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Apocalypse Tamer 140: Man vs Epilogue (Final Chapter)
🕑 Added 2023-04-13 08:07:29 +0000 UTCPrevious Chapter
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When Basil Bohen woke up, his world had changed.
The day started like the one where civilization first ended: with a black Bombay cat kneading his back and howling for breakfast.
“Yeah yeah, gimme a second,” Basil grumbled as he rose out of bed. Plato immediately bolted out of the room and towards the kitchen. “Some things never change.”
After rubbing his tired eyelids, Basil strode out of the bedroom and moved on to the well-stocked kitchen. It felt like a lifetime ago since he last walked the rooms of René’s house. The Trimurti had rebuilt it from scratch, down to the very last brick. Basil could almost smell the nostalgia in the air.
He had grown weary of it.
Basil prepared breakfast behind his counter, the dim morning light falling through his window. A peaceful emerald aurora glowed in the sky. It meshed well with the greenery outside and soothed Basil’s heart.
“There.” Basil gave his cat a bowl of food. “Be ready, our visitors will arrive at noon.”
His cat nodded without a word and then quickly buried his nose into the food. Basil couldn’t suppress a smile.
After taking a shower and stocking the last of his belongings into his inventory—except for his Renault—Basil patiently waited for his visitors to arrive. He sat on the threshold, sipping his coffee cup to the tune of birds signing across the marshes. He had almost forgotten how much he enjoyed the Barthe’s simple, natural beauty. He would miss it dearly.
A familiar black Mercedes drove along the path leading to the house and stopped quietly by. The driver, a petite woman still wearing her gendarme uniform, stepped down first. Her new boyfriend followed after her alongside his little daughter. He was an unassuming man with short red hair and glasses. His eyes darted around at the greenery, which he was clearly unused to.
It felt so strange to see Benjamin missing his horns and wings.
“Welcome to your new home, Officer Elissalde.” Basil warmly shook the driver’s hand. “Are these your companion and stepdaughter?”
“They arrived straight from Paris,” Neria replied with a kind smile. She put a hand on the child following her. “Come on Celia, say hello to Mr. Bohen.”
“Hello,” the little girl said shyly. She looked so much like her father, with inquisitive eyes and short black hair. “What level are you, Mister?”
“Celia!” Neria scolded her. “That’s not something you ask of strangers!”
“I do admit I am curious too.” Benjamin examined Basil quietly, his eyes sharp as an eagle’s. “I possess a Perk that allows me to see someone’s classes and levels, but it says yours is too high to analyze. This is the first time it has happened to me.”
“Let’s just say I’ve gone through a lot of adventures in the past few months,” Basil replied evasively. “I’m not a social person, so my cat and I had plenty of time to do Quests.”
Celia’s eyes lit up when he mentioned Plato. The Bombay cat emerged from the house as if on cue, much to the child’s delight. “He’s so beautiful,” she whispered before quickly scratching his ears. Plato, never one to miss an opportunity to be spoiled, let her touch him. “What’s his name?”
“Plato,” Basil answered, smirking. “He’s quite the glutton, but he kept me safe in troubled times.”
Plato glared at him in silence while basking in Celia’s adoration.
“The last few months have been strange for us all,” Neria said. “I’m still not used to the System, nor the fact a dungeon sprang up so close to Dax of all places.”
Benjamin nodded sharply. “It’s been over six months since the System appeared, and we still understand little of it.”
If only he knew he helped design it once, Basil mused. “Neria told me you came here to study the Barthe’s dungeon?”
“The French head of the European Dungeon Management Agency, General Leblanc, personally assigned me to monitor this place.” Benjamin smiled at his girlfriend. “Though I suspect he mostly transferred me there so that I might settle with Neria.”
“Thankfully, I knew a few friends in Bordeaux with the General’s ear,” Neria replied coyly. “Your sale offer came in the nick of time, Mr. Bohen. It felt like fate at work.”
“Is that so?” Basil mused. “Well, you’ll find no closer place to the dungeon than this one.”
“What can you tell us of it?” Benjamin asked, suddenly tense. He probably worried for his child’s safety. “Must we expect to raise a fence?”
Basil shook his head. “Most critters here are completely harmless, and the goblins are good neighbors so long as you respect their personal space. They’ll even let you explore the dungeon’s depths if you ask nicely.”
Basil would never have expected to get along with the little bastards, but most monsters turned out to be quite friendly when not born with the instinctive urge to kill Players.
“I put in a good word with the local tribe for your arrival,” Basil said. “They’re fond of jerky, so I suggest introducing yourselves by inviting them to a feast for introductions. Once you do, you’ll become part of the tribe in all but name.”
“Goblins?” Celia asked, suddenly interested. “Do they ride flying pigs? I’ve heard they do that.”
“No, but they train horned rabbits,” Basil replied with amusement. “I keep a few in my backyard, if you want to pet one.”
Celia immediately lost interest in Plato, much to his annoyance. “Can I go, Father?”
“I have no objection,” her father replied calmly. “Mr. Bohen can give us a tour of the house in the meantime.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Basil replied before inviting them inside. “This way please.”
The visit was short and to the point. While it pleased Basil to see Neria and Benjamin happy, their presence in the house left him unsettled.
It had been nearly four weeks since the Trimurti recreated the world, and Basil mostly spent them putting his affairs in order and checking on his old acquaintances.
As it turned out, these reincarnated people were strangers to him. They wore the same face as the people he once knew, but retained neither their memories nor history. They kept similar mannerisms, enough to make Basil uneasy in their presence, but there were subtle differences in their behavior that betrayed the illusion. Simeon led an adventurer guild in Bulgaria, one that earned fame for teaming up with dragons rather than killing them; General Leblanc managed the new agency in charge of dealing with System-related phenomena; Benjamin met Neria years before the System appeared while on vacation and recently decided to move in with her.
As the Trimurti said, they’d all earned a new chance at a happy life, freed from their bitter past.
A pity Basil no longer fit in it. As far as Neria knew, they had only met a few weeks ago when she approached him about potentially buying his house.
Their battle-forged friendship now only existed in his memories.
“I remember you saying you expected a fourth person?” Basil asked as he showed Benjamin and Neria the guest room. He briefly peeked through the window to check on Celia, finding her playing with his horned rabbits under Plato’s watch. “Will they be arriving soon?”
“Celia’s Tunisian penpal will spend the summer with us, but she won’t arrive before the month’s end,” Benjamin replied with a groan. “Her cat Misha has more levels than all of us combined.”
“At this rate, cats will reach level 30 before humans do,” Neria said. “The highest level recorded so far is 27.”
Basil wondered how they would react if he revealed his true level. Level progression in the new Trimurti System was painfully slow, especially since experience gains had been divorced from the act of murder. Fighting provided experience, but the System saw no difference between a sports competition and a fight to the death. It rewarded increasing skills, not the act of shedding blood.
As a result, many people leveled up without ever meeting a monster. Musicians gained experience playing their craft; gardeners raised happy vegetables that could talk to them; alchemists became better at brewing medicine with each life saved. The idea that one could slaughter their way to godhood was relegated to the most condemned of conspiracy theories.
Neither had the appearance of dungeons caused society to collapse. Since they no longer felt the urge to kill for levels, many monsters were more than willing to coexist peacefully with humankind; while the army and police could handle those that remained hostile. Dungeon cores—the strange runestones that replaced Neurotowers—were an energy resource waiting to be exploited, as oil and uranium before them.
The appearance of dungeons was no longer a tragedy, but a change. Much like the industrial revolution altered the course of history, the System had become something to seize rather than to suffer through. Europe, the USA, China… all power blocks across the world not only survived its appearance, but studied how they could benefit from it.
Some things won’t change though, Basil thought. He had heard many officials discuss the System’s potential for warfare, how it would change the world’s power balance, and how crafter-made AI might one day take over the world. Even without Dis, fear and greed endure.
But Basil kept faith. He knew things would eventually improve. After all, mankind had bounced back from its own utter annihilation. The human spirit could overcome even its darker nature, given time.
“I’m quite surprised you’re selling this house at all,” Benjamin noted after completing the tour. The rune-powered generator in the basement particularly impressed him. “You could earn three times more than your current price.”
“It’s not a question of money,” Basil replied. “This house belonged to a dear friend of mine. I wanted the new owners to treat it with the respect it deserves.”
“We will,” Neria reassured him kindly. “I promise you that your faith in us isn’t misplaced. We will take good care of this house.”
Basil smiled. “I know.”
“How so?” Benjamin asked with a frown. “I appreciate the trust you’ve shown us, but you seem awfully confident.”
“Call it a gut feeling. But I assure you that I didn’t make that decision lightly.” Basil had seen these two at their best and worst; they would treat René’s legacy with respect. “I’m about to move somewhere far away, and I don’t think I’ll ever come back. This place carries memories dear to me, and I wanted to entrust it to good people.”
“Memories…” Neria’s eyes wandered to the window and the brilliant aurora in the sky. “I’ve heard someone tell me once that once a friend departs, all we have left are memories. It is through them that we maintain an eternal bond with the dead.”
Basil’s smile faded away slightly. “Yes,” he replied to this former friend, who returned from the dead, “that’s a nice way to say it. An eternal bond.”
Afterward, Basil gave the couple a rundown on how to raise his poultry and rabbits—though he had the feeling little Celia would do much of it herself—gave them the key, and departed the house. He drove away in his Renault with Plato occupying the site next to him.
Basil gave the house one last glance on the way out, one without bitterness nor sorrow. He had already said goodbye to its first incarnation in another lifetime, after watching it burn away. René’s home would enjoy a second life too, with a new guard kind enough to see it prosper. He hoped Neria and Benjamin could make happy memories of their own there.
“Plato?” Basil asked as they drove through the marsh.
“What?” his best friend answered.
“How long do you intend to sulk?”
“Until the end of time.” The cat dropped the illusion he had clad himself in and revealed his true self: an adorable Rakshasa kitten, whose eyes brimming with sadness and frustration. “I was a smilodon, Basil! A sabertoothy tigergod of the hunt! This is unjust!”
“Artemis’ divine essence had to go back home at one point,” Basil pointed out. He was mourning his lost halberd, and had yet to choose another Soulbound Weapon to replace it with. Without Dis to keep them bound to Earth, the old gods of Olympus vanished after the Trimurti recreated Earth. “You’re still the most powerful feline on the planet.”
So strong, in fact, that he had to disguise himself as a normal cat not to spook the locals.
“But Bugsy kept his wings! Why couldn’t I keep the fangs?” Plato started grooming himself to destress. “No amount of saliva can lick away my suffering!”
“Your appearance doesn’t matter to me, Plato.” Basil gently scratched his friend behind the ears. “You’ll always be a tiger king to me.”
It took much rubbing, but his gentle hand eventually won over Plato. “Mmm… your flattery does soothe my pain a bit. Please do it again, for the rest of your life.”
“I’ll think about it,” Basil mused.
The world may have changed, but their friendship had not.
“We should find another god to take the essence from,” Plato suggested, the same way a child would suggest buying candy from a store. “We must salvage this situation, Basil. For my sake. I deserve to become a smilodon.”
Yes, some things never changed.
The Renault trailed along the riverbank, before stopping next to an empty church. A graveyard on a mound oversaw the water below under the radiant sunlight. Bugsy was busy decorating the tombstones with a tasteful arrangement of flowers; each memorial welcomed its own unique combination of roses, tulips, sunflowers, and other colorful combinations. The wind blew their delicious smell all over the marsh, attracting fist-sized bees and phantom dragonflies.
“Welcome, Boss, Plato.” Bugsy had lost his star-tail alongside Apollo’s essence, but miraculously kept his wings of fire. His loss of divine power hadn’t diminished his enthusiasm in the slightest. “How did the sale go?”
“Pretty good.” Basil stored the Renault inside his inventory after he and Plato set foot outside it. This car was no replacement for Steve, but it would prove useful in the journey to come. “Are you sure you don’t want to say goodbye to the house before we leave?”
“Why, Boss?” Bugsy pointed at a spot on his body, which Basil assumed housed the heart. “It will always be safe in there.”
“You know, must you keep calling Basil ‘Boss’?” Plato said joyfully. “Flattery gets to his head.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Basil replied with a smirk. “But he’s not wrong, Bugsy. You’ve saved my life and Earth along with it. We should make you the new boss.”
“Nah, I’ll keep calling you Boss, Basil.” Bugsy chuckled to himself. “I’m your friend and your subordinate both.”
“Funny,” a familiar voice said from behind the Bohens. “Hagen told me the same once.”
It didn’t surprise Basil that Walter Tye could sneak up on a level ninety-six party without being detected. The dragonknight looked over his shoulder to find his favorite shopkeeper standing behind him, his arms crossed with a thoughtful look on his face.
“These gods of yours could have done more to reward you,” he said with a snort. “Though I will admit raising eight billion souls from the dead is quite the laudable feat. Not to mention rebuilding an entire reality from scratch.”
“Could you have done it, oh arrogant necromancer?” Plato asked mirthfully.
Walter Tye frowned in annoyance, but he was proud enough not to lie. “I admit such display power is beyond me… at least for now. I am convinced mortals can surpass the gods given enough time.”
“We know they can become gods at least,” Basil replied. The implications of Walter Tye’s presence worried him a bit. “If you’re here, I assume there is no Level Barrier to keep you out of Earth?”
“There is a barrier, but I figured out a way around it. I am an archmage after all.” Walter smiled thinly. “Don’t fret, Basil. Your world has powerful defenders, who will make sure no wandering terror threatens it.”
“Such as you?” Plato asked with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Did you mistake me for an ungrateful wretch, young feline?” Walter shrugged. “Your lot saved my world and many others from disaster. Should you find yourself in need of shelter, you will always find sanctuary with me. I assume many share this sentiment across the cosmos.”
Basil nodded in thankfulness. After shouldering the weight of a world on his shoulders, it felt good to have friends willing to help share the burden. With the likes of Vainqueur and Walter watching over the newborn Earth from afar, no new Maleking would ever despoil it again.
As for Dis, its complete destruction meant that Maxwell’s kind would not return to sow tragedies across the cosmos. The Systems touched by the abomination purged it in the wake of the Trimurti’s return to power. Blackcinders, Wyrde, the Maleking, the Horsemen… all of these villains did not return from the dead either, their souls having become the mortar of the reborn Earth.
Much like its victims, nothing remained of Dis’ legacy but memories. And that was for the best.
“Although… remnants of both the Apocalypse Force and the Unity remain afoot.” Walter’s smile turned into a scowl. “I doubt they’ll amount to much with their leadership decapitated, but even the smallest weeds can overrun a garden if left unattended.”
“We’ll go after them,” Bugsy replied with a sharp, decisive nod. “Ronald and the rest of our Guild are waiting for us in Outremonde to begin the hunt.”
“We’ll wipe out these factions and ensure they won’t make a comeback,” Basil confirmed. “We’ll nip the Maleking’s would-be heirs in the bud.”
“And what will you do afterward?” Walter asked, an eyebrow raised. “Settle in your girlfriend’s homeworld?”
“Never!” Plato snarled. “I shall not stand a world where barbarians eat my kind for breakfast!”
“We’ll keep visiting Vasi’s family on holidays, but we’ve decided to build a home somewhere else,” Basil said as he prayed for the dead. “The multiverse is a vast place. There has to be a world that satisfies us all.”
A dozen tombstones were erected in the yard. One belonged to René; and another, to Basil’s mother Aleksandra. Her presence there surprised Basil; he assumed this new reality followed a different history than the one it overwrote. Celia being alive in this reality, although her original self had perished long before the System appeared, only confirmed it to him. Perhaps Aleksandra had enjoyed a better relationship with her son and came to live with him before passing on from natural causes.
He wasn’t too interested in learning more. This new world was as foreign to Basil as Outremonde. He simply no longer fit in.
It didn’t bother Basil much. His team was his home. He could settle in the very depths of Hell, so long as he had them by his side. The knowledge his human friends would live happy lives soothed his heart.
Other tombstones contained no corpses, yet honored the dead nonetheless. Basil prayed before each of them, with Plato, Bugsy, and Walter watching in solemn silence. The words engraved on the stony surface would remain for future generations.
Shellgirl
2022-2023
She always gave joy for free.
Rosemarine Eglantine de la Barthe
2022-2023
She ate the moon and spat out the sun.
Steve Roadwonders
2022-2023
A Bohen until the very end.
Perhaps they were alive out there, in a reincarnated form. Basil hoped so. The Trimurti told him that death was not quite the end, and he had faced enough undead to give their word credence.
“We’ll meet them again someday, Boss,” Bugsy said with certainty. “I can feel it in my gut.”
“We will,” Plato confirmed. “Do you remember when we met René again, Basil?”
“I do,” he replied. “One day, we will all end up in the same place again.”
“It is only a matter of years before this world’s humans develop portal magic of their own,” Walter pointed out. “I wonder if some will figure out how much you sacrificed for their sake.”
Basil shrugged. “I don’t care if they do.”
Basil never wanted to become an Overgod nor to be worshiped as a hero; he only wanted to get the job done and then live the rest of his life in peace. He had achieved half of this goal and would work hard to complete the other.
“Well, I do.” Plato licked his fur. “They owe us a statue or two.”
“Oh, Little Nessia said her people intend to build us one!” Bugsy chirped happily. “I can’t wait to see her again!”
Plato was immediately interested. “Perhaps we should settle in the Sunsea. I’ve heard the weather is nice, and they worship winged cats.”
Little Nessia should never have mentioned that sphinx demigoddess in Plato’s presence. It sowed the seed of future disasters.
“You’re also welcome to visit my world when you wish it to,” Walter said. “I have big plans, and adventurers of your caliber would help make them a reality.”
Plato’s head perked up in interest. “Do you have more gods to hunt?”
“Not quite,” Walter replied, much to the feline’s disappointment. “But… I’ve told you that I wandered the multiverse looking for a way to save my world from entropy. The way you brought your own back from the brink only strengthened my resolve.”
Visiting Walter’s world wasn’t high among the team’s priorities, but Basil guessed they could give it a shot. He wouldn’t turn down people in need. “We could stop there after the Sunsea,” he said, “I’m sure Vasi would enjoy reading through your magical library.”
“Where is she by the way?” Walter asked with a frown. “Already in Outremonde?”
Basil raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Shouldn’t you read our minds to find out?”
“I can’t do that anymore.” Walter chuckled darkly. “You’re only three levels behind me, Basil. I would need to break down your mind’s door, and even then I’m not sure I would succeed.”
“Good to know,” Basil replied, quite pleased. He didn’t like having anyone inside his head. “I’m still four levels away from completing Technomancer.”
Basil wondered what would happen if he were to reach level 100 now. Would he ascend to godhood? Or would he ascend to another world with greater dangers and adventures to offer, as Victor Dalton once suggested to him long ago?
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Walter said with a smirk. “At your current power, it might be years before you gain a level, let alone four.”
“I thought you couldn’t read minds anymore?”
“I can’t, Basil, but you remain an open book.” The necromancer looked to his left, right as a rift in space opened. A familiar fairy stepped through it. “Vasi, here you are.”
“Walter, have you come to escort us?” Vasi rejoined her boyfriend and kissed him on the lip. She alone hadn’t changed in the slightest, as no divine essence from Earth powered her. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“I would wait forever for you,” Basil joked. His girlfriend answered with a short laugh. “But I do wonder, what took you so long?”
“I went to check on Simeon in Bucharest and got sidetracked,” Vasi replied. “The Swords of Saint-George are doing great, by the way.”
“Good for them.” It pleased Basil to know his homeland would be in the hands of great and capable adventurers. “I should tell Bulgaria goodbye next.”
“I was about to suggest we make a stop in Shumen.” Vasi grinned ear to ear. “You won’t believe what awaits us there.”
“Oh?” Basil couldn’t suppress his curiosity. “Lead the way then.”
“Are you coming with us, Mr. Tye?” Bugsy asked.
“I will take my leave,” Walter replied calmly. “I have the feeling we will meet again soon.”
Vasi put her hands on her waist. “So long as it doesn’t involve B&C games.”
Walter’s smirk widened further. “I was about to suggest Monster Poker.”
“Whatever the game, I will take you on with all my might,” Basil boasted.
Vasi rolled her eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I shall await your challenge then, Basil.” Walter saluted them with a short reverence; a small gesture that, coming from someone so proud and powerful, meant a great deal indeed. “We shall meet again, my friends.”
He vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving the Bohens alone.
“I don’t know if that’s just me,” Vasi said with a coy smile. “But he sounds nicer than before.”
“I think he is.” Basil chuckled. “Even the living dead could warm up to others, I suppose.”
“I should learn to teleport too,” Plato said as he stepped first through the portal. “It would work wonders for dramatic exits.”
“Just turn invisible,” Basil replied. He crossed the rift and froze upon facing what awaited him on the other side.
Once a small metropolis amidst broken hills, Shumen had changed quite a great deal with the world’s rebirth. The Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument stood tall over a vast jungle that swallowed houses and buildings alike. A primordial forest had grown in symbiosis with the city, covering concrete towers in protective moss, raising rows of trees along the road, and causing vines stairs to link elevated wooden houses together. Shumen had become a land where nature and civilization intermingled together into a cohesive, peaceful lot.
A field of familiar plants stretched before the Bohens in the middle of what must have been a park. A hundred mouths salivated at their coming, chirping in joy.
“Oh, a Mister!” A carnivorous plant observed Basil head to toe, her maw many shades of gold, her leaves shining like emeralds. “Welcome, welcome!”
“Who is this Mister?” another plant asked. She looked almost identical to the first, albeit younger and not yet fully grown. “He is so tall!”
Basil’s heart skipped a beat in his chest as a small horde of tiny monsters no larger than Plato gathered around his team. Small vine legs carried them out of the ground. Some wore ribbons, others rosy bow ties.
Basil had to hold back tears when his Monster Insight sent him a notification.
Killaplants
Level 2 [Plant]
A hundred baby Rosemarines had come to greet the Bohens.
“That’s a big bug!” one of the Killaplants said upon noticing an astonished Bugsy. “When I’m grown, I’ll become as fearsome as he is!”
“Mister, can I eat your shoes?” One of the plants tugged Basil’s sleeve, saliva dripping from her mouth. “I’m hungry!”
Basil, unable to resist such beautiful greenery, tossed his shoes to the Killaplants. They promptly caught the treat in midair within their jaws and chewed them whole.
“I can’t believe it…” Plato was at a loss for words. Even the unflappable cat knew not how to respond to this strange turn of events. “How… how is that possible?”
“This… this is the place.” Bugsy glanced around, his eyes widening in joy. “After Blackcinders destroyed Shumen, Rose… she sowed the seeds of a forest over the ruins.”
Could one of them be Rosemarine reborn? Basil wondered as he observed this beautiful, talking garden. If so, then Shellgirl and the others… Are they out there somewhere, waiting for us?
“It’s what Vishnu said,” Vasi whispered. “The dead may be gone, but their feelings remain.”
The good people left behind lived long after them.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The words echoed in Basil’s head, both an encouragement and a sermon. He remembered his battle with the Maleking, the warmth that spurred him to carry on the fight, and he finally figured out his answer.
“I think I understand now,” Basil whispered. “It’s faith.”
“Faith?” Vasi squinted at him in her confusion. “In your God?”
“This is the answer to the Maleking’s question. About the source of my strength.” Basil had mulled long and hard over this conundrum. “Everyone puts his faith in something. Some believe in themselves, or their skills. Others trust in luck, in magic, in money, or science.”
“But at their core, all of these beliefs share the same root,” Plato guessed.
“Yes, they do.” Basil looked up at the sky, where the sun and moon both shone brightly. No fake stars nor circuit marred the heavens’ beauty. “To have faith is to believe that there is something out there that can make life better. That you can find happiness.”
And that was why Basil first gave a centipede a second chance after they tried to slay him; why he had let Rosemarine, Shellgirl, and Vasi into his life; why he had spared Benjamin in spite of all his crimes.
Because Basil thought things would turn out for the better. Because he had faith in the future.
And as he watched the sun illuminate a reborn Shumen teeming with life, Basil knew that both this world and his party had many happy days ahead of them.
The Bohens’ time on Earth had ended.
But their journey had only just begun.
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DISMAKER LABS WISHES YOU A HAPPY ENDING!
Art by Dinovoila
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THANKS FOR COMPLETING APOCALYPSE TAMER!
[GAME CREDITS]
Author, Game Designer, and Level Designer - Maxime J. Durand, aka Void Herald.
Beta Tester and Proofreader - Daniel Zogbi.
Character & Bestiary Artist - Dinovoila
Cover Artist - Dinovoila & Vitaly S. Alexius.
And my most sincere thanks to all of my supporters on Patreon!
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A/N: That was a long journey, but all roads must end.
Special thanks to Daniel Zogbi, my proofreader and first reader, and to Dinovoila, whose illustrations gave life to the world of Apocalypse Tamer.
To be perfectly blunt, Apocalypse Tamer was written in pretty difficult times. Some members of my family went through Covid-related debt issues, and I had to support them financially; others struggled with cancer; my great-aunt, a great woman who had survived WWII and the Cold War alike, ended up dying from a stroke; some of my friendships ended in rather difficult circumstances; I spent a year setting up a company and moving to another country, which proved a long and grueling process. I’ve also grown somewhat dissatisfied with a few things in my personal life (particularly a pervading feeling of loneliness) that colored everything else. The shift in Apocalypse Tamer’s early humor to the darker volumes afterward is partly because of negative events happening in the background. It’s very hard for me to write jokes and humor when I’m not happy with myself.
On the flip side of the coin, things went more swimmingly work-wise. Apocalypse Tamer is my most profitable series on Kindle, which will change a lot of things going forward; I’ve pulled up a team to design a new webtoon; though it was a struggle to set it up, I now have a company to manage my various IPs and start branching out.
All in all, after the high point of the 2020/2021, 2022 turned out to be something of a mixed blessing. That heavily influenced the writing of Tamer, and fit into the larger theme of the story: namely, moving on and the subtle power of resolve.
When life throws shit at you–especially stuff you can’t influence–the best you can do is soldier on until better days arrive. As someone wisely told me once: “when in bad times, wait for the good; when in good times, prepare for the bad.” Loved ones die, troubles come up, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed; but in the end, better days await for those who persevere in the face of adversity.
This theme is all the more relevant to Apocalypse Tamer because it is something of a conclusion to the ‘Dis’ saga I began so long ago. Few know it, but my first official professional work was a blog web serial called Dis Acedia, whose first volume was published on Amazon as the Laws of Dis. It told the story of prisoners trapped in a maze called Dis, which devoured the souls of the dead and fed on the torment of the fallen. Many of my characters, such as Malacoda (the future Maleking), Brina, Wyrde, Lazarus (the future Dismaker/Maxwell), Loctis (the living swarm from Underland) and Shroud (Mathias Martel from The Perfect Run), were first conceptualized over this first draft.
Dis Acedia found neither joy nor success, and I burned out on it halfway through it; mostly due to overambition and frustration on my part. After learning from my mistakes, I rebooted it in the form of Magik Online, my first work published on Royal Road. That one too led me to a burnout and was never completed.
Yet these works’ legacy lived on in future works. Themes I tried to address in them were better developed in Never Die Twice, Kairos, Underland, and even Vainqueur; and the color system I had developed for Magik Online became the foundation of The Perfect Run’s system.
Yet one of my biggest regrets was never giving the characters of the Dis saga a proper conclusion. I did that with Shroud in The Perfect Run, but characters like the Maleking, Wyrde, Brina, and the Dismaker remained in limbo. It took me a while to realize that my failure with these works was because of my own inexperience and overambition; by trying to do too many things at once, I failed to properly handle them.
In a way, Apocalypse Tamer was a way for me to give a spiritual conclusion to these abandoned works and characters. It was meant to give closure to my experiments with the LitRPG genre, exploring what I feel are its strengths, weaknesses, and implications. By tying up the multiverse I suggested all the way back with Vainqueur the Dragon, I feel I can finally move on too.
As I write these lines, I have mixed feelings about Apocalypse Tamer. On one hand, I feel it doesn’t quite live up to earlier works like The Perfect Run, and that I failed to resolve many issues I’ve grown to struggle with as far as LitRPGs are concerned (unmanageable power-escalation over time, reducing everything to numbers, mechanics taking over at the expense of character work); I now strongly believe LitRPGs are at their best in the early stages, when skills are rare and manageable, or when used lightly/without hard stats.
On the other hand, Apocalypse Tamer is indeed my most financially successful series yet, and it let me explore ideas like a European System Apocalypse, crafting, and some very strong themes such as faith and perservering in the face of sorrow; I feel the Blackcinders/Shumen arc in particular is among my best, as was the Misha interlude and the final fourth of the story. It also let me further explore characters such as Walter and Vainqueur, to tie my stories together in what I feel is a coherent whole. The story’s system is also my best yet, mechanically speaking.
If I could sum up Tamer, it would be this way: the story’s lows were very low, but the highs were worth it.
In fact, I think many issues I had with Tamer are less about the story itself and more about the context and process that surround it. Namely, I feel the LitRPG format has some intrinsic issues I can’t manage to fix no matter what I try, at least when I write the genre seriously (satire comes easier); and writing chapters after a deadline means I put quantity before quality. Many times have I published chapters I feel deserved more time to polish not because I felt they were ready, but because I swore to publish X chapters on X days.
The more I published I was unhappy with, the more I grew frustrated with the story and the less I liked writing it. I came perilously close to burning out on Apocalypse Tamer a few times, especially in the last stretch. I also think that focusing on a single story might actually have been the wrong call; I did so to reduce my workload and better concentrate on the series, but I now realize that I need novelty to stave off story fatigue.
So… I think I’ll overhaul my writing method in-depth now that Tamer is done. Write more grounded works with smaller scales, move on from LitRPGs, maybe try my hand at anthologies. To travel is to live, as they say; this is true for the mind as well as the body. If we stick to known paths, we wither away and fail to grow.
But I’ll write more on that in a later, general update for all patrons.
Overall, I think Apocalypse Tamer is… well, not my best work, but not one I’m bitter over either. Basil and the Bohens were unlike any other protagonists I’ve written before, and I enjoyed telling their adventures. I hope you’ve appreciated their journey all the way to the end, and that you’ll appreciate the works that will follow in its wake. I’d be happy to read your comments on it.
Best regards,
Voidy.
