Uranium Phoenix's Projects

Chapter 174 - Assassination

Mirian and Selesia found themselves eating a late dinner at one of the ‘bars’ near the University Hospital where Jherica had been taken. Mirian was still a bit disturbed about how prevalent alcohol was in Vadriach. However, it allowed them to have a quick meal at one of the small tables on the street, so it made for a good lookout post.

“It’s kinda fun. It’s like we’re in a spy novel,” Selesia said. “Have you read any of those?”

Mirian smiled. They’d had a conv...

Chapter 173 - Seeker

Mirian stood by the prow of the passenger ship, letting the wind whip at her as she waited for shore to appear. Already, she was impatient to get to Vadriach City. Her mother may have loved ships, but she couldn’t see the appeal. They rocked around too much for her to do much work, and the smell of rotting kelp and salt got tiresome.

It was the 170th time loop. She’d spent two loops in Akana Praediar already. She hadn’t used any soul magic or illusions; the Republic Intelligence D...

Chapter 172 - The Long Road Ahead

Mirian paid for new accommodations for her adoptive family, one with guards. She contracted another company to keep an eye out on anyone attempting to surveil them. The nice thing about Florin was there were a lot of services available for anyone with the coin to pay.

As the war and coup developed, rich families from across Baracuel found their way to the city, perhaps hoping neutral Florin would protect both them and their assets. Likely, they were right. The prices of luxury services ...

1/12 Weekly Roundup

Hope everyone's week is going well! Here's the chapters that got released this week:

Marvelous Mages
Chapter 169
Chapter 170
Chapter 171

Accomplished Arcanists 2025-01-12 17:31:54 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 171 - Family

Mirian walked into the Sovereign's Aerie and assumed an aura of command. This was the Mirian who had commanded soldiers and led battles. Her voice brooked no disagreement.

A puffed up Zayd wandered in after her, undermining her comportment only a little.

“We would like one of the private dining rooms,” she told the host.

The host wore a coat with gold embroidery, with enchantments that gave the garment lines of swirling color. It was a monstrously expensive jacket. “Su...

Chapter 170 - Finding the Castrellas

On the 166th loop, Mirian took a train to Cairnmouth, bought some forged papers from the Syndicate, then took a passenger ship to Arborholm in Akana Praediar. She disguised herself as an Akanan soldier and snuck into the fort outside of the city. There, she met a promising young intelligence officer named Troytin.

There was no hole in his soul, nor any marks on it. He did have a strange story about a hole appearing above his bedroom, but was as stumped as anyone as to how it got there. ...

Chapter 169 - Learning the Hard Way

From her hill, Mirian watched the Akanan air yacht approach. In the end, it would be Troytin’s predictability and inflexibility that would do him in. And his inability to conceive of a world where allies are better than underlings.

Well, no sense ruminating on his deficiencies. Whatever they were, he had to go. Mirian waited for the airship to grow closer, then cast total camouflage and levitation. She rapidly rose up to meet the yacht, adjusti...

1/5 Weekly Roundup

At long last, I've finished drafting book 2, which will finish up soon here. The total wordcount of books 1 and 2 together is just short of a half-million words, which is a crazy big number and still sounds strange to me when I say it. As always, thanks a ton for reading and supporting the story and for all the great comments! I feel very lucky to have such a fantastic audience.

I've already started on the first chapter for book 3, so there will be no pauses or delays in the schedule (u...

 Chapter 168 - The Soulbound Spellbook

Mirian tried to stay calm, but for once, as the apocalypse approached, she had something to lose. The alchemists she’d hired were good, but they’d still fucked up distilling the titan catalyst twice, which had caused unacceptable delays. The third try, they’d finally gotten it using a fifteen-step process involving at least twenty magichemicals. While they worked, Mirian had restored the glaciavore-skin leather and its protection glyphs, as well as added new glyphs of her own. The titan...

Chapter 167 - The Archmage Mirian Castrella

Mirian sheathed her wand of levitation and looked up at the transformed Apophagorga. There would be no running. In one hand, she held Eclipse like a conductor’s baton, in the other, Archmage Luspire’s spellbook. She looked around again. Most of her little army was decimated.

She had one more trick to deploy. She also had a reserve force: her.

Mirian telekinetically opened Luspire’s book and cast an enhanced prismatic shield.

Apophagorga raised one of its new, ...

Chapter 166 - The Soul of a Titan

As a scarlet dawn broke on the 28th, Mirian surveyed her arrayed forces one last time.

From her vantage on her command ship, Mirian could distinguish Annita even at a distance from her distinctive eyepatch. Her hunters were spread out in an arc in the forest, with stone walls woven through the trees. With them, she could make out the drab robes of the Cult of Zomalator, ready to act as healers. Lecne looked up at her as her airship circled. The cult wasn’t exactly trained in battle, b...

12/29 Weekly Roundup

Happy holidays! Family and travel make posting and editing a challenge this time of year (my ancient Chromebook starts chugging every time I switch a tab, and outright refuses to work with websites like Patreon). Making this post on a phone is beyond annoying. But relaxation is good for the writer brain, so when I'm back at my desktop, we'll be back to Friday chapters as well. I hope everyone is doing well this holiday season!

Since I was traveling last weekend, this post has two weeks ...

Chapter 165 - Speedrunning the Loop - Solem 21

Mirian sat in the heart of the Alkazaria Citadel around a long, crowded table. The large, domed room they were in was ancient. Long ago, kings had held meetings with their lords here. The old stonework and angular carvings on the wall were contrasted by the modern glyph lamps.

Ibrahim was still missing, which meant, ironically, they were having to do things the hard way. By now, the sheer amount of changes in the timeline had made conversations like this far less predictable, and the ev...

Chapter 164 - Speedrunning the Loop: Another Perspective

Torrviol, Solen 3

Lily was walking back from the dining hall when she saw it. Several students were looking up at something, and, curious, she looked up with them. She’d been on edge ever since Mirian disappeared. Then, if the whole town hadn’t been in enough of an uproar over the spree in the market, two of the professors had gone missing. Also, Archmage Luspire was furious over something that had happened, and she didn’t think it was over Profes...

Chapter 163 - Speedrunning the Loop, Solem 2-3

In the morning, Mirian went wyvern hunting.

On previous trips, she’d brought her myrvite detector up to identify their locations, and found several nests. She had to be picky, though. The lesser wyverns had shorter wings and thinner bones. She needed greater wyverns. According to Professor Viridian, the lesser and greater variants were the same species, but the greater wyverns somehow used the mana of their prey to reinforce and build their scales up until they were much tougher. ...

Chapter 162 - Speedrunning the Loop, Solem 1

On the 163rd cycle, Mirian awoke, threw off the covers, and was out of bed before the first drop of water from the ceiling hit her. She scrambled to dress.

“Mirian?” came the voice of her groggy roommate. “Did the alarm candle not—what time is—?”

“Sorry, gotta run. Don’t worry about me. Love you roomie!” Mirian said as she burst out the door.

She ran over to the next building and used raw magic to open the lock on the door, then again to break into the room...

12/15 Weekly Roundup Post

Here's a roundup of this week's new chapters. Hopefully everyone is having a fantastic weekend (or had one, I guess, depending on what part of the world you're in).

Radical Time Travelers
Chapter 160
Chapter 161

Cool Time Travelers
2024-12-15 18:15:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 161 - Final Preparations

Mirian spent two more cycles training with Rostal. The old dervish pushed her hard, but she demanded he push her harder. She built the death-corridor course in an abandoned part of the Palendurio canals to keep herself used to the hall. She also raised up three stone pillars with shape stone to train on.

Near the end of that second cycle, Rostal was giving her a strange look.

“What?” she asked in Adamic.

“At first, I thought you were a creature of lightni...

Chapter 160 - Another Route

When the time loop started fresh, Mirian spent some time in the dorms one night quietly breaking into people’s rooms and investigating their spellbooks. It had the advantage of both disrupting the initial conditions Troytin would encounter, and offering her a quick way to get several spells without scribing them. She left a few of her usual surprises, then traveled to Palendurio and hired a new assassin to go after Troytin.

Mirian spent two cycles training her speed, strength, and agi...

12/8 Weekly Roundup Post

Here's the chapters posted this week:

Radical Time Travelers
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159

Cool Time Travelers
2024-12-08 18:42:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 159 - Refining the Route

That night, Mirian had them chain the oxen to the clearing right next to where Apophagorga would emerge. If she was right, she hoped the beast would grow comfortable finding the occasional snack.

She ordered the expedition back. Some decided to stay to witness the titan emerging, even though she warned them they might not survive. Most left, disappointed, but still hopeful.

The last days were the kind that felt surreal. Strangers would come up to her and talk. Sometimes they asked...

Chapter 158 - Gathering Forces

Trinea’s fireball wand was a nice one. Judging by its size and shape, it probably had two parallel conduits in it. And, because it was pointed right at her face, she could see the outer glyphwork was impeccable. Even with spell resistance, at that range and intensity, Mirian was going to lose her face.

Mirian thought about denying it, but this was Adria’s good friend. It would be like if someone tried to impersonate Lily; she knew her too well.

“I said, who the...

Chapter 157 - A Plethora of Praetorians

Mirian looked back as she left the room. The bishop was watching her. He didn’t have any soul bindings. As soon as he noticed she’d noticed him, he looked away.

Does he know Adria? Or does he know something else?

She would have to find out more later. For now, she followed Praetorian Trinea.

They shut the door to the meeting room. Two of the Praetorians immediately started casting divination spells from their books, while another two cast infrared and illusion-d...