About a week ago, I posted the first half of this scene, which is located in my previous post. I had to split it up because otherwise it looked freakishly long for a blog, and I left the first half posted for a while so everyone would see it. Here's the second half, featuring Ach'magut, the Overseer.

Enjoy!

To celebrate 100 combined reviews of the first pair of Elder Empire novels, I've agreed to give you some extra content here on the blog. Because I'm awesome, and because 100 is such a cool number, I'm including not just one piece of content, but five!

That's four cooler than it could have been!

Here's the first: information regarding the future of Simon and the Traveler's Gate universe.

(Hit the jump to see it!)

All of the above.

I told you, I reserve the right to change my mind. And I have. I said to you, "I'll deliver whichever one was most popular." Instead, I'm going to do all of them.

The votes were clear, but there were passionate advocates for all options involved. So I decided...you know what? I can do them all, I will do them all, and Merry Christmas. I'm starting with the winner, and I'll work my way down the list one at a time.

The first of five planned 100-review rewards will be delivered two days from now. And we're starting off with...

The future of Traveler's Gate.

"But the last time we asked Will for the future of Traveler's Gate, he gave us sphinx riddles and lies! Even his Valin story ended on a cliffhanger!"

No. This is the current introductory information--sort of a trailer in written words, if you will--that sets up the next adventures of Simon and company.

Tell your friends.

Take one down, pass it around...

On second thought, please don't take one down.

But hey, we're currently showing ninety-nine combined Amazon reviews of the Elder Empire books! That's awesome! And coincidentally, there are 699 Likes on my Facebook page! THE ERA OF THE NINETY-NINE HAS BEGUN.

Thanks for your support, and to honor that, I promise I'm working as hard as possible on Of Dawn and Darkness / Of Darkness and Dawn. Honestly, I'm feeling slightly guilty over the time off I've taken to write this blog post.

So before I get back to writing, I wanted to remind you that I did something a little special for the first 25 and 50 reviews. For twenty-five, I posted an early draft of Shadow's original prologue, starring everyone's favorite global Emperor. For fifty, I wrote a cliffhanger-y teaser chapter involving Valin and Simon.

So...we're one away from 100.

Any suggestions?

All right! Thanks to you, the two Elder Empire books now have a combined total of twenty-five reviews! Actually, at the time of writing, it's twenty-eight, but who's counting?

I am. I'm counting.

I said I would do something special at 10, 25, and 50 reviews, so now it's time for the twenty-five tier: a deleted scene from the Emperor's perspective!

This is the first draft of what could have been, in an alternate universe, the prologue for Of Shadow and Sea. It's not incredibly clean, and I cut it for good reasons, but it's still a nice look into the background of the Aurelian Empire and the history of its two most influential leaders.

Hit the jump, and enjoy! Happy Twenty-Five Review Day!

-Will