Kia Leep

Glass Kanin: Chapter 35 - The Circle

“What?” I ask.

“The spell circle!” Noli points to the spell book, still open to the Core Bond instructions. “It’s right there. Let’s copy it.”

“But no chalk,” I sign, stumbling through the movements of the last word. I’ve caught Noli signing it a few times now, but she still moves too quickly for me to replicate on the fly.

“Yeah, we don’t have the magic chalk,” Noli agrees. “But if we get it all drawn out first, then that means Attiru could tra...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 34 - A Friendly Face

“Kanin!” Noli signs. “Oh, thank the gods, you’re alive! I was so worried we wouldn’t find you.”

I stare, stunned. Is this real? Is she really here? “How?” I struggle to my feet, using some of my signing glass as a crutch to prop myself up.

Noli makes a beckoning sign at Attiru, and the map-maker leans Noli closer to me.

She balls up some of her tentacles like clenched fists. There’s a patch on her midsection that looks like paper. The gaping hole through he...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 33 - Pocket Dimension

The city guard shows up later, and Hemral explains what happened. I don’t really listen, because I don’t particularly care. I just watch as the blue fire burns itself away, leaving only a pile of charred black shapes in the street. It must have been a magical fire: Even the glass is reduced to melted blobs. I half-heartedly have Echo scan the smoldering pile, but she only comes up with [Unidentifiable burnt remains.] At some point the guards leave, Hemral shuts his broken door, and the ni...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 32 - Shadows and Glass

I take a hesitant step forward, then back. The shop’s open. Now’s my chance to sneak inside. If they see me, they’ll kill me, but if I don’t take a chance, I might be missing my only opportunity to get Noli the help she needs.

Fighting my indecision, I creep out of my hiding spot, approaching the dark void of the open door with a shiver. Quiet, indistinct voices waft from within. I cross the road, hugging the wall that leads into Cloud’s Artifacts. Just a few feet from the ent...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 31 - Window Shopping

Carrying the map and cheat sheet around is a bit of a pain, making sure neither get snatched up by a breeze or kicked any drunk passersby. I’m still not sure how my second attempt at Cheat Sheet Usage is going to go; Zyneth was very patient with me the first time. Trying to flag someone down in the middle of the street, whilst avoiding getting stepped on, doesn’t seem like the soundest strategy. Maybe I just need to catch one of these wizards alone, so they have an opportunity to read it ...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 30 - Just Room

The city guards don’t even give us a second glance as we stroll into Harrowood. There isn’t anyone else coming from our direction, but the guards are preoccupied by greater concerns in the form of dice and coins. I stare in awe as the stone city rises around us.

The streets are loud and bustling—not with the mirth of a festival, like Peakshadow, but the clamor of everyday life. Merchants beckon from their storefronts, while shoppers check over baskets of fruit, scholars hurry abou...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 29 - Harrowood

The sun can’t rise fast enough, though even after it does, Zyneth continues to sleep. I’m anxious to get back on the road, but I let him rest. Without him, I’m not going anywhere, after all.

He finally rouses a few hours after sunrise—still early morning, so I suppose I shouldn’t be so grumpy. He certainly takes his time packing up, scuffing out the remains of his fire, munching on some dried meat and salted nuts. I shift from foot to foot to telegraph my impatience.

Zyn...

Glass Kanin Cover Art

Hey guys! I thought it would be fun to go over the process of designing the cover art for Glass Kanin. Final product first! 

I first started looking around for an artist last summer, after I'd finished writing the first book of Glass Kanin and sent it off to my beta readers. I perused DeviantArt, Twitter, and r/HungryArtists, which is eventually where I found Marcus Maia. 

His ...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 28 - Planar Theories

If I were able to spill my guts, the void would probably be a good place to start. I’m only level 7—now 8, I guess. He’s 31. If the predator got out again, could he stop it?

It might have its own level, and if it does, I have no idea what that number might be. I’d never considered this before, and given how overpowering it had been during our last encounter, the thought isn’t comforting.

Zyneth sighs, touching his arm, then bringing his hand away to examine a smudge of b...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 27 - The Nightbanes

As more of the pack emerge from the trees, Zyneth stirs behind me.

“I see we’ve some company. I would advise you to not make any sudden movements.” Eyes on the predators, he slowly curls a hand into a fist, light spilling between the gaps in his fingers.

More nightbanes step into the clearing, moving silently between the trees. Only their skulls stand out in the moonlight, the rest of their bodies melting into the surrounding dark.

“I suppose this is my fault,” Zyn...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 26 - Glorified Laser Pointer

The ravine eventually falls away to a gentle slope, trees fencing us in on either side. Sometimes I catch glimpses of green plains beneath us, but the hills rise and fall around our path, obscuring the view. It will still take a day or two more just to make it out of the hills, I’d hazard, and that’s nothing to say for how far away the city might be beyond that. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I never would have made it in time by myself.

“I’ll be making a camp for the night...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 25 - A Deal with the Devil

Little one? I’m going to choose to ignore the condescension there. But “Telling my story” is easier said than done, given the limited vocabulary at my disposal. I also don’t even know if I’m getting the grammar right, for whatever language they speak here. Is it different from signing? Different from English? Hopefully he’ll be able to parse something out of my string of verbs and nouns.

I move my glass over the page. “I AM KANIN.”

“Kanin,” he repeats ...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 24 - Boned

The night takes an eternity to tick away. I try climbing the hill a couple more times, but each attempt is quickly thwarted by gravity and a consequential near fall to my death. Trying to creep around the snakes proves equally impossible. The ravine seems too steep for them to climb, but they’re content to wait for me below. As the sky begins to lighten with the faintest shade of purple, I’m still stuck on the hillside, unsure what to do.

It’s starting to look like magic is my onl...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 23 - Road Block

Once the hail stops, I start walking once more. No Attunements to jump me through the night; I can’t risk doing magic or withdrawing anything from my inventory, even if I wasn’t already pressed on time. The glass I do have available, however, helps me navigate the dark. Now that I’ve figured out how I can use the glass to feel what’s around me, it’s like a whole new sense has budded into my mind. After using it a couple more times, Echo eventually chimes in with a [New Skill unlocke...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 22 - Forsaken

As Noli settles in, I shimmy my legs back out from under her, using them to stand up once more. We regard each other for a moment in silence.

“Don’t,” Noli signs, before I can even think what to say.

“Don’t what?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Noli signs. “But you’re planning something terribly stupid, I can just tell.”

“You need help,” I sign.

Noli seems suspicious. “And you plan to get it?”

“Yes.” I’m the only one who can. 2024-01-02 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Glass Kanin: Chapter 21 - Rubble

It takes a few moments to readjust to all my senses. As the predator, we—it—could taste and smell and vocalize. All that’s gone now that I’m just a vial again. Its vision was also more human, in that it could only see in one direction at once. Going back to 360-vision is a rough adjustment, but the blur of colors and shapes eventually resolve into something I can start to make sense of.

The town is in chaos. The sun is just beginning to rise, dyeing the scene crimson, b...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 20 - We

The hunger is devouring us. It eats us from the inside, maddeningly incessant, and we drag our claws through our surroundings, desperate for relief. Irritating high-pitched sounds rake at our ears. We wish it would stop—we can make it stop—but when we turn our attention to the source, we notice a distinct glow in its chest. Our mouth waters.

Food.

The room we’re in is tiny, cramped, so when we dart out the door, it shatters from its frame. We shake off the splinters...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 19 - The Void

I shove Noli away. “Run. Run!”

The ground thumps as the shopkeep rounds the corner. “I swear, if it’s you kids again…” They stop, sucking in a breath. “What in Relona’s Realm…?”

But I’m barely paying attention to them, because I can feel the predator pulling itself from Between. I can feel reality tearing as easily as paper, the black spot on the ceiling becoming a crack, then a crevice, then a yawning, black maw that swallows all the room’s light. The shop...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 18 - Atlas Emporium

The shop is surprisingly clean and modern—not at all the medieval setting I was expecting—and for a moment it feels like I’m back on Earth, having walked into some kind of antique bookshop. Bookshelves line the walls, stuffed with scrolls and loose papers of every shape imaginable. There are some maps framed on open spaces of wall, and even a glass case in the middle of the room containing some wares I can’t make out from my angle. To my left is a counter, beneath which appear to be l...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 17 - Class Check

The fatal flaw in our plan is almost immediately discovered when we wait for a cart to pass, only for me to go left as Noli goes right. My omni-vision catches the flub right away, but Noli doesn’t even notice we’ve separated until she’s half a house away. We need to use our limbs to hold our cover overhead, and since we also need to use our limbs to communicate, this means we can’t do both at once. After regrouping on the other side of a small mob of children, we reevaluate. I pass on...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 16 - Flame’s Fest

“Something’s changed.”

“What?” I ask.

We’ve only been on the road for an hour or two, all the crimson hints of dawn evaporated from the horizon.

“Actually, I know exactly what’s changed,” Noli signs. “I just couldn’t tell in the dark, and I thought I was seeing things when it was still early. But now there’s enough sun that I can definitely tell it’s not a trick of the light.”

“What is it?” I press, knowing full well she will continue to...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 15 - Cat Got Your Tongue

[Spell: Spiritual Familiar]

[Level: 3]

[HP: 15/15]

[Mana: 0/0]

Noli! I take a step forward before I even have a chance to think—then a hasty step back as the cat swipes a paw at me. Noli isn’t moving. She isn’t even trying to sign at me. No, no, no—

The spell cat growls, advancing on me as I continue to retreat toward the bushes. Does it think like a cat? Is it after me out of curiosity, or because it was spelled to hunt down prey? I don’t know, and I d...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 14 - Pedantic Linguistics

I get Attunement leveled up to 3 that night as I’m skipping the time away, this time focusing on Attuning the largest—and hopefully most useful—pieces of glass I picked up. One of them I think used to be part of the homunculus shell’s head. The irony that I’d been doing everything in my power to avoid being bound to this body, just to use it to make a new one, does not escape me. It feels vaguely cannibalistic to be dissecting all this glass and stitching it back together again. I t...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 13 - Ball and Chain

The night vanishes in a moment of sleepless black, and when I wake from my Attunements, it’s nearly dawn. There’s a moment of disorientation—of wondering where I am, and if everything that had happened was just a strange, horrific dream. But the surrounding forest, highlighted with slivers of pink and orange, doesn’t make it hard to remember what I’m doing out here.

Something is pressed up against my glass that I don’t remember being there before, and when I start to stir, i...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 12 - The Opposite of Fast Travel

Noli leads the way, taking us around the side of the house, past the workshop, and onto a faint trail that slopes up a hill. I consider stopping in the workshop before we leave to see if there’s anything else that might be useful for our journey, but Noli doesn’t seem intent on lingering, and I don’t blame her. I’m not sure what I’d be looking for, anyway. I already don’t even know if what I brought with me will be of any help.

After days in the cabin, the outside world seem...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 11 - The Predator

I can feel it like an ache in my soul. Like a crack in reality. Like a numb limb, like the cold of a chasm, the burn before inhale, a stab of electricity—

Space stretches around Trenevalt and I, distorting like a funhouse mirror. The room seems to elongate, my vision warped senselessly, as a black seam etches itself upon reality and the fabric of space is pulled so wide it rips the stitches open.

Void spills out.

The black is infinite and it’s empty, the concentrated ess...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 10 - The Shell

Retreating to my stand, I impatiently recover some mana and then skip through the rest of the night with Attunements. This time I do four at a time to make use of that 10% discount. The 8 mana it would typically take gets rounded down to 7, and it reduces my Attunement time from 8 hours to a little over seven hours as well. Hey, I’ll take it.

The next morning, there’s a certain skip in Trenevalt’s step—or stumble—and his eyes are bright and smiling. I am immediately filled wit...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 9 - Dish Sucks

Double-checking that the bar of soap is still in the basin—shockingly it is—I search for a better route up than I’d come down. A stack of plates seems fairly suitable. I head up slowly, testing each step before I shift my weight, determined to avoid another Humpty Dumpty situation.

With little else to do, I talk to Echo while I climb. Can I put anything I’m touching in my inventory? I ask.

[Organic matter is incompatible with the nature of the pocket dimension,] E...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 8 - Ready? Fight!

[Command resumed.]

Huh?

I lower my glass, which I’d been using to practice some of Noli’s signs, and glance around the room.

It’s late—or maybe early. I haven’t been keeping track of time, and I don’t have any more glass to Attune in order to mimic sleeping and skip through the night. Noli left a couple hours ago to go map out the property, and as far as I can tell, Trenevalt’s asleep. Had I just imagined Echo speaking up? Nothing has changed, except…

[...

Glass Kanin: Chapter 7 - A Lesson in Linguistics

Trenevalt notices the pile of dust first, frowning as he squints down at the mound of lint and trash. I stay perfectly still—this must be what deer feel like when cars are barreling toward them—as if he somehow won’t notice his magical glass flask has teleported rooms.

“My, my,” Trenevalt mutters, rubbing his head. “What is this? Did I…”

Light must have caught in my glass, as his eyes snap abruptly to me. I start to roll away, futile though it may be. The floorboar...