XD

If by "ending" you mean "that point where I stopped writing and after which approx. 200,000 further words come", then yes.

Try checking out my C2. I haven't looked at it in years, but at the time, it included the best of what's there (for E/A). Which is to say, don't expect amazing stuff, but relatively speaking, it's readable.

 

Yeah I've never found anything worth reading. Considering the second or third book was a fanfic of itself. The one where he got elf hacks.

 

@Inert:

Spoiler: Plotnotes

Below's part of a PM. There's naturally a million more details -- about Saphira's rescue, Eragon and Arya's relationship, Nasuada and Orrin's fractioning, Eragon's journey north and back again, Murtagh's struggle against Thorn, Roran's betrayal etc. -- but the below is the frame along which I constructed it. I don't have any full plot note doc, sorry.

The general idea is that the battle will take place on the Great Plains. I'm not sure if it will be near Uru'baen ... I'm just realising that I need to hammer out the war campaign in more detail, so let's talk about that first. The next battle will be the one for Cithrí. It will have Murtagh, and possibly Galbatorix himself, but in any case, since Eragon will be without Saphira, the Varden will be defeated and will have to retreat.

The imperial army doesn't attack any further inside Surda, since A) they too suffer from the winter there (winter is a really really shitty time to wage war in), and anyway, Galbatorix plan was not to waste more soldiers but simply wait for Surda to fall by itself, since they are going to face a famine.

Nasuada, the way I see it, has two options: either mount another desperate attack, to break through Galbatorix lines into warmer territory north of Surda (Melian), but considering that she was just defeated only defending herself, that seems unlikely to succeed.

Or the other option, retreat east or southeast, into the part of Surda nearest to the Beor Mountains and furthest away from the influence of Galbatorix's spell. Additionally, that brings them close to their dwarven allies. It'll probably be Petrovya, since that the nearest city not under Galbaotix's spell (it's east of the Empire, if you look at the map).

Makes sense to this point?

Now, the way I had planned it, the dwarves will not return to the fight as a whole. Their new king, who will be eventually elected, will, under the pressure from this one clan whose name I forgot, refuse to fight, choosing to stay out the war instead. That is backed by many dwarves, who feel the death of Hrothgar was too much.

So the only remaining alliance is the one with the elves. Which at this point means nothing else than the elves alone against Galbatorix, since the Varden are out of the picture in their corner of Surda. The only reason the elves aren't crushed is because the Varden still keep a reasonable part of Galbatorix's army tied up down south, but after the victory in Cithrí, G. begins to move them north. That takes time, however, so there's a chance to use that.

At this point, I'd have to work out the elfin campaign, which I haven't so far

Well, other than "they run around and take over cities on their way south".

I'm looking at my map and the scale I put on it, and from Cithrí to Gil'ead it's 920 km as the crow flies. If you go with the (admittedly deduced from nowadays, urban areas) rule that the shortest way between two points when using a road is roughly 1,4*distance (sqrt(2), to be precise) that's 1300 km.

Now comes the interesting part where you have to gauge the speed of an army. I'd go with a max of 20 km/day. And that's only working at all if they don't have to take their food and much supply stuff with them, but considering they're walking through Galbatorix's land, food shouldn't be a problem. So let's take those 20 km/day as an upper limit, and then we have at a minimum of 65 days or two month to reach the elves, if they aren't moving themselves.

More generally, that's the minimum time it'd take to move an army from the north to the south or vice versa.

Second point to note is that should I need more time, I could always have plot reasons to delay the imperial army for another two months, easily. That's fairly flexible in that direction.


And I need this time too, since in the meantime, Eragon will have to rescue Saphira, return to Ellesméra to Oromis, learn some more stuff, fly to the dwarves to attend the election of their king as he's a clan-member, realise that they're in deep shit ("all seems lost") when the new king refuses to fight in the war and then embark on the journey to find the Rock of Kuthian.


Looking at a few absolute dates, the Battle of Cithrí (aka the next chapter) takes place mid-May, and I have another fix date, Midsummer (June 24th), which Eragon will spend in Ellesméra. After that, there's the Oromis training stuff, and they will also have to deal with the green egg, which at that point will be in their possession. If I simply add another month for that, that's the two months already down.

Since, as mentioned, the elves'd be crushed by sheer number should the bulk of G.'s army reach them, it can't reach them (that was why I use that time span as a reference), so perhaps the imperial army takes three months.

I'd think the elves would've taken over Ceunon and Gil'ead -- problem is, of course, the next city south of Gil'ead is Uru'baen itself, there's nothing really in between to fight about.

I imagine the elves could attack -- if we assume they move straigh for Uru'baen, across the plain, and are twice as fast as a normal army, they could reach the city from Gil'ead in as little as 9 days (it's ~450 km). Obviously, that doesn't work, since I can't have the capital conquered before the real war even starts.

So they stay at Gil'ead -- it makes sense, even, since every mile they move more south brings them nearer to Galbatorix's approaching army.


Back to the Varden; so they move to Petrovya, and are really slow, since they have animals and civilians they need to move as well. 280 km, 5km/day, that's 56 days, incidentally ~two months as well

So basically, two months after the battle of Cithrí, everything is in their new positions: The Varden at Petrovya. The elves in Gil'ead. Galbatorix south-army somewhere between Uru'baen and Gil'ead. And Eragon is just leaving Ellesméra, after a month with Oromis there, to go to the dwarves.

The next event shortly after is then, that the dwarves bail out, after which Nasuada gets desperate: the new plan is to move the Surdan and Varden army around the right side of Lake Tüdosten, and attack Uru'baen from the east. Hoping that Galbatorix will not expect that, since it's not very likely (problems with food and water while moving alongside the Hardarac etc., I need to come up with some good solutions there).

In a not-direct way, that's ~700km, which should take at least a month, more, likely.


Now looking at Eragon, after he's done in Tronjheim, guesstimating, I'd indeed need another one and half month or so to reach the end of the story, since that's the time Eragon's journey will take; he will return at the very last moment to the battle (think Gandalf).


So what was the point of all this: I now have an answer to my first question from the beginning; since at the time when Eragon is ready for the final battle (und thus, the time when it will take place), the Varden are south, south-east of Uru'baen.

So that's where the battle will take place. And the time is three and half months after Cithrí, or the beginning of September, in absolute dates (mid-May + 3.5 months).

Also, in this time, Galbatorix south-army hasn't reached the elves in Gil'ead yet. Let's say they are halfway between Uru'baen and Gil'ead.

As I said earlier, the elves can be fairly quick down there. I'm thinking that they simply leave Gil'ead and move around the nearing army, without them noticing. So when Galbatorix realises, he has the turn around his south army and move it to Uru'baen himself.

Everything converges there.