Cover image for HotOO
-The Hazards of the Old Ones (HotOO)
--On finding a Heart...
The process of writing HotOO only took about four months, however its gestation from first draft to completed work took several more years. My goal in writing HotOO was to close a few story arcs from Book 1, "Sygillis of Metatron", most notably the Sister "Blondie" who had a thing for Captain Davage. I also wanted to give Lt. Kilos and Davage's sister, Lady Poe, a bit more of an expanded role, as I had a great affinity for those two at the time.
I was generally pleased with the first draft, and, with the exception of the usual cosmetic changes, I figured the book was closed on HotOO and I moved on to begin the "Temple of the Exploding Head" (TotEH).
About a year later, my favorite Beta Reader, Sabrina Veley, read the draft of HotOO, and was a tad underwhelmed. She enjoyed the action and the development of Ki and Lady Poe, but something was missing. It lacked "heart" she said.
Hmmm...
Lacks heart?
In between bouts of wrestling with TotEH, I returned to the HotOO draft and looked it over. Honestly, I was stumped. Lacks heart, she said. It seemed fine to me. So I cornered Sabrina and plied her for information. What's wrong? What's missing? You said it lacked heart! Are you drunk?? Are you high?? Sabs really couldn't pin-point what was troubling her with HotOO, it just lacked feeling. "I know," Sabs said. "It lacks something 'cute'--you know, a neat animal, or some sort of cool side-kick." She then went on to say. "Who was that guy in the first book--the seal??? He was pretty cute. I liked him Why not add that guy?"
The seal? Carahil? I can't add him, he escaped Metaton in Syg's Temple. I went back to the first book and found a passage that I'd forgotten all about. I'd thrown in that Lady Poe had recreated Carahil as a Silver tech creation, and that he roamed the Telmus Grove. It was just a few lines--but that paved the way for everything that followed. I started banging away at HotOO again, and when I was done, Carahil, the little silver seal created by Lady Poe was all over the place. He went from being nowhere in the book, to being its heart. Now, I look at the book and can't imagine it as it was without him.
And, I didn't stop there, with Carahil. Soon, Lt' Kilos' Tweeter bird emerged from the depths of my imagination, and Ki hasn't been without him since. Also, the parable of the House of Bodice and their tragic protector, Maiax, came into being. Maiax's plight serves as a cautionary tale that Carahil uses to temper his actions. Initially nothing more than a vile demon, eventually Maiax's character grew and grew until I decided to give him a happy ending; one that he deserved.
So, with HotOO now a published work, I have to say thanks Sabs--you were right. The book needed a heart after all.
Ren Garcia
August, 2010
HotOO Synopsis:
Life ends, new life is born. Everything balances.
When Carahil, an Elemental Spirit, witnesses the destruction of an entire world, he’s faced with the ultimate question: how far is he willing to go to save it?
Carahil will gather friends-like Lord and Countess Blanchefort, renowned Fleet Captain and ex-Black Hat, to help. He’ll destroy lives, like that of Captain Davage’s best friend and first officer, Lt. Kilos, who is made to quit her job aboard the Seeker and go into the dreaded Hazards of the Old Ones: a place where only she can stand. Carahil will also search out disreputable sources like the scalawag Duke of Oyln, who has something malicious and wailing locked away in his dungeon.
To make matters worse, hidden forces threaten to destroy everyone Carahil needs to help him. Ominous messages from nowhere, surprise visits, phantom people and taunting voices complicate matters.
However, the most dangerous threat to this mission could be Carahil himself, who faces demonic transformation for getting involved and may upset the cosmic Scales of the Universe in a bad way. Carahil, though struggling to achieve a greater good, might be the cause of a horrific tragedy instead.
Hell awaits should he fail.
FREESTUFF!!: Below is the Prologue to the Hazards of the Old Ones. Enjoy!
I—Item 10--Save Planet X!
May all be saved.
He knew things were going to be bad when he encountered himself that sunny morning in the Grove.
It was like looking in a mirror, only there was no mirror. He and his twin stared at each other. He knew what it meant: to meet one’s self was a sure sign of trouble to come.
… Of death and destruction.
… Of disaster.
He was a fairly new creation, in the mundane counting of time he was only a few months old, but he knew the old stories. He possessed knowledge spanning the ages for it had been built into him by his Mother, and the Elemental Spirits had told him all about it in the Arborium at the top of the Universe. They were so eager for him to join, for he was an Elemental Spirit too.
He had been out in the sunshine and blue skies preparing a joke to play on his Mother—how he loved to startle her, to make her jump and gasp. It was all in good fun, he meant no harm, and laughing, he liked to warmly nuzzle her with his jolly, whiskered face and bask in their shared goodness. He had a small book that he conjured up whenever he wanted. It was a thick diary called Carahil’s Magic Book of Things To-Do and Memorable Quotes. He created it himself. In it, lists and notes automatically scratched themselves in detailing random nuggets of wisdom and his daily list of things to-do. He liked to be organized.
Today’s list read:
1)—Feed the kittens.
2)—Heat up a few rocks for the kittens. (Might be chilly today)
3)—Prank Mother. (Hide her favorite hat)
4)—Prank Lord Blanchefort. (Hide his favorite hat too, preferably in a different place where you hid Mother’s hat)
5)—Prank Countess Blanchefort. (Undetermined-—possibly steal a gown from her wardrobe and hang it from the Josephina Tower pole) WARNING--Countess might still be angry about pie-in-face fiasco last week!!
6)—Check kittens box for litter.
That should make for a full day.
The other ones, the lesser creations of murky silver Mother tinkered about with, gathered to watch him fuss with the kittens in their little box behind the wall. They were drawn to him as always—but he paid them no mind, they were crude silver automatons. He, on the other hand, was a masterpiece, a one-of-a-kind.
He had found the kittens in the back half of the Grove; hungry, looking for their mother. As always, he gathered them up and took care of them. He was a good surrogate mother.
He just finished heating up a rock to help warm the kittens, when his book opened and a fresh entry scratched itself in:
7)—Encounter a demonic version of yourself in the Grove.
That’s
when He came stumping around the
green, leafy corner; an image of himself, a backwards, distorted,
maniacal
image of a sadistic bearing.
They stood there staring at each other. Though the image was evil and somewhat terrifying to behold, he had to admit the brute was devilishly handsome. If he had any flaws or vices, Pride, it must be said, was his. The blessed woman who created him had put him together in a huge Vith fountain in the Grove. The empty basin, rife with ancient magic, along with the materials used in his making made him powerful and mighty beyond the circumstances of his birth.
Possibly, without realizing it, his Mother, with rolled-up sleeves and torrents of Silver, had created an Elemental Spirit—in essence, a god. He was Silver perfection.
He was a god who loved to protect lost kittens, hang gowns from flag poles and hit countesses in the face with pies.
From the far-reaching vistas of the Grove, he could look out and see everything he wished to see, the multitudes of old ghosts giving him all the space he needed. He could see all the way to the top of the Universe and the leafy Aborium. The Elemental Spirits living there waved at him from the branches, imploring him to join. And, he could see the bottom of the Universe as well—the huddled, steam-shot buildings of the Windage of Kind where the Fallen were kept. The sullen windows of the Windage were dark, betraying nothing of the terrors hidden within except for the occasional red eyes peering out.
Every so often his book flipped a page and scratched out an odd entry:
Someone stares out the windows of the Windage of Kind. She’s not a bad girl, just needs a little love. Maybe a bright smile will make her happy. You should make it a point to visit her. She’d like that.
Once, he actually decided to take his book’s advice and go to the Windage and look into the windows, to see this girl for himself. But, his book interjected:
She’s not there, you missed her
His twin stood there, taunting him. “I am you, merely unbound …” his twin said. “Look at me … see what is to come … I offer you a vision …”
His evil image was huge and terrible, eyes beady and cruel, smiling mouth filled with serrated teeth like a shark, and a strange muff of mussed black hair on his smooth-domed, dog-like head.
Another entry scribbled itself out in his book:
8)—Witness a horrific vision of the death of billions.
"Look at me and see what is to come ..." his twin said.
He didn’t want to look, but his evil twin insisted. “Look, look. See the dying. Listen to the screaming ... Can you hear it?”
He looked into his twin’s wide eyes and saw everything. So much death, so much loss under purple skies and upon sandy ground. He listened to dying mouths praying to be saved.
“Save us!”
“Save us, who will save us!”
“What have we done to deserve this?”
He stood there on his haunches and wept, unable to turn away.
“You can save them—none of this has to be. Simply go and perform a miracle, listen to their praise, they will love you. They will lift their cups and call you a god. Be a god for them … and set me free.”
“I can’t—I can’t simply save a bunch of people, I’ll become a demon! I’ll go to the Windage!"
Then it’s all on your conscience. Save them … and set me free.”
He stood there alone in the Grove, open-mouthed.
Save them?
What was he supposed to do? How could he prevent such a thing?
It’s not fair, not fair! Why should he bother? Why was it his responsibility? There are others, there are many gods floating about, let somebody else take care of it.
Let somebody else save them.
Another entry in his book:
9)—Pretend you didn’t see what you saw. Take no action. Think happy thoughts.
He was bound by the old rules of Balance, the mystical bond placed upon all insanely powerful creatures. He could soar the heavens, he could frolic on a star if he wanted, but he couldn’t save a life or directly influence fate. There were age-old rules against that.
If he didn’t follow the rules, then he was to go to the Windage and become a demon, a horrific image whose power was turned to chaos. That was the fate awaiting all those like him should the rules go unheeded. His evil twin was an image of himself turned to a demon.
He closed his bright eyes and twitched his whiskers. He continued to see his vision replayed for him with vivid detail, like a sad vid he didn’t want to watch but couldn’t turn away from; the death and loss, the end of dreams. Unsuspecting eyes, open at present, shall soon be shut … forever. The masses of people going about their lives, oblivious of the deadly wave that is coming for them: waking, dressing, eating their meals, conceiving new life only to soon lay unburied on a vast killing field where any who might weep over their fallen bodies are dead too.
Somebody, anybody, save them! I can’t. I can’t!
He prayed for guidance. He prayed for one of the Arborium to hear his call and take some sort of action, to do something spectacular while he watched, taking notes as an eager student, ready to learn. Perhaps the next time he had a vision of horrific death and destruction, he’d be more ready to do something about it with the practical knowledge he’d witnessed firsthand from this experience.
I know what to do—I saw a master in action, first-hand. Lemme’ at `em!
But,
he knew, deep within, that this brutal vision was his alone—if not he,
then no
one else. No one was coming to save them.
Wind played through the branches of the beech trees. Unseen birds chirped. Time moved on toward that coming black moment when it would all end, the Grove unmindful and uncaring.
What would his Mother say? What would she think? She’d probably be quite disappointed, that he saw what was going to happen and did nothing—let it happen, let them all pass into memory, as if they’d never existed at all. He didn’t want to fail his Mother, and, more so, with every passing moment, he didn’t want to fail these people either; like a mangy stray that had crossed his path, caught his eye, and now was stuck in his heart—like his kittens. The well-being of these people was now his responsibility. Another entry in his book, repeated over and over:
10)—Save them! Save them all!
His Pride set aside, his Humanity and the heart his Mother gave him, spoke.
You cannot let them die. You cannot ignore what you saw. You have to save them.
But how? How was he supposed to do this? He had the power to help them—he might have to fortify himself a little bit, to add a touch of magic to his already arcane makeup, and then he should be more than up to this task, easily, but he couldn’t simply swoop in and save the day, he wasn’t allowed to do that, there were universal rules against such things, and the only thing the Universe cared about was the rules.
Nobody breaks the rules
We’d have to punish you.
We don’t break the rules.
You don’t break the rules either. We’d have to redden your eyes and send you to the Windage.
You want to fix a bad future, then gut it out!
That’s why they call it the ‘Frustration of the Gods’—because it’s frustrating, get it?
There were rules that one, even such as he, had to follow, and the ramifications for ignoring or breaking the rules to both them (the people he wanted to save) and to himself would be terrible. They would simply die another day, and in probably a worse fashion than the first time, and he’d become a demon, just like his evil twin.
Save them … set me free.
Gut it out!
If they were to be saved, then he had to do it the right way—the hard way, by ruse and deception, by manipulation, by getting the Softlings to take action, to willingly risk their own mortal lives in order to save the lives of others; the lives of strangers—the lives of enemies.
The Softlings—that’s what the Arborium called them in a rather arrogant fashion: the weak, mortal people, the mundane folk of the universe—yet, it was the Softlings that added weight to the cosmic scales. It was the Softlings who ultimately determined what the gods could and could not do, when miracles could and could not happen.
It was the deeds of the Softlings who gave the gods their arms and filled their quiver with arrows. That’s how the Universe wanted it.
Several more entries appeared in his book:
New Task: Save Planet: X
WARNING!! You cannot directly intervene without upsetting the Universal Balance.
1)—Add weight to scales.
a)—Gather forces you can have faith in.
b)—Move them into place.
c)—Push your forces in the direction you need them to go, regardless of the immediate consequences. (See Task 3)
d)—IMPORTANT!! Get a Brightstone. (powerful Magic in a terrible place. Will need a Brown you can trust to help you fetch it)
2)—Once weight is added, perform Miracle at Planet X.
3)—Apologize to any whose lives you ruined in the process of saving Planet X.
a)—Flowers are always nice.
Resigned, he looked around at the vast green of the Grove and he knew what he had to do. Could it be done? Could they be saved? Could he somehow get those “Softlings” around him to do what needed to be done?
A whole planet of “kittens” needed saving, and he cannot fail. He must not!
He looked at the little kittens in the box, soundly sleeping in the warmth of the nearby rocks he’d heated. A tear rolled down his muzzle and dripped off.
It sizzled on a rock.