“My name is Susan. If you are watching this message, then either I have succeeded, or I am dead. In either case, I shall not return.”
The silver-haired woman on the television screen could be anywhere from sixty to a hundred. She is tall and gaunt, with fierce, angular features, that nevertheless still hold an echo of the beauty she must have been, in youth. She wears sturdy outdoor clothing, including a heavy parka like those used by the Royal Marines. She speaks in a carefully articulate, upper-class British accent. This is Doctor Susan Pevensie, distinguished professor of physics at Cambridge, until her disappearance.
You are ${character.name}, a graduate student in Dr. Pevensie’s former department. You have been tasked with sorting and cataloguing her files and equipment. You’re standing in her old laboratory, filled with boxes of documents, computer systems, and various machines whose purpose you can only guess at. Most prominent was a single VHS cassette on her desk, which you’re watching now.
On the screen, the professor continues: “I have always valued family over all else. Mine was taken from me.”
She steps back from the camera, approaching a large, rectangular archway set up against the far wall of the laboratory. “It is my hope, and my contention, that sufficiently understood magic can be replicated by technology. The Wardrobe Relay is the culmination of a lifetime’s research and experiment. To my colleagues and students, I leave this knowledge, as well documented as I could manage. My solicitor has instructions for the disposal of my personal possessions.”
Dr. Pevensie smiles. She shoulders a polished wooden longbow, and a quiver of arrows.
“Peter. Edmund. Lucy. I’m coming.”
With that, she throws a large switch on the side of the Relay. The machine hums to life, and a swirling portal opens within it. Susan steps through, and disappears.
The tape ends there. But you can see the Wardrobe Relay itself, here in the lab. Curious, you flip the switch.