Teaser (Excerpt of Chapter 1)
She woke up, panting, with a pounding headache from a terrible nightmare of similar nature.
Pain everywhere, clawing at her, invisible, intangible. She remembered trying to fight, trying to flee, trying to submit, but no matter what she did, the pain would not stop, would not go away, and against all odds, she would not die, extending her torture until the dream finally came to an end.
She got up and tried to lick away the phantom pain from wounds she knew weren't there while contemplating her circumstances.
She did not remember when, but she used to have brothers and sisters in that barren and smelly box of hers. All of them, adopted by bipedal packs, each one a different one, until she was the only one left in the box.
She remembered growing impatient and trying to escape, even back then, but the smooth, sky-colored walls were unclimbable, and she could not pounce high enough to reach the top, yet. Her malnourished, deformed body was still growing, although she always had been the small one, the runt of the litter, lacking the proper fur and muscle definition for her age.
Though she entertained the idea that what she lacked physically, she compensated in the brain department, and so she tried her best to get adopted. She acted playful, gave the bipeds puppy eyes, and even licked the smaller ones' foul-smelling hands to get the benevolent giants good grace.
But in the end, only her was left alone, and only her caretaker would come, give her treats and a good pet once a day. Although she could tell, she was doing so for every single one of them as this biped was by far the most smelly, although the nicer kind of smell. So although she could not see them, she knew there were other dogs close by, as well as cats, birds, and other reptiles. For those she could not hear, she could smell on her caretaker.
Yet she knew her circumstances were not normal, cause the caretaker was smelling worried, and it worsened by the day. She did not know what would happen to her exactly, but she knew she needed to get adopted fast or else...
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She shivered at the wild idea of her dream becoming true, strengthening her resolution:
She would find her loving pack of bipeds and live happily ever after. Today was the day! Cause it had to be.
Wait! What?
She could not believe her eyes as different shades of blue had entered her vision while a cloud of white smoke was forming patterns she could understand better than she ever did of her brothers and sisters' cues. Forget about the pain, an entire new world of possibilities opened up to her, and for the first time in forever, she felt truly excited.
She tilted her head in confusion. Sure, she was curious. But she could not forget her predicament and long-term goal. 'Would it help me get my own loving pack of bipeds?' She thought, trying to direct it to the blue thing, although she already figured out it could read her mind.
She was sold at the word help, although she did not completely understand the logic behind it. And so she gladfully approved, her tong hanging in anticipation.
Royal Road asked me for a chapter, and I gave you a teaser. I hope it is good enough not to be rejected twice! Have a good day, and hopefully, I will be back tomorrow to complete chapter one.
Magic, System & Gods
1. Just a bit of math and craziness
2 There is more to the magic system than just MAGUS
3 The grand mix of proto-indo-european gods... and more.
On worldbuilding
Fictional Geopolitics
written history to go by, only archaeological evidence to support modern claims. So I had to find other types of claims based on other sources. That's why I included Neo-confederate, New Africa, Deseret, Aztlan, or Cascadia in the mix. This is not a political statement. I just think those are interesting fictional materials to play with in a post-collapse setting.
About the author
I have always been good at finding myself excuse for my shortcoming. I was raised in a toxic family where any of my efforts were never enough. And I kind of ended up with the circular reasoning that "Since I won't ever meet their expectations, why should I ever bother trying?" And so I grew up as a really mediocre self-deprecating adult with poor health, no self-esteem, and a dead-end job, giving me even more excuses.
But, well, life is a bitch. My father got early dementia and now depends on me for everything. My mother is progressively going blind. And my oh-so-perfect brother ended up in a wheelchair with a progressive, incurable disease. And since I have the same genes... that might be me in five, ten, or twenty years.... yeah!!!
The thing is, I have always been writing, and I have several hundreds of drafts that I gave up over the years cause it wasn't "good enough" while knowing deep inside that they might never be "good enough."
So in the face of that reality check, I'm kind of growing "unapologetically mediocre" and reclaiming my life back, though it is a huge work in progress. Writing and finishing my own novel always had been at the top of my bucket list and I only really struggled with the "finishing" part and so here it is:
So yeah, the MC is going to be a female dog with the kind of issues I have been dealing with and a cool magic system cause life is already grim and dark enough and fantasy escapism is kind of my spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down ;)
