Chapter 53
Spending decarmas on gear was one thing. Even the compass was justifiable, and that was before considering that it had proved useful enough that Jensen’s master had borrowed it. ...
2024-12-14 04:24:13 +0000 UTC View PostReturning from the Astral Realm was an ordeal in and of itself. Pulling myself through my own mana core was rather like turning myself inside out, and reversing that was far from easy. In some ways...
2024-12-13 14:28:57 +0000 UTC View PostBeing attacked while working was an expected event and we’d figured out what to do thousands of years ago. It was well known that things lived in the Astral Realm even before the first archmage r...
2024-12-12 14:28:43 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 49
“What the hell is a corrupted seed bearer?” Velik asked.
Torwin frowned, but didn’t answer. They stood over the corpses of three strange monsters, all of which Velik wo...
2024-12-12 02:37:31 +0000 UTC View PostI used every bit of mysteel I had left to make the cage surrounding this room. There wasn’t enough to make solid walls of it, nor did we have that kind of time, but the cage was possible. I wrapp...
2024-12-11 15:37:59 +0000 UTC View PostFive weeks remained. Ammun’s army was broken and the civilians had been stashed away. My allies were as kitted out as I could make them. The Order hadn’t dared to show its face anywhere on Olpa...
2024-12-10 13:53:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 46
Fetching the remains of his spear out of the monster’s ruined eye was Velik’s first task. Unfortunately, the phantasmal shaft he’d constructed out of [Phalanx] 2024-12-10 03:38:09 +0000 UTC View Post
I spent the first week systematically tearing apart the remnants of Ammun’s army. It turned out I’d been a bit too pessimistic in my estimates on how the evacuation would go. By the gestalt’s...
2024-12-09 12:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostGrandfather stared doubtfully at the chain. It was six feet long, each link an inch thick and covered in runes. Thirty more exactly like it hung from a rack standing nearby. “Why would we need su...
2024-12-06 13:56:47 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 43
Velik froze in place and peered around, half-expecting his doppelganger to jump out from behind a tree and run him through. When that didn’t immediately happen, he took a cautiou...
2024-12-06 01:12:52 +0000 UTC View PostMy already overburdened schedule was suddenly stuffed to the brim. There’d be no sleeping in my future, nor was there time to oversee any non-essential experiments. The only thing I’d be doing ...
2024-12-05 14:09:27 +0000 UTC View PostReaching stage seven involved a mage anchoring themselves in the Astral Realm, with future stages building on that connection. It was a difficult milestone to achieve, but well within my capabiliti...
2024-12-04 13:58:06 +0000 UTC View PostThis was the riskiest part of my plan. If I called it good here, chances were I’d be dealing with the Order again very soon. They’d probably try to be a lot sneakier the next time, and given th...
2024-12-03 13:20:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 40
The giant lizard’s body slammed into the ground with a hard, meaty thump. Black blood trickled out of its mouth and stained its teeth. Velik stood ten feet away, staring at it im...
2024-12-03 03:37:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe Elder Council sat on their chairs, more thrones, really, and glared at me with various levels of mixed animosity and fear. Rounding them all up had been a chore, especially once I had to start ...
2024-12-02 14:10:45 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor's Note: Sorry, I didn't do any writing over the Thanksgiving holiday and am just now getting some work done. I should have another four or five chapters by Tuesday or Wednesday. 2024-12-02 00:47:46 +0000 UTC View Post
The Global Order of the Arcane was, if nothing else, thorough. I’d already broken down the exterior wards of Tredor’s research lab and destroyed the ward stone. I’d been expecting the remaini...
2024-11-29 12:10:29 +0000 UTC View PostBakir dragged me through two more teleportation jumps over the next few hours before he finally left the safety of the Order’s warded fortresses. I’d used the time to explore the new cities he...
2024-11-28 15:32:00 +0000 UTC View PostBakir and his friend retreated from the surface to the back wall of the cave, then proceeded to transmute the stone until they’d burrowed through five feet of it to reach a second chamber. That w...
2024-11-27 14:37:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 35
Velik was three hours out from town and well away from the deep wood when he finally got that level up he’d been waiting for. It came from killing a group of worgs that he’d sp...
2024-11-27 04:10:47 +0000 UTC View PostDespite Bakir’s repeated proclamations that Adilar was who I needed to talk to—that the whole reason the senior archmage had come to my home was specifically to negotiate with me—he still gui...
2024-11-26 14:39:53 +0000 UTC View PostSurrendering his mana crystal voluntarily actually made me even more suspicious of Bakir, so I took the time to make sure I had him properly secured. There was no real way to keep him long-term, no...
2024-11-25 13:52:55 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 31
What had been vague intuition moments ago crystallized into sharp focus. Velik was no longer blindly guessing where his prey was and how it would approach him based on incomplete i...
2024-11-22 14:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt required some patience to get the opening I was searching for. The Order’s new base of operations on the island was too well warded for me to casually enact my plan at my leisure, but I knew t...
2024-11-22 13:56:52 +0000 UTC View PostSurprisingly, the ointment of aging was properly made. I hadn’t given Senica enough credit for her work, but she’d done it all perfectly. Even substituting a few reagents for things she could a...
2024-11-21 14:16:42 +0000 UTC View Post“That’s totally awesome,” Senica said.
“No, it’s not.”
We were sitting around the table while I updated my family on what I’d learned about this potential threat and what ...
2024-11-20 14:40:11 +0000 UTC View PostGrandfather returned to Eyrie Peak that evening. It was no surprise, really. Querit was still off wherever he’d gone to sulk. A cabal of mages many times stronger than the Wolf Pack had turned up...
2024-11-19 14:33:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 26
10 years ago…
“My feet hurt. Can we take a break?”
“We’re almost there! Come on, another five minutes.”
Velik scowled a...
2024-11-19 02:38:35 +0000 UTC View PostI’d been putting off a particular task for a few weeks now, one that I could justify delaying because I had other things to do that were arguably more important. However, now that three new archm...
2024-11-18 14:04:31 +0000 UTC View Post“Perhaps we’ve started on the wrong foot,” Adilar said. “Our intentions were not to spy on you. If we’d wanted to do that, we’d hardly have sent Archmage Bakir to knock on your front do...
2024-11-15 12:09:19 +0000 UTC View Post