Exile Chapter 34 rewrites

I've finished chapter 34 of the second drat of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

This chapter is about 70% carried over from the first draft and 30% new material. There was a lot of superfluous junk in this chapter that I cut away as well, a lot of it having to do with plotlines and such that are no longer relevant in this draft. As such the word count has actually gotten smaller with the addition of this chapter rather than larger. This is sort of a break in the story where Mal really sits down to figure things out once and for all, and though this is monumentally important for his character developement, it's also kinda of slow and boring and I didn't want to take too long with it to ruin the pacing of the story, which is starting to ramp up a bit now.

This chapter is also the biggest part of this story that ties it into the universe of Beyond the Lost Horizon, as characters from that story make appearances, and it also ties in to Spires of Infinity with this chapter as well. Jonathan, and Michael, two of the heroes of that story are mischievous children here, and their sister Kari is not far from being born. I've given a few small spoilers to the ending of the Beyond the Lost Horizon trilogy here, but nothing really major, or in much detail.

Raven, the Northern Sage, lays out the whole speach about destiny, and life being a trial, and free will, and all of that, which, if you're read Beyond the Lost Horizon is sort of a little joke I've put in here, because he absolutely HATED it when his predecessor Freyja would say those same things to him. Now Mal has to sit down and choose what path he wants to walk down. He needs to find within himself the reason to stand up and fight.

The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 199,511 words.