The Brotherhood Hall was the large building that dominated this petal. It was an imposing edifice with a three-tiered tower rising from the main building, each tier smaller than the one below, with a slanting roof painted in sky blue. Gargoyles and monsters decorated the edges of the roofs, and tall red wooden pillars, wider than Chang-li could throw his arms around, held up the corners of the building. On the doors were painted the Brotherhood's emblem.
Min led them inside, where they ...
2024-12-07 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li leaned over the railing of the riverboat, gawking like the provincial rube he suddenly knew he was. After traveling inland for five days, the river had brought them to a deep, narrow lake in a steep valley. The walls of the valley were sharply angled, going up eight or nine hundred feet above the river's level, and every inch of those hills was terraced. Little paths led up the hills, and small clumps of farming villages clung to the edges of the paths, but the vast majority of the h...
2024-12-05 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li came downstairs to the main floor of the Morning Mist Sect house, carrying a pile of newly translated papers. Min and Joshi were in the sitting room, their heads bent together while the sect servants bustled about, making preparations. Out in the small garden, he could hear Brother Stone putting the three disciples through their paces.
Min looked up and gave Chang-li a smile that made his heart beat just a bit faster. He came over and set his papers down on the table besi...
2024-12-03 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Welcome to our first Monday chapter! That means Book 3 starts tomorrow!
"So, can prisms listen in anywhere, or just in the tower?" Chang-li wondered aloud. They had all returned to the sect headquarters. It was amazing how much it felt like home to him now, considering he'd spent only a single night under its roof.
The disciples and servants were busy conjuring up a good meal. He and Joshi had both taken a chance to clean up, though he would like to v...
2024-12-02 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
As I stood in the bowels of the rogue engine, talking to Patriarch Kvaltash and hoping my friends had managed to take control up top, a full human-sized version of Gambler appeared next to me, dressed like a man in a three-piece suit. He bowed at the waist.
"Greetings, Patriarch.”
“You’re the rogue?” Kvaltash’s lip curled. “So the earthlings have managed to wake another engine. I should have known. That won’t happen again. My key will prevent it.”
“Yes, the...
2024-12-02 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
It took Min several excruciating minutes to extract herself from the cluster of spouses after the dowager had dismissed them. Lady Soaring Heavens was exulting in her triumph. Lady Moon Whispers had a considering look on her face. Hiroko had said nothing, despite Lady Soaring Heavens’ effusiveness, just sat beside the dowager looking tired.
At last, Min escaped and went to find the disciples. They were waiting in one of the lesser pavilions off to the side, sitting on a h...
2024-11-30 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
The green glow came from an enormous lake. It was pale green, reminding me of ice and frost, and so still, it almost looked like a solid sheet of ice. In the center stood an island with a steel column on it.
"The lake itself is the portal," Veda said. "As soon as you touch that, you'll be out of the labyrinth. I can't see down there." She sounded frustrated. "I'm sorry, I think there were eight that got in ahead of you. Good luck."
I took a deep breath an...
2024-11-29 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
With the transformed, glowing Feng hovering over him in the air, Chang-li was just about out of tricks. He hurled another net technique to buy himself time and scrambled away. Feng, laughing, began to summon the lux in the air all around. It swirled like a whirlpool, with Feng as the center of its vortex, filling him. Chang-li could feel the strength of Feng's core. He was bristling with lux, more full than Chang-li had ever felt anyone.
Chang-li tried to sipho...
2024-11-28 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
I thanked Gambler for the latest update on Captain Williams’ progress and turned back to my own work.
The strategy table was lit up in front of me, displaying our forces arrayed against our enemies as though on a game map. Hexagons filled the board, and twelve tall, dark game pieces resembling the Tower of Sauron stood scattered about. They weren't placed at regular intervals; instead, they represented each of the Dominators and the area they controlled. A vi...
2024-11-27 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li couldn't have been gone long, but clearly quite a lot had happened while he'd been in the cell. Feng was bloodied and bruised, his robes torn and dirty. Joshi radiated anger and power. Chang-li didn't have to ask. His friend had reached the Peak of Mental Refinement as well. Hope flared in his heart. He and Joshi were both at the same stage, and Feng had not yet gone beyond.
Feng paused where he was, staring at Chang-li. "How did you escap...
2024-11-26 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
We raced through the shifting ice corridors. Sometimes the walls were rocky and narrow. Sometimes the ice crevasse opened up over our head hundreds of feet. Our footing was good. Most of the time, we could go three across, which just meant there'd be more room for squabbles once we encountered enemies.
"Their forces are arriving," Veda said in our ears. "They're deploying hundreds of hunter-killer squads. Remember, they're going to be trying to capture your keys. They...
2024-11-25 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
One moment, Joshi had been hammering blows into Feng just according to the plan. With the inhibitor around his ankle, Feng wasn't properly able to channel lux. Joshi had been forcing him back, step by step, toward the lux moat. He was certain if he could force Feng in, that his body would be unmade.
He was waiting for the next distraction from Chang-li when Feng executed a Peak of Mental Refinement level technique. A blast of concentrated will burs...
2024-11-23 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
We were in an enormous blue room. It wasn't a cave. The vast room stretched out all around us, the lighting making it feel chilly though objectively it wasn’t. The smooth, straight blue wall I did see pulsed with light in a pattern like a heartbeat, tracings of white and yellow shot through the walls, zapping along. It was like being inside an enormous brain with neurons firing and thoughts flying about that I couldn't possibly comprehend. The sense of scal...
2024-11-22 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
With the help of his image, who, when he wasn't busy being derisive, was a remarkably good training partner, Chang-li alternated sword work with an enhanced spell technique. Now that his body was set up to channel two different sets of lux at the same time, he was practicing becoming truly fluid with his spells while also using his sword. The trouble was, his use of spiritual lux was still limited. Without a physical lux framework to hang it on, he couldn't get his t...
2024-11-21 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
Rose’s verbal grenade put the room into an uproar, myself included. I heard dozens of different voices shouting as the silence wall descended on us, but that did no good, because we all had comms channels, and they were immediately crowded with messages.
Is this true? Has the Patriarch lied? Is the Key in the hands of the rogue? The flurry of messages just kept coming.
Veda sent out a room-wide message using the Proxima override. Let...
2024-11-20 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li kept up the practice until it became effortless. Whether it would work against a cultivator like Feng, he wasn't sure, but here in this place, with his own lux, he was master. He stepped away from his image, taking a deep breath. He still felt no need to eat or drink or sleep. His sore muscles had long ago been soothed. "How long have I been in here?"
"It has been very little time in the world beyond."
That wasn't reassuring. It wouldn't take Feng long to kil...
2024-11-19 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
Grandpa and I emerged from our transport pod into the Proxima docking facility. To my surprise, Veda waiting for us. She looked nervous.
"Did you get my message? About the lawyer?"
"Juana took care of all that."
Veda let out a sigh of relief. "Good.” She led us out of the sterile docking bay, into the depths of Proxima's corridors.
"Just to let you know, I'm being groomed for junior executive leadership here at Proxima. Despite some...
2024-11-18 13:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li's mirror image looked him up and down, lips curling back in a sneer. He reminded Chang-li of Feng more than himself, or so he hoped. Surely such an arrogant look had never crossed his own face.
"Get up!"
Chang-li got to his feet, straightening his robes and holding his image's gaze. "What are you?"
"I am you," the image said contemptuously. "What you should be." The mirror image strode across the narrow confines of the cell, trailing his open left hand against the p...
2024-11-16 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
I was back on the bridge of the Ad Astra, watching our feeds intently with Grandpa at my elbow when the news came through. The voice that spoke was the synethetic female one the Dominator network had used previously.
"Class 1 emergency is officially resolved. All assets are being returned to their owners. Analysis to follow.”
It was followed by a message directly to us. “Ad Astra and Earth Task Force, we have detained three of your personnel for inq...
2024-11-15 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
There was absolutely no way to tell time inside the training cell. Chang-li sat and cycled. He cycled every technique he learned from Joshi or the scrolls, each as long as he could before swapping to the next. Scribe Wulan had vanished on him again, telling him, not very helpfully, that he was on the right track and just to keep going.
After cycling, he practiced his techniques, braiding together weaves and letting them fall apart and unravel. He practiced Firepot with different layers ...
2024-11-14 13:00:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
With the resources of the Andante Dominator in hand, we began to get down to work. The Dominators were inherently contentious anyway, striving back and forth to steal territory. So far Andante had applied a conservative strategy, taking what they could and contesting only in zones they thought they could take resources from whatever the eventual outcome. They’d made a small but steady profit, but I thought, looking them over, that sooner or later one of the bigger fish would ha...
2024-11-13 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
FYI we are at a writers' conference this week and not easily able to fix mistakes, will update when back if needed.
Chang-li felt the inhibitor band settling on him, choking off the flow of lux. It was like suddenly stepping outside of the tower again, but worse. He cycled his lux, and his core was sluggish. Outside the tower, it answered him as he pleased, but with the inhibitor in place, he felt half alive. His vision shrank like he could no longer see from the...
2024-11-12 13:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
COLIN POV
Sage and I soared over the battleground, where we were losing badly. We were outnumbered, even with our NPCs. Twice we swooped down, searing flame across the enemy lines, but all the while Sage directed Mr. Smokey toward the rear of the lines, where we knew Patriarch Kvaltash was waiting.
Her body was tense. I squeezed her shoulder. "Just focus on this," I told her. "One step at a time."
But I had the same counters and tickers in the corne...
2024-11-11 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hiroko had not entered the tower in the almost week since Li Jen had been killed, but she concealed her nerves behind a carefully practiced facade as she followed the Dowager Pearl inside. They were accompanied by the rest of the gem court, their servants, the spouses and masters of the cultivation sects who were even now competing to win the tower's boon for themselves, the inquisitor and all his people, scribes, guards, porters, and the vast host of lux technicians who were eag...
2024-11-09 13:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
I’d been watching the initial phase of the battle from the monitors on Ad Astra’s bridge. As long as my personal soulcoin was locked out of the zone, there wasn't much else I could do.
We'd sent in all of the assets that the Galactics had asked for—a couple of brigades who hadn't been involved in the earlier attempt—and everyone else was standing by. Tensions were high as I watched from the bridge. Grandpa was beside me, quietly ...
2024-11-08 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Joshi was more worried than he had let on to Chang-li. He could feel his approach to the Peak of Mental Refinement. He knew he was nearly there. Already, his mind hummed with the increased flow of lux through it. It was getting easier to understand his weaves. He and Magen were communicating better and better.
But it would not be enough. He could feel the last veil, and to step through it would take something more than merely gathering lux and cycling it.
2024-11-07 13:00:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
COLIN POV
The waiting was the worst part. Rok'gar, Amber, and I busied ourselves preparing the defense in depth of our base. We had written off everything beyond the bones of Monte Carlo itself as too difficult to defend. I recycled a bunch of towers to reclaim their ethereum and set to work programming new ones all around, while Rok'gar evolved new breeds of soldiers and put them out.
Amber fit right in. She picked up some allied mines to help her out and was busy bu...
2024-11-06 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Down the slope a pair of revenants dragged themselves from the dirt at the foot of one mushroom and loped toward Chang-li and Joshi.
"I will take these," Joshi said before Chang-li could respond. He crouched, leapt, and smashed into them. Chang-li could make out his lux technique brimming with green. The cloud around him as he crashed down was laced with blue lux, and both the revenants fell under the shock. Neither rose.
As Chang-li approached, Joshi checked both for movement. "Y...
2024-11-05 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
SHAD POV
I was jolted awake out of a sound sleep by Coyote's urgent voice. "Captain Williams, you're needed at once.” Beside me, Juana rolled over and sat up. "Ms. Lopez-Williams, you as well, please.”
Coyote's odd formality struck me. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"We have been formally mobilized," Coyote said. "As part of that mobilization, I have been required to integrate my systems into the Dominator network. I trust you understand."
I did. Coyo...
2024-11-04 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Chang-li considered the two remaining disciples and Brother Stone. Neither of the disciples had made it past the first veil, while Brother Stone, during their climb down through the green maze, had claimed to reach it.
"You should go back," he told them.
Disciple Cui objected. "Feng already outnumbers you. Do not send us away."
"He's correct," Joshi said. "It is not about numbers, but about the state of your progression. The lux has been growing more and more de...
2024-11-02 12:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
