Purity - 'Moderator's Favourite Dec 2010'

[NicTei]

Yup.  It's that time of year already.  November, the National Novel Writing Month.  Oddly enough, I'm participating this year, as can be seen from my profile on the site, so I figured I'd toss up the story as I wrote it here, for all to see.  I've linked to Tome City via the forums on the NaNo site, but only for my region.  If anyone knows of a master forum that all regions can see, please direct me there so I can get word out to everyone.

So, watch this topic, because the story that I've been so psyched to start telling will appear here...
[fly]Roll over maroon text for a bubble; click on blue text for chapters[/fly]

Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1:  Enter
Chapter 2:  Trouble
Chapter 3:  Odyssey
Chapter 4:  On the Road Again
Chapter 5:  Off Guard
Chapter 6:  Minneapolis
Chapter 7:  Katana
Chapter 8:  The Anti-Disciple
Chapter 9:  The Old Dusty Trail
Chapter 10:  North and South
Chapter 11:  Sacrifice
Chapter 12:  Phobias
Chapter 13:  Angelic
Chapter 14:  All Together
Chapter 15:  Feather and Blade
Chapter 16:  Into the Fog
Chapter 17:  Witness
Chapter 18:  Misgivings
Chapter 19:  Ice Cold
Chapter 20:  Red Mist
Chapter 21:  Draw
Chapter 22:  Fangs Bared
Chapter 23:  Farewell
Epilogue
Acknowledgements

Prologue

   In a small town, the idyllic silence that characterized the peaceful nature of the community was suddenly shattered as a loud explosion rattled the ground.  The cause was obvious:  the church in the very center of the cluster of houses had gone up in flames, a raging inferno climbing the spire to lick the bottom of the golden cross that overlooked the citizens’ houses.  People erupted from their homes as the fire trucks raced towards the burning place of worship, immediately tapping the fire hydrants and the tanks on the trucks in an effort to douse the flames.

   Another, smaller explosion rocked the area as a second bomb detonated, this time in the basement of the church.  With an agonized groan, the building finally collapsed, sending up a cloud of dust and debris that covered everything, taking hours afterwards to settle.  In the aftermath, a lone woman screamed; she’d found the head of the priest just in front of her feet, the neck cleanly severed and the hair singed from the explosion.  As she fainted, a man in a white suit walked by, picking up the head and futilely flicking one of the larger specks of dust from his clothes before continuing on, disappearing as if he’d never been there.

   This wasn’t the only community in which a place of worship had been destroyed.  All across the globe, mosques, shrines, churches, and temples were bombed and demolished.  At each site, a man or woman in a white suit was seen, though mysteriously disappeared.  Outrage was felt in every nation as people began to ask why such a tragedy had occurred.  As the man responsible appeared on the television screen, the very future of the world began to change.

“I am John Neilon, and I have secured peace and equality for all people…”

[Panda-Brain]

Good.
Don't take it off. At all. Ever.

That is one good song =D

[NicTei]

I just now realized that we've been spoiling the story talking about Cascade's death.  How moronic of me.

[Panda-Brain]

Yes, you have =P

[NicTei]

Alright, so...

I've got some revising to do on this one.  I'll need to take out any typos that I may have accidentally left in, I'll have to rewrite some parts that I'm not satisfied with, and I'll have to fix some things, as over the course of the book I've forgotten details and added details.  For instance, it wasn't until late in the book that I realized that a form-fitting sheath wouldn't work for Doran's sword, as the hook at the top (and consequently the wider top than middle) would prevent him from actually drawing the weapon.

However, there's one thing in the way.  I call it Myste.  For a while I was working on Aftermath, which I believe I mentioned earlier in this topic, but recent events forced me to start a new one so I didn't go insane.  ...okay, it only forced me to write a short-ish piece, but I turned that into a prologue and decided to continue the story.  Thus, Myste.

You may or may not see that one, depending on how I feel about it.  Kind of strange, though; I absolutely hated it for a while, when I was about three chapters in, but as soon as I went back and added to the prologue, everything seems just about right.  I still have very little idea of where I'm going with the story, but things have begun to form, and I have plenty of time at night to figure it out due to acute insomnia.

Just trying to resurrect this topic, I guess.

[Angel]

Well whatever you do Nic, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

[NicTei]

Egads!  I just realized that I forgot to add these to Tome when I'd finished them!  Here you are, guys;  the Acknowledgements at the end of the book.

Acknowledgements

First off, I’d like to thank Anton ‘Saint’ Heal, for participating in NaNoWriMo alongside me and offering quite a bit of motivation as his word count essentially stayed the same whilst mine skyrocketed.  All joking aside, I couldn’t have advanced the book very easily without his awesome character design for Makoto.  Anton, you rule.  Period.

I’d also like to thank Alison ‘Angel’ Savage and Dannii ‘Kensei’ Panton for the characters of Jinx and Fang respectively.  They gave me two other valuable points of view from which to write when I needed to take a ‘dramatic pause’ with the other characters.  Thanks, you two; I had fun writing for these characters.

A big thank-you to Hayley ‘Panda-Brain’ McGuckin for encouraging me as I wrote the book.  I must also apologize, Hayley; I didn’t actually ask you if you wanted a character in Purity.  Perhaps in the sequel, eh?

Another apology goes to ‘Phoenix,’ as I didn’t include her character in the book, either.  Your character will be used, even if I have to write the sequel exclusively for it.
I’d love to thank my parents, but as the only thing I really heard from them on the subject of this book was “That’ll be the one book you won’t want people to bring up,” I’ll just leave that for the sequel as well.

There are a large group of other people I’d like to thank but can’t be bothered to write an entire paragraph for, so here I go:  ‘Chinaren’ for offering his “expert” opinion; ‘Overlord’ for creating the greatest writer’s forum ever, hands-down; the great people over at NaNoWriMo for giving me a very good excuse to spend a month of my computer classes ticking off my teacher by writing instead of doing HTML pages; my teacher for putting up with afore-mentioned writing; ‘Burningplain’ for constantly keeping my story going through not-so-veiled threats and almost endless compliments and curses for the “cliff-hanger” chapters; Claire ‘Rocket Rabbit’ Hack for standing alongside Burningplain with the compliments and alongside Anton with keeping my confidence up during NaNoWriMo.

An impossibly large thank-you to my Lord and Savior.  He did redeem my soul after all, so not thanking Him would make me the biggest kind of jerk ever, in my opinion.

Last and definitely not least, possibly more important than anyone I’ve listed above, I would like to thank ‘Maria.’  You stuck with me for some bizarre reason that I doubt I’ll ever understand, and my experiences with you so far have only been fun.  I’m lucky beyond belief to have you as a friend, and I sincerely hope nothing ever changes that.  Please buy a copy of this book out of the bargain bin.

[Panda-Brain]

Aw, wow Nic!
I didn't think I'd be in here!
I'm quite shocked!
Thank you! =D

[Saint]

[mod]Congratulations NicTei, for winning Moderator's Favourite for December 2010. You've won before, and you know the drill. Keep being an outstanding author and you may win it many more times to come. Well done again.[/mod]

[Saint]

[mod]Well done again to NicTei. Your time as Mod favourite is up, but you may keep the label on the title, and your place is forever secured in the hall of fame.[/mod]