Twisted Plot Revision Page01

The next page is here: faile35.deviantart.com/art/Twi… . For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

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"The sunlight wanes," says the woman in the black cape, her grey, piercing eyes leveled at the vista ahead of her. A passerby listening and taking note would perhaps question her meaning, for the sun has yet to leave its afternoon plateau, while the woman herself seems enshrouded in a growing darkness. It has been many years since she last visited the estate as a young woman, barely more than a child. Hard years they were, full of pain and disappointment, grief and risk, success and sorrow. But her journey, such as it is, has come full circle, bringing her back here where it really began, in the arms of a randy fool, the visiting pawn brought to court to seduce a young woman and thereby end her troubling ambitions and threatening dissent.

"It doesn't seem to have worked out all that well for you, Milady Mitesceru," the woman speaks again, surveying the unkempt gardens growing wild, the walls crumbling slowly to ruin. "Though, if memory serves me, this particular gate was in ruins before Uncle Anjer was a boy." A long sigh escapes her lips, followed by the hint of a grin. "'Ah, Memory,'" she quotes to herself, the grin turning to the thin lipped sneer of malice, "'life's great and last refuge.' Or so Uncle Anjer would say were he still alive today, Maladyne, instead of having thrown it away for you and your foolish venture."

The passerby listening and taking note would now see unmistakably the root of the internal darkness, as a fire of hatred funnels from the woman's toes through her very core, straightening her spine and squaring her caped shoulders with the sense of its raw power. The glowing wand clutched like a bloody knife in her hand is little more than an outgrowth of the determined malice, a great and fruit-laden branch of a toxic tree. It's aura subtly hisses and pops, emitting a stream of smoke that rises skyward.

Avora Villios rolls the weapon in her fingers, almost without noticing, breathes deeply, and takes her first step into the gardens. "Let's finish this, then," she says quietly, the cape trailing behind her like a curtain of shadow.

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Here's the first page of the Twisted Plot revision. My plan has been to keep working on Bookbinding during the week, and to work on the Rats publications and then Twisted Plot and Web of Betrayal on the weekends. Since most of the art for the Rats, Part 2 publication is done (including four new images in ink and final pencil stages), I thought I'd post this one.

The original Page01 is here: faile35.deviantart.com/art/Twi… . From here on, the official links from the Rats revision will point to this one and continue, though it'll be slow going for a while. My hope is to finish Twisted Plot by the end of this year and publish it in the coming January - March. We'll see how that goes.

Enjoy!

Note: Twisted Plot and Demon's Due are a work of fantasy and fiction. The artist/creator in no way condones this kind of treatment toward any woman or man, by living person, gremlin, plant, assassin, ratman, viscous fluid, programmed device, animated home furnishings, or otherworldly spiritual beings. Furthermore, the artist opposes the marginalizing and restriction of women in general by any institution, political and/or religious, including those which have individual women amongst their membership touting/promoting their own happiness within that institution as evidence that ALL women should feel the same way. This includes the religion I was raised in and which I have utterly discarded from my life over this and other issues.