I wont say it's finished, but...
Added 2025-11-04 05:13:21 +0000 UTCReminder: Please review and support the Book 1 release if you can and have time! it really helps with the amazon algo in getting it to promote and show the book to other kindle users!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWKD5K9W
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I am editing Chapter 41 out of 42 for Book 2. Two chapters left. I am SO excited to finally be finished editing this monster.
I have not only added parts of Book 1 into Book 2, but reduced it from a whopping 460,000 words to a publishable, well paced, readable 280,000 words.
Once I am finished, I will pass it off to my Editors to do their magic, but I will be free from it minus some tweaks/ect down the line.
In order to reduce the word count by 180,000, some content was lost, and some characters were removed, but I'm happy about this as I was having issues with Character Bloat in B3 and B4. I wrote this story originally by blasting out what was in my head onto the pages, without ever planning how it might be paced or published, so I've learned a lot about how to properly structure and format stories in the future. Here's what has been cut:
Characters:
Travis, Artaphernes, Anazia, Mayiera, Viella, Garrick, Blacklions
Scenes:
1. Intermediate Quests for Rakkan, Pyri and Darkshot are no longer PoV swaps
2. Ruins of Kolz has been cut down to only the slime boss, all Gargoyles, Stickbucks, and small slimes removed, in addition to the Frostbrand rune being taken out of the story completely
3. The ToS break and Aegis tricking Celestian and Farlion into becoming Elite
4. The Seekers(Ioumak) now appear for the first time in Pakro'vielle. They give the map and instructions to reach the city of the White Tree from there
5. The Mosmir hive was changed to respawn, so that Aegis and his group grind there to 130.
6. The Royal Mosmir cut, the way into the Queen's chamber is changed completely
7. Darkshot's escape with Snowflake after the Emerill encounter is gone and changed
8. Belmiure ruins, and the PoV swap to Quinn when Makaroth visits has been deleted from the story entirely (This is where most of the words vanished from) - The Makaroth visit is instead summarized by a conversation between Aegis and Quinn.
9. The Black Lion guild no longer comes to Kalmoore, they and Garrick are removed from the story.
10. In the City of the White Tree, Viella, the prison escape, and Mayiera are removed from the story, as is a lot of the PoV swapping during the final fight.
11. The City of the White Tree raid boss was changed, because Beholder is copyrighted; the outcome is the same, but Krael survives in place of Viella(she doesn't exist anymore)
12. The battle at the red river is gone, but Joltblade still attacks and fights with Aegis/Rakkan, the manner in which it happens has changed.
13. Finally, a lot of gratuitous PoV swaps during the final encounters have been removed to keep the action and pacing flowing much more fluidly. I'm now working on changing up Aegis' phone-call with Makaroth at the end of B2, and the overall conclusion, including not reviving Snowflake ; ; (yeah I totally got sad again while editing this part)
Book 2, soon to be finished. Book 3's latter half is already edited, so I may be posting Book 4 soon. If Book 1 doesn't do good on Amazon, publisher will probably want me to end the story as a trilogy, so fingers crossed, hope that doesn't happen, but I'll push on optimistically.