...I Found Aqwaeris

Aqwaeris has been long in the making. It first started to shine through when I was driving at any time of the day. That was my job. I mostly did long-hauls, and in Norway - a country with contrasts - and that means weather is a large part of the experience, naturally.

Driving at night feels special. There's a special mood to the landscape, and being out nighttime does something to the mind.

Most of the time, it's easy. Calm. Pretty. Like this.
Or it could be straight out boring:

Most people are asleep that time of day, of course. I was just another gear wheel in the machinery of society, and one way to look at it, was that I got paid to sit and drive different bits and bobs across whatever distance, but that I was also FREE to dream, to let my mind roam, to let imagination run where it wanted...
Then I felt like I got paid to do two things at once. That's satisfactory. I still miss the long-hauls sometimes.

One night I sensed something north of me, there, in the gap between horizon and sky, I was chasing a feel more than anything else, a mood.

It was Aqwaeris. Maybe it came with a hint of aurora borealis, the last rays of sun - or maybe it was the Earthshine?

First time I took notes for my world building, vague, fumbling words in my diary, was on goods terminal duty a chilly morning in 2010. I was in my piggy-back truck waiting for a goods train running late.

But I had been thinking about some fascinating characters a while already - one of my first characters is still hanging out sometimes with those in my current story.

AQWAERIS

...is a world that is bigger than Earth. It's a planet with a lot of ocean, after a cataclysmic event some centuries prior, known as the Rift Event.

My current story is from the continent called Korza, where my folks live comfortably in the backdrop of this apocalypse; it's not a "post-apocalyptic fantasy", since the world is more or less mended - but there are traces here and there of what happened, and some of my characters are finding evidence of how their past has shaped them.

One year is 390 days long, 13 months, each 30 days; the days are longer than ours too, and their clocks show "hours and bells". One bell is two hours long, the amount of time good for getting some useful work done before a break is needed, or it's time to water your transport animal.

Aqwaeris is revolving around the Sun, and around Aqwaeris revolve two moons; Lun and Ayu. Only Lun is visible to the ordinary human eye, but the two moons together are causing some wicked tidal changes.

They don't measure such in metres, so what we'd call 50-60 metres tidal difference at the most, they'd call about thirty-thirty five fathoms. They measure their roads in leagues, and streets in furlongs.

There's magic. All over the place! Erispower from the planet Aqwaeris; all nature and life harness it. There's Sunpower, which nothing can live without. There's also negative magic, the Ayupower. The Goddess is most definitely a Sun Goddess. Or is She? Is it definite at all?

What happens when magic is widely accessible and universal? Some people have more power than others, haven't they? Is that good or bad? How does magic power work on individuals and the collective mind and memory, when mostly all have access to magic?

Wouldn't it be nice if you had a talent, something you really like to do, and then there's magic that will help you do it better, get good results every time, a Skill that makes you capable of communicate with the materials you'd use for crafting, you'd know by trained instinct what choices to make and people pay you to create stuff with your magical Skill?

What if your Skill wasn't about crafting, but could do other amazing things, like forcing people to be honest, to Heal people's ails without cutting into anyone - or manipulate people into seeing what you want them to see?

What happens when people burst their expectation limits?

I have to admit one thing - I was adding new concepts and new depth to the magic system as late as 2024, when the drafting really was picking up speed. The day didn't have enough hours, I was writing fast, there was pressure on to get the story out.

That pressure comes and goes in ebbs and flows - I discovered my tap, the flow, how to handle that pressure. I need to go slower sometimes and concentrate on getting the right elements in, but what's fascinating, is that I can simply open the tap and it runs.

Aqwaeris: The Cycle of Korza

It's a series.

I've been using "Aqwaeris: The Cycle of Korza" as a working title, and who knows, it might do the job also in the future.

Korza means "across the wind band", or maybe "up north", or something like that in an ancient language to the south of them. I'll talk more about earthshine and wind bands and all that later.

Some things in Aqwaeris have been changing a lot over the years. Not so much the world in itself, that has only developed. But when I began, I was tinkering. I had to learn the craft of writing. I was procrastinating, not knowing what to do. Then something happened - I got a brand new shiny idea - and with it, came change.

I imagined an awfully young queen (she's aged 12 when the first book starts), totally unprepared of inheriting the throne. Not just any throne, she's not only queen of a queendom now named Evane'eli, but she's High Queen of the Korzan Alliance, she's the highest among the Majesties, the leader of the Korzan Realm of the Eleven Allies, which is something that came with her pedigree (I knew it was so from quite early on, but it took a while to realise the full implications).

The High Seat can only be held by a queen, assumedly. There is a physical High Seat - a Throne Chair - that has the magic needed to test the regent up against the Records, so there's that.

She's wearing what's known as a Power Crown, which enhances her magic. When she suddenly reaches the throne, her predecessors have been weak rulers, of not so strong magic power. Magic has also been less in people in general for a while, but by Ayu's dirt trails and bobbing bowsprites! That's about to change.

She is High Queen Lunize. And the main gem she's wearing in her power crown is alive!

Unlike the gems worn by her closest ancestors - but then this one is a bit special.

The story didn't want to be told as long as I kept trying in my mother tongue. I've always loved reading fantasy in English, so at some point, I decided to give it a try.

That's when all Korza broke loose!

Then my Main Character Jack came along, and that helped a LOT!

He's a noble, from neighbouring Fal-Farik, a duchy called Tarawon, but when Book 1 starts, he has almost just arrived in Castleport, Evane'eli, the Realm's capital city.

I eventually discovered Tarawon's deep roots later, but I saw this begrudged, young guy who didn't really know what to do with himself. He's well raised, but a bit of a rebel. When the story starts, he doesn't know yet what struck him. He's confused. He didn't choose himself to move, but he's in Castleport when High Queen Lunize ascends the throne and before he knows it, he has stumbled right into the very centre of things.

Or did someone give him a good shove from behind?

Or was someone chosen as a Well Spike churning him in? Or who churns whom into what?

He's Honourable Sir Jacquelon d'Oldor d'e Tarawon, side-branched from the direct duchy line. All he ever thought he'd get out of life, was staying in Tarawon, tutoring the duchy line's youngsters in stuff like mathematics and riding, work with horses, make a calm, pleasurable and somewhat boring living worthy of a side-branch noble. A relative boredom he might need to spice up a little with interesting stuff. Maybe a little harmless action.

Nah.
No way.
Not anymore...

Maybe a little too much action.
When does it ever get too much?
Without dying from it, I mean?

The Goddess.
She schemes.
The Fates Weave.

Everyone has a Path. People may choose to follow it by trusting the Goddess has chosen well for them, or they can oppose it. Jack tries that, but the Goddess gives him a push, it seems.

Jack is simply a young man who's learning to cope.

People are free to make what they want out of the Goddess' gifts, of course, nothing is set in stone.

Off you go, then, Jack.

Tell how it goes...
Wait.
He did that.