NOVEL NEXT Update – 1 August 2024 (Sneak Peak At Images!)
Welcome to RuggyRuggy's Update Corner!
I like to do these after each arc as a way to refresh and relax. I also talk about the story and how it changed from the original conception to the finished product, including what was added at the very last minute and what was removed at the very last minute. There were more changes this time compared to the original version. I hope this update post isn't too messy, but there is a lot to cover.
(Please excuse the typos, too. I'm writing this in a hurry since this was supposed to be uploaded last week...)
Waveret
In the first version, Waveret existed but only by mention. It was not a place Servi or Momo had visited, although I recall a scene of them wanting to get on a ship and sail across the ocean. So, everything that happened here was brand-new. The dungeon was new, the steamy moments Servi shared with Srassa and Momo were new, and even telling Dineria the truth about Itarr and Servi's immortality was new.
I quite like Waveret as a whole. There's not much I regret doing, other than maybe not spending enough time here? It did get a little "tell, not show" at times due to the small time skips, so if I were to go back and add intermissions retroactively, they would be little slice-of-life moments of what Servi and her friends were up to.
I also like that it served as the place where Servi, Momo, and Srassa deepened their friendship. Those steamy moments were really fun to write.
As for what was actually cut? Not much, if anything. I didn't have much planned and wanted to hit the core plot points (meeting Feral, encountering Fisher and Arnold, telling Dineria the truth, deepening Butterfly Rumble's relationship with each other, and beginning the confrontation between Servi and Fisher and Arnold).
Feral
In the first version, it's a little bit of a running joke that Servi and Momo would run into him working various side jobs. For example, he originally worked at his aunt's shop to earn some side money. Servi and Momo ran into him when they went out to eat at this fancy-ish restaurant with their new friends. Servi first meets him at one of Canary's training halls, which is where she encounters Fisher for the second time. He was initially kind of dismissive of her since she's a human, but she soon becomes his friend.
Maybe we'll next meet Feral working a food stand? Or doing some sort of odd job? I believe Fisher had said he told Feral to head to Adenaford, so maybe we'll see him soon? If not Arc 3, then maybe Arc 4?
Training, Fisher, And Arnold
So, in Arc 2 of I:SS, Servi, Momo, and Srassa traveled with Dineria to Waveret and trained under her. There, they meet Fisher, Arnold, and Feral.
In the original, Servi trained under Fisher Jin, who was a little different. He acted like a drill instructor and was overbearingly loud and abrasive, and a part of his storyline focused on his hatred of non-humans. The Fisher we see in I:SS is much more... 'mellow,' I'd say? More passive, maybe? He doesn't embody that 'bootcamp' instructor-like persona that he did in the original.
Anyway, in the first version, Servi's training was more bootcamp-like than anything else. She trained with Feral, a few dwarves, and a few koena at the training facility within Canary.
Fisher also didn't die in the original. He came close, though. So, I suppose the main difference is that Fisher died a lot more in Arc 2 of the rewrite if you consider his deaths against Sakdu.
As for Arnold? He died, I think, fairly early on. Within Book One, I believe. Fisher was haunted by Arnold's ghost / spirit through Book Two (The Training Stuff. Book Three of the original focused on Arcton. Book Four of the original isn't that important. Like, nothing from Book Four will be used other than maybe a minor plot point here and there.)
So, as for Momo's training? Well, she was assigned Dineria in the original, and that was where she met Srassa for the first time! She was a noble-- same as here-- although she wasn't trained in anything. She couldn't shoot a bow to save her life, and she couldn't really wield a sword. Obviously, that's changed in the rewrite since she's very skilled at combat, whereas she lacks in social cues due to her sheltered-ish upbringing.
Also, her father was still Harold, and Jony still existed in the original. I can say, however, that their overall character arcs have not changed. They haven't shown up that much, but things are about to change as we move onto Arc 3 and 4. Especially Arc 4.
Srassa
So, Srassa. Like I said, in the original, she first showed up in Book Two and trained with Momo under Dineria. And that was really all she did. There wasn't any kind of mention of any ball or festival. She also wasn't an official part of the group, so Butterfly Rumble only exists in the rewrite.
I think she ended up adventuring with two koena? I haven't read the original in quite some time, so my memory isn't the best of it. But anyway, Srassa doesn't show up at all in Book Three (Arcton Arc). The original had her as a rather minor character, which is changed in the rewrite. She'll have her time to shine and be very important very soon.
Arcton
First Attempt - PT 1
Arcton
Arcton
Arcton.
I swear this city is my nemesis, haha.
(This is actually my third attempt at this Arcton Arc... I'll go more into it later.)
Okay, I have a lot to say about this city. In the original, like the entirety of Book Three took place here, barring a few chapters at the beginning and end. And it was flat-out different.
In the original, Servi and Momo adventured to the city, and they were ambushed by the Kaisaku Syndicate. There, Servi died, revealing the truth to Momo, who does not take it well. She passes out and wakes up, and it turns into a big argument. Servi's devastated, and she's unable to move. So, Itarr has to 'control' Servi's body and move for her.
They arrive at Arcton, find out where Momo is, and Momo tells Servi to screw off. She doesn't want to see Servi ever again. Servi, depressed, walks away, and while she's gone, Momo is kidnapped. Servi returns and finds a letter written to her from Sakdu, the leader of the syndicate.
To make an extremely long story short, Servi ends up going undercover within the syndicate to get close to the boss. She has to do a lot of awful things, and at times, the story borders on the edge of being far too grim for no good reason at all.
Like, it gets depressingly gory and violent, with Servi sinking ever deeper into a murderous rage. This is where she meets Carrie, a red-haired singi introduced in the final chapter of Arc 2. Instead of being a nun, she was part of the Kaisaku Syndicate's upper leadership.
Carrie / Verta
In Book Three, Carrie becomes attracted to Servi's violent nature. Things got messy, and she paid Servi to pleasure her, which caused her to foster an unhealthy dependency on Servi. Carrie ends up surviving Book Three, and she would've returned in Book 10 or Book 11 as a nun.
I can't go into too much about Carrie and what all had changed other than confirming the rewritten version was never a member of the Kaisaku Syndicate. Oh, and this Carrie is a nun from the beginning. Also, in the rewrite, Carrie has Verta inside her soul. The original one didn't although she was still connected to a goddess named Verta, but that link was thin at best. I didn't have plans to explore that concept.
So, yeah. In Arc 3, we'll get to see Carrie and interact with her. She's a much more advanced/complex character than she was before, so I'm happy for her to make a splash! She's only slightly similar to her original version, I suppose. I would almost consider them entirely different characters, but I've always liked the name Carrie.
Verta is the name of a goddess that showed up in the original, but it was just that-- a name. The last chapter of Arc 2 is when we see her for the first time in the flesh.
First Attempt - PT 2
At the end of Book Three, Servi does save Momo. But Servi's internal anguish manifests via a bunch of repeated suicides, and she kinda...kills herself a few hundred times, which really damages her mind. She almost becomes another person, and Momo, for the rest of Book Four, takes care of her until she can recover.
Also, in Book Three, near the end, Momo actually argues with Itarr a lot. They eventually make up and become friends, but not like what we read about in Arc 2 of the rewrite.
The rewrite has Momo visit the Soul World, which did not exist in the original. Likewise, the rewrite has Momo being far more accepting of the truth, which eliminates all of the drama that was in the original.
But okay, that was the first attempt.
Second Attempt
The second attempt was something you've probably partially read before my readers convinced me I had made another mistake. The Arcton portion of Arc 2 originally ended at Chapter 63 or 64. Everything with Sissy, Gerld, and Suusa, the fighting circuit, the fighting tournament, the whole necromancy deal, the undead assault on Arcton, and the golem reveal?
Yeah...
All of that was new and written within two months. (Originally, the golems were just a throw-away plot. Merka being a product of Suusa's and those necromancers' experiment was also brand-new and developed at the 11th hour.)
The second attempt kinda speed-ran through Arcton and compacted so much plot that it was like whiplash. I was so afraid of turning Arcton into something I'd regret again that...I kinda turned it into something I ended up regretting.
This second attempt was really bad. It was awful, and I can't believe I thought it was good enough. It did, however, have Servi kill who would become Suusa and obtain [Chronomancy.] But [Chronomancy] had to go when I wanted to involve the golems, which led to her getting [Elemental Manipulation] and [Geomancy].
Third Attempt
Now, this third attempt? The version that's uploaded?
I love it. I really think I did it good, and the Arcton Curse is broken! Haha!
I like how I tied the golems from earlier on into the overarching plot and involved Golden Reliquary. (The second Arcton Arc did not have GR.)
I also think the moments between Momo and Itarr were really sweet. I'm so glad I had Momo accept Servi's immortality from the beginning without any neglectful drama since it makes much more sense to me. I mean, Momo has Inner Momo / the vixarian, so would it really make sense for her to be upset at Servi for having an Internal Servi / Itarr?
I didn't think so. Rather, I used to think so until I had time to really think it over.
Anyway, I think the changes are for the better. I'm happy we got to see some mid-tier undead, and I really like Nyxaris the Darkmagus. I just think it's cool to have a lesser lich at Servi's beck and call since that's the undead she kept being mistaken for, which leads us into our next topic.
Servi's Mistaken Identity as a Lich
So...
I won't lie. When GR called Servi a lich in Arc One, it was supposed to be a throwaway line. But I decided to go with it, and that got kinda messy since Servi doesn't exactly embody a lich in almost any way. I was almost regretting it, but then I turned that aspect around and made it a 'flaw,' I guess, to show that GR can make mistakes. He's not perfect, but then that was flipped around when he realized his mistake and kept the charade up to use Servi to destroy the Kaisaku Syndicate and the two necromancers.
So, it was like a happy little accident that worked out when it really shouldn't.
Vexor Blackscale
So, the original Book Three (Acton Arc) featured a silent bodyguard. He had no name, but at the core, he ended up becoming Vexor Blackscale. Book Three saw him fight against Servi, who used everything she had. (She still had Skill Stacking at this point, so she was incredibly powerful.)
Servi ended up winning that battle, of course, before she turned her sights to the army that surrounded her. Oh, yeah, she fought the bodyguard not in a mountain range, but within the Arcton Forest. It happened right after Sakdu mobilized his army and they were marching on Canary.
But this time around, Vexor showed up at the end. His role has changed entirely that you could consider him an entirely separate character from who he used to be in the original version.
Momo's Evolution / Itarr's Manifestation
Now, onto the big, big one.
In the original, I don't think I made a single mention of the vixarian inside of her, so all of that is definitely new. I always had plans for Momo to evolve into a vixarian, but that would not have happened until Book 6 or 7, when she would suffer a fatal wound and need Servi's blood to recover. But that wouldn't have caused a giant explosion, nor would it have been the catalyst for Itarr's manifestation.
She was actually supposed to manifest in the early chapters of Book Five. I can't recall what exactly triggered it, but I think it was absorbing a certain amount of souls to unlock the manifestation skill.
Oh, and back to Momo. From what we know, Vixarians use mirrors, but that wasn't always the case. Originally, I had planned for them to be spirit melders. For example, Momo would summon a minor wind spirit, and she could 'fuse' with the spirit and gain wind-like armor. Her hair and tail would change to a light green, and she would have two floating crossbows that hovered around her that shot out compressed wind.
An earth scorpion would've granted her a scorpion's stinger as a tail and two large shields.
And that was scrapped. I don't think we'll see any remnants of that skill system in this rewrite since I decided to go with the mirror aspect. I mean, mirrors are cool.
Book Four / Arc 3
So, Book Four was mostly from Momo's PoV as she took care of Servi. It was like 250k words of just that, with Servi being trapped in her mind while we focused on Momo and Itarr. And that was it. There was some stuff like a play and Servi and Momo entering the noble district. There were a few intermissions/side stories about Fisher that ended with his family discovering the truth. He also almost lost his life and I wasn't sure if I had wanted to kill him off in an alley off-screen since some would argue that's the fate he deserved.
That's almost all moot since it seems like he's dead for good. Is Fisher's soul extinguished? Or is it still there? I suppose we'll have to wait until Arc 3 comes out to discover the truth.
I can't go into Arc 3 that much, but very little from Book Four will make it into Arc 3. Maybe a few, minor plot points, but it's almost entirely all original/new content.
I will say this, though. Arc 3 will answer a lot of the story's overarching questions and mysteries while introducing a couple more.
Arc 3 is currently 112k words long, and it ends at Chapter 95. It's also all written, it just hasn't been edited at all.
Upload When?!?!?!?!
That... I'm not too sure about. Like I said, Arc 3 is written, it just needs to be edited. But it is not easy to work on two stories at the same time. Arc 5 of CA is still in the outline phase, although I've written the first 8k words of Chapter 101.
Uploads for Arc 3 of I:SS may start next week, and if it does, then it will be one upload a week until I've made progress with CA, at which point I will increase the upload schedule. I just want to ensure I have a backlog of at least 15-20 chapters / parts.
What Else?
I'm not sure. I think I've said all I wanted to say, so let me thank you all for joining me on this story! Servi's story holds a special place in my heart since it's the first thing I've written. I love the world, and I love the characters!
Arc 4 is currently being outlined, and it will be longer than Arc 3 while hopefully being shorter than Arc 2. I'm aiming for about 150k words, but I will not rush anything since that never works out.
But before I end this update post, I'll give a sneak peak at some of the images you'll see in Arc 3!
No context, of course. Just the images themselves, although I'm sure you can discover who they are!
And how about one more?
And...
I think that's all for this update post. I don't think I missed anything.
So!
I hope we'll meet again when Chapter Seventy-Five is uploaded and Arc 3 begins!
Thank you all for reading!
RuggyRuggy.