Eros and Personal Update, Part III · 8:16pm Jun 30th, 2023
To make a long story short, we once again have an endlessly expanding chapter that’s already several thousand words bigger than I thought it would be. It’s now over 17k words, which means we’re reaching the territory where I have to consider breaking it up again. Regardless, I plan to finish it this weekend. I’m back to work on Monday but off on Tuesday for Independence Day, though I don’t know how much work will actually be done by anyone when you’re talking one working day between the weekend and a coming holiday.
Well, that just means I can spend my time working on the chapter again. I still have a couple questions outstanding in it, including whether to include one particular scene or save it for later. Expect a lot of sex and a surprising amount of worldbuilding in this chapter—or next two chapters if I break it up—some of which will be definitely relevant in the main story later.
I don’t often give teasers for my clop chapters since they have to be sanitized, but I’ll do so here to show one such element of worldbuilding.
“Okay. We’ve heard that name over and over. So by all the crows, what exactly is Midway?” Fortrakt asked. “I mean, it’s the title of this thing, and I gather the name of a coming battle. But where does the name come from? What does it represent?”
Chris grinned. “Sorry, buddy. Guess we should have explained up front that Midway is the name of an island. It’s nothing more than a small volcanic atoll almost dead center of the Pacific Ocean—hence the name,” Chris explained. “No idea if the same island exists here. Hell, I don’t know even if the Hawaiian Islands exist on Tellus.”
“To judge by its location on the maps we’ve seen, I believe it does, Christopher Lakan,” Giraldi answered. “But few have visited it because it is inhabited by an isolated dragon clan led by a rather dangerous drakina whose power is rivaled only by her temper. For her internal furnace is not only magma-hot, but she is easily offended and said to have the ability to make the volcanoes of the island erupt at will.”
“Really?” Chris blinked.
“Really,” Fortrakt confirmed. “My clan trades all over the world, and over the past half-century, we’ve hired some south seas Harpies to take us there a few times. My grandsire went once and had some incredible stories to share. His journals said that although she’s actually not that large for an adult dragon, she’s quite a striking sight and surprisingly well-informed about the outside world. She’s also quite the connoisseur of good food and drink, valuing rare gems and high-end liquors as well as exotic fruits and meats that aren’t found there, like pony-grown grapes and our slow-cooked flying boar,” he recalled.
“If she likes your offerings and finds you properly respectful, she will shower you with volcanic riches right out of her enormous hoard and even allow you to collect some of her smoke to take back. Given its incredible rarity and potency, it sells for a very high price in Saddle Arabia and the Kingdom, since it can be imbibed through hookahs and is said to be incredibly invigorating and magic-boosting. Even foreign dragon clans prize her breath, since it somehow enhances the power of their flame.”
“Wow…” Marco said. “A real dragon lady.”
“I guess. But if you offend her or take anything from her isles without her explicit permission, whether a simple rock from the slopes or even a fish from the surrounding sea…” Fortrakt trailed off ominously, waiting until all eyes were on him before continuing.
“Well, given she commands a large clan and can even somehow influence the islands’ volcanoes to erupt—before you ask, that is not a normal dragon power—you and your escort probably won’t live to regret it. Though not interested in leaving her idyllic isles or conquering other lands, she’s fiercely independent and supremely powerful; not even Dragon Lord Diabla dared challenge her back in the day.”
“As you say, Second Spear. It is rumored—but not known for certain—that Diabla’s even more ruthless father, Dragon Lord Kalator, once proposed an alliance with her,” Giraldi added. “But she killed one of his emissaries for being disrespectful and sent back the other with a warning to leave her isles alone and keep her clan out of his wars.”
“Sounds like my kind of girl,” Tara said, and Fortrakt noticed that even Gilda was grinning at the story.
“Mine too…” she agreed. “Takes no crap and makes dweebs die who do things she doesn’t like? Sometimes I wish I was more like that,” she said with a halfhearted glare at Marco.
“Indeed, Decurion. But she can do far worse to non-dragons, so only the most courageous captains brave the storm-tossed skies of the Sea of Serenity to reach those isles and trade with her. And only after they make sure that you’re offering something she’ll like and understand the protocols for meeting her.”
“Whoa. She sounds like a real piece of work. So, what’s her name?” Chris asked.
“I believe she is called… Dragon Lord Pele,” Giraldi said, his expression thoughtful. “The ruler of what are known here as the Pelesian islands.”
Chris started and blinked hard, exchanging a startled look with Tara and Marco. He then laughed, reaching up to rub his eyes. “What the hell… why am I even surprised anymore?”
“Surprised? You recognize that name?” Fortrakt prompted after exchanging a glance of his own with Gilda, unable to turn enough to see Giraldi as he was.
“Yep. In our world, Pele is the name given by the native inhabitants of Hawaii to the supernatural being they claimed created the islands—the literal goddess of fire,” Chris replied. “According to them, she’s no dragon but a hot-tempered woman with enormous power and an equally large appetite for sex and strong spirits, who will make the island volcanoes erupt in fits of rage to kill anyone who crosses her. And woe to those who take so much a rock from her isles as bad luck will endlessly befall them, though that was a more recent claim designed to discourage people from taking souvenirs from sensitive areas...”
This kind of popped out of my mind in the course of the writing the chapter, and I can think of a way I might make use of this in the main story. In any event, I’m going to try to finish the chapter this weekend—or at least, the first half of it. It’s been a slog and a struggle with this one to get everything in I want to but sill make it coherent, and I’m not done yet. But done it will be, and hopefully worth the wait. I hate to keep pushing back the release date, but at this point with the end in sight on the chapter draft, the weekend after this one seems likely.
As for my personal update, my illness has pretty much passed but now all the smoke from Canadian wildfires is irritating the hell out of me. Guess I’m sensitive to it, or maybe my sinuses and throat remain a bit raw from the bronchitis. Nothing for it except showers and daily sinus rinses.
Good to know you are better in health, see you next blog or update.
You wouldn't think it but the islands themselves are well-known for a particular species of six-tailed fox that thrives in the cold!
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I know I should look up the actual one, but Imma just thinking this.
Sea of Serenity?
Marco stepped out of the longboat, placing one foot on the grey volcanic sand beach.
Houston. The Eagle has landed.
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The actual Pele? Plenty of information available online.
The Tellusian name for the Pacific Ocean. it was mentioned in an early chapter of Eros.
They have black and green sand beaches there, but no gray. I hope to visit someday.
Only when Gilda lands beside him.
Finally finishing off replying to old blog comments...
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Since I don’t say this often enough, I really do appreciate all the comments you drop. I may not reply to them right away, but I do enjoy seeing them.
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Actually, by strange coincidence, it is said that Pele sometimes appears to people in the form of a white dog, or accompanied by one! So this actually works pretty well!