In Review: Demonic Healer Naberius (The Prototype)

Hello. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Unfortunately, I don’t have as much to post here as I used to, but against my better judgment, I’ve decided to share the original prototype for Demon Healer Naberius, lovingly dubbed Demonic Healer Naberius, as a way to celebrate the one year anniversary of Volume One’s release. You can find that prototype in the sister post, and I will be using this article to go over my thoughts as I read through it.

(Please be aware that this does provide psuedo-spoilers for Demon Healer Naberius: Volume. I can’t imagine there are many people interested in reading this who haven’t already checked out the novel, but it should be made clear that a good deal of what appeared in the prototype was reworked for Volume One. Please proceed accordingly.)

First, some context. I haven’t read this prototype since I first wrote it—meaning it’s been about three years. When I thought to turn Demon Healer Naberius into a larger project, I rebuilt it using only what I could remember, and today, I read one page before stopping and deciding I should give my raw impressions as they come instead of taking a more edited approach. That said, I can still assure you of one thing:

The prototype is bad. It is very bad. Ridiculously, hilariously, embarrassingly bad.

Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. If anything, it’s fantastic. It helps me see just how much I’ve improved since I started writing with intent. If I read this thing and thought, “Man, my prose used to be so good,” that’d be fucking depressing. As such, I’m likely going to sound self-loathing throughout this article, but please be aware that I’m looking back at myself when I was less practiced. It’s good to feel that I’ve improved since then.

Last thing before I start dismantling my prior best efforts: Demonic Healer Naberius was written with the goal of emulating a lighthearted adventure manga (Delicious in Dungeon was the key inspiration). I didn’t have a greater stylistic goal than that, so if memory serves, there’s a lot of experimental content in there. I can remember at least one off-key joke, and I will tear myself apart when we get to it. In the meantime, please bear with me as the tone and setting clash like a clown’s wardrobe and the typos run rampant as the story basks in all its unfettered flaws.

Ready to begin? I’m sure as hell not, but let’s get into it anyways.

Welcome to Demonic Healer Naberius, dear reader.

Within the first page (first few paragraphs for everyone reading it on its webpage), we’re introduced to a very different Nabby. She’s more assertive, almost bitchy. I’ve always liked confident women, so I would imagine I was trying to establish Nabby as someone who stands up for herself, a trait I would later move to Bosa.

I’ll also take a moment to draw attention to the bad prose here, though I’ll try to dedicate word space to only the most egregious examples as we get further in. “Probably a halfling” is terrible; fantasy races are best when they’re distinct, so implying that someone would have trouble telling the differences between them would make me think, “Why not just go with only humans then, Mr. Author?” There’s also, “Nabby did feel bad about making the clerk look bad…”, which I hate because I used “bad” twice in a single sentence. Lastly, I can see my old obsession with commas at work here. Rather than periods or em-dashes (the latter of which I didn’t know how to use back then), we instead foolishly link clauses with commas. Very sexy.

The names and terms I’m throwing around here make me gag as well. I have no fucking clue what “Bewohner” was meant to reference, yet “Estella Sumnur” is painfully obvious. “Hume”—the manager’s race—was ripped straight from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (which is acceptable for personal projects that aren’t supposed to see the light of day), and it looks like I went with Spanish for the dates for some reason. Coincidentally, Agosto fourth (August 4th), happens to be the day I released my first novel, A Fool’s Goddess.

Regarding the story itself, you can already see flecks I would repurpose for the novel. Nabby was summoned but not bound, though it looks like I didn’t put much detail into the reasoning back then. Curiously, it seems I initially didn’t give Nabby any beef with priests, though I noted a distaste for holy magic. Of course, she also already has her nickname, though it’s apparently self-given, and the first section concludes with Nabby surprising the clerk with her unusual role of being a healer, another common event in the novel.

The next section opens with three paragraphs of character description, a blatant symptom of inexperience, though it’s fascinating to read my original design ideas. Since the prototype was for classic fantasy and not the modern/urban fantasy I would later adopt, she was meant to look more like a stereotypical adventurer. Notably, she wears armor, and she has a wolf-fur cloak instead of her signature white coat. I also noted that she was shorter than average (she’s meant to be slightly above average height in the novel) and mentioned a “nice figure”, which was the closest I was willing to write to say she has big tits. I wasn’t as comfortable with my horniness back then, leading to strange, desperate inclusions like that.

The bit of world-building we get afterwards is awkward. It’s clearly a basic summary of what would later become Reese and her group’s involvement, but compressed to near-irrelevance. It’s also mentioned that Nabby has friends “in the other planes”—more proof that she didn’t as fleshed out of a backstory—and the short story she describes was the piece I wrote right before Demonic Healer Naberius because I couldn’t wait to start jerking off my own ego.

I find it funny how Nabby used to not be able to cook but was still proficient with handcrafts. It seems I was also trying to establish her as being a fan of mutton, which isn’t half as cute as hamburgers. I think there was also some weird attempt at implying Espad (another flagrantly terrible name) had a crush on her, only to be scared off by her proud display of her handmade clothes.

Also, why the fuck was I so afraid of exclamation points? Nabby’s supposed to sound excited, but there’s no energy in her statements. I’m stuck imagining her flatly intoning everything and it’s making uncomfortable.

Anyways, there’s then a very sudden time skip followed by a forced joke about Nabby’s feet. I think I just wanted to bring up that detail as soon as possible, though I suppose it could have been jammed in somewhere worse. We conclude with another funny detail about how she actually had an official healer’s armband in the prototype, and the curious appearance of exclamation points. Did I have something against using them earlier in the story? Ack, what an inconsistent fool…

Section three moves straight into the quest. We’re immediately introduced to Connor—who would later reappear as the signature character of Job Four in Volume One and apparently used to be a human—and the three dwarves. The little dudes were supposed to be a sort of nod to Tolkien’s dwarves from The Hobbit, and they actually make a reappearance in Volume One as the guys Bosa fucks between the events of Jobs Three and Four, though they go unnamed there.

And of course, we have Bosa.

She easily changed the most between the prototype and the novel. For starters, she was a lamia and not a scylla, and she had a very different color scheme and design, likely as a side effect of the more classic setting. She also uses a lance for some reason, and I don’t recall what the book on her hip was meant to do. I think the only consistent parts are her hairstyle and song magic, as her personality is much closer to novel Bosa’s idol façade. She was meant to be upbeat and supportive, almost the inverse of prototype Nabby’s stronger personality, and the two would later swap those traits.

Funny details to point out: the seed of Bosa giving people nicknames was planted here, with her calling Nabby “Newby”, and she uses “darn” instead of “damn”—something novel Bosa would never do. I also brought up Bosa using enchanted jewelry to make different climates tolerable, which was part of novel Bosa’s design but wasn’t officially mentioned until midway through Volume Two.

We then get into a discussion about a group of six having two healers, an allusion to a greater plot point that I’ll go into when it pokes its ugly head out. Nabby and Connor discuss their abilities, and those who have read Volume One can probably see some more carryover. This whole section is plagued by bad structure and ignorant design, but alas, it is a product of its time.

And now we’re hit with some tonal whiplash. Despite how I was avoiding cursing and sexual content, we’re privy to a nice, violent description of a dead wagon driver (another halfling too; what was my beef back then?). I also don’t really understand my logic for the caravan having a runner, but I think that’s just a failing of word choice. If I had described it as ‘a driver who managed to flee from the attack’ instead of “a runner”, I feel it would give a better impression of what happened.

Next is a big surprise for me; I completely forgot I created Nabby’s dogs back in the prototype. I remembered that she summoned some familiars, but I didn’t realize I fleshed them out with names and descriptions. It looks like Cerulean and Bergundy (written as Burgundy in the prototype) stayed more or less the same (they even have the same pet names), but proto-Rusty was meant to be some kind of terrier instead of a pug. It seems like they were all hellhounds instead of the variety of breeds they’d become, and they also don’t have as much personality. Yet it would seem Bosa’s love for Rusty was persistent beyond renditions of their characters and story, which is kind of touching.

There’s also that bit about Connor being afraid of dogs. That was clearly cut from the novel as Nabby’s familiars don’t appear until Volume Two, though I guess the joke was instead given to Su Ling in that same novel? Regardless, it sits as early proof of my sense of humor, albeit with much poorer expression.

As an aside, isn’t it weird that Nabby isn’t grossed out by all the corpses? I don’t know if I was trying to imply she’s seen worse things as a demon, but man, why isn’t she even a little fazed by a dude with his head almost cut off? What a badass version of Nabby—she wears a wolf pelt and doesn’t afraid of anybody.

Anyways, we then move into the first battle. It’s almost reminiscent of the initial giant spider fight in Volume One, but it’s so jarring to think of Bosa fighting and Nabby not fucking things up in their first quest together. I went a lot harder on describing combat back then, which I suppose was appropriate given that it’s important to the plotline I was moving to establish.

Demonic Healer Naberius was originally supposed to be a story about ‘competitive healing’. If that sounds dumb, that’s because it is, and I thankfully realized there weren’t a lot of ways healers could interact with or antagonize one another that didn’t trespass into criminal sociopathy. As stated, the idea was that Connor was blocking Nabby’s magic so that he could make her look bad. Which isn’t an awful concept in and of itself, admittedly, but where do you go from there? You can have a really fast healer who always heals before Nabby, or maybe someone who just prevents injuries ahead of time, but it’s much more limited than the ‘weird adventurers’ flavor I utilize in the novels.

Regardless, that was the theme I was trying to work with. It evolves into Connor revealing himself as an insidious bastard, setting us up for the inevitable conflict between healers. I don’t think the logic behind all this is very strong, but again, I didn’t know a tenth as much about writing as I do now. I simply remember feeling confident in the concept, blithely inconsiderate to how a story’s progression should work.

Next we get a confrontation scene between Nabby and Bosa. It’s kinda similar to the one we see in Volume One, though the discussion is very different. Rather than Bosa bullying the shit out of Nabby, it’s her trying to help Nabby not fuck up her job (she even hugs Nabs for God’s sake). It’s interesting to see bits of Bosa’s dryness in this prototype, as well as the concept of her and Nabby going to get drinks.

There’s also that off-key joke I mentioned earlier, i.e. Bosa pissing while they were talking. It’s not as bad as I remembered, but it still seems kind of out of place considering how chaste the rest of protoype has been. It feels a lot more like a bit I’d use now, which is maybe a hint that I always wanted to be a unbound pervert.

Moving along, we then get the fight against the forest golem or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be, and I feel like the sprites were only added to give a little more buildup. Nabby and Connor are at each other’s throats, there’s more in-depth combat description, and we get the surprise appearance of some real curse words. I guess I planned to have foul language but took some time getting there? Who knows. The bit about Nabby using her dogs to scare Connor is clever, though I feel like Connor should have responded with more than just whining.

I do think the narrative of Nabby and Connor having to simultaneously fight and work together is interesting, mind you. I don’t think it’s particularly well done here, but there’s a reason I still have “Nabby and another healer compete throughout a gig” as a fragment in my idea stockpile. I doubt I’d play it up to such dramatic stakes as I do in the prototype, but it might be fun to revisit.

Then there’s the scene of Nabby failing to heal someone because she doesn’t have a monster to drain. Where that was an establishing bit in Volume One, here it’s a climactic setback. It’s then followed up by Bosa getting gravely wounded (imparted to us through some terribly paced description) and the revelation that Connor set everything up to get Nabby fired by forcing a situation where she wouldn’t be able to heal the lamia.

Again, credit where it’s due, I think my past self was on to something here. The concept is intriguing, if not unsustainable across a larger narrative. But for a one-shot story like this, I would give it a thumbs-up.

Naturally, the solution is for Nabby to drain herself. She then passes out, leading to a more subtle version of the perspective switching I currently employ. The party then gets their shit together, beats the golem, and blah blah blah—very basic ‘heroes rising above the challenge’ bullshit. It’s alright; not really something I’d want to write nowadays, but it’s fine.

But then I surprise myself again by providing a backstory for Connor. It feels weird as shit to see some attempt at making his assholeishness understandable, but I guess that’s what I was going for back then. Some sort of ‘nobody is truly a villain’ kind of thing, maybe? Would make sense, considering I would go on to introduce Bosa as a massive cunt in the novel, only for her to become the secondary protagonist and express an almost heroic side of herself.

The story itself then wraps up with a sloppy bow. Nabby and Bosa are now best pals, Connor is apparently going to make up for what he’s done, and the dwarves are still doing whatever the fuck it is they do. Not particularly interesting, not god awful, I suppose. We’re then treated to the prototype of the bar epilogue I would go on to stash at the end of Demon Healer Naberius volumes.

For the novels, I use the epilogues as a place to put ideas or lore bits I wanted to cover but couldn’t find a decent place for in the main story. They’re meant to be supplementary, not necessary, and they are inspired by the mood set in VA-11 Hall-A. In this prototype, it seems like the bar is used more to go over the events of the story with a lighter touch before providing the true ending of the story, culminating in Nabby and Bosa establishing their partnership.

…And then there’s the “Interlude” bit I apparently tacked on at the end that’s more akin to the novel epilogues. This would be the third major aspect that I forgot I did in this prototype first, and it would explain where my idea to use the epilogues as supplementary sections came from. Please forgive that arrogant paragraph beneath the label—I can only imagine my past self felt assured enough of his “skill” that having something like that was acceptable.

What a cocky bastard. If only that idiot knew how much more time and effort it would take for him to write something worth reading…

Anyways, it looks like there’s a lot of background info that I ultimately altered or discarded. Prototype Nabby was apparently self-taught in her handcrafts and everyone in Hell is naked, and old Bosa appears to actually already have been loose and crude. I noticed she also curses more here, which I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be character development or a subtle joke that Bosa swears more when she’s drunk. More ha-has about Nabby’s feet, some sultry implications, then we end with another dumbass paragraph.

Frankly, this section holds just as much of the DNA that would shape Demon Healer Naberius as the rest of the prototype. It’s a lot more mature and focused on comedy, so I could probably assume that it’s what inspired me to make DHN what it is today (despite how I forgot I even wrote it). It was certainly the most interesting to read, if you ask me.

And that’s Demonic Healer Naberius, the similarly named but abysmally written prototype to my ongoing personal project, simultaneously an embarrassing footnote in my history as a writer and the primordial soup that would spawn the novels I feel immense joy in creating. This whole thing ended up being less painful to read than I expected, but I should probably mention I got a little high before I started this review because I was certain it would agonize me to the point of vomiting. Revisiting this prototype and seeing the roots of my ideas was enlightening, and it helps me appreciate how I’ve grown. My more-experienced eyes can’t help but see all the flaws in it, but overall, Nabby’s story started in a better place than my memory believed.

That said, I apologize for any and all illness inflicted by those flagrant typos and terrible prose. I knew I wasn’t half as conscientious of a writer back then, but holy fuck—that was some hot garbage. If you managed to actually read through the whole thing, kudos to you. Your prize is in the mail.

As for my past self, you get a D+. You clearly cared about what you were writing and had a goal in mind, but there is a huge need for improvement. See me after class and we’ll discuss what you can do better.

Alright, I think that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my past; I certainly feel it was an appropriate way to celebrate anniversary of Demon Healer Naberius: Volume One’s release. With my old efforts fresh in my mind, I’ve got more drive than ever to keep writing and keep improving. I’ll continue to find ways to grow, and I hope I never stop.

I want to rest on my bed, not on my laurels.

Take care, dear reader, and thank you for joining me thus far. Have a safe and wonderful day, and I’ll see you around the bend.

Go get ‘em, go-getter.