So you might have noticed the chapters have been slow to come...
The reason is a story in it's own right, but since around a hundred of you have done my the honor of reading the story this fa...
2022-11-29 17:36:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Some part of Yi Cao knew what was waiting ahead of them in the concourse long before he picked Xialu out from the swirling crowd. The knowledge started as a prickling across his neck, a chill wind ...
2022-11-13 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Yi Cao told the old man the story of his breakthrough while they sat sipping tea in the alcove at the back of Guo Gang’s library. For all that he’d told the story to Zihan only a handful of hou...
2022-11-12 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
TC was waiting for them when they returned to the rock Yi Cao realized he’d begun to think of as home. The warm familiar stench of piss waited with the Talyaya mutt along with the continuous murm...
2022-11-07 13:25:20 +0000 UTC View Post
A kick scattered half of the elder’s images. They were many, but they also seemed to lack some of the weight the original had before he’d deployed whatever tec...
2022-11-05 17:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Yi Cao used less Ki in his future attempts at touching the fabric of the universe. He never again reached the depths beyond the normal three dimensional sea, never even touched Massu’s Star in th...
2022-10-31 14:12:08 +0000 UTC View Post
For two hours, Yi Cao did nothing but experiment with his bubble of Ki. At Yi Cao’s request Zihan threw minute bursts of fire at his bubble, and even walked through it, warping, and splitting, an...
2022-10-30 19:46:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Kalemal landed the shuttle, unaided by automatic systems or the tech spirits, on a ragged outcropping of the planetary fragment labeled Number Six. Number Six, was, in reality, a vast network of pl...
2022-10-29 20:15:48 +0000 UTC View Post
“You know,” Bealtiel shouted back from the pilot’s compartment, “when you said you had something in mind for us, this isn’t what I expected.”
Zihan lounged on the red velvet cushi...
2022-10-28 18:34:44 +0000 UTC View Post
“How does a man calculate balance? Two men exchange a loaf of bread for a bit of silver, but the bread might save one man’s life while the silver merely puts weight in the other’s pocket....
2022-10-23 10:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“Bo Bo.”
“Yes?”
…
“Ni liaojie wo ma?”
The pistol pinged in his ear. “System regulations permit only Urdul for interactions with higher orders of implants. Pl...
2022-10-22 21:51:38 +0000 UTC View Post
The group spent the night drinking and playing cards in Te’klub after the last candidate failed their test with the cube. The games had an air of celebration to them, as though they’d already f...
2022-10-16 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
“There is one thing that I don’t understand.” Agate said to Zihan.
The two sat at the table after a round of candidates who’d all failed to unlock the cube in front of them. Some had ...
2022-10-15 17:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
In a departure with protocol, they met at Te’klub. Feiruhn was the one who suggested it, through the intermediary of TC. “Our friend Izzi can host.” The half breed told them as he shared thei...
2022-10-14 12:59:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Agate leaned forward in his chair aboard the Mama’s Teets, trailing little blue sparks that whirled around him like bees or glowing moths, with him the flame.
“What about the fen...
2022-10-09 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The “Mama’s Teets” matched its name. At sixty yards long, the “ship” barely merited the title. It’s designation in urdul, “Kophmu”, twisted in Yi Cao’s brain to present h...
2022-10-08 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
TC served as their go between in the shifts that followed Zihan’s demonstration. Mostly he played messenger boy, carrying Zihan’s requests for updates to the Casino when Zihan couldn’t go him...
2022-10-07 16:33:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Feiruhn sent them to a hall devoid of down.
People still moved through the concourse. They swam through the air, in lanes of traffic defined in lines from loops that hung from the ceiling and...
2022-10-01 17:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post
“Oaths made on false pretenses will always punish those who lied, regardless of which party actually breaks the oath in the first place.”
-Excerpt from: “A Treatise on Soul...
2022-09-30 14:14:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Bo Bo was silent as Yi Cao pushed through the destruction left in the wake of the Young Master. Fire Ki suffused the air, like the aftermath of a natural disaster instead of some boy barely two dec...
2022-09-27 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
“It’s rude to stomp into someone’s home and start slaughtering them without announcing your intentions.” Zihan said. Air forced down the long dark tunnel by captive machines made his ear le...
2022-09-26 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
“On your arrival, you no doubt noticed the huge variety of men and women who looked more like creatures than the typical people’s of the world you grew up on. Men with goat horns or salaman...
2022-09-25 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Feiruhn nodded to TC. “Send that one away, and we can talk.”
Zihan waved a hand in TC’s direction.
TC hesitated, then scowled as the guard behind Feiruhn stepped forward. He glanc...
2022-09-24 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
“Aarrppaa station’s population is recruited from only half of the accessible worlds. Of those worlds, Mubra, the System world, and the races of Kispuhru are the most heavily represented and...
2022-09-23 14:17:02 +0000 UTC View Post
“This is unacceptable behavior.”
Yi Cao pounded down the corridor, each footstep reawakening his injuries from Elleppu station.
Green lines flickered across the floor in front of hi...
2022-09-19 17:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Three Oshpik, or goblins, or Talyaya, or just short people with the huge ears and oversized noses of Izzi the barkeep, stood on boxes in the center of the concourse playing howling instruments of b...
2022-09-18 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
It grew so that Yi Cao struggled to differentiate between his waking and sleeping worlds.
There were differences. In the waking world he stank of impurities, stank of them enough that patrons...
2022-09-17 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The “Ki Bath” advertised by the bath-house several turns down the concourse from Te’Klub was nothing like the cultivation experience described by the mesmeric stone outside its door. “Remov...
2022-09-16 18:13:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Pedestrians had returned to the long concourse back to Te’klub as Yi Cao made the walk “home”. Not many. A trickle here and there. People sitting outside businesses or moving quickly through ...
2022-09-11 05:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Only a fool tries to force a soul oath. This is common knowledge. Nine times out of ten, when it has been tried, the one attempting to force the oath explodes on the spot. Caught in one that di...
2022-09-10 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post