Notes from the Void is a monthly piece (heh) where I go into some behind-the-scenes details of Obscura Rhapsody, talk about goats, go on tangents or perhaps all of the above. Warning: it may contain spoilers up through the latest chapter.

There he is.

If you’ve been following along with Book Three, you might see that there’s been a little bit of a recurring theme. After the (small, tiny, I swear) time jump from Chapter 10, it wasn’t until the end of Chapter 11 that we saw Khloe and now the end of Chapter 12 until we saw Aedyn. Will this theme continue? All signs point to <REDACTED>.

Looking back at the past two months as I’ve taken Obscura Rhapsody into a weekly format, I can see a slight change in comfort with telling the story. The beginning of Book Three was me trying to be heavy into setting the mood with a quasi-Gothic / 19th century literature feel, and along the way I discovered the three characters that have brought a much-needed levity to the series: namely, Tungsten and Rigo & Von (the latter pair partially inspired by Jay and Silent Bob).

These three are a lot of fun to write, which might sound odd because it makes it sound as though I’m not enjoying myself when the rest of the cast is on the proverbial stage. Which clearly isn’t true, but there was something freeing about bringing these characters into the story and adding another dimension to the narrative (while I can’t promise how long Rigo & Von will be around, Tungsten has wormed his way into some of the overarching story beats for Obscura Rhapsody. But that’s for another time and place…). It made me extend outside my comfort zone. I’m always grateful for that.

As of this writing, I think I’ve worked out the exact beats remaining in Paths of Exile (side note: if I had put two and two together years ago and realized there’s a game called “Path of Exile”, I may not have named the opening novel for the series with a similar one. But thematically the title works and I’m stubborn so nyah). If the plans hold together, the novel wraps up with Chapter 19 around December of this year, and it’s up in the air as to whether Chapter 20 will be an epilogue or the beginning of the next Obscura Rhapsody novel.

See you in less than a week for the beginning of Chapter 13, “Submergence”, where things begin to get a little strange…