I started writing original stuff around the time I first played TTRPGs. I was introduced to them through Pathfinder 2nd edition. To this day I’ve never played straight DND, except through baldur’s gate, but pathfinder isn’t super foreign to it in concept. I didn’t really like fantasy until I played Pathfinder 2, as I was mostly into historical fiction for my settings.
I think most fantasy settings are still pretty bad, but we’ll discuss that later. The problem I ran into when working with historical fiction is that I was far too meticulous with details, and knew I’d never be satisfied with how “accurate” my portrayal of a given setting was.
After being introduced to Pathfinder, I really saw the potential in what fantasy could do. I started doing my own worldbuilding for a campaign (we’ll discuss this term later, I have thoughts on it), and that still serves largely as the basis for where I am at now in my writing. I honestly might have to make a TTRPG thread at some point because I have a lot of thoughts to share on that as well.
Eventually my work there turned into writing proper stories in my setting. The problem that I still have, and am hoping maybe putting some thoughts out there for others to read might resolve, is that I’m a serial non-finisher. I’ve started several different pieces, and have put in a lot of work on two of them. There are several others in a more preliminary stage, and others still exist only as concepts.
For this post I’m just going to discuss the piece I’ve worked on most recently, and the one I think I can properly finish. I started writing this piece after clearing Chaos;child, and its influence will be pretty clear once I get into discussing the narrative proper.
Let’s talk setting. As for worldbuilding, I generally follow the Tim Cain philosophy that you should only do as much as you have to when you’re building a setting for a story. Some people really enjoy writing wikipedia articles, I’m not really here to do that. It’s important to make your setting feel lived-in and alive, you need enough worldbuilding to do that, but you shouldn’t go overboard with writing a thousand years of ultra-specific history for a city.
A lot of this will be plot summary for my first chapter. I don’t have it entirely fleshed out in actual writing, as I suck at doing beginnings and need to work on that. This is just kind of the main narrative thread the story starts on, and it gradually blooms from here.
I started writing Soul Singularity after I finished Chaos;Child, and its influence will be felt for sure. Namely, psychic powers serve as a focal point for the story, though not in the form of delusions or anything like that. I’ll delve into those later, as I’m still working out the specifics for myself. There will also be frequent murders that occur throughout the story, though not in the form of serial killings or as a means of targeting one specific individual.
I don’t want to delve too much into the particulars of the setting itself, but some general things: Magic is something most people are familiar with, but magicians themselves are viewed with disdain and suspicion by pretty much everyone. Religion and the church play a huge role in my story and in the world itself. The church will generally be a force for good, even if individuals within it may not necessarily be. Expect a lot of religious undertones in this. Generally, the laws of the universe apply except where magic and the supernatural get involved.
Soul Singularity primarily takes place in a single city called Freihafen. Freihafen is a mercantile port city in the northwest of the Dochenwald Confederation (think Holy Roman Empire). It’s inspired mostly by medieval Hamburg, and is advantaged by having a permanent market (rare at this time) and access to lucrative ocean and river trade routes. River commerce is something that has been largely forgotten and I wanted to represent it here for sure.
Compared to our world, the time frame is circa ~11th century. There are plenty of things in-setting that don’t fit in historically, thanks to some scientific and medical advancements that exist thanks to Elven rule over Meliora many centuries prior. In daily life, the normal laws of the universe apply, but magic can break these laws down and enable things that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. It’s not uncommon for regular people to have access to magical or magical-adjacent items, but very few are actual practitioners themselves. Wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, etc are all viewed with suspicion and malignance by the majority of the continent’s population.
Outside the city, and the hometown of our protagonist (and deuteragonist), is the village of Jungholz. Jungholz is a run-of-the-mill hamlet that is under the administration of the mayors of Freihafen, though they don’t actually own the area as it is directly ruled by the Grand Consul, and simply delegated to them for administrative purposes. It has a population of a little less than a hundred souls. The only truly noteworthy feature of the settlement is its near-constant attacks from wild boars that roam the forest to the northwest of town.
Ordinarily, boar hunting is a sport reserved specifically for nobility, but the problem is so constant (boar are notorious for tearing up crop fields and ruining land) that the peasantry are permitted to hunt and kill as many boar as necessary year-round, so long as the hooves and heads of each are sent to the city.
The protagonist of Soul Singularity, Sigismund (not 100% on keeping the name as it is a little aristocratic for a peasant boy) is the son of the hamlet’s principle boar hunter. He lives in a cottage with his two parents, and two (plus one) siblings. I’ll explain the plus one shortly.
Sigismund at first glance is a fairly normal young man. He tends the fields with his father, hunts boar with his father, and generally helps with upkeep around the home when necessary. Prior to the first act of our story, Sigismund was an unremarkable person with a similarly unremarkable future trajectory.
Where things go wrong is with our deuteragonist. The “heroine” of the story and Sigismund’s primary love interest, a young woman named Henrietta who hails from the same village.
This part probably won’t shock you: Henrietta is a character that is drastically similar in conception to Nono: an older sister type whose element is in being a caretaker and looking after her family. Henrietta joined Sigismund’s family when she was around eleven years old, after her own parents were killed in a terrible accident that left her orphaned. The village priest, Father Theo, requested that she be permitted to reside with Sigismund’s family, and lived with them ever since. Does that sound too convenient? It might be…
Henrietta’s entry into Sigismund’s life represented a drastic upheaval. As you might have guessed, Sigismund is unknowingly afflicted with psychic powers. He won’t know about these powers for some time, but as a young boy they manifested uncontrollably in his subconscious.
Though unable to do so consciously or with any degree of control, Sigismund was subject to constant astral projection during sleeping hours. Being a young boy, he believed that they were simply part of his imagination, and never conceived that what he was seeing was reality. He ventured to the far corners of the Earth, seeing wonders no Melioran had ever seen.
These dreams caused him to become reclusive and isolated, and it became his greatest desire to leave behind his humble beginnings and get out into the world to see what it was really like. Henrietta, a year his senior, didn’t take kindly to such delusions (buzzword) and made it her own personal mission to put an end to such foolishness.
Here is a long excerpt from a flashback where Sigismund remembers the genesis of their relationship (spoilering to condense the size of the post)
Spoiler
When I laid down to sleep that night, I had the most vivid dream I’d ever had. Even now, I could recall its details at a moment’s notice. I appeared high in the sky above a massive city, far larger than my humble hamlet. Though it was draped in the darkness of night, pockets of orange light throughout its interior provided places for me to focus on.
I didn’t seem to have a body. I couldn’t blink, or breathe, or feel my face. My sight was clear as day, and my hearing was as well. Untethered to the ground, I cast myself down toward the imaginary city, and found myself fixated on a gigantic structure.
It was a cathedral, much like the one the elder physician had mentioned. Its size was incomprehensible to me. It would’ve crushed Jungholz had it been dropped onto it. The front of the cathedral was composed of two gigantic, matching towers. A wider structure fanned out behind them supported by slanted beams all the way down. It was covered in beautifully-carved decorations. There wasn’t a plain surface anywhere to see.
The inside was just as magnificent. It seemed impossible that I could’ve dreamt of something so spectacular. It being the middle of the night, the cathedral’s interior was almost entirely void of people. A singular priest stood at the altar, which was many times more massive than the comparatively puny one I knew.
The ceilings were dozens of feet above me. Intricate glasswork and arches spanned the entirety of the nave. I couldn’t guess how many people the cathedral held at capacity. Jungholz’ entire populace wouldn’t have filled a fourth of it.
I approached the lone priest, who paid me no mind. He was singing the prayers of the Midnight Office, the exact ones I’d heard Father Theo say on many occasions. I patiently listened to the cleric until he completed his routine, and then I woke up.
That was just the first dream of many. They appeared sporadically, and without warning. I wished that I could find a way to have them on purpose, but I was never able to. I dreamt of many different places. Mountain fortresses that rested at incredible heights; isolated monasteries that were a millenia old; coastal villages that bustled with life; massive fissures and scars in the Earth.
I wanted to see it all. If the world was even a tenth as exciting as what I’d imagined, it would satisfy me. That had been my dream for years, until Henrietta entered my life. At first, we didn’t necessarily get along the best. I didn’t care to take orders from someone I barely knew. Before she joined our family, I had all the time in the world to daydream about my future as a wayfarer.
“Why are you so reclusive?”
She’d asked me that one day, while I was sitting in my room, staring out the window.
“Huh?”
It’d come from nowhere. Neither of us had been talking before she’d said it.
“Young boys ought to be out roughhousing and causing trouble, you know. But you’re in here… doing what, exactly?”
She wasn’t hostile, nor was she friendly. Henrietta, as I was about to learn, simply couldn’t mind her own business. I would come to be very grateful for that, but at eleven years old, it was just irritating.
“What’s it matter to you? I’m not bothering anybody.”
“It matters to me very much. Don’t you have friends, Sigismund? You should be outside playing. Unless you’re practicing to become a monastic.”
Which I sincerely doubt, her eyes told me.
“You want me to go out and get into a fight?” I asked, already certain of the answer.
“Absolutely not,” Henrietta replied, proving me correct. “But that’s what boys do.”
I turned my attention back to the window, where I’d been facing before she’d begun her attack.
“I don’t do that.”
I had everything I needed inside. Going out and rolling around in the dirt wasn’t my idea of fun. Boys my age loathed bed time, but I eagerly awaited it every night. It was when I was the most free to imagine the exciting future that awaited me.
“And that’s unusual.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. The way that she exercised power over me was incredibly frustrating. She was only a year older than me, yet she sometimes seemed to think she was my mother.
It irritated me more that I found myself looking toward her, giving in almost immediately.
“Sigismund, you spend too much time on your own. It’s not good for a growing boy to be shut up in his room like this.”
“Mother and Father don’t care, you shouldn’t either.”
That was my retort, but it wasn’t really true. It was more like my parents didn’t know what to do about it. I’d spoken to Father Theo about my dreams before, at their behest. I’d described my imaginary trips to him in intimate detail.
He told me that I should be careful about dreams, and that assigning meaning to them was a fool’s errand. The thoughts of slumbering boys and girls were easy prey for demons, he’d warned me. But I’d never seen any demons in my dreams, and he told my parents I required no exorcism.
Because of that, nothing had changed. So why was this girl so insistent?
“One day you’ll be glad that I cared,” Henrietta said, her expression softening considerably. “I don’t want you to grow up to be the town drunk, in and out of the stocks every week.”
I tried to shrug her off, but she didn’t relent.
“That won’t happen. I’m getting out of this town as soon as I can. I’m going to go see the continent.”
Henrietta shut her eyes at my words, and sighed heavily.
“You really think that’s going to happen, don’t you?”
“It is,” I shook myself free of her, and looked away. “That’s what I’m gonna do when I get older.”
I expected an immediate, harsh response… but it didn’t come. The bed depressed slightly as Henrietta sat down on it.
“Are you unhappy, Sigismund?”
The girl’s voice was meek, much more so than when she’d started.
“You must be, if you desire to leave your home so badly.”
I paused for a long time, before answering. Was I unhappy? No, that wasn’t really it.
“It’s boring here,” was all I managed to say. She didn’t immediately say anything back, leaving the air thick between us. Even though I owed her nothing, and she had no right to try and control me… I felt an odd compulsion to say more.
“In my dreams, I’ve seen what the rest of the continent could be like. I want to go to places like that, with huge walls, giant churches, and hundreds and hundreds of people. I want to see mountains and rivers and canyons and…”
“Do you dream about that every night, Sigismund?”
Henrietta interrupted me. Having turned to be able to face me, her expression was almost wistful.
“Not every night. I wish that I could.”
“You shouldn’t wish that,” Henrietta’s reply was sharp, having regained the energy in her voice.
“Because they’re just dreams. They’re not real, and they never will be.”
Anger surged up within me. Of course, she was right. But at that time, I was a child, and any parent worth their salt would tell you that it’s pointless to argue with children. I really believed that I could just throw some essentials into a pack, and wander out into the woods in search of adventure.
But Henrietta was also a child. That made it infinitely more irritating.
“You don’t know that. Once I’m grown, you’ll see how wrong you are.”
“We’ve got a long time before then, don’t we?”
Henrietta was implying something with her question, but I couldn’t grasp what it was.
“So what?”
“Then I’ve got plenty of time to show you how wrong you are.”
She stood up from the bed, and extended her hand out to me.
“Come on.”
I swatted at her palm, and shook my head.
“No way. I don’t want to.”
Undeterred, Henrietta’s expression became stern, and free of mirth.
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
“You’re not my mom. Piss off,” I cursed at her, and turned to face the window for a third time. Almost immediately, I was yanked hard by the collar of my tunic. I slid off the bed and into the floor, with Henrietta landing on her butt just behind me.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you!?” I cried out.
“I’m not kidding, Sigismund. Let’s go, right now.”
With unmatched grace, she stood herself up. I haphazardly mimicked her, and clenched my fists down at my side.
“You’re not my mother or my father. I don’t have to listen to you. Go away.”
I kind of wanted to push her, but I knew my father would’ve paddled my behind if I did that.
“I’m not, but I’m a part of your family now, and part of that is being honest and trying to help each other, even if it’s not what you want to hear all the time.”
I then said something immediately regrettable.
“You’re not a part of my family. I barely know you.”
I didn’t miss the short, pained gasp that eased out of her. All the wind was knocked out of her sails in an instant. Her strong, authoritative demeanor faded, replaced entirely by a potent look of sorrow.
Guilt cut into my heart. My nerve faded with hers.
“A-ah…”
I opened my mouth to say something, but couldn’t. Henrietta had just lost her real parents. With how energetic she was, it was difficult to remember that all the time. I had asked my mother about it once, and she’d told me that that was just how some people were. They kept busy to hide their grief.
Just like that, I’d reminded her of the cold truth. Annoying as she was, she didn’t deserve my words.
“...”
She let out another sigh, heavier than the first. After a long moment of awkwardness, she spoke again.
“I’m sorry. I’m coming on strong, I know. I don’t have a right to do that… I really don’t know you all that well yet.”
It was such an earnest apology that I found myself sputtering like a fool to get my own out.
“N-no, I… I shouldn’t… I’m sorry I said that. L-Lord forgive me.”
“It’s okay. I probably deserved it. I should relax a little more, huh?”
She smiled weakly. That hurt me almost as bad as the frown she’d made. It was like she was more concerned about how I felt about hurting her, rather than how she felt herself.
“What I said was wrong,” I shook my head as I continued. “You are a part of my family, I’m just not used to it yet. Forgive me for what I said.”
Henrietta’s posture straightened a little. I’d hoped my words had been even a little bit responsible for that.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s forget that it ever happened, okay?”
She grabbed my wrist, and leaned her head towards the exit of my bedroom.
“Will you come walk with me now? It won’t be for very long, I promise. I just want to show you something.”
I couldn’t refuse. As much as I wanted to tell her to get lost, that sadness I’d seen in her eyes iced whatever anger I had towards her.
“Yeah. I’ll walk with you.”
----
Neither of us said anything for a while. I was too ashamed of myself, and perhaps Henrietta knew that. She led me out of our cottage, and down the footpath that led east of Jungholz. This road would have you end up in another village, Popperode, if you walked long enough. I’d never done that, and I doubted that Henrietta was going that far.
Some ways into the path, she turned left into a thicket. I was going to ask her where she thought she was going, but I soon noticed the thin, poorly-kept pathway that parted the greenery. The noises of springtime- birds, frogs, and chittering insects- filled the air as we marched forward.
Her stride was so confident that I had to believe she’d been this way before, probably many times. Eventually, the thicket thinned out, and the two of us emerged onto the flattened bank of a creek. We were blessed to have a creek that ran just around the back of the hamlet, but I’d never seen this stretch of it.
It was a semi-circular clearing that spanned less than a furlong in all directions. Most notably, both sides of the creek were surrounded by amazingly colorful flowers. The vast majority of them were a deep magenta, but every so often there was one that was an amber color.
We passed gently through the flower field, and stood on the very precipice of the creek. The gentle sound of the moving water, along with all the aforementioned sounds of life around us, gave the area an incredible feeling of peace.
Henrietta still didn’t speak. She placed her hands together in front of her, eyes fixed on the shimmering brook. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I mimicked her. We remained that way for a long few minutes. I kept checking her with sideways glances, and it seemed that most of the displeasure I’d inflicted on her had departed.
“It’s nice, don’t you think?”
She finally said something. What’s more, she was looking at me too, a slight smile decorating her features.
“Yeah. It is.”
I felt anxious for some reason. The little grove should’ve put me at ease, but with Henrietta here, I couldn’t shake that feeling.
“I heard all the older boys and girls come out here to do naughty things.”
I gave her a sharp look of surprise, and she laughed at my expense.
“D-do they really?” I babbled, throwing my gaze all over the place in search of ne’er-do-wells.
“There’s no one here now, don’t worry,” she promised. “But yes, I think that it’s true. It’s not like anything would disturb you out here.”
If I’d wanted to say anything else, it caught in my throat. Why would she bring up something like that? And who had told her such a thing?
“Do you see now what I meant, Sigismund?”
When I looked over at her again, she’d become serious. Every time she said my name like that, it was obvious that she meant business.
“What you meant?” I said, sounding rather stupid.
“You said that Jungholz was boring, but all it took was a little walking to get to a place like this.”
I didn’t say anything about the myriad contents of my dreams. I’d imagined places a thousand times grander than this. It was indeed a quaint little hideaway, but what was it compared to a sprawling metropolis?
“Your dreams might be more exciting,” Henrietta remarked, reading my mind. “But it’s also easy to take for granted the small things you see every day. In all the world, there may not be another place exactly like this.”
Her smile returned, and she faced the running water again.
“I know you’re just a boy… it’s natural for you to want to run off and be a wayfaring knight, or something like that. But learning to appreciate the little pockets of beauty around you can be a great boon. It’s certainly helped me.”
She looked wistful. Part of me was hung up on the fact that she’d described me as ‘just a boy,’ as if she wasn’t just a year my senior. But then I was reminded of the death of her parents, and my frustration passed into oblivion. Such a tragedy had undoubtedly reshaped the way her young mind thought about everything around her.
I couldn’t imagine it. I hadn’t known her parents well, but I was sure they were Godly Christians just as mine were. They’d imbued an admirable strength in their singular daughter, who was now trying to pass some of that along to me.
“I’m sorry,” I told her once more. She peeked over at me, and didn’t lose her grin.
“You don’t need to apologize, Sigismund. I was being belligerent.”
I shook my head.
“You are a part of my family now. I wasn’t thinking when I said that. Please, permit me your forgiveness.”
I turned fully towards her, placing my right hand face up over my left. Henrietta reached out, and took hold of them.
“Very well, I forgive you. So long as you forgive me as well.”
I didn’t seem to have a body. I couldn’t blink, or breathe, or feel my face. My sight was clear as day, and my hearing was as well. Untethered to the ground, I cast myself down toward the imaginary city, and found myself fixated on a gigantic structure.
It was a cathedral, much like the one the elder physician had mentioned. Its size was incomprehensible to me. It would’ve crushed Jungholz had it been dropped onto it. The front of the cathedral was composed of two gigantic, matching towers. A wider structure fanned out behind them supported by slanted beams all the way down. It was covered in beautifully-carved decorations. There wasn’t a plain surface anywhere to see.
The inside was just as magnificent. It seemed impossible that I could’ve dreamt of something so spectacular. It being the middle of the night, the cathedral’s interior was almost entirely void of people. A singular priest stood at the altar, which was many times more massive than the comparatively puny one I knew.
The ceilings were dozens of feet above me. Intricate glasswork and arches spanned the entirety of the nave. I couldn’t guess how many people the cathedral held at capacity. Jungholz’ entire populace wouldn’t have filled a fourth of it.
I approached the lone priest, who paid me no mind. He was singing the prayers of the Midnight Office, the exact ones I’d heard Father Theo say on many occasions. I patiently listened to the cleric until he completed his routine, and then I woke up.
That was just the first dream of many. They appeared sporadically, and without warning. I wished that I could find a way to have them on purpose, but I was never able to. I dreamt of many different places. Mountain fortresses that rested at incredible heights; isolated monasteries that were a millenia old; coastal villages that bustled with life; massive fissures and scars in the Earth.
I wanted to see it all. If the world was even a tenth as exciting as what I’d imagined, it would satisfy me. That had been my dream for years, until Henrietta entered my life. At first, we didn’t necessarily get along the best. I didn’t care to take orders from someone I barely knew. Before she joined our family, I had all the time in the world to daydream about my future as a wayfarer.
“Why are you so reclusive?”
She’d asked me that one day, while I was sitting in my room, staring out the window.
“Huh?”
It’d come from nowhere. Neither of us had been talking before she’d said it.
“Young boys ought to be out roughhousing and causing trouble, you know. But you’re in here… doing what, exactly?”
She wasn’t hostile, nor was she friendly. Henrietta, as I was about to learn, simply couldn’t mind her own business. I would come to be very grateful for that, but at eleven years old, it was just irritating.
“What’s it matter to you? I’m not bothering anybody.”
“It matters to me very much. Don’t you have friends, Sigismund? You should be outside playing. Unless you’re practicing to become a monastic.”
Which I sincerely doubt, her eyes told me.
“You want me to go out and get into a fight?” I asked, already certain of the answer.
“Absolutely not,” Henrietta replied, proving me correct. “But that’s what boys do.”
I turned my attention back to the window, where I’d been facing before she’d begun her attack.
“I don’t do that.”
I had everything I needed inside. Going out and rolling around in the dirt wasn’t my idea of fun. Boys my age loathed bed time, but I eagerly awaited it every night. It was when I was the most free to imagine the exciting future that awaited me.
“And that’s unusual.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. The way that she exercised power over me was incredibly frustrating. She was only a year older than me, yet she sometimes seemed to think she was my mother.
It irritated me more that I found myself looking toward her, giving in almost immediately.
“Sigismund, you spend too much time on your own. It’s not good for a growing boy to be shut up in his room like this.”
“Mother and Father don’t care, you shouldn’t either.”
That was my retort, but it wasn’t really true. It was more like my parents didn’t know what to do about it. I’d spoken to Father Theo about my dreams before, at their behest. I’d described my imaginary trips to him in intimate detail.
He told me that I should be careful about dreams, and that assigning meaning to them was a fool’s errand. The thoughts of slumbering boys and girls were easy prey for demons, he’d warned me. But I’d never seen any demons in my dreams, and he told my parents I required no exorcism.
Because of that, nothing had changed. So why was this girl so insistent?
“One day you’ll be glad that I cared,” Henrietta said, her expression softening considerably. “I don’t want you to grow up to be the town drunk, in and out of the stocks every week.”
I tried to shrug her off, but she didn’t relent.
“That won’t happen. I’m getting out of this town as soon as I can. I’m going to go see the continent.”
Henrietta shut her eyes at my words, and sighed heavily.
“You really think that’s going to happen, don’t you?”
“It is,” I shook myself free of her, and looked away. “That’s what I’m gonna do when I get older.”
I expected an immediate, harsh response… but it didn’t come. The bed depressed slightly as Henrietta sat down on it.
“Are you unhappy, Sigismund?”
The girl’s voice was meek, much more so than when she’d started.
“You must be, if you desire to leave your home so badly.”
I paused for a long time, before answering. Was I unhappy? No, that wasn’t really it.
“It’s boring here,” was all I managed to say. She didn’t immediately say anything back, leaving the air thick between us. Even though I owed her nothing, and she had no right to try and control me… I felt an odd compulsion to say more.
“In my dreams, I’ve seen what the rest of the continent could be like. I want to go to places like that, with huge walls, giant churches, and hundreds and hundreds of people. I want to see mountains and rivers and canyons and…”
“Do you dream about that every night, Sigismund?”
Henrietta interrupted me. Having turned to be able to face me, her expression was almost wistful.
“Not every night. I wish that I could.”
“You shouldn’t wish that,” Henrietta’s reply was sharp, having regained the energy in her voice.
“Because they’re just dreams. They’re not real, and they never will be.”
Anger surged up within me. Of course, she was right. But at that time, I was a child, and any parent worth their salt would tell you that it’s pointless to argue with children. I really believed that I could just throw some essentials into a pack, and wander out into the woods in search of adventure.
But Henrietta was also a child. That made it infinitely more irritating.
“You don’t know that. Once I’m grown, you’ll see how wrong you are.”
“We’ve got a long time before then, don’t we?”
Henrietta was implying something with her question, but I couldn’t grasp what it was.
“So what?”
“Then I’ve got plenty of time to show you how wrong you are.”
She stood up from the bed, and extended her hand out to me.
“Come on.”
I swatted at her palm, and shook my head.
“No way. I don’t want to.”
Undeterred, Henrietta’s expression became stern, and free of mirth.
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
“You’re not my mom. Piss off,” I cursed at her, and turned to face the window for a third time. Almost immediately, I was yanked hard by the collar of my tunic. I slid off the bed and into the floor, with Henrietta landing on her butt just behind me.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you!?” I cried out.
“I’m not kidding, Sigismund. Let’s go, right now.”
With unmatched grace, she stood herself up. I haphazardly mimicked her, and clenched my fists down at my side.
“You’re not my mother or my father. I don’t have to listen to you. Go away.”
I kind of wanted to push her, but I knew my father would’ve paddled my behind if I did that.
“I’m not, but I’m a part of your family now, and part of that is being honest and trying to help each other, even if it’s not what you want to hear all the time.”
I then said something immediately regrettable.
“You’re not a part of my family. I barely know you.”
I didn’t miss the short, pained gasp that eased out of her. All the wind was knocked out of her sails in an instant. Her strong, authoritative demeanor faded, replaced entirely by a potent look of sorrow.
Guilt cut into my heart. My nerve faded with hers.
“A-ah…”
I opened my mouth to say something, but couldn’t. Henrietta had just lost her real parents. With how energetic she was, it was difficult to remember that all the time. I had asked my mother about it once, and she’d told me that that was just how some people were. They kept busy to hide their grief.
Just like that, I’d reminded her of the cold truth. Annoying as she was, she didn’t deserve my words.
“...”
She let out another sigh, heavier than the first. After a long moment of awkwardness, she spoke again.
“I’m sorry. I’m coming on strong, I know. I don’t have a right to do that… I really don’t know you all that well yet.”
It was such an earnest apology that I found myself sputtering like a fool to get my own out.
“N-no, I… I shouldn’t… I’m sorry I said that. L-Lord forgive me.”
“It’s okay. I probably deserved it. I should relax a little more, huh?”
She smiled weakly. That hurt me almost as bad as the frown she’d made. It was like she was more concerned about how I felt about hurting her, rather than how she felt herself.
“What I said was wrong,” I shook my head as I continued. “You are a part of my family, I’m just not used to it yet. Forgive me for what I said.”
Henrietta’s posture straightened a little. I’d hoped my words had been even a little bit responsible for that.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s forget that it ever happened, okay?”
She grabbed my wrist, and leaned her head towards the exit of my bedroom.
“Will you come walk with me now? It won’t be for very long, I promise. I just want to show you something.”
I couldn’t refuse. As much as I wanted to tell her to get lost, that sadness I’d seen in her eyes iced whatever anger I had towards her.
“Yeah. I’ll walk with you.”
----
Neither of us said anything for a while. I was too ashamed of myself, and perhaps Henrietta knew that. She led me out of our cottage, and down the footpath that led east of Jungholz. This road would have you end up in another village, Popperode, if you walked long enough. I’d never done that, and I doubted that Henrietta was going that far.
Some ways into the path, she turned left into a thicket. I was going to ask her where she thought she was going, but I soon noticed the thin, poorly-kept pathway that parted the greenery. The noises of springtime- birds, frogs, and chittering insects- filled the air as we marched forward.
Her stride was so confident that I had to believe she’d been this way before, probably many times. Eventually, the thicket thinned out, and the two of us emerged onto the flattened bank of a creek. We were blessed to have a creek that ran just around the back of the hamlet, but I’d never seen this stretch of it.
It was a semi-circular clearing that spanned less than a furlong in all directions. Most notably, both sides of the creek were surrounded by amazingly colorful flowers. The vast majority of them were a deep magenta, but every so often there was one that was an amber color.
We passed gently through the flower field, and stood on the very precipice of the creek. The gentle sound of the moving water, along with all the aforementioned sounds of life around us, gave the area an incredible feeling of peace.
Henrietta still didn’t speak. She placed her hands together in front of her, eyes fixed on the shimmering brook. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I mimicked her. We remained that way for a long few minutes. I kept checking her with sideways glances, and it seemed that most of the displeasure I’d inflicted on her had departed.
“It’s nice, don’t you think?”
She finally said something. What’s more, she was looking at me too, a slight smile decorating her features.
“Yeah. It is.”
I felt anxious for some reason. The little grove should’ve put me at ease, but with Henrietta here, I couldn’t shake that feeling.
“I heard all the older boys and girls come out here to do naughty things.”
I gave her a sharp look of surprise, and she laughed at my expense.
“D-do they really?” I babbled, throwing my gaze all over the place in search of ne’er-do-wells.
“There’s no one here now, don’t worry,” she promised. “But yes, I think that it’s true. It’s not like anything would disturb you out here.”
If I’d wanted to say anything else, it caught in my throat. Why would she bring up something like that? And who had told her such a thing?
“Do you see now what I meant, Sigismund?”
When I looked over at her again, she’d become serious. Every time she said my name like that, it was obvious that she meant business.
“What you meant?” I said, sounding rather stupid.
“You said that Jungholz was boring, but all it took was a little walking to get to a place like this.”
I didn’t say anything about the myriad contents of my dreams. I’d imagined places a thousand times grander than this. It was indeed a quaint little hideaway, but what was it compared to a sprawling metropolis?
“Your dreams might be more exciting,” Henrietta remarked, reading my mind. “But it’s also easy to take for granted the small things you see every day. In all the world, there may not be another place exactly like this.”
Her smile returned, and she faced the running water again.
“I know you’re just a boy… it’s natural for you to want to run off and be a wayfaring knight, or something like that. But learning to appreciate the little pockets of beauty around you can be a great boon. It’s certainly helped me.”
She looked wistful. Part of me was hung up on the fact that she’d described me as ‘just a boy,’ as if she wasn’t just a year my senior. But then I was reminded of the death of her parents, and my frustration passed into oblivion. Such a tragedy had undoubtedly reshaped the way her young mind thought about everything around her.
I couldn’t imagine it. I hadn’t known her parents well, but I was sure they were Godly Christians just as mine were. They’d imbued an admirable strength in their singular daughter, who was now trying to pass some of that along to me.
“I’m sorry,” I told her once more. She peeked over at me, and didn’t lose her grin.
“You don’t need to apologize, Sigismund. I was being belligerent.”
I shook my head.
“You are a part of my family now. I wasn’t thinking when I said that. Please, permit me your forgiveness.”
I turned fully towards her, placing my right hand face up over my left. Henrietta reached out, and took hold of them.
“Very well, I forgive you. So long as you forgive me as well.”
Whereas Henrietta very closely resembles Nono, Sigismund is more my own character. He is a rather naive boy, even in his more advanced age in the current day. Despite that, he has a sharp wit, and an incredibly high perception that lends him insight into everything he encounters. It’s especially useful for tracking boars, and for investigating the goings-on in Freihafen much later.
For reasons I’ll get into shortly, Sigismund has experienced a major religious awakening, and takes godliness very seriously compared to peers his age. His newfound goal, at the start of the story, is to pursue life as an itinerant cleric.
Suffice to say, Henrietta had a profound effect on him, and largely cured him of his addiction to dreaming (astral projecting). Sigismund took to enjoying the small pleasures in life, and tried to make peace with the humble future that awaited him… he thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
But tragedy struck a terrible blow, and just three short years after they met, Sigismund watched Henrietta die after falling from a beam in the old Freihafen stable. Her death was a marked tragedy for the entire hamlet, and certainly for Sigismund.
He refused to accept Henrietta’s death, and stayed up for three days praying and begging God to return her to him, even going as far as to offer his own life. On the third day of praying, Sigismund stumbled out of Jungholz, and found her. Henrietta, lying face-up in a flower patch, was waiting for him.
But all wasn’t well. When he rushed back to tell his parents and everyone else that he’d found her, he was only met by confusion. Henrietta was right beside him, but he was the only person in the hamlet that could see her. More than that, Sigismund could even touch her, and feel her physical presence. But he was the only one who could do so.
The namesake of the story, Soul Singularity, comes from this part. When Henrietta was “reborn” so to speak, hers and Sigsmund’s very being became tied together. When one feels sorrow, so does the other. When one is overjoyed, so is the other. The bond itself has no range: no matter where one is, the other can always feel them as if they’re right there. I’m not good at coming up with story names, but I was thinking (randomly) of steins;gate’s talk about Kerr black holes, and how they’re constantly circling around each other: that’s how I envisioned Sigismund and Henrietta’s souls: eternally circling, always beside each other.
As you might guess, Henrietta’s coming back is somehow tied to Sigismund’s (yet-unknown) powers. How exactly this works is a major plot contention in the story, but we’re quite a ways from that for now.
This situation left Sigismund in an uncomfortable place. He was investigated not only by the village priest once more, but also by an archpriest from Freihafen, and a traveling physician who suspected insanity. Sigismund refused to concede that the Henrietta he could see wasn’t real, and so ended up in a state of quasi-ostracization in Jungholz. His own family accepts and loves him as best they know how, but the rest of the village sees him as strange at best.
Having reached eighteen, and having rejected a marriage proposal once (arranged marriages are mostly unpopular in-setting due to elven-related lore, and marrying later than in a typical medieval setting is also popular for similar reasons), Sigismund is dead set on becoming a traveling cleric, so that he might repay God for returning Henrietta to him, and also so that he might give her life as much fulfillment as possible, as she’s now tethered to him forever. Throughout all of this, she’s insisting that he disregard her entirely, but that was never going to happen.
Where things go awry is in the present, when Sigismund is out in the village to get something for his father. He’s confronted by a group of young men his age, who have taken it upon themselves to ridicule his insanity. As he has always done, Sigismund refuses to concede to them, and ends up getting attacked by the group of boys.
Unable to fight them off on his own, and with Henrietta unable to do anything but watch in horror, he’s forced to the ground. It’s here that Sigismund really starts to lose himself in his frustration and anger. After years of enduring people never believing him, never taking him at his word, it comes to a head as he endures the physical abuse of his peers, and…
A huge discharge of energy happens, and Sigismund blacks out. It’s an entire day later when he reawakens, finding himself in his own bed, under the watchful eye of his mother… and her. He has no memory of the action, but as he lay on the ground being beaten, he cried out in anger, and returned Henrietta to the corporeal plane.
Naturally, the whole village is in an uproar over this development. His invisible bond with Henrietta remains, but now she’s as real as she was before, and certainly alive. The reactions from everyone outside of the household are a complete crapshoot. Some believe it’s necromancy, others believe it’s a demonic incursion, and still others think it’s an act of God Himself.
Sigismund is overjoyed, and Henrietta is certainly happy to be back, but the situation gradually begins to deteriorate. An array of strangers arrive from Freihafen to investigate the occurrence. Henrietta and Sigismund questioned and exorcised by the diocese bishop, and interrogated and picked on by Archmagi from the Magical Polytechnic institute in the city.
Henrietta’s corpse is dug up and examined, proving that her old body was real and still exists. No fault can be found in her existence. Jungholz’ populace is split between people who believe Henrietta’s return is divine, and those who believe it is an act of blasphemy. Sigismund is pushed to the edge by behavior towards Henrietta and his family.
No conclusion about what to do can be reached, and several days after Henrietta’s return, a strange woman who no one can identify is found murdered on the outskirts of Jungholz. The hysteria in the town is worsened, and Sigismund and his family remain in their home for the entirety of the day.
That night, things got drastically worse. Sigismund is awoken in the middle of the night by a man in armor throwing his door open. Defenseless and taken totally by surprise, Sigismund is unable to react, and is subdued by a small device the man wields that makes a sound so piercing that it makes him beg for death.
Spoiler
I have a thousand questions, but none of them make it out. The guard raises his left hand, which I thought was empty, but seems to be holding something small. Extending it out toward me, the effect is instant.
“A-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH! HA-AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
A sound assails my ears. Its pitch is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. A steady, constant screech that stabs me repeatedly in the head. The pain is unending, unbearable, and totally agonizing. I crumpled to the floor the second it hit me, clutching my head. No matter what I do, no matter how I try to cover my ears, it won’t relent.
I’d rather gouge my ears out than endure this for another second. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It paralyzes me completely. I lose all sense of my surroundings. It becomes my only concern, the only thing I can think about.
“Please… God! Make it stop!”
I cry out to the Father, but nothing changes. I feel hands upon me… rough hands that have no regard for my comfort. I don’t care. Please, kill me! Please, anything to stop this! My Lord, please take this from me! I can’t endure it! I can’t! I can’t take anymore!
My voice is lost. I don’t dare open my eyes. My hands are pinned against my back, but I don’t care. Do whatever you want to me, just end it! Cut my ears off, please! Anything! ANYTHING AT ALL BUT THIS!
The cold sensation of metal encircles my wrists. I feel the pressure on my back depart. They won’t kill me. Why won’t they just kill me? God, help me… My Lord, please save me… strike me down if You must!
I finally noticed the terror draped over my heart. It’s so intense that I can feel it even as I writhe in the throes of hell. Henrietta must’ve noticed the crying out of my wounded soul. Perhaps it was so strong that it roused her from sleep.
She should stay away. She shouldn’t come closer. That’s what I should say, but the blistering heat of magma pouring into my skull has me begging for her help.
“Save me…!”
Mother, father, anyone! Anyone at all… anyone alive, anyone dead, put an end to this terror! I’d bash my head in against the ground if I could! Every passing moment is a hell on its own. Are my ears bleeding? Does it matter? If that’ll stop the pain, I’ll make them bleed on my own!
“A-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH! HA-AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
A sound assails my ears. Its pitch is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. A steady, constant screech that stabs me repeatedly in the head. The pain is unending, unbearable, and totally agonizing. I crumpled to the floor the second it hit me, clutching my head. No matter what I do, no matter how I try to cover my ears, it won’t relent.
I’d rather gouge my ears out than endure this for another second. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It paralyzes me completely. I lose all sense of my surroundings. It becomes my only concern, the only thing I can think about.
“Please… God! Make it stop!”
I cry out to the Father, but nothing changes. I feel hands upon me… rough hands that have no regard for my comfort. I don’t care. Please, kill me! Please, anything to stop this! My Lord, please take this from me! I can’t endure it! I can’t! I can’t take anymore!
My voice is lost. I don’t dare open my eyes. My hands are pinned against my back, but I don’t care. Do whatever you want to me, just end it! Cut my ears off, please! Anything! ANYTHING AT ALL BUT THIS!
The cold sensation of metal encircles my wrists. I feel the pressure on my back depart. They won’t kill me. Why won’t they just kill me? God, help me… My Lord, please save me… strike me down if You must!
I finally noticed the terror draped over my heart. It’s so intense that I can feel it even as I writhe in the throes of hell. Henrietta must’ve noticed the crying out of my wounded soul. Perhaps it was so strong that it roused her from sleep.
She should stay away. She shouldn’t come closer. That’s what I should say, but the blistering heat of magma pouring into my skull has me begging for her help.
“Save me…!”
Mother, father, anyone! Anyone at all… anyone alive, anyone dead, put an end to this terror! I’d bash my head in against the ground if I could! Every passing moment is a hell on its own. Are my ears bleeding? Does it matter? If that’ll stop the pain, I’ll make them bleed on my own!
By God’s grace, the sound finally comes to a stop. Sigismund is saved by none other than Henrietta, who stabbed his attacker in the neck with household cutlery while he was preoccupied. Barely conscious, Sigismund is dragged out of the back of the cottage by Henrietta, and taken toward the hamlet stable. Leaving their family and the rest of the attackers behind, Henrietta mounts Sigismund on the village nag, and the two set out for Freihafen.
There, Sigismund will make allies (and enemies), and strive to answer the most important questions thus far: Who attacked him in the middle of the night, and why? How is Henrietta back? What does it mean to be a “helseher?” <- german word for psychic that sounds awesome.
From here, the story develops as Sigismund will learn about the existence of his powers, and what that means for Henrietta’s return. He’ll learn about the group that attacked his cottage in the dead of night, and find out that they aren’t the only ones with an interest in him. On top of all that, he has to deal with all of the issues Freihafen faces. Namely, a factional divide forming in different parts of the city over the two candidates present in the contested election for Grand Consul.
In my next post, assuming I do more of these, I’ll discuss some more setting-specific things, and include some more excerpts from the text itself. This probably all sounds fairly generic right now, but this is back-of-the-book stuff that’s important for setup for all of the things later. There will definitely be some sci-adv-esque scenes where characters discuss setting mechanics in depth. I also want to cover the main players in Freihafen at the time of the story, namely the Sereno order, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and the factions forming in lieu of the impending civil conflict in the Confederacy.
That’s it for now. My grammar might be perfect as I’m finishing this at 2:30 AM relevant global superpower time. UTC phags stay losing.
