Vera and Caldrin made their way through Marrowfen as Vera mentally prepared herself.
Since the central plaza in front of the Marrowvault’s aboveground spire—where many of the city’s most important administrative buildings, including the Pale Hall, had stood—was largely reduced to rubble during the attack, most official gatherings were now being held in smaller venues scattered throughout the city. Today’s, however, was the largest since the assault, so it had been arranged at ...
2025-11-15 03:26:59 +0000 UTC
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Vera sat at a small table in a sunlit parlor in Dreadwake Alcove, a serious expression on her face as she leaned forward and pointed.
“Alright. And how much does this make?”
Next to her, brows knitted tight in an adorably fierce frown that Vera thought she could’ve watched all day, Serel stared at the stacks of different-sized and colored coins arranged neatly across the table. Her lips moved as she studied the pile Vera had pushed forward.
“…Seven… eight… nine...
2025-11-11 03:30:05 +0000 UTC
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Vanded looked between Vera and Serel, then moved his hand. Faint sigils shimmered in the air, rippling like a haze around the two of them.
Vera raised a brow. “Thanks,” she said, glancing at her daughter.
She assumed it was a Mark that meant their words wouldn’t reach Serel. This way, he didn’t actually have to let Serel out of her sight, which was a small relief.
“So, how’ve things gone after the night?” she asked.
Vanded’s reply came as a low rumble, ...
2025-11-10 03:25:37 +0000 UTC
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Vanded Blazegrip laughed easily as he strode across the room, completely unbothered by the silence that followed his words.
Serel edged closer to Vera, small hand tightening around hers as the mountain of a man came to a stop in front of them. His gaze swept over the girl with a broad grin that showed far too much warmth for his weathered face.
“Hah! Spitting image of you, isn’t she? Hair’s the wrong color—but dyed, yeah? I can see the Resonance. And those eyes—” He pa...
2025-11-08 01:28:55 +0000 UTC
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Vera’s eyes opened when she felt movement beside her. Morning light filtered through the window, carrying the faint sound of birdsong and the wind stirring leaves outside.
She let herself stay still for a while, breathing. She was… tired.
But that was fine.
She still didn’t quite trust herself to sleep with Serel next to her, especially not with the emotional hurricane that had been yesterday. It wasn’t ideal, but lying there, watching Serel rest, had been enough to ...
2025-11-04 02:13:31 +0000 UTC
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They made for the surface as fast as they could. Gard had made the hard call to leave even the fallen behind in the tunnels of the Marrowvault. Speed mattered more than sentiment. After finding the empty throne room in those depths, the only thing they’d managed to do was destroy the ritual basins that had spawned the Tetherborn before fleeing, and even that might have cost them precious minutes.
Aboveground, the Chapter-Master and his detachment were likely facing a Silent Lord. They...
2025-11-04 02:12:23 +0000 UTC
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“I’ve got one question for you,” Vera said, Resonance gathering along Stillwake’s shaft. “You’re stronger than last time. Why?”
The Silent Lord in this world had been defeated by a coordinated strike from some of the strongest fighters around. Having personally experienced how strong the Veralyth from back then was from the vision carved by the Graven Daughter, she could tell that this version of Veyrith would have wiped them all out.
Power levels in general seemed t...
2025-11-02 22:58:09 +0000 UTC
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Consider this a notice.
First off, sorry for the late chapter — especially after that cliffhanger. This week’s been packed, and I just couldn’t get it out on time. I’d planned two extra chapters, but that’s getting cut down to one, which will drop later this weekend. On Monday, there’ll be two chapters, and another extra one toward the end of next week. That should bring us close to the end of the story’s first major arc (basically “book one” if this were a traditional...
2025-11-01 16:11:37 +0000 UTC
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Vera studied the figure before her. The mask of smooth ivory, unbroken except for the inverted crown carved into its brow—like an empty mockery of a face staring her down.
“…Hollow Ascendant.”
The words whispered from everywhere and nowhere at once, carrying a hatred so vast it felt like the world itself had spoken it.
Vera swung Stillwake in a single, fluid motion.
Mark of Hollow Mercy.
A pale sigil bloomed in the air. White-gra...
2025-11-01 16:11:13 +0000 UTC
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“Ma, you sure we should leave?”
Her daughter’s voice carried up small and tight as Hilde looked out the second-story window at Marrowfen’s streets. The night had sunk deep, the city swallowed by that strange, heavy kind of darkness that made even the lanterns burn paler under the moon’s light.
Hilde narrowed her eye. For an instant, she thought she’d caught the gleam of furs and pelts slipping through the moonlight, but then it was gone.
Heavy cracks rolled acros...
2025-10-28 01:58:37 +0000 UTC
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Gard had known better than to expect things to be easy. When he had headed to investigate the Bonewright Guild’s Marrowvault passages, he’d done so with the full understanding of what it might cost. The Chapter members under his command had understood that too, or so he hoped.
Since arriving in Marrowfen, time and time again, he’d been forced to revise more than a few of his assumptions about the Hollowstone Table. For all their rough edges and questionable reputations, its member...
2025-10-27 00:51:04 +0000 UTC
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Vera stared at the image of her mother, then turned to Serel.
Her mouth opened, then closed.
A quiet voice inside her tried to speak, but she hesitated to give it shape.
It was true. She’d never once called herself Serel’s mother. Others had called her that, and she hadn’t corrected them, but she’d never said it herself. Never claimed it out loud, or thought it. She had kept her distance in the smallest ways—stuck to ‘kiddo,’ ‘little one,’
2025-10-24 23:49:04 +0000 UTC
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She looked like she’d stepped straight out of an ordinary morning. A woman in her early sixties, hair mostly chestnut but giving way to soft streaks of gray at the roots, kept in check by the kind of careful box-dye that said she still cared, just not obsessively. Fine lines framed her eyes and mouth, the kind that came from years of worrying and talking in equal measure. Her clothes were simple and coordinated in that practiced way that came from habit—slacks, a blouse, and a cardigan th...
2025-10-21 01:49:10 +0000 UTC
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(Apologies. This chapter was supposed to be released during the weekend, but my schedule proved to be absolutely packed. Next chapter will come later today. There will be two more chapters this week, one on Friday as usual and an extra Patreon one sometime during the weekend. Next week I will try to release two extra chapters)
Vera stood on a plane of translucent nothing, suspended in a pale expanse that stretched endlessly beneath a v...
2025-10-20 13:25:04 +0000 UTC
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Something was simmering beneath the surface of Marrowfen by the time the sun dropped. The wind carried the taste of bone dust and distant mist, and the streets lay in brittle quiet when the signal fires rose.
Vanded watched the first one arc from the southern ward, burst white above the rooftops, and fade. A heartbeat later, another went up from the western gate, then another from the east. The pattern confirmed that several key sites had been secured.
Half a minute later, a scatt...
2025-10-17 23:43:20 +0000 UTC
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Vanded Blazegrip’s boots rang on worn oak floorboards as he walked down the corridor, wiping the grime and ichor from his armor with a frayed towel as he moved. Once he’d soaked the cloth through, he let it disappear into his Vaultring and brought out a fresh one to continue cleaning.
Cryptling residue was always a pain to scrub off.
“Eberhard,” he called to the wiry man following behind him, stopping in front of a familiar door. “Any idea where my Vice-Master’s off to...
2025-10-13 21:18:18 +0000 UTC
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Whitefinger
In Ashen Legacy, during the first expansion Veil of the Hollow King, the raid known as the Sepulchre of Silence descended beneath Marrowfen into the Marrowvault. Its final boss was Veyrith, the Silent Lord, Vowpale Ascendant. You fought him in the very chamber Vera and Serel had run across while they were exploring the Marrowvault.
The questline leading into that raid followed the players as they uncovered and dismantled the ...
2025-10-12 20:52:19 +0000 UTC
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“Mommy, I’m bored.”
Vera stilled. Her head turned slowly toward Serel, who was sitting on the couch with a book nearly larger than her torso open across her lap. She blinked.
Several times.
“You’re… bored?”
Serel nodded. “Mmm.”
Vera studied her. “You sure?”
The girl gave her a strange look. “Mmm.”
“…One hundred percent?”
Serel’s head tilted. “What does that mean?”
“A percent is a—” Vera stopped, ...
2025-10-10 21:10:21 +0000 UTC
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“Vanded Blazegrip is preparing a gift for me?” Veralyth asked.
“Yes,” Gard replied after a brief hesitation. His tone came out slower than he intended, and he couldn’t entirely hide the resignation.
“…Why?” Her eyes narrowed. “Does he know who I am?”
“No, I don’t believe so.” Gard lifted his hands. “Rather, from his words, I think he is hoping the gesture might convince you to lend your aid to our Chapter against the Concord.”
Her brow arc...
2025-10-06 22:47:55 +0000 UTC
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The crypt library that was the Ashledger Archive had a particular atmosphere to it. Vera had designed it to be similarly gothic and stoic as the rest of the estate, but the Archive might have been one of the more self-indulgent areas. Even discounting all of the shadowed alcoves, the engraved pillars, and the uniquely ornate display cases, the place looked like somewhere you’d expect to find an ancient lich poring over cursed grimoires.
She loved it, of course. She just wasn’t sure ...
2025-10-05 21:06:08 +0000 UTC
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Serel shifted in Vera’s arms as the two of them stepped out into the Ember Gallery at the heart of Sablewatch Hollow. The girl’s head turned this way and that, taking in the polished obsidian tiles and the flickering sconces burning with emberlight.
Vera let Stillwake vanish from her grasp and swiped an imaginary bead of sweat from her brow, taking a second to steady herself.
Even when she’d used Hollow Reach to reach the cavern beneath the Marrowvault, she hadn’t...
2025-10-03 22:47:01 +0000 UTC
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(Promised an additional chapter during the weekend, but ended up not having the time to publish it. Releasing a double chapter today to make up for it)
Vera watched the matron, feeling strangely awkward. Like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.
She cleared her throat and turned toward Caja and the other Hollowstone Table members. “Right. So. What are you planning to do here?”
The woman was still stari...
2025-09-29 21:59:50 +0000 UTC
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(Promised an additional chapter during the weekend, but ended up not having the time to publish it. Releasing a double chapter today to make up for it)
A pair of armored guards stormed in after the first, each carrying heavy bone truncheons, their eyes sweeping the tavern. One didn’t make it two steps before thick arms snatched him from behind, dragging him back through the shattered doorway. His strangled cry cut off in the growing cacop...
2025-09-29 21:59:36 +0000 UTC
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(Apologies for the slight delay. Will most likely be an additional chapter later today or tomorrow)
People were staring.
That might’ve been bad enough, but some of the Hollowstone Table folk were staring with wide eyes, like they’d just seen something they shouldn’t have. The drunk man in front of Vera looked as if his legs might give out at any moment.
No one spoke. It felt as though they were all waiting.
“…Aren’t you going to apologize?” Vera ...
2025-09-27 09:32:09 +0000 UTC
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Serel was quieter than usual.
It didn’t surprise Vera. In fact, she would’ve been more worried if the girl had just bounced back to her usual energy after everything that had happened. But watching her half-trudge through the streets of Marrowfen with only a fraction of the interest she’d showcased before at all the rib-boned buildings and sights left a weight in Vera’s stomach she didn’t quite know how to name.
She was learning that there were about a hundred shades to ...
2025-09-24 19:44:37 +0000 UTC
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There was a knock on the door. Gard looked up from his desk, hand lifting to remove his spectacles.
“Come in.”
Lucette entered, a stack of ledgers balanced neatly in her arms.
“Yes?” he asked.
“The Chapter-Master has returned,” she said.
Gard’s brows lifted. “Already? Are you sure?”
The woman gave him a flat look.
He raised a hand. “No—apologies. Stupid question. I’ve just had… a strange night.”
“I see.” Lucette d...
2025-09-22 20:47:56 +0000 UTC
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The fire, the walls, the braziers, all of it was gone. Even Serel’s presence—clutched tightly in Vera’s arms—felt farther away than it should have.
There was no floor beneath them, only a pale expanse stretching endlessly, dull and matte like clay left to dry. It was marked faintly by grooves that resembled veins or roots or maybe even scars, but none of them really felt corporeal, like they were standing on nothingness.
Vera had no idea where they were.
Above, somet...
2025-09-22 20:47:04 +0000 UTC
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When Vera woke the next morning, it took her longer than she cared to admit to blink the sleep from her eyes and actually bother getting up. Back in her old body, she’d been used to lying around for too long because it had simply been hard to move, and she might’ve thought she’d want to do the opposite now. But she realized there was its own kind of comfort in staying in bed out of nothing more than laziness and choice—something she had almost forgotten how to enjoy.
It helped t...
2025-09-22 20:45:21 +0000 UTC
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