--donation bonus week (day 4/5, post 5/5)--
‘And that’s not even factoring in how a surface-dweller is supposed to deal with the other dangers in the Undercrust,’ said Garovel. ‘The heat alone is problematic enough, but there’s plenty of other shit to worry about, too.’
‘It’s just not feasible,’ said Voreese. ‘It’d be like trying to cross the ocean before boats were invented. Normal people--in either civilization--simply don’t have the technology to use these holes yet. Maybe one day, they will, but until then, it’s essentially a reaper and servant privilege.’
‘And EVEN THEN, not every servant can make the trip, either.’
‘Right, yeah.’
‘Just because the servant can get down the hole doesn’t mean they can get back up. You’d probably be okay, though, since you can just make an infinite platform for yourself.’
He scratched his cheek. “How would I survive the temperatures?”
‘Oh, no, you’d be toast as you are now,’ said Garovel. ‘You’d have to grow a lot more powerful first.’
“Ah...”
‘Believe us now?’ said Voreese.
Hector tilted his head and scrunched his face up a little. “Eh... I just... I don’t know. Don’t they have, like, uh... seismological, er... radar? Or something?”
‘They do,’ said Garovel. ‘But that doesn’t provide the most precise of measurements. Besides, a city-sized hole in the planet would only look like a tiny speck against the gigantic mass surrounding it, and specks can be explained away as any number of other things. I don’t think a seismologist’s first guess would be, “Hey, I bet that’s a city full of people!”’
Hector opened his mouth to give further voice to his doubts but found that he’d run out of counterarguments. He still didn’t want to believe them, though. It just seemed too ridiculous.
Garovel laughed. ‘Do you remember when you asked me how the Vanguard managed to prevent Abolish from drilling into the planet’s core?’
He did remember, and it made him blink a few times as he recalled Garovel’s answer, or rather the lack thereof. “You said you didn’t feel like telling me... You said it’d make a nice surprise one day...”
‘Welp. Surprise!’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
He did remember, and it made him blink a few times as [he]recalled Garovel’s answer, or rather the lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteGot it. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteSurprise indeed.
ReplyDeleteFrosty, you don't happen to know Final Fantasy IV or the Artemis Fowl series? Both have civilizations living under the earth (though FF doesn't really address the problems that go with it).
I tried to play FF4 once. Didn't get very far, unfortunately. Artemis Fowl, I've only ever heard of. I thought it was a detective series.
ReplyDeleteI've started it a couple of times and came close to endgame until I was distracted by ridiculous sidequests. It's a nice game though. A little shallow, but what the hell.
ReplyDeleteArtemis Fowl is about fairies and trolls and such, and a teenaged criminal mastermind, that kind of stuff. Pretty good for a kid's series, but... well. Haven't read the last two books. Just had to think of it because it details all the measures taken to make sure the humans won't find the fairies (who live underground).
Ah. Underground civilizations are fairly popular in fiction as part of "Hollow Earth" theory. Used a lot more popular, but then those damn scientists had to come along and ruin everything with their facts and logic and intelligence.
ReplyDeleteWelp, at least we'll always have space aliens.
ReplyDeleteWe will have space alien right?
Riiiight?
=_=
George. Why.... WHHHHHHHY! Why did you have to say he isn't strong enough! That implies he won't go down there any time soon! If ever! How could you do this to us!?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you really are planning to go down the metaphorical and semi-literal rabbit hole, you might want to give Artemis Fowl a read. Could give you ideas for the civilisation down there. Not to mention one of the books involves time travel. I HATE TIME TRAVEL. IT RUINS EVERYTHING, NO STORY EVER GETS RID OF ALL THE PLOT HOLES, NOT TO MENTION IT OPENS UP THE MULTIVERSE THEORY WHICH I HATE BEYOND ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. In fact, I swear, if you ever use time travel or the multiverse theory, I will find you..... And hit you over the head will a baseball bat of perfect size and weight at the perfect angle to induce memory loss of the very concept of both. And if that doesn't work, let's just say that the force I use is more likely to be too much than too little.
Capisce?
Have a nice day!
(Welp, I officially love your use of slang.)
Last night I had a weird dream about this web novel the kingdom hectors in got invaded so the queen said its okay all we have to do is go to warren hold and hide in the tower of night and I know she has no idea that the tower exists (probobly) but this is a dream lol
ReplyDeleteI think the general scientific consensus on aliens is leaning towards something like: "They probably do exist, but the odds of us ever encountering them are so low as to render the idea absurd. Space is simply too big."
ReplyDeleteHaha. Love triangles, brainwashing, and time travel are all plots that I typically hate, because their endings are always either cliche or disappointing, imo. If I ever consider something an exception to that, then it's because of other things that the story does well despite those annoying elements.
ReplyDeleteI feel similarly about multiverse stories, though I still think the concept has potential so long as it doesn't do parallel universe stuff. Having the same characters with different quirks just seems like a waste of text space to me and can only lead to narrative dead ends, apart from maybe bringing back a character that was killed in the first universe. But that's also kinda... meh...
Haha, that's amazing.
ReplyDeleteWish you on all of that - do not like multiverses, love triangles, or time travel either. At all. For similar reasons. I'd add brainwashing but I"m not sure just how broadly you're applying it. A strong character story can definitely involve going down the wrong path, and often a veteran of said path will push them along.
ReplyDeleteA five hundred million people city? Holy hell, that's a lot. Even Tokyo barely reaches thirty-five million.
ReplyDeleteNo, not all in one city. It's 500 mil total for all the underground cities.
ReplyDeleteThat explains it. It seemed like everyone lived together, but that would have been a bit much.
ReplyDeleteDont know if you ever said how many people we have on surface level or how big the world is but this new underground thing kinda demands a answer, and really 500kk servants?, aka, atleast 500kk reapers... i thought the reaper gen was rare and i know that some reapers are really old but still...bah i am sure you are going to satisfy my needs one way or another
ReplyDeleteWasn't stated that the 500 mil people were all servants.
ReplyDeleteHow the fuck can people live 400km deep underground? What about food, water, air? Do they eat and drink magma to live? What about sunlight?
ReplyDeleteAh! The Undercrust stopped Abolish! I frigging called that shit!
ReplyDeleteAlso, where are people getting the 500mil from? I keep rereading the page and I don't see it.
Don't know if someone pointed this out in the past month, but it's on page 666 at the bottom.
ReplyDelete‘We call it the Undercrust,’ said Garovel. ‘It’s a layer of rock in Eleg’s mantle with caves that make the one here in Warrenhold look like nothing. There were about five hundred million people living down there, last I heard.’
Ah I never got around to saying it but thank you for telling me the page number.
ReplyDeleteSame here, and I'd add retrograde amnesia to the list. All of these can theoretically be done well and produce a satisfying story, but I've never seen it happen.
ReplyDeleteOh, amnesia, good one. Horribly abused, that. Putting aside just how incredibly rare real amnesia is, never mind the kind of convenient amnesia these stories always seem to involve (so there's some heavy suspension of disbelief there), it just rarely gets used very well.
ReplyDeleteAmnesia that is more psychologically based works much better, it becomes part of the character's growth, a real symbol that can be leveraged to great effect to indicate when the character has overcome some great hurdle and the mental block breaks. That, I've seen done well.
I'd say the retrograde amnesia needs something similar to work, actually. It would need to have a powerful link to the plot, rather than just be a convenient way to have the main character clueless. In a more plot oriented story it could certainly work. It's just rarely used for the right reasons.