tobiasbegley

Future Poll and Announcement.

So, something I've been seriously thinking about is putting up very rough draft chapters of The Abjurer on patreon. 

Partly this will serve as a kick in the pants, to make sure I keep up with my writing. I've got the type of ND where a deadline helps me, so giving myself the deadline is a good thing, and I think one of the reasons The Abjurer has flagged is that I'm not under an explicit deadline. 

So I guess this brings me to my point: Would you all want to see that on ...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Nine

The following morning, Ed managed to drag himself out of bed early to show me the plant that he’d mentioned the night before. To my surprise, it was well off the beaten path.

First, we headed to a garden that was on the other side of the city.

“Why were you all the way out here?” I asked Ed.

“Oh, work had me working on this area. There’s been a small spike in zombie squirrels in the area. Mostly harmless, since they’re so weak that even a basic wave of undirected...

Mission Selection

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Eight

I took the long way, walking all the way out to the library, and got Alvaro after asking around with the librarian at the front desk, who called him down.

When he saw me, he froze for a second, frowned, then smiled and nodded his head over to the plush leather seats near the fire. I followed him over, and we both took a seat.

“First, I should apologize,” he said. “I was… Rude. I was frustrated. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that.”

“Thank you,”...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Seven

I tapped into the sketch I’d made and copied Briarthreads, then pulled them back. Mallory’s eyes widened, and she glanced at her claws, then at me.

Then I smashed into her with Briarthreads, pouring the last dregs of my life mana into the attack.

The sharp edges of the briars dug into Mallory and she fell back, bloody.

“Winner: Malachi,” the proctor said.

With my body draining itself dry to repay the physical debt from Burn Future, and the mana debt exerting a ...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Six

“It’s one to one, now,” Ed said.

“Hold on,” I said. “I think that she’s listening to us somehow. Maybe using her Werewolf Senses? She was prepared for the strategy of blitz attacking her and going in physically, and wasn’t thrown off by my enhanced body.”

“Why don’t you find out how, and I’ll take care of it?” Meadow suggested. I closed my eyes and sent my mana senses spiraling outward.

It took me precious time, but I eventually noticed the small or...

Poll Time

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Five

Mallory froze as enchantments flared, third gate abnegation spells swirling through the room and wiping out her spells as well as Malachi’s.

As the judge floated down, Malachi walked over and sent the strange gourd he’d used into his personal pocket space, and then nodded to her.

“That’s a right pain of a technique to deal with,” Malachi said. “Congrats on the win.”

Mallory glanced over at him, shifting awkwardly. It would be so much easier to do her duty for t...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Four

Fortune had carried me this far, and it had done right by me.

Resolve was a maybe, but if I was being honest, I would rather step aside and lose the duel than have to be horribly mutilated in order to win, and that was true overall. I’d push myself. I enjoyed pushing myself. But I hadn’t enjoyed this week of pain training. And I didn’t think I could turn it into my life.

Destiny… Maybe I had some, maybe not. There was a small sliver there, after all. But it was thin and we...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Three

The next two weeks were my introduction into what Ed affectionately called torment training.

Each day, Meadow, Ed, and Liz sparred with me until I was out of mana, pushing my combat skills hard. Ed also insisted on taking me to the gym to work out physically, which was terrible.

When Ikki learned what had happened, he seemed to be mildly amused by the whole thing, and he gave me a deadline extension for working with Lesser Psychometry.

I was grateful for the break from that,...

Poll time

This is meant to be kind of mystery and very metaphoric, so there's a limited amount I can say about the meaning behind each of these. They have a meaning, though. 

None of the quests are going to be fillable before the duel (the following day), but they represent a future power up he can gain.

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-Two

“I’ve got two weeks to prepare for the duel,” I told my small circle of support the following day.

My dad wasn’t there – I’d told him, and he’d disapproved, but told me that it was my life in the end.

But Meadow, Ed, and Liz were all there. I’d wanted Kene to be there, but unfortunately, the flight out there was a time sink I couldn’t really afford.

“You’ve some resources, though,” Meadow pointed out, and I nodded to Dusk, who produced everything: a m...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty-One

“Fine, I’ll accept your duel,” I said aloud, taking care to keep my words and thoughts separate.

Internally, I told Aerde that I wasn’t going to be maiming or killing Mallory. Aerde sent an impression of Orykson’s dissatisfaction with that, but I ignored it.

Mallory was a pain in my thrice-cursed side, sure, but that was hardly a reason to kill her or maim her. Even if I did something relatively ‘minor’, like take off her ear, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to look at...

The Second Gate: Chapter Thirty

The next intermission went by with nothing of note, and the third of the four sections of the auction began. This one was dedicated to magical items, and there was absolutely nothing I could afford. A few growth items came up for sale, but nothing that was remotely affordable to me, and while Orykson sniped a few of them, he was obviously less interested in them than he was the sword that The Craftsman had made.

“I’m surprised that there are so many options for people of relatively ...

Poll Time!

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Our first item up for auction today, as well as the theme for the first part of the acution… Art! This lovely painting is a genuine Euade DeRoset, who needs no introduction, enchanted to draw the eye of all who come within proximity of it!” Sin said, and I immediately tuned him out.

I began to sketch with one hand, focusing on the Transport Item spell. Orykson glanced at me, then nodded. A moment later, he frowned.

“You should also be practicing your mana meditation.” 2023-11-08 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I’ll go,” I said, and Orykson nodded.

“You have ten minutes to get ready. I would recommend you wear your suit, as this is a largely formal event.”

“I thought you said it was hosted by the Ghost Market!” I protested as I shoved a croissant into my mouth.

“I said the same faction as that which runs the ghost market,” Orykson said, frowning slightly. “You should pay more attention. Word choice is important.”

I rolled my eyes as I ran up to my room ...

Go to the ghost market auction?

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Seven

I paused and took a deep breath before I nodded.

“Alright. The truth is, I just feel… Directionless.”

Ikki nodded, saying nothing.

“Once I finish my Beast Mage’s Soul and Magister’s Body spells, I’m going to be on the path to transition,” I said. “But what do I do after that? I really like my work with the wildwatch, and with the spiritwatch. But is that enough, to just do work I like? And if it is enough, then why am I getting all this special training and...

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Six

I spent the rest of the day working on healing potions, with Kene supervising me for a while until I got the process down, and then they left me so that they could tend to the store more closely.

By the time dinner rolled around, I’d managed to make four additional healing potions, all of which were second gate.

“Did you want to practice converting one of them down?” Kene asked.

“It’s probably wise,” I said, taking the mason jar they handed me, and pouring one of...

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Five

I considered for a very long moment, before a thought popped into my brain. Offering to link Dusk and Kene wasn’t just giving us a way to share plants and to more easily visit one another.

No, it was a pretty serious, permanent commitment, and was almost akin to asking him to move in with me.

I liked Kene. I liked them a lot. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to take that step yet – I was only eighteen. Well, eighteen and a half. But making a big deal over half a year always mad...

Short Story: Fish Boi

This short story is set 10 years before Mana Mirror, in Daocheng.

-

A fist impacted Chen Liyu's stomach, surging with mid-first gate wood aspected chi, and he was sent sailing backwards through the air as he scrambled to keep his water armor intact.

Sailing through the air, that was, until a foot from another mid-first gate cultivator – wind aspected, this time – caught him in the back and knocked him to the ground.

The third, the leader of their l...

Vote time!

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Four

The fungal small folk – which I decided to mentally shrorten to fungal folk – led us over a wardline and into a small fungal village.

Rather than being clustered around a pool, like the bwbatch and pixie village had been, the fungal folk’s village was centered around a single giant mushroom that came up to my chest and shed a blue and yellow light. It had been hollowed out, and seemed to be used as some sort of community center.

Ringing it was a series of smaller mushrooms, ...

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Three

One person who reads this series has privately expressed an issue with fungi, and the next two chapters contain a lot of mushrooms, so this is a CW for fungus
-

“By all means, point the way,” I told her.

Dusk led us to a small patch of the garden that I hadn’t really looked at, but on further investigation, I noticed that the tree roots formed a frame, to something small, like a trapdoor.

Dusk gestured, and the earth opened, revealing a tunnel down....

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-Two

Dusk considered it for longer than I expected, taking the decision more seriously than usual. Finally, she let out a long, complex streamlike sound, saying she wanted us to go in, but she also wanted to catch up to us, and that she was afraid if she didn’t eat it, she wouldn’t be able to.

“That’s fine,” I said, and it was. Whatever was in there seemed to be fairly violent and unpleasant, and though that probably meant great ability to advance via pills handed out before a figh...

What does Dusk do?

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty-One

I chased the blink fox through the forest as it played with me, and slowly I hammered out an understanding of the fox, its mana, and – at least an attempt at – the spell it used.

The fox was early second gate, which was likely why it had felt confident playing with me. Its mana was a composite, like vampiric, draconic, or hag mana, but very different.

Space dominated, which was obvious, but it seemed to weave together aspects of time, life, and solar mana too, with small flash...

The Second Gate: Chapter Twenty

If the formatting on this is weird, sorry, I've gotta post this via my phone, computer's broken again :)

-

“Your serial breaking-and-entering criminal friend has returned,” I announced as I barged into Kene’s shop, which was technically closed for lunch at the moment.

“Mmph,” came the muffled response from upstairs. A few moments later, I heard the sound of them walking, and they emerged from the back, holding a sandwich. I took th...

The Second Gate: Chapter Nineteen

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“There is a limit on the information we are allowed to share about that,” Ama said rigidly.

“Ama…” Astsila said in a pleading voice, tugging on her hand.

“Atsilla, you know we can’t,” Ama said sternly, though the edges of her eyes softened.

“Most of the independents are endorsed by myself or an independent occultist,” Meadow commented quietly. “Such as the Beggar Luminary, Craftsman, or Amethyst Mask.”

“A...