NaNoWriMo: FOR THE WIN!

HECK YES! First NaNoWriMo Win! My year long happy dance begins now.

Peace and Writing Love,

JWP

NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty-Eight

So close. This is the last excerpt before the win, which I am expecting a day early (ie: tomorrow). Enjoy and I wish all my other NaNo cohorts a good finish in their dash for the 30th.

Peace and Writing Love,

JWP

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The Shattered Darkness
Chapter 15 excerpt

The boat inched forward as if caught on a wake. Something was pushing them. They rocked for a moment and the bow shifted left slightly.

“Keep it straight, Sen.” Issy’s hand tightened around Senic’s. She scooted closer to him and lay her head against his.

The boat drifted on, the front taking its course now. The cavern opened to a wide chamber, the canal feeding into a vast lake. Knolls of grass existed on various islands that sprouted from the lake, the flowers from the other plain growing here as well. Gerad looked to the cavern ceiling as they drifted through the water. He could not keep his mind away from what Melana would have thought of this journey. After a short ride in silence, each of them looking to different areas of the lake, a larger wake rocked their starboard side. It was a minor splash at fist, followed up by a series of larger, more violent shoves. The green water sloshed onto their feet and boat bottom, drying as it had on Kyona’s hand. The wakes came from all directions, thrusting their boat unnavigable as Senic and Issy toppled over on each other.

“What’s happening?” Kyona asked.

“I feel something ahead,” Issy said. “It’s really strong.” She leaned away from the bow as the water continued to spray over the sides. She whined and put her head on her brother’s shoulder. “It hurts.”

“What do you feel?” Aroth asked.

“I can’t think right,” she cried. Senic also cried out, putting his hands out ahead, trying to hold off their pain.

“Something is pushing on me. A bad headache.”

“It is the domain’s defenses,” Aroth said. “Hang on, this is about to get rough.”

The water began to bubble and froth. Their boat spun in the foam and quickly took off across the lake, speeding by the small land dots and missing them barely. Giant upsurges of water stabbed into the air around them as they passed, as if siege engines were bombarding fire around their vessel. The green rain sprinkled down and they entered another cavern, the lake thinning off into a river again. The stinging water spat at them from the bow as they tore across the surface, and the children ducked low to the bench, gripping it.

“Don’t lose track, kids,” Aroth yelled to them. “This voyage is still under your control. Think through it.”

“It hurts!” Issy cried. “Make it stop.”

“Focus, Issy,” Kyona said.

She reached over Gerad, sitting on the boat floor with the kids and held them steady.

Gerad glared up ahead where a split in the river appeared. “Quick, Issy. You can do it. Help your sister, Senic.”

Although they continued to whine, the boat trembled, fighting to take both directions. It rocked wildly in the twins’ mental battle to take them down the right path. The river flooded into the boat now, filling too quickly to evaporate.

“Right,” Issy called, her brother repeating it almost on top of her. They rose up on their knees, taking their hands to the bow. The boat struggled for a second longer before they careened to the chosen path.

“Keep at it!” Aroth demanded again.

The children continued to call out the directions as they just came to the multiple paths the river opened at. The skimmed the side of the cavern, riding the wall as one of their choices came too late. The water continued to fill the boat.

“I see land ahead,” Kyona said. “A bit more, kids.”

Their screams became unbearable now, the pressure finally touching Gerad, also. The front of the boat sunk, mere yards from the shore the opened before them. The water weight inside the vessel took over and the bow dove under. The river gushed at them and they each went beneath the surface.

Gerad tossed and spun, blowing air through his mouth and yelling. His eyes bolted open, a green rush in his face and bubbles being thrown at him. He saw Kyona sweep ahead of him and he attempted to grab her, but she had wrapped herself around Issy. Senic was nowhere to be found. He spun over in the torrent, Aroth seemingly unconscious and being dragged at the rear. He heaved in, water entering his throat, but he burst out of the river with his next choking breath. They thudded onto the land with a flood tossing them ashore. He hacked and slammed his hand against his chest to spit up. Kyona rolled onto her side, Issy held in her arms with one hand covering her face. Splinters of wood exploded behind him as the boat found the shore. He wobbled to his feet, staggering to Kyona first. He pulled Issy off her and then took her up. Aroth came from behind, falling to the grass next to him.

Aroth took in an exhausted breath and looked up. He stared around. “Where’s the boy?” he asked. “Where is Senic?”

Gerad scanned the shore and gasped, stepping forward. “Renikarr, no,” he said in a prolonged breath. Senic lay face down in grass not ten steps ahead of them. He did not move.

NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty-Five

Happy Thanksgiving to all my cohorts. Extended greetings to my family, who I am away from for the first holiday season ever. And I tell you, it is really hard to be at work today, despite it being Disney and all, and not with my family.

But, regardless, I found a good connection in the cafeteria here on property, so I'll be Skyping with them all very soon. That brightens my day a bit.

Here is my latest excerpt.

Peace and Writing Love, plus Turkey.

JWP

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The Shattered Darkness
Chapter 14 excerpt


At the other end of the chamber, cut out of the rug, was a similar patch of floor where Ismer showed that he prayed. He took an interest in the prayer circle once more, kneeling at it with a finger on the line. He had noticed it with Ismer’s circle, but tiny lines formed interior rings. They were spaced not even inches apart, pegs connecting them at various parts.

“That’s not like the other prayer circle,” Mefist said. He kneeled next to Valence and the moment after, a whirlwind force pulled them to the ground. There was a flash of green, terribly bright, and something smacked at his back. He opened his eyes, daring the light’s intensity, but it was gone. They lay on the floor outside the circle.

“This seems too similar,” Valence said to the Demi.

“I think you’re right.” Mefist gathered himself and pulled Valence up. “And, I don’t think that was a prayer circle.” He looked around the new room. It was not the one that gave homage to day and night, but something else entirely. “In fact, I’m sure of it. We were portaled somewhere.”

“I think this is a ley,” Valence said, “but I’ve never seen an active one. I wonder what we did.”

“Who cares.” Mefist took in their new surroundings. “Whichever of the Archons called this tower home had no sense of decor. A chair and work table over there,” he said, pointing to it, “and some candles. Very homy. All the power in the world, messengers of the gods, and they can’t put a carpet down?”

Valence ignored Mefist’s complaints and found the door leading to what was likely the stairs down. He had learned his lesson and did not doubt the glance down would fare him any more solid a stomach than the last. He looked along the walls. The construction of the towers were mostly similar, with differences attributing each keeper’s taste, but what had been left to preservation sent his mind walking. Ismer’s tower and the one before both had the rib-like beams running down the entire length. He had not thought it as anything more than supporting the height of the tower, but he looked more closely at the beams. Tube-like glass was on either side of the beam, running top to bottom. An energy fed off it, obviously unused for some time, but even the oldest trace amounts held to age. It felt Seentirulian in shape and depth, but it was very deep, as if the glass did not end at the floor. It was as if something beneath the ground gave the tower the energy supply.

He came back to Mefist, thinking. The Demi was sitting on the floor just outside the ley gate. “These towers are definitely strange. I think they were used as conductors of some kind. But, I can’t tell for what.”

“Fascinating,” Mefist said. “Does any of this help us, though?” He went to say something more, but was interrupted by the glow of the gate starting up again.

It hummed to them, a force behind the veil of the ley pushing into the empty chamber. It filled the room and a sudden pressure ran along Valence’s back, his instinct’s way of telling him that they were being watched. The green ran through the ley’s patterns and the air shimmered with a flash of prismatic color. He looked at Mefist, whose red eyes and black slits softened with concern. He, too, felt the presence coming at them.

“I don’t like the way this feels,” Mefist said.

“Neither do I,” Valence said. He put out his hand to feel
the wards on the tower. They had been there, but something was
sucking the protection away at a very quick rate. Layers over layers of ancient defenses were being bypassed.

“Damn,” he muttered. “I just remembered the bad thing about ley gates.”

“What’s that?”

“Anyone can use them. We took this gate from the sun and moon tower, but it could lead somewhere else, also.”

No sooner had he spoken, the shimmering air burst apart like shattering glass and a tendril shot out from the gate. It was writing through the air, visible in the space they stood and just not inside the threshold of the ley. It snapped and coiled, grabbing Valence up, but Mefist was already on it. He came down on the tendril with a sai, pinning it to the floor. The slimy arm detached from whatever body fed it, the pierced half wriggling. The cut portion morphed to a thin, deadly needle and slashed back at them.

Valence dodged back, but grabbed at his chest after the swing had passed over. Fine drops of his blood sprinkled across the floor. He took his steps back, Mefist guarding his front, as the tentacle morphed again to a shape bearing claws. Another tendril came from the threshold, also clawed. They reached for them and something larger was coming out of the gate. A thick mass, slick with a moist shell as its body, rolled from the ley, the claws dragging it forward into the chamber. It hissed and spat, minimizing their safe ground, and two eyes pushed down the body to look on them. They flickered to life, the glowing shapes not even blinking. They only stared. The thing hissed again, vicious, and lurched.

The body of the demon went right while the arms came from the other side. Mefist put himself in front of the arms and it fetched a strike that put him to the floor. The Demi fought to rise, but the tendrils slapped down on him and knocked him chest-flat again. Valence leapt over the arms as the body rolled for him, the eyes spinning upward as the body revolved. Its stare never left him.