Aadhube

Right, so I'm finally getting around to making an introduction post after quite a few months of being on Tumblr, but here I go!

I'm Aadhube, a dude trying to write and improve my writing skill, among other things. High Fantasy is definitely the genre I am in love with the most; all my settings involve some sort of overt magic that affects society, and it's the kind of stuff I love reading as well.

(Also, you can call me Aadh).

Currently, I have three projects in mind:

-Medieval High Fantasy: This one (Haven't found a proper title yet) revolves around two characters, who have been reset in time and given a second chance, back multiple years before an apocalyptic invasion tipped the odds over humanity and destroyed them all.

The two characters are Myren, a bastard prince of Olvenstern who grew up as a little robber unconsciously using metal magic to go past locks, got caught and noticed by an Order of steel-manipulating knights, and became one of the continent's most renowned swordsmen. Then there is Meldrene, the defacto princess of Arallia, a deep forestland, and favored by Medarda, the Goddess of Life; even at her young age, there are barely even archmages who can match her intensity and prowess at healing and anything related to the human anatomy.

And yes, the two characters were born and raised barely a mile apart, and yet experienced polar opposite lives from their side of the border; Meldrene, who grew up a princess devoted to the Goddess of Life in one of the most prosperous lands of the world, and Myren, who grew up under a single mother in an impoverished town, eventually joining the Steel Drakes, an Order of knights who worship Vallast, the God of Steel and Craftsmen.

-Early Modern High Fantasy: Now, this one has an intense focus on magitech and a blend of late 1800s/early 1900s aesthetics with renaissance and medieval aesthetics. Think a lot of mystical, baroque, gothic architecture and a distinct academic, arcane flair. Yes, this is an academy setting for a large chunk of it and I want to write about magical academia, young friendship and love in that setting, and a devastating war with a lot of focus on both it's harshness and the military aspects of it.

This is where I can combine my obsession with both high fantasy and military stuff, so I'm planning on writing this eventually. I still do write certain scenes from this and tentatively worldbuild, but it is not my main focus at the moment. Below is my main focus for my writing, right now!

-The Crimson Knight of Terraria (TCKoT): This is a fanfiction inspired by my playthrough of heavily modded Terraria, which involves Calamity mod and an RPG mod, among others. This is honestly the one I have chosen to start off my online web-published novels with (Posting to Tumblr, Wattpad, Royal Road, AO3, etc). I basically want to tell a story of a character thrown into a strange island with few ordinary possessions to survive there, and then work his way up as he explores the place, mines resources, finds loot, makes progressively better and better gear, and turns the island from his seeming grave, into his personal sandbox. So basically, Terraria the game!

As a treat, here's an unfinished map I have been making for my medieval high fantasy! (You can tell it's unfinished, because I haven't properly even fleshed out the coast on the left yet).

If you want, you can ask away about my stories, characters and worlds! I would really appreciate it if you do, so don't hold back any questions!

Aequa looked at Vis as he talked at length and felt a strange, unfamiliar fluttering in her stomach. She couldn’t place what the feeling was, exactly, but it was not an unpleasant one. Rather, it was quite nice. A welcome reprieve from all the carnage engulfing Caten in recent times.

She listened with rapt attention as the intricacies of Baine’s plan was revealed to her. She hadn’t known much about Eidhin’s dad before, but Vis’ relaying of him seemed… melancholic. A father who cared, but had no choice to show it. A slight ache pulsed within her at that thought; her father might desire her to attain as much power as possible, but it did not feel like there was really true fatherly love to be found from him. Regardless, Eidhin needed help and Vis was clearly adamant on giving it. 

She did not mind. She was already going with him at sunset to go rescue his old tutor, anyways, so continuing along with him to aid a dear friend like Eidhin was hardly an issue.

“I’ll be there.” Aequa said when Vis was finally done. He gave a sudden, warm smile at that, and she felt that odd fluttering in her stomach again. That man made her feel… something, for perhaps the first time in her life. Aequa was honored to have someone who trusted her so damn much to tell her all this, and she was glad to trust him just as much too…

I am striding forward towards the wide-open gate, almost about to pass through, when the Arallian legionnaires posted there stir. One steps in front of me.

“Halt!” He calls out, and I do. In the moonlight, I can see his frown as he looks me up and down. “What is your business… foreigner?” He says the last word after a delay, now clearly recognizing the silvery gleam of my Steel Drake pendant.

I flash my triskelion insignia at the legionnaire’s face. “High Lord Elduin wants to see me.” I say irritably. “Important business, soldier. I need not be delayed any further.” The faint sounds of clashing steel and the screams of dying men ringing around the city, alongside the dusty plumes of smoke rising at various points in the sky punctuate my statement.

He gives me and the medallion a dubious look, stroking his beard as he does so. Finally, with a harrumph, he relents and steps aside. “Very well then. Suit yourself, Olvensterner.”

I thank him graciously and walk through the Arallian barricade into the Yareguan Quarter proper. Suit yourself? I shake my head. I had thought that Arallians were a relatively humble, withdrawn people from my time in Larralin some while ago, but clearly that didn’t extend over to their legionnaires. These men have more pomposity than Meldrene herself! And she was- is the daughter of Arallia’s High Lord!

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

After Aequa has a near brush with death, Vis decides that he wants to share with her his deepest, darkest secrets. And thus, when she is finally recovering at Villa Telimus, courtesy of Kadmos, he takes the opportunity to do exactly that.

“Aequa.” I take a deep, deep breath, steadying myself for what will come. “I have something I need to talk about with you. It is… important.”

She shifts herself, taking care of her wrapped, broken shoulder on the settee as she looks into my eyes, really looks with those blue eyes of hers. They look almost purple in the orange light of sunset streaming in through the window. “Yes, Vis?” She murmurs softly.

I know telling her the truth, the reality of my past is risky, an unreasonable gamble and wholly unnecessary, but… I’m just so tired of it all. Hiding who I really am from people I have grown inextricably close to. Watching as they died —or came near to it, not knowing who I really was.

I opened my eyes to the sight of bright rays of light filtering through windows. It was bright enough to bring me to wakeness quite fast, but yet, not an unpleasant sight… Rather, the sight of it bathing the pale purple marble of the room was quite serene. I laid there, admiring that sight and the blue morning sky outside for a full minute before I stirred.

There was an odd, pleasing warmth to my back. Turning around in my bed, I froze in place when I saw it’s source. Meldrene. Facing me with her eyes closed, her body slowly rose and fell with her deep breathing; quite asleep, by the looks of it. 

Her blonde hair lay tousled all around her face, wavy curls all spread about on her pillow— and mine. Before I could think anything else, my first thought was that she was so beautiful. Then my next thought was: Where the fuck was I?

The answer came pretty quickly. Rather than go back to my designated living quarters with the Steel Drakes like I should have last night, I had chosen to stay with her. Reading the forbidden manuscripts at first, yes, but we had been… sidetracked after some point. More focused on each other. Everything about that night came rushing back into my mind. It was deeply embarrassing, but also exhilarating to think about. Doing all that with a girl I had hated for more than half our time knowing each other?

For some reason, my first involuntary reaction was not to get out of bed and sneak away, put some distance, but instead lean in closer, brushing her hair aside from her cheek, before I gave her a gentle kiss there. All the better to show some tenderness to your partners, no?

The moment I did that, her eyelids fluttered wide open, revealing lavender eyes that looked mesmerizing, and certainly, very awake. I met her eyes as I pulled away, frowning.

“Were you awake this entire time?” I asked incredulously.

Her cheeks turned a bright, vivid red as she gave a flat, sheepish smile. “Yes.” She admitted. 

I stared at her for an embarrassingly long time before I could summon a response. “So, you… ah, saw that…?”

I stare at him like he has just grown a third arm out of his head. “Why don't I want you to go take the Trials that kill nine out of ten men who take it?” I repeat. 

“How about because you are one of the precious few Steelfather-blessed warriors we still have?” I advance on him. “How about because we already have two Edelrath princes? How about because you are the only other person who actually saw that timeline with me, and I need you now more than ever? How about because I love you? How about because you still have your entire life ahead of you?!?”

Myren blinks. And blinks again.

“You love me?” He repeats.

Only then does my mistake dawn on me.

I nervously lick my lips and scoff as his eyes narrow down. “Of course I love you!” The very phrase feels strange to say. “In- in- in the friendly way! Friends proclaim their love for each other all the time!”

He cocks his head sideways and actually has the gall to smirk. “I don't remember ever telling Elfric or Dien that I love them.”

“That's because you are one of those dour Olvensterner Felisarian Steel Drakes!” I rant, feeling my eye twitch. “We don't find it so weird over in Arallia to love our friends! You over in Olvenstern are just strange people, okay? Your way isn’t necessarily the best way! In fact, in fact, you people are probably so sad all the time because you don’t tell each other how much you love them, or maybe you just actually don’t love your friends and you are fine with having a beer with your ‘friends’ like every other week and then every Olvensterner wonders why everyone else thinks they are so damn lonely and then-”

Myren’s jaw clamps down and his whole body starts to shake as I go on further and further with my ranting. An amused light reaches his blue eyes. He steps closer and puts a finger to my mouth, silencing me immediately. “Shush, Mel.” He pats my head. “Just say you don’t love me and that will be the end of it.” He puts on mock sadness as he says it.

Political Texts

The Volgen Charter: The primary document governing, in detail, the various regulations, norms, customs, codes and expected behavior of the various martial knighthood orders present in Olvenstern. Written as an alternative to the supposedly outdated Velcaros Charter of Eledore

Commentaries on the Volgen Charter: Various discussions revolving around the Volgen Charter, discussing the practical implications of it’s guidelines and certain distinctions it holds from the Velcaros Charter

The Beating Heart of Governance: A text by deceased King Alvendorn, the first Steel Drake to assume the Silverine Throne, it goes into detail about the kinds of fundamental, grandiose reforms he hopes will bring Olvenstern into the forefront of continental dominance. Ever since his rule and his passing, the text has become a foundational template upon which later Olvensterner kings have set their direction.

The Decay of Eledore: A somewhat polemical, if useful text by an author writing not long before the Great Secession, who drove into painful detail of all the ways that the Eledoran Empire had declined and wilted. The issues he describes turn out to still be pertinent more than a century later when Myren fights the Eledorans alongside the Olvensterner army.

Analytic Texts

Codex Pertaxia: A compendium that goes into detail about the expected equipment and training of a knight. Written in the mid-Eledoran Golden Age, and still popular across Eledore and it’s seceded regions of Olvenstern and Surete. ‘Adapted’ by the Olvensterner censors to fit their own context

The Proper Behavior of a Knight: A text that delves into the more personable, moral, mystical aspects of a knight and expounds on what the ideal knight should be. Written in the olden pre-secession days of Eledore, though Myren suspects the versions written in Olvenstern are edited to reflect a more ‘Olvensterner’ and Felisarian perspective

The Science of Contemporaneous Warfare, by Gallesitz Lebedor of Hospelin: A text that articulates the wider perspective of warfare, going into logistics and the strategy of battle, as opposed to finer tactics known to individual warriors. Wri

Arcane Texts

Principles of the Flow of Mana: A beginner’s text that introduces novitiate mages to the nature of how their intrinsic mana flows and can be interacted with. It is an essential teaching material for any who seek to use magic, and Steel Drake initiates like Myren are no exception The True Nature of Stone and Steel: Penned by a prominent grandmaster of the Masonic Knights long ago, this text explores both the practical and mystical aspects of the element of Earth, which every Steel Drake like Myren must be intimately familiar with.

The Indelivus Crusade was the highly successful, months-long campaign by a grouping of over a dozen Eledoran legions with the support of the Volispire, that managed to claw back the northwestern Holy Land of Pareme after decades under foreign dominance.

It was initiated by High Lord Verlidis Tarrant after the Summit of four High Lords at his stronghold of Iridios, with other High Provinces, the Volispire, the Inquisition and the Emperor himself represented by their respective envoys at the great city. After lengthy deliberations on the matter, they came to the common understanding that the reconquest of the northwestern Holy Land was a foremost imperative of the Empire, and that a joint effort of multiple High Provinces was required to carry out this humongous task. 

“Myren…” Elfric whispered, dread and horror setting into him.

As he started towards Myren, standing in front of Tesaris with sword in hand and the crowd around them cheering, he felt a hand grip his arm and pull him back. When he looked, it was Dien. “Leave him be, Elfric.” He murmured. “This is his fight, and no one else's.”

Warning: Spoilers below

(HEAVY SPOILERS FOR WILL OF THE MANY AND STRENGTH OF THE FEW, WARNING AHEAD)

I have been thinking about (SPOILERS) the disturbing death scene for Meldrene that I have written out, and I must say, while I'm sorta satisfied with the prose and how well it seems to conjure emotion in the reader (From those who have read it, at least), I am convinced that it would be more thematically impactful and less meaningless if it was Myren who dies in the same position.

Why do I say this? Because Meldrene dies a tad bit too many times already. She half-dies in her first life, then dies a proper death before being reset alongside Myren to an earlier time. With yet ANOTHER death of hers added on top of that, a death that she comes back from nontheless, that is 3 times she dies, as opposed to once for Myren.

The other reason is, Meldrene's plotline is overloaded as it is. So, (MAJOR SPOILERS BEWARE) the resurrection from that death is not meant to be consequence-free; it comes with an extremely hefty, hidden price that only reveals itself with extremely story-influencing implications later on. To be more precise, while there are two beings that can actually bring a person back from the fold of death, the good Goddess of Life they worship is not in a state to do it, unbeknowest to them. Thus, their resurrection by the daemonic equivalent comes with a tragic, malevolent price. That is, they unknowingly become one of the most powerful existing beacons in the world for daemons; wherever they walk, the world shifts closer to the daemonic realm and progressively stronger daemons can force their way into the world. Furthermore, it reveals much of the lay of the land around them to the top daemons of the other realm, where most of the human world lies in total darkness and mystery to those in there.

There are some reasons I believe it would be better to give this dubious honor to Myren.

Firstly, Meldrene is someone who already carries guilt from being forced to bear the powers and magicks of daemons, even unwillingly. Going further with that does have it's own thematic merit, but there is another argument for Myren, the pure, stalwart knight who never surrendered to daemonkind getting that kind of twisted curse snuck on him. It creates a parallel between them, a common point they can relate to, bond and comfort each other over. Myren is no longer a pure goody two shoes and Meldrene is no longer someone who gets commandeered by daemons over and over again...

Secondly, as previously mentioned, Meldrene's plotline is just so damn overloaded with so many things she needs to do, while Myren's is... largely retracing the same steps he took in his last life. Doing the same training, fighting the same battles and wars again, learning things he has already learnt, essentially very little actual progress, because he has already been doing as much as he could in his first life, while Meldrene largely daudled as the sheltered daughter of a High Lord, which means there is room for her to be far more active next time around. So, bringing a twist to Myren's storyline, by having far more unusual daemon encounters, as well as possibly a full daemonic invasion into his kingdom's territory previously thought impervious to such a thing, would be a better balance in my opinion.

And thirdly, I think it's just perhaps bad taste to kill off Meldrene to create trauma for Myren, only for her to get resurrected barely moments later. Instead, I think perhaps a scene that creates mutual trauma, with Myren powerlessly fighting back and seeing Meldrene's frantic, mad concern and attempts to stop Tesaris from killing him, while Meldrene obviously witnesses a persons she cares about getting killed with no way to stop it, would be more intriguing.

Also, the reason resurrecting Myren would feel less contrived than resurrecting Meldrene in this case, is that Meldrene would have to make the active choice to take the treasured, valuable amulet her late grandfather left her, literally a fragment of his soul, and use it to claim Myren back from the dead before it is too late. In the reverse case, Myren would obviously do this without hesitancy, since it was Meldrene who gifted it to him in the first place and he does not hate her, but in the case where it's Myren who dies, Meldrene has all these conflicting feelings over him, both positive and negative, that would satisfyingly culminate in deciding to use that last memory of her grandfather to bring him back.

Fourthly, I just didn't want to mindlessly copy a really harrowing scene I recently read in a book.... Yes, that scene came about first after I read a certain chapter in The Strength of the Few towards the end, and it was the first time in months a book consumed me so emotionally I wrote a scene loosely based off of that. Now, that was great writing practice and I don't regret writing under that kind of emotional influence since I don't normally write those kinds of scenes, but it's better to come up with stuff that makes sense for my story, even if I'm inspired.

Fifthly, killing Meldrene off for the third time just to temporarily fridge her feels really shitty.

Her golden curls bounce with every step of hers.

She blows aside a strand of blonde hair from her face.

Her eyes of lavender bore into me.

The golden curls framing her face sway as she leans over.

She scrunches up her little upturned nose.

Her lavender eyes soften to an impossible tenderness.

She smiles brightly, cheeks dimpling.

The small purple pendant hanging against her neck.

The triskelion earrings that hang from her ear.

He fights their unending battles until finally, my two heroes cut the shackles that bind him to the daemons, and he aids Meldrene in getting over the beginning throes of the same forced control that her own resurrection brought her. All before he sustains a mortal wound and perishes on the ground, with our two heroes tearily watching on.

Trigger Warning: Possible existential dread

I WARN YOU, THIS MIGHT CAUSE SEVERE EXISTENTIAL DREAD. PLEASE TAKE CARE.