A year and half had passed since the Fool had left Alric one late summer’s morning. Nearly seven seasons since he’d fled his homeland to escape the Ravener’s return.
And those seven seasons had brought change, as time tends to.
But, there are many kinds of changes in the universe.
There are small ones: a man sewing a new pair of trousers, a woman buying a jug of milk from a different farmer, or even a king deciding to have boar pate with breakfast instead of duck.
<...
2022-10-08 21:20:57 +0000 UTC
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The blizzard had lifted by the time Alex and Claygon stepped outside into the cold night air.
But the storm had done its work.
Snow drifts rose high in the castle’s courtyard, laying thick on every roof and capping the inner wall in a rampart of white. They covered the signs of battle, hiding them, making it seem—for one irrational moment—that it had been done on purpose to hide their shame. It was as if the world was concealing something ugly, washing it in white paint to h...
2022-10-08 00:09:46 +0000 UTC
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Claygon had always been beautiful to Alex. A terror to be sure, but a beautiful terror, much like Theresa was. Every inch of the golem’s finely sculpted clay had always reminded Alex of the hours of love and care he and Selina had poured into crafting his body.
Claygon’s new frame had the same shape and height, the same bulk, the same ferocity to his face, but the details were finer. After untold hours sculpting, Alex remembered him and Selina admiring all the intricate images of ba...
2022-10-07 00:02:18 +0000 UTC
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“Greetin’s friends!” Cedric took Alex and Isolde by the hand, pulling both to their feet. “We’re here t’turn the tide. We’ll be talkin’ later.”
Without another word, the Chosen of Uldar charged through what was left of the hordes of Ravener-spawn, unleashing a fireball—turning half a dozen bone-chargers to ash—and leaping on survivors as his morphic weapon changed into the shape of a broad axe. It shone with the light of Uldar’s power as he cleaved foes down like...
2022-10-05 23:21:52 +0000 UTC
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Euphoria!
Thundering cheers rising louder and louder.
Warriors, mages, all celebrating the enemy’s imminent end.
The invisible Ravener-spawn verged on defeat; its black blood stained the ground where it lay, unseen limbs stirred clouds of white and its fading cries rose and fell like the gurgles of a choked well. The mana-soothing potions had withered its power, while the war-spear withered its life.
Victory was a Wizard’s Hands grasp away.
“We did it!” A...
2022-10-04 21:18:20 +0000 UTC
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Molten lines of power flowed and bubbled like lava running through cracks in the golem’s battered body. An unfamiliar mana drove into Alex’s senses and Claygon’s massive form seemed to ripple.
As he watched helplessly, old memories came drifting across time, seeming to echo through his mind. They rose even above sounds of battle and clay cracking, running through his golem in fissures.
Bits of a conversation he’d had long ago returned.
Some golems can even change...
2022-10-01 22:06:54 +0000 UTC
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"A little more," Alex whispered, sending a Wizard's Hand into a behemoth’s throat. The spell squeezed the vial, glass shattered, the monster began to stagger.
The hive-as-one lodged on its shoulder raised its hands, channelling mana until another Wizard's Hand dropped in its face, releasing a mana soothing potion. Drifting mist disappeared in the blowing snow, but it had already done its work. The clot of insectile forms swayed on the behemoth’s shoulder, and as its inne...
2022-09-30 23:17:55 +0000 UTC
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"And it's been just over ten minutes, by my reckoning," Watcher Shaw reported from the teleportation building. "According to the earth mages, these things managed to make dungeons and the like right below us, and they’ve been throwing around a lot of mana down there, breaching walls like they were cracking eggs. We’ve had attacks in the tunnels under the research castle and even further out. It’s been grim, Baelin. Some of our folks are wounded and we’ve also suffered casualties, but ...
2022-09-29 23:52:08 +0000 UTC
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Alex lay against something hard and cold.
Actually, the cold seemed to be swirling all around. It bit into him, a deep pit of exhaustion was calling him to come drown in it. All he wanted to do was sleep...
...but he couldn't...
...he was...
What was he doing again?
Some sort of growling? Crackling? Spells?
He shook his head.
Something far below was moving.
Something important...or maybe not. Maybe this was all just a bad dream, and he was still...
2022-09-28 23:20:08 +0000 UTC
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It started with one.
When Theresa Lu left her family home in Alric, she took with her one of her great-grandfather's two swords. And with it, she’d fought a hive-queen, and silence-spiders in the Cave of the Traveller, and monsters in the Barrens of Kravernus with the sword in one hand, and her hunting knife in the other. She’d never thought of it as anything but a singular blade, one that she cherished. It was the weapon she’d paired with her knife when they were desperate to esc...
2022-09-27 21:43:04 +0000 UTC
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Harsh Ravener-spawn cries echoed through the force walls.
The excavation team were talking numbers to one another.
"Talk fast," the lead Watcher pushed.
"I have about half my mana left," an earth mage said.
"Same here," another echoed.
"Less for me," Prince Khalik revealed that between fighting mana and casting spells through Najyah, he was down to a quarter, if even that.
More earth mages reported: all were down to half their mana, maybe slightly more. Nob...
2022-09-24 23:56:27 +0000 UTC
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The behemoth towered above the snow covered terrain, growling and snapping like crumbling bone. The earth trembled with each heavy footfall while misting breath—like a fog cloud—froze in the air. Wide eyes sought a single target in the courtyard and suddenly blazed with recognition, lighting up when they fell upon Alex. The monster reacted. Long bone spikes sprang from its armoured form, shuddered in the air for a breath, then shot toward their target with all the force of a storm of arro...
2022-09-23 23:15:07 +0000 UTC
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Alex, Claygon and Isolde shot away when the ground cracked. Rock whizzed by. With jaws clenched, Alex weaved through the barrage, praying to the Traveller that they would clear the pelting rocks.
Stone shards seemed to soar in every direction, but only dust reached them. He sent out a silent prayer of thanks to the Traveller as he peered into the gaping chasm, then swore.
The craggy tear in the earth was teeming with a pulsating mass of spear-flies with one goal: he recalled drawi...
2022-09-22 23:55:46 +0000 UTC
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"But the tunnels!" Alex’s voice rose. "I've have to get down there, my friends are—"
"Mr. Roth, we've already sent help to the excavation team," Watcher Shaw barked, not sparing the young wizard a glance as he strode through the raging blizzard, adjusting his scarf to shield his face. A line of Watchers followed close behind. “We don’t need—Hey you!” He pointed at a wind mage floating from a nearby doorway. "Yes, you! I want you on top of the keep! Cut this whiteout down; we...
2022-09-21 21:26:30 +0000 UTC
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The cave floor bucked and heaved beneath Theresa's feet like an angry stallion bent on throwing her to the ground. The sound of stone cracking through weakened walls groaned from every direction.
Earth mages scrambled and dwarves shouted warnings.
"These walls’ll fail!" An elder dwarf engineer climbed atop the closest cart, pointing his axe at the tunnel wall. "They'll bury us!"
"If we don’t push back that mana, we’re paste! And it's everywhere! C’mon, we’ve got to...
2022-09-20 15:20:00 +0000 UTC
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"Hold on, slow down for a couple of heartbeats!" Gwyllain cried, waving his basket of honeyed acorns about like he was fending off a swarm of enraged bees.
The blue caps—each crackling and flaring with blinding blue light, raced around Gwyllain, yapping like excitable fox kits.
"You're all hard enough to understand when you're not screeching over each other!" the asrai cried. "Come on, then, will one of you calm down and tell me what's got you all excited?"
It took some co...
2022-09-20 15:19:55 +0000 UTC
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In the starkness of a tunnel beneath the research castle, the petrifier prepared its attack.
It loomed above a growing horde of monsters within a vast chamber shrouded in darkness, and pressed into the walls on either side of it, were the dungeon cores granted by its master. And they shuddered, pouring their power into the walls around them. Monster after monster burst from the stone, each one as vicious as the last.
One core crafted bone-chargers; each hulking beast boiled from t...
2022-09-20 15:19:52 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone, I just want to thank you all so so much!
Today is the day!
It’s my great pleasure (and rapidly rising shock/panic) to announce the launch of my debut published novel Mark of the Fool Book 1, available now through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, Paperback…and…oh there was something else…
Oh yeah, as an audiobook narrated by the great, the almighty Travis Baldree, who has narrated such greats as ...
2022-09-20 15:10:01 +0000 UTC
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"Mr. Roth! Mr. Roth! Miss. London! Miss. London!" a magically augmented voice boomed over the castle grounds. "Professor Jules requests you attend her office in the keep!"
"Well, that's me," Alex said, leaning down to kiss Theresa. "Have fun in the mines, honey."
She rolled her eyes and kissed him back. "They're not mines, they're tunnels."
"So are sewers; you're still going underground."
"Keep talking like that, and you'll be going underground," Theresa warned. "About...
2022-09-17 14:26:53 +0000 UTC
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The Hunters led their commander through the mounting snow, slipping between bare branches and frost-slicked trunks. In the distance, a line of eyes flashed yellow. A pack of wolves stalked through the cold, guarding a kill that stained the white red.
They eyed the Hunters warily, sniffing the air as they passed. Growls rumbled from deep within their chests as their hackles rose when the camouflaged petrifier strode by. They huddled closer together, tails and ears down and haunches low a...
2022-09-16 23:28:41 +0000 UTC
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“…what the hells was that?” Hart asked. “It felt like someone just walked over my grave. I saw all this fire and a great, big fight. Did you guys see that?”
The Sage muttered an incantation, conjuring a huge forceball to light the cavern.
“Yeah,” Cedric said. “I saw somethin’ like that. Bunch o’ monsters and fire burnin’ in front of a big tower o’ rock.”
“Same here,” Hart said. “There were a whole lot of blasts coming from the tower. From the ...
2022-09-15 21:30:25 +0000 UTC
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I like the idea of ‘everybody wins’ if you can get that, Alexander Roth had once said.
The Thameish wizard had been sitting beside the fire talking with Drestra in the Generasians’ encampment, and the Sage had hinted at the troubles Lord Aenflynn was bringing. She’d sought advice while still keeping the negotiations with the fae lord secret.
And Alex Roth had replied: I like the idea of ‘everybody wins’ if you can get that, except monsters or assh...
2022-09-15 00:34:13 +0000 UTC
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When Lord Aenflynn stepped into the mortal world, reality seemed to buckle beneath the weight of his being.
The air and earth around him shimmered and distorted like water forced into a sphere. Dead foliage breathed life again, bursting with vibrant summer blooms under his feet only to wither and die when his touch left them. His power: to Drestra’s mana senses, blazed like the sun. It felt like he’d brought part of the fey wilds into the material world with him. Or perhaps he w...
2022-09-13 21:50:39 +0000 UTC
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Hello everybody! Remember when I said I had a small surprise? Well, here it is! NGL,I am SUPER excited about this!
My publisher and I teamed up to create real life versions of the charm-pendants that Baelin gives to those he recognizes as his apprentices, like those he gave to the First Years of the Art of the Wizard in Combat.
I teamed up with a fantastic artist and designer to craft these and I'm REALLY happy with them. I love the rays of power coming off of the goat's eye sta...
2022-09-13 21:50:26 +0000 UTC
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“I don’t think we need Aenflynn’s swords,” Merzhin said disapprovingly. “And I am getting a little tired of being left behind, my companions.”
Drestra froze in the middle of shouldering her pack.
‘Not now,’ she thought.
“Oi, Merzhin,” Cedric said. “Leave it lie.”
“I do not believe that I can,” the small Saint said from across the embers of the campfire. Around them, their escort of priests and knights were breaking camp. “The Ravener-spawn...
2022-09-10 23:43:57 +0000 UTC
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“And then she said ‘only then will you know what you need to know’!” Theresa moaned, her hands pressed to her face.
“Okay, what in all hells does that mean?” Alex asked from off to her left. She heard the page of a book turn, the thunder of Claygon’s massive feet across the ground, and Brutus’ panting and barking, mixed with the yelping of other dogs. She heard the deep sigh her boyfriend often gave when something troubled him. “She literally told you her obse...
2022-09-09 22:03:18 +0000 UTC
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Not now. Or perhaps ever.
Those words burned in Theresa’s mind and spirit, freezing her heart. She took another deep breath as a thousand thoughts collided in her brain.
‘Have I been wasting my time, was I just holding onto old sentiment meanwhile monsters couldn’t care less about sentiment since all they want to do is gut me and everyone close to me? Was I being naive, maybe even selfish? It—’
‘ “Take a breath. Be mindful of your thoughts.” ’ The ...
2022-09-08 22:53:31 +0000 UTC
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“Great-grandfather…why the hells didn’t you make an instruction book?” Theresa sighed, lying on the grass and turning her sword blades above her head.
The huntress examined them for what seemed like the thousandth time, turning them, inspecting how they shone in the sunlight, running her fingers over the silk on each hilt.
She searched for hidden catches, a secret spot, or concealed areas that felt magical. Her eyes scanned the blades for any writing or hidden symbols. Any...
2022-09-07 23:46:10 +0000 UTC
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At last, it was complete.
Deep within the Ravener, a new monster had at last spawned. Weeks of fear bled from every corner of Thameland to feed the storm of dark crafting, and still the process was longer and more drawn out than in the past. Many cycles had passed since the Ravener had last brought a new petrifier to life, but now, the inner devices used in the spawn’s complex creation were warmed-up again. Now, a second would be much quicker to create, but, if all went to plan, there...
2022-09-06 23:19:56 +0000 UTC
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“Alright,” the prince said, slamming his cup of wine down on the table. “I tire of this dancing around the bush. No more shall I walk on eggshells over this.”
The entire table paused mid-feast, their eyes wandering to Khalik as he sat tall in his chair and squared his shoulders as though he were about to carry an enormous weight.
In the sky above, the stream of ghosts had long faded and Alex’s group—along with others on the beach—were now deep into t...
2022-09-04 00:14:08 +0000 UTC
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