Equo Synopsis - Mark Atling
Equo Synopsis - Mark Atling
Equo Synopsis - Mark Atling
Mark Atling
(markgerry97@gmail.com)
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ALDO LORENZO cheats his way into the ranks of the Equos, an order of monster hunters
pledged to protect the land of Novondo from otherworldly demons and supernatural
horrors. Aldo is the sole heir to the fortune of his crippled father, a fortune he nearly
squanders on illegal wyvern blood. Yet the gambit pays off, as Aldo is recruited by the Equo
master MYA ULPIUS. His dream is finally realised, yet it is not to last.
A surprise attack from a demon not seen in centuries triggers a vision in which Aldo
relives the day his mother died, a day he had never been able to remember, setting
momentous events in motion. In the aftermath of the vision, a demon lord calling itself Z
begins whispering to Aldo inside his head. Z refuses to explain his interest in Aldo, but they
begin to form a strange friendship after a fellow Equo tries to kill Aldo and Mya is forced to
Aldo travels to the demon-infested city of Montidum with JULIA, the would-be-
assassin’s apprentice. Montidum is the home of the crime lord from whom Aldo bought
wyvern blood in his youth, a shadowy figure called the SPINSTER. Beset by conspiracies,
Aldo and Julia search for the Equo who ordered his assassination, and stumble upon a plot
It is at this moment that Z reveals his true nature, as he tries—and fails—to turn Aldo
to the demons’ side. Z reveals that before the death of Aldo’s mother, Aldo was not the
person he is now. This original Aldo was the puppet for a different demon lord, part of the
demons’ schemes to return to the world. But the lord was forced out by some mysterious
entity, and the original Aldo was imprisoned within his own mind, an imposter put in his
place. It is Z’s intent to free the true Aldo and make of him a vessel.
Montidum, and Aldo and Julia must flee through the city as the Equos come under attack, a
betrayal that is mirrored all across Novondo as the populace turns on the Order, butchering
Equos in their beds and ambushing them on the roads. The two apprentices are separated
and Aldo is caught by agents of the Spinster, who stab him in the heart.
This was Z’s plan all along. The demon uses Aldo’s death to free the original Aldo,
who immediately heals himself and defeats the Spinster’s agents. Z’s celebrations are short-
lived, however, as the original Aldo rejects the lord, refusing to be a slave even if it means
Aldo escapes the city, but Julia and the other Equos are already journeying to
Scriptorum, the Equos’ citadel. There, Mya has finally caught up to Aldo’s assassin and
brought him to justice, even as the Equos are branded as traitors and forced into exile.
Aldo chooses not to join his kin, for he knows that even though Z is defeated, there
are other lords and other vessels. He decides to seek out the mysterious entity that locked
away his former self, hoping to find answers in lands far beyond the borders of civilisation,
that he might end the demon threat once and for all.