Before bringing the next preview of the book, I thought I’d
go over some of the elements within it. And what better place to start than
with those elements. The idea with them is much the same as magical attacks
within games like Kingdom Hearts or Skyrim, but I wanted to expand the range
considerably. The basic ones like fire, water, and electric are there, but then
you get ones that don’t seem like they would be much use, such as gravity and
wind. I’ve worked in as much as I could with all of them – looking for both
world uses and mobility uses. They are ever growing with new things always
being added to them. While some of them won’t get much use within this story,
you can guarantee that they will get time to shine in future stories.
As for the world itself, I’m looking at the construction-based
games. The ones where you can build cities and individual houses. The easiest
comparison to make would be The Sims series, along with SimCity. However, the
idea has been given a bit of an addition in the form of health for individual
pieces of those buildings, kind of like Fortnite or Dragon Quest Builders. This
comes into play quite a bit with one major area of the story. There’s also the
simulation zones and rooms, which put into real terms the idea of virtual
reality. As seen in the preview last month, zones build a place within the
parameters set, such as an office or a small plaza. Rooms are more like the
virtual reality we know, but here a person is literally transported to another
world as a copy that they have full control of.
The main talking point of the novel is the characters and
theming. I’m not going deep into this, as the story explores these things and
would ruin one of the largest parts of it. The police force – as seen from the
preview last month – is split into two divisions. The main force which makes up
the bulk of the entire force, and the elemental division. This elemental division
has Gary Storm as a Primary Commander, though there is a Secondary Commander as
well. These two head the elemental division along with numerous technicians and
researchers. The Primary Elemental Unit had already been formed prior to this
first episode, and is led by Terrance. The PEU also includes Robin, Heather,
Ira, and Martha. The Secondary Elemental Unit is formed with Kieron taking
leadership, Brandon and Emma by his side. The elemental division is different
from the main force in that there are only two units. The main force has four
people to a unit, with multiple units within both primary and secondary
categories.
The city of focus is Ballart [Ba-lart] within the region
of Gigalish. Ballart isn’t the capital or the largest city, but it does house
the largest police force station. The central area of the city features several
plaza areas. One of these holds the abandoned building that came known by the
name of the Infected Caverns. As stated above, health of individual pieces of
buildings is a factor that comes into play, and it is within this place that
happens. Another place within the city is near its outer ring – dubbed the dry
lands. There’s a story about why the place got the name, and it has to do with a
certain crowd of people trying to avoid paying for their power and damaging the
system.
As for the story, it’s a simple tale of good and evil,
but with a bit of moral questioning. I’m not going into it all as you can read it,
but the preview that will come later focuses on one of these questions. And
that is the running of the force. It’s one of the major themes within the story
that starts with the second episode. The main force sees the elemental division
as redundant – or at least the fact they have their own units as redundant. It
runs through most of the eight episodes, and needs to be read to fully feel the
impact of it. You’ll get an understanding of it upon reading the preview, I’m
sure.
All of these elements I’m talking about – including the
influences – are coming together nicely to bring a story that will have a clear
beginning and end while still leaving the way for more to be explored in the
future. It might seem like there’s too much of an emphasis on all the
influences, but I’m hoping the previews I’m posting prove that isn’t the case.
The next time I come back with a post about Elemental Heroes, it will be the
second preview. There’s other things that I haven’t talked about, as I want you
all to experience them yourselves when reading.