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Book 8

Page history last edited by Tim 14 years, 7 months ago

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The Elemenstor Cycle, Book 8: The Archmagi of Eldersbane

 

Dust Jacket Notes

 

The Archmagi of Eldersbane - long thought to be nothing more than a fairy tale used to scare recalcitrant children, all Battal will soon learn the truth...

 

Young Asana Millytopthought is a small, impertinent girl who has long known that stories of the Eldersbane, the flying castle of sky-blue stone, and its mysterious ruler were mere myth. But when her village is threatened by a power never before witnessed, she must set out on a journey to discover the source of the Eldersbane legends...and of herself.

 

Book Highlights

 

- The discovery of Captain Tev's lost expedition and the recovery of two of the Legendary Four Plaster Shards.

 

- The connection between the Eldersbane and the lost continent of the Cataclysmic Bluont.

 

- Revolt of the Chthonic Swinemen, the Dolphinthropes and the Homo Canii - collectively known as the Halfmen - of the line of Zonard.

 

- A painfully detailed description of the trade conflicts of the kingdom of K'th'ith'h, first of the Twelve Realms to fall during the Vampyric Wars.

 

Misc Notes

 

At this point, the execs at Realmworlds Publishing were interested in growing the fan base of the franchise beyond its core demographics of virgin teen males and the mentally handicapped. In particular, they wanted add more interest for women. At their insistence, Tycho Brahe (or the hacks who replaced him, see: FfaTTBE) introduced a side-story featuring the roguish, ebony-eyed pirate Manwich St Meatily, who featured in numerous twilight adventures aboard his ship Bodice Bane. The effort was a colossal failure.

 

Chapter Summaries

 

This section is subject to Discussion.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

 

Book 8 is 27 chapters long, 244 pages.

 

Chapters 1-3:

 

Asana is introduced, as well as her mentor Dame Walk and the villages of Yalka and Pormora. Asana finds the Longsword +π.

 

Chapters 4-5:

 

The threat is introduced - takes form of Halfmen of the line of Zonard, who revolt against their enforced captivity and occasional consumption by humans. The Halfmen are lead by the Chthonic Swinemen after their perversion by Dark Elemenstation.

 

Chapters 6-9:

 

Asana runs for her life, is nearly killed four times, attempts to use the Longsword +π and then throws it away as useless, meets Trafficant the Sly, and overhears an elderwoman moaning about the return of Eldersbane.

 

Chapters 10-13:

 

Asana and Trafficant steal away in the night to seek a way to repel the Reth'can. Chapter 13 ends with a cliffhanger paragraph as Asana is falling to her apparent doom off a huge cliff as Trafficant escapes the pursuit of Halfmen by...flying?

 

Chapters 14-16:

 

Previously introduced characters are astounded to run across a wounded Trafficant who is curled up in the hollow of a tree in the Forests of Misery. For some reason, he is not being attacked by Soulferic Bats. He begs them to help him find Asana and they agree to send him in the right direction, but not without major foreboding over his apparent 'mysteriousness' (and a ton of foreshadowing)

 

Chapters 17-19:

 

We return to Asana who is alive, having had her fall broken by a series of rotting wooden planks, comprising 47 individual flying ships, stacked on top one another - this is the final resting place of Captain Tev's lost expedition. We meet Tev and he helps Asana by digging up an 'ancient scroll' known as the Guidepath Numbers which is rumored to be a key to finding the Eldersbane.

 

Chapters 20-23:

 

Hijinks occur as Asana attempts to use the Guidepath Numbers with increasing frustration. Just as she has an epiphany and activates the power dormant within the scroll, Trafficant finds her, just in time to see her disappear without having learned the important knowledge imparted to him by his rescuers!

 

Chapters 24-25:

 

Asana meets the last Archmage of Eldersbane, Nixwing the Dark who, it is revealed, is responsible for the transmorgification and revolt of the Chthonic Swinemen. Trafficant is revealed to be the son of the Archmage, and uses his heritage to find Assana (whom he can find only through love) with the help of a counterrevolutionary band of Swinemen who proclaim, "Indeed, some ARE more equal than others". The Archmage laughs at the plight of the villages and admits to perverting the swinemen as a practical joke, as part of the insanity caused by the Curse of Eldersbane. Asana and Trafficant attack the Archmage, are rebuffed easily until, while he is gloating, they discover his one true weakness and vanquish the crazy bastard by destroying the Orb of the First Evil.

 

Chapter 26:

 

The two young heroes, along with the cured sorcerer population of Eldersbane, destroy vast swaths of the Halfmen with a 'magical entropic feedback' reaction using the Archmage's equipment. As an unintended side effect, the Eldersbane is transported to the Bluount. This section is heavily footnoted with references to means by which the 'magical entropic feedback' reaction is related to manipulations in the world distribution of spica by a dark Chronoclone of Yar the Sorcerial. The footnotes on these footnotes, in turn, refer to the appendices, whose inclusion is apparently necessitated by this elaborate digression.

 

Chapter 27:

 

Asana and Trafficant vow to find a way to rid this new land of any suffering caused by the Archmage and ignored by any who are aware of this vast continent.

 

Excerpts:

 

 

“According to the Guild of Free Traders and The Allied Troll and Ogre Door Guarders and Footmen Union I should be paid in goats and silver. This is an outrage. Until further notice, I’m on strike.”

-Barry the Door Guarding Troll P. 126

 

"That was incredible... we... we should be dead," sputtered Trafficant.

 

He took Asana by the shoulders and backed her away from the smoldering crater where moments before had sat the Archmage's equipment. It was obvious that the entropic feedback machine would never again be operational.

 

Breathlessly, Asana turned her big brown eyes up and looked into Trafficant's charcoal smudged face, a single tear on her cheek, "Don't you see. It's just like the old man said. 'No power can stand against it, save love.'" She paused. "This is what he was talking about. I'm pretty sure that was... it was..." she trailed off.

 

"Heart Elemenstation?" Trafficant offered.

 

"I think so."

 

"Rubbish..."

 

Chapter 27 Book 8

 

 

Appendices A & B:

Appendix A consists of a detailed 20 page description of the economic conditions in the kingdom of K'th'ith'h, particularly as concerns trade and the Apostrophine and Spica Mines which the kingdom is largely dependent upon. The description of the era's classical economic debate of "spica versus Apostrophine" adequately summarizes neoclassical economic theories of supply and demand. A great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to the "tracing of the intersubjective dialectic between fantasy, pleasure, and the necessary temporal boundedness of human experience" that this section supposedly overlays on bare economic discourse. This is largely considered the most boring section of any of the 13 Books of the Elemenstors saga. Buried in the text is a one-sentence hint that despite the admirable legal contract skills of Lord B'gh'd, he harbors a dark secret. Strangely this occurs in the middle rather than the end of the text, cheating readers from skipping to the last page to find the tie-in to the next Appendix, and forcing them to slog through unnecessary technical and geopolitical details.

 

Appendix B is an awkward two-page scene that focuses on the C'nf's'ng Trade Dispute and the varied details of the economy of Battal that surrounded it. It has been speculated that the story was more of an afterthought that didn't fit anywhere else, hence the addition of the rather dull appendices. (Note: it has been posited by opponents of the FfaTTBE that this awkward and drunken addition to the book argues for the involvement of Brahe-prime at this point in the Cycle.)

 

Endnotes:

 

There are a series of ads featuring donation numbers for Amnesty International and UNICEF, leading many to believe that the last chapter was added on to the novel as part of a class action lawsuit against Underhere publishing, which has as part of the settlement, a requirement for charitable work.

 

See Also: K'th'ith'h. Flags. 3,895,074. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Battal. King Sc'rch'drth. Bodice Bane. Palmaid. Captain Tev. The Elemenstor Cycle. Annkha's Sword of Spreading. Tooth Pixlie. Mud Farmer. Felthar. Book 9. knitting. Dan Heck. Dame Walk. Availability. Excerpts from the cycle that are recounted here. Elibor the Insane. Canon or non-canon. Silhouette. Dugba Scissor Tribe. Heart. Hazard's Guess. Cataclysmic Bluont. Event Horizon. Bibee. King Sc'rch'drth and his Miserable Groaning Howling Death. Guidepath Numbers. Hazard Shibboleth. Eldersbaneberry. C'nf's'ng Trade Dispute. Halfmen Revolution. Yalka. Sphinx. Book 7. Archmagi of Eldersbane. Quotable Quotes. Reth'can. The Scroll of Incomplete Misinformation. Bumbershoot. Trafficant the Sly. Four Plaster Shards. Wang Chung. Eldersbane. Shokurung'otaghe'rakag'onk'rakag. Longsword Pi. Zonard. RealLifeTimeLine. Nixwing the Dark. Captain Tev's lost expedition. Elemenstor Cycle Timeline. jewellery. Shatterfrag. Ablongox the Particularly Unusually Long Lived. KSahMGHD. Asana Millytopthought. The Shape of the Heart, the Shape of the Tablecloth. Heart Debate. Arkimedes. Barry the Door Guarding Troll.

 

 

 

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