2023-01-20 10:27
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<p>Nykel and Syn are two kids 11 and 14 years old that live in a coastal village on an island where, since thousands of years ago, reside the last remnants of humanity.</p> <p>And this is their story.</p> <p>"Hear me my friends, according to ancient history..."</p> <p>In ages long forgotten, stories speak of a time when humans flourished and great empires rose due to inventions and fell due to greed, legends also mention that at an unknown time, an overwhelming number of wild, roaming beasts attacked humanity. Empires were mercilessly obliterated one after the other. The empires turned to their gods for help, but most had long been abandoned by them.</p> <p>In a desperate last attempt, three empires joined forces to resist the beasts, an effort that moved their gods, who answered their pleas creating a magically fortified island called Karmyn.</p> <p>The island had a variety of magical structures that limited the entry of sentient beasts and allowed humans to see the flow of magic, normally invisible to the naked eye, allowing them to target the magical beast cores in their fight for survival.</p> <p>For thousands of years, the three empires prospered on the protected island, enjoying peace among themselves, rebuilding their cities every time they were destroyed by the beasts invading beasts, always triumphant, the island a symbol of hope for humanity.</p> <p>Over the centuries, humans have managed to fend off the magical beasts' attacks thanks to the structures that fortify the island and to the relentless research on mana manipulation, now a widely spread subject studied by every trainee, adept and house elder, with its discoveries being taught at different academies to young warriors seeking to defend the island.</p> <p>Among the varied methods used to harness mana, the most popular is carding, a method that allows humans to consolidate the inherent properties of magical beasts into stone-bound papers. These papers utilize the magical arrays emitted by the island's structures to extract data and translate it into readable symbols that humans can consume to understand how to leverage them in battle and daily life.</p> <p>"But these... lies are just stories that the ruling houses tell to the everyday person. They are long-forgotten and twisted legends, useless to the everyday man, and likely distributed to instill hope and nationalism.</p> <p>The reality is that we are currently in times of great turmoil, the alignment of the planets of our solar system has somehow not only altered the flow of magic but reshaped during the tides our very landscape, surfacing submerged peaks and granting land beasts access to ancient human fortresses.</p> <p>The nine main houses that rule the island are in disarray, some having lost their most powerful warriors in recent attacks, tackled in an eternal struggle for power that has not improved in millennia.</p> <p>And what's most worrying, there are rumors that the number of beasts able to penetrate the magical barrier has been steadily increasing, with any measurable proof, ignored or worse, silenced.</p> <p>Who knows other than the gods, if they are still watching over us, what future holds, reason suggests nothing but struggle and challenge..."</p> <p>Signed: Skivvers the scribe.</p> <p>Hi Everyone and very nice to meet you!</p> <p>Posting here this 'early' comes a bit unexpectedly to me, as I've been building this world for some time now and had the intention to start posting a few times, but I always found reasons to delay it, rewrite, etc. In fact, I had postponed starting to post this story for so long that it started feeling as if I never would. Somehow, when I saw the 2023 challenge for "Uncharted Waters" my god, is it 2023 already? and I thought if "I don't start with this I never will", and here we are :)</p> <p>Disclaimer(s): This is my very first attempt ever at writing ANY fiction, and as such, I'm yet to find my voice, ie: I wrote a lengthy prologue (Now in the bin) that I decided to remove to give a bit more action to the story, and in consequence rewrote 20+ times the first chapter.</p> <p>Grammar: I'll do my best to avoid any misspellings and correct them as noticed or pointed out. I'm not an English native, so my apologies in advance.</p> <p>Tone: Right now I'm trying to align the vocabulary and the way the story flows with the MC's ages of 11 and 14, but don't expect it to always stay like this, the vocabulary will transition (soon) and turn more mature as they progress through the story, right now they're just a pair of naive kids. (Also, worry not, this won't suddenly turn into a super-dark story)</p> <p>Feedback: Please don't hold it in!!, from what I understand, if this were a book I'd have time to write, go back and edit, and make sure that rhythm and beat are sustained, but by releasing it in chapters the option to redo all previous pages to maintain beat is not there, so let me know if you think I'm flunking something, it'll be much appreciated!.</p> <p>Formatting: Any formatting tips (please separate further the talking / don't put talking in cursive! / do put it in cursive / etc) are more than welcome, as I've browsed around a hundred fictions in RoyalRoad and I couldn't find a theme that people commonly agreed upon.</p> <p>Schedule: New chapters will be released bi-weekly Mon and Fri. This is a surprise to me and directly opposed to what I initially was planning to do, which was to release more chapters now and slow down as I approached where I am at, but after much problems and thoughts, it'll allow for improving the quality of the chapters by avoiding corrections or enrichment to get in the way of the story.Unless you're an experienced writer (which I'm not) it is not easy to plan for new chapters, mostly it involves editing previous ones, any heavier edits may make new chapters lose sense to up-to-date readers. (ie. Characters enter a house, spend some time and leave for X reason, after a few chapters story is better suited for a longer time spent in the house, edits make it happen in both released and unreleased chapter. Problem: When new chapter is released you expect the characters to be out of the house, but characters are still in (??), you go back to the previous chapter and they are also still in, you're left confused, is this a Deja Vu? are you in the Matrix? Did you dream about this chapter? You've just been Mindf**ked!)</p> <p>TL;DR: The faster I release the lower the quality because I cannot go back and edit published chapters without affecting the story for you in confusing ways.</p> <p>And that's it! Thanks for taking the time to read this, I sincerely hope I'll be able to write a story every single one of you will truly enjoy, see you on Mon/Fri!</p>
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