Sylvia looked…good, honestly. It was honestly hard for me to take my eyes off of her after our extended absence from each other. After hearing how she had apparently taken up a position as a small unit commander in the Order in the aftermath of the war, I had expected her to be in a uniform or ...
2025-04-28 17:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostAN:
I nearly forgot to finish this one. I've been so absorbed in the Oblivion remaster that I lost track of time. Funny story about that, though. See, I was pretty startled the first time I leveled up and saw the word 'Virtue' in reference to stats. I'm not sure if people thought the way I ...
2025-04-25 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostIt was odd. I think I was actually glad to see Isolde. The young woman looked hale and hearty after the losses and trauma we both had suffered in Elderwyck, dressed in simple-looking workman’s clothing instead of the finery I would have expected. She actually seemed to have put on some muscle i...
2025-04-23 17:00:28 +0000 UTC View PostShift on the right food, step forward, and….
Completely bungle the strike he had been aiming at the large, armored knight in front of him. His blow was instead parried off to the side with such strength that his root was broken, and as a result, he stumbled. Never one to miss an ...
2025-04-21 17:00:37 +0000 UTC View Post“So,” I said to Grey, once we were back on the streets of Blutstein. “Thoughts?”
In response, Grey raised one hand and cast a Spell I had seen from him multiple times in the past. A ripple expanded from his open palm, and immediately all the sounds of the city around us cut out. Not...
2025-04-18 17:00:23 +0000 UTC View PostWenzel led us deeper into the middle layer of Blutstein than I’d yet ventured. Which…wasn’t saying much, considering I just got here yesterday.
But hey, at least it was something new.
Exciting!
This new area of the city was visibly fancier than the business district we’d...
2025-04-16 17:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post“It can’t be that easy,” I said to Grey as we exited the administration building of the Academy. After waking up early enough that the Green Period was barely ending, Grey had gathered Azarus and me for a trek out onto the campus grounds. Fade had told me he would watch the still-sleeping A...
2025-04-14 17:00:36 +0000 UTC View PostAfter dinner, Grey offered the use of his house for everyone to stay the night while we got settled into Blutstein. I don’t think any one of us were intending to permanently stay with the man, as it were. From what I understood, Renauld had his own room in the on-campus dorms that was still res...
2025-04-11 17:00:21 +0000 UTC View Post“To our reunion!” Grey said loudly, standing at the head of the stately, circular table in his personal dining room. He raised a glass of the really expensive-looking alcohol he had broken out and poured for everyone gathered in a salute. Azarus, Renauld, Liora, and I copied the man,...
2025-04-09 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post“Ah, bollocks,” I heard Kargath mutter under his voice, barely audible over the sounds of crumbling brick and the eruption of battle. He sighed. “I just know they’re gonna make me fix that.”
I turned an incredulous eye on the dwarf, still tense with surprise at the unexpected demo...
2025-04-07 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIn the first place, calling this a mere ‘campus’ was a bit of an understatement. In reality, the grounds that belonged to the Academy of Mystic Arts seemed more like a town. An enclosed city within a city, with its own separate wall that completely sectioned off a portion of the middle layer....
2025-04-04 17:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post“Nobody really believes Kyron was interred in the Zenith Crystal, you know,” Renauld said to me as our entire group threaded our way through the outer layer of Blutstein. “It’s common knowledge what it actually is.”
It hadn’t taken long for us to register the <...
2025-04-02 17:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostIt began as nothing more than a dot on the horizon. Something that stretched up over the curve of the world to introduce itself in a gradual reveal that took hours.
Three points in the distance. Two of them appeared to be natural to my eyes, the peaks of long distant mountains with pure whi...
2025-03-31 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostIt was…probably the booze that contributed to my foul mood, frankly.
But that didn’t change the fact that I was getting damn tired of all the slaving that seemed to both happen in Veredens past, as well as its present. It felt like every time I turned around there was another a...
2025-03-28 17:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostSeveral hours later, we had not only returned to Tŵr Gronn but to my ship as well. I’d invited everyone who had ventured with us to Taran’s home back to the galley of the Astray to catch up, so to speak. I’d also invited the terse elder Nyxwing who went by the name Umbric with us,...
2025-03-26 17:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAfter his somewhat ominous words, Taran had Fade and I sit and kneel respectively on the remarkably flat stone facing each other, next to the ‘Silent Eye’. Almost conspiratorially, he directed Aveline over to a nearby tree where a large group of Nyxwings were nesting, their shining s...
2025-03-24 17:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostIt wasn’t often that I got to exert myself in this manner, as I raced across the wide-open, rolling green hills that surrounded Tŵr Gronn. Every one of us, from Azarus to Sena with a wildly laughing Aveline upon her back, to Tarus, and most importantly, Fade and I…
Were sprinting full ...
2025-03-21 17:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostAmusingly enough, because Aveline had exactly zero context for how odd this situation was, she had an entirely different reaction to the sight of Fade.
“Puppy!” She exclaimed, her face lighting up in a way I had never seen before. Before any of us gathered could react, she scurried over...
2025-03-19 17:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostOur little group of five didn’t bother lingering in town for much longer. The only thing we did before venturing towards the back gate that I knew led to the standing stones of Tŵr Gronn was to stop by a local cobbler. The shoes I’d bought Aveline back in Kawamara weren’t exactly unsuited ...
2025-03-17 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostThank you for being interested in my work!
Update Schedule: MWF 12:00 - 2:00 PM CDT
SINS OF THE FOREFATHERS
Azarus told me that he wrangled a promise from Captain Bronzle to secretly inform his superiors that the Astray was off limits as it traveled down the coast. After all, it generally wasn’t a good idea for an officer to get in the way of the nobility if they wanted to keep adva...
2025-03-14 17:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostWhile I hadn’t exactly expected us to be able to slip through Velancian territorial waters without an issue…
I hadn’t expected a Dwarven patrol ship to come upon us nearly as soon as the continental shore came into view.
They had made their demands very clear, from the ...
2025-03-12 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAn endless blue horizon stretched out before me, beautiful and breathtaking. Perfect, fluffy white clouds akin to enormous balls of cotton lazily drifted overhead while the light of Vereden’s star shone down through them. The calls of hungry, hunting sea birds resounded in the air, accompanied ...
2025-03-10 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe highest point in the entire capital city of Hinaga, jewel of the Kawamaran Isles, was atop the peak of the Imperial Palace itself. It soared into the sky at perhaps one hundred and fifty feet, composed of multiple different floors, almost as if it were a large, extravagant cake. Though it pal...
2025-03-07 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostI have to admit…
This was blowing my mind a little.
“I…” I started and then stopped, staring blankly up into the kindly face of who I thought had been ‘Elder Jinshin’. The man looked both similar and wildly different from I had known him to be. He still h...
2025-03-05 18:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostFor the next several hours, I had to wait in that lavish waiting room as, one by one, everyone I’d come to the palace with was drawn away by Masayuki to be questioned by the Emperor. Not only that, but I soon discovered that none of them were being led back here. Despite Shacklock’s ...
2025-03-03 18:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostI joined the rest of my party that was going to be venturing into the heart of the Imperial party up on the deck after exiting the forecastle. All of us, myself included, were dressed in our full combat kits. Armor, weapons, and gear were fully visible across each of our bodies, and we looked lik...
2025-02-28 18:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAN:
The big three double zero. What a long, strange ride it's been.
....................................................
A mingled sense of vertigo and paranoia overtook me then as Traver’s words hit me like a truck. I hunched over with widened eyes as I felt my heartbeat in m...
2025-02-26 18:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostDespite my…personal little drama, General Hisakane was eager to get everyone heading back to Hinaga underway. Only two ships were planned to sail to the capital, while the rest of the fleet would remain at Goryuen to keep watch over the Solstice Flame naval forces keeping close to the shore. Sh...
2025-02-24 18:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAN:
I was very close to making the previous chapter the last one in this book. The revelation at the end of it felt suitably dramatic to have as an end point. This chapter was even intended to be the customary ending Interlude.
But, I eventually realized that there was still ...
2025-02-21 18:00:23 +0000 UTC View Post