A novel… on twitter…

I’ve been struck by the strangest of ideas, one that’s got me all twitter pated.

I mentioned in a facebook post yesterday that a modern epistolary novel would be told using various social media outlets, and today the possibility came to me out of the blue. Write a novel using twitter. No one sentence can be over 140 characters, and it all has to be posted on twitter. It’s a project that could take months… starting of course with some idea to get a novel going in that direction. The last epistolary novel I read, and liked, was Dracula… so, maybe something along those lines.

A horror novel written on twitter… I don’t think it’s a breakthrough idea, but I think it might work, at least to get me a few more followers. lol.

To the drawing board!!!

Ryan

7-13-14

Bad Wolf, story stater...

So, what follows is the first little segment I wrote of the novel I'm working on for publication later this year. I wrote this about two years ago, and am just now getting back to it. Lol.

Enjoy:

Azariels's head throbbed as he sat up. He felt the warmth of his flesh through the palm of his hand, and knew the light would sting his eyes when he opened them. Still it had to be done.

Pain flared, momentarily, and a small tavern room opened up to him when the lights cleared a little. There had been drink last night, and plenty of it, and now he was sitting on a rough mattress with a wool blanket pooled around his waist. He didn't have to look to know the innkeeper's daughter was laying to his left. She was a young thing, Azariel also knew, between fifteen and seventeen summers, and there would be blood staining the mattress. The elf smiled at this last bit, and wondered just how many virginal notches that made on his belt.

Still, there was a time to make a quiet exit, and that time was vanishing as fast as Sol rising in the sky. He was out of bed, his pants and tunic on when the heavy fists fell on the door.

“Felicia!” The innkeeper called in the gruff and grizzled voice of an old soldier.

Felicia, a dainty redhead, shot up into a sitting position, her wide eyes staring at the door.

“Damn it,” Azariel said.

“Felicia, open this door!” There was no pounding this time but Azariel heard the click as a crossbow was drawn and its bolt set. He checked the catch on his belt, making sure it was secure, and slid both his knives back into their sheathes at his hips. He grabbed his rusted greatsword, a weapon as blunt as the side of a tree and broken down to the length of a longsword, he slid it into the frogs on his back, leaving it open to the world, and started for the window.

“You're leaving?” Felicia said, panic in her voice. The night was coming down around her, no doubt.

“I'm a big fan of not getting shot with a crossbow,” Azariel said. He lifted the window and looked out. They were two stories up, and the nearest building, a little general store, was more than thirty feet away. Straight down was the answer, painful maybe, but necessary.

“We can explain it to him,” Felicia said, her voice pleading, dancing towards hysteria. “We can tell him we're in love!”

Azariel looked back at her for a moment. She was beautiful with skin the color of alabaster, and great big green eyes. Her hair was like the sun setting on the horizon, and had been the thing that attracted him to her in the first place. He considered it, considered staying with her, and decided against it within a period of two seconds.

The door exploded inwards, the knob ripping off and splinters flew in every direction. The innkeeper stepped in, a man six feet tall and built like a dwarf with a beard to match. He leveled the crossbow and fired within heartbeat of the door opening. The bolt whistled through the air. It hit the wood of the window sill hard enough to throw another series of splinters into the air. Azariel stared at it for a moment and the two inches that separated it from his hand.

“No, daddy!” Felicia said. She flung the covers aside and charged her father. “I love him! Please no!”

“I'll kill ya!” the bartender bellowed and yanked the string back on the crossbow faster than anyone Azariel had ever seen.

“Yeah,” he said, and set his foot on the window sill. He ducked his head and kicked. The elf flew, his back and legs straight as an arrow, and his arms out like the feathered fletching. He turned in the air, rolling head over heels, and landed in a crouch. His ankle yelled at the contact, but Azariel was up in short order. Another crossbow bolt struck the ground, kicking up dust.

“I'll kill ya! Ya damned elf!” The bartender said. Azariel glanced back, saw the innkeeper was already loading another bolt. Still the elf couldn't resist himself.

Azariel spun on his heel, sweeping both arms out, and the left back in as he bent at the waist. He flipped his shoulder length blonde hair over the top of his head and made a show of flipping it back. He straightened and locked eyes with the innkeeper. The man had his crossbow leveled and sighted. Still Azariel smiled, a devils grin. He could see Felicia over her father's shoulder. She was tugging on his arm, trying to get him to stop.

“I wish you luck in your endeavor, kind sir,” Azariel said, the devils grin never leaving his face. “My name is Azariel Athendash. Though, I'm unable to face off with you today, I hope you seek me out. I could use a good challenge.”

With that Azariel ducked and spun. He heard the bolt impact where he had just been standing. The barkeep would be loading another bolt by now, but Azariel's legs were swift, and carried him out of the crossbow's range, and around the corner of the general store. He slowed to a walk as he moved towards another cluster of buildings closer to the town wall. He'd stored his gear under one of the two watch towers, and it was time to retrieve it. It was time to move on from this little hovel, time to move on to bigger and better conquests. Maybe a city.

And, there's a bit more too it, but I think I'll post the rest of it elsewhere then here. On Watt Pad or Medium, maybe DeviantArt. Or maybe all three. Anywho, when I do post it, I'll make sure you all have links. And, I hope you all can't wait for the book!!!

Ryan

6-19-14

Good NEWS!!!

Today was supposed to be a blog post about Han Solo, but I think I'm going to hold off on that post till tomorrow.

Why?

Because I have good news that I can and can't tell you about.

What's the good news I can tell you about?

Well, I'm starting work on a new book. It's a fantasy story that encapsulates one of my number one favorite Dungeons and Dragons game moments. I would tell you what that moment is, but it would ruin the story. Let's just say that it involves a halfing and a dragon. Yes... it get's you all excited doesn't it?

Anyway, what's the good news I can't tell you?

That would be the publication date of this story. I have a date in mind, and my calenders and goals are all marked towards this, but I'm not going to get to far ahead of myself.

All I will say now is that I am going to self publish this book, and I hope to have it on the market by the time fall rolls around. We'll see how that goes with me working on it and what not. And, I'll let you know more the closer I get to my goal.

Also, if there's an artist in the audience who would be willing to work for next to nothing I need to get some cover art for the book. That might have to wait though.

Anyway, peace out.

Ryan

6-18-14

First Novels: Raising Kain

I've said this with other posts, but yes, this is the third time I've sat down to work on this post. I have a valid reason though. I didn't like the way the first one started, and I started the second about five minutes before the end of my break. Had I realized that at the time, I wouldn't have started it then.

Either way, we have this post going now, so I'll just keep on writing.

The reason I didn't like what I had first written is because I was trying to pass off wise and sage advice. Then I looked at it, and knew I shouldn't be giving such advice. It's not that I don't have experience in the situation I'm bringing up. I just don't feel that I've matured enough from that experience to really be able to see it from all angles.

So, all I can really do is tell you about my experience with “first novels”.

I started writing Raising Kain after I read the how-to book Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print. (It's a very good how-to book, and is something I would suggest any writer, new to the craft or not, pick up.) Also, the name of the author is Lawrence Block. What helped me get started on my novel wasn't really what inspired the novel. It was more of a connection I felt with the writer. The way he was talking about his writing experiences the more I felt like I could see myself in that role, experiencing the things he experienced. Then he talked about his early writing habits.

Lawrence Block wrote soft core sex novels for the first few years of his career. He would write two of these a month. He'd do twenty pages a day Monday through Friday, not write anything on the weekends, then finish the book the next work week.

I don't know what possessed me, but I thought “Yeah! I can do this!” (I would also like to note that my first novel was not a soft core sex book.) So, I sat down, on a Monday I think, with a small idea about a boy who becomes the greatest hero in Atlantis, and I knocked out twenty pages. Tuesday (day two or whatever, I don't remember the days of the week) I knocked out another twenty pages. (If you're wondering, twenty pages equals some 6,000 words, not a number to be laughed at.) Both days I walked away from the computer exhausted and broken. It took almost every hour I was awake to write that much.

After that, I didn't touch the book for a week.

I was burnt out on it. I didn't think about it. I didn't want to think about it. All I wanted to do was shut it out of my mind. It wouldn't go away, thankfully.

That next Monday (using that day because Monday is a good day to start things, I guess) and I wrote more on the story. I didn't write twenty pages. I think I wrote five, and instead of walking away from the book like I'd gone eight rounds with Mike Tyson, I walked away feeling good. I felt accomplished, and that's the way it went for the rest of the book. I wrote a little each day, and inch my inch the novel got done.

I loved that novel.

I still love that novel.

And, I found out not too long after I finished writing it that it wasn't even really a novel. It tapped out at forty-eight thousand words, and your average novel starts at sixty-thousand words or so. Yeah, I was kind of crushed.

I still consider it my first novel though. And, I still fondly remember writing it. The only thing that makes me really sad is that I need to keep it hidden in a chest for fear that someone might read it. Lol. Not because I don't think it's good, I absolutely love the story, it's because of the way my writing style has evolved. Raising Kain very much looks like it was written by a child coming out of the sixth grade.

Now, I've ran my mouth on for far longer than I expected too. So, I'm going to shut up, and maybe continue to tell the tales of my first novels.

Ryan

5-8-14

My Cupcake

My topic for today was supposed to be skinwalkers, and while I have that post half written I think I’ll wait and post it tomorrow. I’ve got something else to talk about today. Something that I feel is quite inspirational.

Let me see if I can set the stage for it, so you can feel the same way about it.

I think off and on (a dangerous prospect) about what I’ve accomplished in my life and all the potential I feel has been wasted. When I think about these things I get quite morose, and one of the number one subject I think about is school.

I messed up in college. I really did. I know most of the blame for that falls at the feet of a diseased I will mention no further, but I still feel the fault is mine. I could have fought back and worked towards the potential I thought I had. Well, the potential I know I had. Don’t get me wrong, I accomplished a lot. I graduated, and I have a bachelor’s degree at my house waiting to be framed and put on the wall in my office. But, it wasn’t bachelor’s degree I wanted. It wasn’t any of the degrees I wanted.

And, that’s what I was thinking about last night. I was missing being in school, knowing I could do better, especially now with all the steps forward I’ve taken. I was thinking about the degree programs I could apply myself to now with the same discipline and energy I put towards keeping up with my daily goals. I thought of several.

I want an associate’s degree in forensic psychology and addiction counseling because of my interest in the field of psychology.

I want an associate’s degree in software and web design because my sister inspired me to go for that field. And, I made a promise to a friend that I would design a program that made a DM’s life a just a little easier. He’s gone now, but I’m going to keep that promise.

I want to finish all the bachelor’s programs I started. The history and English focuses in literature and writing. And, I want to get a bachelor’s in psychology for the same reason I want the associates.

There are even two master’s programs I want to go through. I want an MFA in creative writing, focusing in particular on writing novels. And, I want a master’s psychology, again, that’s because of the same reason I want the associate’s and the bachelor’s.

Those wants and desires right there require one thing above even the determination I could put into those programs. They require money, a literal mountain of money.

And, that kind of brings us around to the point I wanted to say about my cupcake. She came into my writing room and stood beside me and asked why I was down. I told her about the school thing and about how much it was cost, and she looked at me and said two words: Then Write.

Then write.

Like the answer was as plain as the nose on her face, so much was said in those two words; so many feelings that I don’t even know how to describe them, but she knew the answer as she always does. I doubted myself, and my ability to make a career out of writing. But, she doesn’t doubt it. And, I don’t think she ever has.

Then write.

Words really can the world, and now that mine’s been changed, I need to get to work.

Thank you Cupcake, for everything you’ve done and everything you will ever do for me. Thank you for being able to see that little flickering flame inside of me, and knowing exactly how to feed it. I will write, and I will make you proud of me, and that one thing is what will make me happiest in this world. I love you.

Ryan

4-3-14

Stephen King

First off, if there is a god of literature somewhere out in the cosmos his name is Stephen King, if that’s any indication of what I think of the man. Lol.

Yes, Stephen King is one of my top three favorite writers, and without a doubt he is the best, stylistically speaking, of the three. The stories he weaves with his web of words are above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I can only hope to be nearly as good as he is.

And, now, to get my nose out of his crack, I should try and find something new to say about the man.

He’s one of the most prolific authors of our time, publishing at least one book a year every year since Carrie was published in 1974. 1974 was the same year Dungeons and Dragons was first introduced to the world, and both D&D and Carrie are now forty years old. Well… technically, Carrie won’t hit the big four-o until April 5^th. Exactly one month away from the time of this writing.

At one point I had hoped and prayed that my writing career would mirror Stephen King’s. I had hoped to be published the year I turned 24 (King’s age when Carrie sold), and I’ve hoped to be published every year since then. I’ve not really done a lot of work in that direction though. I mean, I’ve got six novels written (first draft at least), but I’ve only got one to the point where I considered it finished. And, I stopped trying to sell that one some time ago.

That’s really my problem too. The reason that I haven’t succeeded thus far is because I haven’t tried. (That’s usually a good reason for not succeeding.) But, in all seriousness I gave it a half hearted attempt what feels like ages ago, and I’ve talked a big game since then. How I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that, but I’ve put no effort behind it.

I think I’m scared.

I really do.

I think I’m afraid of putting myself out there and finding out that nobody likes it. And, worse, that people will say bad things about it.

I know that’s a damned stupid thing to be afraid of. Everybody has an opinion, and that opinion isn’t always going to agree with what I’m thinking. So, basically, being afraid of hearing other people’s opinions is kind of like not eating because you’re afraid of choking. I saw that on a meme somewhere. Jason David Frank’s facebook page I believe, but where I found it doesn’t matter. I should listen to it. I should stop being afraid of these things and move on with my life. At the rate I’m going I’ll never have the career I want.

So… yeah… That post didn’t go anywhere near where I thought it would go.

As for working Stephen King into my game I have a couple of options. I can use him as an NPC (lol). I could possibly work one of his monsters into an adventure maybe even having it be the primary antagonist (“We all float down here, Georgie. And, when you’re down here, you’ll float too!”). And, then there’s the simplest way to do it. I can use him as an inspiration to move both my life forward and take my Dungeons and Dragons game one or two steps down a much more terrifying flight of stairs.

Ryan

3-5-14

Frankenstein

Is a novel by Mary Shelley, and it is one of the first intentional works of both science fiction and horror. Though, I believe it was categorized as a romance back when it was written. This categorization isn’t because the novel is a Harlequin bodice ripper, but because it was a work of fiction. Basically, you had two types (or genres) of novels, those that were based on actual factual events, such as travel logs or biographies, and those that were not (Frankenstein). Though, even Frankenstein has some basis in reality.

During the time the novel was written there was a natural philosopher (physical scientist) by the name of Giovanni Aldini. Aldini experimented with electricity and the human body to try and animate dead flesh by running an electrical current through it. These attempts succeeded to an extent. Running an electrical current through a corpse will cause the muscles to spasm and jerk, but there was no restoration of life (and not a single mention of a zombie). And, while the method of animation was not described in the book, it is implied that electricity was involved in the experiment. This also runs along the same lines as the multiple plays and movies based off the novel where the experiment itself occurs during an electrical storm and Dr. Frankenstein uses a lightning rod to harness the power of a bolt of lightning.

The novel could also have multiple inspirations coming straight from mythology. In a way it mirrors two of these tales. One being the story of Pygmalion and his statue named Galatea who was brought to life by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and lust. Then there’s the tale of the golem in Jewish folklore, where clay, stone, or mud are shaped into a humanoid form and a piece of paper with the Hebrew word “shem” (one of the names of God) and was inserted in to the mouth or forehead of the golem. This act animated the golem, but did not give life, as God is the only one with the power to give life to the unliving.

As for working Frankenstein into a Dungeons & Dragons game, there is little more to it than opening the Monster Manual, Frankenstein’s monster, the flesh golem, was one of the original monsters included in the game, albeit the Dungeons and Dragons flesh golem lacks the intelligence Frankenstein’s monster developed over the course of the novel. The flesh golem is much more like the monster shown in the many movies and plays that have been based on the novel.

To get an actual representation of the monster (its name is not Frankenstein, just saying) you would need to craft the flesh golem (meaning you’re probably a necromancer, it’s not a requirement, but a likely path considering the nature of the construction materials), then once the monster is animated use a spell called Awaken.

Awaken is a spell that “awakens” an animal, plant, or construct by giving it an intelligence score higher than three. And, in the case of the plant, it generates an intelligence score, a wisdom score, and a charisma score. Animals have intelligence scores, usually below three, which makes them unsuitable as player characters, but with awaken they’re intelligence score is increased above three (the base minimum for intelligence) changing its type from animal to magical beast, animals also come with a wisdom and a charisma score. Constructs lack intelligence, completely, their intelligence score in a statistics block actually reads Int—. Awakening them generates an intelligence score (3d6), and it gives them the living construct subtype.

So, now I’ve got things set up for a particularly nasty villain, or a potential player character. But, that’s not really the way I plan on using it right now. No, the closest I’m getting to putting a flesh golem in the game (for right now) is a short story I’ve been working on. It’s called Respect for the Dead and the protagonist, Phelix Goldleaf, is fighting against one. Even more so than the undead he’s also fighting against, Phelix feels that the flesh golem is the most obscene thing done with the corpses of the dead. Mainly because it inflicts such disrespect on the former bodies turned into construction materials. And, if I talk about it too much more I’ll give away what happens in the story and then nobody would want to read it.

So, on that note, I shall talk to you all later.

Ryan

3-3-14/3-4-14

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Five

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four

Raising Kain: Diseased God

Chapter Five

Kain woke up, still exhausted from the five day stint of screaming his head off, a grumbling stomach roused him from his slumber though. He was surprised for the first few moment of consciousness, surprised he was still alive. The surprise wore off quickly, though, as soon as he saw Gaia.

She sat dozing against a large stone, and a small stream trickled down beside them, gurgling in concert with Gaia’s deep breathing. He looked into the stream, watching white water bounce back off the rocks, and staring at the tiny minnows swimming to and fro like they were small seafood platters.

Kain caught his reflection in the starlit water and for the second time since waking his eyes widened in surprise. As he sat on the sandy bank, he realized it was a little boy looking back at him from his rippled reflection, instead of his fierce draconic features.

She must have force converted me back, he thought. He had heard of force conversions taking place before, but never understood how they could work. The decision to change from one form to another was an entirely conscious, and sometimes unconscious, decision. It took an act of personal will power to do or stop at anytime. Any person who could start a forced conversion must be able to reach into the mind of the person they are trying to transform.

Kain decided he would keep his mental guard up at all times, especially around Gaia. He didn’t want her to be able to pluck any thought out of his head at any moment.

Kain looked back toward Gaia, and found there was now a fire burning between the two of them. Just a small fire for camping and roasting a little bit of meat and fruit, nothing like the fires he had seen roaring in the palace’s kitchens, and equally dwarfed by the fires he had once seen burning in the Dwarven forges. His father had taken him down there once, but Kain couldn’t remember what for, or even what the dwarves themselves looked like. All he remembered of it now was the blazing towering inferno and the molten metals poured into them.

No, this fire was nothing like that.

A wiff of something sweet with a light pinch of cinnamon jerked Kain’s attention from the fire itself to what was cooking overtop of it. The smell was that of roasting meat, and he found there were two spits with oddly shaped, skinned animals jammed down onto them.

His stomach groaned at the sight and smell of food so near, but his mind whirled in a detached fashion. Just a moment ago, when he had noticed the fire, there had been nothing roasting overtop of it, and before that, when he woke up, there had been no fire between him and Gaia.

“Yes, little boy,” Gaia said, her eyes still closed. “I made the fire and the food appear. Eat your fill.”

“I thought I couldn’t have everything I wanted?” Kain asked, not trusting his supposed tutor.

“It would not serve my purposes to have you starve to death out here in the woods, now would it?” Gaia answered with a question of her own. “And, besides, you seemed to function well enough to attack me on only one meal in the last five days. So, until you learn how to hunt for yourself, I will feed you once every five days.”

“Why’re you doing this?” Kain asked.

“Because you are to be my student,” Gaia said. “We have already started on lesson number one. Eat your fill and we will continue.”

Kain looked back out into the starry night sky that hung over them like an elaborate tapestry.

The moon was out tonight, a waxing gibbous, the phase next to the full moon, the three nights of his mother’s greatest powers here on the planet. Kain wondered if Celita was concentrating enough on her physical aspect to see through it, he wondered if she would be able to look down at him and see he needed her and father. Kain doubted it.

The sunset haired boy turned back to Gaia, and moved to sit down by the fire. He plucked one of the spits up from the rock it leaned against and dug in.

Right now, he didn’t care what type of meat it was; his mouth would have watered for it the same had Gaia told him it was rat (somewhere deep inside his mind he figured it was anyway). She didn’t tell him that though. Instead, she came to sit beside the fire.

She manifested a cup, had it fill itself in the spring, and set itself down in front of Kain. Between mouthfuls of meat he would take a drink, but the level of the cup never seemed to change. The same thing went for the food.

When Gaia said “eat your fill,” she obviously understood he would need more than two scrawny little animals to fill him up. Instead, every time he set the spit down, he found there were still two critters happily roasting over the fire, just waiting for him to bite into them.

“So,” Kain said, his voice unsure of whether he really wanted to know the answer to the question he was about to ask. “Why did you take me from my mom and dad?”

“It’s complicated, little one,” Gaia said. Her tone of voice had been the same silk like tone she used before. “But, I’m going to try to explain it to you as simply as I can. And, don’t think I’m telling you because you asked. I’m going to tell you because I think you have a right to know even though you’re just as bound by the situation as I am.

“Eons ago, long before you were born, maybe it was before Atlantis was founded, but I’m not sure about that. Anyway, a man called The Writer called the Four Aspects of Life together; when we all came to him, he told us our powers would wane as we existed, and that, eventually, we would no longer be able to fulfill the duties we were to perform as Aspects. In short, our powers as the Aspects would run dry, and we would be forced to retire to life as gods and goddesses of the things we once represented. Though, even as deities we would remain tremendously powerful, but not able to continue doing as we had since time immemorial. So, The Writer had come up with a solution…”

“Who’s the writer?” Kain asked.

“Kain please don’t interrupt me again.” She didn’t look at him as she said it, but Kain could tell his interruption had angered her, though only slightly. “But, The Writer is a very powerful and ancient being. There is even some debate that he, and those of his kind, are even older than the Two Pillars of Existence, but that is not pertinent to what we’re talking about right now.

“So, where was I…? Right, The Writer had come up with a solution. What he decided was that since we would eventually become incapable of performing our duties as the Aspects and if we were incapable of performing those duties, the world as we know it would cease to exist. It would be necessary for someone to replace us. He decided the best people to train our replacements would be us, and then he set about deciding who would be our apprentices.”

Kain fidgeted as Gaia talked. Part of him wanted to try to escape while she sat reminiscing about times long past. The rest of him, though, was held enraptured both by the story and by her voice. Most of him also wanted to know: Why him?

“We were given no part of this decision,” Gaia said, continuing without showing any sign of irritation at Kain’s fidgeting. “It was a cruel and odd thing for him to do to us. Most of us had been in existence for millennia, and even though he was incalculably older than us, we didn’t like it when anybody decided what we should do, or how we should go about doing it.

“He sat there in his chair, turning pages in his book, barely breathing, and making all of us want to strike out at him. Believe it or not, none of us had much patience at that time, and now only Celita and Sola have essentially the same amount of patience we had then. Finally, he spoke eight names out of his aged tome. Four of them were ours, and four of them our successors. He said our names one at a time, and in between each of us, he inserted the name of our successors. When he said my name, he told me you were my successor, and out of all of those chosen to succeed us, he told me you would be the most important, and the most difficult.”

Gaia smiled as she finished. It was a playful smile, and Kain smiled right back at her, his mouth full of half chewed meat.

“Now, do you understand why I had to take you from Celita and Ouranus?” Gaia asked.

“No,” Kain said swallowing his last bite, and setting down the spit. “Why did you let a crusty old guy like the writer tell you what to do, and why did you listen?”

Gaia broke into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It went on for several minutes. She managed to bring herself under control enough to look at Kain, and give him a half-sneer, half-genuine smile. “Your parents have obviously taught you absolutely nothing about the way our world works, have they?”

Kain gave her an odd look, he wondered if she meant to ask him such an absurd question. Of course, they had taught him how the world they lived in worked. Atlantis was at the top, and those who ruled Atlantis could do whatever they wanted. There was nothing and no one who could tell any Atlantean ruler what to do, and they certainly couldn’t tell his father it was necessary for Gaia to take him away from his family.

One other thing bugged Kain, though; it was something the he had caught while eavesdropping on his mother and Gaia a year or two before.

“What did my mother mean when she said your last student died during training?” Kain asked.

“You heard that?” Gaia said. She sighed, and didn’t let Kain answer. “My last student made a mistake, and I made even more. He went up against a foe that was far beyond him, and that foe destroyed what he was. He didn’t die per say, but he was no longer my student, and no longer the person he was when I began training him.”

“Well, little one,” Gaia said, stopping Kain from asking any further questions. “You are going to need to get some sleep, you’ve got a big day ahead of you, and I hope you ate your fill. What I said earlier stands, you won’t eat for five more days until you learn to hunt for yourself.”

“But, I’m not sleepy.” Kain managed to say before Gaia brushed her hand across the small boy’s temple. As soon as she removed her hand a heavy drowsy feeling overcame Kain, and it was just a few short seconds before he fell into the vast abyss of sleep.

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Yarn

So, earlier today, I sat down to write my blog post. It was a post about yarn. Well, it was supposed to be a post about yarn. What it turned into is not something I want to go through again. So, we’ll go back to the original topic.

Yarn. What is it?

Google defines Yarn in two ways. First it says that yarn is a spun thread that is used in knitting, weaving, or sewing. And, second it describes yarn as a long or rambling implausible story. I agree with both statements.

In a way, I’ve been obsessed with yarn for the last few years. While I was still in college, (taking weaving classes at the time, I believe) I came up with the idea of working with yarn professionally. Basically running my own little internet store, where people could come and commission different types of yarn based products (so long as they didn’t involve knitting) and I would satisfy that commission to the best of my ability. I’m actually rather good at crocheting, and I can weave some… though it’s been a long time. And, it’s still something I think about doing.

Just a fun little on the side business where I make blue and black scarves for Mingo Central’s football games for just a tiny bit of profit. Or do a series of blankets/afghans/something big and sell them on ebay or what not. But, I’ve never done that. I think it’s because I’m not that dedicated to the idea of the yarn business. It’s just not something I see putting my whole life into.

But, in a way it is.

I want to write stories for a living. I want to look into my dreams and show the people the magic that hides right behind the clouds on the bright sunshiny day. I want to show them the terror in the bent broken tree with its shadow crawling across the courtyard… getting ever closer to your shoe… I wonder what would happen… (I just got chills. lol) And, now I want to keep going with that idea. Lol.

I want to write yarns. I want my stories, as improbable as they might be, I want to see them spread far and wide. I do want to dedicate my life to yarn. And, I guess today is as good a day as any to do it.

For the last 8 years my New Year’s Resolution has been the same thing. I want to get a book published. I want to get a book published. I want to get a book published. I’m going to stop wanting this year. I’m going to stop failing at that one little resolution. I’m going to be a published author by the end of 2014 if it kills me. I might not be making my money living off of what I write, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to supplement my income in just that fashion.

And, this still isn’t the fun, lighthearted post I wanted it to be. It’s serious, and it’s one of those breaking point moments. They’ve come this far and no farther, and all that hubbub. (I think that’s from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers… it might also be 300… not sure which.) The point I’m trying to make though, is that I am admitting I have a problem. I am not a published author. I want to be a published author. And, today is the day where I finally dedicate myself towards pushing for that goal. Today I shall stand in front of the great beast and cry YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!

I hope some of Mel’s students are reading this. Because that’s exactly what she says about you :P Lol. Just kidding. She loves ya just as much as she loves me… and that’s saying something because I go out of my way to annoy the crap out of her.

My brain got lost somewhere in there. But, yes. This is a public declaration of my goals. My goal for the year of 2014, become a published author. I would like to say that’s my goal for the next three months, but I think it’s going to take a wee bit longer than that to get my book ready to go. So, I’ll start work on it as soon as I get off work tomorrow, and you’ll get a daily update of when it’s going to be ready. J

And… now I have to remind you that I’m also writing a D&D adventure, and that might take some precedence, since the group expects me to have new stuff for them to do every week. But, I will dedicate some of my time to my novel. I promise.

On that note, I’m going to say anywho, because I don’t think I used it anywhere else in the post, and I’m going to let you all go for the day.

Later kids.

Ryan

1-25-14

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Four

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Raising Kain: Diseased God

Chapter Four

Kain said good-bye to his mother. Celita swept him up into a great big hug, and began to weep into his hair. He didn’t understand why but he went with it.

He said good-bye to his father, and his father dropped down to Kain’s level. Ouranus didn’t drag him into a hug like his mother had just done; instead, Ouranus ruffled Kain’s sunset red hair, and kissed the crown of his son’s head. It was the most affectionate thing Ouranus had ever done for his son.

Kain didn’t understand, he thought he was just going to be off with Gaia for a few days. He reasoned it couldn’t be a very long trip, a few days at most, especially since Gaia told him he shouldn’t pack any of his things or have any of the palace servants come with him.

That had been a week ago today, and, in Kain’s opinion, things had changed for the worst in the last five days.

His tiny cup sized fist slammed into the ground. A puff of dust rose into the air, and Gaia sighed for another innumerable time. This is how it had been for the last one-hundred and twenty hours: Kain howling, shattering trees, incinerating bushes, transporting into and dropping huge boulders from the sky. Now he was reduced to a temper tantrum the level any normal child could throw, pounding his fists against the ground and crying for his mother.

The tantrum started as any other one would have. Gaia had taken something away from the boy. First she had taken him from his home, and then she stripped him of his status, removing everything that symbolized that status. Out here he had no servants, no clothes, and not, it seemed to him, any dignity.

“I’m hungry!’ Kain wailed to the uncaring sky, taking up a new chant among the vast array of others. “I’m cold! I want my bed! I want my mother! I want my father! I want my clothes!”

Gaia sat with her back to him, staring off into the same empty sky as her deft fingers worked a slender silver knife back and forth across a small wooden figure. She carved the figure from the remains of one of Kain’s destroyed trees, and it sat curled in the palm of her hand.

The face appeared, its eyes clenched shut and its brow furrowed into a terrible grimace. She left the mouth open with the lips pulled back showing tiny perfect teeth. If one held the figure up to his ear and listened closely enough, he might hear it screaming into the sky.

The whittling grew hair as tiny bits of wood flew away. Ears small and round, and shoulders with barely enough meat on them to support the figure as it pressed against Gaia’s palm. Its hands were small and delicate, hands that never before held a weapon, hands that never before had to prepare their own food, hands that had never before had to kill.

Something nibbled at the edges of her consciousness, something like a bad dream or ugly memory, as she looked at the tiny figure. It reminded her of something or someone she had known before and forgotten. It reminded her of a child very much like the one crying for his mother behind her.

She shoved the thought away, and admired her handywork for another second: Long enough to know it was an exact replica of the boy who lay crying in the middle of the zone of destruction. Kain curled up into a fetal position, praying to whatever powers his parents had taught him about for relief from this unending torment.

Gaia was about to tell him that there would be none.

She walked down to where he lay, carefully picking her path through the remains of Kain’s five-day tantrum. She held the effigy in both hands so that if she did trip, she wouldn’t damage it. It was important for this first lesson, and it was a lesson Kain had to learn.

“Kain,” she said, with no sign of compassion in her voice. She held out the carving in one hand, even though Kain had yet to look up.

“This is you,” she motioned towards the effigy as Kain began to look up. “It’s pathetic looking, isn’t it? I carved this in under an hour, and in that hour you went from screaming your head off to lying on the ground blubbering for your mother. Is that any way for an Atlantean Prince to act?

“I don’t think it is. I think an Atlantean Prince should act with dignity and respect. An Atlantean Prince is a person whom the people of Atlantis should be able to look up to as a hero and an example of how they should act throughout the day and throughout their lives. You are none of these things.”

Kain looked up at Gaia, his expression petulant and damning, face streaked with tears and caked with five day’s worth of dirt and grime. He looked at the effigy in her hand and anger welled deep within his diminutive form.

He knew she was right. He asked himself what his father would do in this situation, and he knew the answer was not lying here feeling sorry for himself. Or calling out for his mother. Or praying.

His father would not care about Gaia stripping them of their clothing, and if no one had brought him food, he would go and get his own. Kain knew that was how his father would act. He didn’t care, though.

Kain lashed out at Gaia’s hand, using his own frail palm to try and knock the wooden figure from her grip. He didn’t get the result he wanted.

Instead, Gaia struck him across the cheek with the back of the hand that held the effigy. The wood representation of Kain hung in the air as her arm stretched across the distance between her and Kain.

Her movements were fast, Kain couldn’t tell what happened until his cheek stung and he lay sprawled on the floor several feet away from Gaia, facing the wrong direction.

“Rule number one, child,” Gaia said. She held the effigy out and it popped into nonexistence before she continued. “You will not strike at me if you have not been given permission. Punishment for this will be far greater than the punishment you just received. Rule number two: You will no longer destroy things that are of my creation. I overlooked the destruction of this forest because it was necessary for you to learn you will not get your way out here. Should you do so at anytime in the future, whether it be a forest or a whittling, your punishment will be eighty lashes with a rod. Do you understand me, child?”

Kain stood up; his flesh had paled over the last five days and the white tone of his skin caused the streaks of heavy black dirt to stand out in drastic comparison. He turned toward her, his eyes filled to the brim with not so veiled hatred.

His eyebrows furrowed, pulling together and creating creases along the center of his forehead. His tears dug trails through the dirt on his cheeks. Gaia’s heart didn’t flutter for a moment, and she knew what needed to be done.

Kain’s head and back arched, a great snort welling up from deep within his throat, and he spit a globe of phlegm right at Gaia.

Gaia snorted, just a little entertained by Kain’s act of defiance. She intensified her aura at the point where the globe of spit and snot would impact. It disintegrated, but she knew the flying ball of phlegm had not been Kain’s attack.

It was a distraction, and now the boy was starting to change.

Kain’s body lurched forward, his spine starting to lengthen, preparing to grow a tail out of the tiny form he now held. Twin nubs of flesh and bone pushed up right in between his shoulder blades. His mouth and nose lurched forward, becoming a short snout. The flesh of his upper lip and nose hardening as the lip started to sharpen to a point.

Prefect white teeth began to grow, incisors first, then the rest, all becoming sharp and deadly. They were now in the infancy of becoming the greatest predator in the world’s teeth, the dragon’s teeth, each like tiny steak knives, designed to rip and tear through flesh no matter the protection it had.

His eyes shifted, taking a more predatory and lizard like position on the sides of his head: Ears withering to nothing as three rows of spikes burst from his forehead, and another pair of spikes growing out from the ridges that were now his eyebrows.

All the spikes started out small at the point where the line began, and then grew to a maximum length of six inches as they crested at the crown of his skull and began to work their way down his back.

At first Kain’s skin became like goose bumps, but then began to section themselves off into tiny triangles. They took a sickly green appearance and started to harden, within seconds the tiny scales were as hard as diamonds. His body started to grow; his rib cage forced its way out, making room for larger muscles and additional organs.

Three hearts began to beat inside Kain’s chest. Two regular lungs, in addition to those already there, began to force oxygen into his blood stream faster and faster, and the specialized dragon lungs began to develop. He was a young drake, but his body was advanced for his age, a condition of prime breeding, and both the lung that contained a unique type of chemical in it that froze water vapor on contact, and the lung that superheated the oxygen in his blood to create fire were completely ready to use.

Even the specialized vent that allowed Atlantean Acid Drakes to inject their stomach acids into a jet of superheated air so they could exhale a cloud of acid (which was almost guaranteed to stop their opponents in their tracks) and didn’t develop until well into their adulthood. Kain had one though, and that was what he wanted to use against Gaia right now.

A trio of successive rips sounded along Kain’s back, the first was his spine ripping through the flesh at the base of his torso and lengthening out nearly as long as he was tall. The second was the skeletal left wing. The third and final rip was a fully formed wing ripping its way out of Kain’s right shoulder blade. Muscle started to creep up the skeletal left wing, and another set of muscles and tendons started to grow on his exposed spinal column.

Spikes grew at the end of the tail, right out of the bone, and a new set of joints began to appear at the end. A spike formed on the very last vertebrae, just before the joint, and as it reached out of the bone, it curved and slid down so that it fit easily inside the joint. Another scythe like spike grew on the opposite side of his tail and fit into the joint just like the other.

Scales and flesh covered the tail; an odd leather like substance grew to cover the great gaping spaces in the wing, and the joints in his leg reversed. His feet and hands split apart in some places and grew together in others. Talons grew out of the fused spaces and his entire body weight almost tripled.

Kain, as an Atlantean Acid Drake (one of the fiercest types of dragons), his scales a sickly color and his eyes a smoldering emerald, glared at Gaia. He was as he had been born now. He came out of his mother as a dragon in an egg, and he would always be most comfortable in this form.

He snorted once and leapt into the air. His wings caught air, snapped once, twice, and then pulled himself higher into the air.

Gaia watched Kain’s flight, noting things about how he moved. Many of those things she noted were purely strategic. How Kain tipped and showed the joint where his wing connected to his back. How when he flapped, his legs jittered, giving any good shot with a ranged weapon the chance to plant a bolt right into his joint and incapacitate or kill him with that shot. How his emotional state showed clearly in how he flew through the air with starts and stops, and how any intelligent being using only sticks and a rock to fight him would be able to overcome him if they taunted him enough.

These were the things Gaia took note of, because these were the things she was going to have to teach him in the long years they would be spending together.

Kain spilt air from his wings, tucked them in close to his body, and dove towards Gaia with a look of maddening glee in his eyes. His speed increased and she stood waiting.

He took a quick breath, filling his inferno lung with the oxygen needed for the assault; the mental clamp his body held on the vent that would allow the acid to enter his windpipe began to loosen.

At fifty yards his wings spread, his body jerked backwards, and his mouth dropped open. He spewed forth a cloud of hyper heated acidic vapor, and he smiled with his eyes. He hoped to watch the vapors eat away at Gaia’s form. He was denied.

Gaia moved a second before gravity brought the vapors down to her level. Quick as the blink of an eye, and she now stood at eye level, seemingly on nothing, with Kain’s stunned draconic features.

Gaia snapped her fingers; Kain’s hyper sensitive hearing picked up a slight pop as something materialized in Gaia’s hand. She jerked the new item forward in a single thrust, and Kain’s childish mind supposed that it was a knife. When he felt whatever it was press against his neck, he supposed his life was over.

Kain’s mind slowed, reeling around the possibility of dying at a young age, and he blacked out, hoping there would be no pain in the end.

Gaia caught Kain’s unconscious form, believing that it would just add insult to injury if she let him drop to the ground, especially when there would be no lesson learned from the pain when he woke up. Her methods were unique, and Gaia knew her sister considered her training techniques to be cruel, but Gaia believed in pain with a purpose.

She lugged the acid drake over one shoulder like he was an oversized sack of potatoes, and looked at the item she had materialized. It was a rather plain wooden spoon, something else she had made while he was crying over not getting his clothes, his food, his way, or whatever it had been.

She intended to use the spoon as a disciplinary tool, not unlike the rod she had mentioned earlier. The spoon was not meant to bring physical harm like the rod would though.

The spoon was a far more psychological instrument than the rod. The spoon was an item any person in any house in any village, city, or even a traveler’s pack would have.

She had seen his thoughts, and was glad that he had associated the spoon with a knife. That association would make him fear it that much more, and with the knowledge that he would be disciplined by something every living being on the face of the planet had, she would teach him equality, and anybody could get lucky enough to get a knife, or a spoon, in his back or throat.

Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014

Raising Kain: Diseased God Chapter Three

Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two

Raising Kain: Diseased God
Chapter Three

“Apophis, come down here!”

The voice was his mother’s, and she was almost always telling him what to do. Kain, as he preferred to be called, turned six-years-old today. And planned on spending the day lounging on the palace’s third floor, just sucking in the sun’s rays, and having his servants provide everything for him. He hadn’t even planned on moving from the spot he was in right now at all during the day, at least not until his mother called for him.

His mother was Celita Luna, the Aspect of the Moon one of the Four Aspects of Life. She was the third being in existence, and by this time she was so old that Kain could hardly believe she had managed to carry him the entire two year duration of the dragon’s gestation period, plus the six month egg incubation time.

One of his tutors, whom he barely paid any attention at all too, told him that a female dragon’s reproductive system only worked for the first four thousand years of her life, but apparently the tutor had been wrong about this particular fact. Well, concerning his mother anyway. Kain guessed she was special, because of who she was, and she would probably be able to have as many children as she wanted whenever she wanted to.

Her voice came up from the Hatchery; it was the place she spent most of her time. Kain couldn’t understand why, even though Celita told him it was because she worried about his brother. To his knowledge though Kain didn’t have a brother, just a stupid egg that hadn’t hatched yet.

“Apophis!”

His mother’s voice was more insistent this time, and with a great heaving sigh, Kain got up from the plush armed couch he had been dozing on. He had dragged the chair out from beneath the roof, or the floor of the fourth floor whichever anybody wanted to call it, so it was right out on the balcony, right in the spot where the sun’s bright golden rays hit first.

Apolla Sola, the Aspect of the Sun and the First Aspect of Life, always made it bright and sunny on Kain’s birthday. Sola knew Kain loved sun bathing, and always made it easy for him to do so, especially when he was in a good mood. Now, though, Kain was starting not to be in such a good mood, and was wondering if a nice destructive temper tantrum in the middle of the Hatchery would teach his mother not to mess with his birthday celebration, lazy as it might be.

“Apophis, get down here now!” she demanded from several floors down.

Kain sighed and turned to face the central stairwell. The third floor of the palace spread out before him, and it was probably one of the most amazing feats of engineering anybody had ever seen. Somebody, one of the peasants living in the city most likely, told Kain that people came from all over the empire to see it, but Kain thought that was boring adult talk. He didn’t really care if everybody thought that the palace was amazing, as a matter of fact, Kain thought everybody should find the palace amazing looking. And everybody from all over the world should come here to see it. He thought the whole reason they should is just because he lived here.

He yawned as he walked through the open space that made up the third floor. Careful as he did so, careful to avoid the invisible roots that made up the supports for the fourth and fifth floors, as well as supplying life to the oversized Tree of Life that towered high above the street level, and beyond even the highest peaks of the surrounding mountains. It was these roots that made it possible for the third story of the palace to have no walls or visible supports of any sort. These roots and the light bending magic of Shadus that kept them invisible.

Shadus was the Fourth Aspect of Life, the Aspect of Shadow. He was the only Aspect Kain didn’t like that much, and it wasn’t because he didn’t enjoy being around his creepy uncle. The pair of them shared a very similar dark sense of humor. The only thing that made Kain dislike this Aspect, in particular, was the fact that he had too many nicknames, and most of them were corny.

“The Living King of Shadow?” Kain had asked looking at his black sheep of an uncle. “The hells is that? Am I the living king of shadow now, too?” While he finished the question, Kain waved his hand in front of a small candle. The light made a figment of his hand dance on the wall.

Shadus wasn’t impressed by Kain’s behavior, and neglected to come to see him whenever he came to the palace for three months after that particular incident.

“Apophis Kain, I want you down here before I count to three!” Celita said, her voice was on the edge of shouting, and Kain figured that he better listen to her.

He closed his pupil-less emerald eyes, and he opened his mind’s eye. In it he saw the very top of the stairwell leading down to the Hatchery, around his eye’s vision he could see the well formed stone of the small passage, he could smell the moisture and sweat of the stones in the wet atmosphere, he could feel the heat of the constantly baking furnaces.

His skin started to prickle with perspiration, and just below his six-year-old feet he could feel the rough yet smooth surface of the stone, he could curl his tiny toes down over the top edge of the exact stone he wanted to be on. When his mother called out her number “one,” he could hear her as if she were right down at the foot of the stairs, and at a great distance like she was while his body was back on the third floor. His lips parted, and the word “poof” escaped his lips for a brief second.

An unsettling pop sounded in his ears, and he felt as if his stomach were turned upside down for a very short amount of time. He knew he had just bent the laws of space and time to travel in-between the third floor and the stairwell leading down to the Hatchery, but it was still a hard concept for his six year old mind to grasp.

His toes now curled over the edge of the stone he imagined just seconds ago, he took a deep breath and his lungs filled with the musky smelling atmosphere, and his skin prickled with tiny drops of perspiration as the heat from the ever burning furnaces caressed his form. His mother’s voice called out her second numeral, and Kain began to walk down the stairs.

He heard hushed voices in a language he couldn’t quite understand, he heard his mother take in a breath of air, preparing to say “three.” But he stepped out onto the landing before she did so.

“What?” he said in the most petulant voice a six year old could manage.

Celita looked at him, and he realized she was on the verge of hysterics. There were also two other people in the room with him and his mother.

One was his father, Ouranus Skygod, ruler of Atlantis. One of the most powerful beings in existence, and he looked it. Eight feet three inches tall, and weighing over five hundred pounds. His hair was as white as freshly fallen snow, and a cloak of fire swept up over the immense mass of his body. His eyes were crimson, and the iris had long ago consumed the pupil and whites of his eye. His thin lips were always turned down in an unpleasant grimace. Except for when he saw his son, this time, Ouranus didn’t smile when he looked at Kain, this time his brow furrowed and his eyes grew a shade darker.

“What need does she have of my son?” Ouranus asked, his voice laced with barely veiled fury. He jabbed a thick sausage like finger at the other figure in the room. This elusive other figure was standing in the glare of the furnaces’ flames with her back turned towards him, but as soon as she began to turn around Kain knew who she was.

Terra Gaia, better known as Gaia, the Aspect of the Earth and the Second Aspect of Life, small in stature, standing only five feet three inches tall and weighing at most a hundred and ten pounds; but her powers and aura dwarfed that of Ouranus’s. She was Kain’s favorite aunt, and pretty much Kain’s favorite person in all of existence. Her hair was the color of fresh amber, and her eyes were a twinkling black and white that made Kain think of the night sky. When she was mad, which the six year old little boy had only seen once, they were molten like the fires that burnt deep down within her true being. To Kain she was the most beautiful thing in existence, and the moment he saw her he wanted nothing more than to be held in her arms forever.

“Gaia is to train Kain, and with her training he will rise to the ranks of the Aspects.” Celita said, breaking Kain’s train of thought, and making him drag his eyes away from Gaia. “With her training he will become one of the most powerful beings in the universe.”

Kain looked at his mother for the first time since he got down to the Hatchery. She sat, unlike the other two, pressing her hand against the other egg she had when laying Kain. The egg was the same height as Gaia and the flames from Ouranus’s cloak gave it a red hued appearance. Kain knew it was black with dark green spots though. In between each of the spots, and at the points where the black seemed to come to a crossroads there were tiny moon shaped symbols; some where crescent, some half, some full, some just a tiny thumbnail moon; only one on the entire thing, though, was just a half white outline. Kain assumed this was meant to be a New Moon, and he guessed that if he counted the symbols there would be twenty-eight of them. One for each day of the lunar calendar.

Celita slapped the egg and stood up, drawing Kain’s attention back to her. He realized in this brief moment that his mother was tragically beautiful. Many of the peasants considered her and Gaia twins, believing that their unique moments of birth were close enough, on a galactic scale, to equate to being born on the same day. But there was no familial resemblance between the two of them.

Celita was tall, six feet four inches to be exact, and weighed only a hundred and thirty three pounds. Her silver hair cascaded down her shoulders and fell to a point that Kain couldn’t discern from his point of view. Celita’s eyes were similar to Gaia’s, but instead of a starry sky, they looked like a pair of crescent moons with the rest of the eye black, just like the night sky.

His mother’s face had a feline curve to it, and when compared to Gaia’s, it was sharp and angular. Her body was slim and just as angular as her face, and like Gaia, she dwarfed Ouranus’s power and aura, but in a manner much different than Gaia’s. Gaia was control; everything about her (emotions, powers, even motions) was perfectly controlled. But, Celita was chaos incarnate. Everything about his mother could change with the blink of an eye. Even her appearance if she so chose.

“I can train him and mold him into one of your Aspects,” Ouranus said, his eyes flashing in anger. “What can she teach him that I cannot?”

“Ouranus,” Celita said, sighing at the same time. “You are a god and yet your understanding is so limited. Kain is one of the chosen; he must be trained by the Aspect that chose him from the age of six until acceptance into our society…”

“At that point,” Gaia said, interrupting her sister. “You may test him as you see fit, and train him in whatever methods you feel that I have faltered in, but until that point, he is my pupil, and will be trained as I see fit.”

Kain swam in the silk like sound of Gaia’s voice, he didn’t understand what she was talking about, but it seemed it was important and it probably had something to do with him. Ouranus turned away from the pair, there was a dark look in his face. It was a look that Kain had never seen before, but he imagined his father was sad.

To Kain it seemed that his father was acting as if someone had struck him a hard blow below the belt. Kain knew he didn’t like that look, and hoped he would never have to see it on his father’s face again.

Ouranus’s eyes changed again, this time they narrowed to tiny slits, slits that promised anybody who went against what he was about to say would find their life expectancy shortened.

“I’ll agree to this on only one condition,” Ouranus said. “I reserve the right as the King of Atlantis to be able to call you back from wherever you decide to take him to train; when I call, you will bring him, and I will test him. During whatever point of that training you may be at. And, if there is war, and you are needed on the front, you will take him with you, and he will learn real battle.”

Ouranus took in a deep breath as he finished speaking, and stood up to the full expanse of his height. “Do you agree to my conditions?”

“The point is moot,” Gaia said. “He is chosen and whether I agree to your conditions or not, I must still be the one to train him. But, if it will placate you, I shall agree to your conditions.”

Ouranus took a long look at her, and nodded. Agreeing to the deal and sealing it with the nod instead of a handshake or anything like that. When it came to dealing with deities or the Aspects, all one had to do was get them to give the word and the deal was sealed in blood. Even Kain knew that much about the situation.

“Tau Gaia?” Kain asked using the Atlantean word for aunt. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes, my dear little one, we are.” She said walking over to him.

“Okay, let me go get some things to take with me,” Kain said, preparing to run back up to his room on the fourth floor to pack a traveling bag. He stopped, though, before he made it to the first step. “Should we bring one of the servants along to carry my travel items?”

Gaia smiled, but inside she cringed at what the vicious nature of the Aspects forced her to do to this small boy. “No sweetie, you don’t need to bring one of the servants along. You don’t even need to pack anything for the trip. We’ve got everything we’ll need where we’re going.” “Are you sure?” He asked, giving her a quizzical look. I’ve got a lot of important travel items to take with me.”

“Trust me sweetie,” She said, smiling. “You don’t need anything at all, now go say bye to your mommy and daddy.”

Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Copyright Ryan M. Smith 2014