The Unwelcome Visitors

The Unwelcome Visitors is a short story I wrote in late 2019 to early 2020, and acts as another fantasy story. The Unwelcome Visitors focuses on six sorcerers who barely know one another, united by a common goal of helping a city ravaged by a recent calamity. After their introductions in a train's dining cart and during their eventual arrival, however, they quickly discover that they may not have much choice in the matter, especially as they start to learn about what possibly happened beforehand.

The setting for The Unwelcome Visitors is heavily based on Belgium, and I attempted to include some references to its history and culture within the continent. I also included some dialogue partially written in French, Flemish, and German, the three official languages of Belgium; hopefully, the context will be enough for readers to understand them. 

The Unwelcome Visitors can be downloaded as a PDF in the following formats:

 Complete
     Part 1
     Part 2

In total, The Unwelcome Visitors is about 9000 words long. Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.

And once again, these characters may reappear again in another story; I have grown rather attached to them and the setting.

The above photograph is that of Namur Railway Station, a train station in Belgium, taken some time before 1914. I felt it was rather evocative of the setting I was trying to create for the story. Namur Railway Station is still in operation and is currently one of Belgium's most-used railway stations.

Freÿr was based on an actual city in Flanders, though Namur Railway Station is actually situated in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium.

The Unwelcome Visitors has its roots in a fantasy novel I attempted to start writing in 2013, in the midst of some long-running Calculus lectures I had to attend for my undergrad work. While the story ended up going nowhere, I ended up salvaging some of the lore and setting; in particular, the original main character for this story was a young, red-haired mage named Felicity.  

The surnames for all the characters in this work were variously taken and adapted from various classmates I met in my time during pharmacy school, both in my classes and within my dormitory.