Daoist Mystery

45 - Blood Shadow

I spoke to Chiara for two hours, explaining to her Lindon and Yerin’s situations and what made them controversial. She had already gotten the picture from overhearing our chats with Gwei and whatever Bai Rou and Renfei had talked about to the other officers.

Chiara had been more than enthusiastic to learn that I had joined the Skysworn, however. At times, she’d turn away from me to surreptitiously wipe her face, though I could still spot the redness in her eyes.

“You’re in...

Eternal Star 5th Doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aMtNoqedyszLL_AVBNkiFI7E242AXv4--vdmy_d0-4A/edit?usp=sharing

Eternal Star 4th doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v3L2i8kcvBKmz_BGlkFf2DKRMiSB0Qdk4uQBMv3PThI/edit

Currently only a handful of words, introducing a new character that I think is kinda dope

Comments are appreciated, as well as spelling and grammar corrections.

Discord

Hello everyone! I'm setting up a discord.

https://discord.gg/fgaUvEzjrg

When making edits on the documents, please use Eternal Star 2 or 3, not 2.5. I don't edit 2.5. It's just there for accessibility

I made 2.5 because somebody complained that the document was too long and didn't load properly. Unfortunately, I simply forgot to also make edits to it, so now the bulk of my edits from chapters 33-37 are still in Eternal Star 2. That was a mistake on my part, but if you have any suggestions or comments to make, please do so on the main ES 2 document.

Chapter 32 reworks

I added an Eithan POV to chapter 32. Check it out on Ao3 for those who missed it. Happens in the bar.

Uhh I got too lazy

I don't have the energy to paywall shit lmao. If you have access to this, then you have access to everything up to 42. Cheers and celebrations for you. I will change the dono tiers to reflect that the pay levels are only for gratitude.

Anyway, if you can read this, gratitude.

Chapters 13-37

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cOYDHmcTxKAAj3CfUWGMFeQPuBVaS7...

Chapter 32: The Imperial College

Matriculation was followed by us getting split into classes. Each one, of course, began with a syllabus and it emphasized that we would be ranked within the next lecture—because the Blackflame Empire couldn’t let go of rankings for one goddamn second—and finally, we were just told to discuss the syllabus amongst each other.

I had two classes with Jei Ren, apparently. Algebra and History. For everything else, I ended up having to go up to someone, hat-in-hand, for a crumb of conver...

25 - The Centre Cannot Hold

Aisha stretched her senses through the portal. Invisible knotted ropes stretched out of the gaping hole in space, stretching high into the sky. Each knot turned into an eye that swiveled around, feeding her information in real time.

And through those eyes, she could also see the ravaging energies of magic.

One was of their countrywoman, the witch in the Aellian nobility’s employ. The other was one she didn’t recognize, a new player.

She brought her knotted rope of eyes c...

24 - Things Fall Apart

A/N: I added a POV after the Reza segment. I'm hard at work writing chapter 25 as of right now. I thank you guys so much for your patience. School has been kicking my ass as of late, and I've been on a creative slump about this story, but I'll pull through. We're almost at the end of the Aellia arc :)

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Losinda had agonized over the decision to wait seven days, but after her friend Kadira visited her once more, she had come with carriages to transport the wh...

23 - Origin Severing

I hadn’t slept in three days since I spoke to that Goldman.

My spells allowed me to operate without sleep for however long I wanted to. The Rested Mind spell cleared out all the wastage from my brain, allowing me to stay lucid and operational. Ever since I discovered that spell all those months ago in the Harrow Woods, I hadn’t slept at all. I’d always continue working on my magic, continue working on a way to meet my goals.

I wanted to introduce a safe and reliable method t...

22 - Portents

Shana left the scullery to fetch water by the nearby stream in the crack of dawn. The cold air was a herald for winter, only a week or so away. Shana always hated winter. Her toes and fingers always went numb and her teeth would chatter so much, not to mention the cold air that would leave her lungs and throat burning like fire.

Her body had always been naturally weak since she was born, something that not even her system-enhanced Endurance could deal with properly. To hear the elders s...

21 - Daemoncustom

Jogmomich made her way to the castle of Rezdnaq Qandzer, not because she had to, but because it was the smartest thing to do.

Was it anyone else, she would have merely appeared in the midst of the Archdemoness of Red’s halls, bypassing the decorative guard golems and all the other meaningless trappings of fortification and security she had borrowed from the timed realm, as well as that laughable concept of 'space'.

To a timeless, spaceless being like herself, it was almost like ...

20 - Jogmomich

Losinda held her robes up by the fistful, careful not to let them get into contact with the muddy ground. The late autumn streets were muddy and moist, and were liable to spoil even the roughest silk.

She walked through the crime-ridden slums of Altaluvia, confident that her attributes would keep her safe from any pickpocket or brigand as she made her way to an old haunt, one that she had found her eldest-born child in many a times.

Many would whisper about the Reizenbrahm curse, ...

19 - The Inquisitor

19 – The Inquisition

“He will kill you, Reza, if he finds out.” Reizenbrahm marched as fast as the average man could jog. It was surreal to see him move this way, to see anyone move that way for that matter. He had all but dragged me from Janina’s cell while I was deep in the throes of insight, designing a way to break my Sentence, and he hadn’t even given me so much as a conversation. Just orders.

The Inquisition was coming. They were an arm of government taske...

18 - Sacrifices

Breakfast was a gloomy affair, gloomy enough that Shana was allowed a seat at the usual rectangular table downstairs, in the servant’s quarters, sitting in Karina’s chair no less. Head maid Manalia ate with the usual pageantry, carefully and purposefully, like a noble born. The head butler, too, was quiet, not having even raised the first concerns of the day like he was usually wont to do.

Karina’s absence was no-doubt glaring to everyone, and yet they kept quiet.

It was the...

17 - Circle Magic

Shana woke up at the crack of dawn, the insistent call of duty almost overwhelmed by her chronic lethargy. A shock of fear was enough to dispel the haze clouding her mind, the fear that if she were to keep slumbering, unkinder hands would pull her up from the depths of her rest. Her roommates were already out of their beds, dressing up and ready to take on the morning chores.

She took her time, knowing that they would inevitably overtake her, and that the rest would relegate her to ligh...

16 - Oaths

Mistakes had been made.

That was all I could think as I finally made it back to my bedroom, still reeling from the events of today. I shouldn’t have gotten angry that Reizenbrahm asked me to kill hundreds, or indignant that I was being forced to help someone that wanted to kill me because I was too brown. That was obviously unreasonable of me. I should have argued calmly, or not at all in fact, and made good on my escape into the night, bringing Farhaan with me and trying my ...

15 - The Solution

I’d freely admit to myself that I was not a good person. ‘Getting on top of this’, to me, meant hiding any evidence of my wrongdoing and faking her death. I could do it, even. I could make it look like she’d poisoned herself on alcohol in her throes of grief and died choking on her own vomit in her sleep.

That was, in fact, the entire plan. Until a guard stormed into the room, giving me precious little time to even move the unconscious body of the Reizenbrahm heir. The guard loo...