EQUO SYNOPSIS

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

set off in pursuit.

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

of far grander proportions.

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.

The Spinster—revealed to be a demon-worshipper—instigates riots all across

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

returning to his cognitive prison.

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.