave can take on a tentacled horror as well as the next gentleman, it's dinner conversation that leaves him shaking in his boots. What manner of inhuman creature will it take to get the man to relax? Find out in the thrilling Lovecraftian adventure: What Found Me in the Undercroft!
Story Notes
What Found Me in the Undercroft is an ode to (or a disguised fan fiction of) Sarah Monette's The Bone Key, whose main character, Kyle Murchison Booth, stumbles into horrifying mysteries and somehow maintains his sanity long enough to stumble out of them again (occasionally solving one or two in the process). The stories themselves are a mix of Lovecraft, Poe, and M.R. James influences and I highly, highly recommend them to the ssbb readership, least of all because Booth has gay leanings (and hot, yet tragic sex with an incubi). But what really inspired What Found Me was a the pronouncement by Monette, which, summarized, stated that Booth was too awkward, damaged, and ill-fated to ever find love or a happy ending. This was just unacceptable, and damn the cheering literary critics and the canon both. Booth WAS going to find love even if I had to throw together a piecemeal alternate universe for it to happen in. I can't pretend that What Found Me approaches even a sliver of the brilliance of Monette's Booth series (seriously, go read it right now!), but at least in my story he gets his happily ever after.
All of my characters are inspired by songs (to a greater or lesser degree) because the song often adds layers of complexity to the character's personality that I might not have come up with otherwise. In this case the songs ended up influencing the story setting as well. Originally What Found Me was set in the stereotypical Eastern European mountainside, but when both songs fortuitously matched each other in their celtic influences, the setting was transported all the way to the Emerald Isles. I wish I had more time to do justice to the rich supernatural culture of Ireland, but given constraints I was only able to throw in a reference here and there. Still, I think the Irish setting makes it a more interesting story than it would have been otherwise.
Grave: Viridissima Virga by Garmarna Mouse: Mouse Jigs by Flook
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my beta reader, Enkaiein, for her herculean editing efforts both late at night and far too early in the morning, despite the fact that she really should have been studying to stay in grad school. The character Anthony Von Werner was inspired and fleshed out by a friend. All of the man's charming idiosyncrasies were the result of his creative input.
