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Eight 5.31: The Missed Option

The fortress went into motion like a kicked beehive. The visiting builders were put to work patching up and returning the outer compound to a pristine state, while the lower-level soldiers washed every surface clean, and the same thing happened on the upper levels—the proud silvered seemingly willing to get down on their knees to scrub the floors until they shone.

Inspections happened twice daily, and there was a different security drill every day for three days running. And when the ...

Eight 5.30: The Beginnings of a Plan

Broken Tooth died about fifty yards from the fortress’s walls. Peeking out through the stone, I saw him go down in a flash of light. The Ray of Hope turned out to be meant literally; their team leader could shoot lasers from between his hands.

Burns and cuts covered the bull moose’s body; arrows jutted from his sides. A huge chunk of his torso had been blown away, and his back right leg was mangled like it’d been run through a grinder. How he’d made it as far as he had was aston...

Eight 5.29: Miniatures, Models, and Observations

The deadline we gave ourselves was two weeks, which was when the body intended for Baxta’s revival was expected to be delivered. The ritual might fail—it sounded like the previous attempts had—but we couldn’t risk the chance this one would succeed.

So, Fala built a replica of the fortress’s interior with Yuki’s help. She even created stone models of the soldiers that patrolled it. I, on the other hand, was instructed to create miniature versions of us out of water. The blobs...

Eight 5.28: Project Birthright

Baxta looked just like Amleila remembered him, with dark eyes accented by thick brows, a strong nose, and cheekbones so sharp you could cut stone with them. You might call him handsome, but only if you didn’t know his history.

At the moment, he appeared impassive, as if gazing on the restless passage of time without care. The Deer God and I seemed to be unnoticed.

Without a body, I didn’t feel the adrenaline rush of fear, but that didn’t make me immune to worry. I’d experi...

No Chapter This Week

I'm sorry, y'all, but it's been a bear of a week. A family thing came up on Monday, and then I had three straight 12-hour work days in a row. I hardly did any writing at all, so there won't be a chapter publishing tomorrow.

That's all done now, however, and I should be back on track to resume publishing on the 18th.

Eight 4 Coming to Audible May 27th

Hey y'all. I'm excited to announce that Eight 4: New Blood, Old Bones audiobook is coming to Audible, and the pre-order page is now available. We're also lucky to have Gary Tiedemann narrating once more.

The audiobook will publish on May 27th. For those who haven't read the blurb yet, it's below.

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Now sixteen years old, Eight is a fixture in both the Glen an...

Eight 5.27: Scouting the Way II

Fala may have lost her Ritualist talent when she became my beloved, but the knowledge she’d accumulated hadn’t disappeared along with it. She led me through the process, this time asking me to pay special attention to the way my spirit let go of its attachments to my body.

The hope was that by familiarizing myself with the process, I could speed it up and eventually learn to duck into and out of my body at will. Inspiration for the idea had come from the bishkawi spirit king in Slau...

Eight 5.26: Scouting the Way I

Author's Note: The audiobook for Eight 4 is publishing on May 27th. I'll share the pre-order link as soon as it's ready.

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The next day, we delayed our departure because of freezing rain. It was late in the season for such bad weather, but the temperature aboveground had dipped sharply overnight. I likely would’ve been fine, but Fala and the Deer God would’ve been miserable.

We ended up waiting until just after 10 AM to leave. The wet ground outside was like ...

Eight 5.25: The Crystallization of Purpose

The next morning, I grilled the innkeeper about the local merchants, expressing my dissatisfaction with how small-time their operations appeared to be. Afterward, Fala made sure she was overheard suggesting we move on to more-profitable, more-civilized towns within the empire. We had a license to travel and do business, so we should be taking advantage of it.

Then, an hour later, we walked out of Bashtencru’s west gate, tailed by a pair of men hurriedly chasing after us. Neither of th...

Eight 5.24: In the Lair of the Beast II

The safe’s interior was padded on all sides with a soft quilted fabric the color of ripe persimmons. Two slim journals lay inside, along with a mahogany box similar to the kind you’d keep cigars in.

Using a granite rod, Fala flipped open a journal to reveal pages filled with hand-written code.

Jackpot, I thought.

Fala nodded in satisfaction, and she transformed the rod into a hand to lift the journals out into the open. A second hand soon joined the first, so th...

Eight 5.23: In the Lair of the Beast I

The streets were dark and the air still heavy from the smell of meat butchered earlier in the day. Looking out the window, I saw a pair of patrolling soldiers, their lanterns bobbing as they walked past.

The common room downstairs was quiet. The inn’s staff had all gone to their beds except for a lone night watchman. He made his own patrol through the building and was seemingly more interested in our door than being wary of intruders.

I felt the Deer God’s spirit move through ...

Eight 5.22: The Sweet Scent of Interrogation

Sonasen and her crew knew their business—their woodcraft was solid and the area around Bashtencru was clearly familiar to them. They didn’t have the personality of Melwei and his people, though, and I found myself missing that band of misfits. 

Fala and I were mostly ignored. No one was rude, but my earlier feeling of being treated like cargo solidified. Very well protected cargo, it seemed. That night, we finally met two of the remaining members, and they were silvered like th...

Eight 5:21: A Sudden Escort

There’s a joke among Voorhei’s hunters: “The philosophers say the year consists of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but that’s because they don’t know the fifth season—mud season.” 

Well, I never said the joke was funny. What it was, was true. When Kana had anticipated the day’s journey as being a slog, he’d been right on the money. Our pace slowed to a crawl, with us going about a third the speed we would’ve on dry ground. The one saving grace was that the w...

Eight 5.20: A History of Holes

I had to school the expression on my face while on walking back to camp, otherwise I would arrive with a goofy smile on my face.

The others were just about ready to go, so my timing was indeed good. I grabbed my pack, slung it over my shoulders, and got into formation.

Next to me, Fala had that look that told me she was focusing on the network.

Yuki popped up among my thoughts to let me know: ‘The Deer God and she are introducing themselves to each other.’

Eight 5.19: Consequences Follow Choices

I reacted before I could control myself, throwing an unerring knife into the young bandit’s neck. Using my camera followed immediately after. 

Koorein (Human, Dawn) 

Talents: Knows What’s What, A Spear in the Back, Soft Steps, Diminished Presence 

Koorein let go of his spear to grab at his neck. Blood sprayed from between his fingers; the right carotid had been cut. Unless he had a counter to it, another ten second...

Eight 5.18: Sightseeing Along the Way

Author's Note: Just a warning that the chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

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The next morning’s travels went smoothly. The clouds to the north had moved on, so all we saw were blue skies and a few patchy clouds. Without any powerful creatures attacking us, we could’ve been hiking back on Earth, and I wouldn’t have known the difference, assuming I made allowances for the dolbecs and the superhuman stamina we all possessed.

At midday, I let the Deer God out to j...

Eight 5.17: The Torn Veil

A core materialized among Gergerol’s remains, a hunk of dark and silver that was about the size of a man’s fist. Fala picked through the mess to retrieve it.

The core pulled at my attention, because of course it did, but my authority drew me to the large outcropping first. My foot was still numb—my spirit frayed there—but it didn’t stop me from walking closer. The shape really did look like a twenty-foot gardening trowel.

At its base were a collection of stones, rounded ...

Eight 5.16: The Spirit King

I felt a drive to push farther into the hollow, yet I wasn’t willing to risk the skents turning undead. So, I moved from bird to bird to pull the cores from their bodies. The result was a collection of silver-speckled, black marbles, each about the size of half a jelly bean. The cores felt dense, though. They promised a healthy amount of light.

The skents’ ghosts had lifted free by then and were circling clumsily around me. The other spirits gave them wide berth. More than few glare...

Eight 5.15: Slaughter's Hollow

While the flora and fauna continued to stay the same, the hills began to stretch out into long, tear-drop shapes. Melwei took us over the shortest sections, cutting across to keep us away from the broader, flat area to the north.

My thought was that the colossal kalesk must’ve really spooked him.

As we moved, Yuki used it as an opportunity to talk about glaciation. They pulled the information out of my memory and pointed out how the shapes of the hills, the various ridges, and t...

Eight 5.14: Network Testing and Random Encounters

We met that night in my dreams in the main room of Ikfael’s shrine. Yuki had placed a garland of marigolds around the statue’s neck, and ripe plums sat in the offering bowls before it.

We began the session by enjoying a coffee cake with blueberry drizzle, along with some hot earl gray tea. Yuki’s share had been miniaturized, the tiny tea cup delicately held in their hands.

This was the night we planned to test the hidden mind’s capacity to safely disconnect someone from th...

Eight 5.13: Codes and Circumstances

Tru came back to the campsite with a satisfied smile on her face. Kana, though, held his side like he’d bruised a rib. Melwei immediately sat him down to apply Nature’s Spring to the injury and about twenty minutes later, the dolbec breathed a sigh of relief.

The actions of all three appeared to be well-rehearsed—something they’d done countless times. Wilaeina and Butrus just kept working as it had happened. They’d set up alarms at the camp’s periphery and unpacked our meals...

Eight 5.12: First Steps

The next morning saw our first rain shower in nearly two weeks. The rain fell for about an hour, signaling the end of the clear days we’d been enjoying. The air outside smelled of damp wood and mud, and the street below was dotted with puddles. I felt it whenever people splashed through them, almost like they were stepping on my own skin.

The common room downstairs was lively, the tables having been brought together so that people could eat communally from platters of grilled sausages...

Eight 5.11: The One Who Got Away

Author's Notes: One, I'd like to thank everyone for their well wishes. Both my wife and I are feeling much better now. And two, I making a small retcon to the previous chapter. It didn't make sense to me for Eight to be able to cast a spell on the flyer and not see that it was a giant goose.

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No new creatures appeared, but that didn’t mean we could rest easy. The goose hadn’t once stopped circling with us at the center of his flight path. The behavior worried me,...

No Chapter This Week

I'm sorry, but that bug turned out to be a nasty flu, with both my wife and I laid out for several days by it.

I'd arranged for the week off from work so that I could get a head-start on writing for the year, but I spent the entirety of it bedridden instead. I'm only just today starting to feel like a proper human being again.

Unfortunately, that means there's no chapter for this week. Barring anything unexpected, though, our normal publishing schedule should resume next week. �...

Eight 5.10: Seeing the World, the World Also Sees You

The journey to the Glen was uneventful, with the forest becoming less and less weather beaten the farther west we traveled. The one unusual encounter was with a blue-coated bobcat. I came across her in a sheltered hollow between two oak trees where she stood over the remains of an undead fire badger.

The gash along her hind quarters told me that she’d been the one to take it down. And now she stared down at the body. More specifically, at where the badger’s silverlight resided in th...

Eight 5.9: Prelude to Foolishness

Yuki set the scene: the two of us were in Ikfael’s shrine. The space was festooned with garlands, and to one side was a table laden with a punch bowl and a tray of cupcakes in a mixture of flavors. A large banner had been tacked to the wall above the table. It read, “Welcome Fala!”

There were no limits to what we could do in my dreams, so I chose to wear an outfit usually reserved for special occasions—a pair of striped trousers, a shirt in the colors of a sunset, and a leather ...

Eight 5.8: A Reason to Kill

The building stood in the middle of the street, surrounded on both sides such that it looked like a line of gnomes. The apartment itself on the third floor, and Mumu had left the door unlocked for us, the key in the lock. We’d hand it over to her when we met later.

There were two rooms inside, neither with windows, nor was there a hearth or any other amenities. By necessity, whoever lived here would have to depend on the city’s public ovens and street vendors for food.

As for ...

Eight 5.7b: Gearing Up

Fala pulled the knife from our Hoarder’s Pocket and let it fall to the ground, hiding it among the stalks of grass.

And also: Let’s try a blinked spear through the skull to see if that works.

Yuki acknowledged the thought and energized the Blink emulator. At the same time, I withdrew the worst of the new spears—the one from Bashruuta.

‘Side, back, top?’ Yuki asked.

Top, I replied, and the world shifted. I was above the charging bish...

Eight 4's Book Birthday

Today is the book birthday of Eight 4: New Blood, Old Bones! 🎉🎂🎉

Want to help spread the word about Eight's story? Please tell your friends and also consider leaving a review on the above page.

Your support means the world to me. Thank you so much!

Eight 5.7a: Gearing Up

Author's Note: This is the first part of chapter seven. That's all I could get done while also preparing Eight 4 for publication and spending time with family visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday. I'll release the second half as soon as it's finished.

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Silasenei presumably left the reeve’s residence as easily as she’d infiltrated it. I lost track of her presence once she was out in the hallway. We’d arranged to meet again at the town’s west gate the n...