Well. That was the story. Last chapter was the end.

I know, right?

Sucked.

What actually happened at the end there? I actually remember exactly what I was doing with the story. Sam was kept behind by the old man and made into a living contractor, inheriting nearly all his souls and taking his place as the most powerful contractor. The process partially kills her, and essentially makes her into something new and unprecedented. She awakes at the end in Dante's garden, albeit in a vision, and is told "it's about time" by the remaining fragments of Albert. This last line is intended to be ambiguous on first reading and make sense on subsequent readings. But there was also more to it.

It wasn't the last thing I wrote, though. I wrote several more versions, each with what I might call better quality. The latest version is titled Oathbound, and it's partially completed here. But the modern version of the story has diverged severely from this one.

So, what happened here? Well, it's both complicated and simple. This was a poorly written attempt. I wanted to make a "cool" story inspired by a lot of the TV, anime, and literature I liked at the time. I took heavily from Shakugan No Shana, Black Rock Shooter, Durarara, Soul Eater, Supernatural, classical literature (see the heavy handed inclusion of Tale of Two Cities and the Sydney Carton parallel to Dante) like the works of Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, actual real world history, and a few other minor things.

And, admittedly, at the time, I loved this story. I still kind of do, just not necessarily this version of it. I did a lot of things in this version that I didn't like which subsequently caused a large shift in how I wrote subsequent versions. Another big thing that changed after I wrote this story (at least, up to this version), was that I started sharing it. I was very proud of it, and I still feel that I had that right. But, of course, not everyone has the same tastes as me. I think very few people do, actually. And I also didn't really have a network of people with the same interests as me to share it with (hence why this was originally published on Deviantart, I didn't have a better place to put it or a real group of people to share it with). I shared this story with, at the time, people that very much did not have the same interests as me. These were "normal" people. And I don't say that disparagingly to them, or to myself. We just weren't on the same wavelengths. However, this was a major catalyst for changing the story from something that I thought was cool to something that was more publicly palatable, something less gruesome (though, only barely) and with a lot less problematic moments. And I really regret letting the perspectives of other people steer my creative process. Contractor, and in the future, Oathbound, became much more "safe" stories as I tried to impress people and actually at one point sought traditional publication.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

So, what did I leave behind? Well, probably a very interesting sequel. Contractor was originally intended to be a trilogy. Contractor formed the introduction to the rules and characters, and would have been followed by Free Agent. Free Agent was going to be a near post apocalyptic story following Sam as she dealt with the changes to her existence. She becomes the central tether that holds an eldritch power at bay, a role once held by the old man. Meanwhile many years have passed and the rest of the mortal world has been partially merged with the spirit world. Old civilization had been corrupted and co-opted by a new class of supernatural beings considered "free agents" who have limited contracting power and mortal bodies. Sam is awoken from her long sleep by a group of free agents eager to use her immense stash of inherited souls to raise an army of wraiths and take control of a larger territory. The Landcaster group, Amy's family, act as sort of a vigilante force and rescue Sam. The Landcasters are in cahoots with Hope, who is also manipulating many free agents into finding Sam so she can use Sam to revive Albert. Albert is shattered, but his existence is stored within Sam's new power (which is partially made from the fragments of the mirror). In order to revive Albert, however, Hope accidentally sets loose the eldritch power that Sam had been holding at bay and slowing realizing the threat of.

This all just gets more complicated.

I had actually written the first two or three chapters of Free Agent. For the life of me, however, I cannot find them. I may still have them on an old and mostly dead device though. Perhaps I will find them soon and share them.

I don't think I actually had a working title for the third book. I think it might have been something like Eminent Domain, if it existed at all. And it would have just been a more fantasy-like power group team-up to defeat the nightmarish powers that get set loose. All the big characters get to have a cool team, they get to explore the eldritch tainted world as it collides with the mortal and spiritual realms, and they all get to kick butt and probably establish a new and better world order.

As you might be able to tell, I'm still a little bummed that I will never really be able to write that original trilogy. But I admit, it wasn't that good of an idea. I'm still not entirely sold on the modern iteration of Oathbound. I'm constantly going back and forth if I even want to write any more of this story as that version.

Anyway, this was very impromptu. I might write a more concise post-post mortem later, but this is pretty much the end. I will probably post chapters from the other main intermediary version of Oathbound after this, but that will be as a separate story.