Graven

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Deleted Chapters

I thought I'd post some chapters I ended up scrapping when I got stuck hard a little over halfway in. I highly recommend reading the whole of Graven before reading this section.

Graven is now in ebook format!

You can still read the entire story for free here on this blog, but if you have enjoyed this story, please consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy of the ebook!

You can the novel in digital and paperback copies on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GSKH7BB

Cover updated on 2/7/23. Here's the old cover for comparison.

Monday, August 20, 2018

50 : Team

SHOGGOTH

It was touch-and-go there for quite a while. The moment Strider managed to teleport Xyla into the ground, my power kicked back on. Even as my flesh flowed to fill the huge wound in my side, I was springing to my feet and launching my skin-threads at my teammates.

49 : Xyla the Excelsior

I’d been a frail child, sickly with an autoimmune disease and half-functioning organs. Stuck in hospitals for weeks at a time, constantly in and out, only able to live in the outside world by wearing special suits and taking expensive medicines that still made me feel ill. I looked out upon the world like a fragile doll in a glass cage.

48 : Echo

The street that bordered the south side of Kilika’s tower was now apparently an open-air church. Several hundred people had gathered for a morning service. I stood at the very edges of the throng, pretending to be part of the crowd. Strider remained in the basement of an apartment, while I had eyes out for our two targets. If our teammates failed, the two tyrants were likely to come storming out and raise some hell.

47 : Hitchhiker

As Shoggoth dealt with Kilika, I was to find and deal with Ojau. He was one of the few men on the whole continent who was actually respected by the Queens. Most, apparently, were kept out of the cities to manage smaller settlements or told to keep watch over the Doorways. A precedent had been set that any male superhuman who even hinted at displeasure with his position was cut down viciously by his female cohorts. When the female supers who supported the Queendom system outnumbered the males five hundred to one, there was little a man could do other than die or know their place.

46 : Shoggoth

Though the strobing effect of Strider’s teleport could be disorienting, you couldn’t say it wasn’t just about the most overpowered ability we had. Aside from its offensive potential, the speed of travel was frankly insane. Even assuming that the continental force field had not a problem to get through, any other group of would-be assassins might have had to spend days, if not weeks, working their way across the length of the continent, braving god knows how many dangers, between untamed wilderness, roving bandits, superhuman warlords and soldiers, etc.

45 : Strider

I started from the southernmost shore of Barbados, followed the ocean floor until I sensed the edge of the Great Shield. I plunged deep into the Earth until I reached the ten mile limit, cut over, and terraported us back up. The heat and pressure were intense, but I was just tough enough to take it. I jumped us to the top of a rocky sea-side cliff where I sensed no people.

44 : Team

SHOGGOTH

“And with this, we are seeing the last of the accessible Doorways sealed away for good. All eleven Doorways, even those hovering over the oceans since the formation of New Gondwana, have been filled with concrete and sealed inside three-foot thick walls of solid steel. Some have been further protected by superhuman force fields. With this, the American States and Provinces completes its first cooperative effort with a foreign power since the United States’ ban from the UN six years ago.”

43 : Echo

The Department of Superhuman Affairs office was a large facility in Washington, DC, a perfectly square, three story fortress of concrete and mirrored glass. I used my SFF ID Card to gain access through the gated entry. The guard gave me a salute with a solemn expression as I passed. I saluted back.

42 : Cero

I am a synthetic biological construct designed to resemble one of you. My creators were a species that would be utterly alien to you. The closest creature on your planet they resemble would be a Portuguese Man O’ War, but with sturdier appendages. The closest equivalent name that the human vocal chords can produce is the Riuktoouluvasoli.

Yes, it is difficult for you to pronounce. They communicated through psycho-chemical transference as well as low frequency radio wave pulses.

I use the past tense, because they are all dead, thanks to your species and the ones you call the Masters.

41 : Team

HITCHHIKER

Before the Villain Maker could complete the word “them”, Echo whirled and used a “gentle” palm strike to send me flying into the lantern boy. When I saw the kid, I figured she would do something like the moment a fight started, so I was ready. I possessed him on contact. He must have been powerful, because I immediately felt the strain.

40 : Echo

Following the formation of New Gondwana and the Extinction Wave, Madagascar found itself in isolation from the rest of the planet. Expeditions from Australia, Japan, and Scotland revealed that the population had survived the Wave, but the still developing nation, cut off from the support of the global market, was doomed to severe recession. Likewise, it was initially feared that the island might fall under threat from New Gondwana, as it was the closest landmass to the supercontinent, and no one knew what the Queens had planned next.

39 : Strider

I came to a stop at the southernmost tip of the shores of Yemen, the closest point to Madagascar, which I’d left behind when helping form New Gondwana. I wanted to go further, but of course, we hadn’t actually taken the time work out how we were going to cross the ocean. I’d gotten us this far in just a couple of minutes, but the island nation was thousands of miles south across the ocean.

38 : Echo

When I exited the New York Doorway, the world had slowed to a crawl. Unlike James and Max, I couldn’t dial my speed up or down. I was stuck at what would later be categorized as Class 2 speed, in both movement and perception.

It taught me a level of patience and self-discipline beyond what I’d learned in the military. It gave me the luxury of thinking my actions through before most people could begin to act. Sometimes, I wondered if it gave me too much time to think, too much time to turn things over and over in my mind, rationalizing actions that surely a normal person, even a soldier, would find reprehensible. I felt a sense of isolation most people couldn’t really understand, and there were times I wondered it if would drive me crazy.

37 : Team

MAX-OUT

One moment, the Super Fem Force was standing before us. The next, Glorifica and James were gone, shooting into the sky faster than I could react. I had started with my durability at Level 3, but as soon as I realized what Glorifica was holding, I switched all my power to speed.

36 : Earth Mage

Lisa’s lips left mine. For a woman who can shatter a mountain to pieces with a single punch, she can give the most tender kisses. I blinked as the visions left me as quickly as they had flooded my mind. I realized that only a couple seconds had actually passed.

Lisa let go of me, letting me hover on my own. She still held the memory device. “You understand now, James?” she said. “You understand why this all must be done.”

35 : James McLeod

I step towards the doorway of the Tower, my heart pounding. I know that no one who has entered this strange structure has ever returned. Due to the lack of an sort of gore or even residue, some of the scientists think that they are being teleported, though no on knows where to. I am, to my knowledge, the last of the volunteers.

34 : Earth Mage

We stepped across two whole continents, going north up through Alaska, crossing the Bering Strait, and cutting down across Asia. Technically, we did trespass on Pacific Alliance territory when we stepped through the still (barely) inhabited easternmost part of Russia, but we were gone in the next instant.

33 : Max-Out

We reported the incident and turned over the bodies to the Department of Superhuman Affairs. As usual, I acted as the spokesperson when the authorities came to the scene. Agents from the DSA came out personally to speak to us, and their questioning always took longer than it probably needed to.

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