Siobhan
Month 2, Day 26, Friday 9:00 p.m.
Wearing all the accoutrements and the blue-black iridescent hair of the Raven Queen, Siobhan rode in a nondescript carriage through the night streets of Gilbratha, accompanied by Oliver and a couple of the Verdant Stag’s most trusted enforcers. They were on their way for a meeting with a handful of University representatives.
“We gave them the location at the last minute,” Oliver assured her, perhaps picking up on the anxiety t...
2022-09-01 23:11:39 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 21, Sunday 5:00 p.m.
It took some time for the trio to return to the University, as Nat had been afraid to return home, and Ana took some time getting her settled.
To Sebastien’s surprise, they found Alec sitting on a bench not far from the transport tubes, his head hanging while one knee bounced rapidly. As they drew close, he looked up, his face slackening with relief. He hopped up and hurried over, his eyes searching her face as he fumbled in his ...
2022-08-25 22:56:08 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 20, Saturday 8:25 p.m.
Sebastien’s muscles were shaking with exertion and adrenaline by the time she and Damien reached the ground again. They raced across the manicured property and scrambled over the stone wall that bordered the manor, their forms magically obscured by the darkness. She stopped to look back while hanging over the far side of the wall, just to make sure no one had seen them. While they might not get arrested at this point, it could make t...
2022-08-11 23:00:27 +0000 UTC
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Hey guys!
A Binding of Blood is out there and available to purchase and listen right now!
The back end QA review and bookstore upload process completed more quickly than I've ever heard of or experienced, and took me by surprise. I expected it to be a couple weeks, but it's already done. (Except for on iBooks, which always takes a bit longer to propagate.)
Book 1 on Audible
Boo...
2022-08-10 17:58:43 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 20, Saturday 8:00 p.m.
One week after her day of spellcasting with Liza, Sebastien huddled outside in the biting cold of the evening, shivering her ass off for Operation Defenestration. She was less “euphorically excited” and more “stomach-churningly anxious.” No matter how much preparation they had done, it didn’t feel like nearly enough. She would have pushed the operation off further if Ana wasn’t so insistent and Damien wasn’t so foolishly ...
2022-07-28 22:44:18 +0000 UTC
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Siobhan
Month 2, Day 13, Saturday 8:00 a.m.
‘I wonder if I could have gotten Liza to pay for some of the supplies for this spell,’ Siobhan thought, looking down at the box in her arms, which held both the sempervivum apricus and the mandrake plant she had bought from a member of the secret meeting in exchange for her work in alchemy. She sighed. ‘It would have been worth it to try, if I had thought of it early enough.’
Siobhan had changed back into ...
2022-07-21 22:50:53 +0000 UTC
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A Binding of Blood's initial audio has been completed, coming in at over 23 hours of story.
Anyone at the Grandmaster of Divination ($25) tier or higher can get advance access to the initial audio, right now, before it goes live anywhere else.
And in case you missed it, that also includes the Codename: Moonsable short story set during the book, for an extra hour of story from Thaddeus Lacer's point of view, delving into secrets of the Red Guard and Aberr...
2022-07-18 15:55:50 +0000 UTC
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Gera
Month 2, Day 12, Friday 8:00 p.m.
Gera stood in the doorway to her son’s bedroom as Millennium sat cross-legged in front of a large hourglass filled with euphonic sand, his hands on his knees and his eyes closed. She kept her breathing light and her body still, so as not to unduly disturb his meditation, the ever-present divination that she cast allowing her to sense him as well as her ruined eye ever could have.
Every couple minutes, he let out a soft, musical hum, i...
2022-07-14 23:22:49 +0000 UTC
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Siobhan
Month 2, Day 12, Friday 6:30 p.m.
Siobhan felt surprisingly secure as she walked through the darkened streets of the Mires. Her new dowsing artifact was active, trying to find her through a piece of thread she’d pulled off her scarf. Her divination-diverting ward was blocking it quite easily, and simultaneously hiding her from more mundane methods of observation. The eyes of those she passed slid off her, their minds turning to other things when they might have wondered ...
2022-07-07 22:14:09 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 11, Thursday 10:30 a.m.
“I want to learn more about Myrddin,” Sebastien told Professor Ilma, standing next to the lectern as the rest of the students filtered out after the end of class. “I checked the library, but they have so many books about him, I don’t have any idea where to start. I was hoping you could give me some recommendations?”
“Are you hoping to focus on any particular aspect of Myrddin’s life, or are you looking for general ...
2022-06-30 23:53:41 +0000 UTC
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Damien
Month 2, Day 8, Monday 10:30 a.m.
Damien returned from a wonderful weekend visit to Westbay Manor—wonderful mostly because his father had been away, leaving just Titus and the servants—barely in time to make it to his Monday morning class. Damien brought back with him three things: news about the latest developments on the Raven Queen’s case, delicious treats, and a terrible secret.
As they went through their classes, Damien watched Sebastien with more care than...
2022-06-23 23:06:14 +0000 UTC
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Hey guys,
The first draft of A Binding of Blood's audiobook is going to be finished soon, (and that unedited version is going up exclusively for patrons to get early access to) and will require me to listen through it for any errors or necessary tweaks before publication.
Generally, while doing this, I can take the hours that are impossible to spend writing to do visual work like illustrating. In the past, I've worked on illustrations for the grimoire entrie...
2022-06-23 21:53:13 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 7, Sunday 12:00 p.m.
When Sebastien returned from the kitchen with a second cup of coffee—properly filtered—she joined him on the couch. “So what is this other thing we need to discuss?”
Oliver took a deep gulp from the steaming mug, letting out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “I met with Tanya Canelo yesterday. She was sent to negotiate on behalf of Munchworth and his associates.”
Sebastien paused, halfway through a bite of her toast....
2022-06-16 22:11:25 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 7, Sunday 8:00 a.m.
Finding a reference book for basic negotiation tactics in the library was easy. The more Sebastien read of it, however, the more she realized how right Ana was. She shouldn’t have accepted fifty percent interest on the loan Katerin gave her. That was just ridiculous, but Sebastien had given in without even really trying to negotiate because she felt like she had no other options. And look where it had gotten her.
She probably coul...
2022-06-09 22:41:19 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 6, Saturday 4:15 p.m.
After a late lunch, Sebastien sent Brinn and Waverly off to the supervised casting rooms without her, while she stopped by the dorms to pick up some books that needed to be returned to the library. She also took the time to check on the Aberrant string she’d found, which hadn’t changed in any way and was as inert as ever within its sealed vial. She returned it to its hiding spot with care. After sitting down to make all her plans ab...
2022-06-02 23:38:10 +0000 UTC
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Oliver
Month 2, Day 6, Saturday 4:15 p.m.
The team of enforcers doing their best to stand at attention in front of Oliver consisted of fifty percent new hires, all as green as the antlers that now graced their jackets like a badge. He sighed, spinning on his heels. “Mr. Gerard, if you would take command of this operation?”
The second of his two lead enforcers nodded, slipping on a pair of leather gloves and grabbing some battle equipment off the rack on ...
2022-05-26 21:26:33 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 6, Saturday 12:00 p.m.
‘I believe other people are real,’ Siobhan thought as she walked back to the dorms. ‘I know they have real emotions, desires, and their own stories about how they got to the place they are. But I have very little confidence in them, other than that.’
Using Professor Lacer’s thought exercise, Sebastien tried to imagine that the things Ana had said about her were true. Sebastien was sharp-tongued and rud...
2022-05-20 00:00:55 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 6, Saturday 10:00 a.m.
Sebastien didn’t flinch from the needle-like stabs of the artifact disks in her back as they began to suck up her blood. ‘I wonder if I will bruise, if they keep activating again and again under these tests.’
She stood in the middle of Professor Lacer’s office, where he had drawn a basic divination spell array on the floor in a thick, hard wax mix that resisted melting even with the power he pushed through it. It...
2022-05-05 22:41:40 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 3, Wednesday 2:00 p.m.
The excitement over the simulation chamber lasted through the lunch period, which Sebastien rushed through so that she could attempt to focus on a homework assignment. However, as she settled into her usual spot near the front of the Practical Casting classroom and waited for Professor Lacer to appear, her thoughts turned back toward the heavy weight of her problems.
Specifically, the fact that she was wanted by the coppers and w...
2022-04-29 00:29:21 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 2, Day 3, Wednesday 10:40 a.m.
That Wednesday, Sebastien arrived to the Natural Science classroom a few minutes early, hoping to squeeze in some of her History reading before class started. She had a new schedule to optimize her productivity. It wasn’t so much different from the old one, just more rigid and regimented, with less room for breaks, side projects, or aimlessness. It—along with the beamshell tincture—was allowing her to keep up with all of her cla...
2022-04-21 23:49:53 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 1, Day 31, Sunday 12:00 p.m.
As the first step in implementing solutions to her problems, Sebastien returned to the unused second floor classroom that she’d used to practice her divination. Even if she couldn’t trail Tanya personally, they still had a way to track her, using the bone disk in a different way.
While she set up the spell array and components for the mapping spell, Sebastien kept thinking. ‘If I could get the coppers off my back entirel...
2022-04-14 23:35:59 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 1, Day 31, Sunday 9:00 a.m.
Sebastien took her first dose of the beamshell stimulant tincture immediately after her first meal of the day on Sunday. She had eaten every bit of her food even though she wasn’t hungry and had actually started gagging little toward the end. This ongoing lack of hunger was foreign to her, since, despite the cafeteria food’s low deliciousness factor, her normal appetite usually left her feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the amount.
2022-04-07 23:55:06 +0000 UTC
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Oliver
Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 5:30 p.m.
Oliver froze, deliberately keeping himself from visibly reacting to Percival’s revelation. “You have a photograph of the Raven Queen,” he repeated.
Percival nodded, clutching at his left wrist as he stepped closer. “I got it that night a few months ago, when she fought against the Morrows from that old bell tower. That time was actually an accident, too. My camera confused the lightning for a flash and triggered on its own....
2022-03-24 23:12:29 +0000 UTC
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Siobhan
Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 4:30 p.m.
People were packed into the ground floor of the Verdant Stag like pickled cucumbers stuffed into a jar, shoulder to shoulder.
Once Siobhan got further into the room, some space cleared up and she was able to get away from the stifling crush. The heat from all the bodies made her warm clothing unnecessary, but she caught sight of a pair of uniformed coppers at one of the tables, and decided not to take off her hooded cloak. Sure, sh...
2022-03-11 17:24:06 +0000 UTC
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Alchemy is one of the few crafts of magic that really blends the ancient ways with the modern. While it has some drawbacks, it also has fantastic utility and allows weaker thaumaturges to compete on the basis of power, as long as they are well-prepared.
The full pdf is attached and can be downloaded, or the individual pages can be browsed here: https://www.azaleaellis.com/g...
2022-03-03 21:52:04 +0000 UTC
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Oliver
Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 3:30 p.m.
Oliver leaned against the inside of the door of discreet carriage he had appropriated from Lord Morrow. Through the carriage’s curtained window, which allowed him to see out but did not allow others to see in, Oliver noted an unusually large amount of coppers patrolling his territory, both the new and the old. He watched as a duo of coppers who had stopped a man on the side of the street, shaking him by his elbow and drawing angry looks...
2022-02-25 00:09:49 +0000 UTC
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I've had some questions and confusion about the monetary system in PGTS, and what certain prices really mean, so this digs into that a little. Please keep in mind that certain categories of goods, such as food, clothing, and imported goods follow a 1900's era equivalent pricing scheme, and are thus worth much more than they would be today.
I also keep price lists of common items or things mentioned in the story, but there wasn't time or space to really dig into much of that in ...
2022-02-18 00:35:33 +0000 UTC
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While it may seem simple and useless, Siobhan utilizes the gust spell to great effect a few times during the course of her adventures.
The full grimoire is attached as a PDF.
Author Note: As we're starting to build up a little library of pages from Siobhan's grimoire, I've set up a little section on my website for easy browsing through all the grimoire content. I feel like the layout and back end management are preferable to how Patreon handles images so I thought it might make th...
2022-02-11 01:11:35 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 1, Day 29, Friday 10:30 a.m.
Sebastien recognized one of the girls gossiping about Newton from Practical Casting. Some time ago the young woman had tried to flirt with her, hinting that Sebastien should buy her a gift from the offerings in the Great Hall with her contribution points. Sebastien had forgotten her name.
“But Moore always seemed so nice!” one of the girls exclaimed in a scandalized tone, leaning further into the huddled group. They had appare...
2022-02-04 00:32:18 +0000 UTC
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Sebastien
Month 1, Day 28, Thursday 1:45 p.m.
After a quick lunch, Sebastien left to see the overall mid-term results that had just been openly posted on the library notifications board. She was accompanied by Damien, Ana, and the other Crown Family group members, who she didn’t exactly want to call friends, but seemed to be spending more and more time with.
Sebastien was closer to the front of the rankings than she had feared, having gotten about ninety percent of the ava...
2022-01-22 01:21:42 +0000 UTC
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