As written in the previous chapter's ending Author Note, this is going to be a summary of what I had planned out for this story. After this info-dump, there will (probably) be no more updates on this story. I might post one more "chapter" in a few months with information on how to find the re-write.
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page here, I'll post an explanation again:
- This story is now on "hiatus" (I will mark that officially on Royal Road soon)
- I am going to take everything I've learned from writing these first 90k words and re-write the story from the start.
- I will be using a lot of the same starting things, but much of it will be different
- As a reader myself, I get disappointed when I find a story I like only for it to never be finished. I want to know what the author was going to do with the story next! So in that light I am posting this "chapter" as a full spoiler of what was planned out for Aeric and Elsie.
ONLY READ THIS IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT SPOILERS FOR THE RE-WRITE.
That being said, the re-write won't even have its first chapter posted on Royal Road for several months, let alone how long it will take to reach the outline here. If you've reached this far in my story and you really just wish you could know where it was going to go next, then feel free to find out now.
---
Spacing
---
For
---
Anyone
---
To
---
Change
---
Their
---
Minds
---
No turning back now.
---
So what happens next?
Classes - We would get to see what all the classes and professors were like: at least one scene per class, if not an entire chapter. The twins would take slightly different classes from each other in order to fit better with their roommates. Anything on that list I had a good idea of what I wanted to show in those classes. Elsie was going to have some form of "learning ALL the magic" since that's what her class makes possible. Aeric was going to learn more about combat, using a shield, and nullifying magic: essentially leaning into becoming a tank both physically and magically.
Here was what I had planned so far of the class schedule
Class Schedules
Aeric + Amos
Elsie + Lyric
Firstday Morning
Combat Fundamentals
Combat Fundamentals
Firstday Afternoon
Natural Sciences
Natural Sciences
Secondday Morning
Ranged Combat
Divination
Secondday Afternoon
Reading and Composition
Reading and Composition
Thirdday Morning
Melee Weapons
Sylvan Wands
Thirdday Afternoon
Math and Philosophy
Math and Philosophy
Fourthday Morning
Rescue Response Training
Fourthday Afternoon
Multi-Species Biology
Multi-Species Biology
Fifthday Morning
Fifthday Afternoon
History and World Events
History and World Events
I went back and forth on putting Elsie and Lyric in "Underwater Combat" just for fun, but there's really no reason for them to take that. Academically, the twins were going to discover that unless they intentionally made one of them appear smarter, they were always going to have the exact same answers. I also planned a scene where one of them is taking a test while the other is somewhere else looking up the answers in the book directly so that they can get a perfect score. Elsie was going to spend a lot of lecture time drawing while Aeric listened and took notes.
Competition - it's supposed to be a competition between Amos and Lyric using the twins as sort of "playing pieces". I hadn't decided who would win, but the overall theme I have in my notes is that Amos was the only one taking it seriously. Lyric just wanted to use her foresight to win, and the twins simply didn't care that much. Amos was going to think they had an advantage because he always saw Elsie drawing in class, then he would be frustrated when she did just as well as Aeric on the tests. Amos would also get way too obsessed when it came to ranged combat. Aeric would genuinely win that category, as the twins discover that muscle memory does not transfer over between bodies.
Enthralled Assault - throughout the competition story arc, the enthralled presence grows stronger. It's would mostly be told to the side like "did you hear that the knights had a particularly fierce battle against the enthralled" sort of things. As soon as the competition ends, the assault would begin in earnest. This would be the final story arc for Book 1. Classes are cancelled, tons of combat, and an introduction to the main villain of the series. One problem I had here was that while I know "basically" who the main villain would be, it turns out I wrote myself into a corner as far as making it work with what I had already established. MAJOR SPOILER: the Big Bad is a former summon from Earth. A tragedy hundreds of years ago caused him to go crazy and discover how to create the Enthralled. Since summons are ageless, they have been around for hundreds of years creating these monsters. I do have notes about their class, gender, etc, but I will leave those for the re-write.
Many people die during the assault on the castle, and there is a brave stand at Eleanor's Gate, mimicking the original battle where Eleanor lost her life and thus making the gate have that name. It is revealed that the Big Bad was originally friends with Eleanor and it broke him to see her die by his creations' hands (or claws?). He withdrew his forces centuries ago out of sorrow. Now faced with a similar situation he was determined to not fall to such weakness. He is rebuffed once again, this time because of something Very Cool that the twins manage to do (because of course they do) and retreats.
Book 1 ends with learning a scene involving Treewarden mages using a spell to send the dead on their journey to the afterlife (or return to them to the Great Astral Spark, or some sort of somber "this all really happened, didn't it" sort of mood). During this, Amos realizes he does want to pursue his feelings with Lyric, and asks if she'll be his date to the Summer's Peak Ball (which has been brought up a few times by now). Another possibility: Lyric is gravely wounded (again) and Aeric is sitting by her side while she heals (again) and that is what makes him realize his feelings for her.
Counterattack - Book 2 starts a little while after the end of Book 1 (weeks or maybe a month). As mentioned very briefly, students are required to make at least one excursion per year against the Enthralled. Elsie and Lyric are required to go on a months-long trip that will take place closer to the frontlines. A new bastion outpost is being formed, and the leymaster who will be in charge of it specifically asks the headmaster for Elsie to join him. Lyric accompanies her (4th-wall-reason: because I wanted to add some difficulty to Aeric and Lyric's budding romantic relationship -- it is now long distance with some possibility of Elsie and Aeric deciding to reveal that they can communicate with each other even at long distances, which results in Lyric pestering Elsie to let he talk to Aeric more often). Aeric and Amos are required to stay at the academy, despite both of them requesting to join the frontlines excursion. Sir Alvin (of the Astral Knights) wants them to join an advanced learning program at the academy that puts them on a fast-track to becoming full fledged knights.
Elsie learns so much about astral manipulation as the leymaster shows her how to connect things permanently to a leyline (i.e. how magic things work like the showers we've seen before, except this time it would be more like a tower defense style assault situation with magical turrets and traps to aid in the defense of the new bastion). Lyric once again does not have access to the divination meadow, so she can't be TOO overpowered with knowing what happens in the future. Elsie excels at keeping up with her schoolwork even while on the excursion because Aeric is still learning everything for them.
Aeric and Amos will meet the King of Astraeus during their not-actually-Knights Knight training. I was still trying to decide who the king would be as a character, so I don't have many notes about this. Aeric also learns how to use an "area of effect nullification" style attack. It indiscriminately stops magic, and is very OP, but also dangerous since it can affect allies as well as enemies.
The Enthralled resistance grows stronger, and the bastion fails. Aeric is able to tell the headmaster (and Sir Alvin? and the king? because they're in some meeting that Aeric rudely interrupts?) what is happening due to his contact with Elsie. This results in their secret (that they are Twinborn) possibly slipping to more people than just the Headmaster, but the twins decide it's worth it in order to get reinforcements. The reinforcements arrive to help save everyone's lives (at least the main character's lives). It is discovered that sapient races (Humans, Firefins, Sylvans, and Treewardens) are now able to become Enthralled as well. They become essentially magic zombies (but they're not undead), losing their sense of identity. The bastion is ultimately forsaken and the students return to the academy. Aeric and Lyric's relationship is stronger due to "the absence makes the heart grow fonder" logic.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Summer's Peak Ball and Lyric's Big Secret - There are still Enthralled attacks happening throughout the Kingdom, but not as frequent at the academy itself. Reports of people becoming Enthralled are growing more widespread. The academy doubles down on combat training above lectures. More combat scenes, this time with the dilemma of "but we don't actually want to be killing these people -- there must be some way to help them."
After the night of the Summer's Peak Ball (which is going to have a great deal of content as well), Lyric convinces Aeric to voluntarily cycle astra together, which is about the most intimate thing that would ever be written in this story. As has already been published, they've done that several times, but mostly by "accident" or while one of them was unconscious. They go to the divination meadow together that night and connect with each other on an astral level. The physical connection is not sex (like some stories may include), but maybe include some amount of passionate kissing in this case. The freely cycle their astra between each other while Lyric is attempting a divination in the meadow: the biggest one she's ever attempted. It is a magical, euphoric experience of ecstasy for both of them, and successfully boosts Lyric's astral power beyond what she could ever have accomplished alone, however it turns out that she's only able to see what happens the rest of that night, or maybe a bit into the next day or so. When Lyric finishes her divination she is in a state of panic from the things she's seen.
MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: Lyric reveals that she is not "just" a diviner. Similar to Aeric and Lyric actually being Twinborn with powerful subclasses, Lyric is actually a Chronomancer with a Diviner subclass. She hasn't just been seeing the future. She has been living it (this has been hinted at in the already-published chapters). She has unlimited re-loads of her save point, but the power she had when creating the save point establishes how far into the future it can go before she either has to accept that branch of reality or else return to her save point. (The divination meadow enables her to create a save point that allows her to live the next 4 months before she either has to accept this version of events or re-load. She was trying to create a "perfect run" if you will when something went wrong during their first hunt. This was something that went wrong with the Spark itself, not with just Lyric personally. This was also hinted at when she spoked to her divination professor. Lyric's savepoint was wiped out somehow, and she knew that until she could create a new one she was living in a reality where she couldn't just try again.)
Lyric has just returned to this savepoint that she created that night. It's not her first time returning either. From Lyric's perspective, she has either died or seen someone she cares about die so many times that she is extremely despondent about how much loss she has endured over and over again. From Aeric's perspective of going from having this deeply intimate experience with Lyric to her suddenly being an absolute emotional mess is very jarring, and is why she ends up admitting that she is a Chronomancer (time looper) in the first place. Aeric accepts this information (and maybe, possibly, tells Lyric that he and Elsie are actually Twinborn??)
Lyric's Death - It turns out there is a surprise attack that very night. Lyric has only been reliving the next few hours over and over again -- dying so many times. The details about the assault are still vague in my notes. Most likely something to do with a betrayal from either a disgruntled character we know, or someone that is somehow connected to the King? Regardless, the Big Bad is back at the academy with his army. He reveals that he knew there was someone with time-loop powers in the academy, and he has dealt with time-loopers before. He just didn't know who it was until Lyric revealed herself to Aeric.
During this battle, Aeric uses his area-of-effect nullification power. It's at this very moment that the Big Bad pulls some sort of trump card and fatally wounds Lyric. He monologues about how hard it is to kill time-loopers because it takes something unexpected in combination with some way of disrupting their savepoints. He reveals that he was intentionally trying to disrupt any savepoints back when that hunt went wrong at the start of book 1. He has some way to detect when timeloops happen, though he does not carry his memories like the timelooper does. He reveals that as an Astral Manipulator he has discovered how to manipulate the Spark itself (AKA the System in this story). This is what has allowed him to create the Enthralled. This is what allows him to disrupt the savepoint or detect when it has been used. Disrupting the savepoint isn't easy to do though, so he hadn't been able to break this one yet. Due to Aeric's nullification spell though, he realized he didn't need to. He can kill Lyric without having to worry that it will trigger the loop.
For whatever reason the Big Bad gets driven back again, but the damage is done: Lyric dies in Aeric's arms while her magic is still nullified. Aeric and Elsie wait to see if the timeloop will somehow restart, but from what they can tell everything is moving forward like normal. Book 2 ends with maybe a few more little things happening after her death.
Book 3 - I have fewer notes about what will happen in Book 3. All I can share here are the SUPER MAJOR END OF THE SERIES SPOILERS, without as much meat added to them. So here's how it all ends.
Elsie discovers that she can access the Spark with her Astral Manipulation powers just like the Big Bad mentioned. She uses this information to determine how Enthralled are actually created. Aeric then discovers he can cure the Enthralled with his nullification power (due to what Elsie helped him figure out with her powers). Enthralled creatures or monsters go back to their natural state. Enthralled sapient creatures feel like they're coming out of a coma. It's not easy to do, however, and requires one-on-one interactions with careful application of his skills to their astral channels, rather than just being able to cast an area-of-effect and calling it good.
Things ramp up towards one final conflict, and the Big Bad decides he's going to attack the Spark itself since he accidentally showed another Astral Manipulator how to access it. Elsie and Big Bad are essentially in a hacking-duel against each other, trying to force each other out of the main magic system on the planet. Things are going crazy everywhere as anyone connected to the Spark is being affected by this battle. Aeric, Amos, and the Astral Knights make an assault against the Big Bad, pushing him into a metaphorical corner. He decides to go for the nuclear option.
Elsie realizes that the Big Bad is planning on frying out the astral cores of everyone connected to the Spark at once. She can't stop him, but Aeric can. He fails to stop the Big Bad (he can't disrupt his connection for whatever reason), but instead discovers that he can do what the Big Bad was going to do to the entire Spark, but with Nullification power instead. It ends with Aeric nullifying the entire Spark itself -- disrupting all class-provided magic across the planet. Magical creatures such as Sylvans, Firefins, and Treewardens still have access to their magic because they were never using the Spark to begin with. It's only system-users who lose access to it. In the moments of disruption immediately after the Spark being erased from existence, the Big Bad is killed, ending things once and for all. To their shock, the Twinborn identities discover that they are no longer connected to each other.
In the aftermath, Aeric and Elsie come to terms with the fact that they are no longer bonded. They have lost their connection to one another. They participate in the investigation that many people are doing to look into the possibility of restoring the Spark. Plenty of people (primarily non-humans), including Elsie (but not Aeric) are able to do magic without the Spark, although it might not be at the same power level that they are used to. Without the spark there are no longer people like Oracles who can directly access System information. People can no longer tell exactly what a magical armor does, or see printouts from Oracles of things like stats or levels.
Elsie decides to try her hand at using the divination meadow, since Lyric had taught her a few things. She cycles astra with Aeric (who now feels like a different person since they are no longer connected) -- it's not for any sort of intimacy purposes, but because she wants to increase her chances of succeeding at her divination attempt. Not expecting much, she is surprised when her efforts result in discovering a strand of Lyric's astra still cycling through Aeric's channels. It is connected temporally all the way back to the savepoint that Lyric created during her passionate divination exercise with Aeric. And thus, being connected to that savepoint establishes a connection back to the way the Spark was before the Big Bad started doing terrible things to it throughout Book 3.
Elsie is able to pull that version of the Spark into the present reality, and with it comes a very confused Lyric.
The End.
Some other notes
Other characters - Amos definitely needs more to do than just be a guy who is obsessed with archery. The King needs more details, as do so many other people. I wanted the purple haired guy, Thomas, to become a more important character. He's supposed to be the primary romantic interest of Elise. Marissa and Amos would end up fitting well together, although he is mostly oblivious to her interest. There are other characters I've written in my notes that never even got mentioned before the chapter I decided was my final one. Not all of them were going to be anything to do with romantic partners -- I hadn't really intended on there being more than just Aeric and Lyric. Not to mention Lucian! I really needed to find a way to bring him back from his near-death experience. He needed to be more involved. Then there's people like Sapphire or Nadia or Desmond who could use more screentime as well.
I'm really bad at writing women as proper characters. Lyric is way too focused on Aeric to the point where that's too much of her defining feature. I am sure my sort of writing could end up on r/menwritingwomen on reddit some day if I don't fix that.
I really need to figure out a way to broaden the setting. Instead of just being in the academy all the time, I want to find a way to include other places. What about the other human kingdoms? What about Sylphwood? I want to include more about the other sapient races in the world!
Sexual Content - Obviously there are a few sex-adjacent topics in this story. I immediately found it difficult to avoid that when Eric became Elsie, so I leaned into it a bit. I personally see the maturity level on this story (as far as sexual content goes) as being similar to an ecchi anime. I originally had more sexual content in the story, but I usually cut that out in my final edit before posting it on Royal Road. As an example of some things I changed: in the first part where Elsie is fighting goblins with just underclothes on, I originally had her totally nude at that point. That made the "barbarian warlord" class option where you paradoxically get higher strength and armor the less you wear make more sense as it was first written. But this story was first published to RR during the writathon where there was a strict "no sexual content" rule during the competition, so I tried to scale it back. Another example is the hot springs. I published about Amos and Aeric in the hot springs, but they were wearing swim suits. Originally there were no swimsuits, and there was also a scene where Elsie and Lyric were there on the Women's' side of the baths (along with some other characters on both sides so it was more like groups of people around each of the twins). I was trying to have a comical situation where Elsie and Aeric were trying to prevent each other from seeing their completely nude classmates through their eyes. Or one more example is that the female firefin, Lea, originally did have mammary glands (instead of how Aeric wondered why she didn't). They were, of course, completely uncovered in the original version since part of the Firefin culture is that it's offensive to tell them to wear clothes. I'm still on the fence of whether to include things like that in the re-write. If I do, I'll probably just add the "Sexual Content" warning to Royal Road to play it safe. I don't plan on ever having actual explicit on-screen sex scenes, even if there would be plenty of ecchi-style "oops there's nudity or ever so slightly censored nudity like hot springs having heavy fog that obscures your sight just enough". The astral cycling is the most physically intimate it would get. (Maybe some possibility of fade-to-black sex scenes though. Haven't decided.) Elsie was also going to have a whole character arc about determining what her sexuality is now that she's a female. I don't know how that will work out with the rewrite at all, since I'll be going more for one person controlling two bodies. In this version where they were turning out as psychically connected twins I had some idea of her dating Thomas (the purple haired guy), but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to have it go that direction yet. There was also the possibility of having Elsie develop feelings for Lyric simply because her twinborn brother's feelings would develop for her. That would have made an unusual situation and I wasn't sure that I wanted to take things that direction (to have both a brother and a sister fall in love with the same girl). I also planned (and have a few lines already published) to have Aeric no longer consider Elsie to be beautiful simply because of his twinborn nature with her. She was originally his "perfect girl" sort of preference, but now that he knows exactly what it's like to be in that "perfect girl" body his preferences were changing. And just to be clear, as stated earlier in the book: at no point was I planning on having any sort of sexual intimacy or experimentation involving Aeric and Elsie together. That's just not going to be part of the story or re-write, even if it seems like one obvious place that the story could be taken (I wouldn't be surprised if a different author would take it there, but I'm not writing it).
Magic - Actually having a System! I wanted to avoid outright having a magic system the way a lot of other LitRPGs have it. I specifically did not want there to be an interface to anyone except for the Oracle class. I did want to include something like Elsie figuring out how to create what are essentially tablet computers that can give Oracle system-style readouts on the fly. Or maybe those sorts of tablets already exist. Regardless, my lack of an interface resulted in this becoming very much a lack of LitRPG mechanics. I really did intend for experience points and level ups and everything. I just didn't end up including it. I will have to figure out how to handle that in the rewrite. Maybe I'll just let there be an interface after all. If I do go heavy on the system I'll have to spend more time figuring out numbers and such. I did have numbers at the very start, but deleted a lot of them before posting.
The "Eric Smith" visions that Aeric has had twice now. I put these in without a plan. I figured eventually I could come up with something for them. My main thought behind them was that Aeric/Elsie still truly identify as Eric Smith subconsciously. If I keep them in the re-write then I'll try to come up with something better for them to be leading towards.
Possibility of a Book 4: when the Spark is brought back to life it resumes summoning students. The book could end with a Barbarian Warlord being summoned who immediately gets taken over by the mind and will of the previous Barbarian Warlords (go back and read the class description on that if you forgot, I guess). That would become a new "Big Bad" raising an army, but nothing to do with Enthralled anymore.
Anyway there's a ton of other stuff I want to change about the story, but it's mostly things I just haven't thought all the way through or else things that will have to change just by the nature of how the protagonist will change. I expect it to take me a few months to get back to where we are now, as I'll go a bit slower and more deliberate this time around. I probably won't start posting chapters until all of Book 1 is done. I also want to improve my pacing so that all of Book 1 is complete by around 120,000 words. So that's a LOT of content I'll be cutting out in order to speed things up. I also expect I'll be switching the first hunt to happen after the first week of school instead of before.
Regardless, thanks for reading through this first-first draft of Twinborn! I really do enjoy writing this story and look forward to doing the re-write.
-Sirichai