Missed the Kickstarter? You can still grab an art-filled, autographed, deluxe hardcover edition of Bastion! The late backer store is now open!
Along with Bastion, you’ll find deluxe edition of the Dawn of ...
2025-03-07 20:16:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fourth Bell was due to toll any moment now.
The Marheim Gate was settling down. The Night Market was finally past its prime, with half the vendors closing down their stalls, ready to be gone before dawn could break. Traffic along the avenues had disappeared, with only the occasional car...
2025-03-04 14:49:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald went alone to the Platinum Rose Auction House that evening. He wanted time ponder Kársek’s words. They reminded him of his conversation with Pastoric, not so long ago. The warning the Forge Fathers had given him. Eadwolf’s surprisingly gentle guidance.
It seemed everybody wanted...
2025-02-25 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald walked carefully over the corpses. The ground was muddy with blood, and his boots squelched each time he placed his next step carefully around an outflung limb, neck, or severed body part. The smell was rising, thick and cloying, and combined with his strange, lightheaded feeling, made him...
2025-02-19 17:23:48 +0000 UTC View Post“Wait!” cried Harald. “No! We hold the ridge!”
Everyone froze. Vic and Sam had already turned to begin racing back down into the jungle.
Screeches and trills sounded from the distance. Dozens. Scores.
Nessa’s expression was wild, her gaze darting back and forth.
...
2025-02-11 16:32:43 +0000 UTC View Post“You stole this from an angel,” said Sam, tone flat, as she stared at the Eclipse Edge laid out upon the dining table before her.
Everyone was gathered around. The countess, Nessa, Vic, and Kársek. As one they stared, mesmerized, at the softly glowing blade where it lay swaddled in Ká...
2025-02-04 17:07:16 +0000 UTC View PostHarald’s breath caught in his throat.
It was her.
The same woman he’d espied on the 4th. Her sleeves were rucked up just below her elbows, and a great bronze belt wrapped around her abdomen. Her elegant wings arched into view just over each shoulder and tapered down to her heels, ...
2025-01-28 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostA week.
Seven days.
That’s all that remained before he failed Thracos’ challenge to provide a terror bird Servitor.
Heading home from Sam’s place, Harald mulled his prospects.
Scales: 712,941/1,000,000
He’d made incre...
2025-01-21 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald stared at the ground. The grass was frosted, each blade defined and furred in white. His breath’s fog filled the air as he forced himself to exhale. Eadwolf’s words were eliciting little more than anger: he wanted to shove the other man away, to deny his wisdom, his advice.
But i...
2025-01-15 03:56:48 +0000 UTC View PostHarald, Sam, and Kársek hit the 16th Level that afternoon.
The green miasma that cloaked the endless castles and walls was becoming all too familiar. Harald summoned Wirmas, who bowed low, and then they got to work.
Hobgoblin patrol after hobgoblin patrol fell to Wirmas’ authority,...
2025-01-07 15:13:00 +0000 UTC View PostEadwolf the Gray presented himself at dawn with a challenge brought by an extremely flustered Bosworth: to hunt him down on the Sonora grounds, where he would lie in wait for the crew.
“To hunt him down,” repeated the countess, her face wan from a night of little sleep. Clad in a simple...
2024-12-31 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey detoured by the Platinum Rose. It was only a quick carriage ride away, and a hired cab deposited them before the broad steps only half a bell later.
There was no grand event in the offing. The building, impressive as it was, appeared demure without its rolled out carpet and ostentatiou...
2024-12-24 14:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostThey made their way to Deepforge. It was a small, often overlooked part of Flutic, its buildings solidly built in the unmistakable style of the dwarves. Every building was built like a fortress, with clean lines, seamless joinings of huge, regular-sized blocks that appeared not to need the usage ...
2024-12-17 14:45:04 +0000 UTC View PostHarald crept along, keeping low, moving from shadowed nook to darkened declivity as he circled around to the target hill.
Shadowpaw padded along soundlessly beside him. The Goldchops floated close by, imbuing him with Strength and Dexterity. His only active Ability was Veil of Shadows 2024-12-10 18:51:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Harald dropped into a crouch as he materialized on the 18th.
A new level.
A whole new set of rules.
Around him stood his reavers, massive and bulky, two concentric circles around his central spot. The inner circle had their heavy bows nocked, the outer their scimitars drawn. Wir...
2024-12-03 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostTime passed.
Hobgoblins bent knee and became reavers.
In his exaltation Wirmas found a salve for his fury and hatred.
Again and again his voice echoed forth across the green wastes with that crackle of authority, and more and more hobgoblins fell in line, augmented and made mass...
2024-11-26 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostHarald emerged onto the Copper platform to be met by a crowd of guards and officials. At first he thought they were there to arrest him. Had he done something wrong? Had they figured out his tactic on the 16th Level?
But no.
They were simply gaping at the six cloak-wrapped bundles of ...
2024-11-19 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe three orcs actually glanced at each other.
Harald spread his arms, that visceral joy arising within him. There was no moral complexity here. No debating what he should do.
Here in the dungeon, might made right. Here it was kill or fall to the enemy. Here one got to exert themselve...
2024-11-12 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHarald awoke at dawn the morning after his raid. His strike? He lay in his bed, trying to decide what to call it. His assassinations?
And why was he awake so soon? The light outside his window was gray. He’d fallen in bed after a quick rinse only some five bells before. Yet here he was, a...
2024-11-05 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostI've already begun reshaping and editing the remaining chapters, and while everything you all have read will remain roughly the same, I'm going to inserting new material and editing more heavily as I go.
As such, here's the first major edit that changes the vector of this third...
2024-10-30 15:42:12 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, here's Part 2 of the general updates I've made to Harald's tale.
Again, the general outline remains much the same, but with a greater emphasis added throughout both as to the danger of Harald remaining unaffiliated with a major House, and the accelerated schedule o...
2024-10-30 15:34:47 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, today I'm going to share the major updates that I've made to the story up till Chapter 90.
The big beats and plot elements all remain roughly the same, with only a few major edits that are meant to enhance pacing and tension.
Book #1 encompasses the ...
2024-10-30 15:24:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe sound of knocking dragged Lord Gorkin from the depths of his dreamless sleep. The stupendous amounts of highly refined yearn smoke he’d inhaled the night before yet clung to his mind. He lay there, unsure if he was dreaming, as voices murmured in his outer quarters.
Fosso’s low rumb...
2024-10-29 13:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThis crew clearly wasn’t anticipating being hit by a powerful foe with assassin-focused Abilities. They’d no doubt signed on to tonight’s shift expecting to sit around for yet another evening of chatting, playing cards, and killing time. Worst case scenario? A handful of petty thieves might...
2024-10-22 12:47:36 +0000 UTC View PostDarkness was falling across the streets and courtyards and buildings of Flutic. A gentle dusk, softening the sounds of traffic, trade, and desperation.
Lantern lighters were walking down the centers of avenues, flickering poles rising to light the wicks of glass-encased lamps, leaving neckl...
2024-10-15 14:18:50 +0000 UTC View Post“So I have concerns about Bosworth,” said Harald in what he hoped was a calm and nonchalant tone.
The countess sat across a small round table from him in the back garden, a tea set laid between them. She wore a dress of pale yellow stitched with floral patterns in white thread, and her ...
2024-10-08 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHarald stared at the ebon crystal. Just like the Shadow Mastiff’s, it was eight-faced, a black diamond that spun slowly in place, trapped within the confines of the rosewood box.
“She got this from the dead hobgoblins.”
“Right,” said Vic. “Though she doesn’t remember whe...
2024-10-04 19:50:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald felt his heart lurch.
Thracos.
“We do, yes.” He fought for composure. “I meant to find you sooner. But I was… indisposed.”
“So Countess Sonora has informed me each time I’ve visited.” Thracos appeared neither frustrated nor upset. “At first I thought she...
2024-10-04 19:49:12 +0000 UTC View Post
No computer/Internet yet, but I'm working things via phone. Hence my ability to post this sketch for a possible new cover based on everyone's feedback. What do you guys think?
(Things are getting better here daily, btw. Amazing sense of community.)
2024-10-02 21:07:36 +0000 UTC View Post