Something from a While Back

Okay, so let me preface this by saying what you're about to read is kind of old - its something I was cooking up last year and ultimately collapsed under its own weight - there was way too much going on and, in any case, I've realized that I don't really function by planning stuff out. I just sort of write a rough draft - which is really how I plan - just jump in feet first.

I thought it was interesting to read all this though, and there are elements of this really confusing cosmology I want to adapt for my upcoming NaNo project. Which brings me to my next point: I shall post every chapter of that project on this blog for people to read if they so choose. It'll update as I write it - its an experiment to see if feedback motivates me more to get stuff done.

This is basically a lead in to that project, which will start next month.

I’m going to try some stuff here, and see where it goes. I’ve been doing some (more) thinking and what I really want is to do something with the horrors from the abyss of the ocean floor (giant eldritch sea monsters a la Lovecraft), a trip to another world and a world, a story that opens with our teenage lead meeting an old man, who informs him that the world is about to end (in a few days) and then dies shortly after, the Renegade scientists (a concept I revived, because I think there’s something I can do with them), various exotic islands, an evil cult and a battle at the end, which closely depends upon the fates of our protagonists. 

In which case: our central protagonist is Mark Stephens, a teenage guy (around 16-17 years old, with a genius, slightly insane father. His mom is either dead or divorced from his dad (or maybe he lives with her normally and part of the character development is them coming to understand one another? That seems simple enough, I don’t know.). Mark’s best friend is Daniel, who goes with him to his dad’s (without or without the mother, I think the story is going to open with him asking Daniel to come with him.).  

They arrive in town via public transportation…only to his dad isn’t waiting there. Instead, they meet an old man who begins talking to them and tells them that the world is going to end in three day’s time, before he collapses into a coma and, of course, his dad arrives (his hair slightly singed and his hands greasy), and sees this happen. So, of course, his trip to his dad’s begins with a trip to the hospital. The old man tells the father that he’ll have ‘just enough time’ to get the team together, before the fell monsters arise and destroy everything. Later on, we’ll learn that he dies.

Then he dies. So, early chapters: we’re introduced to Mark, Daniel, the father and (maybe) the mother if she’s divorced and not dead. Character relationships are established to expand upon later on and allow for character development. 

Moving on, we finally get to see the house – and what a house. I’ve written about it before. It’s a farmhouse (originally, kind of) that’s been renovated into a proper mad scientist’s dwelling: a large satellite in the back, with a telescope, observatory with incredibly bizarre plants that are really sins against nature (the mad scientist streak goes back in his family for years), an AI named Alice, a Triceratops skull replica hanging mounted on the wall (I love that touch), assorted inventions, lots and lots of papers with calculations, computers. 

The father is VERY scatterbrained, with a lot of stuff on his plate and a lot of things that keep him occupied that he wants to tackle. But the real draw to this former farm turned mad scientist’s house is the barn, now revamped into true and proper laboratories, which house a vessel that’s capable (or will be capable) of travelling to another world, and which they will use very soon, once the world starts to end – we’re not actually going to see the ship, though, until it's time for it to take off. See, the father is also quite secretive of his work.

Now, here’s where things get a bit more complicated. At this stage, I want the father to call in the other three scientists (who are also a touch mad, but have since hung up their lab coats and are doing far more mundane things now…unless. Unless, one of them is Mark’s mother, maybe, who now teaches for a living and thinks his father is a lunatic who let life pass him by? I kind of like that, I’ll file it away. So far, we have family drama: Mark and his quarreling parents. His best friend gets roped into the journey. 

And there’s a fair amount of reports, about odd seismic activity on the ocean floor, maybe anomalies picked up on the telescope etc. Which brings me to another question: why do they need to go to this other island world to save our world? Or is this an attempt to escape before it falls apart? The old man told them the world will end. Let’s come back to that problem later and review what we have.

Early chapters: Character stuff. Mark’s mom and dad are divorced, mom works as a teacher, dad works out on this ridiculous ranch, now turned into a mad scientist’s lair, which he keeps funded through assorted invention patents. Mark is fairly average, lives with his mom and goes to his dad as part of the usual trip and brings his best friend with him, so he won’t have to be alone with his crazy father (or, more accurately, just left alone in the house, while his dad tinkers with various inventions).

They arrive, meet an elderly man, who informs them that the world is going to end and then collapses. The dad arrives and sees this; they take the man to a hospital. He tells them that his father has the right idea and they’ll have just enough time to get the team together again, before it comes crashing down all around them. They go home, have pizza, and are informed that the old man died that night – depressing start to the vacation. 

But now, with the world on the edge, he begins calling up the others. Now, here is where things start to fall apart. These people probably have lives now and families. With the world about to end, they’re likely not going to want to just leave their families behind, or they’ll stay and wait it out with them. I could have the families come with the main characters, but that really starts cluttering the cast with all of these extra people. 

The ship is (relatively) small – I’d say it’s designed to hold maybe six people in comfortable (though close) quarters, and then all of the supplies and gear needed to fix the ship. I’m also wondering if maybe they’re distractions to the plot and to the character growth shaping up amongst this family? I mean – so far, we have Mark, his parents, and his friend, Daniel. Then my impulse is to add two other people to the crew, who probably have families that they’re not exactly going to want to leave behind.

I could justify it by saying that A) the ship is too small and taxed as it is and B) they’re going into an even more hazardous situation. Maybe their families tell him to go and are understanding that this is something they have to do. Or maybe the world actually simply ends. 

I just had this idea to invoke Narnia time – a second outside, a thousand years inside. They depart a second before the world ends, go through what they need to do, and come back after re-sealing the evil in a can. That would work. So, the main cast: Mark, his parents, the other Renegades, Daniel and then probably a character (a love interest, maybe) in the other world. 

Okay, I’ve gone through the early chapters now and worked through a lot of my issues that were circulating around in my head. Let’s see what we’ve got. 

The story begins with Mark asking his best friend, Daniel, to come over and spend the weekend at his dad’s, who lives out in the country. He agrees and they leave; only to meet an old man give them a warning about the world’s imminent destruction. He collapses just as Mark’s dad arrives to pick them up (he was running late). They go to the hospital and drop him off. He tells the father he’ll have ‘just enough time’ to get the team together before the world ends. 

There’s not much else they can do, so they go home and have pizza. The father begins making calls from his office, and we learn some of the backstory (seen via photographs) – that during his college days in the ‘80s, he had a small tight knit group of friends, who had some really weird and wild adventures – many of which were started by him, doing some sort of mad scientist thing. 

Over video games and pizza, we probe into the relationships of our lead, seeing how he feels about both parents (he knows something about their past, though his mother doesn’t often talk about it) and mentions his grandfather (dad’s father, who was also something of a mad scientist and his great-grandmother before him, a contemporary of big 19^th century inventors – Tesla, Edison etc.) and how his father used to lull him to sleep…by reading from his college physics and chemistry textbooks. Oh, and we also see that the father has been working on a robot body for the AI that runs the house (which is why his hair was singed – there was a small explosion). 

Daniel needs some development too; right now he seems to be there so that our hero will have someone to emote to. (Will work on this later – maybe jealousy that Mark has such a cool and interesting family?) In the study, his father calls up the old colleagues – his former roommate and best friend, Joe, and the fourth member of this group, Eddie. Mark’s mom is the second member

Joe has since become some guy stuck in a boring dead end white collar job, with a loving wife, 2.5 kids, a dog and white picket fence. He declines going with the father (Frank, I will call him until I think of something better). while Eddie lives by himself and works for a science magazine. He immediately agrees to help out and plans on flying in to the town on the next available flight. That leaves the matter of the mother (Ellen), but Frank chickens out on calling her for the moment, instead going out to barn to make last minute adjustments on the ship.

Okay. I’m not really sure where that puts us chapter-wise, now: I get the feeling there’s two or three chapters in all of that summary, but I’m not to the point where I’m dividing yet. We haven’t even gotten to the world ending stuff yet!). 

So, what next? That ought to cover the introductions, set up the character relationships and get the ball rolling on the basic premise of the plot. Where do we take the story from here? I have some ideas: firstly, some news reports about anomalies seen from space, maybe something weird happening on the ocean floor. Next, Eddie’s arrival that Saturday. 

Our weekend is nearly used up and it’s time for Mark to start heading back. Frank finally makes the call and explains what’s going on and tells his mom that she’ll be needed, as much as any of them. That doesn’t exactly make her happy, even less so that he’s planning on taking Mark along to this other realm, dimension or whatever. There’s drama and whatnot. 

Next up: the world starts to end. I’m a little hazy on how I’m going to have this work, but basically I think it’ll start with the sky turning red (‘cause if we’re ending the world, we need red skies), and a comet falling to earth, except this is no ordinary comet: this is the Key that awakens the Evil – bridging the half lying in the waters of the Atlantic, and its other half trapped in a star – though we don’t know this yet.

The ship is revealed in all of its glory. The group (currently standing at four currently – Mark, Daniel, Frank and Eddie). A great void begins opening, like a whirlpool into complete oblivion and the earth begins to implode, all of the waters, fish, land everything on it quickly being absorbed into a gargantuan maw. It’s slow at first: they have, maybe, a few precious days, at the end of which there will be no more planet.

The team is finally all reunited together – including a touching seen, in which Joe’s wife gives him permission to go and save them all and a rather more amusing scene, where they pick up Ellen, who is very unhappy to be there. They take off and wink out of the universe/world, a second before it ends.

I was on a roll here and now I need to figure out what’s going on next and get the ball rolling. As part of the earlier chapters, I’m wondering if Mark and Daniel maybe should put to work loading up the ship with various supplies before it takes off? I have mixed feelings about it – on one hand, it’s a logical scene to have, on the other – I was kind of hoping to wait and reveal the ship until it actually takes off. I’ll think on it.

Now. At this stage, we’ve ended the world (though that’s on pause, we’re at a second before it collapses back into the void) and we’ve made all the way to this otherworldly dimension or something. My kneejerk reaction was (as can be seen in the original outlines of ‘things I want to include in this story’ to set this in a tropical setting: lush, tropical islands, clear blue seas and coral reefs and, of course, giant sea monsters. 

Now, however, I’m leaning towards something along the lines of the Twilit Lands from the Psionic Adventures story…but with a twist. It’s been shattered and bits of the world are scattered here and there – part of an ocean surrounded by nothingness (which resembles a giant aquarium miles deep, across and wide), a bit of forest over here, a domed city in a desert over here – little islands of reality that used to form one coherent world, but have been ripped to shreds and the pieces are scattered all over. 

We have our sea monsters swimming in the oblivion sea between these broken bits and islands (creatures from the oceans that adapted to the environment). This leads us into several new and important questions I need to chew on: what happens next? How are the characters going to develop? How is this going to contribute to the defeat of whatever monstrosity ate our world? Well, maybe we can tease out some answers. 

I think our heroes are going to land on a random bit of land surrounded by oblivion. We need a quiet moment for the impact of what just happened to sink in, and we need to introduce the complete weirdness of the surroundings, and start establishing the rules for how those work – we have the characters respond in kind, showing a bit of their characters (irritation and dismay on Ellen’s part, complete fascination on Frank’s part etc.). 

I’m also thinking that jumping through to this place damaged the ship, maybe forcing repairs. Or maybe not – we have: the bizarre sea-life and giant monsters running around and they need to be introduced as well. Perhaps one attacks the ship and forces them to flee? Or maybe it attacks, and the bit of land they were on falls into the void, leaving to rampant speculation on Frank’s part. But we need to introduce some new characters from this side of the world, who will bring in new relationships to the table (this is already seems to be a very crowded cast – 6 people so far), but they’re necessary to get explanations for what’s going on.

Also: another mystery that needs to be probed is the old man, who kick-started the plot by warning our heroes of the world’s end. I’m thinking that he and Frank have met before (in different circumstances) and that he’s the one who put the idea of the ship in Frank’s head in the first place. But that’s something for another time. This story’s picking up a ton of subplots! (Sidenote: I’m thinking there’s a fifth member of the adult’s little clique, another woman, who ended up here somehow, and there will be some dialogue later to set this all up).

Moving on from that tangent, we introduce a warrior princess type character, who demands to know what they’re doing. She has guards behind her and very interesting looking ships (think more fantasy type sailing vessels, except the fly) – the void is crossable, much like the sea or space, with proper vehicles and equipment. They’re all captured and are taken to the great city of Zenith, with its glittering waterfalls and canals and its tall mountains, with palaces and temples on the slopes.

I’m thinking that before we get there, we should have a sea monster attack, just to showcase the monsters and show this as a mechanic and rule of this setting. 

We’ll get some additional backstory about just what happened to the world, how it was torn into bits and pieces and how this connects to the world-eating thing that just ate our world basically. I’m still ruminating on what that is, so we’ll just say that backstory will go here. They’re basically given comfortable quarters and given run of the upper slopes of the city. We can have some character development at this stage, possibly for Daniel. I think his character arc is going to have him fall in love with the princess and starts going native. Mark doesn’t really notice the princess (I’m wondering if he might be asexual? I doubt it’ll come up) and he has a lot on his plate, what with worry about his whole family life. 

Joe and Eddie…hmm. I think Eddie’s going to likely be a static character, just made of pure awesome from the first moment he comes on the screen – he has traits and a personality but as far as an actual character arc goes, not too much. I want all of the characters to get their chance to shine, but at the same time, I really don’t want to clutter the narrative. 

The focus is twofold: the relationships of the admittedly somewhat dysfunctional cast, and said cast having to learn to work together if they’re going to save the world. 

I’m getting off on a tangent again. So, our first two tasks for their arrival in the Other-World (for lack of a better term): allow a quiet breathing moment, for the impact of the world’s end to sink in and establish the rules and mechanisms of this other place our brave adventurers have reached. Been there, done that. 

We’ve introduced a proud warrior-princess (or maybe she’s a Queen, that’d be a good touch) figure, who does have a handle on how the world works and is also incredibly awesome and good at fighting. Our heroes are all now in Zenith, confined to the upper parts of the city, until its decided what’s going to happen with them. What are they going to do as of now? 

I don’t know. I think I need to build the backstory a bit, so the Princess can explain the situation. The world used to be complete and whole, split into three segments – the Noontide Realm, the Twilit Lands and the Country of Night. Then, abruptly, the ancient ruins across the land activated and blew it up into many bits and pieces (this was many years ago in this land, but since we’re using Narnia Time here, it happened at the same time the comet landed on earth and awoke the great Evil.).

Okay, so the next step is for a ruling to take place. This needs to be something that will move the plot along, yet also be in this Princess’s character. My writing session is almost up for the day and I need to recharge anyway. 

 So (new session), let’s just recap the plot so far: Mark Stephens is a fairly typical teenage boy, who persuades his best friend Daniel to come with him to his father’s, so he won’t have to be alone with our mad scientist Frank. Daniel agrees (I’m thinking he has a really messed up home life, maybe?), and they take off via bus to the country. They meet an old man, who tells them that the world is going to end and then collapses, just as Frank (Mark’s dad) arrives. 

They take him to the hospital and he comes to one last time, telling Frank that he’ll have ‘just enough time’ to get a team together and get out before the world is destroyed. They go to the very eccentric Stephens home, and Frank retires to the office to make some calls (to his old college buddies and True Companions). Meanwhile, Mark and Daniel play video games, eat pizza and we get some backstory about the True Companions (they were all friends in the mid-1980s) – Frank, his mom (Ellen), Joe, Eddie (note: thinking of renaming him Paul?) and Rachel, the fifth member of the group who disappeared. 

Mark knows a little about them, but not a whole lot as neither parents about the old days much anymore. Familial relationships are further explored here as well. Meanwhile, Frank makes his calls. Eddie, now a reporter for a science magazine (or maybe a science teacher) immediately agrees to come and promises to be there the next day. Joe, now holder of a dull corporate job (but with a loving trophy wife, 2.5 children and a dog). He wants to go, but feels that it would be better if he stays behind, feeling that the old glory days are behind them now and he needs to focus on his family. Frank chickens out on calling Ellen, who really doesn’t want much to do with the old group (something from their past).  

The next day is spent packing and preparing, with Eddie showing up sometime that evening – he is simply inexplicably awesome and will essentially serve as the group’s navigator and maybe weapon’s guy. (As an aside, I think he and Frank are the closest of the four initially – old roommates?). Frank finally is browbeaten into calling Ellen, who (of course) yells at him when he tries to explain the situation. 

Sunday dawns bright and clear, but a comet falls to earth and the sky turns red. A hole into oblivion opens in the Atlantic, sending ships, fish and everything else into waiting nothingness. It quickly begins to spread, consuming the entire world. Order breaks down. The ship finally takes off, and collects the other two members of the group – they land amidst panicking rioters and police struggling to keep calm (people are evacuating to a bomb shelter maybe – not rational, but there’s not much to do). 

His wife gives him her blessing to go help save them all, and looks a little sad – a short, touching scene. Frank explains the whole idea that this other dimension, this other place has a different time flow and according to his calculations (and past experiments with the phase portal), a second is equal to a not insignificant number of years. 

After that, they go and pick up Ellen, who is very displeased to be part of this but ends up going with them anyway, after being talked into it by the other three (and to keep an eye on her son). The ship takes off, various cities start sliding into the void – like the ground had become a rug and they were simply glued to it. They ship departs, the technology pushing apart the fabric of space-time. And they leave the world, a single second before it ends.

Afterwards, they land on a spit of land surrounding by (literally) nothing. This is our quiet moment to let the previous very huge events sink in the group and the audience. However, they’re forced to flee whenever it dissolves into the void (I think originally I had a sea serpent attack them – but I think it would a lot stronger if this is just a natural process of this dimension/world. Hazardous, yes, but not actively malicious or out to get them).

They are then captured by a warrior-queen, and her fleet of ships and escorted back to Zenith (a great city), but they come under attack by giant sea serpents, that have mutated to ‘swim’ in the oblivion surrounding the land fragments, where they’re treated well, but nonetheless confined to the upper parts of the city, until they decide what to do with them.

And that’s where I’m at in terms of plot. I think a trial scene and explanation for just how the world got like this is in order now – judgment is now passed on the six of them and they learn something of the backstory (Note: I might work this in somewhere else, I don’t know): various temples of the land began glowing with power, linking to each other and literally ripping the world apart into the various bits and pieces. 

We have more character growth at this stage – Daniel falls in love with the Princess, and starts going native (trying to impress her as well as to start distancing himself from his old thoroughly messed up home life.).Frank and Ellen bicker back and forth. There’s also some key information revealed – according to calculations Frank made, the comet landed at the same time as the myriad temples blew this world apart – there’s a definite link there. 

Anyway, back to the whole judgment thing. I’m in two minds on it. The Queen lets them go to investigate the ruins (and figure out what happened and if it’s at all possible to reverse), figuring she has nothing to lose at this stage. The other part of my mind suggests that they could maybe have cyborgs – and the eldritch cult – turn up at this stage (note: sudden idea on the old man’s backstory. He’s a reformed cultist.) and demand that the little group be handed over to them. The Queen will refuse (another note: the cultists need to be brought up before this), saying that Zenith does not bow knee to the Country of Night, which sets in motion still another subplot, and a battle for later on. They have no intention of letting our heroes get away so easily and retreat to the void. 

The Queen ends up helping them escape, sending them on a secret mission to investigate the ruins and find out what happened to cause the world to fracture like it did. Both options are solid choices, I think, but the second one sets up still more conflict in this world and there’s still a long, long way to go before this thing winds down. 

I’m also wondering if I should have Daniel stay behind for whatever reason, still trying to get in good with the Queen, maybe he’s forced to stay (or maybe he volunteers? We’ll leave it out for now, but I would like to have a character here to build more on this subplot…

Now we have a quest underway: visit the various ruins, discover whatever cause made them explode. That’s the framework nested within the larger framework. This narrative keeps growing, and it’s important, I think, to remember our twin focus: the relationships of the characters, and these characters overcoming quirks and flaws to prevent the end of the world as we know it.

I also had a sudden idea for the villain – initially it was an eldritch creature, but now maybe a god collecting worlds? Nah, that’s kind of silly. I have to figure out how they’re linked, how the character development will progress etc. etc. More later on. 

Okay, I am back. I’ve now recharged my brain and hopefully we can continue pushing the plot forward. I’m not sure where this going – we have a definite framework for this arc, though. So that’s something. I think the part I just rolled through – starting with the heroes leaving our world and jumping into the new one – was a segment of the plot all by itself, a sort of a transition zone, so to speak. It needed to provide a set up the rules of this other-world, and set up the framework for the stuff that’s about to happen, as well as finally provide a villain (we saw the world end, now can put a face on who did it.). There are also mysteries and backstories that need to be more fully realized – namely, the old man from the beginning and Rachel, the fifth member of this little group. I’m also thinking that this trip is going to eventually land our crew in the Country of Night. 

I really do think Daniel is supposed to stay behind, but I can’t find a good enough reason to justify it – they’re not going to want him to stick around. Though maybe he persuades them that he’ll be safer there in the city? In which case, they’d probably want to leave Mark there, as well. Hmm. That sounds promising. A simple enough reason, yet plausible enough and gives our two teenage characters a chance to grow. Mark, so far, doesn’t have much development outside of his relationship to his parents. This gives a chance to change that. 

We then have two arcs that we’re following: Mark, Daniel and the Warrior-Queen, and then our adult heroes, who are in pursuit of these different ruins. There’s three pieces of our plot then: the beginning, right up to the departure, the short transition period that explains the ground rules of the other-world and then this new arc – probably longer and which is going to start probing into questions earlier posed – what happened to Rachel? What about the old man? 

The cult is the villain here; they’re all cyborgs from the Country of Night. We also have the looming mystery of the ancient ruins: what they are, who built them etc. (and all of this will tie back into the imminent destruction of Earth and how they restore it). Okay, enough throwing around general ideas and concepts for what we’re doing, let’s get right down to we’re going to kick this off.

I’m thinking that it’ll be with the adult heroes, leaving Zenith behind. Ellen and Frank bickering, Eddie being generally silent and Joe, who seems to be becoming the fifth wheel here – what is his deal, what’s he going to contribute to the group and how am I going to handle his development? Questions to chew on. For now, let’s concentrate on the basic events. 

They travel for a long time and then land in a forest (or rather, an isolated bit of forest in surrounded by oblivion, though this land is a good bit larger than  the land they arrived on initially) somewhere – the Queen has provided them with supplies and weaponry and whatnot and they set up camp for the evening, reminiscing about the old days, in which there were a bunch of really weird adventures – I had this idea that these people are basically the college age protagonists out of some comic or really odd YA novel. Jury’s still out, but they definitely had some wild times in college, mostly thanks to Frank and his mad science (I’ll have to come up with stuff later on for them to laugh about – something only vaguely grounded in reality).

A point of development for all four goes all around, and we get to learn something more about them – maybe now is when Frank mentions that he’s met the old man before now and what he told them. They’re attacked by monsters, they fight them off – I need to think of something creative to do with that, something relating to their development or just some really creative monster designs. I’ll think of something. 

It’s a bit premature to focus on how many chapters this has or where I’m going to break them off at, but I’m thinking this arc is going to be a bit like the 4Ms and alternate every chapter (or maybe every two chapters). Now, we have this evil cult that we’ve brought into the picture. They need to be used – following their introductions in our little transition bit, they retreat into the void and a dark fortress, riding on the back of the giant oblivion beasts. 

Their Master – the great Silence – tells them to pursue, saying that he knows where these people are from. From there…all bets are off and I don’t know what to do with the plot now. There are a lot of questions raised here: why can’t this Silence destroy them itself? Why does he rely on servants so much? Who are these people? 

Let’s jot down some answers (or possible answers): the Silence is indeed the Evil that ate the world (or, is about to eat the world. Different time flows and all that), it can’t act because it’s still bound in this particular world and is already so huge, so unfathomable that it’s imprisoned across two worlds. It relies on its servants, because it has no choice in the matter. These servants – a man and a woman – are the two remaining members of a trio, which originally included the old man from the beginning. I don’t know how satisfied I am with these answers, but I’ll run with them for now, maybe change things up later on. 

These are basically the leaders of the cult and two operations begin, which will add a monkey wrench to these character’s plans: destroy Zenith, capture the four Renegades (calling them that because that was their original name and I don’t have something better). 

Anyway…we left the Renegades fighting monsters in the woods, now let’s look at our teenage protagonists. In Zenith, Daniel continues his (completely unnoticed) attempts to impress the Warrior-Queen – this has an unintended side effect of giving him a level in badass. Mark, in the meantime, spends most of his time thinking about his parents, and spending quite a bit of time in the library, reading about the old histories and what-not. Like it or not, he’s starting to show signs after taking after his father (though maybe mitigated somewhat by his mother). Daniel will be the warrior guy; Mark is going to get the psychic abilities. 

Alright, another idea. Daniel turns out to be basically the rogue character, while Mark ends up as the spellcaster and our proud Warrior-Queen is, well, the Warrior, giving us our basic trinity – Warrior, Mage, Rogue. But back to the plot, I’m a little hazy on where it’s going. We ended with a monster attack that will somehow be creative with our main leads here, then we set up the villains, who are going to basically put a monkey wrench in the hero’s plans while they search for these ruins and then there’s our two teenage protagonists, both of whom take a level in badass. There’s a lot of plot machinery that I have to chew through.

We left our Renegades fighting monsters in the woods. As I said before, Mark’s moping and his wandering about lead him to a lost tomb/ruin or whatever of one of the Zariam, the eight figures (re: angels) who created the Noontide Realm, he gets psionic abilities after a visit there – he kind of finds it by accident, maybe, or he’s actively looking for it. 

He’ll keep in touch with his parents for sure, the Noontiders will have ways to keep in touch, despite the infinite void that splits them apart now. Anyway, he gets his psionic powers, just as news comes in of one of the oblivion-beasts emerging to attack a village that’s not too far from Zenith, though drifting further away every year. (Oooh, that’s an interesting touch. Some/all of the islands aren’t actually fixed. They’re actually drifting around.). They go off to investigate, and the oblivion-beast and it is routed. How this (and the monster attack in the forest) tie into our main story, I’m not really sure. 

It feels a little premature to reveal what sort of scheme the villains are planning to achieve their goals. And maybe this is just me, but this is starting to take on elements of a comic book, almost, and is feeling like the narrative is drifting that direction with how big it’s getting, as well as this series of side adventures for the two sides, with recurring villains and so forth.

I’m going to keep going for now, and try to put that thought of my mind while I continue to build the story. 

Back with the Renegades, they find the first ruin, an old crumbled pyramid, with lots of ruins in the shallow waters of a lagoon, with plenty of greenery, tropical fish and coral reefs. It resembles the world’s largest and deepest aquarium when viewed from outside. 

They land, and begin exploring the ruins, encountering a variety of rooms – a courtyard, laboratories, an ancient computer console (a command post type thing, complete with robots), and evidence of recent activity, and a room at the top, with a large beacon (now cracked, this was the super-weapon that wrecked the land – characters figure this out pretty quickly). They figure out a way to download Alice – yeah, the AI – into the computer systems, where she discovers holograms and various records (written, of course, in ancient language they can’t read). 

At this stage, our villains dispatch a couple of cyborgs, emblazoned with the crest of the Country of Night. (note: It might be better to remove the villains from the picture, at least until the very end, whatever threat they’re facing is much more menacing if it remains faceless and voiceless, just with all of its servants at its disposal. (Note: there’s two chapters here, one with their arrival in the ruins, ending with the cyborg arriving, and the other with the actual fight and retreat. 

They retreat and make it out, but Joe is wounded. The cyborg watches them go, so that’s our plot development: they get attacked – again – and they get ancient writings out. Now, with our teenage protagonists: Mark experiments with his power, while the Warrior Queen rebuffs Daniel’s unwanted advances, she’s finally had enough. Yay, character development. Our plot focuses on refugees arriving from other villages: while the Warrior-Queen was busy saving the single village, two more fell to the Country of Night and are now overrun with cyborgs.

Mark communicates with his parents and starts using the extensive libraries of Zenith to attempt to decipher the mysterious language of the ruins. I’m not sure if these events are going to be exactly in that order (I may combine some of them and rearrange as I think it suits the story), but that’s the overall idea here.

I think we’re getting off focus here on the main story, which started as a simple attempt to save Earth from its imminent destruction, and now we’re off on this other quest and we’ve gotten pretty far from that. Let me just go through our story, just real quick. 

We’re up to three parts now: the first is the beginning up to the destruction of earth, then a transition period to set up the rules of this surreal other-world, and then this latest arc, which I think is where things started getting messy: two separate, but connected arcs, one following the adults and the other following the teenagers, along with the Warrior-Queen, now dealing with all of these other threats, and an established status quo, but this isn’t a comic or a TV show. It’s intended to be a novel.

Well, let’s press on with our story anyway, though I wonder if it has gotten too complicated, with way too many characters, arcs and situations. In any case, let’s move on. We’ll have some character development – Ellen and Frank begin to reconcile, though they’re still snarky with each other, while Joe recovers from his wounds and feels generally miserable about it all. 

At this stage, I really have no idea where to go with the story or what to do with the characters. I think I’ve lost sight of what was supposed to be happening somewhere in the session and shifted genres, basically. And I think my mistake was leaving Mark and Daniel in Zenith, because after that the plot just becomes one large mess. I had to justify it to myself for why that particular development would happen, as I recall. 

That should have been a warning sign.