ericdontigney

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 5 - The Wilds, Part 1

Cultivator Feng wasted no time, walking directly to the town’s western gate. It wasn’t a direct path to the mountain, which Sen knew to sit north of the town. Yet, there was no Northern gate. East or West, those were the only choices. For all that Sen spent most days on his feet, and all that the cultivator looked to be keeping an easy pace, the young man struggled to keep up. He found himself almost running in the cultivator’s wake. He worried about what might happen once they left the...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 4 - Leavetaking

It took a couple of days before Sen found himself once more at Grandmother Lu’s door. He never came during the day, so even he was a little shocked at how run down her little hut looked in the sunlight. At an impatient noise from Cultivator Feng, Sen roused himself, reached out a hand, and knocked on the door. Then, he stepped back and waited. Sen worried that the cultivator might grow impatient, but the man seemed content to simply stand there at the door for however long it took. After se...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 3 - Luck?

The mayor and all of the nobles stood straight again. Sen found a bit of grim amusement in their looks of discomfort. The mayor was fat, his belly straining the confines of the robes he wore. Supposedly, he’d been some kind of a warrior in his youth, but Sen found it hard to believe based on the sweat trickling down his face. Yet, all of the nobles looked strained, like they expected a disaster to fall on them at any moment. He decided that he couldn’t fault them for that. Cultivators cou...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 2 - The Cultivator

Grandmother Lu woke him early the next day. Very early. The sun wasn’t even really up yet, just the barest suggestion of light on the horizon, but Sen didn’t really mind. He had been given shelter for a night. That was more fortune than most of his ilk enjoyed. He simply bowed to Grandmother Lu and took his leave. There were places where he might find food if he was quick enough. Not the kind of food that would stay good until night, but something that might keep his stomach from aching u...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 1 - The Escape

As he ran, Sen felt the burn deep in his legs and in his lungs. He could hear the shouts of the noble boys behind him, close, always too close, and tried to run even faster. Sometimes, he could get away. He hoped that today would be one of those days. He clutched the precious burden in his arms as tight as he dared. Not too tightly, or he might damage it, but tight enough not to drop it. His long hair whipped into his eyes for a moment, obscuring his vision. He prayed that no one would step i...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 40

I had to work hard to suppress the grimace I wanted to make when I first saw Mateo. He looked tiny, the expanse of hospital bed simply dwarfing him. His pallor was washed out. The dark rings under his eyes made him look older, more careworn, and the cast on his arm looked uncomfortable. I’d broken a few bones along the way, so I was sympathetic. Gran had sped along my healing when training accidents occurred, but she was far less understanding when my youthful recklessness left me injured. ...

What's in the Works?

So, I've recently come back to the Patreon with the intention of giving it a more serious go. That started with uploading a lot of chapters of an urban fantasy novel that is a work in progress for me. I've been posting these chapters over on Royalroad as well, mostly to see if they'd get any traction. Much to my delight, they have generated some modest traction if the chapter view numbers are to be believed. 

Recently, I've also decided to try my hand at writing a Xianxia-inspired ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 39

The cop looked down at Gabriella’s hand in mine for a few seconds and then, much to my surprise, about ninety-five percent of the suspicion in his eyes evaporated. He even gave me something of a rueful smile. Held out his hand toward me.

“Detective Lindsey,” he said. “Sorry if I came off a little hostile there. We have to be careful when men turn up in situations like this.”

“Situations like this?” I asked.

My mind was whirling. Could they already know that Geo...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 38

I’m sure it’s not a universal opinion, but I consider visiting a hospital as one of those things best avoided by anyone with even a touch of spiritual awareness. While it’s undoubtedly worse in places like prisons and war zones, you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in civilian life where there is so much concentrated pain, suffering, and unhappiness. Even worse, most hospitals stay open for decades. So all of that misery seeps into the walls, the floors, the very atmosphere of ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 37

I gave everyone a carefully edited version of events. The ultimatum I gave George and the merciless beating that followed got glossed over as a fight. Bill looked away and kept his face in a ruthlessly neutral expression. Jessie cocked an eyebrow at me, but let it pass. They’d both seen evidence to contrary. Annie still gave me a look of profound disapproval. It was clearly something we weren’t ever going to see eye-to-eye on. I cringed to imagine what her reaction would have been to the ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 36

I expected the drive back to Gran’s to feel like a long journey. Yet, I’d been so caught up contemplating my conversation with Carter and vaguely dreading the inevitable questions George’s absence would trigger that I was absentmindedly parking the car before I realized the drive was over. Granted, I hadn’t actually killed him, but that was a technicality. I’d taken him out there with the express purpose of killing him. If Carter hadn’t shown up when he did, I would have done it. ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 35

Carter sat in pensive silence for a moment, perhaps to gather his thoughts. Then again, he could have been thinking about what he’d order for dinner later. He offered me a thoughtful look before he spoke again.

“What’s your name? Seems like I should know your name if you’ve decided we’re enemies.”

I shrugged. “Jericho Lott.”

There was another moment of quiet as he seemed to roll that around in his head. “It’s not your real name. But it’s real enough. Al...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 34

Surprises are part of the game when you live in the magical community. There is always some new variation on a power or some player you didn’t see coming. You get used to it and even learn to prepare for those moments. You train, study, and lay in bed at night trying to imagine what new craziness someone might throw at you. Yet, nothing had prepared me for Carter to just appear in the middle of nowhere. I could imagine how he might have tracked and followed me. None of those methods would h...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 33

As a general rule, I don’t consider myself a vengeful man. I don’t sit around and plot the downfall of my enemies or fantasize about ending their lives. It’s a lot of effort to keep that kind of hate rolling along for weeks, months, or even years. Especially when you’ve got no guarantee that you’ll get to actually take your revenge, be it served hot or cold. Once I had George safely stowed in the trunk, though, I realized that I had been plotting vengeance on him. It wasn’t a cons...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 32

You can do a lot of spectacular things with magic. Some of them are even useful in the right circumstances. Most of the time, though, the most useful magics aren’t spectacular at all. There are no towering pillars of fire or gale-force winds, just a slight nudge of the world to set you off in the right direction. It’s sympathetic magic. The linking of related objects. It only took a moment and a word to link George’s coat in my car to the real George, wherever he was at that moment. I f...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 31

I rounded the corner and almost fell over as I stumbled to a stop. The diner was fine. There was no sign of Carter. What I did see was so much worse. Gabriella was sitting on the steps her arms wrapped around her brother in mute defense. One of her eyes was swollen shut and blood was leaking from her bottom lip, a steady drip, drip, drip that landed in her brother’s hair. My eyes dropped to the boy who was sobbing softly. He was cradling one arm to his chest and the side of his face looked ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 30

A hush fell over the room as we all looked over at Annie. It was obvious, and I had overlooked it. By the expressions on Bill and Jessie’s faces, they’d overlooked it too. I suppose we could all be forgiven for the oversight. I always worked alone. I assumed the same was true for Bill and Jessie. None of us were used to thinking in terms of teams. So, the expedient of simply calling in more support never reached the top of our respective decision trees. Apparently, Annie read our expressi...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 29

Nobody said anything for a moment when Bill and I wedged ourselves into the overcrowded living room. Annie sat on the couch and visibly shuddered when she looked at Uncle Bill. I frowned at her and wondered if there was some kind of history there. Jessie looked at the two of us with curiosity. Maybe she was surprised there wasn’t any obvious blood on me or Bill. Based on how she’d all but run out of the room, she’d certainly expected it. Gran looked ever more tired, as though the day’...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 28

For a moment, my emotions cartwheeled with such intensity that it felt like I was falling. He knew who my parents were, and he’d never told me. All the hopes and dreams that I’d bottled up so long ago burst free. Parents were such a basic fact of most people’s lives and such an empty void in mine. I had no memories of them. No flickering images of a mother or father to lull me to sleep when I’d been alone and afraid. There was just a hole in my head where all that love was su...