I had too much else on my plate to finish Carpos’ Chapter 3 like I wanted to, but I did make the time to make some progress. Not sure if I’ll spend a little more time on it or go ahead and switch over to JJ. Stay tuned.

More progress on Carpos’ Chapter 3 of TTWC3. One more day to finish it before switching over to JJ. Can it be done? Stay tuned.

Made a little more progress on Carpos’ Chapter 3. At least finishing it this weekend seems entirely feasible. Stay tuned.

I managed to pretty well wrap up Carpos’ Chapter 2 of TTWC3 and did a little work on his Chapter 3 as well. Hopefully I can wrap up another chapter or two before the weekeend’s out. Stay tuned.

Though under quota, I have made some progress on Carpos’ Chapter 2 of TTWC3. I’d like to at least get two chapters of his knocked out before the week is out. We’ll see if I can manage it or not. Stay tuned.

It isn’t apparent now, but Dox is a rather special character in that he appears in many stories in the Tellus Arc. In fact, he happens to guide a lot of the events on the Planet from the date of his genesis on. He wasn’t originally in the Trident War Chronicles but was added in when the story was revived and I was working to better integrate the nascent Tellus Arc.

Much of Dox’s story gets filled in elsewhere, but I’ll go ahead and give you the basic background here. Dox was once a human archmage obsessed with the then-extinct Dark Race. Through his agents, he was able to uncover the Tome of the Black Lich, a spellbook sealed with the power of titular Black Lich, the last of the Dark Race. Through the power of the Tome, Dox became the Dark Eternal, a sort of noncorporeal entity of overwhelming dark power. This bypasses the key weakness of the Liches themselves, that their physical bodies become unable to contain the vast power they develop. Ironically, Dox continues his quest to perfect the Dark Race without realizing that he’s already achieved the nearest approximation to perfection that’s possible.

Dox powers himself by absorbing the souls of living things. In my canon at least, just as with the laws of conservation of mass and energy, a soul can neither be created nor destroyed, so each time Dox consumes a soul, he adds a perpetual energy generator, though the law of diminishing returns applies, hence his need to continually claim new souls for the multitude within.

In Dox’s epilogue, there are oblique mentions of a “her” interfering. I’m not going to go into the details here. You’ll learn more about her eventually, but I will say that in all the multitude, there is one soul that continues to defy him, not quite to the degree of parity but strong enough that any slackening of control can be exploited. That’s why his projection in the Darklands was destroyed. Otherwise Xanthe wouldn’t have stood a chance. Rest assured that this mystery benefactress will appear again.

It was interesting juxtaposing the dual nature of the Monarch Lich, who still retained much of his humanity, with the more inscrutable Dark Eternal. As I said before, the irony is that Dox already represents the perfection of the Dark Race but is completely unable to see beyond his goal of achieving that through new generations of Liches. The Liches themselves are an untenable species. That’s why they went extinct with Black Lich thousands of years earlier and that’s why they’ll go extinct again. All Dox has is his mission, but his view is so blinkered (contrary to his conceit that his vision extends far and wide) that he’ll never truly achieve it. That’s all the better for the world.

As a fun tidbit, it was actually Dox who was behind Shadowblight’s betrayal of the Shadow Clan and all his efforts to unify the Southern Continent. I think you only get an oblique reference or two from Brenok of “my master’s master”, but that’s who it is. Expect to see a lot of more of this guy. He plays a direct role in seven more books slated thus far and has some influence in several others. Next time we’ll be visiting that most tragic of serpents, Ophis Python. Stay tuned.

I haven’t posted any progress the last couple of days, but I was drawing up some of the chapter meta-tags and character glossary entries for JJ and EM, which sorta counts. I made a point to stay up a little longer to actually make some tangible progress on Carpos’ Chapter 2 of TTWC3. I’ll be switching over to JJ after another day’s work. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Carpos’ Chapters 2 and 4. Also did some preparatory work for a new If Arc story. I’ve got to gather up some new teasers and get them up in the near future. Stay tuned.

I managed to creep forward a little further on Carpos’ Chapter 2, but then started wandering around through other sections tweaking chapters I’d already written there. The really interesting part was my work on Carpos’ epilogue. I’ve pretty well finished it, but the character kinda took over as I was writing. He managed to completely subvert my original intention. I guess he really didn’t like the ending I had planned for him. I’ll detail more of what happened in a few months once his section has been published. I think I may stick with TTWC3 through the rest of the week, seeing as how I’m making progress. I can pick up JJ next week. Stay tuned.

I made a little progress on Carpos’ Chapters 2 and 3. I’ve still got a ways to go before I can switch over, but maybe a day’s solid effort can get me where I need to be. Stay tuned.