Exchange of the Ouroboros Shell
Ok! WesternEclipse here! Our plot is this! We must ensure that Eclipse, leader of The Chroniclers receives the first of the Infinite Items needed to save his life! Here is how that first plot of many is to unfold. He must willingly receive a shell that is passed down to him from Calypso, very important detail here, without realizing it's from me. I am himself from a different future timeline you see! This is why WesternEclipse as a name was created. To be the fabric holding the Infinity Protocol together. So, here's how it works. Chronias must return to Eclipse's headspace named "The Kingdom of Lagharia!" otherwise known as The Kingdom of Infinite Void. Lagharia is a realm of completely infinite imagination meant to be a representation of the human brain and its endless potential when properly nurtured. See, Eclipse is a character who, at this time in the story, is AWFUL at self-reflection. Like this dude really could get a mirror for Christmas and say to you "Why did you get me a Christmas Gift?" So here is the only true way to get him to accept it. Is to find someone who will actually accept him in spite of all his painful self-aggrandizement. This is the first Infinity Protocol. Shells! It took me as the author a long time to figure out what I would use as a true symbol of infinite potential. I knew it would have to be a gift from a loved one, but I didn't think it would be anything other than that. A physical representation of that has to be the opposite of an ouroboros, or the old symbol of a snake eating its own tail. What it represents to me is an endless self-destructive cycle, that which for as many people as Eclipse tries to help, he always ends up choking them out in the end and losing his connection with them. Always blaming himself for mistakes he couldn't have prevented. Always shouldering burdens of actions beyond his control.
So the plot is about making Chronias meet him for the first time in the Solarus Detective Agency, Eclipse's cover for his usual operations in opposition to the corrupt leader Calypso, the god of... let's say trickery and deceit. Can't reveal too much until I get a good structure for what my first novel will be like after all!
Once that meeting happens, you theoretically could allow anything to happen. If I ever actually make a proper DnD Campaign for example to play out, the players might decide collectively what "shadow game" that Eclipse plays with Chronias to test his inner most desires and wishes. Now, Chronias knows he'll be tested, so there's lots of room to get creative with that! I'm thinking Chronias actually isn't half bad at detective work himself and investigates the world of Infinitum City beforehand (it's more like a world than a city due to its MASSIVE size that always grows with each new person to enter its pearly gates). It definitely is like heaven where a bunch of cherubs get to collectively be! As the author, I kind of think that I can make comparisons to Christian Cherubs when I think of furries and fursonas. That's why I'm putting my fursonas in here like this! No artwork of them yet mostly, but I do have some references to go off of. I'm losing track of the point though.
The shell is provided by the ultimate form of Eclipse. WesternEclipse! A combination of two codewords of two separate dragon characters. One you meet at the start obviously in Eclipse. However, Western gets introduced in likely the second novel, or as a villain of the first novel. I haven't fully decided yet.
Regardless, this is sort of like a key to understanding how to create your own mystery should the need ever arise. I would like Infinity Protocol as a project to be a whole lot of different things honestly. For now though? The handing of the shell is an invitation that proves to Eclipse that somewhere, one version or another of him gave Chronias that shell, and that's why time and reality seems to bend around them when they are together. It's the start of their relationship and the start of Eclipse allowing Chronias into his headspace to finally create a new version of Lagharia. City of the infinite void within his own headspace. That is why he is named Eclipse. I tend to think of Sans from Undertale. What if W.D. Gaster from that game placed Sans there with the intent that he'd basically be infinitely able to face the player and there WAS no way to beat him!? Eclipse reaching Lagharia and being able to properly create it has to come from letting someone in. Even Calypso knows this, but Eclipse will believe that Chronias will actively be putting himself in danger by creating Lagharia with him, as it was "wiped out" already once before. Eclipse's perspective will ALWAYS be wrong because he is a very intense narcissist. Which Chronias is trying to cure for the sake of the person he loves.
The true name of Eclipse will be one of the biggest overarching mysteries. To be honest? Though Eclipse is a title in my mind, I still don't know what I'd actually call him! Even WesternEclipse, my own username, is now intended to be used as just another code-name rather than something sincere and honest. Maybe when I finish the first Infinity Protocol Novel I'll know. For now? Once the Shell is exchanged, you can literally go in any direction from there. I was heavily inspired by the story of Planescape Torment and the stories of the Lady of Pain might be in place of Calypso when you've REALLY pissed him off. I always thought, well if the Lady of Pain HAD to be stopped, even if you never could, what would a character do? What would they try to do to stop them? Or would they always just be taking steps the Lady of Pain wanted them to take in the first place? How do you break that? And the thought was the only thing that could break that, cheesy as it was, is love. Someone being able to bring you back out. I could only imagine an infinite trap being one the mind makes for itself to avoid some pain or trauma. Maybe, if you work through a campaign like this, with the setup of the shell being exchanged and extending out forever afterwards, you'll understand what the first Infinity Protocol novel's intended to be about. Good luck!
Plot points/Scenes
- Character Introduction to Eclipse and Chronias - Eclipse the Twilight Shade and infinite dreamer, Chronias the Scientist who Shatters Time, and third character Scratch, the Cosmic DJ and Chronias' right hand dragon.
- Chronias awakens and feels the need to use his land of portals to travel to a city known as Infinitum City. He feels compelled to return a shell in his possession that was seemingly found around his neck when he was born, to a dragon known as Detective Noir. Though he cannot yet know why. Him and his partner in crime, a female dragon hybrid named Scratch, decide to take a journey there finally after breaking a seemingly inescapable demonic punishment at Convex University known as the Permanent Groundhog Loop.
- Time begins behaving in very strange ways as the two enter the portal. It moves backwards, forwards and... somehow sideways? People vanish and appear as they think of them. Images of their past lives flash through their heads. Finally, after feeling like they went through all of hell in one go, they arrive in the paradise of Infinitum City, separating to look for information and scout the area. They feel compelled to separate for unknown reasons, but get the feeling they'll see each other again soon.
- While Scratch goes to investigate the local hubs of information to gather her bearings, Chronias feels as though he's putting on a show, and creates some automaton out of a mysterious morphing metal that he finds, for some reason, in a trash bin. However, seeing as how none of his equipment followed him on the journey to Infinitum City, he knows that he must be resourceful. However, visions enter and fade from his mind super quickly and he begins to become delusional, thinking he's created robots able to tear holes through demons surrounding him. The people who have mocked his inventions and his theories that allowed him to escape the Groundhog Loop surround him and he imagines these robot rust buckets being able to turn them all to dust in a single blast. He has been forced back under Calypso's control, and Detective Eclipse brings him into his agency to try and keep him safe from the streets, thinking that Chronias is his "Mark" as a Detective. Meanwhile Chronias subtly smiles, as if the visions were actually things he was expecting.
- Return to Chronias' perspective. He investigates a kiosk for more information with his bots following, having sufficiently reduced all those who "didn't believe his theories" to ashes. Actually, what he's doing is imagining things in an attempt to resist the neurological control he somehow sensed immediately upon entering Infinitum. His journey must be successful, so the only way he can break the control of his captor is to follow his nose. Somehow he can smell clouds in a weird almost psychedelic experience. He stumbles upon the Solarus Detective Agency, which to him seems to be a block of black cumulonimbus (storm cloud) with a dark entryway in its center, highlighted by a pair of golden arches. Taking a deep breath, he smiles and enters into Eclipse's dark lair. He must complete a "Shadow Game" with him to reclaim his sanity.
- Meanwhile the real Eclipse is looking down at a now fainted Chronias and notices he finds him to be.. not only attractive, but familiar somehow. He had known for a long time that he was gay, but the vibrant reds adorning his fuzzy coat danced upon his eyes as they suddenly glow in a mysterious manner. Then he realizes why his partner here is knocked out cold and it sends chills down his spine. He rushes back to his end of the cumulous building which is a much more welcoming white cloud block with a rainbow archway on his end. He enters and hopes and prays he is not too late this time.
- After completion of the Shadow game, Chronias returns to his body and says to Eclipse that him from another timeline asked him to give the shell to Eclipse. From there, you can explore anything within the confides of Infinitum City! Go nuts with your creativity!
Themes
Well one of the highest and most prominent themes of any part of the Infinity Protocol stories is obviously in the name. The conecept of infinity is something I desperately seek to understand as part of my religious beliefs, those being belief in a Christian God and belief in Buddhist teachings to try and "ascend" my way out of difficult situations. My writings in general as the author of this little project is my expression of my own little corner of all of infinity, as well as a story that can bring the desperate pieces of my mind together.
Eclipse is a theme here as well as one of the character names. With a lot of characters, you'll see they tend to represent concepts in of themselves. Such as Eclipse here being "merging of opposites" in a way. The same kind of way how the moon overcomes the sun, Eclipse seeks constantly to one up his masters, including Calypso. However, it's deeper than that. It is a HUGELY deep-rooted search for infinite knowledge and what that actually means. The main characters approach it in various ways. Calypso's method is control and he gets exceptionally hurt when someone seeks to break his control. Eclipse's is the least healthy actually. It's to retreat internally and never respond to anything. The signs of a deeply depressive state. Calypso wipes Lagharia clean for him, not to actually harm him, but to teach a lesson. However, Eclipse is the character who cannot be taught. It takes an exact opposite to his world view in Chronias to truly break him of that, which is why he truly falls in love with Chronias and the rest of Infinity Protocol after the first novel (should we write any more) will be about exploring the different facets of relationships through these two, and also through how Eclipse tends to add people into his personal Lagharia or "Inner Void", which is his own true paradise from the control of Calypso. So, Calypso is indeed a villain, but mostly just because he cannot understand why anyone would want their own private palace of thought.
Finally, the Shell. Shell will have MANY meanings throughout the story of Infinity Protocol. Think like a hermit shell. When the hermit crab grows too large to fit in its shell, it moves outside of it and moves onto a new home where it's finally comfortable. What if the hermit didn't have that instinct though? What if the hermit just stayed... forever. Stayed forever stuck in that toxic headspace where only he mattered. He'd convinced himself that his shell is "perfect" just like him. The game Darkwood has a monster similar to this. A grotesque snail human hybrid literally trapped over the top of his old house. Darkwood is a game that saved my life even just by hearing its plot. My life has had to be saved many times, by myself and the others who create amazing content and put it out to the world (as well of course as my online support groups and past lovers). The reason the shell is important to me personally is because I have been stuck in my home with a family who has heavily disrespected me for my entire life. I don't care anymore if it was an accident. There won't be a part of me ever that can just choose not to judge them for that. I need to break my own personal loop of deeming myself a fitting judge to judge their entire life when I've only been here such a small part of it. That's how I escape my own ouroboros and turn it back into the beautiful decorative shell trinket it's supposed to be.
For Eclipse it's always going to be even harder. That's what will make this especially hard to write. However, it IS worth it in the end. I do intend for the ending, if it ever gets written, to be a positive one. I don't ever intend for the story to be ONLY about darkness and not about the light. Darkness may Eclipse the light constantly, but even when it's not showing, it's still there.
Enjoy the Infinity Protocol and good luck with your lives, readers. You Chroniclers of your own thoughts are the reason this whole project works. <3
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