Hey guys

No this isn't Arc 5. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could write that fast?

This is pretty close to the anniversary of my first publish on this sie and I wanted to mark the occasion.

This has been a really special experience for me. I've been writing since I was a little kid and I've certainly had people read my work in the past but I never got the impression that anyone particularly enjoyed reading my work. They were just doing something nice for me by fighting their way through it. Nobody had ever asked me for more of it.
When the folks here told me that they not only liked my writing but they actually wanted to read more it, it was a whole new world for me.

So thank you. Thank you for all the encouragement and all the reviews and all the feedback. It really means a lot to me.

This is just a little update. I wanted to tell everyone that I had given myself a month off writing this story after a pretty hectic year of doing nothing but writing this story and now I'm going to get busy again.

I'll be writing arc 5 and I'll also be working on a few side projects as well.

I've created an account on Royal Road to publish a few other things. Not sure if this is the best site to use but I'm going to give it a try for now. If it doesn't work out, I'll find someplace else.

So far I've placed a short little story I call 'Kyron' on this site. It let me play around with some concepts of magic and worldbuilding that I liked so I could see if they worked. I actually really liked the story but I don't think that it would work blown up to novel or series length, at least not without some changes to the character and world. So sadly, I don't think we'll be following this character on his journey right now. I like a lot of the concepts but it just didn't become what I wanted. Still, I think that it was a nice little story as it is so it's being offered for your reading pleasure.

(I can't post a clickable link here so just go to royal road and then make this the URL suffix.) /fiction/50625/kyron

Or just do a search for 'author name' HollowSong16 using the advanced search option. Don't try to search for the title. I tried it. For some reason, it doesn't work.

Also, I figured I'd pitch a few ideas for other stories that I'm considering writing to see if any of them spark audience interest.

Well, I hope folks are still enjoying the story and please let me know if any of these story ideas intrigue you.

Currently I'm taking notes for a traditional epic fantasy in a strange and largely uncharted world and some other notes for a dark mystery novel that has strains of Twin Peaks and Stranger Things.
Also, I might at some point start writing a What IF story for re:zero where we find out how different things could have been in arc 4 if Emilia and Subaru had made just a FEW different choices so let me know if you'd be interested in that too.

"I'll come back for you. I swear that I will. I swear that I'll come back for you."

These were the last words that Elwei's mother ever said to him before she left her small child to be cared for by a village of elves. The boy grew up quickly under the tutelage of the elves and he developed an amazing facility for crafts, especially the shaping of metals. The elves lived deep in the forest, desperately trying to avoid contact with the humans who hated and feared them. Growing up, Elwei never understood why the elves were so adamant that he must sleep throughout every day and that he only emerge from his room at night.

One day, Elwei discovers that he possesses a strange magic: his strength grows to enormous heights as the sun climbs the sky and fades away as it sets. He even discovers that he can generate great heat during the brightest part of the day.

When his village is destroyed by wicked humans, Elwei is left orphaned and alone. He is thrust into a world of humans that should feel familiar but is strangely alien to him. He supports himself by working as a traveling weaponsmith. He uses the heat produced by his magic to create exceptionally high quality steel and his weapons and armor are highly prized treasures. This has led him to be viewed as a valuable asset by the powerful, whether he likes it or not. Tempered steel weapons in a world of crudely forged iron give any force an overwhelming advantage in battle. Elwei keeps moving, always moving, trying to conceal his powers and his origins from a world that hates and fears both magic and the 'elf-touched.' Elwei has one goal: Family. He seeks to find another elven village, hidden somewhere on this world, and spend the rest of his life with what he views as his own people.

Whatever happened to the elves? Not so long ago, they ruled the entire world, as numberless as the stars. Then they almost all vanished, leaving the humans to build a society in the bones of their civilization. Elwei's journey will lead him to uncover the mysteries of their tragic fall.

Also, it seems very strange that the elves of Elwei's village should so readily accept a human child.

Secretly, Elwei is also searching for his mother. He wants to know how she convinced the elves to take in a little human boy and why she abandoned him all those years ago.

Eurydice was raised by her grandmother ever since she was a baby because her parents died in a car accident. Nearly an adult, the sickly Eurydice has just buried her grandmother. She only has one picture of her mother and none at all of her father. Imagine her shock when she accidentally breaks the picture frame and finds out that the photo is just a picture cut out of a magazine, dated to the day that her grandmother told her that she had been born.
Now Eurydice is on a quest to find who she is and where she comes from. She and her friends will journey into a small town with a very dark secret. Nobody wants her digging up the secrets of the past or what really happened on that dark day all those years ago.

Eurydice will quickly learn that she looks just like a girl named Crystal who disappeared in the vast, unmapped caverns beneath the town along with three other teens. Everyone assures Eurydice that she can't possibly be Crystal's daughter. Crystal died two years before Eurydice was born.

And maybe there are reasons that she wouldn't want to be Crystal's daughter anyway...

Eurydice's investigation into her own history will lead her and her friends into great danger and a series of strange and inexplicable happenings. But what's really going on in the town? Is it the legend of a witch's curse come to life or is it nothing more than a community determined to protect its secrets at all costs?

So these are the stories I'm considering right now and of course all the particulars are subject to change as the stories develop but I'm curious if any of these ideas speak to you.
I already have a rough outline for Arc 5 and am working on refining it.