The State of the Bog

Hello there!

We're getting close to the end of Book 4, so I thought I'd jump in and give you a little update. In a way, it's such a weird feeling to be here. This book really just jumped out of me and it was a real pleasure to write. Brin is finally coming into himself and I got to write a few chapters where he's letting loose and using his power, rather than only training and preparing. I initially planned on writing the War with Arcaena as part 3 of this book, but about halfway through I decided to give it it's own book for two reason. 1) Because we spent way more time in Blackcliff than I had in my original outline and 2) Because I just want to spend more time on it. That original arc was going to be made of short, brutal segments with lots of time skips, and I think it would have suffered for it.

When I got to the end of Book 3, I decided that I'd start doing month-long breaks in between books. That's time I can use for editing, for keeping the axe sharp, and honestly just for taking a break. I'm in this for the long haul, which means that I need to set a pace that I can keep up with indefinitely. I still plan on taking a month-long break, but I'm going to do it a little differently this time. Rather than put Patreon on pause now, I'm going to post the first 4 or 5 chapters of Book 5, keeping the same cadence with Royal Road. Then both Royal Road and Patreon will go on break at the same time.

This will allow me to take a real break, because I won't have to worry about updating anywhere. Also, it will allow me to give you guys the Class Selection without needing to wait for a month. Which, look, I hear you, but it just doesn't fit in this book.

So I'll post the final chapter of Book 4 today at the normal time. Tomorrow I'll post the epilogue, and then Friday we'll jump straight into chapter 1 of Book 5. No working title on that except for oh yeah maybe we'll call it Warbound!

That's it for news. I'll go find that chapter now. Thanks for everything, you've been an absolutely delightful group of readers and creating this story has been a dream come true.