tobiasbegley

Peaches and Perception

On a windswept plain, in the unclaimed territory near the dragon Elyciune and her Umber Horn Sect, not far from Aergarde nor the lands of the Tower City of a Thousand Worlds, two powers met. 

Darius Rex, the Amethyst Mask, was both more, and less, than many expected. A tall man, at nearly seven feet, with long, slender limbs that gave him the visage of a runner, a well groomed half fade. By all appearances, he seemed to be in his mid thirties, with the only hint at his true age bei...

!emit llop si tI

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Eight

I didn’t get nearly as much sleep as I’d hoped that night, nor the night after that, but at least I got a touch of variety, as the coyotes gave way to a handful of large, crab-shaped ice elementals. 

I wasn’t sure why exactly ice elementals were shaped like crabs, but who was I to question the will of their domains? 

As I was tracking on through the eighth day, trying not to think about the fact that the power of the salt would wear off tomorrow, and leave my blist...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Seven

Thankfully, between Sense Directionality, Analyze Space, and my ability to teleport up into the air and hold myself there to survey, I was able to make my way back to the trail and keep hiking. With my pain suppression spells, hiking was bearable, if annoying. 

I tried to distract myself with calculations. I was about a third of the way into the month, if I was counting my days right, and based on my senses, I’d managed to get about forty miles. 

I was suddenly very gr...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Six

The first and easiest selection to make was the spread-crystal. That was a massive improvement over my current, alchemically grown crystal, and it’s constant, if slow, expansion would be invaluable for expanding my storage capacity.

It was heavy, but I didn’t think that would be a problem. 

The next pick was harder, if for no other reason than the abundance of good options, so I was forced to take a step back and consider my future. 

I was a beast mage and a pl...

The Archmage: Epilogue. Two weeks later...

I've listened to the confusion and feedback, and I'm going to be including this second chapter of the epilogue.
-

Two weeks later… 

Osheen let out a long, tired sigh as he landed in the cave to the north of Yesgol. A few of the defenses that Evan had set up around the perimeter had tripped, but most of them were intact, including – most crucially – the divination defenses. 

Of course, Osheen had known on a conscious level...

Feedback + Major Updates

Hello, and... Thank you all for reading. The time that I've put into the Journals of Evander Tailor series has been awesome, and I'm looking forward to continuing writing.

I'd love to hear your feedback on The Archmage - I've considered extending the final battle another chapter or two, and perhaps expanding the epilogue? I want this to be a satisfying conclusion, but I don't want it to feel like closing the book on the entire world. There are meant to be things left unexplained - for ...

The Archmage: Epilogue, twenty-five years later...

Twenty-five years later…

Micah Smith crept through the library of the Evander Tailor Academy of Magical Arts, doing his best to remain as quiet as possible, while behind him, he heard one of his bullies calling out his name.

“You can’t hide, Micah!” called the largest of his bullies, Sylvia Chantal, in the kind of whisper that was able to carry across the library. She was one of the few remaining members of the old caste around these days, and had...

Chapter Fifty-Two

“Tara?!” I shouted. 

Tara landed on top of Trenton’s force dome, and her whip slashed through the spell holding the giant sword together. At the same time, pillars of her familiar brown aura struck at the construct, and it began to fall apart, some sort of mass ritual attack spell, probably not unlike the ones she’d used to kill all those people and destroy the lesser houses. 

Elide looked at her, and for a moment, I saw fear flash across his face. 

�...

Chapter Fifty-One

I’d heard a few times that Zachary Dormer was potentially the weakest archmage in a fight. A part of me hadn’t really understood what that meant, though. On top of that, a different part of me had thought that it was a lie, some sort of trick that he was pulling over the other archmages. He was a part of the Ligature, maybe he’d used those connections to help him hide his power. 

As I took in what was happening, I was forced to admit that, no, Zachary Dormer really was the we...

The Archmage: Chapter Fifty

A spike of otherworldly power, the mentalist power of the dreamscape, echoed in my mind. For a moment, I thought that I would be forced to see images of my worst memories, live through my nightmares, or see splinters of the worst futures possible. 

Instead, the world sped up around me as chains formed around my thoughts. My mind was sluggish, and I barely registered the flashes of danger coming from my front and right side. 

Even with the forwarning, I wasn’t able to t...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Five

Extra chapter!
-

When I awoke, I wasn’t miraculously healed, but I did feel somewhat better. 

That was a shame. I’d kind of been hoping the coblynau would be able to use something to fix me up, like a heartgem or some other magical healing, but I supposed that they didn’t have anything of that sort lying around. 

I blinked and looked around, and realized that I’d been moved slightly. I was pushed to the edge of the pit, and laying on a b...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Four

As soon as I appeared up the mineshaft, I fumbled for one of my small stock of healing potions and drained it, while teleporting my other potion, the one that I’d dropped, into the air in front of the revenant, while in the same instant encasing it in another fungal lock, just to try and slow it down.

The potion smashed down and another ball of fire bloomed in the cave. I felt the power of the revenant flickering wildly, before settling around third gate, and its armored form emerged ...

Pickify me, captain

Top three picks are the items that are selected!

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Three

In the end, I thought that the best choice was, unfortunately, the grossest choice. 

Using Transport Item to try and teleport the item up to me would drain my mana dry, and it might not even work, since the stone had absurd amounts of mana in it. I doubted the small size would be enough to offset that. 

Trying to snipe the stone with Pinpoint Boneshard might just fail entirely and reveal myself to the revenant. It might be too mindless to bother with me while I was just ...

Short Story Collab!

This is a short story, written by me, and performed by AlternateAurora on youtube!

Here's the transcript: Ah, welcome in, welcome in. Lledrith’s grand library is available to all, though of course, some spells are locked away, too dangerous… Do you have a student token? Or are you just visiting?

[]

Oh, you do? Wonderful. Just allow me to check it real quick… Ah, I see. A brand new student. That explains why I’ve never seen you before. Well, plase allow me to welcom...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-Two

I gritted my teeth. 

The smart thing to do would be to just complete the Beastgate and tell Edgar. He was an occultist, false or otherwise, and could crush the revenant in a second. 

But… I couldn’t leave people enslaved, even if it was only for a few more weeks. It just wasn’t right. I had to try, at the very least. While there was a chance the revenant could use its stone on me, I knew that Kene and Dusk would come for me. 

I had to try. 

No...

The Serpent and the Siren

So I'm on vacation right now, but this story came to me as I was falling asleep, and so I spent... today... writing it. Whoops!
-

Ian was bored. 

That happened quite a lot, unfortunately. It was an underlying symptom of his nature. 

When he’d been a kid, he’d mainly gotten out of his boredom by doing something stupid. 

He’d run down the smooth, polished marble halls until he inevitably fell and smacked himself onto the floor...

The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Nine

Remember, other chapters may not be coming this week, as I'm with family.

-

Managing to kill Archmage Byron had been quite impressive, if I did say so myself. 

First and foremost, I’d had to open a small hole in the wards, one that was large enough for me to shoot through, but not so large that it would be immediately obvious. Frankly, if these wards weren’t so similar to the ones that had been thrown up around Edward Elide’s est...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy-One

I was woken up by a tiny man standing right next to my face. He was about the size of a pixie or brownie, and appeared to be older, about in his sixties for a human, with a full, long beard, broad mushroom cap hat that was bright blue, and clothes that reminded me of an old timey prospector, setting out to explore Suntorch in hopes of finding riches. He was even leaning on a pickaxe, scaled down to the size of a toothpick. 

He was also ugly as sin – though, thinking about it, I�...

The Vote

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventy

A middle aged man stood in a small crack. 

Strength of the earth flowed from him as he raised his hand and brought it down in a sharp cut. 

The stone, conjoined for eras beyond human understanding of time, a timescale on which even those who reached the status that they called immortality were insignificant, split. 

The stone-self stayed. 

The stone-self was broken, dissolved and absorbed by the man. 

Both true, both alive, both dead, bot...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Sixty-Nine

Just as a reminder, I am with family, so there's good odds that there won't be any / many Archmage chapters this week!
-

I spread my mana senses out around me in as wide of a net as possible, empowering my Analyze Space spell to try and get a sense for any gaps that would indicate a cave. Finding none, or at least none I could sense, within range of my senses, I ignored the site that had been set aside for campers and started searching for a cave. I chained together ...

The Broken Arm

This is a followup short story to The Debt Collector, and as such, has a lot more language than usual.

-

Cora leaned over her arm on her workbench, examining the disassembled device, and using her one human arm to trace the lines of mana that ran through the metal prosthetic. 

The fight with the Assocication agent had cost her more than she’d like to admit, even if she was only admitting it to herself. The null-steel that served as a ...

The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Eight

I sat in the cave, my belt, staff, gun, and cloak all folded neatly next to me. In front of me sat three items: a crystal, traded to me by Obereon, and a black slate tablet filled with angelic magic, traded to me by Draven, and a blank journal. 

There were going to be copies made of my first three journals, I already knew that. And Osheen would eventually be pressured to release the fourth journal, if for no other reason than that it would contain the notes I’d made about growing...

The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Seven

Osheen stepped into the room, wearing a blue suit with white trimmings, a cooling contrast to his coppery hair, and as he entered, he allowed his aura to blaze out around him, revealing the five arch-stars that hung around his head like a crown. 

Chris’ mouth fell open, and Serena let out a laugh. Eira winked at me, and Dormer applauded politely. 

“I apologize for keeping you waiting,” he said, his voice filling the room. “It’s quite a flight from Yesgol – or...

The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Six

The bottom fell out of my stomach and I thought I was about to be sick. 

“Aldvarri’s dead, isn’t he?” I whispered, and Draven shot me an annoyed look. 

“No, your defenses have repelled everything thus far, and he remains quite safe.” 

I took a rattling breath of relief at that, and Osheen spoke up. 

“Personal. If it’s not Aldvarri, then… who?” 

“Nine noble estates inexplicably fell apart last night,” Draven said. �...

The Archmage: Chapter Forty-Five

Osheen, Tara, and I regrouped as soon as we could after the pillars of light, and I picked up the three seeds, flickered on my assassin’s cloak, and flew out to Yesgol. 

There were already nobles and investigators from Hallowbrooke at the site, but with the power of the cloak, I poked a hole in the wards and slipped in, then dipped the seeds into the ash. 

I wasn’t sure why this was so necessary, but I also wasn’t going to disrespect the wishes of the tree.

A...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Sixty-Eight

I jumped, but so did the cats, which probably indicated that all three of us needed to get better at fighting. 

On the other side of the clearing, the massive crystal that the ooze had been within had cracked cleanly in two, and a much diminished ooze, only about the size of a sportsball – okay, I was never that sporty, but Ed could probably have said what game was closest. But the fist sized orb of ooze turned and began to roll away. 

Note to self. Oozes are very, ver...

Voteification