Untitled Spain Novel Chapter 1 - Future Plans Disrupted (Patreon)

Hermit's Notes: My PC arrived this evening. But setting the thing up will take a while. That means I will start posting EnEm chapters again from tomorrow onwards.

In the meantime, here is the setup for some spain-based kingdom building/adventure/spy novel I have been thinking about. Names and places aren't entirely final, I think.

And yes, all of these are kingdom building. A while back, I made a looong list with good alt history ideas, then narrowed it down to my favorite three and started writing a bit of each to see which one I would like best. Anyways, this is the result. Enjoy.





A young man, almost still a boy, sank down a shoulder-high brick wall against his back. Just then, another bullet whizzed above his head and added another hole to the white plaster on the opposite wall.

“Hey, Hernán? Do you think this is it?” the young man asked and pulled his rough felt cap deeper into his face, which hid his indifferent expression.

"What do you mean, Santi?" The young man named Hernándo asked back, his face as stoic as his companion’s.

"I mean, now that we're done with school." Santiago’s gaze lost focus, as if he was trying to grasp the illusory strings on his eyeballs. "What do we do now?"

“Same as our folks, I reckon.” Hernándo shrugged. “Ramòn has been teaching me how they make fake antiques look old. I’ll probably do that for now.”

At least you have something you want to do, and even a brother to teach you, a bitter Santiago thought. Though he wouldn't say anything so petty to his friend, of course.

“Sounds fun,” he claimed instead. “Still, don't you think there's... something more out there?"

"Like real antiques?" Hernán a leaked, just in time for another bullet to hit their cover.

“No, I mean somewhere without bullet holes."

"Now that you say it." Hernán turned his head to the direction of the shootout. Though of cours, he made sure to remain within cover at all times. "Hey! Are you about done over there!?"

“We're trying to get home!” Santi added.

For a second, it seemed like nothing had changed and bullets were still flying, but then a voice answered.

“Wait, aren't you…” one of the combatants mumbled, barely audible above the firefight, before he screamed at his deadly enemy across the road. “Hey, stop shooting, pura! There's children here!"

"Sorry." His foe replies sheepishly. All of a sudden, quiet had returned to the street.

"Aren't you tykes supposed to be in school still? What are you doing here this early?" The first shooter asked, though he remained in cover. Of course, Santi also knew better than to show his face in such a tense situation. Still, it was better to be casual with these low-level killers. This way, they couldn't feel offended or provoked by some random slight.

“Today was graduation. The teachers let us out early,” Santi thus explained.

“Congratulations.” the shooter shouted back.

“Thanks.” Santi waited for a few seconds, before he added, “Now can we get through?”

“Sure. Go ahead.” The voice said, before another added: Yeah, get a move on!”

Finally, Santi and Hernán could leave their cover. Tense steps carried them through the crossfire in between the uneasy truce. Just as Santi was about to leave the danger zone, as the tension began to leave his body one last comment from the shooter made his shoulders stiffen once more.

“And welcome to the family,” he spoke the ominous words lightly. To him, it must have been nothing more than a friendly greeting. Yet to Santiago, it was akin to a curse, a final judgment which had determined the rest of his life.

As the two friends walked through the mottled streets of Palos de la Frontera, a mottled harbor town in southern Spain, which was known for nothing but the fact that Columbus had been here 4 centuries ago, Hernán was chattering about his brother’s business, with a palpable excitement for the future. Yet Santi remained silent until they separated at his house.

Without a word, he went inside, and sneaked through the ground floor foyer to avoid his family. Only once he had reached his room did he sink down on the chair by the open window with a heavy sigh. Even he himself couldn't quite express why he was so unhappy. His family's life was much better than that of most people in town. His father was considered an important man, wealthy and respected. Maybe it wasn't so bad to follow in his father's footsteps after all.

Still, he always felt hemmed in, as if his life could be so much more. There was a whole world out there, just waiting to be discovered, if only he got the chance.

Alas, he had no money to travel and he had already learned whatever the local school could teach him. If he wanted to know more, he was already out of options. With wistful eyes, he stared at the world map hung up above his bed, like he had done countless times before.

In his mind he had gone on adventures for as long as he could remember. In reality, whatever adventure he could go on would have to happen right here, in Palos de la Frontera.

Another sigh escaped his lips, hopeless and impotent like so many before it. Yet like a spell, this one summoned the answer to his prayers. Out of thin air, a square piece of metal materialized with an unceremonious ‘plopp’ and landed on the bed.

Confused by the unspectacular, unprompted, yet clearly supernatural display, Santi walked to the bed and picked up the strange object which had come from nowhere. It really was just a silver-gray rectangle, made out of some kind of smooth resin and cool to the touch. When he turned it around, he found that most of the other side was covered in a shiny black surface, like polished obsidian.

Fascinated by this supernatural event, he weighed the feather-light apparition in his hands, when he inadvertently pressed a protrusion on the side. The sudden, bright lights shocked him, though he was more fascinated by the words which had appeared on the obsidian. Now no longer black, it instead shone in an otherworldly, blindingly white glow.

"E-reader?" He asked himself in confusion. "What does that mean?"

Curious, Santiago touched his fingers on the object which would change his life forever, and with it, the very course of history.