Part Fourteen was probably the worst part to write, because the one that I posted is the fourth rewrite of the entire thing. It is so far the one that's had the most re-writes to it. The original part that was going to take the place of Descension was going to be called Winter's End, which was originally going to take place after a part called The North Wind,
The reason it wasn't Winter's End was because it was a part that was basically made up of short stories that didn't really lead anywhere. It was about the group as a whole coming to terms and trying to recover after the disappearance of Martha. It was scrapped for being too disjointed and too needlessly hopeless. (As my husband/editor put it, 'With how everyone reacts, it's like Martha died')
After scrapping Winter's End I rewrote part fourteen and called it Crossroads. This made up two of the versions of this part, each one quite different from the other, but accomplishing the same thing. It was a little more cohesive than Winter's End, but had just too much going on. In it I introduced two new characters (I've mentioned in a previous blog post that there were going to be two more characters, but didn't reveal who they were.) and a new area that was connected to the Space Between, called The Crossroads.
It was a universe with thousands of walkways and doorways that didn't really lead anywhere, and the group figures out that they had come through here when they were sucked in the basement of the Sanctum, but just didn't remember it. This made it so that everyone that was seen in the Crossroads (Which I named quite a few in the two versions that I had written) could have potentially been in the basement of the Sanctum instead of any of them who had appeared there.
With two new characters, the cast seemed crowded, and I couldn't do a good job of introducing them smoothly, which were some of the reasons that it was scrapped. I really didn't want the group to begin to feel too big.
I began writing Descension in early October, which if you're keeping track, is the same month that it was published. It's the only one that has been written and published in the same month, and I was so worried that I wouldn't even get it out in October. I've been trying very hard to keep a one part a month schedule, and without part fourteen written up, I was really worried that I would have to do another hiatus like I did in June, where I updated with two smaller interludes.
Descension also takes the place of The North Wind, which would make it the sixth rewrite when it comes to that particular part. The North Wind was a part that introduced Boreas, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get it to be well written, and every version of Boreas, my husband/editor hated him that whenever he saw a new rewrite to 'the Boreas chapters', he'd sigh and roll his eyes.
After quite some time contemplating it (Too long, really), I decided that it was better to introduce Boreas in a part that wasn't about him. The North Wind was always about him, and as my husband/editor puts it made him out to be 'fucking garbage' and 'an MMORPG quest giver'. (Also dubbed him as 'North "my middle name is Exposition" Wind'.)
And now to Descension itself. I don't know where I got the idea for it, but I just started writing it and that was that. Usually whenever I write something it has a basis elsewhere, but with the Tower of Trials, if I did base it off of anything, I don't remember what it was.
It could have partially been my love for D&D, as you've already seen in Sorcery and Specters, but this one is a little closer to source. More like descending into a dungeon filled with traps, mazes, and monsters that you have to fight through. (Perhaps a little bit of influence from Fallout 4's Nuka-World expansion as well, but I really don't remember if that was a contributing part when I was first writing it up.)
As I've mentioned before, this is the part where I introduce Boreas, and he's not just a passerby in the story, he will appear later on and have a much larger role. As in the chapters he appears in, he has information about the assassin that came to kill J'onn and Martha in part eight (The Harbinger of War), and informs them that there is at least one other assassin. I won't say much here, because I don't want to spoil the surprise. :P
Other than Boreas and the Assassin (Named Chloe Kneal, who we will also see in the future with a larger role), the only other major event to happen was the reappearance of Martha. (And J'onn and Martha are finally together!)
-EDR
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