Fragments of Chaldea

Answers galore, Part I! Answers galore Part II will arrive next week. Really, all there really is to talk about for this insight are the tons of reveals, but the chapter explained those thoroughly enough in preparation for next chapter. That one will go further into the big, final reveal at the end.

One of the large overhanging unknowns has finally popped, and I hope a sense of satisfaction and relief washed over you too when Da Vinci’s name was cleared. Maybe a hint of remaining skepticism too. The tension should still be looming in the air because of the mentor’s identity still left in the unknown and the overall scheme still in the dark, but the frayed rope is finally coming together. You should be able to make far more accurate speculations even before next chapter drops (which includes a lot more info on who this new faction is).

Again, as much as people would have probably liked to see it, I wasn’t going to show the Zelretch & Aoko vs. Shadow Columbus fight. My grasp of the two magicians isn’t as strong as I’d like it to be, so to do them justice, it was actually better/preferable for me to leave it to your imaginations. That said, if Aoko’s seemingly fine condition wasn’t any indication, he got his ass handed to him… but much of the Clock Tower got levelled in the process.

Seriously, there’s very little to talk about in regards to the chapter itself. If anything, I could talk more about how annoying juggling this whole mystery has been (not counting career work piling up). I actually found my writing speed slowing down in order to ensure everything was in proper place. I even made notes for SKYS about what to look for, and opinions on how some scenes/reveals felt. It’s my first fully original supplement for the series, so I wanted it to fit the role it’s supposed to.

Timing is probably the worst parts to write about. Making sure all the scenes are lined up correctly and then ensuring the time stamps are correct is a pain. Hopefully my in-scene suspense felt just as heavy as the overall fog in the beginning of the work, but now I don’t have to write through that anymore. Any remaining mystery elements will be saying goodbye next chapter, and the third genre will finally pop into the open. It’ll actually be very blunt and obvious when it gets there.

Psssst, it’s romance. Kidding. It’s definitely not romance, just to narrow it down for you.

Unofficial soundtrack: This piece lends more to scenes 8 and beyond when things start getting a bit tense and nail-biting.

When all of a sudden everything has gone to hell.

Heavy suspense still persists, yet I threw in quite the escalation. Though it has a few mystery elements by virtue of its design, this is still coined as a thriller. Escalation is necessary, and we’re just about at the half way point where mystery is replaced with the other unknown genre. I need to set everything in place to make the transition smooth and appropriate, but the whole political undercurrents will remain throughout.

Even more cameos in this one! I thought hard about who would likely stand up to servants, but I got a bit wary on my options. As much as I do want to show how badass some people are, I’d rather not get their styles/personalities too off. Admittedly, I’m missing quite a bit of information on Aoko and Zelretch, so I didn’t want to go too far with them. I still wanted them to make a cameo, mind you, but I’m sorry to inform: Chances of seeing the battle are very low.

I dipped a bit further into the enemy. The fog unravels slowly, but now it should be obvious that there are four factions at play. I also dipped a bit into his powers which were partially inspired by Satsuki Kurogiri from Kara no Kyoukai. It’s definitely not at that tier because it’s not the universal language, but specialization in mind control and manipulation certainly makes for a crafty, underhanded opponent.

The question is, he’s a major player, but still supposedly the underling. Who’s the big shot that managed to get a control-loving magus to help so dutifully? The answer is a bit more obvious than you’d expect when you consider what this supplement is designed to do. 

I didn’t want to go too in depth with some of the details otherwise everything would have been a bit drawn out and buried. I kept things a bit specific and gave enough cues though. Trust me: I would have gone nuts over designing how UN soldiers looked or how intricate some spells were. I’ll leave it in your courts rather than potentially confuse more people and create a tangent from the main points.

Unofficial soundtrack: You’ll know when this one is supposed to play. I think it fits that ambush sequence and the following attack scenes pretty well. The slow also fits a bit nicely to the contemplation scene for Da Vinci.

This is a political/suspense thriller. Of course I wasn’t going to let things go smoothly just yet. I got to ratchet everything up a few notches this chapter though (including stakes). This included the Mage’s Association’s penchant for being downright dastardly and malicious with their ‘negotiations’ of sorts. Hostage taking was definitely something they’d do for extra leverage.

Overall, I’m trying to control the rollercoaster of emotions. There’s plenty of suspense to keep everything moving forward, but Chaldea’s still in its recovery phase. Throwing in obvious emotional responses to an ever-escalating situation is not only natural, but necessary. Keeping a situation under control with so many present parties can be a total mess, as I’ve tried to show. I’m sure everyone can agree political wheeling and dealing can get messy, and we’re still only at Chapter 2.

As a reminder: It’s going to be another short supplement though. 10ish maximum entries similar to Who We Are.

I’m still constantly throwing clues for the audience to piece some things together slowly (while keeping it suspenseful). Most should have a pretty solid idea who aren’t the real culprits, but I hope I still made things kinda confusing and leaving “what if it actually is____” as a possibility. Again, nothing too complex, but it needs to be unraveled slowly and precisely since there’s going to be quite a bit of information. I don’t want it overwhelming anyone, but there will come a chapter that might.

If I manage to execute this all right, though, it won’t come down to that. Here’s to hoping!

Unofficial soundtrack: Beginning is pretty slow. Low ambiance works best, really. This one fits the general mood of this chapter, but it has a bit of horror undertones that don’t fit quite well. Still manages to be nice company while reading.

Really quick notes before I begin:

• For your reference, as stated in the Chapter.
  Clock Tower Time = GMT+1
  Chaldea Time = GMT-3
  UN Building Time = GMT-4
• So if it’s noon in Chaldea, it’s 4 I the afternoon in London, and 11am on the US East Coast. Nothing too difficult compared to the other setups I tested before.
• Magus Transcriber: If what I described sounded familiar, it’s that same device Tokiomi Tohsaka used to receive messages in the Prologue Episode of Fate/Zero. You can look there for the visual.

This is where things started getting trickier with writing this supplement. There were no guidelines for me to follow, and it became a nostalgic trip back to screenwriting classes. I had an outline and things that needed to be fleshed out, but unlike the other supplements, I was making the road myself with a cacophony of information that could be involved. Though it’d be cool to include everything as a tip of the hat, things would get convoluted real quick. At worst, it’d even start feeling like an encyclopedia of events rather than a story.

So I picked what I thought would be a good in a setup, and went with that design for the rest of the supplement. It’s a suspenseful sampler platter of sorts. It will address what is necessary, but it won’t go too crazy with information overload. There’s already enough suspense and some puzzle solving involved as is. I want people to enjoy reading.

I was reminded that the hardest part of creating a story was filling in all the details in between the beginning and end. The prologue and last three entries will come out perfectly fine, but the inbetween was made a little more difficult due to the genres involved. It needs to keep up its suspense and tension while maintaining proper escalation. At the same time, I need to be wary of the pace, though I think I’ve managed to handle that well. Sorting everything was certainly a pain.

In particular, balancing chosen POVs without ruining any of the suspense was probably the most difficult area. Da Vinci and Lord El-Melloi II will be an intricate balancing act, and hopefully I get it just right for the later payoff to feel satisfying. And to think this is just a rather simple plot complexity to boot.

Unofficial soundtrack: Again, none chosen. It would have just been light suspenseful ambience anyhow.

Political and Mystery thriller is off to a nice start, I’d say. Here’s to hoping my first full original story does what it’s supposed to!

As stated about WWA’s epilogue, Equilibrium follows directly after and inherits the current mood of Chaldea. Regardless, I still went about trying to define the atmosphere now that the celebrations had ended. They’re now left with plenty of rough spots that need to be smoothed, all while the new outside factors are adding the first problems of their own.

The flashback scene, if some recall correctly, was a reference way back to Hector’s fragment when he found Da Vinci and Roman in the Director’s office. Friendly reminder that, yes, I do drop hints well in advance at times. Remember that offhanded remark about Gudao’s cousin way back in TGL’s prologue? Yea, that has a payoff in the future too. Sometimes I put down bricks before I have any intent on building the foundation further. There’s just a lot of information and ground to cover, that’s all.

I’ve finally confirmed the statuses of the two major OCs in critical condition during the incident. As a fun note, nearly a year ago, I was toying with the idea of killing off one or two OCs in order to accomplish certain moods and objectives. As time went on, I figured out I could still accomplish what I wanted through different means. It would have also admittedly taken some of the attention away from Roman’s sacrifice too.

Otherwise, I can’t really say much about anything else. I should have placed well more than enough suspense and mysterious things for you to look at and speculate. It’s going to be a short ride, but there’s going to be quite a few massive reveals before everything settles in the end… but how will it all settle?

EDIT 7/5/18: I’ve discussed with a few fans about the difficult genre positioning. To fix any confusion, the story’s closest “true” genre is Political Thriller throughout. It was formerly improperly labelled with “Mystery” at first, but this was corrected since it’s better categorized under the suspense genres because of its overall design. It contains some mystery elements in the beginning, and a third genre appears towards the end, but it fits closest to Political Thriller. Apologies to anyone who was misled a bit. That was my mistake.

There is no unofficial soundtrack for the prologue.