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]

Acadian: I really like those old Roman beds, with the elevated head and shoulders. Those would be really nice for people (like myself) who suffer from acid reflux at night. In fact I love that whole room in the pic I posted. That would be an awesome place to live.

That whole segment was a nice little piece of character building that I enjoyed writing immensely. It shows Aela simply being herself, and it gives us a view into Loria as well. As you pointed out, Aela is the dependable, reliable, responsible one. While Loria is out having fun, she is paying the bills and keeping appointments.

Nit fixed. Thanks for catching that. It was just a typo, the kind that the spellchecker never catches.


Renee: If you ever saw Frozen, when Princess Anna wakes up is what I imagine Aela's hair is like in the morning.

Aela's mental projection into the aether is somewhat described way back in the first chapter, when she summons the air spirit from beyond the confines of the dark barrow. I will also go more into it later in the story. You can also refer to the There Goes The Neighborhood link in my signature, which features an early version of the same thing that I wrote for Elder Scrolls Aela.


Uleni Athram: Hi Uleni! I did a lot of research for that fighting scene in the street, as I am not a martial arts person like yourself. I only know what I read or see in videos. I am glad it was exciting. I imagine that the Orcs invented Muay Thai kickboxing. I got that push kick that the orc tried to finish Phereinon off with at the end of the fight from a video of an mma fight where I guy used it to knock his opponent out cold.

You are right in that Phereinon sometimes gets arrogant and shows off. She is 5,000 years old, and knows every fighting style that exists. Some of them she invented.

Other times she simply discards niceties, and just takes the pain instead of dodging or blocking, and counters with something devastating. It is a side-effect of her regeneration that she and Wolverine share. It is also inspired by an episode of Sharpe's Rifles. Sharpe is a Peninsular War veteran and returns home after the war. He gets goaded into a fencing match with a young dandy, and loses badly, because it is a nice, regulation match fought for touches. At the end of the movie they fight for real. The dandy stabs Sharpe in the shoulder with his rapier, and Sharpe grabs his sword, pinning it. Then he puts his broadsword against the dandy's throat and says something to the effect of "When it's for real, you take the pain." Phereinon is like that. Pain is nothing to her.



Chapter 7.2

The mercenary bar was nearly empty, and Aela wondered how many of the patrons she saw scattered about had been there all night. She thought that Waranari closed up at some point. But she had never stayed long enough to find out. For all that she knew, the Aymaran publican never slept.

"Aela," the very same tavern-keeper's voice rumbled from the bar. The tall, shaven-headed Aymaran was wiping cups clean. He paused to jerk a thumb to one of the back corners of the main room. "Someone's been asking for you."

"Thanks," Aela nodded. She headed that way, noting an indistinct figure in a gray cloak and hood seated there, back against the wall. An oversized book was spread open on the table, with a filled mug nearby.

The Arvern hoped that this person would bring their number up to six. She would have liked to remain in the city longer to recruit, but there was no certainty when the bandits would return to Agrigento. They would have to make do with whomever they left with this morning.

When she reached the table, its occupant looked up, and threw back her hood to expose iron-gray eyes, moon-pale skin, and stark white hair. It was the mystery woman she and Loria had crossed paths with first at the Camna estate, and then in the street outside the armorer's.

"You are Aela?" The mystery woman leaned forward with interest. "The Arvern mage trained at the Ingenium?"

"I am." Aela said, "My partner said your name is Phereinon?"

"Yes of course, the elf who followed me into the shop," she mused. "I am Phereinon. You sound surprised to hear that name."

"Well, when I do it is normally part of some lurid tale of vengeance and mass-murder," Aela said. "But those tales go back thousands of years."

"I have heard them." The other woman gestured to the chair across from her, and Aela sat.

"You were there in the street the other day, and at Camna's." Phereinon continued. "All this time I have been seeking you, and now here you are, for the third time. I don't know if this is fate, the bony claw of some divine power, or just the multiverse trying to get my attention. Well, you have it."

The Arvern thanked Waranari when the publican walked over with a mug of ginseng tea. She took a faint sip of the bitter drink, and turned back to study the mystery woman across from her.

Aela's gaze traveled across the scars that cut across the left side of Phereinon's cheek. They were jagged rents, which led her to discount the thought that they might have been caused by a knife or sword. They were also too unevenly spaced to have been the claws of a beast. Her experience in vitamancy suggested that whatever had caused the scars had been rough and irregular, like an outcropping of coral, or a bed of broken glass like those some builders put atop walls to discourage thieves from climbing over. From their lack of color, it must have happened some time ago.

"You have been looking for me?" Aela wondered. "Did you change your mind about joining us?"

"No," Phereinon said. "I seek the expertise of a conjurer who is skilled with the element of earth. Someone not daunted by long odds. Someone who will not break. I have been told by many that you are the second best in the city."

"Who did they say is the best?" Aela asked with genuine curiosity. While others might have taken it as a snub, she had to confess to feeling more than a little satisfaction at being held in such high regard as second.

"Every summoner I asked said they were the best," Phereinon said. "So I have been looking for you."

Aela stifled a laugh. If anyone else had spoken, it would have been funny. But nothing about the white-haired stranger evoked mirth. The Arvern shivered, and was not even sure why.

"So you want to do some digging?" Aela asked. "I can do that. I have experience working with earth spirits in underground spaces. Like back in the Old City under Alalia."

"Good," Phereinon leaned forward. "How are you with wild spirits? Can you calm them? Can you control them?"

"That really depends on the spirit," Aela replied honestly, "and why it has gone out of control. One that has simply slipped the grasp of an inexperienced summoner is a trifle to manage. But those that are genuinely aggressive or enraged, well those are more difficult."

"These are extremely aggressive," Phereinon said. "Lethally so."

"Where are you going where the spirits are…" Aela's words trailed away as she looked down at the book spread out between them. As Loria had said before, the pages laying open showed sketches of an ancient city. At first she thought it was Arvern, albeit thousands of years old. But the unmortarted stone in some of the drawings pointed to an even older age than her own people's civilization. Those had to be from the time of the Mound People.

"You are going to Tregyn," Aela breathed, "to the City of the Dead."

"Yes," the white-haired woman nodded. "I have lately come from there. What I seek lies buried deep beneath the modern city, beneath the ruins of the older cities underneath. I could dig myself, but it would take centuries."

"You came from there?" Aela looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. "Are you mad? Do you know how many return from expeditions there?"

"Not as many as those who remain," Phereinon almost seemed to smile then. "But really, it is not as dangerous as it once was. Eight years of tomb raiders have thinned out the deadwalkers considerably."

"Only the most powerful are still there," Aela observed, "that is not reassuring."

"Perhaps I sought the wrong person after all." Phereinon leaned back in her chair, and seemed to reappraise the Witch. "I was under the impression that the first ardhanari to graduate from the Ingenium was not one who required reassurance, or who balked at danger."

"I won't hesitate to kill anyone or anything that threatens me," Aela growled. Her arcane shield was instantly in her mind, ready to spring to life from her fingertips. By reflex, she partially shifted her senses into the aether, and felt a wood spirit sleeping within the beams of the ceiling. She reached out, gently waking the dryad and coaxing her attention. It would take only a second for her to fill the spirit with mana, and bring her fully into the physical world.

"Being a two-spirit in the Ingenium taught me to fight," Aela continued. "But it also taught me to pick and choose when and where I do. Tregyn is the graveyard of adventurers whose reach exceeded their grasp. Money is not a good enough reason to go there."

"Good," the white-haired woman leaned forward again, as if satisfied by Aela's response. "I can take care of the dead. They and I have an... understanding. I only need you to deal with the nature spirits."

Aela wondered just what an 'understanding' with the dead might mean. Was she a necromancer? Given the contempt Phereinon had displayed for necromancy in the street fight with Sethre Camna, that seemed doubtful. But Aela of all people knew that the face one presented to the world might not match what truly lay underneath.

"I had an experience with a mad spirit once," Aela mused, "during the Sluagh. It created a tornado, and tried to flatten my family's home outside of Cymner."

"You dispelled it?" Phereinon asked.

"I calmed her," Aela said. "I soothed her. She was far too much for me to simply defeat with raw power. Not that I even knew how to do that back then."

"How old were you?" The white-haired woman furrowed her brows in thought.

"I was, oh, thirteen," Aela said. "It was before I went to the Ingenium. In fact, it convinced my parents to let me study magic there."

"And the spirit?" Phereinon asked. "What became of it?"

"As I said, I calmed her." Aela shrugged. "Whatever madness the Sluagh had infected her with was gone. She drifted around the house afterward. But I have not seen her since I left."

"You pacified a mad spirit?" White-hair stared back at Aela. "You restored its sanity?"

"I don't really know what I did," Aela had to fight the urge to squirm. She felt like she was back in school, and one of her teachers was grilling her about some boring subject - like materiality - that she had failed to study about the night before. "I cannot put words to it. I just reached out and made a connection. I shared my warmth... my compassion. I felt her rage, her terror, her violation, and I... doused it, drowned it, with... well... love."

Aela had to fight the warmth rising to her cheeks. She hoped that she did not sound as trite and soppy as she imagined, talking about love.

"If only such a thing would work against swords," Phereinon murmured and stared away. If she had noted Aela's discomfort, she gave no sign of scorn. Then she looked back, eyes hard as steel. "You are the one I seek. I have no doubt."

"I am sorry, but I cannot go with you," Aela shrugged once more. "Loria and I already have a quest. We have given our words, we cannot break faith."

"But even if we did not, I still don't know that I would want to go with you," Aela said. "Like I said before, no amount of money is worth it. I advise you to look for treasure elsewhere. Leave Tregyn to the dead, it's their city now."

"I cannot," Phereinon said. "But I never said anything about treasure. I have little need for trinkets. Oh, there is gold, and jewels, and artwork, and other valuables aplenty within the Dead City. That is how I intend to pay you after all. It is not what I seek however."

"Then what?" Aela wondered aloud, "fame, power, glory?"

"Don't you want to know what caused the Sluagh?" Phereinon answered with a question of her own. "Don't you want to know how to stop it from happening again?"

Aela stared back at the other woman in sheer amazement. She did not know what to say. Was this mystery woman mad? That would explain her using the name of a millennia-old urban myth. Then Aela remembered how Phereinon had fought in the street, and her mastery of ancient magic such as aura cloaking and binding.

"You have some idea of what caused it?" Aela cautiously probed.

"I do," Phereinon nodded. "But I need to get down under Tregyn to be certain. Will you come with me?"

"I..." Aela had to admit that she was intrigued by this strange woman, and her quest. The Sluagh had nearly killed her and everyone she had known. It had killed hundreds of thousands of others who had been less fortunate. It felt personal, close to home. In truth, it was.

"We have a contract with the people of Agrigento," Aela rose to her feet, reaching for the rare comfort of ethics. "Our oath is our bond. Perhaps afterward… I'll need to think about it."

"Then I will come with you to Kye Rim," Phereinon stood as well. Closing the book of sketches, she slid it into the pack beside her chair. "And afterward, we shall see."