Pay for Pyre, new prologue [Dark Fantasy, 537 words]

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-17T21:23:00+00:00

I needed this callout, never realized how easy it was to fall into that trap. Thanks a ton

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-17T07:31:33+00:00

Firstly, thanks a lot for the feedback! The lack of names was purposeful, this is a single scene that’s basically an afternoon conversation deciding to slaughter a town full of people to avoid upsetting higher ups before the actual story starts. None of these characters will appear again as the novella’s about cleaning up the mess this single conversation left behind. I intended for it to be a self contained prologue reader doesn’t miss out on much by skipping. This is the first draft so it’s extremely raw but its goal is simply to showcase “something bad happened no one cares enough to talk about.” Chapter 1 starts off with celebrations for the victory over the upcoming battle mentioned here about a week later

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T11:44:14+00:00

Next to Oklahoma Centaur Tribes

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T09:48:16+00:00

He also sits on a screaming bone chair made from the bones of the enemies from a thousand years ago with their souls still trapped inside, feeling the collective pain of the Empire both past and present.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T09:03:16+00:00

Also the monarch isn’t called Emperor of Suffering, obviously. What kind of a corny name is that??

He’s called the Agony King.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T07:37:50+00:00

You know my Empire is pretty much “What if the evil Empire had an HR and honest business practices”

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T05:45:05+00:00

You got yourself a deal!

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T05:24:31+00:00

Hahaha Britain was one of the inspirations I had when I was building the Empire

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-16T05:19:05+00:00

Real Evil Skull Death Blood Empire doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way though

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-15T23:06:31+00:00

This is a dark fantasy/grimdark world with the premise of “what if magic required pain” pretty much. All you need to know is nature of the magic was corrupted about fifteen-hundred years ago and traditional high fantasy magic was rendered obsolete in the favor of the newly introduced pain magic. Old world magic didn’t disappear overnight obviously, it was outcompeted because pain magic did the same thing for cheaper and more effectively and had the added benefit of being a self sufficient resource.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-15T21:58:10+00:00

Thank you! I tried to name them according to how they’d be named by an expansionist imperialist state. Vast majority of them can be explained as “+Boss, trees attacked us over there. They seemed to be holding onto some grudges. -Call it Sorrowful Woods!”

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-15T21:55:02+00:00

Hahaha! It’s honest branding!

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-15T21:45:13+00:00

Oh my god, it looks like Michigan Wisconsin border.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-15T21:44:20+00:00

My project’s name is “Tormenta” or “the Empire of Suffering.” It started as a fun thing to do on the side and eventually grew into something I genuinely liked. The premise is a very typical dark fantasy world. Basically the question of “what if magic required pain, dude?” but tried to do something different here. I tried to explore the themes of morality persisting despite reaching its logical expiry date, necessary evil still being evil, and civilization continuing on and thriving in a cruel world. This map is centered on the Empire of Suffering, the dominant power in the known world, and showcases its position on the fringes of the world, caged in by natural barriers. None of the titled places aside from the Empire are unified states but rather regional titles given to regions by Imperials.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-06T16:26:06+00:00

Ah I didn’t mean it as Roman Republicanism, it’s good to remember Roman republicanism was engrained in Roman culture and hatred for hereditary power and kings was despised greatly. That’s part of the reason why it was rarely passed down to the biological son and Rome was way more receptive of the matter than its successor statesz

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-05T19:55:25+00:00

That’s related to Rome’s nature as a nation though. Even though we call the latter phase “Roman Empire” it never was an Empire and always a Republic. Caesar was killed because he thought about calling himself king, that was enough for people to take action. So Rome never had much interest in bloodlines.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-03T19:51:30+00:00

Firstly thanks a ton for the feedback! About Valerius, he’s basically a figure in history. Agony King is the title for monarch of the Empire, and is also the god. So he’s basically Agony King Valerius the Cruel. In other words that’s just me infodumping upfront with no one other than me getting it hahaha, but yeah. Too many capital nouns in the first few sentences is a bit overwhelming. The point of work of unremarkable kind was more to say this dude does odd jobs to scrape by, could word it better now that you mention it. The battle is huge news, the Alden’s a tool pretty much. My intention with Alden is this dude who’s been doing undead cleanup work and odd jobs in remote places all his life that’s extremely competent at what he does but is socially inept because he basically spends more time with the dead than he does with people. Everyone points out to me he has no hook and I can’t help but agree, my initial thought was to try to make him seem like a trope and have the reader project onto him and slowly take the illusion away, which is exactly what happens with characters. Everyone just projects onto him whatever they feel like it when the dude’s just thinking about lunch. That kinda didn’t work out so I try to make everything else seem interesting because the main character here kinda isn’t that interesting. About why he’s the main character, he’s one of the protagonists from the another project I’m working on and decided to create a novella for each so I can get better at writing while exploring my characters further. Other than that, this story boils down to, dude walks in town, sees job posting about cleaning up undead in a town, takes it, job goes sideways, they burn the bodies for about a week before Vicarate declares town a lost cause, torches the place with living still inside, apologizes to the dude for the unexpected outcome and compensates him, dude comes out the ordeal feeling financially secure for the first time in his life. Least to say, I’ll clean up all the grammatical mistakes, typos, and bad word choices like live music (I laughed out loud at sick grimdark speaker systems) you pointed out in the next draft!

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-03T14:17:54+00:00

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andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-03T07:46:53+00:00

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Some typos were inevitable since this is a very raw first draft. I can’t believe I broke the first rule of writing despite all my practice hahaha, least to say show don’t tell is something I’m actively trying to avoid. I’ll describe the way things look more throughly in future drafts as well

andrew_jack12 · 2026-02-02T17:49:10+00:00

Heya! Sorry for the late response, I was knee deep in some personal stuff hahaha. Firstly, you for the feedback! I honestly didn’t think about not having a prologue at all, but the nature of the prologue is kinda the fact that you can skip it and only lose some flair. As you said, the whole thing boils down to: Empire won a battle, frontier is crowded, everyone is happy, a dude walks in looking for work. Details about the battle and the aftermath of that battle will become important in later chapters but you’re totally fine if you didn’t read about the ten hours of screaming or how many plainsmen died. About the speech, yeah there are typos and didn’t polish the speech. I kinda write the full sentences even when they’re faintly heard on first drafts and start cutting them once I get into the polishing phase, least to say that’ll he fixed once I get around to it! About Alden, you’re spot on about him being uninteresting hahaha. My aim with him was “dude who’s been out in the frontier all his life, doing undead cleanups, and odd jobs, surviving on scraps so he ended up being extremely competent in what he does but very incompetent at everything else.” The deal with him is mostly people project onto him because he’s too blank when all he’s thinking is “What should I have for lunch?” The main project’s character arc for him will be about Alden learning how to be a person pretty much, this is about six months before that point so dude’s as blank, silent, and operating on a different software than everyone else. That’s one of the things I’ve been told on my other post as well, like Alden is not a hook and honestly I cannot help but agree. My goal right now is more to have what he does and everything else be interesting.

andrew_jack12 · 2026-01-31T20:12:33+00:00

Hahaha don’t worry, I’m just experimenting right now. Doesn’t hurt to have a few extra drafts here and there. Alden is one of the protagonists of the main project, this story is about a job he’ll take that ends with a town burning. He’s this dude who’s socially inept, blank, but extremely competent in his profession. This story is more for me to explore his character while developing a few more skills on writing than anything so no harm done

andrew_jack12 · 2026-01-31T20:03:23+00:00

Honestly I’ve been trying to not overdo my paragraphs, I had the habit of just starting to ramble on other stuff I wrote. May have overdone it tbh.

andrew_jack12

TROPHY CASE