“A great evil will be coming back into the world… and in two weeks’ time, it will rain chocolate.”

Enter the life of Jek – a humble lighthouse steward on the southern coast of Jast-Madiir. Along with his wife (whose name is Aaliyah… or was it Audrey?), Jek must daily meet the expectations of an iron-fisted dictatorship, a global dragon-Inquisition, and a clerical order of flying jellyfish-like creatures churning out new surveys at a dizzying pace. All-in-all, a fairly predictable tedium. But when any little demerit on his next inspection could cost him his life, it can be hard sometimes to keep from stressing out!

Of course, if Jek knew half the things at play just beyond his sleepy shores, he would be very stressed indeed. Neighboring Tophthaera is reeling under the Twin Queens’ civil war. To the north, insurrection threatens to claim the island of Maenea for the cause of “Free-Dome” – a very strange and unsettling new ideology. Even the stable nations must decide how to deal with the recent, accidental discovery of magic. And all the while, the threat of Onyxadon’s inevitable return clouds every counsel. Only the strength and wisdom of the Grand Inquisitor would seem adequate to avail against these many calamities. But he has been dormant for seventy-five years now.

Jek is, at best, dimly aware of such things… and perhaps better suited than anyone to be an ineffectual bystander anyway. But those luxuries are burst quite suddenly when he meets a crotchety old sailor man, only to be swept into a hair-brained Noble Quest to find the Knights of the Indigo Lodge, expose a secret Doom Fleet, and unravel the dreaded mystery of Proconsul Zedulon’s infamous “Chocolate Prophecy.”

Targeted Age Group:: 17 and older

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Well, this book is sort of the ultimate act of self-plagiarism. That isn’t to say I didn’t borrow considerably from other sources, but I also managed to recycle my own ideas from as early as childhood that never saw publication. It’s like a universe I unwittingly spent my whole life crafting. The emergence of this story-telling environment, coupled with the total disintegration of mainstream narrative over the last few years, created both the opportunity and the impetus to finally finish a story I could truly call my own. The bones of it are by no means groundbreaking – it is a love note to the classic hero’s journey at its core. But that deep desire to celebrate and rekindle the sturdy, enduring qualities of storytelling is as much an inspiration for this book as anything.

How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
The main character is, boringly enough, mostly an idealized version of myself – he’s perpetually terrified, a huge defeatist, and a hopeless romantic. But most of the important characters have some aspect of me in them. One has my childlikeness and social anxiety – one has my aspirations for purity in the face of crushing guilt – one embodies my appreciation for the light-hearted, whimsical and silly – one has my yearning for absolute power – and one exists to embody my pretensions of profound thought. You’d have to sort out for yourselves which is which.

Book Sample
She ran with new urgency as she finally abandoned all doubt that she could smell the coast. The sea was on her tongue! It was, surely, just over the next charcoal ridge. Other senses confirmed it. She saw patches of lichen and small sprouts here – new growth that must have spread over the hill from the shore. At last, Parissah’s breath ran cold. There was no need to dig any deeper for the rage that had driven her this far. The exhilaration of being mere steps away from the end of that otherwise endless molten wilderness was enough…

Summiting the last band of igneous, she indeed found herself overlooking the ocean, glittering deep colors under a dusky sky. But there was still a wide and overgrown cape between her and the sea. Here on the coast, farthest from the inland volcanos, plant life was abundant and thriving.

Scanning the land beyond, Parissah caught sight of ramshackle buildings and stumps beyond a thin veil of palm trees. This is what she had hoped to find – a settlement. There were Humans living in some of these coastal oases of Tophthaera – descendants of an old pirate plot gone awry, wherein the famed Pirate Lords, Ten Jeff Snorkel and Finkley Twiggins, had combined their forces in the hopes of driving the Meduselda from the isles. It was a dumb plot, foundered in much liquor, as even Snorkel and Twiggins would later admit. But it had the distinction of being the only time in recorded history that anyone had ever killed a Meduseldan Queen, and it proved beyond any shadow of a doubt, once for all, that Queens would regenerate when killed, just as surely as their drones do. So the adventure was not without its historical import, at least…

“Upon my word, the coast!” Baegulgog exclaimed. The sound of his voice surprised Parissah. Though she had hauled him all this way by one of his tentacles, she had all but forgotten he was with her, silent and pensive as he had been since Brittegonnen…

“Yes,” she confirmed, amidst heaving air. “Now if we can only find a ship.”

“I should prefer that we did,” Baegulgog said. “It would be a most unpleasant float from here to your Ocean Citadel. I gather your folk do not mind a swim, but my people are rather averse to big water…”

Parissah blinked. “That is some news to me, Baegulgog. Given your resemblance to jellyfish, and some of the famed expeditions of the Taltaxikhomer Margaritamoarmonums…” (she needed another breath after that mouthful)… “I would have thought Meduselda had an affinity for the ocean.”

“Not at all, madam – it is quite the opposite. Floating over the water is uncomfortable business for us. We find it dreadfully slippery.”

Still struggling for enough air, Parissah simply huffed and shook her head. At times, the peculiarities of Meduselda were as bewildering as they were endearing.

“I say, is that the boat you were hoping to find?” Baegulgog asked, and his question caught her unawares. She scanned the horizon again. Only just in time, she got a glimpse of the stern of a ship, as it silently passed by a narrow but high and overgrown cleft, east of the settlement. Instantaneous recognition told her she had seen the rear of one of her Inquisition’s own Destroyers – light and fast capital ships. It was precisely the sort of ship she had expected to be dispatched to await her arrival…

Within moments, the Destroyer emerged from behind the elevated ridge. It was not the most reassuring sight. The ship was sailing fast! Immediately she realized it was probably moving on, to search further up the coast for her. She was behind schedule, after all… and anyway it was hard to coordinate an exact rendezvous point ahead of time, since the Human settlements of Tophthaera were nameless and known to meander, as lava might necessitate. There might be other settlements to check…

Parissah tried to dredge up some more anger to power her limbs for a fresh dash, even as she began a charge down the hill, without so much as a word of warning to poor Baegulgog. She was going to have to cross through the village and try to overtake the speeding Destroyer, or else be forced to watch it slip unwittingly beyond her reach! There was no telling how much delay that might entail. She couldn’t let it come to pass…

To her horror, she found spurring herself any further to be nearly impossible. She had allowed herself to become far too relaxed in the brief time she spent standing on the summit overlooking the ocean! The frustration of the past week and the stress of the moment didn’t seem enough to sustain her much longer. She was getting colder and colder. Total exhaustion was imminent. But she kept running. She had to keep running…

Still in a mad scramble, Parissah entered the village with Baegulgog in tow. It was a desolate scene up close. The buildings were stripped and gutted, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Grisly as it seemed, the mystery was a welcome diversion from continually taking stock of her own depleted reserves of strength. But it didn’t take long to arrive at a likely explanation for what had happened here…

“Good gracious,” Baegulgog said, as if on cue. “I don’t like the look of this. Whatever has become of the townsfolk?”

“Pray they might still be here, Baegulgog,” Parissah wheezed. “This is a Human village, after all – and yet, these Humans would be under the sovereignty of Irisa. She will have conscripted them to the war. But perhaps some have endured here, in hiding. I do not doubt they would want to conceal themselves from us, even now.”

“What of their buildings? Humans customarily build things to look sounder, I should say…”

“Another part of the war effort, I suspect. The Queen will have cannibalized these structures as fodder for Variglew…”

“Ah, yes,” Baegulgog agreed, free tentacles flapping in the wind. “It all begins to add up now.”

Parissah wished she might’ve saved her breath for the running. But she couldn’t very well have left Baegulgog unassured. As she bolted down what must have been mainstreet and rounded a disused fountain, she fought back an urge to check around for another glimpse of the Destroyer’s progress. She could ill-afford a misstep. She had to keep her eyes to the front…

Finally, a side street emptied out to the very shore itself. She ignored the boundary and splashed and splooshed right into the ocean, up to her knees. Only then did Parissah stop and take stock of the situation. She realized almost too late that it would be foolish to venture much further out. If she was too submerged, the Destroyer would have almost no chance of seeing her. And anyway, the chilly water was sapping her little remaining body heat…

But they had come out ahead of the ship, thank the Creators! She waved emphatically and called out, and Baegulgog did likewise, in his somewhat lazier fashion.

But the sound of her calls beat hard in her own ears. She winced with chest convulsions as her heart began skipping rhythm. All over, she began to feel tingly. And, perhaps worst of all, by now she was very cold…

The last thing Parissah remembered was taking a moment to look at her hands, which were swollen and puffy. And then, the splash…

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