Spooky Season!

Update time! Hello readers, I’ve been busy since my last post here. Since getting back into writing regularly again, I’ve put down a lot of chapters. I haven’t counted them and don’t want to. I don’t want to give the number a chance to uninspired my writing.

Lately, between COVID, other events around the world, and the fact that its spooky season, I have decided to add a touch of horror to my spin off story. I’ve been impressed by several horror podcasts that I’ve been listening to lately. My two favorites are, Old Gods of Appalachia and The White Vault, if you wanted to check them out. Of course, my main focus is still the sequel to, The Last Soul. However, its been a good change to write something a little different.

Vampires are very played out in worldwide entertainment, everyone knows this. One of my new characters was inspired by a vampire but I didn’t want him to be stereotypical. So, after playing with several ideas, I think I found a good skill set that feels different. While originally, this character will control water in much the same way that water benders do. I want him to become more sinister and eviler as time passes. During this time, he’ll realize that he can control people’s bodies via the water stored in the human body. Again, inspired from Blood Bending.

This all came from the idea that I wanted this character’s mother to pass on a thief ability. So, this character can bend water that exists naturally. He can also bend water in another person’s body because of his thief abilities from his mother. In this world, its incredibly difficult, nigh impossible, to affect something on or within another person’s body. In short, this character can steal and control water, even from another person’s body.

Bringing me to another point, this character has siblings; two sisters and a brother. Each of them has a thief ability from their mother and an elemental ability from their father. My elements are more varied than the traditional four or five always seen. Here’s the description of each: Sonder, water elemental and thief of water (eventually blood). Alanara, color elemental and thief of color/pigment. Kald, cold elemental and thief of heat. Blair, full thief ability but can only steal elemental abilities.

AND… Since this is my blog, I think I’ll describe each of the siblings and parents more fully. Because I want to. Below I list each of these characters, they are copied directly from my working document so, some of the information might seem broken, incomplete, or have questions attached.

Alanara, the thief of color. She can utilize all the colors her body can naturally produce on her body. However, when using her power as a weapon, she only seems to be able to use black. And it bleaches her skin, hair, and eyes. She has to be careful using it in public view or else she gives herself away. She constantly has “henna” on her body and various “tattoos”. The tattoos obviously have to remain fixed in public but her henna moves all the time, to suit her mood or the occasion. When she draws on another, she can take their melanin and add it to her own. This is a necessity because as she uses her ink in various ways, it breaks down rapidly and needs to be replenished. She is more of an infiltrator at first (being able to change her makeup and/or the color of objects she is touching) but when she gets pushed into her dormant thief skills, she physically steals color from another living being. Ripping it from their body and usually killing them in the process. The melanin she takes is like an addiction for her. She can only rip color from a living object. When she is touching a non-living object, she can change its color but not steal it. When using her abilities as a weapon, the ink is outside of her body and able to stab things effectively, not good at slashing or blocking objects though. It can also grab things and wrap around them effectively.

Kald, his element is cold, not to be mistaken with ice. His cold abilities are misunderstood and ostracize him. He is supposed to be training as a warrior, like Valyn, but gets bullied all the time for his cold aura. It has driven his confidence to a point of breaking. Once mastered, he finds that if channeled correctly, he can also steal warmth. Intensifying his cold aura. This allows him to shatter objects with a grappling style of fighting. Leaves marks of frost burnt skin and is able to adjust his cold radiance in distance and intensity, eventually. This will reach all the way to absolute zero, “the final touch”, at some point.

Sonder, his element is water. He controls it like a bender because he has stolen it and made it his own. He can continue to use it because he is still a water user. His blood abilities come into play later. He controls the plasma within a person which is half of the make-up of blood. Plasma is ninety percent water. There is also water in people’s systems in general too. So, he is able to control something that someone else has as a part of their autonomy, which is usually extremely difficult or impossible. Only the strongest Bound/Evokened have that skill. His blood bending comes later and he begins to steal it from people’s bodies and conduct experiments on them and/or their blood. He keeps different mixtures of blood, water, and other mixtures based in those two liquids in vials on his person. Some have poisons, some are used for sensory detection, some are corrosive, etc.

Blair, her ability is a thief just like her mother. However, she is a thief of other elements. Like rogue from X-men. Being contained within a mad Callum, her body is no more and she lives as a prisoner within another soul. She forms a “glass” sphere/crystal around herself, for protection. It is made of calcified soul, drained from Callum and mixed with her own. People thought she was a fire elemental but really, she just stole fire from the forges and used it until it was spent. She can absorb huge quantities of elemental Will and becomes a semi-permanent fire elemental after absorbing Fire Guy’s attack. And maybe the tetrahedron engine that was stolen and exploded? She basically absorbed Callum as a physical being, made of wood. So, once he is burned away and she begins to learn how to control these powers, she manifests her body to look like him. Or in his image. After absorbing Fire Guy’s fire, she is able to burn away her physical body and take on a female version of the human torch. She is able to shape its form much easier. Eventually, she learns to shape her wood body similarly. She uses a cat of nine tails whip to lash Will away from others. Draining them and increasing her own power, only if they are an elemental user. This gives her small amounts of elemental ability to fire back at its original owner. Just like rogue, if she drains an elemental user completely, she is able to permanently summon that element.

Their mother. Her thief ability is like Ban’s fox hunt ability. Possible drawback is that it is truly a thief ability. If she owns the object, person, or what have you, she cannot steal it, or a part of it. That ownership doesn’t have to be legalized either. The ownership applies to things she feels are hers. So, maybe give her a detachment to her children so as to be able to feel like she can “steal” from them. This is done as a protection. Let’s say a rock was to fall and hit Sonder, she could grab his whole body and pull it to herself, getting him out of harm’s way. So, the children feel neglected and distant from their mother yet it’s all a sacrifice to protect them. Maybe make her the more military minded and have her lead their coven. They are all closer with their father who always stands up for their mother because he knows her sacrifice. However, he is her weakness because she does feel as though she owns him. She trusts him completely and he does the same for her. They are partners. So, she has no control over his body. Will this lead to their downfall? Make him an elemental. This is ideal for their kids in my story. They all have elemental attributes from their father and dormant thief abilities from their mother.

Their father (the most in progress thus far). An elemental user of some type. Not something particularly strong but deep? Like he has a very deep well of Will but cannot expel it to great extent. His elemental mastery is more about having a stockpile. This gives his children uniquely deep wells of their own. Potentially, a “universal” element. Possibly cymatics? He is able to emit cymatic vibrations from his hands and break down whatever elemental ability is coming toward him. This is useless against non-elemental abilities. A huge weakness. He is all but defenseless against other types of powers, particularly Animal Bound because they are more physically powerful. But if a Will charged elemental attack is used against him, he can break it down with his cymatics, enhance it with a different frequency, and then throw it back at the user, more powerful. When he breaks the power down, he uses a small piece of his Will to amplify and control it. It’s never more than he produces and the cymatics can only increase it so far. Once a frequency is obtained by his abilities, it’s a static change to his controlled element. It will not get stronger or weaker unless he changes frequencies again. And he only has access to a few frequencies as his power is horribly understood. He is constantly filling his well of Will and very rarely making a dent in its contents from usage. Maybe his deep well is also like a cavern to rebound his own element out of? When he activates his power, it feels like he is grinding huge tectonic plates within himself, causing an earthquake within his soul? To change the sounds of his cymatics, he has to shift these plates differently. Some of his shifts simply don’t do anything that he can measure. Which is why his power is so misunderstood. Only he has it, only he can feel what it’s like inside of himself, and most of his cymatic frequencies are tailored towards something specific. So, it’s incredibly hard to find out what each shift inside his soul does. He performs a lot of experimentation on himself and his abilities. Not sure about all his cymatic frequencies yet but he has elemental amplification, elemental destruction, and minor healing. I picture his hands looking like doctor strange but with different elements coursing through his cymatic mandalas.

Well everyone, that’s what I’ve got to share this month. Let me know what you think!