ArcaneCadence

102 - Cousin Nysari

The human kingdoms were too damnably big. “Do they just go on forever?” Zael muttered, watching green hills sail past through the window. “I’m starting to think there isn’t an end at all.”

He hadn’t been seeking a response, but Sarielle flipped a page of the textbook in her lap and replied idly anyway. “From northernmost point to southernmost, the human kingdoms dwarf our homeland ten times over. Our entire continent would fit in one half of one half of the Central Kingd...

101 - Deserve

Rafael enjoyed few things as much as he did solving problems of a logistical or political nature, but even he had his limits. Finally dragging his attention away from the paper on his desk, he glanced up at the timekeeper and winced at what he saw. He’d known it was getting late, but not that late. 

With great effort, he forced himself to set his pen down and lean back in his chair to rub at his temples. An ache had taken root in his skull, one that he was only recognizi...

100 - Mend

The fabric of space was not so structurally simple that it could genuinely be viewed as a piece of cloth. The metaphor was deeply flawed—as was often the truth when using analogies for magic of this tier. Comparisons to real-world ideas and concepts could serve as a framework to approach various theories from, a starting point for the mundane mind to begin grokking underlying mystical principles, but there was something fundamentally other when it came to the arcane that c...

99 - In Good Hands

Fortunately, Vivi didn’t have to exaggerate to reassure Petra that the restaurant’s dishes had more than met her expectations. Funnily enough, the woman didn’t even seem pleased to receive that praise, merely relieved, as if ‘it was the best meal I’ve ever had’ had been the lowest bar worth clearing and anything less would have shamed her.

Petra extracted similar opinions from the rest of the table, seeming as intensely interested in their responses as she had been ...

98 - Chef

Impressively, Vincent only took a few seconds longer to recover. He plastered on a cool, host-like expression, and despite the events that had transpired right in front of him, he responded in an unbothered and polite voice. 

“We have a standard menu if you wish to peruse individual dishes, my lady. However, for the evening, we would always recommend the Chef’s Selection. It is a five-course progression, utilizing the freshest arrivals from the morning markets. It begins with a...

97 - Misunderstanding

They had essentially just slid into the booth when the man from earlier returned, an older, mustached man accompanying him.

Though they wore the same white uniform with roses tucked into their pockets, the older of the two held an obvious air of seniority. Vivi couldn’t know exactly where he stood in the restaurant’s hierarchy, but seeing how he was the person who had been called in to deal with a woman claiming to be demonic nobility who’d gone around flashing starmetal, she coul...

96 - Reservation

Once Isabella and Saffra were ready, Vivi warped their party of three to an anchor set a quarter mile outside of Sundermere, the capital city of the Eastern Kingdom.

“I don’t actually know where the Alabaster Rose is,” Vivi admitted to the two girls, and Isabella responded with a blink of surprise and Saffra with a nonchalant expression—the catgirl was definitely more accustomed to Vivi’s… lack of planning, as she would generously call it. “So we’re going to have to ask ...

95 - Alabaster Rose

It took most of the next day for Vivi to finish placing warp anchors throughout the mortal lands. With how she could teleport across the human kingdoms, only the demon lands took a particularly long flight over many miles of dark ocean. The dwarven enclaves and the elven forests were trickier and more tedious to navigate, despite being closer in raw distance. Especially the winding underground tunnels and cave systems the dwarves called home. But she’d finished in around twelve hours.

94 - Rival

“No, you’re doing it wrong. Lady Vivi’s Haldr has more of a curve and swoop on the left. Like this.”

Isabella’s brow furrowed as she watched Saffra paint Haldr onto the air in front of them, then erase and do it again two more times. There were clear differences in each variation, but that was only to be expected. The Sorceress might have taken Saffra as her apprentice, but the legendary figure hadn’t somehow bestowed her phenomenal abilities upon the girl....

93 - Endorsement

Vivi had promised not to take too long obliging the Gale of Blades’ demand for a duel, but thankfully, that hadn’t meant she needed to rush too much. With every individual present having been Titled, the reaction and attack speeds of each combatant meant that quite a lot of fighting could happen in a very short time. Vivi’s encounter against the maids and butlers at the White Glove Academy had likely lasted less than two minutes total, after all, and she’d wrung out more than...

92 - Challenge

Rafael had known this event would not go as planned. No plan ever survived contact with Vivisari. Still, he’d expected they would at least make it through the canned opening before things went off the rails. Instead, she had apologized for her tardiness and then failed to so much as deliver that carefully worded introduction before she’d been challenged by the Gale of Blades.

The interruption as a whole, he had expected. He had even anticipated the Gale herself being the one to voic...

91 - Warp

“Silence,” a voice roared from Adrian’s side, and surprisingly, everyone gathered obeyed immediately.

Adrian turned to see that—as his ears suggested but he’d failed to believe—his father was the one who had quieted the sudden pandemonium. Adrian suspected it was only half the authority of the High King that commanded all present to listen, with the other half no doubt being the shock of seeing the High King behaving like… well, the High King. 2025-11-21 17:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post

90 - High Prince

High Prince Adrian, second in line to the crown of the Central Kingdom, sat in his chair atop the velvet-draped dais hastily erected in the Palace’s Courtyard. His father, the High King, slumped in his own seat next to Adrian, seeming only half aware of what was happening around them. But that was normal, barely worth making note of.

The Courtyard. Adrian had heavily debated the proper setting for this meeting, both with himself and his advisers. There were a number of places a royal ...

89 - Malach

Walking into the back room of the Hem and Stitch, Vivi was met with Malach, the Tailor of Vanguard—once a spritely young mouse beastkin, now bent-over and cane-wielding. With so many years having passed, and time having affected him with only some mercy thanks to his craftsman ranks, he competed with Aeris in his wrinkled and ancient appearance. Despite how the archmage was five times Malach’s age.

She wouldn’t honestly have recognized him if she’d run into him on the s...

Announcement: Tess Irondale Live Narration of MLA on Her Discord Tomorrow Morning!

Hi everyone! Just a quick announcement to let you know that the incredible Tess Irondale will begin live narration of MLA tomorrow morning at 10 AM Eastern Time!

She’ll be doing a live recording on her Discord where, if you’re interested, you can stop by and listen to her read. She does this regularly with a number of books she narrates, and is friendly and community-involved—so go check out her server if you’re interested in audiobook narration (or specifically listening to M...

88 - Tailor

Vivi's number one priority was dropping [Warp Anchors] around the mortal kingdoms, but luckily, she could work on her secondary goal while doing so. Reuniting Vanguard.

The tame, rolling plains of the Central Kingdom blurred beneath her as she headed for the first major city that she intended to drop a teleportation point in. Solace was a notable city in its own right, but she might not have made it her first destination if not for another excellent reason to visit.

Malach, the pr...

87 - Spatial Rift

Vivi considered the man across the desk.

Lysander, the Headmaster of the Thaumaturgical Institute, was about as assertive and arrogant as she’d expected given the opinions Aeris had voiced earlier. The surprising part was the reasonability laced into his disagreeable behavior. The man spoke with a tone that predisposed Vivi to wanting to dig in her heels and argue with him, but when she’d calmed herself and thought about what he was saying, she’d been reluctantly forced to agree. ...

86 - Limb

Lysander’s first instinct was to [Inspect] the strange object placed onto his desk. He almost regretted doing so.

***

Severed Arm of Voidgod Anaxtharras

No description.

***

His gaze stayed locked on the carapace-covered arm for a long moment. He fought the urge to rub his eyes to clear them, since the action would be too undignified for his current company. For that matter, it might have been the Sorceress’s presence itself that prepared him for something so ...

85 - Integrity

Lysander’s attention fell, naturally, on the demon at Aeris’s side.

She wore no red tattoos on her face, which introduced a moment of hesitation, but not a long one. Not simply because that meeting from a hundred years ago had seared itself onto his mind, such that he could never forget the Sorceress’s strangely diminutive stature and intimidatingly bored expression, but because the second breach at Prismarche—as if the first hadn’t—had all but confirmed that the woman was a...

84 - Lysander

A glare of light snuck through the pulled-closed curtains and onto Lysander’s face, slowly dragging him out of a deep slumber. He came to with a stir, a grunt, and a smacking of lips, one eye cracking open to squint at the offending ray of white.

“[Telekinesis],” he mumbled.

With a flick of his finger, the curtains closed fully, blessedly blocking out the light beam. Thoughts foggy, he would have slipped back into unconsciousness if not for the crick in his neck. That same d...

83 - Three Of Seven

One hundred and seven years ago.

All that saved humanity—all mortal races—from extinction was that the Cataclysms were forces of nature. They did not target strategic locations. They did not erase research facilities, trade hubs, or capital cities. They destroyed indiscriminately. The Cataclysms were fundamentally the same as natural disasters: horrible events to expect, account for, and maneuver around.

But humanity could not afford the loss of Lichenp...

82 - Catching Up

A part of Vivi thought, selfishly, that after saving two cities’ worth of people, the least she could be rewarded with was a nap.

But even in her current head-pounding misery, she knew it was an immature thought to have. With the grand, mystical powers she’d been granted, a mantle of responsibility had dropped onto her shoulders as well. The mother of all headaches and accompanying nausea didn’t somehow supersede those duties.

So when the door creaked open, and someone strod...

81 - Friends

The two mages appeared a few dozen feet from Saffra, at the center of the thoroughfare. She herself stood elevated on a pile of rubble that had once been some guildhall or another. Her eyes went wider and wider as she tried to make sense of the development. Because surely she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was. The past three days, she’d fallen into such a pit of resignation that her brain refused the evidence of her own eyes.

Surely they weren’t back? Both of them? 2025-10-29 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post

80 - Labor

They couldn’t just stride out from the Sorceress’s manor, even if the building had been repurposed into the White Glove Academy—it would draw too much unwanted attention.

Fortunately, the company Saffra had ended up in thought nothing of burning high-tier resources for something as mundane as escaping onto the street unnoticed. Jasper had brought an invisibility potion. A short-acting one, which made it cheaper than a proper scroll like what Lady Vivi had given Saffra, but hardly ...

79 - Kick

The past several days had gone by in a daze.

Saffra had been through this twice before. Jarring sequences of events that came on so suddenly, upturning her life and leaving it for the worse.

For the worse, though? Could she really say that? Considering her current luxury?

Wrapped deeply in plush blankets and pillows, she stared up at the roof of the four-poster bed she’d fallen asleep in. A rapping of knuckles at the door reminded her of what had broken her unplea...

78 - Bandage

For once, Vivi demonstrated some wisdom. She closed her eyes and did not watch the dimensional boundary break into pieces.

She might have in another scenario, but after several minutes of talking with the most iconic cautionary tale in existence, her usual wild disregard for the dangers of esoteric magics had been replaced with a rare, uneasy caution. She wouldn’t stare eyes-wide-open at the Shattered Oracle’s personal, enthusiastic violation of the barrier between worlds. ...

77 - Purpose

An echo of the Shattered Oracle. 

If anything could give Vivi genuine pause, that was certainly it. That she eclipsed him in power, she felt certain of; she was not weaker than the existence in front of her. But raw power was hardly the only factor. Here was a genius among mages willing to break any rule, no matter how sacred—and would indeed do so with exultation.

At least it didn’t seem to be the Oracle himself. Not truly. It was an echo of the concept he represented, a...

76 - Memories

The flight to Prismarche was littered with obstacles, but none individually problematic. Simply voidbeasts of varying strength. More of the same, even if ‘the same’ couldn’t be described as inconsequential.

Those powerful beasts were more numerous once they left Meridian, and she knew it was because the breach had called everything nearby to come flooding in. She’d dealt with hundreds of square miles of those strongest beasts, and had subsequently eradicated the majority of the ...

75 - Echoes

The void-realm contained monsters that had eventually tired out even Vivi—if just by sheer number. She was reasonably worried about what she might find investigating ‘foreign energy sources’. Anything of special interest in this threshold-world was going to be of considerable…well, interest. Which suggested danger, and no small amount of it.

Hence she approached as carefully as she could. Her various presence-masking abilities had improved massively, along with the rest...

74 - Threshold

Vivi honestly hadn’t expected to find Isabella Caldimore alive.

She hadn’t thought the possibility nonexistent, either, else she wouldn’t have dived headfirst into the primordial soup to begin with. But she’d expected complications at least. For Isabella to be hurt—physically, mentally, or in some inexplicable magical way. The girl had slammed into and through the dimensional boundary, breaking open a pathway for other travelers. And come out fine?

Though maybe ...