eligos

91. Sanctum XVI (First Draft)

I could feel the dynamic of the battle shifting. It was a close fight before, but other than going into it without knowing what elements we were up against, things were simple. Cut them down, injure and demoralize them to the point that further pursuit was impossible, then build distance before Thoth’s man could recalculate and strategize further.

But now, watching the monster transform, I felt that plan slowly deflate to nothing. Its limbs extended further, body stretching out. Arm...

90. Sanctum XV (First Draft)

My breath was ragged, desperate. There was no way to avoid the engagement—as Maya had stated, the best we could hope for was choosing an ideal field of battle. The last thing we wanted was to engage the incoming infernals and have the cowled man come at us from behind. We needed more distance, more speed. Every minute Saladius bought us was a minute of distance from the cowled mage, making it less likely that he would be able to catch up. But all the training and conditioning I put myself ...

2021-04-10 00:54:32 +0000 UTC View Post

89. Sanctum XIV (First Draft)

It was halfway through the year of my self-imposed exile from Maya’s household that Kilvius finally broke the standstill. His tenacity surprised me. I’d assumed that once Nethtari told him the truth of what happened within the Twilight Chambers that the contrived, semi-transparent attempts to bring me into the fold would stop, the dinner invitations and offers to tutor my demonic proffered through Jorra as proxy trickling out, until they finally faded to nothing. Only, that hadn’t happ...

2021-04-06 01:37:23 +0000 UTC View Post

88. Sanctum XIII (First Draft)

The arrow like projectile curved upward a split-second before it hit me. It was like taking an uppercut to the sternum. It lifted me off my feet and toppled me, sand biting into my elbow where I fell. The air left me and I fell to the sand with a pained grunt. If I hadn’t seen Saladius with the others, I might have come away with the impression that he hated me. Some part of me still felt that way. I still wasn’t entirely sure why Elder Saladius had changed his mind.

Was it respon...

87. Sanctum XII (First Draft)

Elder Saladius picked up a handful of the marbles idly, mouth firm, expression far away. I noted the painful looking calluses at the balls of his feet, the general roughness of his face. What had made him decide to live like this? There were so many beautiful places within the sanctum. Places much more appropriate for twilight years, for retirement.

“My wife was...” He trailed off, his eyes glassy. “They called me dwarf-fucker, behind my back. You’ve learned a little about the...

86. Sanctum XI (First Draft)

My mind went back to when I’d asked Bellarex about it on a particularly slow day. Jorra hadn’t been able to make it, so we’d settled for simple sparring instead. She had, per usual, given me a solid beating. I poked at one of my ribs as I drank from my water-skin and winced.

“I think you cracked one.” I took a deep pull. The water was lukewarm and unfiltered, but felt almost heavenly as it banished the dryness from my mouth and tongue.

Bell had settled in at my side, n...

85. Sanctum X (First Draft)

“There are people following us.” I trailed Elder Saladius around the low-ceiling, poorly constructed room that made up his kitchen. 

“Color me shocked. Shocked and amazed,” Saladius muttered, stoking the fire of the small stove. He cracked open several gray, speckled eggs several times too large to be a chicken’s, that impression reinforced by their bright-red yolks. “How surprising that the first human in the sanctum in centuries brings trouble in his wake.”  2021-03-24 15:39:55 +0000 UTC View Post

84. Sanctum IX (First draft)

I stood quietly, drawing my sword from its sheath. My head pounded from the hangover, and I cursed myself for the previous night’s foolishness. Across from us, Bell was rousing Jorra. He was muttering something unintelligible and swatted at her sleepily.

Bell, having clearly run out of ideas, clamped a hand over his mouth, pulled back a fist and punched him hard in the solar plexus. Jorra shot upright. He saw me ready and looking up at the growing light coming through the window as ...

83. Sanctum VIII (First Draft)

Moving within the bounds of the sanctum didn’t feel like any other traveling I had done. Traversing the Everwood was fraught with tension at first, but that tension was eventually diffused, overpowered by feelings of tedium or soreness. The sanctum never settled into that sensation of blandness. Having just made it through a small segment that could only be classified as a bog and a connecting tunnel mercifully bereft of kobolds, we found ourselves in another, less than gratifying situatio...

2021-03-17 19:51:01 +0000 UTC View Post

82. Sanctum VII (First Draft)

Despite the scales, the creature looked more rat than lizard. It leapt at me, striking out with a wooden spear that stabbed multiple times in a split-second. The upside, was that was all it really seemed to have. The downside, was there were about a hundred more, crowding around below us, climbing the oversized fungus, which was already swaying under our weight.

This was one of the transitional tunnels. The sanctum’s structure was beyond anything I’d ever seen. Massive chambers br...

81. Sanctum VI (First Draft)

81. Sanctum VI

I limped back to camp. Jorra had wanted to quietly sneak back in with Bell, gather our things, and leave without me showing my face, but this felt important somehow. They needed to know that I was with them. That I was on their side. There was no doubt that some of them would come after me. Likely sooner than later. But running at the first sign of adversity was practically asking to be pursued.

Or at least, that had been the logic. With the number of eyes and und...

80. Sanctum V (First Draft)

The barracks themselves were highly spartan. Hundreds of cots covered in a thin, off-white sheets and simple beige blankets lined either side, extending out in a massively long row. They separated us by age group, so most of the infernals around us were young and scared, whispering to each other in muted tones.

Bellarex had selected the cot between us, Jorra and I set on either end as sort of an unspoken rule. She could take care of herself, but I understood why things had gone in thi...

79. Sanctum IV (First Draft)

“To me,” I said, loud enough that both Bell and Jorra could hear it. There was a flare of fear. But it was just that, a temporary uprising of emotion that was brutally crushed under layer after layer of psychological conditioning that the previous year’s events had put me through. Losing focus now was pointless and helped no one.

Instead, I needed to think, to analyze. The ringing in my ears faded as quickly as it had appeared. Either Thoth wanted me to know she was here or she ...

78. Sanctum III (First Draft)

I committed their faces to memory. You never knew who was going to be important. A lesson that was not so much learned as it was etched, permanently emblazoned onto my mind in bold, underlined print. And there was nothing better to begin forging the bond between random strangers than food. Jorra returned with a basket of freshly baked bread and I, working a minor miracle despite the twilight hours, managed to find an open fishmonger willing to sell me a bucket of quality roe.

There wa...

77. Sanctum II (First Draft)

“I did.” After that, I was at a loss for words.

We parted, and Maya stepped back. She had changed much in the year away. Her dark hair had grown out to shoulder-length and was allowed to hang freely, accented by a simple loop that tied the edges back to the middle in a knot. She was taller. There was a small sliver sized scar at her cheek. But the most notable change was the way she carried herself. The air of nervousness that had colored her mannerisms and speech patterns was gone,...

76. Sanctum I (First Draft)

I dashed through the overgrown ruins, stale air rushing past my ears. A black-clawed hand swiped at my head and I ducked. If I’d been any slower it would have clotheslined me. Red eyes leered from behind a pillar and I launched an air projectile as a parting shot. Six months ago, when the month of hell ended and I finally left the enclave loop behind, it would have taken me almost a full minute to cast something that significant. The globe of air slammed into the pillar, crumbling it to pi...

2021-03-01 21:23:33 +0000 UTC View Post

Enclave Post Mortem and Thoughts Going Forward

Well. That was a trip. 

First of all, if you stuck around, thank you for letting me tell a thriller/whodunnit in the middle of what has been mostly a progression fantasy story. It was a lot of fun. Still, I’ve learned some lessons:

— Arcs this long aren’t the greatest for web-serial format

— Self-contained mysteries are /hard/ to write. 

You’ve probably gotten an inkling of what Monarch is now between the three arcs I have written. I’m trying my b...

Enclave - Interlude (Thoth) (First Draft)

“True enough,” Cairn said.

Thoth stared into the pool of red, through the stars that were not stars, and slammed her hand through it, shattering the image. The madness coursed through her and magic rippled through her skin, clawing at her pores, begging for release.

It was not that Cairn had won, that rankled. She had left the enclave relatively unchallenged as a test case. It was how he had won seemingly without effort that was cause for alarm.

Break him....