Celestial Garden

copied from a planned post in plot doctoring onoes

Sometime in the 1600s-1700s:
A group of people, probably around ten, come across a Sufficiently Advanced Device beneath the earth in southwest China which is presumably alien in origin and which, after a good long period of messing about with it, basically grants immortality. (No aging and pretty crazy good regen, although they are still technically killable. By and large, attacking their shadows rather than them seems to deal more aggravated damage. …somehow.)
Hence: alien voodoo.
Multiple groups of people may have discovered the device (mostly with the help of the original ten) over the next hundred years or so, but eventually through general geological activity it becomes inaccessible.

Three hundred or so years later, the immortals created thereby have mostly split into a few factions, two of which are important to the story at hand: a more benevolent Ancient Tradition led by a woman calling herself ‘Adler’ in the present, and an antagonistic Ancient Conspiracy led by a man who doesn’t really seem to have a name anymore. Both are part of the original ten, and have a few other immortals and dozens of more normal agents serving their purposes. Presumably these two have been fighting for at least the last century, and probably a good bit longer.

In Chicago, around 2007, we meet with a mid-twenties brilliant but lazy high-perception Female Main Character named Lydia Mycroft. Specifically we meet with her as she’s being kicked out of a university, as she’s basically spent the last eight or so years hanging around there abusing graduation requirements and a somewhat suspiciously rich, dead great-relative who liked her enough to leave a good-sized trust fund for as long as it took to meet them. And also being sort of Chaotic Neutral disruptive in general. Hence why they felt the need to force her out despite that whole money thing.

AND THIS IS WHERE THE PLOT ACTUALLY STARTS AFTER THREE LONGISH PARAGRAPHS AAH

Very confused and put off by this she sort of starts meandering, mostly in the direction of coffee and a good hotel, and probably giving thought to how you could start up a consulting detective business nowadays. It is about here that she runs in to Konstantin Petrovich Lebedev, a man about her age who watches every shadow with the sort of intensity that garden-variety baseless paranoia doesn’t often grant. He also happens to be one of the more normal agents of Adler’s group, and also is basically her adoptive son somehow.

After shenanigans happen, probably of the sort involving life-saving, Lydia winds up allying herself with the protagonist side of this conspiracy battle. And.

Well, here’s where I run into a bit of trouble, of the ‘basic missing story element’ kind which prevents me from building much further. I was hoping that perhaps other people might have some suggestions my mind hasn’t conjured up.

The main issues I seem to have are
1) the Device of Youth (it’s not very fountainy-looking) is in Yunnan province. In China. Um, and for some reason the conspiracy drama decided to manifest itself in Chicago. As this is the main reason Lydia gets involved to begin with, it doesn’t seem right to change it.

1b) The Bean: ancient alien technology??

2) so why is Lydia tagging along successfully? It doesn’t even seem to be ‘well, she got in the way, we could either kill her – and well it seems a waste to do that besides we’re a True Neutral tradition – or take her on as some sort of ancient intern’, though that would probably make the most sense. Not that sense matters much here, but.

2b) Rather, they seem to treat her as some sort of (Zombie) Apocalypse Maiden. All things considered, this probably means she has a kind of control over the Device which none of the others can manage. This seems like a vaguely uninteresting plot device, though, the one chosen one who has no reason to even be any such thing.

2c) Still not sure why she would have this Device control ability when even the rest of the original ten don’t seem to, but whatever it is seems to be present in a decent number of people worldwide? Lydia was the most convenient example, then, and besides she stumbled across Konstantin anyhow, so why not take the chance.

2d) At least if this line of reasoning is the case, the other side of the conspiracy drama has a vested interest in tracking her down, too.