tobiasbegley

The Twin Trials: Chapter Twenty-Two

Yay! Bonus chapters this tues/thurs, since it was the only way I could get things fit remotely into the right schedule without having two interludes nearly back to back, which would feel... weird. 

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I released a rain of five Pinpoint Boneshards at the spriggan, who immediately released a spray of thorns up at me, her Briarthreads flickering out to knock the bone shards off course. As she did, I teleported behind her, casting Transport Item t...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Twenty-One

When it came down to it, my only real choices were the monocle – to help us get more stuff – and the natural treasure that had to do with the mana meditations, but I had no idea what the treasure actually did. Sure, it might double the efficacy of my Depths of Starry Night technique, but it also might just assist me in making my third gate version of it more reflexive.

I slipped the rune crusted monocle into my hand. The moment it was touching skin, I felt it suffuse my mana senses,...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Twenty

Since I was taking the rooms in order of most to least difficult, at least for me, I headed into the ward room next, hoping that I’d be able to use my one good warding spell to get through it.

The inside of this room was rather similar to the previous one, with lots of materials and solidified mana, but instead of woodcarving tools, there was a chisel, paints, and a hammer.

Instead of a target, however, there was a large piece of glass, cut into a teardrop shape.

“You ha...

What reward?

The Twin Trials: Chapter Nineteen

The following morning, I awoke in the bed, with Kene’s arm draped across my chest and Dusk curled up on my stomach, and let myself just bask in the mundanity for a while.

Eventually, though, we got up and moving, drank another nutrition potion, and checked through a tiny portal.

To my relief, the giant falcon seemed to have given up its hunt in search of less annoying prey, and Dusk was able to float us down to the forest floor. We veiled ourselves and moved quickly until we wer...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Eighteen

I considered it for several long moments, then I opened my eyes and drew out the quarterstaff.

It had been worth trying, but my mage’s staff had smoothly integrated into my power far easier, and had mitigated my weakness in a way that I felt fit my style better.

Maybe I could have worked with the staff, learning speed and enhancement spells, and become a fearsome up-close combatant, but… I wasn’t that, and I wasn’t sure that interested me. Magic was most fun when it was, w...

Enfield Art

While I've been fairly vocal about it on my discord server, the creature that Kene has befriended is called an Enfield! Here's some art of them

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seventeen

I took a breath as I passed inside the portal, then turned around. There was a loud, resonant thumping sound as the serpent crashed against the portal, but the portal held.

I let out a slight sigh of relief. The defenses inbuilt into Dusk had been further upgraded by the bwbatch that lived within her, and had been built from a powerful growth item’s wards as well.

But with how powerful the snake was, and the fact that Dusk was only a second gate mage, I had been worried.

T...

What do?

This is a pretty big one. While it's possible to change, it all depends on the story's flow.

The Twin Trials: Chapter Sixteen

The light of Kene’s blessing spell swept over me, followed by the green light of a regeneration spell. My vision re-focused, and I had just a moment to cast Foxstep and get out of the way of another breath weapon attack from the serpent.

Dusk, on the other hand, was so small that she didn’t need to dodge. Glowing with golden light, she ran over the surface of the mud, her body too light and ethereal to get caught down.

As she moved, she sketched, and when she arrived at the se...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Fifteen

“I don’t think so today,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s too much potential wealth to be extracted right now.”

A part of me expected the winds of fortune to gust angrily at that, but nothing happened. I supposed that Meadow had warned me that it was fickle for a reason.

“Hmm,” Kene said. “How about I go ahead and start working on the elixir while you explore? If I have Dusk with me, she can help, and we can leave when we’re ready, or if you need us.”

Update Post:

So, as some of you have noticed, The Abjurer's beta copy was posted here on Patreon over the weekend. To comply with Amazon's guidelines, it will stay up for the rest of March, and then it will be gone.

There's likely also the question - will I start posting chapters of The Archmage?

Well... Yes. But not right away. For right this moment, I'm working on turning that beta copy into the final version that will go out on Amazon with my Beta Readers and Editor.

I'm going to aim ...

Should I continue posting the two Abjurer chapters, twice a week?

Since I posted the completed version of the rough draft, I wasn't sure what people would want.

The Abjurer - Final Beta Draft

With the Abjurer finished being written, I've decided to hand it out to my patrons! This is not the final draft, only the final beta draft. There may be changes, minor or major, to the final draft of the Abjurer. 

This post will be removed when it is uploaded to Amazon, as having it here is a violation of Amazon's TOS

The Twin Trials: Chapter Fourteen

“Oh,” I said softly as we landed in the soft, loamy soil at the bottom of the pit.

What I saw was not an intense battle with an abyssal shambler, deathfrill maiden, fungal tyrant, or other mobile mushroom monster menace.

No, it was far more somber than that.

The cave tapered upwards on the opposite side – if we’d approached it from about fifty feet westward, we would have stumbled across what should have been the main entrance, rather than a thin sinkhole that led in...

What do, what do, what do?

The Abjurer: Chapter 42-43

“The third year tournament will be simple,” Eira announced. “Be it by fate or fortune, there are forty members of your year. As such, the first round will be one on one elimination matches, to cut us down to twenty.”

I bit my lip and hoped I wouldn’t have to face any of my friends.

“As some of you are likely aware, we have ongoing peace negotiations with Zheren. As such, the second round will involve breaking into halves – one group will represent Zheren, while the o...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Thirteen

With my mana senses spread out over the area, I expected the presence of a guardian to be obvious, but nothing in particular jumped out at me.

I could sense forest estragon moving through the trees, and I thought I might also feel a river estragon moving along somewhere, but nothing that stuck out as a guardian, nor anything that felt especially like a powerful natural treasure.

When I glanced at Kene, they just shrugged.

“I’ll start running a divination for it,” they ...

The Abjurer: Chapter 40-41

We circled each other for a moment, waiting for one of us to make the first move and start the battle.

I snapped one of my knives off my belt and released a force spear at Osheen. Infused with the power of constellations, rather than just having the slight translucent color that most force spells had, it glowed a bright golden color.

Osheen’s tattoo lit up in response. His force armor appeared, and the artifact that I’d made him activated.

Water whipped around his armor ...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Twelve

The following morning started out slow. I awoke to the sounds and smells of food from the kitchen, and emerged to see Kene cooking, alongside a group of brownies.

“Morning babe,” Kene said when I emerged.

“Morning… How?” I asked, nodding to the kitchen. I didn’t have a mana generator or anything, so while I had appliances, most of them didn’t work.

“Solar mana does include fire,” Kene said. “I know cooking spells are usually frowned upon by chefs, but bet...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Eleven

I stood in the center of the ritual and let my mana swirl out through the loops and assorted mana sources. My ungated mana connected to the centerpoint, then my first gate mana clicked into place, then my second.

Resonance began to form, but instead of shaking the entire world, it was a center spark that I draped layer after layer of elaborate power atop.

It was a slow, arduous process. Each one of my gates needed layers of mana, and each one was harder to place atop than the one ...

What do?

Several of these options aren't as directly written out, but are still viable, and as such, are included.

This one vote will not determine everything in the Idyll-Flume. Like Liz said, there's nothing stopping them from tackling the second floor together. The quests will, however, change over time.

The Abjurer: Chapter 38-39

I spent a while between classes and spending time with Osheen trying to track down my target for my next enchanting project.

From the very beginning of the year, I had been wanting to create some sort of enchanted item that would let Oracle and Bridgette’s vessels spend more time out and about.

It had repeatedly fallen further and further down my metaphorical list of enchantments I needed to make for the simple reason that preparing to save my life had been of far more import th...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Ten

The moment it slid into my mana-garden, something strange started happening. It reminded me of the reflection feeling that happened when I had chosen my mana types, but… different.

Instead of a mirror facing itself and bouncing back and forth until two solid, equal types of mana formed, the mirror was offset.

It bounced from one point to another offset mirror, and then from that one back to the first – three mirrors, making up one set, but not the same set as the mana types I ...

The Abjurer: Chapter 36-37

I checked everything that Travis had told me against my copy of his own notes, of course, but once I was sure it was mostly correct, Osheen, Tara, and I were forced to make a trip I didn’t want.

It was time to return to the king’s summoning site.

There were two main reasons for this.

The first was Phillip. He had summoned two demons during our fight, and I was certain their cores had to be around the ritual somewhere – the consumer’s had been, after all.

The se...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Nine

I glanced at Kene, and then at Mallory, then the bald guy, then the mineral mage. They stared back.

I drew in a deep breath and released my mana.

Four Pinpoint Boneshards burst from my spirit as Briarthreads lashed out around me. Two of the bone shards flew at the mineral mage, and two at the spinning mage.

My attack broke the silence and tension that had fallen over the space, and everything exploded into motion. Riley leapt up and bit down on the mineral mage’s neck, onl...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Eight

We arced around in a semi-circle as we moved back to make sure that we didn’t just walk back along the paths that we’d already picked over. Midway back, we found another small clearing.

The center of the clearing was dominated by a small chunk of soil that was floating in midair, with a large bush set into it. The bush had blue leaves, instead of green, and it was laden with so many glimmering silvery berries that it was actually causing some of the branches of the bush to bough. Gu...

Votey McVoteface

The Abjurer: Chapter 34-35

“Your archmage killing spell?” I asked, eyebrows raising at the phrasing.

“If I can’t have a little bit of drama for this, when can I?” Tara asked, a small, mousey smile on her face. I nodded my head in inclination, though I didn’t necessarily agree.

“I thought you kept those spells in your spell storage arch-star,” I said instead.

“I do,” Tara said. “But I’m not an enchanter, stuffing a spell like this into a single item. I need a setup for the spell...

The Twin Trials: Chapter Seven

As I let out a slow breath, Kene paused his hand.

“I really need to master those new spells,” he said. “I wasn’t even able to finish sketching before the fight was over.”

“That was weird, right?” I asked Kene. “Like, it’s not just me. That was weird.”

“It made sense to me,” Kene said. “You don’t want to run out of mana so early in the day, especially during the first week or so, where there are going to be the most things that are the least picked...