The Alchemist’s Ranger Book Summary:

Timorn is a Ranger traveling the human cities hiring out his services from town to town. Arriving in Fallow in a rainstorm twenty days before DarkFall, he happens upon the Singing Harp pub making the rounds trying to find work for hire. Timorn happens upon a man in fancy dress in the pub looking for a sacred alchemy tool that turns raw metal into gold, an impossible magic. Hired for the task, which offers more money than Timorn has ever seen, he travels around Fallow searching different shops and bartering his services trying to locate the device. Finding more than one alchemist’s tool, his client calls him to come to the Prince’s stables to reveal what he found. But a common Ranger in the royal stables is a trespassing offense. Can Timorn keep his freedom and still locate the alchemy tool sought? The client is harboring a deception of which Timorn is not aware. When Timorn gets caught in the stables and hauled in front of the Prince of Fallow the deception is revealed but so too is a secret about Timorn. Follow along in The Alchemist’s Ranger, the prequel novella to The Seer of Grace and Fire dark fantasy trilogy.

So we did it again, self published The Alchemist’s Ranger to Amazon as a Kindle ebook exculsive. This one was a fun little romp with Timorn the lead character of The Seer of Grace and Fire as he explores the human town of Fallow.  The cover art was done in about 3 hours and then scanned and the words and border added.

A Map of the Human Town of Fallow

And we have a map of the town of Fallow. It even includes the Singing Harp pub which is mentioned in book 1 of The Seer of Grace and Fire. The map of Fallow is a grydscaen blog exclusive which will allow you to follow along with Timorn on his journey through the town as he looks for the alchemy tool.

I enjoyed writing this novella. About 50 pages and 18,500 words makes it actual novella length and not a short story. I think we also got to see a little more of Timorn’s personality and stubbornness and we now know that he can lie to himself and about his feelings. It also shows that his job as a Ranger and the effort he has to put in to find work for hire is not easy. We find him travelling from the Port of Bei at the beginning of the story and the fact that he was unable to find work there after a long trek. He is down to his last 300 esquines by the time he gets to the Singing Harp which means that if he was unable to find work he would possibly starve in a day or two when he arrives in the town. We also see a childlike side of Timorn. Yes I know he is only 17 but he has a maturity to him which is required to be a Ranger and take charge of others when he takes them from location to location. It also shows that he can plan well.

I also like that Dalannin’s black cat familiar is in this story. Since the series is dark fantasy I wanted to keep The Alchemist’s Ranger story light and not delve too deep, but by bringing the cat and Dalannin into the story for a cameo we get a hint at the magic that will play out in the series.

The Seer of Grace and Fire book 1 will not be published until late Q1 2017 so this story The Alchemist’s Ranger is hopefully something that can tide readers over until we can get to the first book in the trilogy.

I enjoyed doing the cover art for this one as well which showcases Timorn in his signature tunic with a hood and his wavy medium length hair. The other character on the cover is Sarcosian Ephemeralita, the Prince of Fallow. How Timorn gets to have an audience with a very arrogant Prince who treats his ministers with disdain is something you will have to read the story to find out.

The story will be an Amazon Kindle ebook exclusive but I will be running a free ebook special for a few days once the story is live. I will do another blog post with information about the freebie.

This book was self published like my other short stories in the grydscaen series exclusive to Amazon Kindle. I like these $0.99 stories that are free on Kindle Unlimited because they provide access to more readers who may be interested in a taste before delving into the main epic nature of a trilogy or the cyberpunk series. Hopefully we can garner some new readers from these novella promotions.

Onto the Details of The Alchemist’s Ranger

A little about Fallow. The Prince of Fallow is a young Prince who likes to wander about without an escort. This enrages his ministers who have to see to him. The Prince is peculiar and likes esoteric and exotic things, not the least of which is his choice of clothing. On the cover he is pictured with his signature troubadour hat with a plume which he seems to have similar hats in many different colours. There is a scene where the Prince is in full royal knight’s armour. I decided to make the armour silver with gold plated embellishments and a helmet with a plume at the top and feathers outlining the ears, a royal suit of armour indeed. Of course with delicate engravings on the armour it has to be ceremonial and not utilitarian. With the Prince always wandering off from his escort, no wonder the guards have to call an apothecary with healing magic to the palace when someone gets hurt.

Timorn is not one for pomp and circumstance. He likes things simple and easy to understand. In the story he is confronted with the desire and the task to find an alchemy tool which is a magic device. Unknowing of magic, the only magic he has ever encountered is that from the gifted Faerie daggers and the sword he has in his possession with the intricate carvings. He does not like fancy things and in the beginning of the story when he is soaked to the bone from the rain he is only worried that he will not be able to buy a new pair of boots if they become waterlogged, not even caring that he is soaking wet from having run through Fallow from the gate to the Singing Harp pub in the rain for 20 minutes.

We also get to see a little bit of Timorn’s sales pitch as he tries to find work in the pub. Lucky for him he finds someone looking to hire. With the luck he had in the Port of Bei, he would not have had any money for food if the man in the fancy dress did not hire him.

Map of Arenth, the Island Continent of Faerie

And now a little about the world of Arenth, the island continent in which The Seer of Grace and Fire takes place. Fallow is part of the Human province of Ekhrine. Fallow is a walled town in the province of Ekhrine. In The Seer of Grace and Fire book 1 we meet Timorn in Fallow and he is hired by Ihel, the high elf to take her to Kannon, the Faerie capital of Itheria where the high court of Faerie resides. In The Alchemist’s Ranger Timorn has come from the Port of Bei on the East Coast journeying on the merchant’s path to Fallow, a trip that takes about three days by foot. Both of these areas are in the outer part of Ekhrine. Ekhrine has an actual city in the center where the Ecclesiastical Univeristy and the Thieves’ Guild are located. Arenth is surrounded by water on three sides except for where it meets the land at Kine, another human province. In The Alchemist’s Ranger, Timorn mentions that he was hired recently to take a traveler to Kine which was a long trek and resulted in a large purse for the work. In The Seer of Grace and Fire trilogy we visit all the different provinces of Arenth from the Dragon Kingdom in the North above Akrisia and the Dragon King’s Imperial Militia encampment in Dragonreise, to The Valkyris’ castle in the South in Amaralon when Timorn takes his elven and half-dragon army’s battle directly to the evil Faerie queen in her territory. The only place on the map we do not go is the Port of Kee and the other continents.

The Map of Arenth went through four iterations. First was a hand drawing with just the names of the locations with no boundaries and some mountains that were rudimentary open bottom triangles with the water around the outskirts. For the second iteration of the map, Akrisia, Kannon, Ekhrine and Amaralon were located in their final positions. Kannon had to initially move slightly North to account for the location of the Tower at Maniford where Silamir has his sorcerer’s tower, and is the official sorcerer to King Ailon, the ruler of Itheria. Maniford is surrounded at the back by mountains and trees which came later. The third iteration of the map included Dragonreise and the Dragon King’s Pavillion, which are in the dragon lands in the mountains north west of Akrisia, the elven province. Those two locations are actually in the mountains but I had to make them visible on the map so those locations  look like they are below the mountinous areas. In actuality in book 2 we describe the cold high up on the peeks at the Dragon King’s Pavillion when Timorn has words with the half-dragon captain Seih who leads a regiment out of Dragonreise. The imperial militia encampment at Dragonreise went through two spellings. The final spelling used the “s” in “reise” to make it more exotic and foreign sounding. I think Dragonreise actually means “Dragon Map” in German when I was working out the spelling.  The Tower of High Summoning, the Valkyris’ Castle and The Tower at Maniford were placed in their final locations with this iteration and the Valkyris’ castle had to move slightly west to make the distance from the Tower of High Summoning match the text. The third iteration also included the dragon in the mountains and the sea monster near the Port of Kee. The fourth and final iteration included the compass at the bottom of the map showing the directions, new mountain design, placement of individual trees and the location of the Haunted Forest which does not show up in the story until the middle of book 3. Each tree located in the Haunted Forest was placed individually as well as the mountains which took some time.

Map of Kannon, the Faerie Capital of Itheria

The map of Kannon was the first map that was done of a city and it is rudimentary at best. The most important things in this map were the towers in the wall, the gate to Kannon and the location of the stables, the Sister’s Mercy and Kannon University as well as the Palace. I had to draw this map to get things situated for book 1 when Ethesian travels to Kannon University through the streets of the town. I had to get the path right that she could walk. This map went through two iterations as I had to move the Kannon University and the University Dorms based on the text. The beta reader caught the problem and the map was updated. The map of Fallow which came later has actual buildings on the map but both towns although similar in shape are laid out differently. The similarity of the location of like shops in certain areas is a theme that runs through both maps. The town of Kannon is also important at the end of book 3 which closes the trilogy with the last chapter when Timorn and Ethesian are at a town festival and wandering the streets with the towns folks celebrating the rejuvenation of Kannon after it was devastated in the battle of DarkFall.

The world building that went into the world of Arenth, the maps and the towns as well as the cover art for The Alchemist’s Ranger and The Seer of Grace and Fire which still needs a cover for book 3 was about as much work as went into the grydscaen series and included much better maps than the cyberpunk. I might go back and fix the grydscaen maps since I have to make a map of the world once I get to book 5 which I need to get to quickly since book 5 will be published mid 2017.

I  hope you enjoyed this exploration of the world of The Seer of Grace and Fire. I wanted to share it with you on the release date of The Alchemist’s Ranger going live on Amazon. Hopefully someone will read this post and enjoy the world I have created. Either way, I put it out there for readers to consume and hopefully learn more and get excited about the world of the dark fantasy series which may have more novellas in the future. For now I leave you with a taste of the world of The Seer of Grace and Fire on the release date of The Alchemist’s Ranger on Amazon Kindle.

Thanks for reading.

 

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