Spoilers

The backstory is about two dragons, who are also insanely powerful wildmages, fighting for the right to ascend to godhood, roughly 50,000 years ago. They arrive on Corrantha from a different world (aka the Underground Realm), the first, and as far as anyone can tell, only, to ever make the trip in that direction, because the portal generally has to be opened from the Corrantha side.

Because they were so evenly matched, and because the prospect of having another deity to handle does attract his attention, XLTL, the supreme deity of the multiverse, cared enough to get slightly involved. He appointed a Solar guardian named Is (Sol Is, or Sollis), giving it a task: it shall be the one that would watch over the dragons until they figured out the truth behind ascension (or, less ideally, destroyed each other).

Because dramatic narratives need these twists, Sol Is failed to perform its task for a rather silly reason: it fell in love with both of these incredible beings, a rather unexpected emotion for an immortal. This starts Sol Is on the path of discovering the nature of “mortal emotions” (aka unintended cosmic consequences). Instead of intervening as intended, to nudge the dragons to understand their need to join souls and become a god together, Sol Is froze.

XLTL, who saw it as a waste to lose two such very promising souls and a possibly useful new minor deity, sighed and intervened more directly. He stopped time and instantly created the protection crystal, with a mass and energy of a small sun, but just large enough to not collapse into a black hole. Then he shoved it down the immense Kyber volcano as a convenient way to store the energy needed to contain both souls and their guide-come-guardian. XLTL figured that, at some point, the ascension process would resume, but in the meantime, he ensured that the guardian’s presence (with memories wiped in punishment) would keep the dragons dormant. XLTL, though, was perhaps a bit careless, or intentional (no one can say), which is what led to the Gash – and a metaphysical multiversal link (the Soul Bridge), with earth on the other side. The remote expression of this event on earth was the meteor that created the Barringer Crater.

Then XLTL forgot all about it. Or perhaps chose to ignore it “for a while”.

In The Crack in the Crystal, actions taken following a recent rediscovery of the link to Earth have created a tiny (<1cm) crack in the crystal, ejecting Sol Is and thereby allowing the two trapped dragon souls to awaken a bit and become quasi-aware. They immediately start circling each other, which builds up the energy within the crystal, enlarging the crack and inching ever closer to the threshold where the crystal would collapse and become that black hole…thereby consuming all of Corrantha, all of Earth, every planet in between on the soul bridge, and who knows what else. By the end of the Book of Revelations, the crack will have grown dramatically, and the danger of collapse becomes imminent.

Lormek must discover that he (that is, his original dwarven child soul) did indeed die, and he (the present he) is the soul that was intended for, and jumped out of, the body of Sollis when the solar jumped into Sollis at birth. This “new Lormek” must integrate fully into his new physical form. To do that, Lormek must forgive Sol Is and accept his dwarven body – or go totally insane. For her part, Sol Is will not be able to make the jump into the crystal unless she makes herself accountable to Lormek for stealing his body.

Thing is, Lormek’s soul senses its connection with Sollis when they meet. This situation is, understandably, a bit stressful, and starts the slow process of Lormek’s descent into madness. This is documented through his dreams (which resonate in Sollis with her dreams), and later on, when he turns catatonic.

Lormek saves Nyelle’s soul from being consumed in the process of guiding Sol Is back into the crystal. To do that, he selflessly give up his tether to his originally intended body, so that Nyelle can live.

This transposition of souls is the notion of Transsoulism, a big arc of our story. Ultimately, our heroes need to understand and then resolve the Transsoulism challenge before they can tackle the imminent destruction of multiple worlds.

Also, Lormek is a remote descendant of Kenzer, which is why Thor picks him as his disciple. Thor is still fairly new to being a god, and engages in a silly sentimental act with his cousin. It wouldn’t matter too much to the story, except that it’s the soul resonance of Thor imbuing Lormek with power that Enrielle “hears” in the tunnels (her unique genetics play a role in Nyelle manifesting as a Soulmage). This leads directly to her crucial meeting with Lormek, and provides a key hint to Nyelle about the Sollis/Lormek soul resonance.

In the Epilogue, we learn another twist, which is that Lormek isn’t Thor’s disciple after all, but rather a Wildmage. He just really believes he is a healer. Combined with the vestiges of Thor’s gift, it’s enough to make poor Lormek seem for all intents and purposes to be a healer, albeit a weak one – providing plenty of confirmation for his shame, which in reality reflects his soul’s inherited self-hatred of this foreign body it was bumped into and must occupy.

Nyelle must discover her roots and then her family – her mother, Enrielle, who is still very much alive, and her “where did that come from” surprise half-brother, Aidan. Along the way she falls in love with Lormek, discovers that she is a Soulmage, and ends up hearing the faint soul echoes that suggest the nature of the crucial Transsoulism challenge.

Nyelle is the one who figures out how this all works. And as a Soulmage, she guides Sollis back into the crystal in order to save the world(s), but she doesn’t die while doing it because of Lormek’s remarkable sacrifice.

Nyelle also forces Aidan to transform into a werewolf, and the way she does it, Aidan becomes a whole new kind of Wildmage that combines the chaotic magic of wildmages and the orderly magic of wizards. The book only alludes to this new form in the very end, but Aidan’s emergent abilities are interesting, and I hope to have the opportunity to share them with you in a future Ascendance book.

For his part, Aidan must discover the talisman that saved him as a baby, and similarly to Nyelle, become acquainted with his surprise family. He also kills the original werewolf (our minor/fake antagonist), closing the cycle on his traumatic birth.

Apart from being himself, Garrett becomes a temporary mortal tool for the supreme diety, XLTL. That’s why Garrett always causes trouble – XLTL prompts him to stumble on the stairway, or keeps him asleep in the wagon until it’s almost too late. The godly bemused purpose is to push the heroes to discover the extent of their talents. That’s why Garrett doesn’t have his own origin story; the only reason he is even in the story is that XLTL chooses to use him this way after he inadvertently joins the party for being too curious, when Garrett gets dropped to the floor by the guard in Chapter 6.

Garrett’s insignificance, and youthful enthusiasm, make him the perfect mouthpiece for a whimsical supreme being seeking a bit of personal entertainment. XLTL’s arc becomes Garrett’s arc.

Speaking of XLTL…yes, of course he could save everything and everyone if he wanted to, but XLTL doesn’t really care. It would be a bummer to recreate all these worlds, but if he had to, he would, no biggie (note that when he says it will take him “but an instant” he means it as an immortal… a second or a millennia are six of one, half dozen of the other from his perspective). However, the entertainment value from this group of silly mortals is compelling enough that he becomes involved in the story in his very detached, inexplicable, godlike way.

A move is unfolding to weaken the Thieves’ Guild by a group embedded within the Pope’s organization and run out of the Frentenga network. Bradd  (real name Hortus) is an agent of the Guild and secretly loyal to the Frentengas. He reports regularly to Darryn, whose cover is a soldier in the Kyber police but who is secretly reporting into the Thieves’ Guild as part of their intelligence gathering operation in the Shallows. In the guild, Darryn reports to Enrielle, but neither of them are aware of the plot; Bradd is working directly with Popeaide Albergino Frentenga (Enrielle’s husdband).

The Frentengas are not aligned with the religious supervision apparatus (the Popes) – far from it! They see it as a means to an end, a convenient way to launch their plot against the Guild.

Bradd invented the story about the decoy box, and set it all up himself. The nut shouldn’t have been there, but mistakes happen. The reason he did it was to get rid of the three main “powerlines” – Sollis, Aidan, and Nyelle – which the Guild had noted and asked him to keep an eye on. Their existence and the task to watch over and guide them could be distracting and thus complicate the conspiracy, which already takes a lot of extremely careful orchestration. So he comes up with this idea, pays off his buddy Alferd to do it and shut up about it, and promptly forgets about them, assuming they will make fools of themselves, get caught, and end up with some punishment that will remove them from his care for at least a few weeks.

Bradd never expected the group to do as well as they did! When they inexplicably return, he quickly arranges for the intrusion into Albergino’s office. He, of course, warns Albergino, but tells him to wait until they can be caught red-handed. The guards were coming anyway! Amusingly, the tripwire snapping when Lormek grabs the photo off the shelf is a lucky – for Bradd – occurrence that makes it seem like they triggered an alarm.

Yet they somehow escape again. That’s when Bradd realizes this group may pose a bigger challenge. So he sets them up in a different way, by trying to create a split between the powerlines and the others, and arrest the former on their trip to Corrantha City. Alas, the best laid plans… good ol’ uncle Bee – Bernelius Frentenga, Albergino’s brother – got it wrong! He was supposed to plant the suggestion with Lormek that “the little guy” (Garrett) accompanied him, so that the other three could be taken together. Instead Bernelius misunderstood that to be “the elven girl”.

Ultimately, when Bradd realizes what happened, it’s too late to capture Nyelle, but he figures it’s good enough. With the uncontrolled wildmage (Sollis) and the oddly resourceful woodspeaker (Aidan) out on ice, having Nyelle out and about doesn’t seem challenging. He figures he could ignore her for a while. Failing that, he could send her to look for “clues in the library” where he had planted a diversion. Bradd was first to realize that Nyelle might be Enrielle’s lost daughter, arranged for the donation of books by Albergino, and planted the pages from Yorros’ journal for her to find, in the hope that discovering her mother was alive would distract her. He didn’t worry about non-powerline Lormek, and Garrett just ended up being collateral damage… except, of course, he wasn’t, because it meant XLTL was now in play in the prison!

After the three are tossed in the prison, Hortus discards the name Bradd, takes Aidan’s confiscated bow with the intent to sell it, and asks for leave from running the guild’s Shallows contingent so he could move to Corrantha City and continue furthering the plot on which he has staked his entire fortune and reputation. However, Darryn catches a whiff of the conspiracy and reports it to Enrielle, who realizes that her husband is deeply involved. Disgusted, she goes to Prime to report, and he sends a team to take out Hortus as a warning about what happens to traitors. That encounter takes place the day before the three heroes make their prison breakout… which is why they find the room that holds the secret prison entrance in disarray, and why the escape is much easier than it otherwise would have been.

Hortus escapes via the secret hatch, while his bodyguard dies covering him. Consumed with hatred, Hortus finds his way to the viewing platform when everything comes down, using Aidan’s bow to kill Prime before fleeing via glider – well, trying to anyway.

The destruction of the room upsets Bhaven, who closes down the entire Guild section of the inn. He demands justice for the damage done to his establishment (and his art!). The amount is large, ten thousand gold (equivalent to ~$10M), and the guild is reluctant to pay. He threatens to withhold access to the secret store rooms the guild rents under the inn, in the area past the always present sentry. This leads to an attempted assassination of Bhaven by Darryn, but the old dwarf is no pushover; he overcomes and captures Darryn.

As their secret storemaster for centuries, and the original head of the Thieves’ Guild, Bhaven knows everything about the Guild’s internal hierarchy. He sends a message to Enrielle (who is unaware of the assassination attempt) to come get Darryn – doubling the damages by adding a ransom and a fee for the “insult” of the attack on his inn.

And this is how this subplot about rival factions brings Enrielle together with her daughter and finally breaks open the logjam for our heroes.

As per the book, Kenzer and Zacharaias were extremely powerful adventurers who, like many before them, decided to explore the uninhabited volcano peninsula. They were the first to come in and out alive after surviving XLTL’s divine wards, leaving behind their group led by the highly capable Enrielle, to await their return.

The two initially realize the incredible importance of the location, and how it could be used for trade, then delve deeper into the mountain, coming upon the crystal. They don’t know what it is, so they test it with increasingly wild ideas. In one experiment, Kenzer stabs the crystal while Zach amplifies the sound of the underwater strike back into the dagger. This leads to molecular rearrangement, incorporating carbon and magic particles excited off the crystal, and the instant transformation of the iron dagger into one made of tempered steel, a powerful weapon indeed.

This is also when they discover that the crystal repels steel, like polarized magnets, as the dagger drags an utterly mystified Kenzer all the way to the water surface, hundreds of yards above.

After removing the divine wards and later winning the battle of Stormbridge, Kenzer and Zach establish ownership of the Kyber peninsula. They jealously guard the secret of the crystal and steel creation. The Shallows are built first. Zach then comes up with the idea of using steel to create the shelf system, and Talus hides the supports using illusion magic. Kenzer realizes he could spare himself a lot of effort by using a little magic on steel plates to move up and down the mountain core. Then they imagine the flying ships in a night fueled by alcohol and magic mushrooms, and Tradebay is born.

They set up the guilds, and especially the Thieves’ Guild, a for-profit intelligence agency, to ensure things remain under control and secrets are kept. They also establish the Boxes Guild with its decoy boxes. The boxes have enough steel to be repelled with sufficient force to float a ship (that fits into the elevator) up to Tradebay. Kenzer creates an invisible sphere around them that makes the boxes dormant, unless attached to something (say, a ship) in a certain way, then switched to partly or wholly unshielded mode by opening them and uttering a series of code phrases. Kenzer and Zach set the Boxes guild up with tons of imagined spiritual bells and whistles, “training”, and “genetic affinity”, a bunch of nonsense that makes for a big show of mysticism. This fake tradition then became the foundation of the Boxes guild’s “box religion”, even though nobody in the guild knows the reality of it. Enrielle and Talus do know, though.

Magic mushrooms combined with antimatter suns, in the mind of an supernaturally powerful magical being like Kenzer, can cause all sorts of disturbances in the force. In our case, Kenzer’s mind bounces off the Soul Bridge and traveled to early 16th century earth.

It’s a short and hazy visit, but because of where his mind is (such as war against a religious autocrat in King Anberg, and creating steel buttresses), he picks out a few things. One is the word “Pope” – Kenser is aware gods exist and eventually becomes one himself, but has grown sick and tired of the church of Freyg and how corrupted it has become over millennia. He uses the term Pope with proper derision in Kyber. Another is nuts and bolts, which were then a new construction technology on earth. He also picks up Arabic numerals, and that’s how his nuts end up with “sizing runes”, even though they aren’t the same as in Home Depot! One last important thing (in this story) is the name Thor for a powerful god; a scandinavian man highly attuned to the mystical sees his projection and mistakes him for the norse god. When Kenzer ascends, he adopts it for himself.

Kenzer is a Decentean northclanner (and an ancestor of Lormek’s who hears and responds to Lormek’s prayers.) In the centuries following ascension, Thor becomes a prominent minor deity within the insular clans of northern Decentea. However, Thor worship is still frowned upon in most of the world, because he’s a new, hippie god, and not an old, proper one.

Three hundred and fifty years later, another powerful wildmage arrives at Kyber, discovers the crystal and insights the subterfuge in how the town is built. He gains a new seat at the table as the “Grunt”, a position that gives him reasonably easy access to the crystal. He erects the prison (and the access hatch to the crystal) and the viewing platform, using a similar process to the one he infers from Kenzer’s prior work. He also travels to earth, and brings back the concepts of photography and printing. He develops magic that can approximate both and creates “printed” pages that in English, which being an “ultrahyperpolyglot” he picks up easily during his visit. Unfortunately, being a wildmage, he isn’t very good at formalizing his spells and his knowledge dies with him.

Still, the royal wizards eventually do recreate these effects, which is how Paintography comes into being as a spell that rich connected people can buy, like the Frentengas. The printing stuff is given to the gnomes in the royal college, which is how Xephyna teaches herself English and becomes interested in the weird shit coming out of Kyber.

He also writes about other things he saw, one of which was the Rocky Road. A century later, one dwarf named Emmeka discovers it buried in the college library and it appeals to her, and she decides to name her merchant and trading company after it. As an easter egg, a side effect of this wildmage’s visit is that he is perceived by Nietze, giving rise to perspectivism and nihilism.

After centuries of kings trying and failing to take over Kyber, Emmeka comes into power. She secretly follows Thor, and is the first king who, instead of seeing Kyber as a rival that needs conquering, appreciates it as a powerful ally. She sees that the biggest holdouts against collaboration are the traditional, power-hungry and corrupt Freyg religious apparatus with its power base in Corrantha City.

This is how Bernelius Frentenga (Uncle Bee) moves to Corrantha City as the new King’s Pope. Emmeka is good friends with Aurelius, the patriarch of the Frentengas, and it’s a natural choice as she wishes to properly monitor the power of the church. She knows Aurelieus is apathetic towards the religious hierarchy, and he suggests Bee would be a good Pope since Bee is similarly neutral, just very good at appearing otherwise. This is, incidentally, why Rajiv wrongly states that Bernelius is “devout”.

Unbeknownst to Emmeka, this appointment creates a problem, because the Frentengas, while on board with stronger ties between the Kyber nation state and Corrantha, are in favor of themselves (rather than the Thieves’ Guild) being the power brokers. Albergino then discovers the location of the secret prison, and the existence of the crystal, and hires a very powerful royal wizard to try and do something, anything, to it.

This is when we arrive at the critical moment. Wizards aren’t wildmages, and her spell kills her and consumes her body and soul…causing a tiny crack to appear on the surface of the crystal, triggering the chain of events in the book. Mind-melded with the poor wizard, Albergino ends up experiencing a short, bizarre pop-culture ride on the Soul Bridge. A Star Wars mashup hits his brain, and he ends up convincing the Lieutenant that Stormtroopers is a great name for the Stormbridge guards. He gets a whiff of D&D and the Marvel universe, and because KenZer’s attention (as a newly minted god) is briefly alerted to this event, KenZer “sees” the Marvel Thor, and thinks “oh, how neat,” and his distant cousin Lormek becomes a fun vessel to try out these new approaches (which saves his and Nyelle’s lives). Talk about pop culture for the gods.

Sadly, Albergino also gets a whiff of white nationalist propaganda, and building on his existing tendencies and secret dislike for Emmeka (and his sibling rivalry with Bee), this turns him into an outright racist and a full-blown psychopath. This event creates the last volcanic eruption, the fire that destroyed Nyelle’s life.

As for the crack, such a tiny one would not be a huge problem if the guardian stayed inside the crystal. But Sol Is’s ejection means that the two souls within awaken to a degree, struggling mindlessly with each other as they did before XLTL’s intervention. As a result, the crack grows and starts leaking magic energy into the prison, which acts as a closed loop magical conduit, enlarging the crack and creating a cycle of destruction.

The ultimate threat in the book is for the crystal to break, collapse unto itself and form a huge, multi-dimensional black hole, which would destroy Corrantha and Earth (and a fair number of worlds in between on the Soul Bridge).

Kenzer’s second-in-command. The ultimate free spirit; so much so, that she gets pregnant twice without planning for it – as an Elf! The Adventurer. Nyelle and Aidan’s mother. And the Whore.

Enrielle is many things, but her real importance is her intimate knowledge of Kenzer and Zacharias, who were both her lovers. Such is her remarkable spirit that they were in reality both delighted to be shared by her, as opposed to how she puts it to the group. Enrielle has possession of a highly valuable  Zacharias document discussing the nature of the crystal. It eventually gets revealed to the heroes, and unlocks the mystery of the crystal and the Solar guardian. Enrielle had kept it to herself, considering it a personal gift and never caring much about its contents. Over centuries it developed a huge sentimental value to her, but rediscovering her daughter and glimpsing the danger she decides it’s time to find out what he wrote.

Enrielle got pregnant with Nyelle during her second stint in the Classy Lassy. Being the free spirit that she is, she never really paid much attention to her extremely rare, Elvish cycles, and Yorros impregnated her randomly. She never knew nor cared that it was him; Nyelle was a gift she would enjoy. She invented an elven father figure for the little girl, but because none of this mattered to Enrielle she never put much effort into the details, as reflected in Nyelle’s discovery of her actual heritage. The reason XLTL mentions Enrielle’s “third, short stint” in the Lassy (at the end of Whore) is that this was when Yorros comes to visit, sees Nyelle, and realizes she’s his daughter.

Enrielle never tells her daughter that she knew Zacharias, hiding the truth in order to, as Enrielle sees it, protect her from stuff that’s buried in the past. In reality, the shock of losing both Kenzer and Zacharias had hurt Enrielle far more than she’s willing to admit, even to herself.

Enrielle knows about the ascension and the sacrifice, but lacks the details provided in Zach’s paper: his last, important discovery, the method in which two souls can “win” the game of ascension is for one of them to give in to the other. He then does this very thing for Kenzer. In an ironic mirroring of the dilemma facing Sollis, Enrielle loved both men equally, and would not have chosen between them. Then she lost both.

She got pregnant with Aidan later, on a scouting trip to try and recover lost artifacts from her time with Kenzer and Zach. This nostalgic longing was triggered by her first stint at the Lassy, where after sleeping with many over years and finding every visitor boring, she had to face the void in her heart. Aidan’s father was a random wild elf she met on her way, a sort of irony that Enrielle never appreciated in light of the manufactured story she told her daughter about her own father, and losing Aidan at birth (or so she believes.)

Why was Enrielle lost and afraid in the tunnels? It’s out of character, but when divinity is nearby, things can get messed up. This was a spillover effect from Lormek’s (botched) appointment to be Thor’s newest disciple. The loss of the only two people she had ever truly loved left Enrielle with a deep and abiding trauma. With Enrielle’s limited sensitivity to soul resonance (a gift she gave her daughter) she suddenly felt Thor’s divine form. It completely disoriented her, triggering a massive, supernatural PTSD. Even a veteran like her can be laid bare by temporary psychosis in the presence of an actual god, let alone one (well, two) she knew very intimately before they became a god. Enrielle was transported back to when she was only about a century old and had just met Kenzer and Zacharias, and stopped functioning, as described in the encounter. It took a few hours of good care by Rajiv and Lormek to get over the episode.

Lastly, Enrielle mentions the existence of the Underground Realm. It’s actually an entirely different world (which may be a focal point in a future book) and where Emmeka obtained her riches.

This clever little item, a talisman of protection against werecreatures, plays a big role in The Crack in the Crystal. It is semi-intelligent, can pursue its own goals and has limited consciousness, memories, and psychic functions. Enrielle knew its protective power, but never appreciated its power; she had seen it used, wore it herself, and was attuned to it, but the talisman still has undisclosed unique properties.

One of these properties is that it only exerts as much power as it needs to protect its wearer based on the talisman’s assessment of the wearer’s inherent power, and no more. Talus liked to add this kind of flourish to his creations. Being as powerful as she is, Enrielle witnessed and experienced a level of protection that bespoke of a fairly weak force. Critically, the talisman did not take into account her injury in the Werewolf chapter, and the protective power it emitted was calibrated to Nyelle’s inherent strength. Thus she assessed – correctly, as it happens – that the talisman would not save her and the baby. What she couldn’t know was that leaving it on the baby’s chest and running was the only decision to allow both of them to live, since the talisman instantly recalibrated to its most powerful form in order to protect the weakest possible creature: a newborn.

The talisman acted independently in saving Nyelle and Lormek. Perhaps it sensed their importance or their connection to Aidan, but more likely it recognized that one werewolf from before and replicated the prior discharge.

The talisman also has another unique feature; if it decides to attune to a person (only one at a time), it can share with them its own “memory”, or experiential  psychic imagery. The last person to whom it attuned was Enrielle, and it remained that way for centuries. When she meets our heroes and accepts the talisman from Aidan, the connection is immediate. The talisman, sensing her, is eager to share the moment in Werewolf with its long-lost “twinsie” Enrielle. She learns that Aidan is her son, whom she named Nylean before leaving him behind to die.

The talisman’s memory of the werewolf and Aidan following Aidan’s birth ends up determining Aidan’s new were-form as a werewolf, since it is carried within the soul spark that Nyelle guides over to merge with her brother’s soul.

Enrielle eventually connects the dots after their final encounter with the werewolf. She then sums it up perfectly in an odd side comment when she murmurs softly to herself, “Oh, Talus, what did you do?”

Following Thor’s ascension, and following consultation with Kenzer and Zach, Talus stays behind to watch over Kyber’s development and to implement their shared vision for Kyber. He invents stories and spreads them around (like the nonsense name “Zander”), while he unofficially runs the Thieves’ Guild for a while and oversees the creation of many of Kyber’s systems and institutions. Along the way he assumes the fake persona of Bhaven, innkeeper and later, brothel owner.

After a while, the only person remaining who knows the truth about Bhaven is Enrielle. The story in Whore is only modified very slightly. Their interaction is real, except that XLTL omits the lead-in, when the two of them decide to practice their pretend personas. That cute dialogue? Just the two of them working out a script. The rest is subtle manipulation of perspective. XLTL does it because he can and it amuses him.

In what could be considered cosmic irony, seeing as it the result of Enrielle’s tendency to isolate and segregate the different parts of her life even from the people closest to her, Bhaven/Talus never meets Nyelle until after the fire, when she starts performing at the Inn. Thus he never realizes she is the very much still living daughter of his very distraught, close friend (Enrielle). Had he known, he would have said something…and The Crack in the Crystal would never have been written.

Main storyline: an enormous energy crystal made by a super deity to suspend and protect two hugely powerful souls and their guardian is carelessly buried undersea inside a volcano, resulting in a metaphysical multiverse link to other worlds and dimensions. It is discovered by someone who leads a secret experiment to discover what it means, causing the crystal to crack and the guardian to be ejected. This awakens the two souls who resume their struggle, slowly disrupting the crystal to the point where it might collapse into a multi-dimensional black hole, consuming this and many worlds, including Earth.

Hidden conspiracy: Behind the scenes, an important trading company (like a F500 on Earth), the Frentrunners, are attempting to shake the Kyber political hierarchy to wrest power away from the Thieves’ Guild (an intelligence organization/corporation hybrid). They do so via their ties to the king in order to gain control of the realm’s religious supervision apparatus. Our group is innocently caught in the middle of the conspiracy, and are used as pawns. The conspiracy fails, but our heroes discover the deeper truth about themselves and the danger to the multiverse.

How it combines: the group receives insights into their situation via a series of reveals. First is the real story behind Kyber. Second is the conspiracy, and their accidental role in it. Third is the true nature and history of the crystal. Their job is to connect the dots: (1) without the guardian, the crystal will break and destroy the world; (2) Sollis is the ejected guardian; (3) the nature of the Transsoulism problem and how it inhibits Sollis from returning to the crystal. Ultimately Sollis chooses to reinhabit the crystal, fix it from within, and spend eternity (or however long it takes) to see if they can convince one of the two dragon souls to defer to the other (the story leaves this open). Nyelle is saved when Sollis’s physical body serves as a temporary one for Nyelle’s soul before being consumed by the soul journey, which is in turn enabled by Lormek keeping Nyelle’s body in stasis, an effect only a Wildmage can achieve. And all of it can only happen with forgiveness, since Lormek’s misplaced soul needs to fully de-anchor from its original body first.

Then, of course, comes the biggest twist in the entire story.

The entire book is actually written by an unreliable narrator, the deity XLTL himself. This is revealed in the last sentence of Ch. 40 and changes all the previous understandings of what was actually happening – including those above in this FAQ. The Crack in the Crystal thus concludes in a fashion somewhat similar to Murder of Roger Akroyd (my favorite book by Dame Christie), sans the malice.

Critically, we learn that XLTL is an emotionally stunted deity, and that the book is something he was inspired to write by Sollis, who caused XLTL to develop “feelings”. XLTL is trying, but because he is still learning how these “emotion” things work, the book opens in a mildly autistic sort of way, except when he is relating dialogue! This explains the slightly detached narrative tone, and why things get tighter towards the end. What the evolving style reflects is XLTL “learning how to feel”.

XLTL then admits to lying about Enrielle’s backstory (and Talus and a host of other things) for his personal amusement.

The big twist is therefore that The Crack in the Crystal is, essentially, a bible (aka the ultimate book of stories) in the same way as how muslims believe in the Koraan as the literal word of god. Sollis even points this out to XLTL in a throwaway comment. The biggest message arrives when XLTL shrugs his divine shoulders and lets Sollis “keep the worlds” because she asks for it and XLTL, who realizes he has actual feelings for Sollis, doesn’t care either way.

It’s ultimately a lesson about the randomness of the universe and our existence, and how we really are just hairless monkeys flying on a magic rock in space, so we better enjoy the journey.

Question: I keep running into contemporary terms like “dude”, “cool”, and “bomb”, not to mention Earth-specific terms like “Pope”, “Domino”, and “brobdingnagian”. It throws me off. Why not just stick to normal fantasy language? Does it have a deeper meaning?

Answer: There are multiple layers to answering this question.

First, while the book is categorized as fantasy, you already know (since you’ve read it) that it isn’t really fantasy in the way Tolkien defined it. It has a strong mystery component, and if it fits anywhere within fantasy, it’s more in the “gamelit” or “RPGlit” niches, which are less restrictive.

Second, nothing says I cannot choose to write a book in a fashion more accessible to younger, modern audiences, with language that feels relatable to them. So it doesn’t read like the traditional high fantasy. So what?

But, like every other choice made in this book, there is a reasoning behind it, and it’s tied directly to the book’s meta.

One, our false narrator, XLTL, is an emotionless supreme being who ultimately undergoes the biggest transformation in the book (by learning “how to feel”) and is therefore the actual hero.

Two, Corrantha and Earth are connected via the soul bridge, which has been traveled a fair bit. We know that concepts from Earth have leaked into Corrantha. This is clearly illustrated by the discussion of terms like Pope, Stormtrooper, and others, and those contemporary Earth terms have a variation in the local language. But note that largely, only people from Kyber speak them, because they tend to remain localized to Kyber itself, where they originate through the Soul Bridge.

The key meta is that there is “bleed” between the worlds. In this novel. It’s strictly one-way, but…this is just one story.

Now let’s put it together. XLTL, in writing this story, is playing several hands. One of them is made explicit when he tells Sollis that he is writing the book for a specific audience, us, the people of Earth. XLTL has developed emotionally to care just enough to try and make the story compelling. Note that Sollis clues in to that, and subtly points it out by fake-flattering him (“I’m sure they are”) as she points out how mortals enjoy stories written by gods, but is too clever to press XLTL further. She’s still afraid he will take away her memories again if she goes too far. Sollis understands XLTL a lot better than he, the powerful deity, does himself.

XLTL fully knows Earth contemporary terms. He can see and hear anything he wants to at any time, but his ability to correctly interpret mortal emotional expressions is severely restricted. What XLTL is trying to do in the book, as part of his emotionality experiment, is to write the story for his audience in a way that he believes will make us enjoy it more. He’s wrong; it’s a bit annoying. But he doesn’t quite get that, and in the way he narrates the dialogue, he adds a few (misguided) “crowd pleasers” to his narration.

This is also a clue to his false narrator role; there are others, like contemporary references to earth books and movies. Another is how XLTL attempts to structure the book as a bible, with three “books”, “revelations” chapters, etc. Yet another is how he writes scenes like the first one with Treena at the bar; she isn’t really schizophrenic, nor is she pretending, but it appears to us as if she’s switching emotions rapidly. In reality, XLTL misinterprets her actual expressions and narrates them incorrectly, in this slightly detached manner that (from a human perspective) points to his struggle with emotions.

As an aside, one of my greatest challenges was to preserve this sort of mild irritation without turning off the reader entirely. The purpose was to create an underlying sense of discomfort, a thread running through, that reflects XLTL’s own discomfort…but to somehow do that without revealing the truth of the false narrator or losing the reader. One other form of an “intended irritant” is discussed in another Q&A below.

It’s also important to remember that conversations in the book are not in English! Orcs and Goblins in this world are not Tolkien’s Orcs and Goblins. Rather, they are creatures unique to Corrantha that have been given these contemporary earth terms by the storyteller. The same goes for Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Werewolves, and so on. They are similar but not the same; for example, our werewolves are wolves who turn into humanoids for three days a month. XLTL is aware of the similarities and attaches those names to them in his writing, for us. Essentially, what we are reading is a perfect translation, rather than the source.

Question: can you provide examples of the bread crumbs left for the reader showing the false narrator?

Answer: Here are some. Note, however, that this list is not exhaustive!

The structure of the book as a bible with three “books”, one of which is called the “book of revelations” and with actual “revelations” chapters.

The random mention of XLTL, as well as the meaning of the word (“precious twin”) in the beginning of the book. Gods in this milieu are always made of two parts, the halves, the yin and the yang. This is XLTL telling you about himself, and stating who is the real author (rather than that Barak Engel fella). Incidentally, by doing that he also proves that one emotion he certainly has managed to acquire from the mortals is…vanity. Or maybe that one just comes naturally to gods.

The detached emotional tone, especially early on, which may come across as slightly autistic. This includes elements such as the tone describing Treena’s flipping of emotions in ch.3, in reality illustrating how XLTL is misinterpreting her nuanced expressions.

The slightly awkward use of contemporary language in some of the dialogue.

The fact that, unlike the rest of the heroes who each have individual ones, Garrett’s backstory is melded with the city’s. Also, Garrett’s apparent tendency to cause trouble, which really is a reflection of XLTL’s own involvement. Is calls XLTL out on this in ch.41. A subtle yet very big one shows up in chapter 33 (Third Time’s No Charm) following Aidan’s transformation, where XLTL’s struggle with emotions is on full display. First, he pretty much ignores Aidan killing the werewolf. Nothing. Not even a paragraph. That’s because XLTL doesn’t get our need for emotional satisfaction; to XLTL, the obvious outcome was sufficiently summarized by Aidan himself saying that the werewolf didn’t stand a chance, and there was no need to describe it. Then XLTL adds insult to injury by glossing over the group’s emotional reaction to defeating the werewolf and seeing Aidan’s transformation. To XLTL, it’s just something that happened, and he misses all the emotional cues. I wanted to smack the reader in the face with it at that critical moment in the story, as a way to foreshadow that they might be missing something really important, and maybe, just maybe, alerting them to the emotionless, hidden, false narrator. My hope is that at least some people will pause (perhaps out of frustration) and wonder what is really happening here.

A particular literary device used throughout the book is the improper use of the past tense; it isn’t used according to the “rules” of prose, often melding current, near past, and remote past events. This is done intentionally to provide a subtle hint that the writer isn’t comfortable with the concept of time. And for a reader who is still in the dark, Nyelle sums it up perfectly a little later in ch.37, when she wonders out loud:

Nyelle spoke again. “Didn’t Zacharias write that the guardian’s powers were restricted within the crystal? Your memories might have been wiped. It sounds awful, but for an immortal being, maybe it isn’t so bad. What does time mean to an immortal?”

Question: you mention in the acknowledgements that the book pays homage to different works. Can you give examples of pop culture references?

Answer: you betcha! With the caveat that, like with the last question, this list isn’t exhaustive. I keep remembering some of the more subtle ideas I had as I interact with readers, and my notes on this aspect are so scrambled it’s hard to assemble them.

Having the easter eggs in itself pays homage to Ready Player One.

42 chapters is, of course, a reference to the Hitchhikers’ Guide and the ultimate answer.

Gone Ghost is a reference to Gone Girl, another false narrator book.

The cover itself is a variation on the false narrator concept, in that it is false artist. The werewolf and talisman highlighted on it are a distraction; the real story is about those five symbols, our heroes, and their relationships, but it is below the surface, as are the symbols on the cover.

Kyber, other than being a reference to my career in cyber, is also a reference to Star Wars. When I finally settled on that instead of the draft’s  original, boring, stand-in Lavatown, I almost spelled it Chyber. The term Stormtroopers is another reference (duh). Amusingly, in the back story Kyber is a term that makes its way back to earth and influences George Lucas. It serves as a suggestion that the soul bridge operates both ways.

Thor’s marvel-like powers is, beyond norse mythology, a reference to the Marvel Universe. Thor learns of these powers through the soul bridge, likes them, and adopts them as part of his new godly persona.

The name Bradd is in reference to Mythic Quest’s Brad from Monetization. His recruiting conversation echoes Bradd’s cavaliering style. It’s one of my favorite TV shows ever.

Speaking of my favorite TV shows ever, Garrett’s younger sister, Halley (Halleena), pays homage to Big Bang Theory; it is the name of Howard and Bernadette’s daughter.

The structure of the first half of the book is a reference to Mission Impossible and A-Team.

Aidan’s behavior is a vague reference to Jim Digriz from the Stainless Steel Rat series.

Some chapter titles (Arrival, Group Formation) are pilot references. I am a pilot and couldn’t help myself. It’s like that old joke: “how do you know if there’s a pilot at a party? They’ll tell you.”

The usage in Kyber of Stairway to Heaven to describe the staircase is, of course, in reference to Led Zepplin’s masterpiece. It also happens to be another term (like Kyber) that in this milieu ends up coming back to earth to inspire, rather than the other way around.

The use of the term brobdingnagian is, apart from just being a word I absolutely love but cannot pronounce, in reference to Gulliver’s Travels. Note, however, that it isn’t capitalized, because it just means huge, rather than the more specific meaning in Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece. As to who influenced who through the soul bridge here, I leave that up to you.

The name Kenzer, who amongst many things was also mentor to Enrielle, is a (very) veiled reference to Mazer, from Ender’s Game. No way for anyone to catch that unless I said it, but I deeply cared to have something in the book to honor one of my favorite authors and books, and it ended up being that.

The way XLTL controls Garrett is a subtle reference to Rincewind, from Terry Pratchett’s Colour of Magic, and the way the gods play with mortals on their fancy chessboard.

The one usage of the word “burglar” during the prison escape is a reference to The Hobbit.

The invisible royal wizard college is a reference to The Magicians, one of my favorite books.