Pressia | A LOK Forums Original Novel | by AMJ

[Kyos_Sahrin]

just a note, but i think it would be helpful if there was some indicator of whose thoughts we are reading, a couple times now in the series I have gotten confused over who's perspective I'm reading from. Thanks for listening, keep up the good work.

[axmanjack]

From what I remember, this is the breakdown of the choices.

Action One: Stay Calm/Clear the Area/Run For It
Chosen: Clear the Area

Action Two: (pick 2) Better Clothes/Better Gun/Med Kit
Chosen: Better Gun/ Med Kit

Action Three: Resist Capture [yippee ki-yay motherfucker]/ Surrender Honorably
Chosen: Resist Capture

Action Four: Go with the Low King/ Bang the Troops/ Do Neither
Chosen: Bang the Troops

Action Five: (Katies Mental State) Kill 'em all/ Fuck it
Chosen: Fuck it

Action Six: Take the Collar off/ Leave it on
Chosen: Take the Collar off

Action Seven: Leave on Foot/ Leave by Air
Chosen: TBD


Sorry for how long that took to put up yillsemkcuf.

Also, I've been putting together a blog for this thing on Wordpress. It'll serve the purpose of making all the chapters more accessible, and I might just defer polling to that site. As many of you have seen, the poll has been all fucked up on my thread for about the last four actions. I don't know what's wrong with it, but I haven't been able to get any word back from the Mods yet on how to fix it. I'm sure it's just some weird HTML coding error, but I don't know how to fix that shit.

Additionally, at my best estimates, I think that there are going to be about five more actions, seven max. I've had to abandon certain parts of my original story tree because what's happened in the story after I started writing it has matured into something far more interesting than a few of the things I already had planned. After that I'm going to go through and edit what I've written, and like... thoroughly. I plan on trying to get the fully edited version published, maybe earn a few bucks off of it. I doubt it'll be some major cash cow, but if I sell digital copies of it for a dollar I might get a little drinking money and that's just fine with me.

I'll be closing the polls on Friday and hopefully I'll be able to start work on Action 8.

Thank you for reading, thank you for voting, and thank you for making it to the middle of this thing with my unmotivated ass.

Love you guys,
-AMJ

[NamelessSynthetic]

Haha, if you do publish it, just be sure to credit the LoK community for keeping your ass focused XD That'd be both good advertising for the site, and might bring you a few 'extra' customers who know about the site.

[thealchemist]

yes I hope you name specifics. coughthealchemistcough

[axmanjack]

Haha, if you do publish it, just be sure to credit the LoK community for keeping your ass focused XD That'd be both good advertising for the site, and might bring you a few 'extra' customers who know about the site.

Oh, definitely. You and thealchemist are definitely getting credited, and I'm thinking of making the dedication page the screen names of everyone that posts here before I finish. Top posters getting top billing and all that.

Something I forgot to mention earlier: I'm going to need a dope cover for this, and because this forum is packed to the gills with artists and free time, whoever takes the time and makes a dope piece of cover art for Pressia I will reward by either naming a character after them or maybe something else with the story if it's reasonable. I can't pay and I can't draw, but if you're a big enough fan to throw something together for me I'll do my best to reward you appropriately.
As always, thanks for reading,
-AMJ

[thealchemist]

Yes! I shall read your story all over again and then read the dedication page to stroke my ego

[axmanjack]

Locking the votes in for leaving by foot, which means that this is going to be another long Action. I'm starting on it now, but don't look for it to be done in the next couple days.
Probably like... Tuesday or something. I dunno. If this action ends up being long as hell like the last two I'll put a teaser sequence up again.
-AMJ

[guitargler]

Still writing, or has something IRL come up? It's been a while since we've heard from you.

[thealchemist]

Where is action 7

[thealchemist]

umm yea action 7 is missing?

[daxtinator396]

I sure hope so! I`ve been reading this and I gotta say the writing is AWESOME. I await for the next action happily! Also AMJ y u no join the RP section? I think you would do well in publishing this :3

[thealchemist]

I know right?

[NamelessSynthetic]

Hey AMJ, we haven't heard from you for a while, I think I can speak for most when I wish you good luck with whatever's going on. Hopefully something serious hasn't come up for you IRL, hope it's just a slip of the mind more than anything. Best of luck to whatever you're doing, sir!

~NS

[axmanjack]

First and foremost, I am soooo fucking sorry I've been away.

Thanks for all the well wishing, but I didn't experience anything other than a shitty move, a "vacation" (just because you say both to "business or pleasure?" you don't get to be James Bond), and a short lived romance with an insane Swede.

Suffice to say I've been busy, but I have been writing, and you'll find the first sequence of Action 8 at the bottom of this. By the way thealchemist, action seven is on the previous page in two installments. If it doesn't work I'll try to upload it again.

The real problem I've been facing with Pressia is that I originally started it to be a fun little porno romp, but as writing progressed Teuschle began to take on a life of her own and actually become a pretty strong character. This means that the ENTIRE FUCK OFF PLOT TREE I had planned out from the beginning has become for the most part null and void. I basically stabbed myself in the neck by killing off the Low King (the evil bastard) who was supposed to be the big bad at the end, and the politics behind wearing the Collars got better and shot me in the foot by becoming a major plot element that I originally devised to give the reader a first person perspective to what was happening to them. Which means the collar monitoring system had to have some justifiable reason to be turned off, and for people to take off/put on their collars as well as a solid representation for the repercussions for doing so.

Blegh.

Essentially, I evolved Teuschle from "my hips are moving on their own" stereotypical into a character that I (and hopefully you) give a shit about, which makes almost every possible ending out of character for her. Seriously, you guys were two choices away at the beginning from Katie being a simpering slave girl being drug around Pressia before ultimately being floated off-world as a concubine for the illustrious Low King.

So when I FINISHED the entirety of Action 8 about a month ago I looked at it, read it against what I'd already written, then promptly printed it up, deleted the file, then BURNED the fucking manuscript in a trash pit a mile from my desk. It was shit. Nonsensical shit that I won't expose you to for sake of being compared to that Meyer... thing.

Do not be discouraged, however, as I have gone back through nearly everything and patched together a much better end run for Pressia. We're nearing the end of this thing now though, and I'd put us as being roughly three or four Actions away from the end of the thing as a whole. So, stick with me.

Again, sorry for bugging out on you guys for so long.
Here's your reward for sticking with it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

[begin audio playback]

[on foot]
Water moved in a silent rush across the steel lip of the hangar doors, pooling and eddying around my feet as I tried to find someway to jump the few meters down to the ground. I was abnormally calm then. In the sullen dark of the cavernous hangar were the bodies of the men I’d just killed. The blood and filth of their deaths washed away by the water that now ran around my boots. I’d killed people before, animals, lots of things. It was hard the first time, to point a gun and pull the trigger on someone. The old cliché was that it got easier, and it did. Then after a while it got harder to get over how meaningless each successive kill was. Names came and went. Faces. Numbers. At that moment the only thing I’d feel when I made a kill was a bit of disdain for an improper execution, reproaching myself for a lack of accuracy or an ineffective grab.
At some point in my career I’d become mechanical, efficient, and bored. That was my last mission on that little planet so far from the core. I’d let men inside me. Killed unflinchingly. All for a mission I couldn’t define or understand. The outcome didn’t even matter. I just kept moving forward and saying fuck you to anything that stood in my way.
I found a service ladder at the far end of the doors. It was cut into the rock face of the cliff or whatever that the hangar had been cut into, and ringed with red and orange stripes. Pressian warning colors were the same as human, I thought, marking the information as strange and tucking it away. I took care descending the wet rungs of the ladder and a few seconds later I was on the ground. Runoff had made it marshy and water pooled up to my ankles. I don’t know why to this day, but I jumped as high as I could as splashed, sending waves across the pool and covering the nearby wall with soupy mud.
Then I did it again and again, jumping up and down like a lunatic and covering myself and the wall with grimy dirt. I jumped until my breathing went ragged, playing in the mud like a little girl and laughing my ass off before finally skipping my way out of the boggy runoff to a hill that ran up and out of the water’s path. I fell to my knees almost immediately they were shaking so bad. I looked up at the sky. It was empty, blue. Clear of any imperfections. I took it in, letting the heat from the local star wash over me. Then I leaned to the side and puked and dry heaved until tears came from my eyes. I crawled away shaky and somehow embarrassed, letting myself rest a moment before rolling over on my back and looking up at the sky again.
“I’m fucked for life,” I said to myself before beginning another fit of stupid laughter. Something in the sky caught my eye and a second later I was up and running for cover, my heart racing. A second sun hung in the Pressian sky. I hit the ground and dug myself as deep as I could into the sand. A second later the sky ripped and the atmosphere screamed as it was being devoured.

PS For the scenes that don't have a "POV Code" at the top of them, that's Teuschle after she took her collar off narrating from first person past tense. Every other character is listed at the top and that scene's their's until it ends. Some characters like San Paral who've been mind-jacked by the Abomination will sometimes have it playing over their thoughts. It's a style thing.

[thealchemist]

woops my bad i meant the next action. its good to have you back amj

[STJIMMY]

this is brilliant i love that one chick who really kicks ass

[axmanjack]

Trying to get a little done every night, I'm hoping to get action 8 out by the end of the week. Again, sorry for the delay.

[axmanjack]

Writing right now. Baby steps after the changes. For some reason I want this to be awesome.

[Kyos_Sahrin]

Take your time, most of us are just glad to see you back.

[thealchemist]

so today or tomarrow