The Space Rodeo

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 9

Standing on the docks at the base of the Riceflower, Chang-li shivered in the pre-dawn air. His heavy pack hung over his shoulders, and he had another sack beside him. Joshi, on the other hand, was traveling light with a bag slung over his shoulder that looked half empty.

The barge they would be taking bustled with activity as dockhands loaded it with the upriver cargo. Even with the disruption the tower eruption had caused, trade continued. Vardin City was an important hub on the trade...

SU&HM Ch 52

As Gambit asked if they could loot the boss first, Rick saw the body had already faded and turned into a large chest.

"Just take it all!" Rick yelled. "Give it to us later."

Gambit shrugged. "Sure!" He raced to the chest and opened it. As he took the loot, the chest faded away.

"Come on, there's no time!" The self-destruct countdown was still at the top of their screen. The whole place trembled. As the vibration shook the room, a door clanged open at the back right corner, a...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 8

"And tomorrow we're going to need that proposal for Governor Guo,” Min told Brother Stone as they neared the Brotherhood compound. It was well after nightfall. Lanterns were hung from the buildings here on Petal 64, a nice change from the multiple ruined and vacant petals they had passed through on their way down from the crown ring.

Min had been in conference with her brother and Riceflower Province officials all day, hashing out the agreement by which Brotherhood members and low-ran...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 7

Chang-li and Joshi found Master Noren in a back corner of the garden. He was upside down, resting his whole weight on the flat of his left palm, with his legs folded above his torso in a meditation posture. With his right hand, he wove an intricate pattern of at least four luxes.

His eyes were shut. Chang-li felt the breaths of lux all around as Noren's pattern altered the air. Noren let go of the weave and began cycling. Chang-li instinctively did the same and realized the lux levels i...

SU&HM Ch 51

"Damn it!" Rick screamed. But there was no time to react to Daniel's death. He whirled and started a Restore cast on Sam, whose health was flashing into the red. She took another big hit before the cast went off, so Rick immediately followed it up with Healing Cloud bringing her health well back into the green.

His Protection was almost on cooldown, but he saved it and continued casting Healing Cloud, and Restore as fast as he could, all the while yelling curses.

Nia was beside he...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 6

Chang-li stepped into the gardens for a bit of fresh air. The Brotherhood kept their grounds exceptionally well-tended, even now. Little paths meandered between hedges and shaped topiaries. He passed a pair of servants with clippers who bowed their heads and ducked out of his way.

He rounded a corner and came up short. There, sitting on a bench under an overhanging willow, contemplating a small display of rocks, was Min's grandfather, the Eldest Brother of the Oaken Band. He looked up a...

SU&HM Ch 50

Rick yelled, "Daniel, we need more DPS!"

He couldn't see the plinth where Daniel was, but the bar at the top of his interface that showed the lay energy reserves of the city wasn't going down, which had to mean Daniel didn't need to be at the plinth just then.

"Hang on!" Daniel called back. "It's about to be active again!"

The guards, in groups of three, stomped slowly into the room, shifting forward cautiously, like someone sneaking up on a bomb they planned to defuse. The ...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 5

Evening was falling across Vardin City as Joshi strode along the Crown ring, avoiding making eye contact with any passers-by. Nevertheless, they seemed to notice him, pointing and whispering as he passed. That wasn't a surprise. By now, the Morning Mist colors were recognized throughout the city, and his bald head and foreign features made him stand out. That was all right. No one came up to him as he walked past the shattered buildings, taking it all in, Magen at his side.

The little l...

SU&HM Bk 1 Ch 49

The start of the climb to the boss room was the worst, the flimsy staircase exposed to a drop of thousands of feet to the Martian desert below. The stairs rose up to the side of the city itself and ended at a corrugated metal landing about four feet square. To everyone's relief, a door led back into the walls of the city.

Rick stepped inside and groaned as he took in the stairs leading up. They climbed, spiraling in on themselves. He craned his head back and stared upward where the step...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 4

Noren was alone in the training room. The floor was covered in rectangular mats, and the walls were padded. Min had said that the Brotherhood used this for wrestling matches, but it made a decent training room as well. A door at the back led to the narrow hall lined with sleeping cells where Noren, Joshi, Brother Stone, and a few other disciples had bed rolls. Chang-li wondered if Joshi was back there now.

"Where are the Acolytes?" he asked Noren as he entered the room and looked around...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 3

Quick note: I am working on some changes to A. the original fate of the Morning Mist sect and B. exactly what the Inquisitor we saw in ch 1 found from Eri - those may change slightly as I get the plot for the climax of this book worked out. None of it should be huge changes! I do know that originally the reason Morning Mist got destroyed was "using violet lux". Not going with that... I want something twistier!

The building they had been using as sect headquarters...

SU&HM Ch 48

The Boss fight continued as a back-and-forth affair. Every time Gambit left to defend against another wave of birds or attack a Ley Energy Collector, the boss would start casting magical attacks. Sam shifted her position back and forth, trying to catch the boss off guard and dodge attacks, mostly ineffectively.

Rick protected her using a combination of Healing Cloud and Protection, and healing her up with Restore when she dipped to low. They took down the second collector, then pivoted ...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 2

Chang-li and Joshi crossed the temporary rope and slat bridge to Petal 38. A pair of cultivators in Morning Mist robes, both with Brotherhood rosettes on their collars, waited on the other side of the bridge. They snapped to attention as Chang-li approached, put their hands together, and bowed.

"Elder Brothe — ah, Senior Disciple Wu, greetings," one of the two said.

"Report, Acolyte,” Chang-li prompted.

The acolyte took in a deep breath, looking both worried...

SU&HM Ch 47

The white bear dashed across the space and reached the boss in a flurry of claws and teeth. The boss raised her upper pair of hands. She summoned a glowing shield between her and the enraged tank. Sam's attacks slammed against it, the shield flaring with bursts of light when each raking paw impacted. The boss staggered back two steps and then set herself. She brought up her upper right hand, kindling a blue glow.

Gambit was there, sword flashing. The blue light in her hand vanished. She...

License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 1

Welcome to Book 4!

Pak Yoonji prepared herself as a chunk of earth the size of a house flew through the air at her. She raised her weapon and extended the narrow sword's thin blade an extra five feet, enhancing it with a subtle lux weave that started red and mixed in blue and a hint of indigo.

Her blade sliced through the small hillside her enemy had thrown her way. She jumped, leapt up onto one of the two falling halves, and pushed off lightly from there, carryin...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 46

  For a moment, Chang-li seemed to be caught in between worlds. The tower fog faded away, and he was suspended in thin air, staring at the Riceflower from outside it for the second time this evening.

The tower had changed. Smoke rose all around. He could see the devastation, entire Petals in ruins, tower beasts running rampant as refugees fled downward. Two Petals he could see were collapsing entirely, their connection to the stalk damaged. They tipped forward over the void. P...

SU&HM Ch 46

"We're going down," Rick said, feeling the tingling urge in his brain that indicated what the host body was trying to tell him to do. Somewhere down below was the source of the leyline energy that flowed through these conduits. They needed to get down there and sabotage it. He could almost picture the place and the sequence of necessary tasks, but he pushed the images away. They would see it soon enough.

The team started down the spiraling stairs. Halfway down, they could see the bottom...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 45

Min had no idea anymore what time it was. The night seemed to have gone on for years already. They had fended off wave after wave of lux beasts, each growing stronger.  She had wondered if they would be able to hold them off, but so far, none had gotten past her barricade.

Three of the disciples had been badly wounded and dragged back to safety. She wanted to know how they were but didn't dare leave the barricade.

Her arrows were becoming more accurate as the night wore on. I...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 44

Li Jiya had Xue Lan on the back foot, swinging her crescent blade weapon, with Xue Lan's responses seeming slow and reactive. Even Chang-li could have done a better job parrying. He wondered whether perhaps Xue Lan was fighting off Mai Wen's influence. Could he help? How was she keeping control? He reached out with his lux senses, even as Joshi lashed out with his new technique and got a binding around Xue Lan's waist.

Yes, he could feel Mai Wen's will stretching from Xue Lan. That was ...

SU&HM Ch 45

Sorry for the scheduling hiccup!

"Nice," Gambit said, and held up a belt with a giant gaudy belt buckle.

“What does it have?” Rick asked.

“Strength and more strength,” was the reply. “But damn, look how cool that is!”

Rick thought privately that most pro wrestlers would have been embarrassed to be caught in public with that belt, but held his tongue.

Nia leaned over and pulled a rod out of the chest. It looked just like the bos...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 43

"How long do you think he'll take?" Li Jiya asked as they jogged on. She glanced toward the device Chang-li still held.

Chang-li grunted as he concentrated on the weave he was forming in his other hand. He was concerned for Joshi, but they didn’t have time to wait. The lux sounded more and more discordant with every passing minute. They had to find Mai Wen, defeat her, and force the Prism to let them summon the emperor. "I don't think it took me very long. When I went in ...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 42

The training chamber was much as Chang-li had described: a blue-tinted crystal room in which Joshi could see his face reflected, but larger than Chang-li had said, at least 20 paces on a side. Instead of merely a featureless blue crystal room, Joshi found one side occupied by a pair of featureless dummies similar to the ones he'd punched with alacrity at the sect headquarters, with veins of gold light streaking through the wall and ceiling. The place had a rhythm to it, subtly beating.

...

SU&HM Bk 1 Ch 44

The glider packs went on easily. Daniel already had his on and went around adjusting the others. Rick wasn't sure how Daniel knew, but he had no choice but to trust either the man had the right host memories, or military training to adjust the harnesses right. It certainly felt more secure after Daniel had tugged the straps.

Nia kept glaring in Sam’s general direction, but she didn't seem to notice.

“Look,” Rick finally said as the team was nearly ready to go, “It’s not ...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 41

"Do you really think Noren is lying to us?" Chang-li asked as they went. He was sure now this was the right direction. lux intensity was increasing again as they wandered deeper into the swirling storm that represented the ruin of a pyramid.

Now, the mist all around had begun to take on color, tinged with the different shades of luxes as they passed through a region dense with red, then one full of orange before passing through a band of blue. With each, Chang-li felt the s...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 40

Chang-li cycled, gathering more lux into him. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Joshi had summoned his gauntlet, Li Jiya, her weapon. Out of the mist leapt forms. It took a moment for Chang-li to recognize them as other humans, cultivators at that, wearing the robes of the Golden Locks School. In the mist, they had seemed almost like inhuman beasts. Now they fell on Chang-li and his friends, eight of them, against the three.

Chang-li didn't see Mai Wen...

SU&HM Bk 1 Ch 43

As Dr. Rahimi slotted the last pieces into place, the control panel filling with blinking lights and the crate of headsets began glowing from the inside. She reached in, pulled out the first of the headsets, now ringed with swirling lights, and handed it to Rick. "Here you go, one for each of you." He passed it on and took the next one from her until the entire group had a headset in hand.

Sam turned hers over in her hands, studying it closely . Nia held it like it explosive. Daniel loo...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 39

Chang-li turned on the others. "You heard that, didn't you? He’s the tower guardian, now.”

"I did," Joshi agreed grimly.

"Nai Hong and Eri came inside the tower. I think Nai Hong was trying to get away. Did he know his death would have this effect? His will has reshaped everything in here. That's why there's so much violet lux." He remembered how incredibly full of violet lux Nai Hong’s core had been. "What was in the prism's core must have spilled ...

SU&HM Bk 1 Ch 42

Rick was up before dawn, the sky barely beginning to lighten.. The campfire outside was long extinguished. There was no one around, but the air was filled with a delicious aroma. A thin trail of smoke curled from the chimneys of the dining wagon.

The smell of breakfast and a friendly "Morning, boss," from Gambit greeted Rick as he opened the door and stepped inside. Half a dozen people sat around the compact room, some with half-eaten plates of food, others nursing cups of something hot...

License to Cultivate Bk 3 Ch 38

As he stepped through the portal into the top floor of the Vardin City Tower, Changi braced himself to face a horde of ravening tower beasts. At the rate they had been exiting the tower, he expected to find several in the near vicinity. Instead, he found himself in a foggy plane. The fog stretched out all around him. He felt as though he was in a vast space. Joshi emerged to his left, Li Jiya to his right. Li Jiya looked around, frowning.

"This isn't right," she said. "It'...

SH&HM Bk 1 Ch 41

Rick was up before dawn, the sky barely beginning to lighten.. The campfire outside was long extinguished. There was no one around, but the air was filled with a delicious aroma. A thin trail of smoke curled from the chimneys of the dining wagon.

The smell of breakfast and a friendly "Morning, boss," from Gambit greeted Rick as he opened the door and stepped inside. Half a dozen people sat around the compact room, some with half-eaten plates of food, others nursing cups of something hot...