A decade ago, I started building a massive fantasy world inside my head. Since then, a project that started as an idea for a prequel (I'm calling Balance: Pilgrimage) has shined brighter in my mind than the story it spawned from. (Balance: A Comic Tragedy)
Pilgrimage revolves around a group of refugees traversing the concentric Dyson Spheres of the underworld to escape from the war on the surface. As the new dangers they find push them deeper and deeper, they also find new civilizations and species, some of whom join the group on their journey.
But most dangerous of all is the conflict raging on the surface. The war between humans and dragons threatens to destroy not only the surface world of Selena, but all the worlds underneath as well.
The underworld is not quite the dark demonic place most would imagine. It is full of life and beauty and each side of a sphere is unique. There are 5 spheres, with a world on both the inside and outside face, making 9 unique layers of the underworld, one surface world, and leaving room for a city in the center. There are demons and fiends, yes, but they only tend to live only on circle 4 and 5 (the two faces of the third sphere) because circle 4 is a world of lightning and death, and circle 5 is a world of bloodshed and war, but not all worlds are like that.
A basic idea for the layout of my underworld (from surface to center) is as follows: 1: Fire/Light 2: Balance/Opposites (also has large deposits of gold!) 3: Life/Growth (Think carnivorous plants and chemosynthetic animals... also, birds live in this world, and the rivers glow a brilliant shade of amber) 4: Death/Rust (And the light int the darkness: Kitsune who specialize in Lightning magic and healing, they call themselves Izuna) 5: War/Blood (This is where vampires and werewolves live) 6: Sky (Think about a thousand floating stones, each with its own miniature ecosystem, each unique from the others) 7: Agriculture (Minotaurs farming Humans. Enough said.) 8: Architecture (Giants live here! Also, I hope you like canals of shit. No, I'm not kidding.) 9: Sea/Ice (Please don't tap on the window, that sea serpent is bigger than you are. In fact, it barely even fits in this world.)
So yeah, the chapters my heart and mind have been set on writing recently occur right in the middle of the story. The refugees are descending from the fifth circle to the sixth circle, and one of them gets separated from the group. Alone and in a city full of creatures that want to eat him, he finds the will to live, and the power to do so, in his memories. And in the second chapter he witnesses the rallying of the nightmares, demonic horses who are the agents of The Dragonhawk, the mysterious archdemon no living being has ever seen.
