Seven Reimagined, A new view of an old story Options

[SubRosa]

A while ago I wrote Seven, which is set in Tamriel. Afterward I thought about adapting it to an original setting. I did a lot of world-building, remade the characters to fit the new world, and got started into translating the story over.

I ran out of steam when I started looking at my over-arching direction, and started seeing some problems. The biggest one was that I had in mind a big High Fantasy story - an ancient race rising to destroy the world, champions rising from the dead, the army of light banding together to fight off evil, and so forth. The twist I planned to this standard format was that the protagonists were trying to stop the war, rather than win it. With finding a peace between all involved being the end goal, rather than destruction.

But the story I was starting out with - Seven - is Low Fantasy (at least the way I define it). Farmers and mercenaries vs. bandits. Ordinary people, with ordinary problems. I like that, as it feels very accessible, and makes the characters, even the extraordinary ones, feel more relateable. So that made me want to continue in that vein, and do a series of stories about a pair of hired spells who are part mercenaries, part private detectives. Sort of like Spenser For Hire or Magnum P.I. with magic. That in turn meant scrapping the entire over-arching story. Or trying to bridge the gap between Low Fantasy and High Fantasy. It left me with a lot of questions, and I was not feeling excited about the answers. So I ended up setting it all aside.

Instead of leaving it all collecting dust, I decided to post what I did finish up here. Maybe it will fire me up to get back to working on it again. People who have read Seven will recognize most of the main characters. Names have been changed in many cases. Some because the originals were Bethesda creations, others to suit the new races/languages. Speaking of which races and the like are entirely new, as is the geography, flora and fauna, how magic works etc... I will put some of that here in this post, and start the actual story in a second post. Let me know if you want to see more of the background notes, and I will put them in this post.


This is a world map

This is the continent of Aulerci, where most of the action takes place



Aela

Loria



The Stone Forest (IRL The Shilin Stone Forest outside of Kunming)

Another example of karst landscape


An Oro (IRL Orodromeus)

A Crumhead (IRL Parasaurolophus)

RL Troodon (the inspiration for the Teodon race)

Troodon front

Troodon head

Ancient Rasen Armor (IRL Samnite bronze armor)

Bronze lamellar armor

Bronze lamellar armor again


Veia Map

Rasen street

Rasen city

Rasen apartment block

Rasen-style architecture





Phereinon

Phereinon again

Malediction

Owl Screeching

Owl Carving





Serves Camna



Wooden mug

Tamac (tomahawk)



Raven pendant

Hrafngoelir

Hrafn's shield

Hrafn's seax


Venca



Rasen bedroom

Rasen bedroom 2

Rasen bedroom 3



Lorcras armor

Hagalaz rune




Horse-Powered Ferryboat 1

Horse-Powered Ferryboat 2

Spirecrown - Saurolophus Angustirostris





Lambeosaurus

Parksosaurus

Ornitholestes

Hadrosaurs 01

Hadrosaurs 02

Orodromeus

Gasparinisaura

Ouranosaurus

Maiasaura

Tropical Milkweed Beetle




Teodon Coloration (this is just what their scale colors look like, not actual representations of the characters)
Alcheon's coloration

Daehyun (a very common peasant coloration)

Dark Eye (though his belly is not so brightly white

Sindeok



Banyan tree

Durian tree

Bromeliads

Bamboo forest

Solagea


Kye Rim Graves

Teodon Dok

Teodon village house

Teodon village house



Earthen rampart, wall, and ditch

cheavaux de frise


Shield Wall training




Fighting Moves
Dark Eye's finishing move against Daeso

Phereinon's belly to back suplex (German Suplex) that she used upon the Arvern Oathman of House Camna

Here is a link to Sindeok's killing move against Brown-Scales

Morte Strike and Half Sword Defense

[SubRosa]

Chapter 1.2

Aela finally allowed her ward to drop, and pulled her senses back from the aether. She sighed as the drab reality of the barrow once again filled her vision. Her physical eyes - previously enhanced by a night seeing spell - could easily pierce the gloom. Yet for the moment there was little to see but the armored backs of northern mercenaries. The sounds of battle had ceased, as had their advance. Now the warriors milled about, and when they turned in Aela's direction the lightstones suspended from their necks created bright spots that hurt her enhanced eyesight.

With a command in the Skanjr tongue, most of the mercenaries spread out into the small chambers to either side of the main passage. One of them came back to Aela and Loria. He was a bear of a man, with a craggy face that looked as if it had been chiseled from the rocky mountains of his northern homeland. A beard of red bristles sprouted like trees from his rugged features. Sprinkled with gray in many places, his whiskers reminded Aela of a weathered old forest dusted with ash.

The newcomer held a giant Skanjr long axe in his meaty fists. Its single, crescent blade was fixed to a wooden haft over half as long as he was tall. She noted that not only was the steel edge stained with blood, but also bits of brain and hair. Aela felt power stir within the fearsome weapon, and it proudly announced its name to her as Skjoldbreki, which she imagined might mean 'Shield Breaker' in the Northerner's tongue.

"I expect that will be the end of it," the heavy-set man rumbled in the Rasen language. "But come, there may be more mages in the main chamber."

"Let's get cracking then Hrollaug," Loria said brightly in Elvish. The Light Elf emphasized his words by cracking his knuckles together, and he grinned with a zest that Aela had to admit she did not feel herself. There had already been a heavy battle outside of the barrow, against several mages and scores of armed warriors. Their bone-masked leader had been one of the most powerful magicians she had ever faced. So far it had been all Aela could do protect herself and the others with her shielding magic. She could not honestly say she was anxious for more.

The mercenary shook his head at the pair. Aela suspected that he did not understand Elvish. It was not a language many Northerners had a desire to learn, as elves were hardly well-loved by his folk. Aela had to admit that she felt much the same toward the Skanjr in turn.

She coughed as they made their way through the smoke-filled passageway. She noted Loria doing the same. The taller elf held up the long, flowing sleeve of his robe over his mouth and nose in an effort to filter out the smoke left behind from the incendiary magic that both sides had employed. Even Hrollaug and the pair of blond mercenaries who joined them labored to breathe.

At least there was something Aela could do about that. She let her senses shift to the aether once more. She pushed her awareness up through the great slabs of rock that made up the ceiling, into the turf that covered it, and finally out into the open sky above. Once she was clear of the noxious energy that suffused the barrow, she called out to the air itself with her mana, and it answered in the form of a sylph.

Aela entreated the air spirit for her assistance. She found that the elemental was more than willing to oblige. The spirit drew hold of her mana, and allowed Aela to pour the energy into her being. Using that power, the sylph was able to transcend the aether and take physical form in the passage below.

That form came in the manner of a strong breeze that whispered through the rough-hewn corridors of the barrow. Rather than simply stirring up the fumes, the wind pushed all of the smoke outside. In moments the air was clean and easy to breathe again, and a playful wind danced around the tips of Aela's bound hair.

The mercenaries looked around uneasily, and murmured to one another in their own tongue. That is when Aela noted that one of them was a woman. Not that it made much difference in the end. Professional warriors like those of the Frisverd company were fighters first, men or women second.

At the end of the corridor they came to a wide, semicircular chamber. They found a great, bubbling cauldron set up in the center of the room. Shackled to the ceiling above it was the corpse of a man. From his olive skin, Aela deduced he had been a Rasen. His body was missing from the waist down. Given the chunks Aela saw floating around within the pot, she imagined that his legs had not gone far. Entrails and organs dripped down from the poor man's torso to add spice to the unwholesome meal. If that was not enough, in several places along his arms the flesh had been filleted from his bones as well.

Aela could not help but to turn her head away for a moment. It was not the dissected corpse itself that made her feel sick. She had seen - and done - far more gruesome things during her years of training in the healing arts of Vitamancy. Bare muscle, bone, tendons, organs and the like were not the sort of thing to make her blanch. Rather it was the sadistic intent so clearly behind the act that disturbed her. That intent not only assaulted her physical senses, but violated her magical sensitivity as well. Just as the previous areas of the barrow had reeked of corruption in the aether, here the horror was at its worst in the spirit realm.

"What they said was true," Hrollaug rumbled, "damned cannibals!"

Another of the Skanjr mercenaries spat on the ground in disgust. Aela noted that even Loria's creamy features, usually so bright and cheerful, were now veiled in shadow.

"There's one still alive!" one of the Skanjr cried, pointing across the room with his bared sword.

Aela was instantly at the ready. Before even casting her gaze about, she focused her thoughts upon the symbol for her arcane shield, and prepared to flood her mana through the threads of its tapestry. When she did finally see what the mercenary was pointing at, she relaxed her guard, but only somewhat.

What had seemed to be only a bundle of rags at the far end of the chamber shook, like a pile of leaves in an autumn breeze. Hrollaug and the other two Skanjr warily moved toward it from both sides. Aela followed, just in case her shielding was necessary. At the same time she made sure to leave a clear field of fire for Loria, who waited near the doorway with arms raised.

"Help me, help me!" The bundle of rags exploded upward, and revealed itself to be a filthy man clad in shabby wool. Aela could see that his teeth were blackened from rot, and she could practically feel the lice squirming through his greasy hair. "They captured me, were going to eat me! Oh you have to save me!"

"Captured you did they?" the female mercenary asked slyly. Her hand darted down to his waist, and drew forth a long, single-edged knife belted there. "Then what are you doing with this?"

"And why are there no ropes or irons here to bind you?" the other mercenary demanded. He grabbed one of the man's hands, exposing his wrist. "And your skin bears no marks of them ever being there?"

"And a mail shirt at your feet?" With one boot, the female Skanjr poked the steel rings of a byrnie laying on the floor nearby.

"I can explain!" the dirty man cried. "I found that knife, I was going to-"

But Hrollaug and the other mercenaries were no longer listening. The war captain looked to his followers and nodded wordlessly. Before the dirty man could finish his sentence, the female Skanjr drew the cultist's own dagger across his throat in a crimson line.

Aela stood and watched as the life poured out of the man, her heart as cold as the glaciers of the mercenary's far-off homeland. She could feel the darkness that twisted and smothered the man's spirit, just as clearly as she could feel it choking the light from the barrow all around. She could muster no sympathy for the cannibal, not given the horror suspended above the cauldron, and floating within its depths. How many innocent people had he and his ilk kidnapped or lured to the barrow, only to meet such a terrible end?

"As I suspected, they are Manaha cultists." Aela followed Loria's voice, to find the Silaine mage standing before a shrine made of bones. They were not just any bones either, but entirely from the Manaborn races: those peoples with both sentience and the ability to recognize and manipulate magic, whether or not they actually used it. The bones were bound together in wire, forming the image of a creature taller than Loria, yet more slender, with limbs too long for the rest of its body.

"Bloody Fomorian filth," Hrollaug spat. Then he turned to the other mercenaries. "Take everything of value. Then let us be quit of this cursed place."

Loria moved away from the shrine, and the Skanjr went about their looting with a quickness that revealed their experience at such matters. Aela stepped over to her friend, and followed his gaze to the idol of bones.

Looking at the shrine set Aela's teeth on edge. For once she wished that she had not honed the magical ability that resided within her, that lay within all people. If she had not done so, she would be as blissfully unaware of the icon's terrible presence as the mercenaries were.

To the warriors it was naught but a grotesque curiosity. But even without consciously trying to aesense, Aela felt the deep and terrible hunger that rose up from the shrine. It twisted through her belly like a fiery snake. It clawed into her ears, like fingers across a chalkboard. It whispered of the power that could be hers. It gnawed and writhed, like a maggot in the flesh of her soul.

Aela felt as dark as the barrow. Darker still. Feeling the power of the idol, she realized that the worst victims of the cult had not been those they had murdered and eaten, but the cultists themselves. It was now clear to her that the dead were just the bait, like worms on a hook. It was the cultist's own spirits that were caught by that hook, rent and trapped by its corrupt promise. Their souls were the true victims of Manaha the Voracious.

Once the Skanjr were gone, and the two mages were alone in the chamber, Loria raised his hands. He loosed a torrent of violent mana across the room. Lightning arced and blasted the idol to pieces. The cauldron and the corpses followed as the elf turned his destructive power about the room. After shattering everything, he changed his assault to fire, and engulfed the chamber in an inferno of cleansing flame.

As far as Aela was concerned, it could not burn fast enough.