“For any commander, there comes a point where you can recognize one of your soldiers is breaking. For some, it comes early, in the first morning after they’ve spilled blood for the first time. For others, it will be years or decades into their service that the weight of their actions catches up to them. The role of the commander is always to walk those under their command back from the brink. To never apply pressure where it is undue. There will be many who tell you that a life of ser...
2025-06-04 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“There are many words for those who the eidolons have taken. Some call them The Lost or The Unheard. Others call them relic species or endlings. In my own estimation, the title best applied to them is this: losers. They encountered the test that all civilizations must, and they failed it. Everything in their history led them to this point, to the eidolon incursion that is inevitable in the growth of any world, and when the time came for them to rise to the occasion, they faltered, they ...
2025-06-03 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“Our homes are built on the tombs of those who died before us. Our magic, pried from the cold hands of corpses. There is more in this universe that has been forgotten than shall ever be learned anew, and it is for this purpose that this institute will stand.”
—Foundations, Karth Veilbohr
All of the time spent in the central chamber hauling around crates and putting together equipment wasn’t wasted, even if Sylvas did feel a little bit trapped once again. ...
2025-06-02 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“It is a strange thing to be an advocate for technology in a world ruled by magic. There is nothing that science can accomplish that magic has not already done twice and with far more ease, yet in the study of natural processes, we find new heights that magic might ascend to, and through the combination of the two, we reach new heights.”
—Private Diaries of Theron Greenmantle
Despite having his back to the charger, Sylvas felt its presence through hi...
2025-06-01 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“It may seem strange to speak of trust when discussing the battle against the eidolons, but trust is the fundamental building block of any fighting unit. Without trust, that the man shielding you will hold his ground, or that the striker ahead of you will charge, and then it is impossible for the eidolon to be fought, except alone.”
—Chaos in Action, Fal’Vaelith
As it turned out, travel to and from the planet did not need to be a rattling discomfort. Even...
2025-05-31 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“They say that everyone is their own worst critic. Which just goes to show that ‘everyone’ doesn’t know a damn thing. Spend a month on a relic world, training for the Ardent. You’ll find that there are far worse critics all around you. Your fellow students. Your instructors. Whoever is in charge of your training will pick out faults that you didn’t even know you had. They say it’s all part of making you a better fighter, shoring up your weaknesses, but I think the truth is t...
2025-05-30 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“Justice is a product to be bought throughout much of the universe. Petty vengeance is dispersed to the highest bidder, and those who are in the most need of the law’s protection will find themselves wanting. Not so in our new republic. One law for all. One justice for everyone.”
—The Foundation of the Empyrean, Endranke Vergunin
Sylvas had never seen so many important people in one place at one time.
Most of them weren’t physically there, of cour...
2025-05-29 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“Alliance. It is such a tenuous word for what we have become. An alliance is a group of like-minded individuals, working together to defeat some enemy. But none of these things are true of the Empyrean now. We squabble and bicker over scraps. We fight more amongst ourselves than we even go near to our enemies. For all the high-minded plans laid out for the future of the Empyrean, my money is on its collapse in our lifetime. Not destroyed by an enemy from without, but buried in memos and...
2025-05-28 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“It is the simplest thing to say that one must persevere through all adversity but a far harder thing to do so. Even the bravest heart knows fear, and even the most hopeful among us has felt the sting of despair. Defeating despair and rising again is the challenge we all face, day after day. There are bad things in the universe, but surviving them and thriving is possible.”
—On Hope, Elenya Starweaver
He didn’t stir until the grinding gears of the opening...
2025-05-27 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“In times of crisis, it is permissible for the high council of the Empyrean to be summoned to a session outside of the usual scheduled hours. Such members who are capable of attending should take all measures to do so. Either in person or via secured communications, at their earliest opportunity. Those who fail to attend will not be permitted to cast a vote in the decision, though in extenuating circumstances, a proxy may be assigned. Such matters as can be defined as a ‘time of crisi...
2025-05-26 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Hey guys! This is a sneak peek for a new series of short form content that I'll be releasing on social media in the coming days and weeks! We'll be doing fun, memey skits for everyone to enjoy with those who subscribe here getting an early sneak peek! I hope you enjoy it!
Animation created by Herl Lara
Voice overs by Luke Daniels
2025-05-25 23:23:49 +0000 UTC
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“There is no crime higher than the summoning of an eidolon. Even when it has been achieved by accident, it is punishable by death in most cultures.”
—How To Be Ardent, Fal’Dulse
It was a bloodbath, but it was brief.
With everything over, a numb silence spread across the arena. At the periphery of his senses, the massive shapes that he now knew to be eidolons began to fade back down into the sands. Some of his friends began clustering around. Usually...
2025-05-25 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“There is nothing in the universe more loathed than the eidolon. It is a being of pure destruction, with no mind, no conscience, nothing that can be reasoned with. They destroy people, they destroy worlds, and they will destroy all of reality if given the opportunity. There is nothing more important than opposing them. They are evil. Not in the sense that they are in opposition to the ideals of good, but evil in the sense that they are incapable of even understanding such things. They a...
2025-05-24 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“The fundamental nature of all living things is broad and varied. But the fundamental nature of the eidolon is destruction. Whatever else it may be, whatever facets it has taken on, at its core it seeks to destroy all. It is for this reason that the eidolon is considered the enemy of all living things. Even those who lack the good sense to recognize it.”
—Fauna and Eidolons of the Outer Reaches, Smaven Pedritch
When the curved blades of death came this time...
2025-05-23 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Interconnectivity is at the heart of the art of magic. Each spell that is cast draws on the mana created by the world around it. Each resultant expulsion generates mana anew which goes on to influence the environment around it. If a fire burns for long enough, a region can be charged with its affinity. In the deep oceans, the floes of mana creep along, crushed beneath the terrible weight but massive all the same. What we create with magic begets what will be created with it in the futu...
2025-05-22 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“At its most basic, a battle of magic is like a children’s game. Each side lays out their cards, one by one, trying to secure victory before the other can find some advantage. Sometimes this can mean a battle does not need to be fought for the results to be predicted. Other times, it means the exact opposite.”
—Chaos in Action, Fal’Vaelith
Letting himself settle back on the floor again, Sylvas took his time going through the words of the teleportation s...
2025-05-21 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“Join the Ardent! The bonds of fellowship that you’ll form will last you a lifetime. Shame that lifetime will only be a few short years of active service before they’re all turned to paste.”
—Washout: Reject of the Ardent, Anonymous
Sylvas passed the bottle back to Kaya as the suns rose. “Vlashgahr still tastes awful.”
“It’s… an acquired taste,” she conceded before gulping another mouthful and making a wheezing sound.
“What if ...
2025-05-20 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“Power is what you make of it. There is no mage so powerful that the correct counter could not be composed by determined opposition, given time. So too is the fight with the eidolons. They seem unsurpassable, but there is one thing that must be remembered when faced with the hopelessness of fighting them. We are still here. If they could not be defeated, there would be no life in the universe.”
—On Hope, Elenya Starweaver
In that moment of realization, Sylv...
2025-05-19 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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“In the beginning, it is best for all to love you. They will excuse any cruelty and praise any kindness. But with time, love can be broken. It can sour and become hate. When the realization strikes that so much of who they are has become an adjunct of you, they will loathe you for it. You will face rebellion from those who love you when they are pushed far enough, and all the trust that love bought you will be returned in betrayal. Fear is different. Fear is honest. Those who fol...
2025-05-18 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“These things we hold to be self-evident: that each and every person should have access to magic, that each and every person should have the freedom to develop their magic as they see fit, and that each person should have the freedom to choose how they shape both their mind and body. Never shall be passed into law any restriction upon the advancement of a mage, nor any force used to direct their growth without their understanding and sane consent.”
—A Treatise on Prog...
2025-05-17 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“Darkness is not all that blinds. Those so obsessed with their own moral superiority overlook that their conscience is a shackle keeping them from greatness. More importantly, it is a shackle that renders them inherently immoral. If you care more for the manner in which lives are saved than actually saving those lives, you are a coward.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
As there were fewer contestants to get through, the gap between each recruit’...
2025-05-16 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“What is death? We call it a force, an act, a moment, but in truth, it is a process. It creeps in, step by step. The slowing of the heart. The asphyxiation of the brain. The cessation of chemical functions. Social death can occur long before physical death, or long after, depending on the funereal customs observed. Yet whatever death might be, it is something so potent it shapes the lives of all who are living and exists as an abstract force in the form of death affinity mana. There are...
2025-05-15 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“The subject of the afterlife is seldom broached in polite company. We speak of how the dead live on in our memory. Or how a necromancer might interact with the energies that the dead leave behind, but it is never considered politic to acknowledge that those energies are the dead themselves, and the place from which they have been called is somewhere that no amount of dimensional travel has successfully located or penetrated.”
—Beginning After The End, Laprodia Velmen...
2025-05-14 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“When we are faced with a problem that cannot be solved, that is the true test of our capabilities. Something so far outside of our understanding of things that it cannot be contended with, or something so integral to our beliefs that it cannot be confronted.”
—The Limitations of Magic, Albrecht Magnus
His second match of the day was against another mage from the Whitehall, one who he’d never come across before but whom Bael’s coaching had him we...
2025-05-13 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone!
The big day is finally here and I am happy to announce that the official launch of Starbreaker: Volume 2 is finally available for your reading pleasure! If you are new reader just joining us now and want to catch up with the series, or if you're an OG reader and want to continue supporting me and this series, then you'll want to hop on over to your platform of choice via one of the links below and grab your copy today!
2025-05-13 04:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“What is madness? We prize diversity of thought amidst those academics of the universe. Seek it out in all of its varied forms beyond those limits, yet when we are confronted with a worldview that does not align with what we know of things, we call it madness. Is it our own lack of insight and education that marks another as mad?”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
It was only back in the safety of the Blackhall that night, long after he’d spent an aftern...
2025-05-12 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“Where the duty of the militia member is always to whosoever founded their militia, and the duty of a mercenary is to whoever pays their bill, the duty of the Ardent is uniquely to the Empyrean. Not to any specific leader within it who has risen to power, nor to any faction with which they are aligned, but to the ideals of the Empyrean. To a universe in which all sapient beings can live in peace and harmony without fear. Small wonder then that those in political power loathe us. We serv...
2025-05-11 16:00:16 +0000 UTC
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“Through combat we are pushed to the limits of our ability. Through learning the limits of our ability, we can surpass those limits. That is all that needs to be said of the Ardent way.”
—Training Manual of the Ardent, Fal’Laehdra
Against all odds, Sylvas managed to turn the tables on his situation, the next half hour passing by in a barrage of questions, answers, and medical text, all of which filled the gaps that he had in his paradigm’s theories. Onc...
2025-05-10 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“Outside of the Ardent, we talk about downtime. Time when you don’t have to be performing at maximum capacity, when you don’t have to be ready to drop everything and fight Eidolons at a moment’s notice. Inside the Ardent, it isn’t a concept. Every moment that you are in the Ardent, you are ready. Every moment, from the day you start training to the day you die, you are either fighting, or preparing yourself to fight. There is no downtime when your enemies could destroy the unive...
2025-05-09 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“There is more that is not known about null-space than any other dimension that has ever been encountered throughout sapient history. It is as though its designation was also meant to describe all that we could learn about it. It is a place devoid all forces and natural laws. A place devoid of even the ever present thrum of mana. A dead-zone to all senses and sciences.”
—Null Point: An exploration of the unknowable, Belhild Jharglen
A murmur ran through the...
2025-05-08 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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