Outline for JTPYO first published in 2017

This is the outline with what has been worked on and published:

 https://scarlett156.blogspot.com/2025/05/outlinenames-of-parts-jtpyo-fyi.html 

This is changed only by a couple of words from first published here by me October 2017. In case you want a reference. I'm working on a part of "the living dead" (JTPYO - King of the Land of the Dead [2]) right now. I recall that on gab ai just after I posted this in my blog some people kinda went nuts. Heh. Good times. You're probably sick of my disclaimer by now but in case you don't know what I'm talking about, look at older posts. Have fun and stay safe out there. Haha, forget I said that.

    --- Synopsis and overview of JTPYO all four novels --- 

There are four parts to the saga: King of the Waste, King of the Fishers, King of the Heights, and King of the Land of the Dead. Briefly, it concerns a few years in the life of a citified young man, Gorardeno Naxosos of Viragos, who through no crime or wrongdoing (except perhaps vice, laziness, and licentiousness) has become a fugitive from various governmental and religious authoritarian entities and must live by his wits among an assembly of wandering mendicants, fakirs, roustabouts, gamblers, prostitutes, monks, escaped slaves, herders, and bums who call themselves "the Children of God." Naxosos's best friend, Tagros Naemas, has been associated with the Children of God since age nine and urges that they join this collective, and so that is where Naxosos eventually ends up, with his teacher Maynaliel Tolalo, an elderly priest who has also been named fugitive from the law, and his friend Tagros Naimejo, also a priest and Naemas's older brother.

After a few months of adjustment to life among the Children of God, this tribe numbering approximately one hundred, with cattle, keeping to the wastes and trackless lands, Naxosos finally assumes a place of respect and honor, mostly due to his dauntlessness, sagacity, cunning, and inborn capacity for wizardry. He also has a quite pleasant, easygoing nature. (Most of the time.) 

Naxosos's position in life is a peculiar one, his having been born into a line of humanity predicted by religious writings to somehow rule over the earth at some point, although this line has all but been eradicated at the time our story begins, in part due to this prophecy, and in turn is part of the reason Naxosos and his kinsman, a sheepherder who like himself must constantly flee pursuit, Saridizi Maliel, are so sought-after. In addition, one or the other or both of them is by birth the ruler of a kingdom called Arigne, which has all but been absorbed by first one, then another, and then yet another kingdom, until there is little left of it – though the political influence this kingdom wields, by virtue of its wealth and placement of individuals in various important houses, is disproportionately large.

After spending a time on the waste, Naxosos and the Children of God begin to experience misfortune due to his being hunted by more and more people for an increasing variety of reasons. Naxosos attempts to separate from the tribe at one point but finds that even in the loneliest place he can manage to get to and stay for a time, he is known and intrigue springs up around him. Since it seems there's little way he can escape what appears to be destiny, he rejoins the Children of God.

Ultimately, Naxosos and a part of his cohort form a plan to subvert the rule of the corrupt Steward of Arigne, Aritritas. It is seen that one of Naxosos's closest companions, a pagan wizard they call Joliel, wishes strongly to use Naxosos and the influence of his stepfather, a wealthy merchant – and their other close companion, Korsis Zarodi, whose family is also wealthy and influential at the hub of the settled world which is the empire of Cela – to overthrow that empire. To this end Joliel has manipulated people and circumstances adroitly.

The subversion of Aritritas is successful, though it brings a swift doom of one type or another for almost every single one of the protagonists; this isn't gone into in detail. Naxosos is captured and, after an ordeal, is executed in spite of a last-ditch attempt to save him staged by a couple of his friends who have managed not to get caught themselves. He is shown, as the Children of God attempt to raise his lifeless body, in the Land of the Dead, holding a conversation with a "jinn" or demon, and then encounters one of his friends who was slain only a short time after he was – and that's the end.

- - - - - - - -

BUT WAIT! There's more!

Original outline of all four novels JTPYO from 2017

+++Towards the downfall of the impostor. 20 September - 22 October 2017

Note: The characters in JTPYO are all speaking the same language except where noted, but none of them is a native speaker of that language, so some of them have accents and some seem to be speaking more grammatically/formally. The main character speaks more idiomatically to his friends and more formally to others. Sometimes the main character and his teacher speak their native language with one another.

The following contains naughty words and situations. If naughty words and situations offend you, better not read this!

Also, it is all copyrighted.+++

+++[The following] was written between November 2017 and June 2018.

Brief, sketchy explanation:

This series of stories is something I just messed around with for a long time in the 1990s. I never wanted to publish it and never talked to anyone about publishing it. A couple of people I was friends (?) with in the past apparently have copies of one version of it, or an outline for it, or something. By like 1999 I had written hundreds of pages, but again, it was just a fun project I never took very seriously and had no intention of publishing, haha.

Why did I make new parts for it and put them in my blog? Why, #JTPYO, of course! :P

If you enjoy these stories or get something out of them, I appreciate that. If you don't like them, however, don't read them. lol

I never collaborated on this with anyone and all of these characters are fictional creations, although you may not find them too very original, lol+++

 * * * 

Prologue (never published) 

[0] The Children of God have been at a canyon domain to attend a rite of enormous power conducted by the Goddess-on-Earth, Thais, and Nirith, her second, resulting in an unanticipated manifestation of a mighty demon, the Prince of the Air. The Prince of the Air addresses Naxosos and attempts to frighten and demoralize him. After months of living with the Children of God, Naxosos has become infatuated with Thais and at the canyons becomes her consort; all begin to address him as their king. Now the main part of the tribe has returned to the wasteland.

the king of the waste

1. transgression

Naxosos strays into the wrong part of the desert encampment at the wrong time with subsequent consequences. Once his companions stop laughing at his self-pity, they urge him to develop a better relationship with the six warriors who guard the tribe. Some truths, both pleasant and unpleasant, about life with the Children of God are revealed and explored. The writer assumes the reader doesn't already know the four main characters so briefly delineates the behavior typical for each.

2. contest

Naxosos and Naemas challenge the Goddess-on-Earth's warriors to a javelin-throwing competition and use magic against them, which nearly causes an uncomfortable scene to erupt. Naemas wins the contest (and a great deal of money for at least one who gambled on him) by doublecrossing Naxosos with assistance from the archmage Joliel.

3. the trap

The tribe cannot move out of hiding due to the presence of a hostile clan of desert-dwellers, the Jaraturi, and is running out of water. The six warriors, attempting to fetch water from an area some miles away, are trapped in a narrow canyon. After divining their location, the Goddess-on-Earth sets out with her Second to rescue them and calls Naxosos and the two priests Tolalo and Naimejo to aid. Korsis and Naemas accompany the party. The sorcerer Joliel makes several kills. At the scene of conflict, Naxosos performs wizardry to save the fighters, after which he is greatly weakened and has to be carried to safety, later awakening in a hot place surrounded by drunken fornicators. To reward Naemas for saving Naxosos, the Goddess-on-Earth offers him a boon, and he asks that everyone in their party live long enough to see the arrival of the new kingdom. Finally returning to the tribe – whole and intact, and having made it to safety – Naxosos is honored and presented with a number of fine things. 

4. the blow

A sandstorm has arisen and members of the tribe take refuge in the dining hall tent, where Naxosos, Naemas, Korsis, Joliel, Tolalo, Naimejo, Thais, Nirith, the six warriors, and Naxosos's mother Ember and his little brother Naemejo, called by all M'jo, have been at dinner. Naxosos is still weakened from the encounter with the Jaraturi. Everyone behaves intemperately and speaks even more so. Taking offense at Joliel's criticisms of Naxosos, Korsis and Naemas cause the sorcerer to become outraged at their taunts. The storm grows violent and part of the dining hall tent collapses, though no one is hurt. When finally the blow ends, they emerge to find the oasis completely covered with an enormous mountain of sand. Joliel, still angry about being mocked, implies that he, Nirith, Thais, and Korsis had plotted to kill Naxosos and have Korsis impersonate him, and moreover that Naimejo – also a wizard – caused the freakish storm with his jealous anger. Naemas strikes Joliel, who gets even by assaulting Nirith in the priest's tent during the appearance of a strange being called alternately messenger or angel. The messenger seems to give Naxosos words of encouragement, informing him that he is "one of us," and telling him that it will leave him with a sign. This turns out to be the appearance of water at the base of the dune created by the sandstorm, and a tree that grows rapidly into a sapling before everyone's eyes. Naxosos sends Joliel away after he attacks Nirith; upon taking his exit, Joliel spitefully informs Naxosos that he is one of the "least necessary things in the new kingdom."

5. demonstration

After the sandstorm, the Children of God will relocate via a strenuous journey to a village in the high mountains where they maintain a friable welcome in order to make repairs to their damaged property. Deciding to take the messenger's advice, Naxosos asks the priests for a task to perform and is put in charge of cattle. Joliel decides to make Korsis eat his rash words spoken at dinner. Naemas becomes a management problem, apparently upon receipt of bad news. Korsis gives Naxosos a gift, something catches on fire, and the next morning Naxosos is waylaid and given serious advice (which he makes an attempt to remember, but ultimately can't) by Thais en route to a demonstration during which Joliel performs surprising feats of sorcery, a thunderstorm arises, and Naxosos ends up performing a work of magic as well, though in a way that is not entirely foreseen by anyone. Joliel suggests to Naxosos that the priests are against them. Korsis forgives Naxosos for saving his life.

This is the end of "the king of the waste."

- - - - - - - - -

king of the fishers

1. the one awaited

After the violent storm and the appearance of the messenger in King of the Waste/the blow, the Children of God will ascend to the mountains and take temporary refuge in a village on the site of an ancient complex of mines, called Fehischian-Or. (The area they're occupying in "the demonstration" is the first stage of that trek.) Since they will no longer be isolated in the waste, the tribe stops to wash tents and clothing at a waterfall; also, the priests will store their accounts of the meeting with the messenger in an astonishing cavern near the peak of the mountain, a library full of scrolls and tablets. Naxosos is recognized as someone important by yet another supernatural entity, yet this significant event is eclipsed almost entirely by the pandemonium that erupts upon Naxosos announcing to Naemas, then to their other friends, that he intends to ask the Goddess-on-Earth to marry him.

2. dream

Naxosos is mildly embarrassed to learn that "throwing the knife" didn't mean what he thought it did, but nevertheless manages to hang a few of his detractors out to dry. He and his cohort, with the warrior Merelioides to guard them, and including Naimejo, set out for a fishing village called Bortskina on a vaguely-described mission that arouses his misgivings to a great degree. Naxosos is warned by the fighter Zyanonchoulain that the sorcerer Joliel will attempt to influence him via dreams.

3. the dogs

The group, bruised but intact, arrives in Bortskina where the fisher people, upon receipt of the news about the messenger, the miracle at the oasis, and the announcement of the guardian of the scrolls, decide to acknowledge Naxosos as the avatar of the great god of tides, earthquakes, and storms, Sorah-nen. Naxosos and his retinue are feasted and he is presented with a rather disconcerting, and yet ultimately most agreeable, gift. An encounter with enemies, the Muratrayi, and their attendant enormous, fierce dogs along the road to Bortskina is recounted from a variety of points of view. Naxosos gains three young followers: Raikha the Orighoi, a fugitive girl from an aristocratic Celan family, and her two friends, orphaned fisher brothers named Kozvit and Andiamo, whom Raikha terms her retainers. Naxosos, Korsis, and Naemas impress the fishers mightily when they perform "the boar hunt" dance. The group discusses whether they might have to leave Bortskina earlier than planned due to indicators of potential trouble.

4. the avatar of Sorah-nen

Naxosos and his cohort, plus their three new companions, and minus the warrior Merelioides, are forced to make a rapid and quite perilous exit by sea from Bortskina when Celan bounty hunters come seeking them. They manage to escape the village to a relatively safe, inaccessible cove, though in the process their boat is destroyed, they lose almost all their gear – and, to add to their troubles, they are separated from the warrior Merelioides. After an anxious interval, they finally rejoin the warrior and regain the highway, though now it is clear they're being relentlessly hunted by multiple well-armed and -informed entities. Making their way at long last to the mountain pass village of Slaliros, where they are supposed to rendezvous with the Children of God, they are finally met with an encouraging sign.

5. the wild bees

Naxosos enjoys an idyll with Nirith, the Goddess-on-Earth's Second, though Raikha's subsequent jealous pique is not as enjoyable. Naxosos and his cohort finally rejoin the Children of God as the tribe begins the last leg of its journey to the village of Fehischian-Or. Their situation has grown a great deal more complicated and uncomfortable. Now there is discussion of the tribe splitting into several smaller groups as bounty hunters, military, and law men now are seeking Naxosos and his friends throughout three kingdoms. Some members do leave, mostly to return to the home canyons in the south. The main part of the tribe is reduced now to about seventy members: Eighteen men and youths who are priests or acolytes of the Aringni temple, twenty-five women and girls of varying ages including the Goddess-on-Earth, her Second, and Naxosos's mother Gorardeno Ember, and the rest men and boys in a wide variety of ages and stations in life, including Naxosos, his companions, and the six warriors. Amidst all of this, however, Naxosos has difficulty becoming discouraged, as he knows that in a few months he may become a father for the first time.

This is the end of "the king of the fishers."

- - - - - - -

King of the heights

1. the adulterous ones

After nearly two months of travel through mountains, the tribe arrives in Fehischian-Or. Naxosos has avoided discovery and capture on the road by assuming the role of a scribe and this is the role he assumes in the company of the Goddess-on-Earth, though the two of them plan to marry now that they have gained the semi-safety of the village situated in a high, remote area. He sees the young woman Meriezirim Honey for the first time and Naemas admits to involvement with her. Naxosos intuits that Honey, the much-younger wife of an elderly but very active village hetman, may be demon-possessed when he first sees her and the sorcerer Joliel assures him this is true. Joliel warns Naxosos to avoid the woman and indeed to avoid going inside the town walls at all if he wishes to stay out of trouble; Naxosos has little trouble remembering this advice.

2. the slip

A retinue including Naxosos and his cortege splits away from the main tribe to seek winter pasture for the cattle. At first the task is pastoral and almost transcendentally agreeable, but then Raikha, the Orighoi, falls and is killed, her corpse lost even to recovery. Naxosos and several others are nearly undone by grief and confusion. The sorcerer Joliel offers to take Naxosos to the Land of the Dead to say farewell to Raikha and predicts that he and Naxosos are destined to visit that land together again in the future.

3. wedding

Thais and Naxosos marry; Naxosos discovers finally thereby why is it never beneficial for the Goddess-on-Earth to become distraught.

4. letters

The wife of a rich villager, Meriezirim Honey, comes to the encampment of the Children of God to seek the services of "a scribe." It is clear she knows who Naxosos is and her constant arch references, sometimes uttered in crazy-sounding voices, create a state of general anxiety. Naemas confesses to Naxosos that Honey is extorting him into further meetings with her, that she does indeed know who Naxosos is and that she is pressuring him to flee with her to another city so they can marry. Naemas and Naxosos come to hard words over the issue, and Naxosos considers dismissing Naemas from his service. Now the weather is getting bad, however, so no one can easily or safely leave the area. Nirith almost miscarries. Other citizens of the village and surrounding province seek out Naxosos for his writing skill and he learns a great deal from them, and they from him.

5. the stones themselves

Naemas is nearly caught with Meriezirim Honey, whose husband is one of the village magnates. There is an uproar and Naemas barely gets away. Naxosos has to confront the village elders as they drag Honey from her home and bring her to the square to hear her confession and stone her to death (and her correspondent, if he can be found). To save Naemas from capture Naxosos reveals his own identity as Gorardeno Naxosos, wily fugitive sorcerer – and sorcery really is his only listed crime, though accusations always run rank everywhere he shows up – wanted in three kingdoms, with a high price on his head.

Naxosos confesses (falsely but convincingly) to a dalliance with Honey, though essentially he is frightened and repelled by her and nothing could be further from the truth. He manages to save Honey's life, although he's not really trying to, and escape with his own life via some fast talking, but the Children of God are exiled from Fehischian-Or, a warrant is taken out for Naemas's arrest and a party of armed men sent to find him, and Honey is also exiled from the village. (The elders have no wish to fight the warriors of Thais or contend with their own temple over the arrest or detainment of the supposed Shinsha-ava, so the tribe is allowed to leave.)

The Children of God are forced to take the Meriezirim Honey with them, though absolutely no one wants her along as it is clear, even to the men who appreciate her sexual profligacy and attractiveness, that she is a liability.

As well, it becomes more and more obvious as they flee that Honey is possessed. Korsis reveals to Naxosos that this is the reason Thais had been reluctant to come to Fehischian-Or in the first place, in spite of the tribe's dire need to hole up somewhere for a while after the blow: That Naemas was mixed up with Honey already and everyone knew, and moreover the woman is obsessed with the legend of the Shinsha-ava, promiscuous, untrustworthy, and unstable and the entire situation seemed a recipe for disaster, but Fehischian-Or was the closest place with people and houses where they would not be run off or attacked, and this had forced their hand.

Several days into their desperate flight through snow-covered mountains Naxosos discovers that Honey had caused Raikha's death, creating an effect of someone calling for help and tricking the girl into falling into a mining pit, this with the assistance of a demon. In a fury, he almost kills the woman (which Joliel and a number of others, among them several of the priests, urge him to do), but finds himself unable and ultimately ends up exorcising her of multiple demons.

He finds he hates her, but still Naxosos cannot bring himself to kill Honey and feels superstitiously that if they were to manage to abandon her somewhere, she would nonetheless be able to overtake them again. Thais feels they may be able to heal her completely and that Honey may in time become useful to the tribe; she and Naxosos fall out to a degree over this question, as Naxosos doubts Honey is completely free of demonic infestation or that she would ever be useful under even the best of circumstances. Nirith confesses to Naxosos that she sees Honey as a threat and tells him the woman has begun learning about poisons from Joliel.

The weather worsens and the tribe is snowed in on the heights. Nirith remains on the verge of miscarrying her infant and there is doubt whether it is still alive.

Naxosos turns twenty-nine years of age in the midst of a howling storm, his mind rife with suspicion and worry. He communicates via dreaming with his cousin Maliel, also a fugitive from the Steward of Aringni, Aritritas. Maliel urges Naxosos to meet with him at a particular place.

This is the end of "the king of the heights."

- - - - - - - -

king of the land of the dead

1. a bitter draught

Naxosos goes to an encounter with his fugitive cousin Saridizi Maliel. An unpalatable solution to Meriezirim Honey is found, and ultimately a most unstable one. Naxosos and his cohort are forced to flee for their lives as Maliel is arrested and imprisoned by Aritritas, steward of Arigne under Cela. Angels appear and birds speak. Naxosos puts away his spear.

2. the living dead

The Children of God are hunted and seldom can stay in any one place more than a few days before having to leave again. To his and others' great unease, Naxosos finds has become magnetic to all sorts of creatures, some human and some not, and there are many unusual and often distressing encounters. The tribe must be creative in eluding pursuit.

3. a devil's work

Naxosos attempts to break away from the Children of God but ultimately finds separation impossible.

4. the poison tree

Naxosos is arrested and imprisoned in the capitol city of Etrisiastoila and sentenced to be executed. Naemas and Joliel have a meeting that ends up being fatal for one. Joliel drops a big, fat dime on the Arigni temple.

5. the jinn

In the midst of a violent storm and flooding the Children of God, with assistance from several well-heeled parties, manage to spirit Naxosos away from the gallows and substitute the body of a man killed in a bar fight for his. Meriezirim Honey resurfaces at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way. Attempts are made to raise Naxosos and escape the city of Etrisiastoila. Naxosos has a meeting in the Land of the Dead.

This is the end of "the king of the Land of the Dead."

I hope y'all are doing well. (Why do I keep saying stuff like that????)  

2025-10-25 ♄ 06:17:54 PM