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Greetings, readers and welcome to Jackal Eka.

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Logline

When a supernatural flood drowns a town overnight, a mage apprentice finds herself fighting her worst nightmares to rescue the last survivors.

Blurb

As mysterious flash-floods rising from a dam reservoir begin drowning the town of Ketakey, it is upto the mages of the Kingdom of Kedhara to keep its citizens safe. Daminey Roukha, a mage apprentice born with the armor of the Jackal lineage and tasked with rescuing civilians, finds herself plunging headfirst into her nightmares as she navigates the source of the disturbance. With inexplicable and terrifying phenomena thwarting her attempts at saving the locals from the clutches of the deluge, time is a stream of sand slipping through her fingers. The mage apprentice is soon shown the true horrors of what was buried underneath the town centuries ago.

When you die in the darkness of the Ketakey Reservoir, you come back. But you never come back the same, there's always a price to pay for resurrection.

A South Asian/Indian mage fantasy

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Cover

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Prompts

The prompts I've chosen for the novella are.

#5

ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs ᴀ ᴛᴇʀʀɪʙʟᴇ ᴅʀᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ʀᴀᴠᴀɢɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀɴᴅ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀs ʀᴇᴄᴇᴅᴇ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴀʟ ʟᴀᴋᴇ/ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴏɪʀ, ᴛʜᴇʏ ʀᴇᴠᴇᴀʟ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ɴᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ғɪɴᴅ.

#66

ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴇ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ʙᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴍᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴀʟᴡᴀʏs ᴀ ᴘʀɪᴄᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴀʏ ғᴏʀ ʀᴇsᴜʀʀᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ.

Am I going to enjoy writing with these!

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Author's Note

This is my first time participating in the ONC, as in most other years there was just stalking with no writing done XD. 😁

Jackal Eka is a South Asian/Indian mage fantasy with a dash of arcanepunk on the side, that has been a long neglected pet project of mine until ONC 2021.

I've always wanted to write a story based on the Panchatantra fables. The Panchatantra fables are a collection of ancient Indian stories crafted in Sanskrit by a scholar named Vishnu Sharma, used by him to imbibe Dharma or moral righteousness in his students. Almost all of them have talking animals as their protagonists, who tackle very human problems like conflict, jealousy, wrath and so on.

Jackals (or foxes in some cases) are often represented as the underdogs who triumph over their bigger adversaries, usually lions, using their keen intellect. Rabbits and crows fall into this personality type as well. Their stories served as the inspiration for Jackal Eka.

In Jackal Eka, you will find a kingdom having certain similarities to ancient South Asia, specifically India, though very different from it in various aspects. Since India is an extremely diverse subcontinent in terms of its local traditions, cultures and languages, covering them all in one novella would be impossible. There are so many aspects of South Asian cultures: art-forms, cuisines, beliefs, fables, legends, myths and so on that deserve to be celebrated. I hope I can methodically explore some of them through this work. I will be using words, phrases and sentences from the various ancient tongues of the subcontinent such as Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Tamil, Sinhala and various Indo-Dravidian tribal languages for diversity. I'll be adding a glossary for reference at the end too.

My characters are as imperfect as humans come. They're prone to mistakes just as we are. I hope their shortcomings make them all the more interesting to follow.

I mean no harm to any religious or ethnic groups. If you feel that there is something inappropriate with my portrayal, please feel free to correct me. I apologize for any such mistakes on my part.

I'd like to use this as an opportunity to pay tribute to the cultures I grew up with and around and am I proud to call my own.
I just hope I can do it justice with Jackal Eka. Sure, there would also be plenty of creative freedom and magic used while writing.

Bucket-loads of magic to be precise.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

If you're reading this on a platform other than Wattpad, you're in risk of a malware infection.

Enjoy! 😆💖

-Indu Knight
(equinoxmoon)

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A Map of Kedhara

(made on Inkarnate)

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Trigger warnings

• Gore
• PTSD
• Imposter Syndrome
• Anxiety attacks
• Speech impediments

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Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your ONC novellas so that I may read them. 😁

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Cumulative wordcount : (undergoing edits)

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Milestones

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Featured in the Wandering Immortals reading list on WattpadAsianFantasy
(6/7/21)

Featured in the Mythology from Around the World reading list on mythandlegend
(21/10/21)

Winner of the Wattpad India Awards 2021 in the 'That Secret Quest' category.
(23/12/21)

Featured in the Dark Fantasy reading list by Fantasy
(11/1/22)

Featured in the Fantasy in Action reading list by action

(23/1/22)

(15/5/22)

(29/4/23)

(1/5/23)

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