Wait, did Zarboz just kill himself? I'm not entirely sure what's going on here.
And War and Death? Hm.
Original: The Desert Thief.
Moderator: LadyTevar
Re: Original: The Desert Thief.
So I'm trying to write the story with some mystery for the reader, but I think I'm writing myself into a corner by not putting enough bait on my hooks as it were. To that end I've totally added shit to the first post, check it out tell me some thoughts. Too much info dump? And I'm getting the feeling people here like the assassin, which is good, because he is almost (or possibly, more) fun to write than the lead.
A plot outline I threw together last night, to get the kinks of the ending worked out. This is a rough, grammatically incorrect blurb that is merely a summery of what happens. But for those brave enough to read, it contains most major bits of plot that I want to use.
MEGA SPOILERS
Tarek reached a city by the sea. He looked and found a boat to take him to sea. The necklace he wore pointed him towards it. After asked around as to what is out there. He learned of the dozens of barren white sand islands. The perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found. He goes out there and finds the island of the magician. He talks with the magician for a while, because while he knows that magicians were people who killed the Beasts, he doesn’t know exactly what makes them special. The magician explains that the beasts don’t have souls like people do, they have books that control them. To kill a beast you have to read its book and take control of the creature and then you have to kill yourself, bringing both you and the creatures soul back to the underworld and thereby killing the creature. And that to be able to read the book, since they were created in the underworld, you have to have died and come back, which is what makes someone a magician. And that once you die and come back, death has more control over you, making you immortal, and the only way to die is to kill youself. Which is why the magician is still around, he died, came back and fought a beast. He took control of the beast, but lost his nerve at the last minute to kill himself, so he ordered the beast to eternal sleep and fled to his far flung isle. He discovers that because of Tareks near death experience, that while he can not read the book right away, he able to pick up some of it and be taught how to read the book. The magician decides to teach, so that he can pass off the book to remove his burden, and possibly, when he dies be able to claim redemption. Tarek learns to read the books over several months with the magician. Tarek has another near death experience and ends up seeing and talking to Death.
During this time Zarboz is tracking him across the desert, following his steps. He finally catches up to Tarek and the magician. Fight ensues. Examine Tarek’s motivation of creating his own kingdom against Zarboz’s knowledge of what the Beast can and will do- attempt to topple and replace the current gods, and in the process, destroy the world. Tarek believes that Zarboz simply wants to control the Beast.
More interaction between War and Death, with the revelations that War wants the Beast active and under the command of a human that he controls, in order to use it to kill off the other gods and become THE god. Death, knowing the previous magician had failed to kill this last Beast, wants Tarek to take control of it and destroy it once and for all. Also talk that Death used to be the god of Art (NOTE TO SELF: Think up better title. ALSO NOTE TO SELF: Describe the other gods to make it apparent to the reader that there are more than just the two- the other gods include Sickness, Hunger, Wealth, hmm, add a few others later.) She originally created the Beasts, but war gave them life with a part of hisself. The Beasts, fueled with partial souls (contained within the books) made from War went on a ramage, attempting to get to the gods, and with such large amounts of magic (being both magically created and animated and having the souls in the books) would have been able to punch through the normal realm and break into the god-realm. With such a danger, the gods were worried. They demoted Art, thinking she had given the Beasts their souls as well as creating them, making her the god of Death, and banished her from the normal god-realm unable to leave her own death-realm. A fight between Death and War left her without an eye. The gods needed to stop the beasts, but since the books were created by Death, her power was needed to destroy them. However she could not leave the death realm, so human proxies were needed, people would have to die, go to the death realm and then be allowed to return to life, this is the only time that the gods have allowed Death to resurrect someone. These proxies became the magicians.
Zarboz kills the magician, because as part of his orders he has to kill everyone helping the thief. While fighting the magician, he forces the man’s own arm-still holding his sword, and makes him stab himself, killing him. Tarek fights him to a standstill and escapes when Zarboz becomes trapped somehow. He escapes back to shore with the book and rides to the place that is known as where the dead Beast is. War seeing his servant failing, whispers to the subconscious of a Colonial General whom he has made successful and persuades him to stop Tarek. If War’s man can’t have the book (and therefore, the Beast) than he will at least make sure that Death does not get. Tarek rides north while the General, spurred on by War, rides his army south. Eventually they meet, Tarek fights his way through and past, and continues toward the Beast, with both the army and an again magically aided Zarboz. He get to the Beast’s buried body, which was now under a mountain, replaced the book to it chamber and reactivated it. The Beast, angry and especially powerful after thousands of years buried began to emerge to go it its rampage. Tarek held no control over it. Zarboz, the General, and a small group of soldiers had made it inside the Beast before it completely emerged and began destroying the general’s army.
Zarboz makes it to Tarek first, convinces him to destroy the Beast and killself. Zarboz motivation- that war is the way of the world, but there can not be complete war everywhere, because that will ruin balance, and destroy everything. The general and the soldiers show up. Zarboz fights them to buy tarek time to take enough control of the Beast to kill it.
Zarboz dies in the fight, War abandons him as a traitor and gives the general enough strength to overpower him. Tarek takes control of the Beast, kills himself and destroys the Beast.
He ends up along Death’s river, and is given a choice, that since he is the last magician and stopped the last Beast which was being used by War, something the other gods disapproved of, he was given a choice between returning to the world as an immortal or ruling the underworld with Death. He chooses to die and walks across the Death river, and into the fog.
A plot outline I threw together last night, to get the kinks of the ending worked out. This is a rough, grammatically incorrect blurb that is merely a summery of what happens. But for those brave enough to read, it contains most major bits of plot that I want to use.
MEGA SPOILERS
Tarek reached a city by the sea. He looked and found a boat to take him to sea. The necklace he wore pointed him towards it. After asked around as to what is out there. He learned of the dozens of barren white sand islands. The perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found. He goes out there and finds the island of the magician. He talks with the magician for a while, because while he knows that magicians were people who killed the Beasts, he doesn’t know exactly what makes them special. The magician explains that the beasts don’t have souls like people do, they have books that control them. To kill a beast you have to read its book and take control of the creature and then you have to kill yourself, bringing both you and the creatures soul back to the underworld and thereby killing the creature. And that to be able to read the book, since they were created in the underworld, you have to have died and come back, which is what makes someone a magician. And that once you die and come back, death has more control over you, making you immortal, and the only way to die is to kill youself. Which is why the magician is still around, he died, came back and fought a beast. He took control of the beast, but lost his nerve at the last minute to kill himself, so he ordered the beast to eternal sleep and fled to his far flung isle. He discovers that because of Tareks near death experience, that while he can not read the book right away, he able to pick up some of it and be taught how to read the book. The magician decides to teach, so that he can pass off the book to remove his burden, and possibly, when he dies be able to claim redemption. Tarek learns to read the books over several months with the magician. Tarek has another near death experience and ends up seeing and talking to Death.
During this time Zarboz is tracking him across the desert, following his steps. He finally catches up to Tarek and the magician. Fight ensues. Examine Tarek’s motivation of creating his own kingdom against Zarboz’s knowledge of what the Beast can and will do- attempt to topple and replace the current gods, and in the process, destroy the world. Tarek believes that Zarboz simply wants to control the Beast.
More interaction between War and Death, with the revelations that War wants the Beast active and under the command of a human that he controls, in order to use it to kill off the other gods and become THE god. Death, knowing the previous magician had failed to kill this last Beast, wants Tarek to take control of it and destroy it once and for all. Also talk that Death used to be the god of Art (NOTE TO SELF: Think up better title. ALSO NOTE TO SELF: Describe the other gods to make it apparent to the reader that there are more than just the two- the other gods include Sickness, Hunger, Wealth, hmm, add a few others later.) She originally created the Beasts, but war gave them life with a part of hisself. The Beasts, fueled with partial souls (contained within the books) made from War went on a ramage, attempting to get to the gods, and with such large amounts of magic (being both magically created and animated and having the souls in the books) would have been able to punch through the normal realm and break into the god-realm. With such a danger, the gods were worried. They demoted Art, thinking she had given the Beasts their souls as well as creating them, making her the god of Death, and banished her from the normal god-realm unable to leave her own death-realm. A fight between Death and War left her without an eye. The gods needed to stop the beasts, but since the books were created by Death, her power was needed to destroy them. However she could not leave the death realm, so human proxies were needed, people would have to die, go to the death realm and then be allowed to return to life, this is the only time that the gods have allowed Death to resurrect someone. These proxies became the magicians.
Zarboz kills the magician, because as part of his orders he has to kill everyone helping the thief. While fighting the magician, he forces the man’s own arm-still holding his sword, and makes him stab himself, killing him. Tarek fights him to a standstill and escapes when Zarboz becomes trapped somehow. He escapes back to shore with the book and rides to the place that is known as where the dead Beast is. War seeing his servant failing, whispers to the subconscious of a Colonial General whom he has made successful and persuades him to stop Tarek. If War’s man can’t have the book (and therefore, the Beast) than he will at least make sure that Death does not get. Tarek rides north while the General, spurred on by War, rides his army south. Eventually they meet, Tarek fights his way through and past, and continues toward the Beast, with both the army and an again magically aided Zarboz. He get to the Beast’s buried body, which was now under a mountain, replaced the book to it chamber and reactivated it. The Beast, angry and especially powerful after thousands of years buried began to emerge to go it its rampage. Tarek held no control over it. Zarboz, the General, and a small group of soldiers had made it inside the Beast before it completely emerged and began destroying the general’s army.
Zarboz makes it to Tarek first, convinces him to destroy the Beast and killself. Zarboz motivation- that war is the way of the world, but there can not be complete war everywhere, because that will ruin balance, and destroy everything. The general and the soldiers show up. Zarboz fights them to buy tarek time to take enough control of the Beast to kill it.
Zarboz dies in the fight, War abandons him as a traitor and gives the general enough strength to overpower him. Tarek takes control of the Beast, kills himself and destroys the Beast.
He ends up along Death’s river, and is given a choice, that since he is the last magician and stopped the last Beast which was being used by War, something the other gods disapproved of, he was given a choice between returning to the world as an immortal or ruling the underworld with Death. He chooses to die and walks across the Death river, and into the fog.
I can never love you because I'm just thirty squirrels in a mansuit."
"Ah, good ol' Popeye. Punching ghosts until they explode."[/b]-Internet Webguy
"It was cut because an Army Ordnance panel determined that a weapon that kills an enemy soldier 10 times before he hits the ground was a waste of resources, so they scaled it back to only kill him 3 times."-Anon, on the cancellation of the Army's multi-kill vehicle.
"Ah, good ol' Popeye. Punching ghosts until they explode."[/b]-Internet Webguy
"It was cut because an Army Ordnance panel determined that a weapon that kills an enemy soldier 10 times before he hits the ground was a waste of resources, so they scaled it back to only kill him 3 times."-Anon, on the cancellation of the Army's multi-kill vehicle.
Re: Original: The Desert Thief.
Oh, I get it now. That cleared up some of my confusion, thanks.
∞
XXXI