It will not surprise anyone who has followed the first three books of The Infinite Labyrinth that I like alternate history as a form of fiction. I got introduced to the genre by one of the grandmasters of it, Byzantine scholar Harry Turtledove – seriously, go read his Agent of Byzantium.

Alternate History is the ultimate form of “what if…”, which is a core of fantasy and science-fiction. What if Venice ruled the world through its magician slaves? (The Unbound Empire) What if Gods were actually aliens that liked to rule the rubes of Earth? (Countless books, movies, and even a 10-season TV series with two spin-offs and an upcoming remake)

And when it comes to Napoleonic era, well… the French started writing “What if Napoleon had not been defeated?” stories about 10 years after he was.

When I started writing The Infinite Labyrinth, one of my first questions was “what is that Labyrinth thing about?”

It could be anything. I could have kept the scope of the story within the Regency-era setting, in the dark streets of London. It would probably even have been better in the literary sense. Everyone always insists on fiction needing a very specific scope. But I was starting a series that I had no idea how/when I’d end it. I now have a better idea on how and where I’ll end this specific story, but when I started writing, I knew I needed a large canvas to be able to tell anything that popped out of my imagination.

So, Earth-113. Which I never looked on Google, or I’d have changed it once I spotted the top hit on that search. By then, it was a bit late for that.

The Labyrinth was always intended to connect multiple worlds. Once I had dealt with the earthly conflict, I could start introducing multiple Earths stuff, or so I thought. And I had a pretty good idea what I would use. Or so I thought again.

The very first interlude I wrote, which is the third chapter I also wrote, just after chapter 1 & 2, actually appears in this book, in a much-rewritten form. It started completely differently. Its original idea was simple: unveil the fact that there were other worlds connected to the Labyrinth, by showing one of those… and one voluntarily making more Adjustment-bearers. For long-term power, no matter what the consequences.

There was, however, a crucial difference from what it is now.

The interlude was involving a quasi-religious ceremony in which people brought some kind of aether-powered suspension pods, that kept people in stasis, so they would not register as beings when they were transported across Gates. The pods would be broken open at a Plaza, the Labyrinth would “realize” that it had unqualified people in it, and try to solve the problem, and without Gatespace to move them around… Gore and stuff splashing all over, as 95% of the people were torn apart, and a handful might survive and end up with Adjustment.

And the best part? When the adapted were cheered by the onlookers, the description would include greyish skins with pupiled eyes, tusks protruding, and taloned hands.

Yes, readers. The original version of the series would have had Napoleon having to ally with Britain and the rest of the world to fight against ORCS. Probably with the help of elves, who were in another interlude – the one that’s actually now the prologue of book 3. Don’t ask me how a couple of elves becomes a Babylonian priestess and a German WW1 veteran. Probably the same thing that turns orcs into Roman centurions.

That didn’t last. Thankfully. It might be fun in theory, but the core idea of The Infinite Labyrinth – beyond the Labyrinth itself, that is – is alternate history. So, by the time I ended book 1, that particular interlude had been rewritten and featured instead eagle standards, and steely-eyed centurions supervising the same ceremony. Romans. Because, of course, Romans would absolutely do this.

Then, I adjusted slowly the interlude as book 2 progressed, to take into account what I was adding in book 2. I was mostly fleshing out Mhambi Meshindi, who originally went by the name Mor’ed’va’el (whose name appeared briefly in the book 2 epilogue on Royal Road, because I had entirely forgotten to rename his descriptor there) and was one of those fantasy beings. Tall, glossy black, with enormous horns and claws, rather than the now obvious alternate-history Zulu he is.

So, the interlude got rewritten again. I removed the magical stasis pod tech, which was unnecessary and, in its way, didn’t make sense. Instead, I used the same mechanic that we’d been introduced to, which is Gate destabilization. And since I had the ominous “they will come” line from the epilogue, I could simply delay it, or use it. So, “they” come. Just in a different Earth Divergence.

A second large part of regrets for book 3 is stemming from the serial nature of writing for RoyalRoad. Doing a one-chapter-every-N-days means you don’t get to do what Neil Gaiman affectionately call “draft 2”, or “the art of making it seems like it was your plan all along”.

When I conceived the over-arching theme of book 3, “Secrets”, it was all about the secrecy surrounding the assault. Once I set that, I found all kinds of secrets to add to the mix. Most of them are to be found, of course, because a secret that remains a secret forever might as well not exists. But the main part was trying to balance the need to be hidden and trick the French with trying to bring as much force you could.

One problem this runs into is training, military training. To put it bluntly, PvP and PvE in an MMORPG are very different beasts. In PvP, you will deal with an enemy that ignores your tank and goes straight to the healer. Or will blow all of his cooldowns at just the right moment of opportunity, something that the PvE encounter is usually carefully designed to avoid, to make it fair. But in PvP, the goal – of each side, potentially – is to be as unfair as possible.

Note that there IS a PvP spell in here. Aether Strangle, which was introduced in book 2, was originally meant to do mind damage. It was useless against Labyrinth mobs, who have far too much mind… but potentially devastating against humans. It no longer is that way for reasons pertaining to book 4.

So, our characters don’t do that kind of training. By and large, the five powers of Earth-113 have kept away from each other in term of Professionals. There have been skirmishes, but in general, the Professionals either farm PvE content to progress (the Zulu), to fuel economy (England), to make money (USA), to raise the new army and Party cadre (France). China is the only ones who use Professionals for war, and it’s limited to Heroes (zerglings) fighting mundane British troops and Asian locals.

Would the War Office send a mass of high tier Professionals unprepared into war? While warfare had yet to rise to the levels of professionalism spurred by modern wars of the late 19th and all of the 20th, wars were already mostly a professional soldier affair, not medieval peasant levies. Your Professionals are absolute elite and combat beasts. But they are not trained soldiers, which is obvious in the final chapters dealing with the assault on the Chateau de Versailles. How would the War Office train them?

It turns out my subconscious had been working on a solution for that. I should have listened to my subconscious earlier.

The answer is the Arena. If you play WoW, you’re familiar with the Arena-oriented nature of PvP competition. This is why I initially wrote the Arena combat interlude in Panomekon: it’s a homage to the Blizzcon streaming of those modern gladiatorial combats of e-Sport in an RPG setting.

I originally wanted to make an arena in Grailburg. It is one of those things that got cut from book 2 because the initial plan was to have one of the characters – Ira, Jonathan or Alton were candidates, each for different reasons – get involved into gladiatorial combat in secret. But the nature of the team descriptor meant that it could not be in secret for long. Jonas would notice quickly that for some reason while he, Laura and Guss were trying to find stuff to trade at the nascent Faire, one of their team members would lose lots of health, and sometimes come back with Lingering Death ticking down.

Using Ira even meant I would probably have him try to draw in Jonas to try it. If you wondered why Ira never went to the Faire for the longest time, that’s why. He was kept in reserve in case I could find a way to deal with the secrecy issue above.

But an Arena would be the perfect place to afford to train your Professionals, which meant it could get used in book 3 as a cover for training. But I didn’t think of it until late in the book, once I was thinking about how I could have used the Arena for even more cheap exposition. By then, I was already writing the tier four rush arc, and it was too late to “discover” the existence of the Gatepost Arena and have our characters engage in gladiatorial combat instead.

In retrospect, it would probably make for a better arc than the tier rush. Although I like very much the tier rush – it is an exploration of the intersection of the mechanics of Labyrinth and Adaptation, and a view of the weird adventurer life of Professionals that cross continents routinely in the pursuit of their objectives – it has felt very confusing for the readers. Well, put down some notes on how I might rewrite the series one day, in the far future, when trying to bring to market my first works after I’m an established veteran LitRPG author with half a dozen successful series on Amazon.

(who am I kidding? Never going to happen)

What’s next?

Well, book 4 is the final of the series. Title: Sanction. The lines are drawn, world war zero (since it comes before WW1) can begin. The book itself is yet to be written – I have a few ideas of how things will turn out, but sometimes the flow of action does not make sense yet.

It will also be longer than the previous ones. How much? No idea yet. It might be 400 pages, it might be more. But it will absolutely wrap up the story of the Adapted Team. What happens, I don’t know. It is a war that’s brewing, and no one knows what happens, as there is no True History to guide you to what happens in a Divergence.

It will also have a slightly different flow, as there will be more point of view scenes from the various characters I’ve introduced in the story previously, all of which should have a role to play in the final arc (yes, even the Americans. The Americans always sit out the WW at the beginning and come later).

See you all in The Infinite Labyrinth – Sanction. Coming to Royalroad… When It’s Ready™ (oops, that’s actually a real TM from John Staats – former World of Warcraft developer and author of a fine book on how that game came about. Check it out on Amazon, you won’t regret it if you like to learn how MMOs were made in the golden era of the early 2000s).