Royce's Random Thoughts

For colliemommie: "Economies of scale"

Continued from Can't touch this

* * *

"Master…?" Arthur asked, poking his head into the library, as he rubbed his stump in worry.

Tez waved the ogre inside. "No change, I fear. That magus was useless, and advised I cut her throat for mercy's sake."

"Master, no!"

"I won't, Arthur. She's too valuable to me. But I'm at a loss what to do."

"If someone else touches the book, they'll be in the story with her, right?"

"Yes, which is why…" Tez frowned. "No."

Arthur smiled. "Ogres are cheap, Master. You can get them anywhere. But little Andrea is special." He slapped his palm onto the book…

For ankewehner: Absorbed into a book.


Tez hadn't thought much of it when he found Andrea hunched over a leather bound tome in his manor's library. The sixteen year old half-breed enjoyed stories, but was more a determined than adept reader. Practice would do her good.

When he found her in the same position five hours later, he frowned deeply, calling, "Andrea! You have duties to attend!"

She didn't look up. He suddenly realized she wasn't looking at anything, though tears ran down her face. Tez looked at the open page and began to read…

Andrea limped down the path, the monsters still at her heels…

For ankewehner. "More bits about Andrea and/or Arthur."

Being an ogre was supposed to be simple. Hit things. Eat things. It's what he'd done his whole life, before Master Tez had come along. "Comfort small half-breed children because there's a thunderstorm outside," was never supposed to be part of the picture.

So Arthur lit his table lamps, the ones with the reflectors so he'd have plenty of light, while Andrea sat on the edge of his reinforced chair, wrapped up in a quilt. He pulled a well worn book from the shelf, settled her on his large lap, and straightened his pince-nez.

"Once upon a time..." he began.

Just sorting thing out in my head while I cuss at my muse for failing me.

-500,000: Rise of the Dragons.

-350,000 BD (Before Diversions): Tez is born into a tribe of pre-civilization elves.

-350, 000 to -300,000: First great age of magic. The gods (mostly) remove themselves from the world.

-300,000 to -250,000: The magic fades over a ten thousand year period. First great age of technology. Dragons (semi) voluntarily confine themselves to the Dragon States when the Old Man of the Mountain is confined.

-250,000: Tez nukes the planet for the first time.

-250,000 to -200,000: The Barbaric Age of Magic.

-200,000 to 0: Several cyclical ages of magic and technology trade off. Tez attempts planetary destruction at least twice more.

-175,000: Tez has bloody vengeance wreaked upon his body by a human whom he betrayed, and is reduced to a quadriplegic, blind, deaf, gelded, mute carcass. He remains two hundred years in this state. It is over a thousand before he regains his sanity.

-50,000: Tez invents the religion devoted to Griznak the Destroyer as a means of long term savings.

-2,000: Tez attempts suicide and finds himself in the care of merfolk (Failure Mode), then enslaved to a group of barbaric island sheep herders.

-1,800: Tez unexpectedly resigns his position as Chancellor to the former barbarians (The Island Lord)

-1,000: Philosopher violates Dragon State law and decamps to the Northern Continent. (possible canon "PC")

-500: Tez moves to the Elven Domain and takes up life as a prosperous merchant.

-408: Andrea Halfbred is born to a human mother, then abandoned a few days later at the town orphanage.

-400: Racial wars begin, Andrea is enslaved by Tez and taken to the Elven Domain. (Andrea's Story) Bard Teal is captured and forced to serve Philosopher (PC)

-246: With some interference by Teal and Philosopher, racial tensions between humans and elves ease. Andrea boys her freedom from Tez. Tez travels to the Dragon States.

-200 to -125: Andrea establishes her leather working business in the human lands, marries and eventually is widowed from her husband Jonathan.

-18 Maria is created by the mage Ezar Liriel.

-10 Tez returns to the Northern Continent.

-3 Maria meets Garvin. Mage Ezar dies and leaves his estate to Maria.

-0 Events of Unexpected Diversions and Unforeseen Consequences occur.

TBC

Maria looked cautiously into the crate, pulling out a sheaf of papers. "It's from Andrea."

Tez, a not wholly unwarranted feeling of dread creeping up his spine, asked, "What's the letter say?"

"'Congratulations on the new baby. Here's a little something I put together for you to remind Tez to carry his share of the load. All my love, Andrea'"

"That seems a bit short. What's the rest of those papers."

Maria raised an eyebrow as she shuffled through them. Then she smiled. "The instruction manual."

I'm not entirely certain the ending here works. It is a nice romantic moment, but it just sorta stops.

( PG-13 for sexuality )

Just posting the expurgated version of "Andrea's Story".  This is how (after editing for grammar and spelling) it's likely to appear in the Unexpected Diversions collection.  PG-13 for violence. ( Andrea's life was not very nice )

Okay. Now that "The Last Story" is finished, all I've got left to do is cull all the extraneous bits from "Andrea's Story" and go through the stories already written with a fine toothed editing comb. Then I can (hopefully with tamhavik's help) put the omnibus manuscript together for publication on Lulu.

So to that end, I now open the floor to artists who have enjoyed my Tez and Maria stories and would like a copy of the Unexpected Diversions omnibus for themselves. I'm estimating that the book's value will be $15 before shipping costs, but for those who participate, it'll be free.

Rules are as follows:

1. Make a reply below saying you'd like to draw something for it and a link to your public gallery.

2. If I think your art style would be suitable, I'll send a private note to you to get your address and other shipping info.

3. I'm looking for inked or clean pencil illustrations that can be used for interior art. Color or shaded art would be nice, but would drive up the printing costs too high for anyone else to be really interested in buying it (this is, essentially, a vanity publishing deal after all).

4. Illustrations should be sized for a trade paperback (6" x 9"). Half sized (6 x 4 1/2) would also be welcome.

5. Preferably the illo should be of a scene from one of the stories. But if you just want to do a generic character picture or "off-screen" scene, then I can probably find a place for it, either in the main text or a separate gallery in an appendix.

6. To prevent artists from duplicating scenes, if it comes to that, I'll open a forum thread on my DeviantArt home page for everyone to discuss things openly.

7. One book will be shipped to the artist per every one to two illustrations provided.

8. Please try to keep any illustrations PG-13. IE: No naughty bits hanging out, and scenes of violence (if any) can be a bit bloody but not covered in gore.

9. Full credit to all artists, whether your real names or a preferred pseudonym, will be given at the front of the book

9. This solicitation will remain open until I start the final editing process. For now, I'm shooting to complete that within 60 days. Books will be shipped the the artists ASAP once I publish on Lulu.

Links to the individual stories that will be in this books:

Unexpected Diversions, Part One: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Unexpected-Diversions-Part-1-5928445
Unexpected Diversions, Part Two: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Unexpected-Diversions-Part-2-5929024

Unforeseen Consequences, Part One: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Unforseen-Consequences-Pt-1-53358168
Unforeseen Consequences, Part Two: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Unforseen-Consequences-Pt-2-53358436

The Island Lord: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/The-Island-Lord-20746479

Stride: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Stride-22154296

Failure Mode: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Failure-Mode-17479149

Open Canvas: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Open-Canvas-25917846

Shopping Expedition: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Shopping-Expedition-27756621

Andrea's Story, Part One (note: ignore all the present day scenes in the current posted version. That's all going to be pulled): http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Andrea-s-Story-58163904
Andrea's Story, Part Two: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Andrea-s-Story-Part-Two-58165538
Andrea's Story, Part Three: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Andrea-s-Story-Part-Three-58167642
Andrea's Story, Part Four: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Andrea-s-Story-Part-Four-58167855

Dungeon Crawl: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Dungeon-Crawl-24138535

Old Tools: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Old-Tools-73078815

The Last Story: http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/The-Last-Story-110739789

Boy Trouble (very non-canon, but if I get a picture that's cute enough I'll include it): http://sir-talen.deviantart.com/art/Boy-Trouble-51432727

There's one further story, but its not likely that anyone could possibly draw it as a PG-13 illo. If anyone wants to take a shot at it, they're welcome to PM me and I'll e-mail it to you.

Thanks to everyone who reads this and chooses to participate!

So I've been sitting on AS for a couple of weeks now, balking at where to take it next. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that there's nowhere to go with the current section I'm working on. It ain't flyin', so to speak. Andrea and the others are stubbornly refusing to tell me where to go next.

So instead I think I'm going to stop it at a particular emotional point I'd already written in the present. There may be a short coda afterward, which I can put together without much difficulty, but that will be it. From there it'll be a case of writing one, perhaps two more short stories to flesh things out before I start putting the book together.

[Poll #1294166]

Work has finally slowed down a bit, so I managed to slip in a few hundred words. The count is slightly misleading, since a few paragraphs are what I managed to do Friday plus some re-editing of lines I took from the first draft.

Quote of the Day:

Jonathan reached over and plucked ripe red fruit from a branch and tossed it to her.

She caught it automatically. “I can’t eat this!”

“Why not?”

“It’s not mine!”

“It’s not mine either, but I doubt Uncle will get upset. He doesn’t care for apples either, unless they’re in a pie.”


Words Today: 1,148
Words Total: 3,739