Enjoy!
---------
“What’re you thinking?” Rissa stirred and twisted, facing towards Serenity instead of leaning against him.
“Did you have a nice nap?” Serenity smiled at Rissa. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was sometimes that she wanted to be with him. It wasn’t like he was actually able to give her much of his time anymore; instead, he was always pulling her away from whatever she’d have been doing otherwise.
Had she even spent any time with friends...
2022-07-16 22:52:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-------------
While Russ, Phoebe, Aki, and Janice all talked about how they were going to handle the Child of Time Essence Seeds, Serenity and Rissa headed back to their residence. Serenity was completely uninterested in how they managed the “business” of the Essence Seeds; it had to at least break even or they couldn’t afford to do it and it had to somehow not reveal Aki. He knew they’d handle that, and it was all he needed to know; how they managed it was just det...
2022-07-15 22:52:41 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
Serenity spent some time comforting Rissa, then worked with Aki to make another Unbound Fate Essence Seed. He didn’t know if it would work for Phoebe, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Serenity was grateful that the Essence Seeds could be removed from the dungeon. The tool used to make them couldn’t be without paying a very high price. Being able to use the Essence Seed elsewhere and not being bound to the dungeon made using his Essence and Mana completel...
2022-07-14 22:52:31 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
Lady Andarit,
Your presence is expected at a reception for the Prince’s birthday. As this is his twenty-fifth birthday, your absence will be noted. We will be leaving the Dukedom as a group on the 17th of the Silver Moon; if you are not available at that time, you will need to meet us at the Capital.
I will be taking your younger brother, as he is the same age as the Princess. I do not expect anything, but not doing so would a...
2022-07-13 23:11:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
I've been meaning to rewrite part of Chapter 15 for a long time; it was my most controversial early chapter, and I was never quite happy with it. There's a lot going on there, and much of it is stuff Serenity doesn't know.
When I wrote chapter 15, I was trying to keep it to Serenity's POV only. I have clearly long since given up on it.
So here's the same scene from Rissa's POV.
---------
Moving to Chapter 14 -
Echo scampered off immediately, and Lancaster quickly...
2022-07-13 00:04:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Pulled from a hopeless (if powerful) future back to the moment of Earth’s integration to try to improve the outcome, Serenity has met unexpected threats and unexpected allies - even friends. Everything is different this time.
It’s been a bit over five months since the first Tutorial.
It’s been one success after another; humans have discovered how to find portals and even found out that they can use the same technology to locate large-scale spells. More than that, all of the ...
2022-07-12 23:38:38 +0000 UTC
View Post
Author’s Commentary on Lost Secrets
After the absolute paperweight that was Arc 5, Arc 6 feels positively short - but when I go back and compare it to what came before, it’s similar in length to Arcs 3 and 4, or to Arcs 1 and 2 combined. It’s simply that Arc 5 was an Arc and a half or more in length.
I think I’m happy with Arc 6, overall. Goodness knows I’m ready to be done with closing invasion portals! I hope that didn’t feel too rushed, but I didn’t want ...
2022-07-12 23:36:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
Current To-Do List
Building the dungeon into a home - Raz, Aki; input only
Rissa’s pregnant - what the heck do I do about that? Is there stuff I should do for a kid?
Decay creatures - Russ is handling, but needs my help?
Finding the Lost Quest from Althyr - how to save the dragons’ children?
Order’s Guild. Will they be a problem? Have time there
Look into the instructor-mages. Helga (Honoria) was pretty c...
2022-07-12 23:35:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
As always, if I've missed someone, please let me know!
-------
Character List of Lost Secrets
This list includes people mentioned in all Arcs to date.
It does not include people with only a single mention or the “people” from the Story Dungeon; they are specifically for that Story. If I missed anyone more important than that (I often do), please let me know in the comments.
Agent Jones -...
2022-07-12 23:19:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
---------------
“Please tell me you didn’t just say what I think you just said.” The inspector looked at Agent Price as though she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
“If you think I just said that the second attempted assassination of Serenity in New York City nearly ended up also killing an FBI agent and that it’s being covered up, then I’m afraid I can’t. If you heard something else, well, then maybe I can.” Agent Price was glad to finally b...
2022-07-11 22:56:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
--------------
Serenity was still trying to wrap his head around the Voice enforcing Quest terms by killing someone who had probably once been a deity when Red gasped. “You have a hole in your chest. How are you still standing?”
Serenity looked down and saw that Red was if anything understating things. A six-inch-wide section of his chest was gone; it was impossible to tell how deep it was, since the entire area was filled with moving shadows. There were points of...
2022-07-10 23:01:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
With more than a little help from Serenity’s built-in GPS, they found Red’s residence. It was a surprisingly normal-looking suburban house. Serenity had expected it to be done in the stereotypical “southwestern” style since it was in Nevada, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was an ordinary one-story building; there was brick about halfway up, to the bottom of the windows. Above that, it was painted white, and the roof was a pale gray.
It was a very blan...
2022-07-09 23:16:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
--------------
[Failure Consequences: Required to cease all attacks on Rissa Latimer and permit her to enjoy the sunlight once more. Required to remove the blessing/curse applied to ALL of her relatives. Required to remove/heal effects caused by the curse. Not permitted to act against Rissa Latimer, her family, or her allies for a minimum of twelve years]
A Voice in Helios’s ear woke him before he felt like he’d had enough sleep, but at least he w...
2022-07-09 23:13:35 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
Helios was running out of time.
Well, really, he’d already run out of time. There were only four portals left, and four portals was unlikely to make a difference. He wished he knew if he were winning or losing. He kept reassuring himself that he was winning, but it all came down to “the individual currently leading” the Quest. How many did he close before the bet started?
Did those even count against the bet? Helios didn’t think that was speci...
2022-07-08 22:52:51 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
Serenity had underestimated how long it would take to close the last portal: it took closer to two weeks than one. The problem with the last few portals wasn’t closing them; the armies and other obvious problems had already been dealt with. No, the problem was finding them. Serenity and his team had a map, and they knew which ones they’d closed, but they didn’t know which ones other people had closed. Serenity regretted closing the rockfin portal, since it ...
2022-07-07 23:00:40 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-------------
Twenty-seven portals was a good number. Helios was certain he was ahead or at least catching up; there was no way his challenger could be keeping up that kind of pace. Most of the ones he’d taken care of were in the southern hemisphere, since that was where the Sun saw the most at this time of year, but there were a few more northerly ones he’d noticed.
Unfortunately, there weren’t any portals under the light of the Sun right now. They’d be...
2022-07-06 22:58:18 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
--------------
Serenity, Rissa, and Russ were met at the small airport by two policemen and a man in a black suit. “Mr. Rothmer?”
Serenity turned towards the speaker, who turned out to be the man in a suit. “Yes?”
“Can you spare a few minutes? I need to talk to you, and I’d rather keep this polite.” The man looked straight at Serenity and didn’t indicate the policemen flanking him at all.
Serenity had no idea what was going on, but “polit...
2022-07-05 23:05:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
Serenity stopped and changed the Affinities he was using. Liminality would make a better wall. That was what it meant, after all, and it was a far better Affinity for him. He’d made shields from Energy once upon a time with a comparison to science fiction force fields, but he had the feeling that Liminality would be his better route forward.
So Liminality for the walls, Nihility to clear the tube out and let it fill with slime. Then a maintained Nihility ...
2022-07-04 22:51:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
--------
:Why is it called a Mind Thief?: Rissa pulled out her own flashlight and started playing it across the creature.
:All of those people in there? And whatever wildlike it managed to trap? A lot of them are still alive. Probably all of the people are, it would want to keep them. Well, sort of alive. Their animating Affinity is there, and so is their body, but if they’re removed from its body or it dies, that ends. At that point they become separate but right n...
2022-07-03 23:10:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
------------
It was a long walk in the snow, more of a trudge than a walk. Since Serenity was both the strongest and the only one of the three who wouldn’t tire, he was out front pulling a small, individual sled; either Rissa or Russ was usually on it, conserving their stamina. Two other sleds were pulled along behind it; stacked on top of them was what little additional equipment they’d brought in case they needed to actually climb the mountain.
The sleds were a ...
2022-07-02 23:05:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
Today is the 1-year anniversary of my first post of this story. Hard to believe it's been that long - and also hard to believe I've somehow managed to put out a chapter every day since then (plus another almost-fifty for a Patreon)!
Enjoy!
-----------
Serenity’s mind raced. What did asking him to do something have to do with being Secretary of Defense? His father had to know that wasn’t why he was here. No, it had to be the other piece: the action he would take if Sereni...
2022-07-02 23:03:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
----------
Fortunately, the urgent need for a shower delayed Serenity enough for Rissa to organize the reporters into a miniature press conference; he only had to go through the questions once instead of once per reporter. Once that small slice of pain was over, he was actually able to get with Ita and Azav and find out what happened in the parts of the battlefield he hadn’t seen.
It wasn’t pretty. More than half of the Sterath were killed blocking escape attempts...
2022-07-01 23:02:23 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
“The options you’re offering are for the people who live in the city to leave or die?” Serenity moved his hand to his side, where his Crystal Hilt hung by his side. It’d taken a good bit of effort to get his armor to form a holster where he could quickly pull the hilt, but if this went the way he thought it was going to, he’d need it.
The centaur made a complicated whole-body gesture; Serenity assumed it was equivalent to a shrug, but he couldn...
2022-06-30 22:57:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
Pathed has reached 20 chapters as of this month, so they will be getting one chapter a day.
Chimera is only at 47 chapters ahead, so I'm planning 3 more advance chapters in July. That will bring us to 50, which is my goal.
Since I'm finally reaching my goal, only writing 7 a week instead of 8 should help a lot. Maybe I'll even be able to build up a backlog again; that would be nice.
Therefore, there will be no changes to the number of days I release chapters; the only ...
2022-06-29 23:05:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
Blue Claw fed another monster core to his greedy Totem as he drug himself the rest of the way out of the Hungry Ground. He’d come so close; why had the Spirits decided to turn his Storm of Life into Hungry Ground? Hadn’t they said that the power would grow until he reached the Blighted Peaks?
What was the Wrath of Crystal they spoke of? It almost sounded like they felt fear, and the Spirits never felt fear.
At least they’d protected him from th...
2022-06-29 22:54:35 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
--------------
Nothing happened.
The wall of lightning simply split around Serenity, as if it weren’t even there in the area he was passing through. There was a minor change in the charge levels in the air, but not enough to require adjusting the spell. He’d expected more.
Now that he was in it, Serenity could tell that it wasn’t as solid as he’d thought. That was … well, he couldn’t exactly call it an optical illusion since it was affecting Eyeless ...
2022-06-28 22:59:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
“So, we just need to deal with the person at the center of the lightning storm?” Rissa fidgeted with her armor, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be.
“Yes, but you can’t come with me.” Serenity noticed Rissa avoiding the word “kill”, but didn’t comment. “Any of you. I don’t think I can protect anyone else from the storm, and we have to get past it.”
“How are you going to get past it?” Rissa glanced at the l...
2022-06-27 22:55:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
------------
The camera wasn’t the sort of threat he was worried about, except that it increased the man’s exposure to any dangers Serenity missed. The fact that the man was outside the trailer said good things about his bravery, but perhaps not good things about his common sense.
“Have we heard anything about what’s going on?” It was clear that it was an attack, but there ought to be a plan for this. Serenity frowned, realizing he’d missed something. “W...
2022-06-26 22:46:47 +0000 UTC
View Post
Enjoy!
-----------
Strangely, none of the reporters asked Serenity for an interview; instead, they each wanted to record a short introduction about who they were and why they were there, along with Serenity introducing himself and his team so that they could use it later.
Serenity was very tired of introductions by the time he was done. Why they couldn’t all record him doing it once, he wasn’t sure, but he had to do it for each of them.
It didn’t do much to pass ...
2022-06-25 23:44:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
Today's second chapter should be out in the next half hour or so; I don't like the current cut off point so I'm trying to fix it up to be a better one.
Enjoy!
-------------
It wasn’t on the way, but Serenity visited Serenity Settlement on the way to Denver. His father had asked him to close the portal; apparently, they’d learned everything from it that they thought they could in a short period of time, and Lex no longer wanted to leave it open.
He said it was too b...
2022-06-25 23:09:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
