[Original Fiction] Crossed full, open post
Chapter 1: Bound
Chapter 2: Mask
Chapter 3: Fantasia
[UPDATED!] Chapter 4: Intrigue
[UPDATED!] Chapter 5: Judgment
[UPDATED!] Chapter 6: Turnabout
[UPDATED!] Chapter 7: Amen
[UPDATED/NEW!] Chapter 8: Guilt
Finally got to re-writing Chapter 8. Chapters 4-7 are not really that much different, but some key plot drops had to be re-worked to suit what ended up actually happening, because the new chapter 8 is almost completely different from the old one. It's written just about entirely from Amon's perspective, and also gives several flashbacks as to what he was doing and how he ended up doing what he did. I'll also have to rewrite what I've done so far for chapter nine, so that'll take a while longer, but I intend on working on that tomorrow.
Posting everything I've written so far, and leaving it un-friendslocked, since people showed an interest in reading! Uhhh, I suppose I should add in a summary of the plot and world and characters, huh? So. Here!
Crossed is a fantasy story partially inspired by Slayers (I got the idea for this novel early in Slayers REVOLUTION's run, shortly after Xelloss first appeared) set in a world with humans and various other races, demon-like beings called Masoks, and angel-like beings called Devas. The Masoks feed on negative human emotion, and the Devas are bolstered by positive human emotion, so the Masoks tend towards goals of causing chaos, strife, fear, aggression, and so on, while the Devas work towards concord, or at least worship and faith towards them. The Masoks and Devas are also something akin to ancestral enemies, so they hate each other and generally want each other to die. Each side is trying to wipe out the other, and the Masoks are elementally based (earth, wind, fire, water) while the Devas are based on the Sun/light and the Moon/darkness. The way I built the world, I decided to start from the inside out--the first place I created was the setting in the first few chapters, and I built out progressively from there. The main countries are the Amber Empire, which is Japanese in flavor, and the Kingdom of Linore, which is a more typically European countries. Both are in possession of holy weapons, but because of a major attack on the city of Galway ten years prior, which was an attempt at bridging the two countries by having people from both of them mix freely, tensions are high and mounting between the both of them, which is suffusing nearby other countries too.
The top Masok hierarchia is as follows:
Dark King Scarlet-Sayer Akashatheremin (or possibly Akashitheremin, I still haven't quite decided which looks better), the dark lord with element: void
Grand Lord Terroir Vie Marche, the Grand Lords being the top four Masoks immediately beneath the Dark King and the Terror Vie being the leader of them, element: earth
Grand Lord Cumulachnid Fantaisie, #2 in this outfit and the most intelligent, element: wind
Grand Lord Lavakaiser Rhaps, #3 and the most fanatically loyal, element: fire
Grand Lord Deep Depress Threno, #4 and the strongest, element: water
The top Deva hierarchia:
Heaven King Dios Orrery, the Sun god and Light Deva
Heaven King Kouroi Sophia, Moon goddess and Dark Deva
Orgia Dynast Energy Core Corona, Light Deva
Orgia Dynast Paleospiral Ammon, Light Deva
Orgia Dynast Word Mask Anagram, Dark Deva
Orgia Dynast Astronochild Nasca, Dark Deva
(As a note, originally they were called High Lords, but I hated this title, and recently decided to change it to Orgia Dynast. This hasn't been changed in the uploaded chapters themselves, though, so please keep that in mind.)
The main characters are Pamela, a cheerful, friendly, humanitarian teenage girl, and Zen, her cold-hearted, aloof jerk of a magic instructor. She's a former servant, and he is an extremely powerful sorceror. The details of how exactly they met are a ~spoiler~, but once they were thrown together, they're now stuck together--bound, as the first chapter's title states. The conflict in the story arises when they come across a Masok plot, and get thrown into it.
Pamela, more specifically, is really rather plain-looking--as Zen describes her, she's pretty at best on a good day, and most days are not very good to her. Brown hair, hazel eyes, 16 years old, around 5'2" or so if I remember correctly, with a slightly underdeveloped figure. She decided to follow Zen after they met, in large part because she had nowhere to go back to after the events that bound them together, and get him to teach her magic. She is, at her core, a rather insecure person who wants to be cared about and special. She tries to make up for it by being bold and decisive in doing what she believes is right, and she has some pretty strong beliefs. This irritates the hell out of Zen, since they tend to have opposing beliefs, particularly since she has figured out the best way to defeat his attempts to condescend to her is to act like she doesn't even care--to get over it, and spite him by being cheerful and positive, even when in reality, she's very hurt. She can be sassy and sarcastic too, for the same reasons, but is clever and an attentive student, so at least in that function, they get along well. She has a bad habit of doing utterly reckless things without fully thinking them through, particularly if she wants to force Zen's hand into helping her do what she believes is the right thing but is not really capable of doing on her own because of how weak she is. She used to be a timid person, and bottled up her feelings to a very unhealthy degree. The strength of her personality now is a result of her releasing the stopper. She thinks Zen is a douchebag (and rightly so), but sticks with him because being with him makes her feel special, even if she claims to like him.
Zen, conversely, is a powerful sorceror and wealthy lord of a land to the far west called Stratos, who looks like he's in his late twenties/early thirties. He's extremely handsome with black hair and vivid green eyes, stands at about 6'2" (again if I remember correctly), wears well-tailored black clothes with green and gold trim, is also a decently accomplished swordsman (there are other characters who are much better), and he is terribly unhappy about this whole situation about being bound to Pamela, a (in his opinion) rather dull, irritating peasant girl who is at least intelligent enough not to make him completely hate everything forever. He's highly intelligent and cunning, but is cold-hearted and aloof as well, and frankly doesn't care if other people get hurt, a stark contrast to how Pamela wants to save/help people if they're in danger/trouble. He, however, is extremely mindful of when Pamela puts herself in danger. He won't lift a finger to help her if she just trips over a tree root, for example, but if she puts herself into a situation where she will definitely get killed and/or gravely injured if he doesn't do something, he will save her without fail because he has little other choice, and resents Pamela for forcing him into those situations. He would like nothing more than to be rid of her, and so is frequently cold to her, though he takes her seriously enough when teaching her magic, if only because it's a way to pass the time while they're traveling together. There is something else of note about Zen which is revealed fairly early on, but I think it's more fun if readers find it out in reading the story.
Other major characters, antagonistic or otherwise, include (in order of appearance) Dao, the adjutant of the Cumulachnid (akin to a general/priest of the Mazoku in Slayers, except I didn't want to blatantly steal the concept; I am also open for a better term for this position); Amon Rolandsveld, a master swordsman who is the Chosen of Corona; Laplace, a Dark Deva serving Nasca; Thorn, an outcast boy rumored to be a demon; and Cassy, his similarly outcast human/only friend and rumored witch.
Chapter 2: Mask
Chapter 3: Fantasia
[UPDATED!] Chapter 4: Intrigue
[UPDATED!] Chapter 5: Judgment
[UPDATED!] Chapter 6: Turnabout
[UPDATED!] Chapter 7: Amen
[UPDATED/NEW!] Chapter 8: Guilt
Finally got to re-writing Chapter 8. Chapters 4-7 are not really that much different, but some key plot drops had to be re-worked to suit what ended up actually happening, because the new chapter 8 is almost completely different from the old one. It's written just about entirely from Amon's perspective, and also gives several flashbacks as to what he was doing and how he ended up doing what he did. I'll also have to rewrite what I've done so far for chapter nine, so that'll take a while longer, but I intend on working on that tomorrow.
Posting everything I've written so far, and leaving it un-friendslocked, since people showed an interest in reading! Uhhh, I suppose I should add in a summary of the plot and world and characters, huh? So. Here!
Crossed is a fantasy story partially inspired by Slayers (I got the idea for this novel early in Slayers REVOLUTION's run, shortly after Xelloss first appeared) set in a world with humans and various other races, demon-like beings called Masoks, and angel-like beings called Devas. The Masoks feed on negative human emotion, and the Devas are bolstered by positive human emotion, so the Masoks tend towards goals of causing chaos, strife, fear, aggression, and so on, while the Devas work towards concord, or at least worship and faith towards them. The Masoks and Devas are also something akin to ancestral enemies, so they hate each other and generally want each other to die. Each side is trying to wipe out the other, and the Masoks are elementally based (earth, wind, fire, water) while the Devas are based on the Sun/light and the Moon/darkness. The way I built the world, I decided to start from the inside out--the first place I created was the setting in the first few chapters, and I built out progressively from there. The main countries are the Amber Empire, which is Japanese in flavor, and the Kingdom of Linore, which is a more typically European countries. Both are in possession of holy weapons, but because of a major attack on the city of Galway ten years prior, which was an attempt at bridging the two countries by having people from both of them mix freely, tensions are high and mounting between the both of them, which is suffusing nearby other countries too.
The top Masok hierarchia is as follows:
Dark King Scarlet-Sayer Akashatheremin (or possibly Akashitheremin, I still haven't quite decided which looks better), the dark lord with element: void
Grand Lord Terroir Vie Marche, the Grand Lords being the top four Masoks immediately beneath the Dark King and the Terror Vie being the leader of them, element: earth
Grand Lord Cumulachnid Fantaisie, #2 in this outfit and the most intelligent, element: wind
Grand Lord Lavakaiser Rhaps, #3 and the most fanatically loyal, element: fire
Grand Lord Deep Depress Threno, #4 and the strongest, element: water
The top Deva hierarchia:
Heaven King Dios Orrery, the Sun god and Light Deva
Heaven King Kouroi Sophia, Moon goddess and Dark Deva
Orgia Dynast Energy Core Corona, Light Deva
Orgia Dynast Paleospiral Ammon, Light Deva
Orgia Dynast Word Mask Anagram, Dark Deva
Orgia Dynast Astronochild Nasca, Dark Deva
(As a note, originally they were called High Lords, but I hated this title, and recently decided to change it to Orgia Dynast. This hasn't been changed in the uploaded chapters themselves, though, so please keep that in mind.)
The main characters are Pamela, a cheerful, friendly, humanitarian teenage girl, and Zen, her cold-hearted, aloof jerk of a magic instructor. She's a former servant, and he is an extremely powerful sorceror. The details of how exactly they met are a ~spoiler~, but once they were thrown together, they're now stuck together--bound, as the first chapter's title states. The conflict in the story arises when they come across a Masok plot, and get thrown into it.
Pamela, more specifically, is really rather plain-looking--as Zen describes her, she's pretty at best on a good day, and most days are not very good to her. Brown hair, hazel eyes, 16 years old, around 5'2" or so if I remember correctly, with a slightly underdeveloped figure. She decided to follow Zen after they met, in large part because she had nowhere to go back to after the events that bound them together, and get him to teach her magic. She is, at her core, a rather insecure person who wants to be cared about and special. She tries to make up for it by being bold and decisive in doing what she believes is right, and she has some pretty strong beliefs. This irritates the hell out of Zen, since they tend to have opposing beliefs, particularly since she has figured out the best way to defeat his attempts to condescend to her is to act like she doesn't even care--to get over it, and spite him by being cheerful and positive, even when in reality, she's very hurt. She can be sassy and sarcastic too, for the same reasons, but is clever and an attentive student, so at least in that function, they get along well. She has a bad habit of doing utterly reckless things without fully thinking them through, particularly if she wants to force Zen's hand into helping her do what she believes is the right thing but is not really capable of doing on her own because of how weak she is. She used to be a timid person, and bottled up her feelings to a very unhealthy degree. The strength of her personality now is a result of her releasing the stopper. She thinks Zen is a douchebag (and rightly so), but sticks with him because being with him makes her feel special, even if she claims to like him.
Zen, conversely, is a powerful sorceror and wealthy lord of a land to the far west called Stratos, who looks like he's in his late twenties/early thirties. He's extremely handsome with black hair and vivid green eyes, stands at about 6'2" (again if I remember correctly), wears well-tailored black clothes with green and gold trim, is also a decently accomplished swordsman (there are other characters who are much better), and he is terribly unhappy about this whole situation about being bound to Pamela, a (in his opinion) rather dull, irritating peasant girl who is at least intelligent enough not to make him completely hate everything forever. He's highly intelligent and cunning, but is cold-hearted and aloof as well, and frankly doesn't care if other people get hurt, a stark contrast to how Pamela wants to save/help people if they're in danger/trouble. He, however, is extremely mindful of when Pamela puts herself in danger. He won't lift a finger to help her if she just trips over a tree root, for example, but if she puts herself into a situation where she will definitely get killed and/or gravely injured if he doesn't do something, he will save her without fail because he has little other choice, and resents Pamela for forcing him into those situations. He would like nothing more than to be rid of her, and so is frequently cold to her, though he takes her seriously enough when teaching her magic, if only because it's a way to pass the time while they're traveling together. There is something else of note about Zen which is revealed fairly early on, but I think it's more fun if readers find it out in reading the story.
Other major characters, antagonistic or otherwise, include (in order of appearance) Dao, the adjutant of the Cumulachnid (akin to a general/priest of the Mazoku in Slayers, except I didn't want to blatantly steal the concept; I am also open for a better term for this position); Amon Rolandsveld, a master swordsman who is the Chosen of Corona; Laplace, a Dark Deva serving Nasca; Thorn, an outcast boy rumored to be a demon; and Cassy, his similarly outcast human/only friend and rumored witch.