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2025-03-07 20:16:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fourth Bell was due to toll any moment now.
The Marheim Gate was settling down. The Night Market was finally past its prime, with half the vendors closing down their stalls, ready to be gone before dawn could break. Traffic along the avenues had disappeared, with only the occasional cart making its way on some lonely errand across the cobblestones.
Harald crouched at the roof’s edge behind the target warehouse, the body of the sentry cooling behind him.
It’d been the...
2025-03-04 14:49:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald went alone to the Platinum Rose Auction House that evening. He wanted time ponder Kársek’s words. They reminded him of his conversation with Pastoric, not so long ago. The warning the Forge Fathers had given him. Eadwolf’s surprisingly gentle guidance.
It seemed everybody wanted him to be afraid of his own burgeoning power. That nobody trusted him to retain his integrity. To remain a force for good in the long run.
Harald stopped outside the auction house and pinched t...
2025-02-25 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald walked carefully over the corpses. The ground was muddy with blood, and his boots squelched each time he placed his next step carefully around an outflung limb, neck, or severed body part. The smell was rising, thick and cloying, and combined with his strange, lightheaded feeling, made him feel nauseated.
But the black crystal drew him on as if in a dream. It hung in the air, perhaps a couple of feet off the ground, perfect in its faceted ebon symmetry.
Harald didn’t reac...
2025-02-19 17:23:48 +0000 UTC View Post“Wait!” cried Harald. “No! We hold the ridge!”
Everyone froze. Vic and Sam had already turned to begin racing back down into the jungle.
Screeches and trills sounded from the distance. Dozens. Scores.
Nessa’s expression was wild, her gaze darting back and forth.
“If we run into the jungle we’re done for,” said Harald, forcing his tone to be calm and certain. “We’ll be running single file, we’ll risk being split up, getting lost. The terror birds w...
2025-02-11 16:32:43 +0000 UTC View Post“You stole this from an angel,” said Sam, tone flat, as she stared at the Eclipse Edge laid out upon the dining table before her.
Everyone was gathered around. The countess, Nessa, Vic, and Kársek. As one they stared, mesmerized, at the softly glowing blade where it lay swaddled in Kársek’s cloak.
“She dropped it,” Harald said. “After Kársek hit her with his Rune.”
Vic leaned over to stare past Nessa at them both. “Kársek. Unleashed his Rune of Destructio...
2025-02-04 17:07:16 +0000 UTC View PostHarald’s breath caught in his throat.
It was her.
The same woman he’d espied on the 4th. Her sleeves were rucked up just below her elbows, and a great bronze belt wrapped around her abdomen. Her elegant wings arched into view just over each shoulder and tapered down to her heels, and her gaze was somber and wise and cruel and cold.
Wirmas let out a low hiss.
“Wait,” said Harald. “Wait! Don’t loose!”
He watched as the angel made her way down the step...
2025-01-28 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostA week.
Seven days.
That’s all that remained before he failed Thracos’ challenge to provide a terror bird Servitor.
Heading home from Sam’s place, Harald mulled his prospects.
Scales: 712,941/1,000,000
He’d made incredible progress in only a few days’ time. But it wasn’t enough. He needed to make 287,059 scales to Ascend his third Throne. That was just over four Zenith Tides per day. Yesterday, he’d only mad...
2025-01-21 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald stared at the ground. The grass was frosted, each blade defined and furred in white. His breath’s fog filled the air as he forced himself to exhale. Eadwolf’s words were eliciting little more than anger: he wanted to shove the other man away, to deny his wisdom, his advice.
But instead he wrestled his anger into submission. Eadwolf waited. For a long-drawn-out while Harald simply stared at the ground, and then he nodded.
“I spoke with Lady Hammerfell about this. She s...
2025-01-15 03:56:48 +0000 UTC View PostHarald, Sam, and Kársek hit the 16th Level that afternoon.
The green miasma that cloaked the endless castles and walls was becoming all too familiar. Harald summoned Wirmas, who bowed low, and then they got to work.
Hobgoblin patrol after hobgoblin patrol fell to Wirmas’ authority, and then they took their first clan. A bell later, perhaps, they took their second, and filled out the hundred reavers that Wirmas could command.
And then they got to killing.
This time H...
2025-01-07 15:13:00 +0000 UTC View PostEadwolf the Gray presented himself at dawn with a challenge brought by an extremely flustered Bosworth: to hunt him down on the Sonora grounds, where he would lie in wait for the crew.
“To hunt him down,” repeated the countess, her face wan from a night of little sleep. Clad in a simple but elegant gown of emerald green, she stared at her gate guard in disbelief. “You’re quite sure?”
Bosworth all but saluted again, his bushy mustache quivering. “Yes, my lady! I swear i...
2024-12-31 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey detoured by the Platinum Rose. It was only a quick carriage ride away, and a hired cab deposited them before the broad steps only half a bell later.
There was no grand event in the offing. The building, impressive as it was, appeared demure without its rolled out carpet and ostentatious banners. No servants awaited under the portico with umbrellas, and nobody passed through the open doors.
“I guess even Master Ling has slow days,” said Harald, hopping down to the sidewalk...
2024-12-24 14:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostThey made their way to Deepforge. It was a small, often overlooked part of Flutic, its buildings solidly built in the unmistakable style of the dwarves. Every building was built like a fortress, with clean lines, seamless joinings of huge, regular-sized blocks that appeared not to need the usage of mortar. Traffic on its few streets was stately and ordered, unrushed and dignified. Everything was scrupulously clean.
Kársek led them toward a covered stairwell. The angled roof was large e...
2024-12-17 14:45:04 +0000 UTC View PostHarald crept along, keeping low, moving from shadowed nook to darkened declivity as he circled around to the target hill.
Shadowpaw padded along soundlessly beside him. The Goldchops floated close by, imbuing him with Strength and Dexterity. His only active Ability was Veil of Shadows, but still he felt lethal. Unstoppable. A predator stalking powerful prey.
The hill loomed to his right. He ducked under branches, avoided possible snare traps, and stepped carefully over tr...
2024-12-10 18:51:06 +0000 UTC View PostHarald dropped into a crouch as he materialized on the 18th.
A new level.
A whole new set of rules.
Around him stood his reavers, massive and bulky, two concentric circles around his central spot. The inner circle had their heavy bows nocked, the outer their scimitars drawn. Wirmas stood to one side, hands linked behind his back, taking in their environs.
Which finally were more than just arid stone and fog.
Harald stood, Goldchops flanking him, and took in the n...
2024-12-03 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostTime passed.
Hobgoblins bent knee and became reavers.
In his exaltation Wirmas found a salve for his fury and hatred.
Again and again his voice echoed forth across the green wastes with that crackle of authority, and more and more hobgoblins fell in line, augmented and made massive. Wirmas was the pale grub in their center, orchestrating the fall of one warband after another.
The Throne Hunters had to do nothing but follow. Harald took immeasurable comfort from his com...
2024-11-26 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostHarald emerged onto the Copper platform to be met by a crowd of guards and officials. At first he thought they were there to arrest him. Had he done something wrong? Had they figured out his tactic on the 16th Level?
But no.
They were simply gaping at the six cloak-wrapped bundles of scales that Sam was standing possessively over.
“But how?” The lead guard, tall and gaunt, had pushed his helm back to expose his thinning hair and scratch at his scalp. “You were only gon...
2024-11-19 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe three orcs actually glanced at each other.
Harald spread his arms, that visceral joy arising within him. There was no moral complexity here. No debating what he should do.
Here in the dungeon, might made right. Here it was kill or fall to the enemy. Here one got to exert themselves to the utmost, in a crucible of the Fallen Angel’s own devising.
He wanted them to come at him all at once. He wanted them to give him their best. To come bellowing and die screaming as he u...
2024-11-12 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHarald awoke at dawn the morning after his raid. His strike? He lay in his bed, trying to decide what to call it. His assassinations?
And why was he awake so soon? The light outside his window was gray. He’d fallen in bed after a quick rinse only some five bells before. Yet here he was, alert and refreshed, as if he’d slept twice as much.
Shadow Fortitude was pretty incredible. At some point he’d just have to accept that he only needed half the sleep he used to if h...
2024-11-05 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostI've already begun reshaping and editing the remaining chapters, and while everything you all have read will remain roughly the same, I'm going to inserting new material and editing more heavily as I go.
As such, here's the first major edit that changes the vector of this third section. Harald decides to place more urgency on helping Lady Sonora with her troubles, and after learning the details of her lost holdings in Chapter 89, heads out with Nessa and Vic to drum up more...
2024-10-30 15:42:12 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, here's Part 2 of the general updates I've made to Harald's tale.
Again, the general outline remains much the same, but with a greater emphasis added throughout both as to the danger of Harald remaining unaffiliated with a major House, and the accelerated schedule of his losing Darrowdelve Manor.
The sole major edit is making Harald's petition to join House Sonora a far more intense moment by having Lady Yseult Khan refuse to take 'no' for an answ...
2024-10-30 15:34:47 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, today I'm going to share the major updates that I've made to the story up till Chapter 90.
The big beats and plot elements all remain roughly the same, with only a few major edits that are meant to enhance pacing and tension.
Book #1 encompasses the first 47 chapters, and now ends with Harald's duel with Yeoric. This duel is set up by a visit from Lucine, the half-elf who raids with Yeoric, and whose affections Harald thought he might win before ...
2024-10-30 15:24:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe sound of knocking dragged Lord Gorkin from the depths of his dreamless sleep. The stupendous amounts of highly refined yearn smoke he’d inhaled the night before yet clung to his mind. He lay there, unsure if he was dreaming, as voices murmured in his outer quarters.
Fosso’s low rumble.
A hesitant response.
Gorkin turned in his bed and pressed his face to his pillow. He could smell the women from last night, though they were long gone. The smell of jessamine perfume a...
2024-10-29 13:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThis crew clearly wasn’t anticipating being hit by a powerful foe with assassin-focused Abilities. They’d no doubt signed on to tonight’s shift expecting to sit around for yet another evening of chatting, playing cards, and killing time. Worst case scenario? A handful of petty thieves might try to sneak in through a side window and make off with a crate.
If they’d faced Harald at the ready, lined up and with blades drawn, Abilities firing, and working together as team, they’d ...
2024-10-22 12:47:36 +0000 UTC View PostDarkness was falling across the streets and courtyards and buildings of Flutic. A gentle dusk, softening the sounds of traffic, trade, and desperation.
Lantern lighters were walking down the centers of avenues, flickering poles rising to light the wicks of glass-encased lamps, leaving necklaces of amber pools behind them, growing brighter by the moment as the night grew darker.
Harald moved slowly, head bowed, cloak bunched about his shoulders. He stared unseeing at the flagstones...
2024-10-15 14:18:50 +0000 UTC View Post“So I have concerns about Bosworth,” said Harald in what he hoped was a calm and nonchalant tone.
The countess sat across a small round table from him in the back garden, a tea set laid between them. She wore a dress of pale yellow stitched with floral patterns in white thread, and her hair was pinned and bound back in a style that looked effortlessly elegant. Amused, she raised a teacup. “You are a member of my household for but a week, and most of that spent unconscious, and alr...
2024-10-08 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHarald stared at the ebon crystal. Just like the Shadow Mastiff’s, it was eight-faced, a black diamond that spun slowly in place, trapped within the confines of the rosewood box.
“She got this from the dead hobgoblins.”
“Right,” said Vic. “Though she doesn’t remember where, exactly. She was, shall we say, a little shook up by the whole experience. But by a cunning process of elimination, we can surmise that it’s either a hobgoblin, that huge orc, or the troll with ...
2024-10-04 19:50:10 +0000 UTC View PostHarald felt his heart lurch.
Thracos.
“We do, yes.” He fought for composure. “I meant to find you sooner. But I was… indisposed.”
“So Countess Sonora has informed me each time I’ve visited.” Thracos appeared neither frustrated nor upset. “At first I thought she was merely stonewalling me, and then I thought perhaps your injury was so grievous you might die. But I should have known better.”
“Regardless. I’m feeling better. Let’s talk.”
...
2024-10-04 19:49:12 +0000 UTC View Post
No computer/Internet yet, but I'm working things via phone. Hence my ability to post this sketch for a possible new cover based on everyone's feedback. What do you guys think?
(Things are getting better here daily, btw. Amazing sense of community.)
2024-10-02 21:07:36 +0000 UTC View Post