(GE Copy)

Bonus Content: Original Concepts- Nephesh Truth Ultimatum

"I can't believe the aniversary of this piece is April 1st... Like, I know it started as a joke (more on that later) but WOW, the joke really is on me this time."

Like most of the stories, I’ve run an... Embarrassing to admit, acting session to play out the events and hopefully make more realistic responses.

The first initial instance of Nephesh was a concept mashup that sat on the shelf for over 6 months after it’s first test. The first session followed the standard trio in an absolute nutty rampage adventure in Penticton, involving crappy dares, mistaken intentions, and running from the cops with Sophie being completely indifferent and condescending. After those 6 months, it came back with the same purpose it had before; I was bored and didn’t really want to be working on a different project which is where the giants head session first took place. It was my dubbed... “Whatever I want” story, because it was never meant to be anything... Well... That sure went well, now didn’t it?

At first, I forgot what I originally named Spohie and gave her that name. I remember now, that her original name was Shela, because it was based off of a character from a previous work of mine where Shela was responsible for accidentally causing a Spacetime Anomaly, and fusing between different dimensions. A result of a paradox trying to resolve itself, where all her memories were actually from a future time line, where “Cathoris” the main character’s mentor, trained her in a dying world which fun fact, occurred in 3 different time lines. It was a fantastical story, and no, I’m not writing it.

Zachery’s name was based on multiple projects as a placeholder name, and pretty much inherits most the qualities that they had also. There are a couple inside jokes revolving around his development but like Sophie, this is the first instance of it being formed into something literary.

Aaron, was an alias that was also used in a previous work, because I liked the name... It didn’t go anywhere.

It wasn’t until I realized what I could do with Nephesh that I actually formed a plot. Before then, was just an adventure with all the crazy world events happening. Kinda like what it looks like now, but without the foreshadowing, or the serious undertones. Honestly, it was a mess of crappy humor and running with it anyway because I was tired of being serious all the time... Hence the name.

Chapter 1-3: The written giant’s head session was mostly a bunch of foreshadowing and blatant filler to try and get from point A to point B, and is vastly different from the concept piece. Originally, they saw the ghost across the lake, north of the Penticton sign and they went over there which was the first introduction of the brother and his car lot... And that he was a lot more malicious. Aaron finds a tunnel which leads into another world, a dark, sleepy hollow themed place where he is abducted directly from the wasp queen and the other nobilities where he actually served as a slave for a few weeks time until he could escape. Yes, the dream sequence was inspired by this, but it serves a different purpose now. Anyway, the ghost intervened, and upon leaving actually explained the area between worlds in such a detail that to this day, I wish I could remember coz it was really down the rabbit hole. He then heads home, obviously. I thought this was a good place to start things off, being a grounded concept, something not too far off, and could easily break off into something pretty deep. We can see how that went, huh?...

The contractor was a freak accident, a random thought that I just went with, with no idea why it was there. I almost forgot about him for a few years so when I wrote it down I actually made him a key character. It was just such a crazy thought, that I thought it stuck really well, and after the few years of enjoyment and self indulgence, I luckily remembered that small instance that happened so long before hand. A lot of the inspiration for the contractor came from at least eight different sources which I haven’t really done for any other detail. I liked the idea of a character that was constantly different every time you saw him, as a narrative device, and has taken inspiration from a plethora of characters as a bit of an homage in his own style. Some coming from Soul Eater, Spawn, Carnaval and madness in general, so now you know my dirty secret. I wouldn’t be surprised if subconsciously he reminds me 90% of Alice in Wonderland. The idea to include him as soon as possible wasn’t just to establish the plot, but was to actually foreshadow Aaron’s character.

Chapter 4 pretty much did not exist. I don’t think there was ever a moment of the trio going around town for adventures, it was always somewhere else, so it was mostly an introductory chapter. One that I’m actually not proud of. It was far too simple, and unimpactful. I liked the descriptions but otherwise it could have been better placed with some more solid baseline narritive, or some more far off events.

Chapter 5-6: The concept for the portal in the back woods came pretty early, so I figured it was a good place to introduce it. Squirrels gag, I assure you, original concept at the time. Now, not so much, I’ve seen it everywhere and I was hesitant to even add it... Most of this writing was heavily faithful to the original session, and was kept as a comedic introduction to the world. So if you wondered what most the original sessions were like, it was a lot like these chapters here. Only difference was that the original ceremony kinda just happened out of nowhere. The priests weren’t pissed because it went to the wrong people, but originally Aaron and Zack just ended up offending them with fish jokes because they weren’t taking it seriously. It also happened at night. I’m not really sure why. Otherwise, heavily faithful and is a clear reflection of how it usually went in the early days.

The big block between chapters 6 and 7: A lot of things happened before this, which I can’t remember that far back. Probably half a dozen adventures of random, undefined stuff that had nothing to do with chasing oddities. Keep in mind, it was just a screw around project at the time. The seven, or ‘barons’ originally showed up many times before hand. Khrouts had many appearances, all of which I can’t tell you about, literally all of them. It was that bad, like legit... I redesigned his character from a shock character that mocked the idea of the barons but after they became something serious, it was apparent that he would need a real founding. Other than gags involving immoral profanity (that’s why...) and being a dark mysterious figure. He needed to be respectable. That sure went well...

Chapter 7 was a freak accident when the story finally got a plot, kinda. It was never meant to be a plot, I just wanted there to be a bunch of concept on the wall, maybe see which ones stuck, but that was just to be one of twenty other equally interesting factions. After a long time, and many sessions with it in the background it became the most prevalent thing. Of course, I had no idea why they were there or developed it, why they were fighting, why Penticton got destroyed, none of it. I just thought it sounded cool and made the connections later.

After a few years, I managed to put enough things together that it made it’s own entity and character trait to which I decided to use that as the main driving force in this story. The other interesting contending factions had notabilities and dark knights, there were kingdoms and tribes, but nothing stuck nearly as hard as the Seven...Not even the ninja’s, more on that later. So the rest was scrapped. Some differences was that the contractor was not present for that intereaction, and Simon randomly ran into Aaron on the rooftop. Shaltin had a thirty foot tall elephant, most the people were not defined, Khroutz was a throw away joke and was just called baron. Yes, everyone hated him...

The unwritten bird episode. Every, single, thuck mothering story I did, always had some themes in common. I did them, because it was for my own enjoyment. One being a stream which turns life force into crystal. Not sure if that concept was a dream, but little 8 year old me loved it, so did 12 year old me, 16 year old me, and 20 year old me a decade later. The other was a beautiful actual nightmare i had as a kid based on Timon and Pumba, with the freaky ass bird. I dreamed that they were attacking in droves, fling through windows, a full scale assault on the town. When they died, they turned into fried chicken. You can start to see why I liked it so much. The chapter 9 ‘chapter starter’ is loosely based around this as an inside joke, and to break up the seriousness of the quotes. So, yeah, you better believe there was a bird attack session, and I am not ashamed of that. If I didn’t have so many plans for April First Editions, I would probably give it a renaissance, but like Santa, it only comes once a year and these ideas fall into my lap faster than I can write... So... You get Drunken Vodka Russian Adventure instead.

Drunken Russian Vodka Adventure... Pretty much as you saw it. It was glorious when I first conceptualized it, it’s still glorious now, only written better. Moving on.

The Crystal Collage, which was scrapped, was the start of a running gag I was going to do wher Aaron would always end up getting expelled over something over the top and stupid... But from front to back it didn’t server any useful purpose and made the plot more convoluted so it was scrapped entirely. The basic flow went as such, Aaron and Zack are playing in the back woods, and someone appears out of a portal, which then takes them to a, yeah... Totally original concept place. From there they learn of gemstones and their uses, and having to acquire them. The mine itself was supposed to be past the collage campus which many levels were in active use by the students, and it was the lower levels which were marked as dangerous. Aaron and Zack, having no concept of danger, took the risk... You know, after writing out the first couple chapters and quantifying things, I realized that it wasn’t so simple as: “Giant monsters that could kill you, equates to... Having a good time.”

At this time, Aaron became rather skilled with gem smiting and created many tools which you hear about much later on. Because they were originally too overpowered and did not offer any challenges to the main characters, I scrapped half and delayed the really good ones for later when it made sense... Spoiler-no-spoiler. Come on, it’s obvious at this point. At the end of the session, Aaron creates a giant mess and as mentioned, is expelled. I’d tell you what he did, but I couldn’t think of anything cleaver at the time so it was really lame and not even worth mentioning. Just figured when I wrote it, I’d have the sense to make something better. Which... The only sense I had was to scrap the whole thing. Although the contention between the head master was a running theme, with Aaron always sneaking past for some more gems, and entering the lower levels, I figured I could probably do just as well with some other force.

This is the part that almost killed the whole story altogether... Sophie’s arc came to because of a war between a faction which, frick me if I can remember why they existed... But they had to ask the help of the Crystal Collage which is why I spent so much time describing this 2 minutes ago. Roughly 80% of content up to this point was scrapped because it did not further the plot... You’ll see this pattern a lot...

Anyway, originally, this point was so uninspired, and so void of form that I couldn’t continue... I wanted to continue but it became an 8 month hiatus coz I just couldn’t patch it together and none of it made sense. Most of the early stuff didn’t really have a form yet, and that carried on for a few years of random hiatuses in between, but this hiatus in specific was the definitive hiatus that almost killed the whole story.

Eventually I said ‘thuck it’, and in the spirit of the ‘do whatever’ story, i stopped working on a plot and just made whatever worked. And yeah, a lot was scrapped and it just became most of the chapter 8 that you see today. The concept that her Father being one of the Seven was a concept that seemed too hokey and I have fought with ever since. Even now, with so many useful plots based around it, I want to redo it all... It’s kept, because he became an integral character and couldn’t be so easily replaced. I know that most things that happened originally were spontaneous, nonsensical, and was responsible for the seires to continue until it could be made whole but I still wonder if that was a choice I could have done better... So, I rolled with it, foreshadowing it from chapter 0, you see what I did there? Was freaking scared that people would take it literally and spoil the surprise. “Sophie might as well be an alien...”

The other regret was wondering if I should have expanded on the futuristic side of the world, but there’s always time for that.

As for Chapter 8: I can’t remember if the Mackeral got them out or not, but the vent crawling was much more chaotic, as they were caught instantly rather than half way through so trying to figure out what to do was an absolute mess and was written fresh from scratch with the concept in mind. The only thing that was unchanged was getting sucked up into space, and coming back to Earth. Simple as that.

Chapter 9: Aaron was always a crafty guy, between making go karts, to a gem crafted hover board that I moved elsewhere. I think I missed a lot of opportunities to continue this narrative in between to set up his direction in things, but I finally managed to bring it back to it’s roots even if it does seem abrupt to me. There was always a contention between Aaron and Belship’s concepts of knowledge, so when much further on in the story this ends up diverging on bad terms, I decided to rework it Aaron’s involvement into a mentorship. I did this so that the line between systems of information could be drawn much earlier with more definition instead of much later with no basis behind it. The key being that Aaron seems unadept for it, and Belship not being understanding.

Now, I know it’s not the most exciting thing and I really could have done a better job with it, but... Honestly, I love fantasy concepts of reality. It’s like candy to me, and I could eat it up all day: Things that I wish I had, interactions between objects in relativity, quirks between expectations... And after all that, even I thought it was dry. So... Sorry, that’s why there are 2 copies.

Chapter 10-11 The lower levels of the mine were discovered in the Crystal Collage segment, so it had to be reordered. Without the basis, it had to be introduced, and the main character needed to have a reason to go into the dangers, so for the longest time I was trying to work out his growth to account for it. Did it work? Not a clue. Probably not. 0/10 ING.

A lot of things happened here which had to be scrapped. About another half a dozen sessions, between gem shenanigans, romance, impromptu rival challenges, Kroutz still making a mockery of the seven, doing illegal things, and teaching people about things they didn’t want to know anything about... so believe me when I say, it was kinda hard to get to this point. Not me mention...

Enonya, talk about forcing a character into the script for the sake of having them. It was always hard to include her. Never had much place in the story, and I kinda blamed her introduction for a major downfall of most of my creative works at the time because it was that night that I actually struggled, mentally to focus which required two attempts of rewriting the concept. Guess I should explain. She showed up really early. It was pretty tame shit back then. She kinda just showed up, right?... Anime cat girl, chasing butterflies. Obviously, two young boys looking for adventure had to interrupt her. She took kindly to Aaron, and there was more than copious useless things developed for her. She was a princess that took off, had a spat with the wasp queen... It was really dumb, kay. Super epic standoff, two unbelievably powerful forces facing off, a battle of wills... Animals, so, so many animals walking back slowly but in reality they kinda just had a pathetic cat fight. It spawned the Kraytoes two realities joke on the ship in chapter 8, with being a badass and also just kinda taking off. Plot twist was that on full moons she’d turn into a full furry, and that kinda stopped Aaron from persuiting her romantically... Even though they slept together. Just him and his cat. Didn’t get along with with *temporarily redacted name* too much... Oh, and it was a common joke that Sophie would dog pile Enonya any opportunity she had. It spawned the cat obsession. You’d think at this point she was a perfect edition but there were a few problems with it.

If you struggle to bring a concept into fruition, and have to force it, no matter how many quirks you give it, it doesn’t really have a place. Sure, she was cute AF, but was oftentimes forgotten entirely for months on end, only until was convenient. I was mostly trying to satisfy my anime waifu obsession, with an anime waifu I didn’t even feel strongly about. It created unnecessary tensions between characters, and Aaron’s girlfriend, as well as Zack’s... Guess I need to go over that one next...

Zack had a GF, she was mean and would 360 no scope him into submission, end of story.

We’re up to like year 3 of production at this point. Remember that 80% scrap margin? Yeah...

Aaron had a girlfriend. After the narnilaid incident, with the water, Aaron found a gemstone that focused positive emotions and created a love gun. I don’t have to explain myself anymore... Naturally, being two young boys... They thought it would be fucking hilarious if they went around town making crackship romances between people in public to see what would happen... Aaand, Aaron also synthetically builds a relationship with a girl. Things go bad when freaky shit happens, and they are moved into another dimention. Picked up by canables, hung over a fire, the works... Aaron has to admit that this shit happens all the time, and deal with the fact that he forced a girl to love him illegitimately. They escape one problem, and go to a city where they are accused of heracy, and you guessed it... Run for their lives. I’m getting really freaking tired of this trope. I’m sorry, I can’t come up with that much, so that’s just the way it goes. Was kind of funny to watch Aaron and his Girlfriend run along the upper stained glass balcony of Enonya’s wedding fiasco, and be utterly unaware. You know, with explosives, and half a battalion chasing them. It was a story arc.

There was another scene where they travel together, looking for holes in the world before I had conceptualized the whole somatic memory link concept for the world construction. So, rather spot on. Obviously, reworked entirely. They run from giant snake, hide in the mouth of a giant hamster, have to dry out their clothes by the fire, find themselves in a castle with skeletons and a dragon. They steal the gold there, piss off the fire lizard, share the pool with Zachery... Later find out that the gold is worthless, and just looks like gold. Zack spends about 5 or 6 sessions dreaming about his coming wealth and worry that his parents will find out and try to steal it from him. It was supposed to be a joke but I forgot about it so it never resolved... Thus, scrapped from writting.

Girlfriend’s dad gets involved, obligatory heartache, you guessed it. Aaron knocks on her window with a pebble, her Father answers and yells at him for being on his lawn and bothering his daughter to which Aaron replies. “I’m... I’m gay...” And fucks off, coz awkward as heck.

A lot of this sounds worth keeping, but I figured that I would rework a lot of the concepts into smaller niche ideas. More importantly I came onto a more important character I wanted to jump to. Considering their importance, it was actually become more of a problem in delaying their arrival, so I had to cut it and put it in later if I wanted it. So it was straight onto...

Chapter 14 Mirror lake. You have no idea how many concepts were scrapped at this point, it’s really hitting around the 90% mark but it’s time for the real meat of this story.

Concepts the same. After 3 years of developing this, I started to get the knack for making things worth keeping... Not. But this one plays about the same. Aaron’s girlfriend was also there at the time of and because... I don’t know, jumping in the water after an adventure just sounded like a good idea, everyone did it! No existential pressure, no contractor giving him his last week to live, just right straight up making no positive sense. Also, Zack fell in love with the mute girl. There are reasons I omitted this that come up in a little bit which means we’re onto...

Chapter 15:

I should probably wake up a little more or drink a coffee before trying to tackle this but hey... I’m bound to edit it at some point.

There are two profound moments where Nephesh was given a new skin, and found it’s direction; where it’s identity was solidified. The first, was a strange instance that I will call the spiritual anomoly, because everything started connecting on a deeper level, the second takes place a little further down the line that I began to understand what and why it seemed to make so much sense. I was in my apartment, 3 in the afternoon, after my classes that it happened. No idea how, why, but inexplicably, it happened. Felicity... Mother chugging... Felicity...

Otherwise I don’t remember chapter 15 too well. I think the cave thing happened, as well as the turtles. The chase at the beginning and snow balled into being chased by the shadow things in a swamp. the whole passing through the invisible wall thing, completely developed to explain the last chapters and no t in the original instance. Same with the whole realm of repeating images.

Chapter 16

Motivations kinda get lost to time a lot easier than events that take place. Aaron originally fixed Felicity’s voice on a whim, honestly I’m not that pleased about the motivation for the chapter I wrote either. When you put it logically, none of it really makes sense but upon reconstruction of the story it made sense that it was a spiritual journey more than anything. I like to say that there is a recovery period on nay drug, be it coffee to Canada’s legal herb and that becomes somewhat of an inspiraiton for this part. As Aaron is still on a descending journey from (obviously) remembering more than he cares for, it takes a bit to think logically and so he is in a recovery period where dreams and enchantments mean everything to him. Otherwise, It really was just that poorly thought out, but necessary.

There was no city. Originally there was a minitor, and half floating ruins encased in cliffsides that had eroded away. Zack also made a quick trip to fix Iswana as well. When Felicity’s voice returned, there came another journey that I compacted into Chaper 16 because of the needlessness of it’s adventure.

Felicity convinces everyone that they are super powerful but their powers were locked away. Everyone journeys out to find the witch that sealed away their power. Once finding them, it was discovered that the witch cursed Felicity to the form of a snake out of jealousy for their good looks, until realizing who Felicity was and restored human form as a new curse. I later understood a little more about this decision but not going into that bag of worms I’ll leave it simply that we understand things a little more than is explained to us.

Felicity’s restoration would allow him to magnify his size into a massive serpent, and was conciquently used all of about 3 times afterwords... So, I scrapped it, because it would make things heavily unbalanced, as unbalanced at is it.

It was also Aaron’s girlfriend who gave the name to Felicity.

Concerning Felicity: I have no idea what spawned Felicity, I have NO IDEA, It just felt like Felicity belonged in this story. It happened out of thin air. One moment Aaron’s running for his life, the next he sees this freaking puddle. From there, Felicity turned into my favourite concept of the whole story. Bar none. It altered about 5 times, between character meaning, or future. Felicity was just a snake but I took the concept to wonder what could have made such a magical event happen. What if there was purpose, what if there was destiny, what if there was a reason, million questions. After 3 weeks, it turned from a random event to a character that was bound by something, after that it turned into a character that Aaron would bond with, from there it turned into a character that meant more than just bonding but had a real place in the plot. After about a year, Felicity became a model of the oppressed man, then of spirituality. Not sure when but when the story got a real, end all, opus maximus plot, but Felicity then was a model for something even more. Felicity always seemed to evolve into something bigger until something really big happened. When I could connect the dots, I knew exactly who Felicity was, and made the story in the image of Aaron and Felicity... So, why 16 chapters to find out about them?... I realized, that was the reason why Felicity existed, because they were void for 16 chapters. That was the reason why Felicity had to be made into something. Does it explain the magic of why they randomly showed up to me one day after a hard day in University and turned into my favourite thing ever?... THECK NO, but kind of. But that plot line is a long time from coming, so one day you might know more than even I did back then.

Aaron’s girlfriend, fek if I could remember her name. I always sucked at making names and then forgetting. She gets left behind when Aaron becomes immersed in his creations and dumps him. Saddened by this, he goes on a journey and wakes up with a hangover like joke. I actually left if as such for a while until reworking the idea to suit Felicity later. Otherwise, yes... It was a right straight up crappy gag. Besides, caffeine don’t work like that.

Chapter 17

I liked this portion. Somewhere before the grand adventure to restore Felicity’s form, I began heavily investing my interests in Felicity. I began experimenting ideas around in my head, when I realized that the identity that the story needed would have to revolve around them. This means technically the fourteen chapters prior had no intention of Felicity originally and were overhauled to accommodate it later after this primary point in my life. I formulated the witches response around finally realizing Felicity was a guy and left everyone to wonder what it was all about. The whole thing follows the same formula as written, Aaron takes Felicity home, shenanigans ensue.

It wasn’t until later that concepts of fitting in and acceptance came in, if a bit unbearably frequent, so I nipped it in the bud and got all that over with in my written portion as early as I could. Everything was mostly faithful if not expanded upon, however due to the acceptance story arc, I altered the last half entirely and that expansion on their relationship grew into a half chapter of it’s own.

In the adventures of the new dynamic, a lot of changes happened, and the journeys in the old developed world landscape were unmapped, and took place bloody well about anywhere. I like this idea to some degree but scrapped it for arguably an equally faulty design of finality. From here took place about 20 journeys, most of which were either uninteresting, or held zero overall value. The story had form, but it’s direction was still amiss. From here until much later in the written copy were entirely originally stories which proved a bit of a difficulty. The entire way, there was an idea of a start and end of an adventure, now it was a long and uncertain road to get to the next checkpoint of the narrative and I had to construct everything very carefully... Naturally, I feel it degraded around here, until reacquiring sight over the direction I was trying to take it.

Chapter 18, Chapter 19, all original, and began to explain and express the obvious change that occurred in the dynamic. Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 and so on.

The water was always intended to become something common, but it’s overall seemed to develop into something more as I wrote it. Chapter 18 was supposed to finally put the cap on it, so it would become a foundation for another concept, and from here it broke off from the original, meaningless, ‘it just works’ premise from the original.

There was one thing that until this point I had not really developed upon that I felt I completely forgot about, and began frantically constructing a new narrative to explain and will likely be ironed out in the condensed edit. This is of course, kick starting the story ark of Aaron and his fascination and/or brilliance about gems and gemcraft. It couldn’t be instantaneous, because it also wasn’t established enough to instantly branch out in such a jarring and unfounded direction. I honestly wish I started planting that story in from the very beginning of Aaron’s lessons...

Aaron very early in the story was a genious with constructing, and in my attempts to pace that out with rationality, utterly forgot about it, lol, whoops. As early as the gem collage, he was making hover boards, by his lessons with Kaylemen, he was supposed to get expelled by creating another accident. By the point of this current chapter, he was supposed to have an arsonal of different –Aw, sh*t, I forgot. So... Sorry. That’s the first change written for the revision edit.

The concept of the revision edit. I pretty much planned to do this around chapter nine-ish, because of the shift in narrative design and the constant nagging from someone that I should crunch down like 40-60% of my work into something concise. I like the idea, because I can also reconstruct the faults into a smoother more logical narrative, while keeping the things that actually matter. There is a lot that goes into a chapter, that has to consider multiple events that comes after and how it effects years down the road makes for pretty short sight in the moment. So... Being able to look at it from a little further back helps make sure nothing gets wrecked.

Originally, Aaron’s friends kinda disappeared, like... For no reason, other than I was so fascinated with Felicity that they became less relevant and stayed at home mostly. This was kinda foreshadowed in a lot of places with their individual characteral arcs, and Zack’s constant fears but I wanted to actually instigate this a little with chapter 19 in specific. I don’t actually plan on having Zack and Sophie leave the crew per-say, but wanted to use this idea from the original as a way of expressing the change that was happening in this story arc. What becomes of that plot point later will be explained on it’s own, but, I did eventually forget about the two original characters back in the day. Felicity just naturally took the spotlight.

One of the only massive events from the original taking place in this strange new version was the bounty. It’s significant role actually founded the concept that the contractor would make an appearance in this written version, otherwise he would have been scrapped for something else. The quintessential event of the bounty gave direction and a certain level of explanation for events that I had otherwise not even considered how it came to be. It’s a short snippet inserted at a specific time to suit a different purpose at that time but the pieces aligned it was written into chapter 20 with the intention that it would mean even more.

Chapter 21, completely original, no previous concepts worked in. There is one concern; Simon appeared twice in the original, and I have no idea where the first one was, only the second meeting before the special arc that will appear. Figured it served a purpose of tying the seven back into the story, and acting as a specific key moment for Aaron so I roped it back to here, even though I think it happened way-way later.

Chapter 22, completely original, once again, with no previous concepts worked into it. You’re welcome. Same with Chapter 23. Chapter 22 however felt like it needed to continue things with Zack so I decided it was good to put a light hearted break in things.

Chapter 24

Also completely original, as it was a place to put a lot of jokes I was saving since chapter 6, not even kidding. The only concept from the original outline I decided to incorporate was Enonya, as a kind of tribute. Instead of anime cat girl with full moon transformation, she’s now full fur. Her intelligence is also given a face lift as she’s no longer a throwaway gag character, who acts like a Californian blond who dropped out of middle school. That’s about it. Figured it was time Zack’s fur craze was identified and finalized.

Chapter 25

This is the first chapter in a long line that actually had some backing and a massive departure from it’s origins. Firstly, Aaron had a girlfriend in the original, which this placement technically took the spotlight for, with Aaron much more advanced in his craft. Honestly looking on that with a frown, there is gonna have to be some heavy restructuring later as well. She began to loose interest in Aaron as he became so engrossed in his craft that he’d be much more preoccupied and this would lead into their falling out. Aaron would go to her place, toss a pebble at her window from the path along the creek only for her dad to open the window instead and give Aaron shit for dating his daughter. I want to interate this joke later when the time is right, but... Aaron, shy of the belligerent old man, replies with the only words that can come to his head “I’m gay...” And runs off.

Having failed to contact his girlfriend to try and make up for it, Aaron breaks into a liquor store by opening a gateway through it’s windows, grabs the non-alcoholic stuff, and wobbles down the street. Felicity would try to reach him, but Aaron wasn’t having any of it in his mock-drunken rampage down peach orchard road. You may be wondering how this relates anything to chapter 25, but this was the original setup for the mad journey into the middle of nowhere. I decided to move it up, needing to keep the story moving and I feel that I failed to make the same impact I wanted with combining these themes.

Chapter 26

When Aaron would awake, he’d have a massive hangover, and a bunch of other not really logical jokes about the party he was having in the middle of nowhere. He’d call out for Felicity instead, not having any issues with him at that time, and not have any worries about being lost that seemed unreasonable. You’d think for acting these scenes out, I would have a little more logic surrounding the odds, but as a common occurrence for it... I didn’t.

Aaron’s journey would take him to strange abstractions of forest with a new type of gemstone that would come to curse him, making him invisible. He could see himself, but no one else could. He would spend this journey away from home, finding a young woman who was on a short leash at home, and a mystery attached. He should have been completely unseen, but just like my nightmares (few as they are) she kept nearly bumping into him in an open field. The more he moved the more the grass rustled until it became obvious that there was something there and her home imprisoned mind was curious what it was.

Each day she would find him and Aaron would give advice, until on the subject, hoping that somehow he would find a cure. Eventually Aaron had to get involved, using his newfound camo to influence things inside the house, taking an especial hatred to the mother in law who treated the girl like crap. She would go up stairs to check on her husband, and give back his requests. Spotting the key the woman used to access the attic, Aaron nabs it and takes a look for himself. The woman would never let her daughter in law, on account of the poor state her Father was in, saying that it was the man’s wish for the girl to never see him as he was. Aaron discovers he is long dead, masked by the smell of herbs, and has been running all the books herself, having took over the man’s estate. The butler turns and boots the woman out of the house because of his loyalty to his original boss, and his bosses rightful inheritor, the young woman. Mission complete... Aaron is still lost, and invisible.

It sounds like the premise for one heck of a chapter, right? Nah. The honest answer is that I just didn’t like the premise, as it seemed slow paced, not handled the best and most of all... Too cliche. Scrap it! Besides, I’m planning an even more skookem adventure to rival it.

Aaron would eventually find Felicity looking for him, which is kinda odd considering where would Felicity even start looking? I think I went with Aaron being invisible the whole time and Felicity started looking the night Aaron went on the town and stuff, but they would return home... Somehow. Lot of fuzzy bits on this one. So, with Aaron home, it would be time to work on the next issue, making Aaron not invisible. Part of him enjoyed the idea, the other wished he could be around his parents again, as he still was not letting them know all the stuff that was going on (For their sakes).

Aaron looks to the sky and asks the holy mackerel (Which I wish to state if not remind everyone, the Holy Mackerel almost didn’t make the cut, but I needed something wacky and zany to set the bar of expectations really low.) “Holy Mackerel...” *Fish misses him* “Where do I go?” And a sign appeared in the sky, like a couple of them until Aaron followed it. I would lead him far away on a journey that would show him. Even into a pipe. Yes, a pipe. Crawling through he would come out on the other side, find a village that was cursed by an evil plague, and find himself hunted by invisible ghosts. Aaron found some kind of clue but it was too worn away and ends up discovering the real answer eventually.

The cure was sunlight, but he was invisible, so, sunlight couldn’t actually touch his skin but rather slip right past it; so he needed something that could absorb the sunlight for him so it could catalyze the rest of the process in beating the invisibility. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was great because all I can remember was that I was damn pleased about it. Aaron returns home, visible again!

The Dopplegnager. Back when I was spitballing ideas around, I figured I would make cross breeds with other stories for the fun of it, it’s this crazy do whatever story with different realms of existence, why not toss it all together for a non-canonical visit. It didn’t work out, like... At all. Side tracked myself and now I had this crazy alternate version of everything, spawned the ideas for different takes on the series, like... Drunken Russian Vodka Adventure, or... It’s the show, but now it’s a sit com style. I really had no scope of ever turning this work into anything. One thought came that, if there were different versions, why not have it where they met. In a dark version, where everything falls apart and the frabric of the universe fell under, somehow, Aaron is the only one to make it out alive into an alternate version of his own world, but... With the hole closed behind him back to his world, he is technically dead, walking but without a soul. It was a shitty concept, and I knew damn well when I did it. Anyway, other than reliving episodes of a childhood TV series, it sparked a lot of... Problems with the family. The mother was in denial, goes loopy, with wanting to believe that everything was normal while everything was very much not normal.

Mother gets transferred to psychiatric ward.

Gets resolved. She’s still nutty at times, but... Better (?) When they go to visit her one day, they run into the original bounty on Aaron announcement. One of the seven held the whole town and the lives there of as hostage for Aaron’s cooperation, and the doppelganger gives his life to protect them by giving himself in, leaving the original Aaron behind. Doppleganger mostly sat at home like Eyonya and was almost never used which is why it was easy to just wipe him aside there and move on with a concept I could actually develop. The orginization think they got Aaron, so Aaron has a long period of freedom before the wake up incident.

Hey, does it sound like a lot of stuff happened between these two chapters? That’s because I took a massive shift from the useless events. I’m still gonna compile the best into the chapters to come but this was the pivot point from the last ark to the next one, as the tone begins to shifts massively... Besides, if I have any hope of reaching the end goal in 3 years, I gotta progress the main storyline first.

Other useless details: There was one session which an evil spirit under the house is released to reek vengeance upon the world but was too weak to actually do anything. This opened up a hollow space underneath which Aaron reworked into his portal return point and his projects room. It worked, I guess, but with no one taking the whole bounty thing seriously for a while, I figured it was useless padding and built Aaron’s base elsewhere.

Two guys showed up challenging Aaron to a super radical downhill race on hover boards. I’m not sure what I was drinking that night.

You probably went back up to check if you actually read that one before.

You probably actually knew it wasn’t there, but were confused when you read that I repeated myself and went up to check if it was actually there...

I got you with one of these, didn’t I? The honest answer is that I don’t actually remember if I mentioned it and I’m too lazy to check it myself.

Chapter 38... Wait... We’re not at Chapter 38 yet. Come back again later.