Heidely-ho, patrons! Guess who reached a Patreon goal today? You guys did! Thank you so much for your support. I'm looking forward to chatting with you guys on Discord.
In celebration, we've released the first part of a new story set in the Curse Words universe -- a magical murder mystery.
https://havenstory975986403.wordpress.com/2019/12/08/raptur...
2019-12-08 05:16:20 +0000 UTC View Post
The three of us settled down on hastily de-papered chairs in Instruktanto Miratova’s office. Kylie and I had seen this before, but Max looked a little unnerved at the scriptural chaos around him. Quite possibly he’d never seen somebody use a teaspoon as a bookmark before.
Instruktanto Miratova herself sat opposite, imposing in her palace of books and papers. She certainly looked recovered. Her sharp eyes flicked between the members of Dorm Australia, resting on each of ...
2019-12-07 05:29:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“Huh,” Max commented.
I snatched for the ring, which just resulted in me slamming my fingertips against Max’s forcefield. I yelped.
“Give it to me,” I said.
Max didn’t. “This certainly merits some study.”
“Study? Study?! You know what that is! We all do! That’s fucking Simon’s fucking stupid fucking ring! What’s to study?!”
“I’m pretty sure none of us let Simon in here,” Kylie said, puzzled. “And why would h...
2019-11-30 05:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
There were more pieces of cauldron still embedded in the staff than I thought, and with a roar, they went everywhere, tearing gashes in Max’s neatly pinned notes and impaling themselves in his pillows. One piece slammed against the force field right in front of my nose. Of most concern was the piece that smacked Max right in the back of the head; he dropped onto his bed like a stone.
“Max!” Kylie screamed, hammering her fists on the force field separating us fr...
2019-11-23 05:29:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“They sent a nice man in a suit with a lot of paperwork, to explain it to us. He said there was a school, where people like me could learn to control their curses. They could provide funds to pay all my medical bills. I was too young to go to the school right away; it’s a curriculum designed for fourteen year olds and the minimum age they accept for cursed students was twelve. But there was a workaround – an apprenticeship, where I would be paired up with a full-time tutor ...
2019-11-16 04:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Talbot had not, of course, been in the gym at the precise moment I wanted to talk to him. That would have been convenient, and the universe just hates being convenient for me. Instead, because I couldn’t contact Initiated students through the intranet’s messaging system, I’d just kind of wandered around quizzing random craftspeople until I found one who knew Talbot, and asked them to pass along the message.
So it was on the last day of my week of promised silence that...
2019-11-09 03:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“They’re going to send me home, aren’t they?” Home to a dying Matt, the media, the trial hanging over my head.
“That’s very unlikely.”
“What? I can’t exactly stay here!”
“While Skolala Refujeyo have the right to cancel your scholarship at any time, they are not in the habit of expelling students outside of exceptionally dire circumstances, and no, ‘my spell might make some other spells weird’ does not count as a dire circumstance. Their...
2019-11-02 04:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
With a grunt of effort, Magistus pushed the bar up for the twenty fifth time. I caught the weight and settled it onto its rack.
“Woo! Told you I could do it.” He sat up and mopped the sweat off his face. “Looks like your arm’s healed. Why aren’t you messing around on your cliff?”
“Just because I can take that pissy little weight you were playing with doesn’t mean I can lift my own body weight yet.” In fact, my arm was better. I just didn’t think it...
2019-10-26 03:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“I know some magical theory,” Clara said cautiously. “Not much about curses in particular. What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m… mostly just confused by everything anyone’s said so far. This whole place is like ‘oh, hey, let’s violate the laws of nature, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, because spells are all different and magic is weird.”
“Ah,” Clara said. “Do you mind if I ask you to demonst...
2019-10-19 06:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
A few days later, I settled down in the library and started to write.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I can’t wait for all this stuff to be over. The sooner we can put all this behind us and move on, the better, I think.
Have they set a date for the trial yet?
About the holiday, here’s a radical idea. I’ve been getting into rock climbing recently. Is that something you two would be interested in trying? We...
2019-10-12 06:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The portal took us to the dormitory corridors, pretty close to our own room. We were well into what most of the student body thought of as ‘night’ based on class schedules, so managed to make it back to our dorm without having to explain to anyone why we were exhausted, mildly abraded and covered in sand.
Max was already asleep, which didn’t surprise me. Last he knew, we’d gone off to talk to another witch about witch stuff – a couple of hours in he’d probably f...
2019-10-05 06:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The room at the centre of the building was some kind of hall, although it was like no hall I’d ever seen before. It was about the size of a house, and completely circular. Stone benches stood in even rows, all facing a podium at one end of the room, but there was a space in the middle for… was that another well?
It looked like one; much bigger than the one in the entrance room. And on top of it, a dome of mirrors. It was quickly obvious why; in the ceiling above the wel...
2019-09-28 05:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post
The sandstorm approached both faster and slower than I expected. As we ran, trying not to stumble on the shifting sand, I thought, it can’t be like the movies, right? They make sandstorms come up really fast for dramatic effect. This’ll be slower.
It was, but not quite slow enough to let us make it inside the palace. By the time the two of us thumped up against the impractically massive wooden double doors only to realise, too late, that they were the kind that...
2019-09-22 05:52:32 +0000 UTC View Post
It was night on the island. A sliver of moon just barely outlined the distant waves in one direction and trees in the other; closer objects were illuminated by the fierce orange of a large bonfire built on the sand.
Talbot stood with his back to the flames, gazing out over the ocean (sunglasses even at night, apparently), his externalised spell tugging at his hair and clothing as usual. He hadn’t seen us.
“Hey!” Kylie called.
He jumped. “Oh. You came.”...
2019-09-22 05:49:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Ten minutes later, we were sitting by the waterfall, watching water rush and bubble down the stream.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. You okay?”
“Mmm.”
We were silent for a bit.
“I guess I’m used to the idea now,” I said. “I mean… it shouldn’t really matter, should it? We know what we have. We know what these curses can do. The whole spell and mage thing shouldn’t matter – it doesn’t change anything about us.”
“...
2019-07-06 04:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
“Our next guest,” Instruktanto Miratova announced, “is Lord Castlemaine of the Central Circle, who has taken valuable time out of his schedule to come here today.” She shot the class a scorching look that said louder than any words could ‘if you embarrass me, you’ll end up worse than my hand’, before opening the door.
Instruktanto Miratova looked, for the first time I’d ever seen, nervous. Several of the class, even the ones not from mage families, lo...
2019-06-29 04:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
When Instruktanto Miratova walked into class, it was hard not to notice the bright blue of Malas’ magic coating her entire hand, like she was wearing a disposable glove. I glanced at Kylie next to me, who shrugged.
I hadn’t seen either Kylie or Max since I’d stormed out on them on Friday, but she’d come and sat next to me without comment. Max was sulking over the other side of the room, sitting with some kid I didn’t know and not looking at us.
“All...
2019-06-22 04:10:54 +0000 UTC View Post
I woke up and stared at the unfamiliar wall for a few seconds.
Well, given the uniform design of Refujeyo dorms, the wall itself was quite familiar, as was the little desk and dresser against it. What was unfamiliar was the absence of all my stuff.
Right, new room. Because of the spell thing.
Well, at least it was the weekend, so no classes. And I knew that Max liked to observe consistent mealtimes, so if I went to breakfast right away, there was no chanc...
2019-06-22 04:08:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Paper crackled under my feet as I paced up and down the room. Kylie sat cross-legged on her bed, hugging her tablet to her chest, watching.
“It has to be a coincidence, right? Prophecy, evocation – those are pretty common words.”
“You really believe that?”
“We’d know, otherwise! It would have come up! Somebody would have told us!”
“Kayden, nobody here tells us anything!”
“Not here! Out there, in the world! My doctor’s b...
2019-06-07 18:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
“So mum was a Brandt, right? Well, I suppose that’s pretty obvious, given my startling good looks. This ain’t no Cottingly chin. I know, I know – a Brandt marrying a Cottingly, insane right? Everyone thought so. Her family disowned her and everything, and the Cottinglys only tolerated it because Uncle Nick had three kids already, so – oh, right, you’re new. Uh, we Cottinglys don’t do the Acanthos thing where our mage picks a successor from the kids. It causes way to...
2019-06-01 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
There was some level of awkwardness as we got ready for Magista’s party. Max glanced between Kylie and I, who were avoiding eye contact, but didn’t say anything.
“Now, remember to have a good time,” Max said with a glassy smile as he checked his hair for the twentieth time.
“Mm-hmm,” Kylie mumbled. “Big parties. My favourite thing.”
“I intend to have a fantastic time,” I assured him.
“Why doesn’t that sound reassuring? Okay, let’s...
2019-05-25 00:30:03 +0000 UTC View Post
We looked at Max. We looked at the butcher paper.
“How?” Kylie asked.
“I’ll overcome the transposable tag confusion by mapping on a Julian phase!”
“Which is what, exactly?” I asked.
Max explained. I counted two ‘transdimensional’s and four ‘n-phase’s before giving up and waiting for the explanation to stop.
“And that’ll give you a map of the school?” I asked, when silence reigned again.
“Possibly. It all depends on...
2019-05-25 00:27:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Through supreme effort of will, I managed not to jump and yelp like an idiot. Instead, I turned calmly to meet the person.
Who turned out to be two people. The one who had spoken was very short, barely taller than me, although she was at least twice as wide. She wore her orange mage robe like a cape, arms tied around her shoulders, over faded blue jeans and a t-shirt dyed in basically every colour that wasn’t part of the Haven uniform. Her blonde hair was cut to her jawli...
2019-05-10 23:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
The timing of the sunrise placed Skolala Refujeyo pretty close to the Greenwich meridian, but to be more specific was going to involve some complicated maths. Not for the first time, I missed the internet. Finding out where we were would be so damn easy with google. I could google the sunrise times around the world. I could google the plants in the valley, if I were clever with their descriptions. Hell, if I were really clever and did some research I could probably identify the t...
2019-05-03 23:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I found Max outside, in the valley we’d arrived in. He was watching the waterfall, standing just far enough back to avoid being splashed.
“So the mismatched corridor thing,” I said, coming up beside him. “The stone all looks pretty much the same to me; same coloured and textured walls and everything. Does it look the same to you?”
“I… suppose so? Why?”
“Well, I’m not a… stone expert – ”
“ – Geologist.”
“I’m not a g...
2019-04-26 23:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
As much as I wanted to figure out what was going on with my dorm, I had a maths class. I posted my letter, rushed in and grabbed a seat next to the only person in the classroom I recognised (Clara) seconds before Instruktanto Cooper strode in.
“So,” he said, not bothering with introductions, “none of you have studied algebra, correct?” He cast a glance over the sea of blank faces and nodded. “Then that is a reasonable place to start. Take out your tablets, please....
2019-04-19 23:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Mum and Dad,
Okay, it’s been over a week and I’m still alive. Do not Storm the Gates.
This place is fine actually. Weird, but fine. I’ve made a few friends and one of the girls is throwing a kind of getting-to-know-you party in a few days, so that should be fun. There’s actually only one magical class that my year level even take, so it’s not even like I’m just constantly surrounded by weird classes. Most of t...
2019-04-12 23:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Our first lesson at Skolala Refujeyo was Basic Magical Theory. I walked into the classroom two minutes before class to find that most people were already there and seated. Max was next to Clara, the girl he’d called too young for school, and Kylie was sitting with a girl in a hijab I didn’t recognise; I scanned the room for familiar faces who were sitting alone, immediately discounted the empty seat beside Simon, and took a seat alone near the front of the room.
I could...
2019-04-08 23:26:05 +0000 UTC View Post
It was actually going pretty well until the thing grabbed me.
I’d been pulling myself through the water with long, easy strokes, and then, suddenly, something was wrapped around my left ankle. My immediate thought was that I’d caught my leg on a bit of seaweed or something, but as I tried to kick it off, I felt it tighten and pull.
Then, of course, I did the most useless thing anyone can do in such a situation – I panicked. The thing pulled me under, and I kicke...
2019-02-02 10:00:47 +0000 UTC View Post
I tried not to panic.
There was nothing, I reasoned, to be frightened of. I couldn’t possibly be the first kid to wander off the path like this, so there must be procedures in place for this kind of thing. There was probably a tracking spell of some kind, right? Any moment, some mage would come gliding down the slope of sand with a fancy, magical-looking compass in hand, pick me up and fly me back to the path. Then give me detention or something, probably.
I w...
2019-01-26 07:45:33 +0000 UTC View Post