Elemental Gatherers Book 7 Outline Draft 2

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Well, I took y'all's feedback and redid the outline. Let me know what y'all think!

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Elemental Gatherers Book 7 Outline Draft 2

Chapter 1 - Night after big party. Still going on. He’s alone in room. Decides to investigate Legacy. Looks into cultivation  techniques, find them to be a mix of gathering and tempering techniques. Finds a listing of Core runes, which work similarly to his, dozens of each Element from levels one to five, with other, higher level combined runes as well. Finds a really good rune to replace his Fire rune with, along with a treatise on how combined runes can help with multiple Elements and combining them. He decides to replace his Fire rune right then and there.

Chapter 2 - More investigation of the Legacy, finds the section on advancing through Soul Strengthening. He can’t see details, but got the general gist of things. After going through that, he explores the Alchemy one, finds neat pills but nothing like the Affinity Powders. Gets recipes for a few Affinity pills that seem doable, with the plan to share with Librarian Narwan and get assistance making them. He wants to get all of his Affinities to Excellent if he can. Looks at a few other items. Is told that he can’t access anything above Gathering level for smithing, he doesn't have the knowledge. Tries to view some Lightning techniques. Has to prove his Affinity and ability with Lighting manipulation. Decides that he’s spent enough time. Leaves the Legacy to find that it is now breakfast time, heads to the dining area of the inn to find Jamila, Vaya, Lilliana, Milenna, and Lea talking. He waves, and Vaya gestures for him to come over. A quick kiss for both girls, and he ends up telling them about the Legacy. After a bit, he just hands Vaya the stone with core runes in it and tells her to share it with everyone else.

Chapter 3 - Librarian Narwan pops in to grab him immediately after and pulls him into a meeting of the highest levels. Politics happen. They talk about the war, trade, and then bring up the Legacy. Aiden tells a bit of what he’s discovered, as well as making a promise to share most of the gathering level information with everyone, on the promise it gets spread fully. “There is a calamity coming,” he answers when they ask why. Tells them he knows the secret to advancing through Soul Strengthening, which causes a massive commotion. This he’s going to sell, not just give, because it won’t provide a quick powerup to benefit the war.

Chapter 4 - Librarian Narwan collects all of his students after dropping Sam off from a lesson and gives them a lesson on advancing as a Core-level gatherer. He spends a bunch of time talking about how to create structures in the crystal as you form it, repeating himself multiple times, because of how important it is to get it right. Common wisdom is that it's not necessary in Seed Core, and actively makes advancing harder, but it can give you a leg up on using specific techniques. Librarian Narwan tells them that it will give them greater power earlier, and isn’t worried about the speed of their growth. “You are growing extremely fast already,” he says, “so we will work on making your roots deeper.”

Chapter 5 - Date night with Aleks, she prefaces by saying that she does not want to talk about the Legacy at all. “We can talk business later,” she says, “but now I want to just be a courting couple.” Aiden sweeps her into his arms and spins her around, “As you wish,” he says with a grin. She takes him to a very fancy restaurant, where they are given a private room. It’s a sushi place. Next morning, Aiden, Vaya, Jon, and Bridget go to run Bruno’s dungeon one last time and say goodbye to him. They go into the medium difficulty, Bruno challenges Aiden to fight it alone. Destroys the first four levels with little difficulty, highlighting the massive difference in power of a Core v. Condensation gatherer.

Chapter 6 - Entire team gets together to discuss leaving, plus Sam. Aiden shows off the flying disk, empowering it to full size, and then puts the Portable Home on the back end. It fills half the disk, but that leaves plenty of space to control it from, and the inside is accessible even when the disk is moving. Librarian Narwan tells them the rules for flying over the ocean, limiting them to a height of eighty to one hundred meters, no more or less. Too low will get you eaten by sea Beasts, too high will get you eaten by sky Beasts. Exploration of the Portable Home, discovery of how to adapt the interior, some information on possibly expanding it but would be stupidly expensive, like use a majority of the Kingdom’s resources to add ten percent expensive. Librarian Narwan gives them an Inscribe compass that points back to Craesti City, and then tells them he has to go ahead. Knight Kaminski and Sam stay with them, though.

Chapter 7 - Aiden passes out the items from the Legacy that he wants to give to the others. Lots of discussion and planning, then an argument happens as a bunch of people want to go explore the ruins found in Craesti City before returning home. End up deciding to go there. After discussion, everyone but Aiden, Vaya, and Aleks go back inside the Portable Home (at least one person has to be at the controls of the flying disk at all times). A Primordial approaches them, named Minokawan, and welcomes them to the sky while reiterating Librarian Narwans top height rule. They end up in a discussion about why, and Aiden is fascinated by the fact that there are societies of Beasts that live in the sky. He wants to visit, but Minokawan informs him that other Primordials are not as kind as she, and would eat him for the trespass. Aiden pouts a bit, but then warns her of the coming of Chaos.

Chapter 8 - reach the ruins. Land and store flying disk and Portable Home, as they worry that they’ll attract too much attention flying around. The ruins end up being a full city, with most locations empty of anything but dust and debris, discuss the feeling of kenopsia. Find a group of Lamia with zombies, looking for something. Ambush them, big fight. More Lamia come. Dozens of groups of Lamia and zombies, all of whom are stronger than the one they fought in Craesti City, have to be defeated. Once the city is clear, they are able to explore more.

Chapter 9 - Find a working training facility. Makes them fight without any techniques, just your martial skills. One hundred levels of increasing difficulty that attempts to teach you by doing. You are pulled out of the simulation before lethal damage is accrued, letting you repeat an attempt almost immediately. There is no penalty to trying again, and you get checkpoints at every five levels beaten . Aiden is obsessive about running through the training, and they end up spending two days just going through the training.

Chapter 10 - While resting or waiting for their turn, everyone keeps exploring, and they end up finding what the Lamia were looking for, a sealed vault. Spend time breaking into it, and discover that it has hundreds of metal ingots that glow in Aiden’s Aether Sight, a sword, a halberd, and a staff. The sword and halberd give off a feeling of sharpness, like the sword from the Legacy, while the staff looks like a black hole to Aiden’s Sight. No one wants to touch it, so palpable is the feeling of evil coming from it. Aiden tries to destroy it, but cannot so much as scratch the greasy looking metal. They decide to take it back to Craesti and hope Librarian narwan or King Craesti can destroy it. Aiden has problem storing it, as the staff actively resists any attempt at putting it into a spatial bag or his ring. FInally, he is able to force it through the door of the Portable Home, where they leave it in a bedroom covered in blankets so no one touches it.

Chapter 11 - Sia has them detour on the way back to meet his mom, the Fire Monarch. She tests them all, causing lots of pain but in the end increasing everyone’s Fire Affinity slightly. Tells them that there have been weird Aether flows and Beast waves messing with the balance in the kingdom. Aiden tells her about Chaos.

Chapter 12 - Journey back to Craesti City. King Craesti meets them outside the city, and has them land just out of sight of the walls. Big parade walking in, after they all change into their fanciest clothes. Discuss here the upgrades Aiden’s fancy keikogi he got from the Tower of Trials. At the end of the parade, everyone who isn’t a Knight already is Knighted (as they all advanced to Core over the course of the trip back), and Aiden is promoted to Lord. Big banquet lunch and party, and then Aiden, Vaya, Jamila, and Aleks are pulled into a smaller dinner, where King Craesti teases Aiden. Headmaster Glav is there, and they have a long discussion that ends with Aiden being officially betrothed to the three young women. He mildly panics.

Chapter 13 - Next day, Aiden talks with King Craesti and others about the staff, and they try to destroy it but fail. Research is to be done by Librarian Narwan and a counselor of Craesti Academy on methods to improve their chances next time, and they decide to store it in a secure vault. Sometime later (nearer the end of the book?) the staff is discovered to be stolen. Afterwards, Aiden is surprised when his parents arrive for a dinner with the King, where King Craesti informs him of his responsibilities as a Lord of the Kingdom. He is charged with starting and governing a town on the border of the Great Western Forest. King Craesti doesn’t expect him to begin immediately, as he needs to still attend Azyl Academy, learning and growing more, but appointing a mayor and starting to recruit citizens is within his ability now. He is given a platinum by the King to start the town with. Research and planning about what to do with the town.

Chapter 14 - Big political announcement of Aiden and Aleks’s betrothal. Smaller announcement has Vaya and Jamila being betrothed to him too. Large party, all of their family is there. Lots of noble pushback, insults, and snide comments. Bet arrives with her team (Anberlin, Nicolai, and ???). Obvious tension between Nicolai and Aiden. Aiden tries to find Captain Svik, but he disappeared. Search for him, nothing. After a bit, pulled into a meeting with Aleks, Ming, Bet, Headmaster Glav, Headmaster (Craesti), and Captain (name) Steven, who tells them to call him Steve. Discussion about the training they’ll be undergoing as second-tiers, since they are too strong for the normal second tier training. Planning about what classes they need to take, secondary ones for Aiden specifically. Dinner with King Craesti afterwards, who complains that Duke Camilo is leading a faction that seeks to undermine the war by barely meeting the minimum requirements in the poorest of ways. Somewhere in the previous three chapters, scene where Aiden uses the plate to contact everyone with medallions. Finds out that Gunther is on his way to the frontlines, as is (Topraki Heir).

Chapter 15 - Travel back to Azyl Academy. Headmaster Glav helps transport some of them, the rest just ride on Aiden’s flying disk. Classes begin in a few days, but they have a bit of free time. Aiden gets pulled into a training by Librarian Narwan on using multiple Alchemy sets at once, and he gives him a present, a travel Alchemy set that is easily bigger than a normal one. “You can store it easily,” Librarian Narwan says, “so it counts as a travel set.” Aiden just rolls his eyes. A massive amount of Affinity powders later, and Aiden still owes a ton of them.

Chapter 16 - classes. Politics, governance, and gathering at higher tiers. Probably a whole chapter of this again, sorry for those who didn’t like the history chapter of Azyl.Some discussion here of why Duke Camilo isn’t just killed out of hand, and about the potential roadblocks to Aiden and Aleks’s marriage.

Chapter 17 - more classes, scout training, group techniques - shared and joined. Shared techniques are ones where everyone does the same thing, and each technique is shared with the people to either side. Generally used by second tiers and the army for enhancing and multiplying arrows shot through a technique. Gives Condensation tier gatherers enhanced range and power by using the physical medium of an arrow. Joined techniques are much, much more complicated, where every person controls part of a massive technique, similar to area techniques but with multiple people. Team works on various shared techniques to start with, as they are easier to learn to coordinate.

Chapter 18 - more scout training. Scout teams are sixteen people, which ends up being Ming’s team, Aleks’s team, Bet’s team, and Aiden’s team. Aiden and Nicolai just avoid each other as much as they can, but they end up having to work together fairly often against targets. Aiden believes that he is partially responsible for Captain Svik’s disappearance, but Nicky seems to have no idea what Aiden’s talking about.

Chapter 19 - Alchemy!! All the alchemy, all the time. Different pills and powders done to help Bet’s team advance as fast as possible. Bet and Anberlin pay Aiden by providing all of the ingredients for their pills, and help him source ingredients to make Affinity Pills found in the Legacy.

Chapter 20 - time skip, a month or two later, discussions about the town Aiden has to build. He ends up asking Jon’s parents to lead the effort, and they all go out to where the town will be located. Scouting around the area, looking at Aether flows, soil content, sloping, water availability, etc. Jamila and Vaya find a perfect spot to set up the growing array from the Elemental Raspberries, so they enlist everyone’s help to put it up. Inscription work, with assistance from the Legacy and detail work on how to design the growing array. Jamila surprises Aiden here by also planting a small coffee grove, with Inscriptions/Formations that will allow it to grow. Another talk with the medallion holders. Find out about the war, destruction of Borgby but there is another line of forts preventing serious progress.

Chapter 21 - Another time skip? A few more months later. Aiden is surging ahead of his peers, though only minorly. He’s managed twenty five new layers, each one with runic structures in it, while Vaya has only done twenty two, Jon and Bridget twenty. The time it takes to advance in Core is significantly longer than all of his gathering to this point. He tries to help them open more meridians, since he worries that they’ll be stuck at some point because they have less talent and Affinity than him. Finally, all of Bet’s team has reached Seed Core, with Aiden, Jon, Xiao, Librarian Narwan and Headmaster Glav’s help, and they are told that they will be conducting a scout of the Great Western Forest to attempt to discern where the Beast Waves are coming from. The Army has scouted, but found nothing, thought their best units are deployed to the war front. Most of the chapter is getting ready for the trip. Their trip takes them to Aiden’s town to start with, and we have a half-chapter or so about town planning. While there, Aiden drops off a large amount of Affinity Powders for his settlers. Librarian Narwan praises it, but doesn’t count them against his debt. Another war update, next to no progress has been made. Thousands of dead, including dozens of Core gatherers. Report of a Topraki using weird weapons, Aiden thinks he might be another Chosen.

Chapter 22 - Meet the Water Waz at the Tree Monarch. Exploration of the area, discussion with the Mocassin what is happening to the Monarch, and why they need to figure out what is going on. Delve deeper into the Forest, following the weird Aether signature. Fight against a massive wave of Beasts. Lots of combat.

Chapter 23 - continued fighting, as they barely hold on. Hundreds of Beasts, techniques both shared, joint, and singular. Finally, they are running on fumes but there are still Beasts coming. Kitsune saves them, smashing the crazed Beasts and directing others around, before charging them with investigating what is causing the Beast waves.

Chapter 24 - Massive Aether flows lead Aiden et al to what looks like a Dungeon portal, but it gives off a completely different feel. They decide to rest nearby for a bit, and only a minute later a flood of Chaos-ified Ants flow out. Mostly weak, so not difficult to fight, but a lot of them. Only a few minutes after defeating the first set, another outpouring of Chaos Beasts, iguanas this time, occur. They fortify the outside, and then a couple level seven Beasts arrive. Sia communicates with them, and tells the group that the Beasts will take over defending the area for a short while. Aiden and crew jump through the portal once the second round of Ants ends. The Bonds are unable to join them (? not sure on this part)

Chapter 25 - Aiden finds himself in an ant hill. Seconds later, the others arrive. Ants fill the chamber they are in, and they fight quickly. More keep coming, though. “We need to find the source, and cut it off,” Aiden says. Rest of chapter is them fighting the ants, with minor time skips between sections.

Chapter 26 - Find the queen, fight against her guards and other reinforcements. Reinforcements include goblins riding ants. Defeat them, the ants stop, but marching feet up a tunnel tell them that more goblins are coming. They find another tunnel upward, and come out of a massive ant hill overlooking a goblin fort.

Chapter 27 - Aiden can see the corrupted Aether connecting the portal to a place in the fort, and they make plans to assault it. Fight to get into the fort here, defeating enemies in the outskirts.

Chapter 28 - push into the keep, battle up a few floors, then have to fight against a very strong goblin shaman and chieftain group. Anberlin and Nicky betray them here. Tough fight at first, but then Nicky sees Bet get stabbed by Anberlin. He screams that she promised to spar her, and switches back? (or do I let Nicky just be bad?) Defeating them, they take Anberlin (and Nicky?) alive. Still stairs up.

Chapter 29 - One level up, find true boss, the crystal has become an elemental, with some goblins and a Chaos Demon as opponents. Extremely difficult fight. (Some people may die?) After breaking off the crystal’s extremities, they find that they can’t damage it anymore, but Aiden takes a chance and touches it. He’s offered the ability to link the dungeon to another, to create a new dungeon, or to leave the portal, allowing Chaos more control and access to Zemia. He chooses to link it to Bruno, and is able to move the location over the next two days, before it’ll be set. They rush back to where Aiden’s village will be, and establish a connection. A small circle of trees grows instantly, with an arch like the one in the Ashkhas forest. Aiden steps through to find himself in Bruno’s dungeon. Bruno is ecstatic, and says that he got a brand new instance that is calibrated to the average of the group that entered. As a reward, Aiden gets a device that can play music taken from the holder’s memory.

Chapter 30 -  Discussion with Librarian Narwan, Headmaster Glav, City Lord (name), about what happened, and an immediate invasion of the Haodha compound is conducted. Count Haodha is discovered to be in league with Chaos, and had used his time to reach Soul Separation like Librarian Narwan, along with two others at Soul Forming. Massive fight, Aiden et al have to fight a massive amount of Chaos Beasts and corrupted humans, while their seniors battle above them. If Nicky switches sides before, he stays switched.

Chapter 32 - defeat of the Chaos Cultists and closure of the other portal they’d opened to let the Beasts in. Vaya’s and Ming’s family divide up the majority of the Haodha business, some is left with the ones who didn’t turn traitor, and then Aiden’s Ma is given the rest. Some more work is done on setting up the village, with the knowledge that Bruno’s dungeon is there, along with the growing berry formation and coffee plantation. More town building to end the book on a calmer note, then Headmaster Glav declares that they have succeeded in their training, and gives permission for them to head to the front lines. The book ends with the group getting onto a boat, as they are not allowed to fly ahead. Aiden hollows out a bunk room to place the Portable Home in it, giving them a luxury beyond what anyone else on board gets.