Connie looked around with shock on her face the moment we were all in the soul realm. “Whoa, this isn’t what I was expecting at all.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of strange here. I don’t really understand it, and without Otis to give us more information, it’s going to be all guesswork,” I replied, spotting two new bridges off of the same hub as before.
“I’ve read abou...
2025-12-01 07:09:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, I found the kids still asleep in the living room. Red was snooring loudly while sprawled on her back. Orglina was sleeping on top of her, with Chip and the hoary marmot cuddling on either side.
Alpha, in their manifested form, had a pillow leaning against them where Dean was soundly sleeping. A rat, which looked larger than I remembered it, was asleep n...
2025-12-01 07:07:45 +0000 UTC View PostFollowing the harvest, we had a quick meeting with the city council and decided to hold a festival in a week. Partially to give us time to go through everything we had managed to collect, but also so that I had time to get rid of Connie’s soul knot and recover enough to attend.
As for the world tree, Elody knew little herself. She knew about as much as Pryte on the topic, but prom...
2025-11-24 22:40:44 +0000 UTC View PostI woke up on the second day of my planned rest to loud sounds of Chip and several messages in the soul chat. Dammit, what was wrong now? I just needed a little longer, and I’d be able to cure Connie. Fighting through some of my grogginess, I pulled up my chat messages. I wanted more sleep.
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>Elicec: Hey guys, I think we need help at the greenhou...
2025-11-24 22:38:42 +0000 UTC View PostJohn
John did his best to ignore the pangs of worry he had about Maud. Logically, he knew she would be fine. He truly believed she could fight her way out of anything now if she really had to. Plus, she had the cats and the moose with her. That didn’t change the fact that he inherited his father’s anxiety.
“So what kind of items are you looking for anywa...
2025-11-24 22:36:24 +0000 UTC View PostMaud
“So uh, what’s your guild like? Is it full of mana beasts? Do you have any other cats? What about moose?” Maud asked all of the questions rapid-fire as they walked down the street. These were only the tip of the iceberg of the thoughts that had hit her since she left the rest of the group.
“The Guild of the Awakened welcomes all mana beasts. I’m...
2025-11-21 08:41:50 +0000 UTC View PostAlex
“You’re sure you don’t want to join us planet-side?” Yorela asked.
It hadn’t been the first time she had asked, and I had turned her down each time before. As interested as nearly everyone else was in Vidack, I just didn’t see the appeal. It was one more delay in our hunt for William. While I did understand why we had to stop, I co...
2025-11-21 06:16:46 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone. I've got a date for when my Ebook/Audio for book 1 will go live on Amazon. December 9th. To that end I'll be removing all of book 1 on RR (and wherever all it may be) on December 7th.
Next week I'll put up all the missing early chapters for Magical Engineering and get the linkages working before taking down book 1 again on December 8th, just in case anyone wants to take a quick look through it.
I'll make an announcement with preorder links next week once everythi...
Dave
At least this time, as I was lying in my bed recovering, I was more functional than the last. I hoped that meant my recovery time wouldn’t be as long as before, but even if it was, at least I had managed to cure both of the brothers at once. That just left Connie and my increasing worry about what was going on inside of her.
But I couldn’t do anything...
2025-11-21 05:01:43 +0000 UTC View PostElody
Elody wasn’t happy at the presence of a weaver mother within Alexandria, still, even if it had been a pocket universe owned by Timon. The fact that she was now gone, back off to her own world with whatever bits of fate she had gleaned from Dave, made it all the worse. She would have a long talk with Timon about this one day, even if she had to wait until Mel...
2025-11-17 06:51:47 +0000 UTC View Post“Why are they both looking at us, Dave?” Cecile asked as we stepped foot on their platform.
“They are part of you, and we have to solve exactly what they expect from either of you before we can move to the next stage. For me, that involved hitting myself. For Rabyn, it was peace. I’m not actually sure what Chip did,” I explained, scratching the little guy behind his ear as...
2025-11-17 06:50:14 +0000 UTC View Post“How in the hell do you have Korl?” Timon yelled in what looked to be more exasperation than anger.
After a quick relaying of the story, he just stared at us in disbelief for nearly a minute before speaking again. “So he’s a Mimic? That explains a lot. Wonder who he finally pissed off enough to make this play. Though there are only a few reasons I can think of that he’d ch...
2025-11-13 05:19:56 +0000 UTC View Post“Honored mother,” Elody immediately replied to the voice, bowing low. I had no idea if she wanted us to do the same.
“Oh, it’s so nice to see someone who knows the pleasantries. As much as I enjoyed Timon’s unique style of humor, he just had no idea how to treat someone of my age. He was downright rude,” the voice replied.
“I would never dream of t...
2025-11-13 05:18:20 +0000 UTC View PostBook 5: Network Principles
I considered killing him. It was probably the smartest thing to do right there. But he was here half dead, begging for help, and as much as I disliked whatever he was for the games he had forced us through, somehow no one had been killed from his actions.
No, I couldn’t kill him. At least not yet. He had tried to kill Glorp, and t...
2025-11-07 05:27:26 +0000 UTC View Post“So what do we do?” Rabyn asked as we walked across the bridge that led to his platform.
This was the first time I had done this with someone in tow to their own reflection. Not counting myself, of course. I actually had no idea if that would change anything or not. It was entirely possible that the both of us being here together meant this might not work at all.
“When I...
2025-11-03 15:38:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Well, Chip, we’re back. Try not to send too many crazy messages in that chat. I didn’t really think through the consequences of you having access to it,” I said, smiling at what Maud would think when she finally saw Chip there.
The pumakey made some of his bigger, excited chirping sounds and started running around the room. I opened the door, letting him head out to explore...
2025-10-29 06:13:20 +0000 UTC View Post“Uh, hey buddy, you doing okay?” I asked as I stepped off the bridge onto the platform. In front of me floated the exact same face in the wall I had seen when I first awoke it. I didn’t have the slightest clue what I could do here, or why Unakite would occupy their entire own platform like this.
Yes, now that I thought about it, I understood they should be here. They had acces...
2025-10-29 06:12:05 +0000 UTC View Post“What the hell was that?” I yelled, hoping to wake Otis. It had reminded me of the soul hunters that had been chasing me and Karlinovo. Were they back?
“I was wondering if they would notice us or not,” Otis yelled in return, finally annoying me with his lack of actual answers the first time.
“But what is it?” There was anger in my question. I was exhausted, and as ...
2025-10-27 23:32:07 +0000 UTC View PostRabyn
There was something new clinging to the back of his mind. It was similar to the holes he had realized were there after the jester incursion. But try as he might, he couldn’t bring it to the forefront of his thoughts. The soul knot was still holding that back, temporary fix or not.
Worse yet, he needed to talk to Dave about the strange dream...
2025-10-27 22:53:23 +0000 UTC View PostAlex
It had been a few days now, and I still didn’t understand how the moose had managed to sneak along with us. Even Mel had not managed to pick up that the creature was following along, something the man found very interesting. I guessed he had started planning out some growth paths for the moose, but that wasn’t something I had any idea about.
Once we f...
2025-10-21 06:10:36 +0000 UTC View Post“Am I going to have to fight that representation of Corey over there as well?” I asked, looking at Otis, who, for the first time, was looking on in what I thought was surprise. Had we finally started to hit things that he really didn’t know instead of pretending he didn’t?
A message window popped up before Otis could answer.
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>Karlinovo: 2025-10-21 06:08:30 +0000 UTC View Post
“We both know that wasn’t there a moment ago, and I really doubt you’re as clueless to this as you’re pretending. So how about some actual honesty here?” I asked. I wasn’t annoyed with him exactly. He didn’t seem to be hostile in any way, just that he had his own, annoying ways of doing things.
“The reality of the soul tends to be reflective of our p...
2025-10-21 06:07:07 +0000 UTC View PostIn the end, they had been more than happy to let us keep the mana orbs and were excited about their new mana beast. Apparently, it hadn’t been the only mushroom mana beast on the planet, and while they were shocked that it had somehow formed something like a dungeon, they were happy to have it nonetheless.
The revelation did leave everyone with one big question still. If the dunge...
2025-10-19 07:07:52 +0000 UTC View PostAs I was debating where to head next, a chat window popped up.
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>Beta: I found Elody. She was alone.
>Dave: Damn, that only leaves Glorp as possibly with the other kids. That means we all need to speed up our exploration of this place. I want the kids found, and then we need to deal with this dungeon.
>Be...
2025-10-19 06:02:32 +0000 UTC View PostWe spent two hours with the jester, and learned absolutely nothing. All questions were met with some variation of trying to convince us to release it or a return to the same strange phrase of what would happen if we didn’t. It was either incapable of telling us what we wanted to know or convinced we wouldn’t do what was needed to learn it.
I wasn’t willing to address the secon...
2025-10-17 21:28:48 +0000 UTC View PostConnie
Rabyn had been pretty out of it when he had returned that day, rambling about weird dreams, but the important thing was that he was alive. The surgery had been a success, even if it was just a stopgap measure. It was one she wanted. She was still furious that the jesters had used her, especially to help them steal a child, one she had held in ...
2025-10-17 19:42:33 +0000 UTC View Post“Look, it’s just like I told the president. I’m not sure you actually need a full operating room just to put in a simple pacemaker. But I get that this is pretty experimental technology, so I’m willing to follow your lead here. What no one told me, though, was that I’d be operating on one of them,” the doctor said, disgust in his voice as he came to the last senten...
2025-10-13 02:36:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhile Timon and Roberts handled getting the man we needed, I took some time to have dinner with Elody. I was looking forward to seeing what she knew about golems while we had a quiet meal together. The little time we had started to share had surprisingly proven to be one of the best ways to help me relax, and I hoped that would still hold true despite the added stress of Willi...
2025-10-13 01:37:03 +0000 UTC View Post“You’re doing too much again, Glorp! Dave’s going to be mad!” Orglina yelled as Glorp shut the door to the room he had asked his family to meet them in.
He ignored her complaints, much like he ignored the fact that he said this was a family-only meeting and that she had brought along Red anyway. In truth, he was somewhat happy she had. It added another person to his plans, a...
2025-10-11 16:00:29 +0000 UTC View Post