This is a solo journalling RPG with a bit of a darker bent.

I am the proprietor of the last teashop. Not the only tea shop left in the world, simply the last one. My clientele is made up entirely of the newly dead, pausing for one last brew before crossing over into whatever comes next.

As to how I can to be here, how long I’ve been serving tea to travelling souls, and even where ‘here’ is? These are questions I cannot answer. I don’t know. I am here, I serve tea to those who choose to pause in their journey, and I speak with them of their lives.

Perhaps, one story, one day, will open a door in my memory but until then, I’m happy enough. My life is quiet, and there’s something in me that’s thankful for it. As is whatever came before has left me in need of solitude and rest.

My teashop is small, which is suitable, I’ve never had more than one customer at a time. At least that I can remember. Memories are so slippery, wriggling through my grasp and darting away like the little silver fish in the river next to my shop.

It’s a pretty place, the river, running along the side of the narrow mountain meadow where I make my home. On the other side of the meadow is a road. I don’t know where it comes from, or where it goes to, and I’ve never seen a living traveller on it. And I can’t say whether my guests arrive, or depart, by that route either. They may, or maybe they come by way of the river, or drifting through the air on mountain mists, their toes skimming the tree tops as they float down to my door.

The building itself is small and sturdy. The tea shop is on the ground floor, with a back room kitchen and washing room. Upstairs is little more than a loft, but quite sufficient for my bedroom. Vines grow up the pale gold stone walls, and flower like they’re in competition with each other every spring. At least, I think they do. Just as I think the forest around us turns every shade of fire in the autumn, and then sleeps away the winter under a pristine blanket of snow.

It’s summer now, I believe, and the meadow grasses sway in gentle breezes under a warm and benevolent sun. I feel almost guilty for preferring the nights. For looking forward to the silver shine of moonlight turning the gold and green to metal and shadow, edges blurred and forms hidden by the rising river mist.

This is the time I settle at the counter of my tea shop and wait for a customer to enter…