Truth woke up with questions. Did I just dream?
<<I think so? It looked like a dream. Your nous was thrashing around, but not in the way I’m used to seeing when you have one of your little episodes.>>
Is that what you are calling the past life memories or visions or whatever now?
<<Yes. Also, did you just have some kind of nous-to-nous contact with Etensesh? I’m asking because this is the first time I’ve seen anything li...
2023-10-27 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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2023-10-26 19:56:49 +0000 UTC
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Truth had to fish around in the garbage heap to collect what was probably all the surviving pieces of a miniature spell bird. As best he could tell, it was some kind of kit project. The parts came together with simple fasteners, all the talismans were neatly marked where an unskilled assembler could line them up, and nothing in it was particularly unintuitive. And you certainly would be making this as a hobbyist. Truth couldn’t imagine a single commercial purpose.
Every spell bird Tru...
2023-10-26 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Truth awoke in a minor panic, feeling smothered by the plastic and the gravel. For a horrible second, he thought he had died in his sleep. For a horrible second, he thought he was back in that well of nothing, feeling the pressure growing. He kicked his way up and out in a hurry.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Five hours, Great One. This stupid worm is quite slow, and we passed nothing and no one of any note.” Truth looked around at the crummy one-lane road jammed between the ra...
2023-10-25 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Truth alternated between sitting cultivation, his least favorite sort, and trying to remember how his body worked. Everything hurt or felt wrong, or hurt while feeling wrong. In a brief moment of lucidity, he decided that “wrong” was unacceptably imprecise. If an elbow could feel nauseous, it would feel like this. And he had to remember that blood needed to pump and the lungs needed to inflate and deflate, and it all needed to happen without his conscious involvement, thank you very much!...
2023-10-24 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The Cevis bubbled pleasingly as it drowned. The grass-green pond scum frothed a bit around the smashed open windows, pouring in to give the interior the closest thing to a cleaning it had ever known. The fungal life within the carriage would finally have a real fight on its hands. This pond had never had anything good living in it. Welcome to the jungle, trash. It’s got what you need.
That rang a bell somewhere. No idea why. He wouldn’t worry about it. He would just enjoy w...
2023-10-23 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Got a little something for you- the first four minutes of the audio book! Kind of wish I could share the end of chapter 1, actually, the voice work on Dad is... perfect. But hey! New stuff!
On the Paperback side, the book should be releasing today on Amazon, but I don't have a fixed time for that yet. Podium swears that Amazon should have it processed by tomorrow at the latest, which does not enhance my calm. I will keep you in the loop on this, as I keep prodding them.
-...
2023-10-23 12:16:51 +0000 UTC
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The needle was quite long compared to a standard sidearm. Truth knew from experience it could smash through people without slowing down. That’s what it was built for- smashing through problems and problematic people. Driven at brutal speeds by the enchantments on the talisman, it could turn even a Level Zero nobody into a legitimate threat… to someone completely not paying attention or with really shoddy personal protections. Assuming someone with a higher level nudged things along a bit....
2023-10-20 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Truth started making his way towards the edge of Buran. He was wearily certain that there would be checkpoints on the roads, AGAIN, and doubly certain that the buses and trains would be filled primarily with plain clothed police officers and surveillance equipment. He morbidly wondered how there could be room for ordinary commuters under the circumstances. He’d take a damn boat at this point, but he was headed inland. As wondrous as his remarkable physique was, he was getting very tired of ...
2023-10-19 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The sin eater looked at the scores of rings, chains, and earrings scattered across his desk, spilling onto the floor. Each worn and rubbed, the maker mark and serial numbers carefully removed by Truth’s patient effort, waiting for the service to start. They all looked like they had been dug up, some possibly cut off the fingers of their late owners. The sin eater gingerly lifted a plain silvery band. It was heavier than it looked. Frozen quicksilver, banded with platinum. He had a similar r...
2023-10-18 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Truth sat about midway back in the pews. They were on tiers, like stadium seating. The church was trying to cram the most bodies possible into the hall and making sure everyone had an excellent view of the dais. No obstructed-view seats here. And the acoustics simply could not be beat.
He knew the last point because he had watched the sound check. Professional sound and light technicians, specialized mages in all but name, came out and flicked up the sound-catching talismans. They hover...
2023-10-17 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Truth dove into the panicking masses, letting them break his line of sight with the golems chasing him and the eye-spies above. It was far from perfect. They were still on him. But it helped. As he went, he shouted.
“The Golems are killing people! They have gone crazy! The Golems are killing people! Bombs, they set off bombs! Starbrite’s gone crazy! They are killing people!”
He didn’t even need to use Incisive. The words had all the effect he needed. Spells and charms star...
2023-10-16 16:01:07 +0000 UTC
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I promised something special for the paperback readers, and here it is- you guys get to read the published edition TWO WEEKS before the Ebook and Audiobook crowd. Yup. Two weeks. Oh, I know the listing says it’s out November 7th. This is a cunning ruse. In fact, it will be released October 23rd. That is one week from today. You are just one week from having the very first print copies of Slumrat Rising in your hand!
2023-10-16 13:14:14 +0000 UTC
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Truth hadn’t eaten all day and resolved to fix that problem. Rather than raiding his hosts’ weirdly sparse fridge, he decided to eat out. There was ample food available from street vendors, and in Jeon, the street food was good. The penthouse had a private elevator, of course. It had been depressingly trivial to defeat the security and, once he was in the apartment, to clone the control amulet.
It was quietly astounding to him. If you didn’t know how the systems worked, t...
2023-10-13 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Truth woke in the middle of the night. Sudden, urgent movement outside the door. They were only Level Threes, so he wasn’t worried about the owners of the house, but…
“Maddie. Maddie wake up! You have to see this.”
“Linh? What? What’s wrong?”
“There’s been an attack. You have to see the news.”
“Damn. Are we in danger?”
Linh laughed, an ugly noise. “Right this minute? Probably not, but who knows?”
Fair point, Truth though...
2023-10-12 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The party barge slid down out of the sky. Lights still pulsing in frantic time to the mindless music the bound spirits were compelled to play. The screams of mandatory fun and drugged release turned into fear, raw, clawing, stabbing. The barge slid down, passing the roofs of apartment towers. Passing the dim, shoddy windows of the ever-watchful slumrats. They always loved a free show. Some of the lift spells still worked. The barge fell a little slower than gravity demanded. The wards around ...
2023-10-11 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Truth had an early night’s sleep, as jetlag is a real bastard. The bed was tiny, but he was prepared to cherish the fact it wasn’t a futon. He had spent enough nights sleeping on the floor. The mechanical alarm went off at five in the morning. Dawn was still some distance away, but his host had insisted. If he wanted to understand, truly understand, his philosophy, this was the only way.
They set off on a predawn run. Jogging at first, but they quickly sped up to a hard run. Through...
2023-10-10 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Remembering… what? Can the soul have memories? I thought that was the mind’s job.
<<No, not exactly. Thinking and reason are the mind’s job, as are most of your memories, but the soul does pick up things. I don’t know what or how much, but it has to because otherwise, what is it that goes to the afterlife? What is it that gets processed by Heaven and Hell, if not your recollections of life? The accumulated stain of thousands of choices?>>
Trut...
2023-10-09 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Exciting news- Volume 1 is now available for preorder on Kindle. For those of you good, GOOD people who want paperback copies, there is some veeery interesting news about that coming... soon. But you are going to like it.
Warby
2023-10-08 12:06:50 +0000 UTC
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“Hang on a second- you say you physically take on the sin. As in, you remove it from the person it is on until they sin again.”
“Yes, we covered that.” The priest nodded.
“And it stays gone until the person sins again.”
“Well, it’s more nuanced than that, but that’s the basic idea.”
“And you, and an unknown but non-zero number of your fellow clergy, can literally see the accumulated sin on a person.”
“Again, sort of. But that is the basi...
2023-10-06 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Truth had a moment of terrible lucidity. The rich man, and he had to be rich, that was a five thousand wen suit if he had ever seen one, was looking more or less straight at him. Could he… see through the Blessings of the Forest? That would make him incredibly high-level. But he sure didn’t look or feel like a powerhouse. The draw on the energy powering the blessing was solidly up, but not “Hunted by Level Sixes and Sevens” up. He cast Incisive. No danger. What the actual…<...
2023-10-05 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Truth sprawled in the plush king-sized bed in “his” suite at the Dunbar. The Grand Imperial Deluxe, apparently. He vaguely wondered if they had a Grand Imperial or an Imperial Deluxe. What exactly qualified this suite for all three terms? Well, it had a second bedroom attached, a living room, and a little kitchen. When you got right down to it, he was pretty sure that it was bigger than the apartment he grew up in. And he was staying here rent-free. Bliss.
The bed was so comfortable...
2023-10-04 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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No idea what's going on here, but the UI seems to have changed, as well as some of how the menus work. Please let me know if you are experiencing any trouble, as I try to sort out how this thing now works. Fun fact- my dashboard is now telling me I have 99+ notifications, because it is notifying me of every notification I have ever gotten, all at once, with no obvious way to clear them. Very useful. So very useful.
Italics are dead
Bold is dead
2023-10-04 15:32:48 +0000 UTC
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It should have been safe. It should have. This wasn’t some dinky little road into a minor city like Gwaju. This was National Highway 10 headed into Buran- the second-biggest and second-richest city in the country. The highway was six lanes in both directions. The cost to run the checkpoint must be enormous. The cost to the city in lost income, delayed shipments, whatever, must be tens of times the cost of the checkpoint. Truth wouldn’t be surprised if this was costing Buran ten million we...
2023-10-03 16:01:00 +0000 UTC
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It didn’t feel safe under the overhang. Truth thought a moment and scolded himself. He was still thinking like a low-level noob. He was a Level Four with an imp. He coated his hand with the fangs of Incisive and carved a little cave out of the bank of the stream. “Thrush, make it watertight and blow out the dust and dirt. Then tidy up the exterior and remove my traces.”
“As you command.”
Thrush was decent at obscuring their trail. Combined with a few talismans and his va...
2023-10-02 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The bartender, after a brief chat with Truth, had no problem serving him water in the same glasses he served Thom white spirits. Whatever Internal Security wanted, they would get. Including the bartender becoming blind, deaf, and mute. Thom was Level Two, and while the lapel pin was providing some protection against Truth’s influence, Truth knew how to work around it. Slowly, Thom was being ground down. He would never say anything too revealing. The System would prevent that. But the “Sys...
2023-09-29 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Truth was confronted with an awkward problem. You never, ever, go to the same dead drop twice. Once you touch it, the drop is dead. Touch it a second time, and you are dead. So if you check it, it had DAMN well better have something in it. Hence having covert signals to let operatives know the drop was made. Truth found it all refreshingly simple and robust. The signal he was looking for was a white stone.
He considered the chicken-egg-sized rock in front of him. Was it a light grey? Or...
2023-09-28 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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If Merkovah’s package had made it to the dead drop, there would be a white rock under the fourth post of the fence outside of 934 West Pichno Street, Damya. Damya being a small town in farm country just up the highway from Gwaju. Since this was Jeon, a densely settled peninsula, “farm country” started just after a comparatively small belt of suburbs, and he was a bare fifteen kilometers away in a straight line. Easy, except he was standing in a suburban backyard, and this was Jeon,<...
2023-09-27 16:06:37 +0000 UTC
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To get cleanly out of Gwaju, a small city of no particular importance at the southern tip of the Jeon peninsula, one had to cross the highway that ringed the outer edge of the city. More like a three-quarters circle on account of the ocean being in the way, but that was the basic idea. You could be in your fine carriage, coming in from one of the “attractive” and “enviable” suburbs around the city, and simply zoom to your high-paying job in the city. The space and privacy of ...
2023-09-26 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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