10/06 Weekly Roundup Post
Here are easy links to the chapters that were published this week:
The Mythril Members
The Orichalcum Order
... 2024-10-06 16:51:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Uranium Phoenix's Projects posts
Chapter 134 - Hammering Iron
Her sabotage efforts had kept Troytin busy, and from Lecne’s reports, the Deeps were busy too. Troytin’s loss of influence was only compounded by Ibrahim’s war in the south. While they played at petty tyrant of their domains, she was preparing for the future.
She returned to Palendurio and found Rostal. He was meditating in his courtyard when she entered. As he opened his eyes to question her intrusion into his home, she spoke. “For the Luminates, the time of Proph...
2024-10-06 16:21:55 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 133 - The Dervish
“A dervish can never remain one thing. To be a dervish is to embody change,” Rostal said as an introduction to his first lesson.
They were back to standing in his courtyard, rapiers drawn.
“I will skip the lessons on the Silver Sky, because it is not a true form, merely a training tool. You have already demonstrated the ability to internally reflect, which is the first condition required for one to do anything as a dervish.”
Mirian nodded, still a bit wary. Rostal’...
2024-10-04 13:31:38 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 132 - Clutching Fire
Rostal had instructed Mirian to learn from the elementary school, but since it was evening of Fifthday and they would be closed until Firstday, she decided to hire a tutor for the weekend to get a head start.
The markets were all closing by then, so Sixthday she set out early. There were no certified tutors for Adamic like there were for the other languages, but some locals pointed her to a retired schoolteacher who was looking for a bit of extra coin. With Cuelsin, Friian, and—appare...
2024-10-02 16:08:22 +0000 UTC View Post9/29 Weekly Roundup Post
Hope everyone has a good one! Here are easy links to the chapters that were published this week:
Supremely Special Tier:
Chapter 131 - The Isheer
The Lowfort District of Palendurio turned out to be made up of a great deal of Persaman immigrants. A decade ago, they might have been welcoming and open. As the war with Persama had deepened, Baracueli citizens had trusted the people from that region less and less. Petty crimes and de facto segregation had made the Persmans wary of outsiders in return. No one she talked to actually sympathized with Dawn’s Peace or the various rebellions. Most were, in fact, former allies of Baracuel who ha...
2024-09-29 15:41:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 130 - Bloodleaf
The next cycle, Mirian killed Specter again as soon as she had her initial supplies. It was simple: she waited until night, used a sound damping spell while she pried open the hatch magnetically, then levitated down the passage and cut her throat with Eclipse. She took several critical files from Specter’s desk, then burned the rest.
Her knowledge in glyph analysis got one Micael Nezzar a convenient position with Professor Endresen that took up two of her class slots. The work on glyp...
2024-09-27 13:05:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 129 - Breaking Through
Mirian dismissed the force shackles holding the engineers to the wall as she cast her magnetic shield. She’d need every bit of mana she could get.
The Akanans started with a volley of force blades, reluctant to bring their full force to bear while she was standing next to the engine. The engineers were screaming something about not damaging it, while the heavy assault team was yelling about precision spells—it all became jumbled, and when the cracks of gun...
2024-09-25 16:27:17 +0000 UTC View Post9/22 Weekly Roundup Post
Hi all,
I've been sending out push notifications each time a chapter is published, but I found out that chapter's that I'm "unlocking" that were already considered "published" keep their old publication date on the Patreon Feed, so for some subscribers they're getting buried in a place no one would think to check. I could change the publication date of the chapters as they graduate from one tier to another, but that would lead to a weirdly ordered feed where chapters jump around. I coul...
2024-09-22 17:32:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 128 - Delicate Engineering
A small artifact at Mirian’s belt let out a chime and began to glow. That’s the divination ward tripped. The forward elements are here, she knew. Probably the two recon companies of the 24th Brigade. Four more companies of four other brigades would be advancing carefully, but quickly around the city.
Mirian sent out a pulse of arcane energy that was tuned to her modified seeds of chaos. One hour until they activate, now. Each of the spell engines would be burn...
2024-09-22 17:16:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 127 - Troytin
The interrogation room in the Magistrate’s office brought back memories for Mirian. The first thing she noticed was that Sulvorath had been using illusions to make himself appear a bit taller and more muscular when he was in public. Without his illusions, he was the typical fair skinned Akanan, with brown hair and a slight build. If he was Akanan military, it was logistics or support, not front line combat.
When they entered the room, an enraged Sulvorath was busy swearing in Eskinar....
2024-09-20 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 126 - Staying in the Shadows
After that, Mirian committed to laying low. She attended classes like any dutiful student, pretending to take notes while she worked on ideas for improvements to her leyline analysis artifacts, spell engine design, and ways she might create unified celestial and arcane devices. So far, her actual experimentation with combining glyphs and runes had led mostly to whatever she was working on catching on fire. Her leading hypothesis was that arcane runes operated on a similar rule to the way flux...
2024-09-18 18:23:57 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 125 - The Delegation
A long ramp extended from the airship deck down to the plaza, and the Vadriach delegation made its way down. Based on their dress and the spellbooks dangling from a chain at their side, there were six researchers, though from the colors on their jackets, three of them appeared to be from the Arboholm University. Maybe that’s where he starts, or near it. That’s near the Akanan military base that launches the airships, right?
“My fellow arcanists and students,” Luspire an...
2024-09-15 16:43:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 124 - A Chance At Redemption
With Mirian’s knee off her back, Specter wriggled away from her until she ran into the nearby wall. She’d recovered from the paralysis relatively quickly. “Who the—what the fucking—!” she gasped. “I am an Arcane Praetorian! Release me at once, or you’ll find the full force of the Baracueli government turned—”
“Please don’t bother lying,” Mirian said calmly. “I already know you killed Adria Gavell. Without your orichalcum, I can see the soul bindings you set o...
2024-09-13 17:25:32 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 123 - Hunting the Phantom
In the morning, Mirian did something she hadn’t done in a long, long time: she put on a Torrviol Academy uniform and headed for class.
It brought back a surge of nostalgia.
Which was funny, upon reflection. While she’d been a student, she’d constantly been stressed, tired, and panicked, in about equal measure. But now, with the gap of time, she found it was easier to reflect back on the things she’d enjoyed: chatting with Lily over food. Peaceful runs in Mage’s Gro...
2024-09-11 16:14:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 122 - Preparing For The Return
Mirian returned to sabotaging Sulvorath, and returned to Palendurio in her disguise as Micael. She kept off the grid until it was late enough in the cycle that the other travelers would have trouble moving against her, then revealed Eclipse to the pontiff and archbishops and demanded their aid. When Pontiff Oculo and the archbishops went down to check the holy vaults, they found the Sword of the Fourth Prophet was indeed missing from the sarcophagus. It was hard to deny she was a Prophet afte...
2024-09-08 17:50:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 121 - Good Company
Mirian woke.
A hundred cycles were behind her. Over seven years since this started, she thought, as the water from the ceiling dripped down on her. I wonder if I could use relicarium to plug that damned hole.
The answer was ‘no,’ she already knew. It had to be bound to a soul, not a location, and besides, it would be a waste. But she could certainly fantasize about it.
Mirian reached down to pick up her spellbook and use raw magic to turn off the water ...
2024-09-06 21:01:53 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 120 - The Ninth Binding
The antimagic surge had broken two of the glyphs inside the levitation wand, so they took the narrow stairs that spiraled around the inside of the basilica dome, with Mirian helping guide the frail pontiff. He was still more dejected than scared as they descended.
When they arrived in the upper chamber, several Arcane Praetorians and Luminate Guards waited for them, wands raised and pistols drawn.
“Step away from His Holiness,” one of them demanded.
Pontiff Oculo looked ...
2024-09-04 16:39:19 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 119 - Declaration
The world ended, and Mirian woke in her bed, feeling the water drip down her face, and sighed.
Loop one hundred, she thought.
Mirian planned to create a stir in Palendurio, so she tried a new variable: killing a half-dozen of the spies and tipping off both the Magistrate and Archmage as to Sulvorath and Specter. She worked with Jei on a plan to vanish for several days. For good measure, she also set up a trap in the spies’ safehouse.
Enjoy cleani...
2024-09-01 15:31:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 118 - Of Bronze and Bindings
The priests’ moment of elation quickly turned to confusion. “Wait, it’s just you? How did you get through the rock?” one of them asked.
Internally, Mirian groaned. I get to have this conversation again. “I’m the Seventh Prophet,” she said simply, then added, “Undeclared. There’s not enough time for a declaration through the pontiff, and there’s several… complications that make it inadvisable.” At least, for now.
Three of the ...
2024-08-30 16:49:01 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 117 - The Cycles Continue
This time, Mirian changed two more variables. She recruited Valen as a spy again, torched the registrar’s building as usual, and stripped the second spy of his soul-mark so that he’d trigger the destruction of the spy’s headquarters.
But before all that, she had another person to recruit the aid of.
“Respected Jei,” she said, walking into her office. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Mirian. Do you not have class? Do not tell me you are skipping.”
Miri...
2024-08-28 15:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 116 - Secrets of the Sanctum
The archbishops' and pontiff’s quarters were in a special section of Charlem Palace. There was some debate on whether or not the passages of the Grand Sanctum still linked up with the lower levels of it. Mirian thought it probably did, since the Pontiff emerged from the Sanctum when he made his speech, but there’d be too many active guards up there. Down here, everyone was still evacuating.
More and more, she was beginning to understand how lucky she was in encountering the Cult of ...
2024-08-25 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 115 - Deeper Into The Dirt
Mirian altered her ‘Micael’ disguise in several points, strapped several wands and spells beneath her robe, then walked into the Grand Sanctum. The Luminate Guard ignored her, assuming that the wards in the back would catch her if she was an intruder. She went off to an alcove, ostensibly to pray, but then used her camouflage spell and levitation to sneak in through the balcony. It would never have worked in Torrviol, but here, there was just too much going on for a single person to be wo...
2024-08-23 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 114 - The Path Forward
The crowd stood outside the smoldering wreckage of the Magrio Broadsheet’s building, now made up of embassy staff, random people, and at least four guards.
Mirian considered her options. By now, it was a bit late to hide her presence in Palendurio to anyone paying attention. On the other hand, she didn’t think Sulvorath could mobilize in time to do anything to her. If he even waited two days, he couldn’t go south by train. What about his airship? Is he still destroying it as s...
2024-08-22 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 113 - The Pure Blade
“What’s going on?” Betella said, still terrified. “Who are you? Who are all these people?”
“Betella, this is the staff of the Akanan Embassy you were sent to murder. Embassy staff, Betella. Now that we’re past the pleasantries—” Mirian started, but was interrupted by Betella bursting into tears.
“I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want—I never wanted to—but they had—” Her sobs overcame her ability to speak.
Mirian stared at her...
2024-08-21 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 112 - Unraveling the Conspiracy
Celine was still jumpy when they arrived at the Bard and Lion Inn, but the bright glyph lamps and soothing warmth and aromas from the kitchen seemed to calm her down.
Mirian waited until she had a hot cup of tea to wrap her hands around, then finally asked, “Who was Philus?”
The journalist was silent for a while, then finally said, “A secretary of the Palendurio Guard.”
So they are corrupt, Mirian thought. “And he discovered something.”
“Yes. Doz...
2024-08-18 15:45:54 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 111 - The Vault and the Assassins
A ghostly beam of force and fire erupted from Mirian’s outstretched hand, slamming into the stone door before her. Everad gaped at Mirian as her spell sent blossoming cracks through the door. When the runes above it glowed and she felt soft resistance to her spell. The arcane wind had emptied out most of her soul repository, but there was just enough left to work with. She veiled the spell as she had with the golem and used the soul energy to puncture it, letting the rest of the spell conti...
2024-08-16 19:15:24 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 110 - The Broken City
The leyline eruption began at the horizon, traveling along the distant Casnevar Mountains to the east, moving from north to south. At first, it was silent, because only the light had arrived. Mirian had to use a eyeshield spell just to watch it; it looked like a colossal lightning bolt leaping up from the world, but it was large enough to cut through pieces of the mountains as it burst forth. It danced through the air, violet and orange energy coruscating madly, sending up brigh...
2024-08-14 16:38:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 109 - The Palendurio Crisis
Mirian made it down to the canals with only a few people pointing and shouting about her, then dropped her night camouflage as she flew inside, taking several twists and turns through the reinforced caves, passing a boat full of very surprised laborers moving supplies through the waterways. Once she was out of sight, she landed and cast detect life again, but all she saw were the forms of people moving about on the boats through the tunnels. There was no cluster of twen...
2024-08-11 17:04:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 108 - The Rot Spilling From the Walls
With a steady supply of myrvites from her new Syndicate contact established, Mirian spent her next day trying to replicate the runes she’d seen in the sanctum. When she’d learned about ‘glyph probing’ from Professor Eld, she’d thought it was a stupid thing to learn. After all, she didn’t plan on learning a glyph unless it had been well established. However, now, she could use the same principle that researchers used to discover new glyphs, and discover new runes. The technique inv...
2024-08-09 16:57:10 +0000 UTC View Post