On Wednesday, I finished writing Book 3 of my fan fiction series, and all that's left is the final revisions of Chapter 20 and the Epilogue before I post them on Monday and Friday respectively. So I started writing the next installment in the series.

The working (and most likely final) title is Story of the Dead. Despite the name, it will not be nearly as violent or death-filled as In the Dying Breath--the title refers to a tradition carried out by the Matoran of Ayomeii after the ending of Book 3, which is how the story comes about. In short, the Story of the Dead is a decennial storytelling about a dead hero, and at the time of Book 4, Onathei is the hero who is told about by none other than Turaga-Kal Xironu.

The story starts out about 55 years after Chapter 19 of ITDB, but quickly jumps back over 10,000 years. This goes back to a time not too long after the Dyteeli Civil War, when the Ta-, Pa-, and Palif-Matoran have already been exiled to Ayomeii, killed the natives (with the help of the Onu-Matoran from Dyteeli), and had a bit of tension threatening to lead into an Ayomeii Civil War. Before this happened, the Palif-Matoran and Onu-Matoran were exiled to another supposedly uninhabited island, which is never named in the story (not just because I was lazy, there's a story reason for it =P).

In Chapter 1, three Toa arrive on the island without warning and bring Toa stones for the two self-appointed kings of the island: Onathei and his Onu-Matoran friend Gyotaren. They also bring a very strange Ga-Matoran named Feyain, complete with her own Toa stone. By the end of Chapter 1, we have our three lead Toa.

At the time of this writing, I'm a good ways into Chapter 2, but I won't go into that any further. Allow me to talk a little bit about the two new main characters: Gyotaren and Feyain.

Gyotaren, to me, is not the most fun character to write (because Feyain quickly stole that title), but I have plans for him to become much more complex than he seems on the surface...just like the underground tunnel system that he is revealed to have created near the end of the book, though I probably shouldn't have said that. If Onathei is the Qedono of the group (and trust me, Onathei didn't seem like much of a troublemaker back in Book 1, but you should see how he was in the good old days XD), then Gyotaren is comparable to Lenurin. He's reserved and can be snappy, because he struggles with his own problems underneath the surface that he doesn't feel like he can talk about. In the end, this attitude is responsible for why we haven't heard of Gyotaren as a Turaga of Ayomeii--and why there are no Onu-Matoran on Ayomeii anymore.

Feyain is an extremely interesting character. She is a puzzle to whom even I don't have the answers to yet. Despite being a Toa of Water, her armor is white with streaks of blue, and early on in the story it is found that she can control Ice as well as Water. She's much smaller than the average Toa, and has a badly wounded leg (though she doesn't let it stop her when she's in a hurry). The biggest problem with Feyain is that she doesn't talk. She can understand the Matoran language and can communicate through gestures, but she has a problem with talking and only says a few words throughout the course of the story. Onathei immediately takes it upon himself to teach her how to talk, but she isn't very receptive to this and only talks when it is absolutely necessary. Once she begins speaking, she picks up a few pet phrases, especially her favorite: "Go!" There's a good reason as to why we haven't heard of Feyain in the present time, a reason separate from Gyotaren's, and anyone who takes a few minutes to re-read Chapter 2 of Book 1 will be able to guess why.

The villains of Book 4 are just as much an enigma as Feyain. We see our first glimpse of them in Chapter 2, but who they are will probably not be addressed until long, long afterwards. Also, anyone who has read this blog long enough before already knows a little bit about them from an entry posted almost a year ago:

Order members have reported hallucinations of large, winged beasts or a being with a mask like Karzahni peering at them cautiously from behind a tree.

Surprise surprise: they weren't really hallucinations. =P

It may be interesting to note that my brother's friend Austin made three MoCs, years ago, and I was so fond of them that I promised him that one day I would include them in a story of mine as villains. This was a time when Book 1 was still new, and Book 2 was being written. But I remembered all this time, and now that promise is finally realized in Story of the Dead. I have pictures of the MoCs on my computer, and will probably post them in the review topic or my blog as each villain appears in the story.

I would give an excerpt from SOTD, but there are no real good points to excerpt from. However, I can provide this brief clip that I think sets up excitement for the story fairly well (the first speaker in the quote is Onathei):

"Three Toa who have literally only been around for hours, one who can't really do much of anything, going to take on a dragon and his rider who have who knows how much power? What do you think, Feyain?"

 

"What do you think she's going to say?" muttered Gyotaren, and then all three Toa said simultaneously:

 

"Go!"