Spike was bouncing in place on his tiny chair. "What's next? What's next?" he repeated in quick succession.
Twilight stared at him. "I thought these scared you." She pointed at the book.
"They did, but now that I know they're fake, I want to see more!"
The unicorn shrugged. "Well, maybe I can look through more of these 'stars'?"
Spike pondered for a moment, then gave his answer. "Sure, just leave those 'four star' things for last. We should see the normal stars and the other creatures as well."
Twilight nodded in agreement. "That's true. It's always more fun when the big things come last."
She fumbled through the pages once more, finding the ideal place to stop at and let the illustrations do their thing. This time, they took the shape of a being comprised of multiple blue tendrils floating haphazardly in the sky. Multiple segments would find themselves focusing and reflecting the blue of the sky. The head was almost flat and diamond shaped with the rear point being rounded down to a curve. It only had two, barely open eyes and seemed to be in bliss. From the back of its head grew four, very long blue tendrils flapping innocently in the wind.
"The book says that it's called a Silicyn. They are very passive creatures preferring to float eternally in the skies rather than deal with what is below them. In fact, they are so large that legends say an entire civilization lives on its back." Twilight blinked a few times. "That's absurd."
"Why?"
"No creature could be big enough for such a thing let alone not react to it." She groaned loudly and resumed the description. "I've yet to figure out what miracle gives them the power of flight, but I learned the hard way that their tendrils will burn whatever they point at. One had been flying around a growing city and shooting everything in sight. I and a few of my colleagues went to kill it with the help of airships. It turns out, the Silicyn body is quite valuable and makes an excellent additive for things metallurgy and leather. I even added some oil and a thin sheet of its skin on my spear, and the blade remained sharp and durable three times longer than usual.
This thing is a one-star because of the dangers of its powers and its tentacles as well as its size and the methods required to kill it. It is still a very passive creature that emits some kind of low-frequency hum that calms everypony around while it travels, though. Something cool, for sure."
"That was...disappointing," Spike complained.
"There's one more thing at the bottom. Umm; Many legends mention that Silicyn as an eel of the sky that brings the soothing calm of the White Winds to all those in its presence. It has often been described appearing above fields of battle where everypony stopped fighting, and the leaders consolidated their points not through shedding red, but by shedding black."
Spike scratched his nose. "Okay, well I like this more."
Twilight felt a warm feeling of calm joy, but she didn't like what she find a few pages later. The illustration took the shape of a black equine with green, featureless, slanted eyes. Atop its head were deer antlers spreading and growing in multiple random directions, then receding, then repeating in different directs and shapes. Its hind legs were nonexistent. Instead, a dress of darkness took their place. Its entire body was nothing but black, with no other notable traits save for its glowing green eyes, as mentioned earlier. Between the name and the description of the creature were flashing letters in red.
"That's strange," Twilight commented. "It's called a Qwantum Fy, but this warning." She passed for a moment and placed her hoof on her chin slowly. "This is an occultist class monster and should, under NO circumstances, be faced by regular hunters and people of this world."
"What does the author mean by that?" Spike wondered.
Twilight narrowed her gaze as she both thought deeply and felt worry grow as the illustration remained there. She cleared her throat and rotated her shoulders a few times to regain her composure. "The Qwantum Fy is an unknown creature classified as a two-star Dwolcraeft(Occult). She -Yes. A she- looks for somepony or something else to haunt and will follow them forever. Reports suggest that she can possess multiple ponies at once, and one survivor recalled how she crawled out of one of their loved ones' mouth after warping their body into stretched, tendril strands of bone and meat which actively chased after them. My occult colleagues have mentioned that a spying spell allowed them to see 'her' coaxing a blue orb towards her after pushing a pony to killing themselves and 'lovingly' hugging it into her chest.
When confronted by a group of specialized chasers and myself, we cornered her to the point where her dress and dark form slightly unraveled, revealing thousands upon thousands of souls trapped within her body, all wishing for release and freedom to rest. Curiously, she seemed overly protective of them and refused to let us free them, but we still managed to jink her inner body, release a few hundred souls to the afterlife. She tried harming us with those strange antlers, but she was almost sealed away in the process. We now have a piece of her growing and reforming antler to track her, but it's difficult. Fortunately, this isn't my job. I'm busy fighting the usual monsters and trying to avoid quad-stars.
Effects of its haunting start with brief visions of it around the general area, then it appearing on regular objects and appliances, then behavioral changes amongst subjects important to the victim. The stronger the Quantum Fy's hold becomes, the worse the subjects become until they become these...warped things I have to kill. Good thing I have my throos with me."
The two remained silent for a very long time, and spike was quaking in fear.
"Moving on..." Twilight exhaled.
She was about to choose something, but in the process, she dropped the book, unintentionally letting fate choose for her. Unfortunately, it was another one of the creepy 'Occult class' monsters. This time, the creature was covered almost entirely in a blanket of orange, brown, and purple. Only a thin line exposed a portion of the face. More specifically, it exposed a left nostril with no nose, its left eye, and two teeth without an upper lip to cover them. The eye wasn't abnormal in any real manner and the iris was colored bright brown.
Twilight gulped loudly. "Voy Min Opsh. No pony really know this thing's story, but we know what it does. I found this sucker whilst wobbling around for an infestation in a city. I saw this sucker stalking somepony, and when they eventually confronted it, it opened up its blanket and whatever they saw made them scream. It engulfed the poor thing after expanding exponentially and random things around it, and when it finally released them, they were melded randomly and haphazardly together. An eye here, a lightbulb there, a bench plank jutting out somewhere, a twitching leg elsewhere with organs somehow still functioning and pulsating when they were outside of the body. I ended up having to kill the pony as they had gone completely insane from the transformation and their state. I found that strange for a monster and brought in some colleagues from the occult branch after finishing my hunt--"
"He seriously took hunting some tiny rodents precedence over calling about this horrible thing?!"
Twilight didn't removed her eyes from the letters, but her response was pursed lips and a slow, disappointed nod. "When confronted, it turns out that the body we see is just a front. There's a strange, fleshy creature glued to the blanket, the surface of said cloth being attached to a line of 'gum', it looked like, what with a long, smooth surface and multiple 'webs' of flesh hanging from them. The middle of it was a giant hole with teeth randomly placed around, and various elevations and roundings of darker colored meat. It did have two legs, but much like the rest of it, they were 'pushed' open to add to the gum-like appearance. At least, this is what my colleagues told me, and I've since recorded it in this journal.
I didn't remain to see what they did nor did they tell me what happened. No pony was lost, so I assume it was a good result. Probably more of their 'If you know it, you'll die by it' mumbo-jumbo. I took the liberty of naming it and found this to be a fitting name. It roughly translates to 'Flesh Welder' in a language of a country far to the east. I only knew a few words and searched in a book for this. I find it befitting."
"This...this guy...he's really unfazed by these things, let alone anything," Twilight sighed. "I'm not sure if he's serious or if he's just trying to be a...a..." Twilight thought for a moment. "A 'cool cat'," she joked.
"Don't make it worse, Twilight."
The mare closed the journal and out it on the desk. "I think we can go to sleep now. It's getting late."
Spike looked outside the windows to see only darkness. "C-can I sleep with you?"
Twilight looked over her should her smiled. "Sure. I think we both need something to help us sleep."
I finally got to reading the last two chapters of this one. Overall I like the monster descriptions, though the prior chapters were more fleshed out and had more content. The last two make up for it with the setting, and by giving the author of the book more of a personality in a sense. I also enjoyed how you almost set the stage for a story about the book's author, implying an entirely different age of Equestria that has been "lost" over time as well. I'm not sure if you plan on exploring that, but it would be interesting if you did. Oh and my favorite from these last two chapters is the "Qwantum Fy", mostly because the entry implied it was never captured or defeated, and may still be out there. The way it is implied to haunt/hunt it's victims is unusual, intriguing, and delightfully terrifying. The souls that it kills being trapped within it for all eternity unless "freed" somehow, and the implied motherly protection of them; that just adds another layer of glorious horror to the occult beast.
Very well done final two chapters to this story, even though personally I would die for more monsters to be shared from the book. If you decide to write a story about Spiral Tooth and the time they lived in, an age of monsters story, I would read it. This story series was a wonderful job overall Psychopath.
ps: I'm not sure if you would do this but the monsters are so unusual and unique you could make an actual book about them and publish. Sort of like similar "books of monsters/fairies/etc" that are out there. I would buy it.
Glen Gorewood
7970599 Ah. I knew the descriptions were rather lacking :/
I'd love to, but as attested to by my book Lux Locus; No agent wants to pick me up...AND my list dried up.
There's STILL an occult monster that I didn't introduce, but it's more because I'm looking for a proper place of residence.
7971610
Maybe you could try going to a third party publisher Psychopath? They often do the in between work and can help you get an agent too. I have an account with a few of those even though I have yet to publish my first story collection, it's a good place to get started at least. Trying to became a published writer is not fun at all, if it makes you feel better supposedly Steven King was refused by almost every agent over two years before one took a chance on him. It's just getting in the door in the first place that's the problem.
The idea well drying up is something I understand with monster creation, when you get the final occult beast finished including residence what are you going to do with it? It might be a good place to start for possibly fleshing out the author of the book, maybe a stand alone story.
As for the descriptions, well I still owe you illustrations that I mentioned two months ago so that may not be a huge deal long term.
Besides one of the keys to terror is giving a bit of a description but not too much. Though the current monster descriptions are not as detailed as before, they still fall within the area where there is just enough information to get an idea of what the beasts look like. It's more the lore related to the beast is lacking, which the other chapters had more of. But that could be explained as some of the extra lore being due to Twilight doing more research on the monsters in her own time.
Glen Gorewood
7972428 Oh, the idea isn't dried up. It's just that every idea where everything needs to go that ended up cliché, so I'm trying to create a new location.
But I thought I was supposed to get to an agency so I can get to a pupblishing company. I already posted the story on Inkitt as a test run, and it did amazing, yet I can't find anyone to pick it up...So much to share and I can't do it!
7972504
Ah that makes more sense. Cliches are sometimes difficult to avoid, but when you manage to get around them the results are worth it. I can't wait to see the non cliche result for the last beast when it's finished.
There are multiple ways to get a book to a publishing company, an agency is only one route. You can also directly message the publisher, or go through third party publishers that provide you resources you would not get otherwise. Self publishing isn't a good idea till you get your name out there, but the third party publisher I plan on using takes a 20% total sales cut and distributes your books to retailers for you. The contract is set up so that when a big publisher takes you on, you retain rights to your contract and royalties unless you agree otherwise. You control the pricing, updates, and everything. You can decide if you want print or digital availability, and many of the writers working with this particular third party publisher later end up picked up by bigger companies.
You can also try going to author and writing conventions, that is how some people get picked up by a publishing agent. There are many ways to get your book published Psychopath, an agent is not the only way. Which is a very good thing.
If your story did great on Inkett I would try the third party publisher route, it will likely get accepted as long as it is formatted correctly.
Glen Gorewood
7972541 I don't know what a third party publisher is, and when I intended to send the stories diectly to a publisher, none of them accepted queries not sent by agents. It's how I discovered agents in the first place. I also already determined self-publishing as non-viable. I don't have the money to pay for cover art and I have no social media accounts.
Additionally, there are no author conventions in Belgium (At least, not that I know of), and I'm not likely to be able to participate at one considering I write in english and they either write in french or dutch.
7972635
Self publishing isn't viable for me either, and I can do the cover art and everything. Plus if you do digital self publishing you have to buy special software to ensure security over copies of books and distribution. All the legal stuff has to be handled by you, it's not a good way to go for a first time author getting published. Paper self publishing is even worse cost wise. Third party publishers are the best way to go, I use one called smashwords; or will anyway. You still need to submit your works, but they more or less work with distributors and find agents for you (if you want them) and all that.
Another really old school route is going to writer and author conventions and checking around. Agents are all over the place at conventions, I actually found one once and still have the card. Even normal conventions for fantasy, scifi, and anything like that really can work. Talk to people who are published, ask how they did it, then if they have an agent ask them if they think you could use the same one. Most of the time you end up with a card for the agent out of that sort of a conversation, or at least some advice. There is also the most brash, old school, and probably overlooked trick in the book to get published. Walk to the publishers actual business place, tell the receptionist you want to talk about a book.
You'll get published in time, if your fanfiction writing is anything to go by it will happen. When you do get Lux Locus published at least you'll know one reader of your fanfiction will be buying a copy.
I'll try to get those illustrations to you in a month or two. Gotta get back to my stories and editing, good luck Psychopath.
Glen Gorewood
7972684 I just said I can't go to any writing conventions in Belgium (Just in-case you didn't see, it's part of the languages problem and there never being any here), and I think I've heard of smash words. Inkitt also has contests where the victor can be published officially or, if your book is successful enough, can be chosen for that, but when your book remains #2 in sci-fi and fantasy for 3 weeks and top 10 for 'Top Trending' for 5 AND THEY IGNORE YOUR STORY AND SHOW THE OTHERS OF LOWER PLACEMENT IN THE TOP PAGE ROLLER AND WEEKLY SUGGESTIONS, QUESTIONS COME UP.
Plus, I never win contests. 24 years of trying in everything and I never even make top 40.
7972789
Dang languages problem, you'd think someone would try to make at least one convention in every possible country for authors and writers to connect with potential publishers and agents regardless of language barrier.
Wait your story was ranked that high for that long, in that many categories, and they didn't even feature it? That is odd, you would think they would feature it at least once. It seems lower quality works get featured or picked up everywhere, even when there are other books that are of higher quality waiting to be published. I would check out smashwords then, at least you know your story is popular on Inkett already so it should give you a slight boost. If anything it will at least get you a basic contract deal when it makes it through the process, and get Lux Locus out there with a price tag. You could even mention the rankings in the forward or something.
Twenty four years and not a single win in a contest? That's some horrible luck Psychopath, or a very messed up ranking system that has inherent bias.
Glen Gorewood
7972820 Yeah. A story that came out at the same time as mine and was part of ranks 30-40 or something at the time got featured.