Desolation's Reach Sneak Peek!

Hello everyone! I just wanted you to know that I'm not dead, I've been working intently on my novel Desolation's Reach. For those that didn't know, the entire story will be two books long and each one will probably be around ~450 pages or so.

I wanted to share a quick sneak-peek to give the readers a general idea of what the story is like and what to expect, as well as to generate some hype for the final product.

Do note that the story is already done. All 900 pages have already been written, from start to finish, and at this stage I'm just editing the first book, and after publishing Part One I will edit Part Two and publish that one shortly after. Because of this, despite the incredible length of the entire story, Part Two will probably be released within a year of the first part, since it's already written and just needs to be beta-read and edited.

I will also be accepting applications for beta readers; anyone who is interested in reading the book before it's released can shoot me an email at dylandevineABA@gmail.com. Do note that this isn't just reading for fun, but requires detailed feedback on your part.

Quick disclaimer: I do not own these images!

For a quick summary, Desolation's Reach is an epic fantasy--more specifically, a dark fantasy. If you're squeamish or can't handle copious amounts of violence and blood, strong language, and occasional nudity, this is not the story for you.

That being said, while it is a pretty dark story and borderlines on horror at times, at the end of the day it is an epic fantasy--you can expect big wars and epic battles, giant monsters and dragons, evil fairies and witches, escaped murderers on the loose, magic and deception, all that awesome shit.

So without further ado here's the sneak peek, which comes from Chapter Seven and is appropriately titled, "The Scribe." For anyone who thinks they're clever and wants to steal this idea or even copy-and-paste it into their own fantasy story (but with different names), I already have multiple beta readers who have read the story and I have digital timestamps for when this was written and saved in my Google Drive, so anyone who tries to plagiarize this will have a hard time defending their version in court if it had to come to that.

You have been warned.

(Also, since the story is already written, it's extremely unlikely that anyone looking to plagiarize me would be able to whip out an entire novel before mine was published, so there's that too.)


Cerres is the main character. Here's the sneak peek:

Edit: *Blogger is pretty retarded at times, it won't let me change the font size. I set it to "normal" then when I hit publish, it reverts back to the smallest font size for whatever reason. I tried changing it to the largest setting, I've tried deleting the entire passage and pasting it as a larger font, I've tried changing it from "text" to "heading" and "subheading," etc., but for whatever reason it refuses to let the text exist in anything but the smallest font possible, so sorry about that I guess. It's really annoying. Just zoom in on your phone or browser.*

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“Knock, knock,” Cerres said after knocking sequentially on Almerick's door.

      “Come in.”

      Cerres stepped inside, grinning. “My favorite response when someone knocks on the outhouse door.”

      Almerick beamed mischievously. “A worthy jest, but I much prefer yelling, 'Come back with a warrant!' Seems to work.”

      “Damn, that one is better,” Cerres admitted.

      “You here for the scribe?” Almerick asked.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Right here,” he said, getting up from his rocking chair and causing something to creak loudly—either his bones or the floorboards, Cerres couldn't tell. Maybe the chair itself.

      “Behold,” Almerick said, ripping a dense wool quilt off the top of a little bird cage.

      “Your scribe is a bird?” Cerres asked, confused. Then he noticed how bizarre the inside of the cage was—it wasn't like a bird cage or a lizard terrarium or something, it was actually a tiny little office, with a marble floor and a pristine little office desk and chair that could fit in the palm of your hand.

      “No, she's a Sprite. An evil little fucker, too. She generally avoids work, and she hid under the desk the second she heard me mention her. Watch.” He opened the cage door and gently picked up the tiny desk, and a little naked woman with wings was hiding underneath it, covering herself with her arms, cowering. “What are you doing under the desk? I thought I told you to finish editing my notes two hours ago.”

      She stood up in defiance, planting her hands on her hips and yelling at him in a squeaky little voice like a mouse in some foreign language that Cerres couldn't understand.

      “Of course it's your job, edits and translations fall under the scribe's duties, not just writing new material,” Almerick responded. She leaned close to his nose, berating him in this strange language and pointing her finger at him accusingly.

      “Are you insane? Of course I know that, that's the whole point of me letting you live. It's supposed to be hard,” Alermick said. “If you don't do your job I'll get rid of you and find one that will. You wouldn't want to end up like the last scribe, would you?” Almerick threatened, gesturing to the corner of the room. Cerres followed his hand motion and saw that a fat, black cat sat in the corner, licking itself intently.

      She immediately stopped her yapping and flew back a good foot to the end of the cage, shaking her head and waving her hands as tears streamed down her tiny cheeks. She said something apologetic in her native language, and Almerick nodded with satisfaction. “That's what I like to hear,” he said.

      “Ummmm....” Cerres started. “So this fairy is... what? Your slave?”

      “That's right,” Almerick said, nonchalantly.

      “And if she disobeys you... you feed her to—”

      “—the cat, that's right.”

      “Mind if I ask why?” Cerres questioned.

      “What do you mean?”

      “Why is this Sprite your slave? And why scribe work of all things?”

      “Oh... it seems you haven't gotten there, yet,” Almerick said. “Listen, I could give you a long-winded history lesson about the nature of Sprites, or I can simply warn you that many Sprites—this one especially—are absolutely disgusting and vile creatures that wouldn't hesitate to do horrible things to you or take your life. 

     It might seem like she's just an innocent little fairy, but trust me when I tell you that if she escaped for so much as a second, she would come back with a hundred of them and put curses on the entire village, killing all the livestock and luring the innocent children to their deaths, until they felt satisfied that they'd killed enough of us and went back to their hiding holes where they commit all sorts of other atrocities. A Sprite outbreak is far worse and more difficult to handle than the Saelix. At least the Saelix are predictable and come every night like clockwork, but the Sprites have an arsenal of magic spells at their disposal and often like to toy with villages by inflicting them with horrible diseases and STDs before killing them. It's a game to them, like a sport.”

      “Are they really that bad? Is there such a thing as a good Sprite?”

      “A good Sprite?” Almerick asked. “I suppose it's possible, but unlikely. Even if it's not in their nature to be vile and heinous creatures, nurture is a powerful thing, and I find it unlikely that a Sprite raised by a legion of other evil Sprites would turn out to be a dignified and honorable person.”

      “I see... What did this one do? Does it have a name?”

      “This one...” Almerick said. “No, Sprites don't keep names, they aren't human enough for that. And to be honest, that story is a bit complicated, but I'll give you the headlines.

      There used to be a witch who lived her named Aggie, she was just learning her craft and couldn't do advanced spells yet, but she was quite gorgeous and was infatuated with a young student of mine, early 20s. And the lad was already married, but that didn't stop her from trying. Anyway, she didn't have the gall to ask him for romance like a normal person, so instead she wanted to make a potion that would make her irresistible to him, and this Sprite here offered her services. She made a potion for Aggie and Aggie drank it. Instead of making her irresistible, it made her hideous and ghoulish beyond recognition, but it doesn't stop there.

      In a way, the Sprite kept her promise, because later that night she put a spell on the young man that interfered with his perception, and she made Aggie look just like his wife; and so Aggie, now hideous, but disguised to look exactly like his lovely wife, came to his chambers after the Sprite murdered his real wife, and she slept with him and conceived a son. The next day the spell was lifted from his eyes and he woke up to find the vile witch in his bed, and realizing what he had done, resolved to kill himself with the ol' rope and branch, but a curse was put on him that made it impossible for him to commit suicide, so he fled Faltedge and has never been back since. That was two years ago, and after finding out what had transpired I trapped the Sprite with an unbreakable, binding spell that keeps her locked in this cage, and instead of just killing her I keep her as a slave. Sprites don't live that long, but their perception of time is fast, so keeping her locked in here for a couple of years is like keeping her imprisoned for an entire lifetime.”

      “She really did all that?” Cerres asked in disbelief, looking back at the little naked woman in the cage. She was on top of the desk, lying on her stomach with her chin on her fingers while she smiled and batted her eyelashes at him and slowly kicked her feet back and forth behind her.

      “Yeah, and she's proud of it, too. I have them do scribe work for me because they're very knowledgeable and have remarkably good penmanship, which even I myself can't duplicate. It's like they were made to write stuff down and keep records of things, like mini historians.”

      He stopped and turned towards her, seeing the smug look on her face as she swung her legs behind her. “You sure like hearing me tell that story, don't you?” Almerick asked, and she shrugged her shoulders innocently with a knowing grin. “Evil bitch,” he said, opening the cage door and flicking her hard in the face with his finger, which was as large as her entire body. She went spiraling to the ground and her face bled quite badly just from the one little flick. “Get back to work, and get this man a detailed list of local creatures. I want it in his hands by tomorrow morning.”

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That's just a little segment that I was willing to share, and once I have Patreon all set up there will be more parts and entire chapters that patrons will have exclusive access to, including parts of the next book that patrons will be able to read after the first book is published, essentially letting them read ahead into the second book after they've read the first book.

Real quick before I wrap this post up, I have the next blog post ready, but for whatever reason my last two posts got far fewer views than all of my other posts, and at the time of writing haven't gotten any comments yet.

Obviously I'll keep making content, but I don't want to make another blog post until my post about animation and the one before it in the "Dynamic story" series get at least some decent viewership. If I released another important blog post now after this one, then the last few blog posts would be buried and no one would see them, so I want to leave them near the top of the homepage until enough people have seen them, then I'll release the next installment.

What are your thoughts on the sneak peek? Do you think all Sprites are actually evil, or is there such a thing as a good Sprite? Share your thoughts and predictions below.


And as always,

may every cup of tea be your cup of tea,

and I'll see you in the next post.