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Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 10 - Errands and Updates

Elijah lay beside Sadie, his fingers tracing the line of her latest scar.  Before she’d decided to delve into the Primal Realm known as the Eternal War, her skin had been smooth and unblemished.  She’d endured plenty of injuries in her time, but none had been so terrible that they’d left visible remnants.  Such was the advantage of magical healing.  But now there were a handful of such reminders decorating her body, evidence that magic was not always up to the task.<...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 9 - Conquering Hero

When Sadie had entered the Primal Realm known as the Eternal War, she’d had ten thousand people behind her.  Now, nearly half of those people were dead.  At last count, they’d lost three thousand, nine hundred-and-eight-two people, and there were a few hundred who wouldn’t make it much longer without the attention of a talented Healer and quite a lot of luck. 

Magic was a great tool, but there were some injuries it just couldn’t heal.  Sometimes, the body jus...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 8 - Delivery

Carmen bent down, her face only an inch from the surface of the metal, as she inspected the engraving.  Courtesy of Precise Eye, she saw every imperfection as if she was looking at it under a microscope.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t use it while actually engraving.  She had neither the extra ethera to power it nor the ability to split her focus so cleanly. 

But she was working on the latter.

Over the past few months, she’d spent a few hours out of each day ...

Chapter 705 - The First of Seven Temples

Talia stood at the head of the boat, her stomach twisting in knots as she saw Zeke disappear into the void.  She knew he would come out just fine, but still, she worried for his fate.  After all, he was on his way to challenge a greater god on his own turf.  That wouldn’t end painlessly. 

That was why her mission was so important.  So, she looked back at the kobolds who’d filed into the boat next to her.  There were two dozen of them, then many times mo...

A Plea for Support (not a chapter)

I've mentioned this before (regrettably), but there's a certain type of person that will read the first few chapters of this series and become enraged at the inclusion of a lesbian couple. Or maybe it's the nervous banter that makes them angry (though given the climate, I'm guessing it's "anti-woke" sentiment). A couple of those people have reviewed the first book on Amazon, which dropped the overall rating from 4.9 to 4.8. Not a big drop, but an annoying one, given that it's motivated by big...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 7 - Catching Up

“He really is damaged, isn’t he?” Carmen said, mopping sweat from her forehead.  “Like a lost puppy.”

“A lost puppy that could probably level this entire city if he wanted to,” Elijah pointed out as he sat in Carmen’s office.  The décor was eclectic, reminding him of a mixture of what he might find in mechanic’s shop and an academic’s office.  On one side of the room, taking up most of the wall, was a giant chalkboard, scrawled upon which were dozens ...

Chapter 704 - Incursion

“How much longer?”

“A few hours,” was Iris’ response to Zeke’s question.  Her attention never wavered from whatever she saw through the grey mist.  Zeke had learned that she had some skill that let her navigate the void, but she’d been unable to adequately describe what it allowed her to perceive.  “Then fifteen minutes for you to reach the planet.  Incursion will not be pleasant.”

Zeke nodded.

That was within his expectations after his ...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 6 - A Dose of Civilization

“And that’s the frozen glade,” Elijah said, grinning as he watched the dogs chasing foxes in circles around the Frozen Oak.  All except Sophie, who looked on impassively, almost as if she disapproved of her packmates’ antics.  Perhaps she did.  Either way, it was clear that none of the dogs really wanted to catch the other animals.  They were just playing. 

He hoped the foxes realized that.  They were at a distinct disadvantage, given that they were...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 5 - Paradise

Oscar was drowning – not in water, but rather, in the dense sea of ethera that hung so thick in the air that it felt almost solid.  It was invigorating and suffocating, both in equal measure. 

But the dogs loved it.

He could feel that right down to his core. 

As Oscar steadily swam toward the island, Escobar pranced a few feet above the waves, leaving tiny flaming pawprints in the air.  Freddy leaped free of the ocean in an attempt to knock the chihuahu...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 4 - Return

“What are you doing?” came Oscar’s voice from the other side of the room.

Elijah looked up to see that the other man had cleaned himself up – at least a little.  His hair was still matted and unkempt, and his beard fell to mid-chest.  But he was at least clean, which was a nice change of pace.  Over the course of the Primal Realm, Elijah had grown accustomed to the man’s smell, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the lack of musky odor. 

N...

Chapter 703 - Between Universes

Layers.

That was the word that kept popping into Zeke’s mind, though he couldn’t really understand why.  Certainly, the notion that reality was comprised of one tier after another wasn’t new.  He’d known it since the very beginning.  But what truly baffled him was that he’d never before considered what lay between those layers. 

They didn’t abut one another.  They weren’t truly connected, either – except by the routes to ascension.  An...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 3 - Built For It

Gun’s name was well-earned.

Technically, he was Gunnar Lindstrom, but even going back to his middle school days when he’d preferred to spend his days out in the woods and hunting whatever he could find, everyone had called him Gun.  It was fitting, considering his immense talent as a marksman. 

Or obsession, as had been the accusation from almost every girlfriend he’d ever had.  They would complain about the hours he spent at the range, all the times he’d le...

Chapter 702 - The Void

“You might not want to stand so close to the edge,” came a voice from nearby.  Zeke turned to see Tucker leaning against the deck’s inner railing.  Improbably, he still chose to dress like a stereotypical pirate, complete with a tricorn hat, long coat, and downturned boots.  He’d even added a cutlass to the ensemble, though Zeke suspected that it rarely saw any real use.  Tucker was a lot of things, but a melee fighter wasn’t one of them.  “There are thing...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 2 - Structure

Elijah nearly stumbled as he stepped through the portal and back into the real world, largely due to the incredibly sparse ethera in the area.  The sharp decrease in ethereal density stole his breath, leaving him feeling like a fish out of water.  It was like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. 

And it only took Elijah a few moments to recognize the cause, though he did pause to question why he’d never noticed it before.  When he asked for Osca...

Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 1 - An End to Apathy

Nara Eski tel’Amoris sat on the beach, staring out across the waves at the world she had adopted as her own.  She could feel everything around her – at least within a few feet – courtesy of One with Nature, and the sensory overload was nearly enough to spill across the partition in her mind and into her thoughts.  She maintained the separation, though not without focus.

Such was the plight of a Druid with no grove.

It wasn’t just a loss of power, though it was th...

Path of Dragons 9 - Chapter 93 - Emissary

Miguel leaped backward, using Protection of the Forest.  A giant hand of twisted roots and mud erupted from the ground, wrapping its six-fingered grip around the troll.  It squeezed – not nearly hard enough to kill the durable creature, but with enough pressure to keep it in place.  Aiding in that endeavor was the viscous mud itself, which clung to the creature’s fur and bound its struggling limbs in place. 

Trusting the spell, he whipped around, activating Bite ...

Chapter 701 - Trauma Dump

Zeke sat across from Talia, his elbows on his knees as he stared intently at her.  Only a few feet separated them, but to him, it felt like an eternal gulf stood between them.  For her part, Talia remained silent as she stared at the floor.  Anxiously, she picked at her fingernails.  Currently, they were only a quarter of an inch long, but with a thought, she could extend them nearly a foot. 

She didn’t.

In fact, with the way she was acting, she didn’t...

Path of Dragons 9 - Chapter 92 - The More Things Change

The rest of the trip back to Stillstone was representative of what they’d come to expect from the desolate landscape.  Elijah wasn’t certain if they’d killed all the native beasts in the area or if they’d simply fled the destruction.  But the end result was that the eerie emptiness continued.  Because of that, they made good time, though the raiders were uninterested in camaraderie.  In fact, they remained a few hundred yards behind Elijah and the pack, eyeing them...

Chapter 700 - A Plan of Attack

Zeke clenched his fists as he stared out at the battlefield.  Initially, he’d thought that the fight had been fairly one-sided, with his people coming out on top.  However, when Simeon fled, his army had gone wild.  That increased ferocity had claimed multiple lives before Zeke could even respond. 

Once he’d stepped onto the beach, the battle had turned.  The lesser gods – no matter how numerous – were incapable of truly harming him, though they certainl...

Path of Dragons 9 - Chapter 91 - Scourgedrake

The first thing Elijah felt upon the completion of the spell-driven transformation was that the new form was roughly bipedal.  Not like his human or cindrandir forms.  It took a moment for him to recognize the difference, but when he did, he couldn’t contain a smile.  Or that would have been the case if his new form was capable of such an expression. 

It wasn’t.

The body was that of a velociraptor, though with a few key differences.  The first – and ...

Path of Dragons 9 - Chapter 90 - A Changing World

A quick announcement first...

We didn't quite reach the ranking goals in the first day, but I think that can be explained by two factors. First, I honestly didn't expect to reach either of them. It hoped, but this story has always been a bit of a slow-builder. It never reached #1 on Rising Stars either. So, the expectation was that it would be popular, but not quite Top-500 popular. It hit that mark.

The second reason I ...

2025-05-07 15:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post