To Continue the Tale...
Gentlereader I direct your attention to The Book of Water: The Marriage of the Slave King. Click if you wish to read more about the Slave King's adventures. This story was my winning entry for 2012's NANO. Thanks for reading.
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I don't know...will there be cupcakes?
1721083 Cupcakes like you wouldn't believe
Yes. It seems my dreams have been fulfilled
!
1723188 Painful in that its so good it hurts?
I know this is a bit late and all, but, * clap clap clap* this story was glorious, worthy of being printed into a book. I didn't enjoy the epilogue, but meh, I'm a hard man to please. I look forward to the next story in this series.
1723870 Thank you for comments gentlereader, what about the epilogue did you not care for? The setting, or was it the story in a story angle I went for?
1723883
The whole, technological thing. I just find it hard to enjoy technologically advanced ponies. Personally, I believe, due to the ponies heavy 'need' of magic and harmony, I don't see them advancing every far. By all means this doesn't mean I dislike your story, no, by all means I love your story, just not the epilogue.
1723902 Oh that, well it's due to the Slave King and the human's influence over the centuries. Eventually there was a marriage between magic and technology, stating at steampunk and eventually morphing into cyberpunk with steampunk elements. I did this as means to making each of the four books different from each other.
OMG,yeah!
sweet lord Cthulhu i been reading this all night, and what a glorious read it was. the characters were true and circular, there were code heroes and Hemingway heroes, all of them simply enticing. there were so little canon characters that this was actually entertaining. your story has many good things, but not enough to completely banish this flaw: Derp said, the slave king said, Luna the beautiful said,said ,said, said, sweet lord if i hear that stupid smelly Triton's title once again i will pierce my ears!; and yes i know the time this is set calls for such a formalities but please if it is that way please stop using those ominous titles in every description of your god dam narrator, it's infuriating. So please, for your own growth, learn to tells us by pure context who is talking and whose not, all those tags make my mind bleed.
Anyways i enjoyed this tale greatly despise my bitching so ill give likes and watch to the sequel.
1726092 Thank you for your comments gentlereader, I've actually been told I should try using said more, not less. You'll be pleased to hear I've been using said less in book two. In future chapters in book two I'll try using more context, and see how that works out.
Yay!
*Dashes off to read.*
1726092 Out of curiosity which characters did you consider the code heroes versus the Hemingway heroes?
there is the minautour as code and seafoam, there is the minatour again and clover, i could say all the gods as code heros and the slaveking as haminway,but he is more of a lost pupie, there is clover as code and shanks as ham. And well there are many others, but i am on in a funking buss and food deprived, so i cant recall more, the explanations as well, all i can say is that the Minotaur was a bad ass and grace full old timer that everyone should feel gay for, if there is some one that knows how to live whit grace under pressure is that old man
. anyways if you already are familiar whit Hemingway's work you should take a renewed look at it, so i feel less eyesores. oh i remember another one! jomungard code and slave king ham.1726147 lol I guess you should seek a balance between using it and not using it, what I did dind anoying was the re invoking of the celestiadamed titles your character have while narrating it was like a pain full ritual what you should do , is once a character that is going to talk is indentified stop it there until some many others arrive and put the dialogue in dissaray,but o well it also depends on the xtile you want to give to the story. so anyways the story is getting into a more modern equestria, so the constant naming of the titles will be less necessary. and well good nigth is getting hardern to type on the darkness.
1734516 Thanks for your well written response gentlereader, I tend to use the titles cause i want the narrator to have the feeling of a storyteller or minstrel. I may as the setting becomes more modern allow the language to become more relaxed. I try using your suggestions in future chapters of the the Marriage of the Slave King. Thanks for your input, I enjoyed reading your insight into what i wrote. Until next time.
1736028 Thank you for your comments gentlereader, Princess Celestia was challenging him by threatening to turn him stone, While a moot is session none may harm another lest they suffer creation's wrath. She basically attempted what Lord Darkpaw did, the Slave King instead of slaying her instead issued her a challenge. Regarding his heart, unless its removed from the Well of Eternity he is effectively invulnerable. The only exception to that would be violating a moot like Lord Darkpaw did. Hopefully that clears up any confusion.
1736079 Celestia's domain is the day, Luna's is the night. Should the Slave King be out of his domain at any time while banished from their domain (essentially above ground) he would utterly be at their mercy.
1736145 Essentially yes, he broke the moot and creation took away his divinity. Additionally the Slave King had just become divine, and had all the power of the other deities so could easily squash a puny mortal.
1736632 Yes, Nightmare was the Slave King's first unconscious creation. Nightmare is the embodiment of all his pent of rage and hatred for the diamond dogs who took Snowe and Little Bleu away from him. Her only purpose was to kill and maim, which she did with a vengeance.
1737159 The Slave King is like a child with a loaded gun. Celestia wanted to ensure he wouldn't do what he ended up doing in the book. Like Luna got 1000 years to cool her heals banished to her element.
1741006 Technically yes, but i like the olde timey speak for Luna, since its an easy way to differentiate between the two princesses. I always felt Celestia would be as plain spoken as possible, she doesn't like the pretension that the nobility would be using.
1747451 Ten years is a long time, he eventually figured things out. I'm sure at first his masters did a lot of gesturing and pointing. After a while he learned what sounds to make for specific words, and then finally moved into complete sentences. He speaks with an accent though, and due to his unique way of learning the language, speaks rather stilted and uses a lot of titles and honorifics.
1747443 *sighs* *takes out a list and writes on it* another one, eh
1748019 Well what can I say, people in this fandom seem to prefer shipping, or stories about the mane six etc. This story isn't mainstream enough, to get a lot of attention. Also I didn't join any groups or anything until story was finished, all the fame I got was word of mouth only.
1748213 Thanks for catching it
1748905 Basically it will be explained in The Book of Water: Marriage of the Slave King. Basically the Slave King made the mistaking of making the majority of the pantheon pissed. Forcing him to get married, or stepping down was their way of hopefully taming the savage beast so to speak. But knowing the Slave King things never go according to plan.
1749569 LOL, no that would be the offspring between a griffin and a mare. Hippogriff comes the Greek hippo which means horse, and griff which is the root word for griffin, or gryphus in Latin. It is said to mate griffins with horses, it the symbol for impossible love, since griffins consider horses their traditional prey. Hope that clarifies things for you gentlereader.
1749771 That's from using his power, sort of how Luna and Celestia's eyes and horns glow when they cast their powerful magic. His slave brands are something that have changed him so significantly that they became apart of his persona. After his ascension he ceased being the man Andrew, and simply became the Slave King. Plus it's cool.
1749956 The stone was a special present prepared for Ouroboros by Strix. Basically it was designed to drive out any of Tiroc's influence. That's why it was so useful against Lord Ouroboros and the Slave King.
1752161 Thank you for your comments gentlereader, I'm glad my story was able to speak to you. Hopefully you'll enjoy the sequel as much.
1752403 Reality rarely has a single party as the villain. You could say everyone and everybody depending on your point of view. Basically this story is more protagonists and antagonists. Overall the protagonists would be Clover and his friends, and the antagonist would be the Slave King. However you could consider the Slave king the protagonist, and Lord Ouroboros the antagonist. Basically the story was designed to multilayered, like a yummy cake. As you dig deeper and breach the next layer you have another tasty flavor to try.
1753490 When she died, Little Bleu was about twenty or so. The Slave King is around six feet, approximately the same height as Celestia and Luna. While a full grown stallion like say Big Macintosh would be about four feet, and a mare like Twilight Sparkle would be about three and a half feet or so.
You won a NANO? I admit I have no idea what that was and had to look it up. After seeing what it was I tried googling "NANO The slave king" to see if they wrote an article about you..sadly they didn't.
1736078 Well when he "accepted" the challenge were there any terms or what?
1736094 If that is true couldn't he just say "I'm walking on the surface of my domain, you can't touch me as this is earth."
1751608 Thank you for clarifying that! I continued reading hoping at some point that would all be explained but sadly it wasn't. But luckily we have an author here who doesn't mind my constant questions/comments and likes to answer them! =D
1753524 Wow the ponies sure are short! Lol. Well thanks for all the answers and insight about your story and I'm proud to say after 2-3 days of nonstop reading I have finally finished it and will be moving onto the book of waters immediately! In case you're wondering how I found your story the book of waters featured in the box and the display image of the king caught my eye. So out of curiosity I visited it and found out it was a second installment in a series of 4 books (much to my delight) and upon going to the original slave king I was pleasantly surprised to find each chapter being nearly 10k words making it a sure epic in my book, and luckily I wasn't disappointed! =) Like someone else has said I am just disappointed that you won't be making money from this as this has such a unique and original idea that if you took out anything relating to MLP and changed a few words here and there you could have a New York times best seller! Also kinda reminded me of LOTR (though I've only watched the movies).
1753591 Winning a NANO simply means you managed to write 50k words during the month of November, I managed 65k this November and therefore won it. Regarding the challenge, the Slave King opted not to slay her because she didn't vote to banish him and he realized she was trying to protect others from him. Regarding the terms of the challenge, Celestia had to make the Slave King cry three times. If she managed to do so, the Slave King would submit to any judgment she cared to place upon him. Which happened in chapter 29 and 30 respectively. Regarding domains, all the domains are subject to those that encompass them (i.e. the Domain of Summer is subject to the Domain of Fire, but the Domain of Fire is subject to both the Domains of Night and Day). Some Domains like the Earth have special responsibilities (i.e. the Domain of Earth is responsible for the management of the Pit and the Gates of Tartarus). The Earth is a special case, all above the Earth is subject to the Domain of Day i.e. Celestia, and all beneath is subject to the Domain of Night i.e. Luna.
1753640 yes was the one plot point never addressed, i had originally intended to use it as a bigger plot device but ended up not using it until the end. Well I used quite a few literary devices and borrowed several themes from J.R.R. Tolkien's esteemed works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including lifting a few poems directly from them. But thematically the Great Slave King shares many elements with The Lord of the Rings. I'm surprised by how many likes I'm receiving after nearly three months, I got nearly 60 likes. Well I'm glad ou enjoyed my tale, and hope you enjoy the next installment. How did you enjoy the epilogue?
1754954 Excuse me gentlereader, that was just my way of having a bit of fun with you. Mainly, because Sir Stouthorn had promised repeatedly throughout the story to tell the tale of how to joined the knights of the Lawgiver after his adventure ended. As it is I thought it might be fun to leave a mystery for the readers. I might revisit the story in one of my further planned stories, narrated by none other then the Great and Powerful Trixie which I have planned. It's tentatively titled, Pony Tales: Tales of Equestria
1753745 So if I understood your description of the Sun and Moon territories it goes like this. All in the sky is subject to the sun? (Cause you said all above the earth) and all on the ground is subject to the moon? (Since you said all below the earth). And yeah I'm somewhat bummed out the Sir Stouthorn never got to finish his tale since I was really looking forward to reading that lol. But I found the epilogue to be slightly jarring to be honest since it was such a stark contrast and I almost didn't read it since I'm more of a medieval kind of guy. But hopefully by reading the other 2 books it won't be as jarring and I'll be able to read it more smoothly. I'm more of a sword and shield guy than a pistol guy to be honest. Though shotguns are always fun! =D
1759186 The Slave King was referring to everything that walked on the earth. But all Equestria is subservient to Celestia's and Luna's night and day. I was referring to light and shadow. Above the earth light reigns supreme, and beneath the earth shadows do. I decided to use a high tech epilogue to show the amount of time that had passed between the ages. my plan is to tell bits and pieces of the fourth story in the epilogue of each story, explaining how things got to where they are as a way to bridge each story. Book three is slated to have steampunk elements, while book four will be more space opera.
"Luna looks black."
The first thing that came to my mind when looking at the cover-art.
That is all.
2069376 Black how? I kind of failed, when I drew her muzzle, so she a sort of disgruntled look going on.
2069439 Ah, it is more of an allocation to my simplicity of mind (noting above all that Luna looks like she is pitying a fool
) then an actual artistic critique. I personally think that it is well done, especially considered that it is OC by the writer and not a donation or commission.
Note: I'm writing this after reading through this story and getting caught up to chapter 10 on the sequel, so my memory isn't going to be at it's best. Also, try not to take this the wrong way.
The Good
The premise is interesting. I like that this story involves a pantheon of gods and a related quest of a bunch of mortals rather than focusing purely on the human.
The Less Good
The dialogue is pretty awkward, especially the speech from the Slave King when he first gains divinity. The speech patterns are so incredibly different from his thought patterns when he first shows up. The spelling is pretty bad, I see some word choice mistakes here and there (most notably between breath and breathe), and the author seems to not know how to use quotation marks to show someone is speaking.
Specific Comments CAUTION! HERE BE SPOILERS!
I don't see any kind of believable progression that explains how Showboat comes to actually care about Shaw as anything other than another individual to steal from. I think it's important for the group dynamic later on in the story, but it kind of just... happens without good explanation. I also think that the character Slick was underutilized. Kudos on the way you killed off Sir Stouthorn. It was foreshadowed, but I was still legitimately surprised when it happened. Having the Slave King's arm cut off seems to serve no purpose. I think you could have gotten the same effect just from having a deep cut on his arm, or his side. It still gets him injured enough to shock him, and it leaves him in one piece. You could justify it by saying that axes aren't Seafoam's speciality. The "What's going to happen in the next episode, Gentlereaders?" author's notes at the end of the chapters was grating, and I honestly skipped most of them. That's mostly just personal stylistic taste, though.
Summary
I think that this story could really use 3-6 editors to comb through the text to fix these errors. There were several sections where I frankly had no idea what was going on, so those scenes could probably stand to be rewritten. I suggest the author get a look at this video to see what I'm talking about.
The story is difficult to get into (especially given the high expectations from the TV Tropes page), but it has an interesting setting regarding the Pantheon of Gods, and a good group dynamic for the protagonists.
2415388 Thank you for your comments gentlereader. As of the end of the story, the Slave King possesses only one arm, having given his lost limb to the Winding One. Due to the nature of his wound by the Vendetta, his loss is permanent. After his renewal, the wound healed and he was left with only a stump. That wound much like the ones he possessed before his ascension to the Lord of Earth will stay with him till the end of time. However he doesn't mind it, he feels he owes a debt to Sir Stouthorn, and gladly suffers the injury as a sign of his penance. But if you would like to know more of the Slave King's story, might I tempt you with the sequel The Book of Water: The Marriage of the Slave King? I think you might enjoy reading it.
2484055 Thank you for your comments gentlereader, Arch Duke Fifi le Yipyap, more growls rather then gurgles as most of nurglings are want to do.
2502709 Thank you for your comments gentlereader. Pray tell, what link are you referring to, and as much as I appreciate humor (regardless of whether its of the vegetable, animal, or mineral variety, or even a combination of those), I'm afraid I don;t catch your meaning. Might you be willing to illuminate your meaning for me, gentlereader?
Great story....though a bit strange, and I think you could've been more descriptive.