I've had a bit of a rollercoaster time with Aetherfall over the last few months. It's been a mix of absolutely adoring the world but not quite vibing with how the story unfolded (this week's burst of chapters were basically just posting everything already in the backlog). The writeathon pushed me harder than I anticipated and introduced some problems that expounded over time. Due to the whole patreon thing, I ended up needing to keep the writeathon's pace for an extra two months just to be able to make a backlog as I progressed, and the problems that arose there just expounded over time, zapping my motivation.
I think I'll just avoid writeathons for good, particularly since it just kills my ability to work with a backlog/feedback. It's one thing to be motivated and write at that stupidly high rate and another to feel obligated to do so. Lots of plotting ended up out the window due to one rushed decision or another (mostly the crunch).
Under normal circumstances I'd just take a break and come back later, but currently I've got a hard goal of being able to pay my bills and help my family economically through writing. So I need to take the reality check that though Aetherfall had a certain level of success, the mistakes I made compounded over time until it killed the story's traction.
Will I come back to it?
> I have plans to come back to it, yes. I love the world and it definitely has potential. But I'll go about it properly, a redo from the ground up.
Right away?
> No. I'm currently burnt-out in terms of Aetherfall. It doesn't help that the story is just way tougher on me because it was a break from the usual kind of story I go for.
What's the TLDR of what you had plotted for this "first" version?
> Everything I'd made in detail reached up and until the meteor. Everything afterward was vague ideas at best.
What would've happened is, roughly, as follows:
> Khalid's demand to put his city into safety would have Maridah and Liam plotting to create a Super Teleport spell (Also known as a "Gate") connecting this city with Cracked Bay, so that anyone wanting to escape, would. With Khalid becoming Maridah's champion, she'd even be able to do the same for Aisha's city. The gates themselves would only be opened once the "final battle" between the Pantheon and the Meteor began, though, as anything sooner than that would risk getting discovered and hunted down.
>
> As this is going down, Cracked Bay is getting attacked by monsters (And our favorite kitty is up there keeping it safe with her divine stolen weapon).
>
> But unfortunately things don't quite go as planned.
>
> The Weaver's defeat at Liam's hands has left her severely distraught, and when she realizes the meteor is a serious existential threat they won't be able to stop entirely, only mitigate. Seeing no point in keeping to cold logic, she prepares a second plot and sends a demigod assassin she "bought" from the Merchant to get to Liam "consequences be damned".
>
> Climax comes, big fight against monsters, realization about assassins, big fight against assassins. Maridah and her aspects are 100% unable to help due to prepping an uber-God-spell to save their ass because it's clear things are going ugly. In the heat of all things going down, Aisha and all the other mages are doing their partโข, but realize that Liam's the target. One thing leads to another, and Aisha sacrifices herself to save him. Liam snaps and calls the true name of the equivalent of an eldritch abomination that gobbles up the demigod. The Weaver witnesses this, hearing Aisha's final words, and suspects everything that happened to her was, in fact, Liam's plan all along, that he was the one that puppeteered her into this much how she'd puppet people into extreme brash actions.
>
> Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
>
> In desperation and confusion, she goes for the only option left to fulfill her goal: she sees the meteorite will end the world, and that the pantheon is stopping it... so she leaves to sabotage the pantheon, seeking to change the meteor's trajectory to hit Liam and erase him from existence. She's sure that by doing this she can effectively erase everything once and for all.
>
> It's here were Maridah's uber-God-spell goes off. Long story short, the whole city and everyone in it is relocated elsewhere, and all traces, memories, records, and proof of that city ever existing are erased from reality, even from the memories of Gods included (She managed to pull this off by temporarily connecting back to the Triumvirate throne). This includes everyone in it.
>
> The meteor hits, the gods lose and scatter over the globe, greatly weakened, the Triumvirate throne breaks. Weaver dies.
>
> In the aftermath, Maridah's massive expenditure combined with the absorption of several portions of divinity put her into a hibernation. She leaves her Champion (Khalid) and Liam in charge of things, with her aspects ordered to keep them safe above all else. Liam, however, realizes that the changes to how the meteor struck has effectively rendered most of his knowledge of the future moot. Some cities that should've survived were wiped out, other places that should've been erased remained standing. Everything's a grand mess, not exactly aided by Aisha's self-sacrifice leaving him massively distraught (also blowback from being in proximity to a creature of Madness, which was now likely rampaging through some corner of the world).
>
> Unknown to everyone else (especially due to the Goddess of Secrets now have gone to sleep), Bunny had sensed Aisha's soul lingering longer than it should have because it was carrying a tiny portion of divinity within it as she was a believer but no "proper" God to absorb that belief. Bunny has a heart-to-heart with Aisha's soul, and accepts to "keep" that little piece of divinity to give it to Liam "once he becomes a demigod". But when she absorbs it, she goes through a sudden fundamental change she doesn't quite understand, losing her connection to Maridah as she is no longer an aspect, but a spirit (which is what you'd call a nascent God devoid of divinity).
And the vague part?
> Mostly having the story move forward, with Liam's condition making him stronger as he also learns magic and gathers the team, but the timer for him to become demigod slowly-but-surely starting to squeeze. All the while there would be a global-scale war as pantheon Gods (weakened from the meteor) would be up against pagan Gods that'd risen up through consuming divinity the pantheon had scattered when they got brutalized.
And... that's it.
Wait, what about "Why is what Liam wrote slightly different to the world"?
> It's a secret. Some of you have gotten close to figuring some of it out though. Other guesses have been fun and wild to read.
What about Alchimia Rex?
> I'm going to keep it going.
So... what now?
> Currently doing proper work on the next story. The experiment is running as a free-access-quest (fair warning, it's an entirely different kind of place than RR).
>
> TLDR: Cyberpunk meets Magical Girls, with Helldiver quantity of monsters sprinkled on top.
When will you start posting this new story?
> Just need to run the drafts through a few iterations and feedback loops while I progress the quest to get a better feel for the various stages of the story and setting (something I didn't do with Aetherfall due to time constraints and writeathon crunch. Lesson learned).
Overall, sorry for how abrupt this all came about, and thanks for sticking with me. Your support means the world, and I'm excited to see where we can go from here.
Catch you later!