I was gonna try and get out another few chapters, but i'm not certain if I'm gonna get them out, with family and such (and six inches of rain in California). So if I don't, marry Christmas, and remember, be a good girl and boy or Orb Weaver may come to visit...
2025-12-22 00:48:21 +0000 UTC View Post“You’re crazy!” Mindy said.
So much for keeping an open mind. I sent a little ball of glowing light to get in her eyes. “As crazy as that?”
“That’s… just a trick, some kind of electric…”
“Mindy. You saw how I heated the soup. You saw the dead walking.” I frowned. ”Why is this so hard to believe?”
“Other worlds, magic worlds...
2025-12-15 05:12:22 +0000 UTC View PostArmsmaster met me at the door to his lab.
“I apologize for the mess,” he commented. “The aftermath of… well, recent events has kept me busy.”
With that, I walked into the immaculate lab. I could…
There was a sense, the same way I could see the patterns of a beehive or ant colony, the way things moved in unison, that filled the lab. Tools racked, systems designed in...
2025-12-10 03:53:24 +0000 UTC View PostI am super late on this one, so as apology it goes free and the next two will be up tomorrow, hopefully.
****
The only other unblocked door that Cannibal Girl shows me opens up onto a big room full of books, at least according to her.
I didn’t hear anything beyond it, but I start working on the wards. I didn’t have the right materials, so this is a quick and dirty ...
2025-12-07 05:14:40 +0000 UTC View PostSchool went well, and I quickly changed, waiting for the PRT car to take me to the Rig. Just about everyone knew who I was, but…
The formalities had to be observed as I sat with Vista in the back of the truck.
“You’re working with Armsmaster?” she asked. “I didn’t think you were…”
“A Tinker?” I shook my head. “No, I’m simply assisting him. Some of our w...
2025-12-02 05:30:17 +0000 UTC View PostEvidently, loyalty ran through the stomach. Pretty soon the water was steaming, filling the air with the scent of broth. I figured I and Mindy would get our—
Nope. Nope, the kids got it all. Sort of like a bunch of short piranhas. It had been a long time since they had hot soup, I guessed.
I bent down and grabbed the still warm stone out of the pot and stuck it in my pock...
2025-11-30 08:05:08 +0000 UTC View PostTomorrow... but the next Orb Weaver probably won't be until Saturday night or Sunday, due to holiday.
2025-11-26 02:36:43 +0000 UTC View PostThe first day of school since my job in Boston had gone well. None of the Wards brought it up, and I wondered if Emily Piggot had told them not to. My debrief was short—the Bay had no local containment zones, so the need to recheck them didn’t apply to us.
After school, I’d taken a little trip to check out my bug reactors…
A very large number of them had small, unobvio...
2025-11-22 03:04:12 +0000 UTC View PostI opened my mouth. Please don’t eat me? Where are your parents? Young lady, that’s not appropriate?
I ran through all of the possible things I could say to the mob of kids, holding sticks and pointing them at me.
I suppose in an adventure saga I’d leap up and stop them, but… The only way I could do that would be to risk hurting the kids. I mean, seriously h...
2025-11-20 20:01:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe wind died down around dawn. The snow was piled up around the station, but I managed to force the door open and pulled my sled out, after making certain nothing was waiting for me.
I had one more heat stone, my two legs and…
Yeah. I’d better get to that town today. At least it’d have better shelter. Maybe people. Hopefully, no elemental possessed bears.
The f...
2025-11-19 04:44:57 +0000 UTC View PostNext chapter of Arcane Engineer will be up later tonight. This morning, me, being fit and in my mid-fifties, choose to lift a forty-pound box. Currently, my back is in great pain. I was gonna have it out this morning, but right now I'm going a little slow.
You know, I love these little reminders that my p;roduct liability phase is over...and I neglected to buy the extended warranty plan. ...
2025-11-17 23:02:46 +0000 UTC View PostWe stopped outside of Michael’s house. It looked normal. The silly welcome mat, the paint job that had a few missed spots, the car in the front.
I took a deep breath.
“The PRT can handle this,” Stimmons said.
“No. I promised them.” A memory flashed. How Dad looked after he’d gone with the police and come back. Almost someone who had been shot in the heart, only now...
2025-11-14 22:39:14 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I entered the room, the football team looked nervous, the cheerleaders confused. The parents all looked confused.
Excellent. I had expected that Jackson would let his friends know that I was a Thinker and I knew… far more than I should.
Well, at least as far as a teen was concerned. If I had been interviewing adults, or experienced criminals, I wouldn’t dream of su...
2025-11-13 23:53:14 +0000 UTC View PostBut... went to doctor. Had 3 root canals. one root evidently didn't get he memo that it had been hit by pain-bye-bye juice.
Not a fun time was had by all. So gonna take a day off.
2025-11-12 06:39:41 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning I got up, showered (it was amazing how much you could love a shower after days of having to be bathed), and did some low-impact exercises. There would be time for getting back in shape later, and I’d taken the rehabilitation sheet to heart.
It had nothing to do with all the “I told you soes” I’d hear if I ended back up in the hospital with a pulled muscle...
2025-11-10 22:32:32 +0000 UTC View Post"Is it gonna work?" Mandy asked. They were using her garage, and if Mom found out...
"Sure," Hank, the totally cool kid of Ms. Williams' 6th/7th grade class. "I heard that if you put a candle out and then breathe on a mirror, he has to do what you say!"
Soon, the ritual was ready. They had the pentagram, inscribed in red crayon (the book said blood, but ick!), and the k...
Seconds later, a set of big claws penetrated the metal of the doors and yanked them out. In the light of my spells, something loomed in the gap.
Teeth, matted fur… bones shining through, and a pair of eyes gleaming with greenish light.
Fuck! I jumped back. It wasn’t an unclean spirit; it was an elemental, probably born of the hunger of the animal.
<... 2025-11-09 06:30:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe store was dark, rich with the scent of fruit and bread. AT the end of the aisles was a grandmotherly looking women reading a news paper. Her eyes widened when she saw us.
“¡Tú eres la chica que luchó contra el diablo!”
“I—pardon me?” I said. I thought I knew but she’d been…
“The girl who fought the devil,” Stimmons said.
“Leviathan?” I said, ...
2025-11-04 22:54:31 +0000 UTC View PostI hated the interview.
Not because it was unproductive, it very much was, but it reminded me of the interviews with Timmis’ victim… Or that night when Mom had died.
Ordinary people, not parahumans, not trained officers, or hardened criminals, ordinary people with a joke welcome mat and pictures on the wall… and hoping they could wake up from this nightmare.
I had nothing...
2025-11-04 06:19:07 +0000 UTC View PostI release two days after publishingh were but would people be okay with releasing this episode of orb weaver a day early for Halloween?
2025-10-31 22:29:30 +0000 UTC View PostAgent Stimmons was an older man, walking with a slight limp. He met me at the arrivals terminal, and looked around.
“We have a secure place for your to dress,” he said.
Granted most people knew, or at least those in a position to care, but the formalities had to be observed. I nodded. “I’m ready. I had to leave much of my equipment back home, but this is an investigation so ...
2025-10-30 19:02:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun started to go down and I was still on the road. It turned out that a casual walk in a snowy field on vacation was a lot easier—and slower—than trying to push yourself on a highway littered with the snow covered dead.
Little flurries of wind were picking up, some of the trees cracking as ice-laden branches broke and fell.
I needed to get to the city, or find shelter again...
2025-10-30 03:37:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe PRT booked a business flight up to Boston. I could have taken the bus, but they insisted. And then the flight attendants, quite coincidentally, upgraded Taylor Hebert, ordinary student, to first class.
Yes, I think I could safely assume that “The Investigator” was about as open a cape as you could imagine.
On the short flight over, I took time to look at the information the ...
2025-10-27 22:37:20 +0000 UTC View PostNote, this occurs during the investigations arc, but it's a "one off" story, like a lot of the old pulp issues that were a short story separated out from any larger plot threads. The first chapter goes up on both Patreon and here at the same time.
*****
Going through my fan mail (!) was both intimidating and... odd. Me? An object of adoration? The PRT screened out the... odder...
I headed out at the first crack of “dawn” the sun still more or less obscured by the clouds. Even accounting for that, it seemed oddly dim compared to back home.
But I shouldered the ropes, and started out, the sound of the sled’s runners mixing with the crunching of the snow under my feet, the improvized snowshoes doing a good job.
“Right,” I muttered. There was a fence l...
2025-10-20 06:57:48 +0000 UTC View Post
For sorcerers and snow. initial terribad sketch by me, the rest by the abominable intelligence.
2025-10-18 04:58:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe Unquiet Dead.
In the known world, most civilized nations cremate their dead, either with or without a viewing period. That is because of the Unquiet Dead. Ranging from sapient and malevolent such as Eaters, to simple creatures of hunger, the Unquiet dead are noted for rising solely from sapient beings (although mages can animate other bodies).
In general, few sects believe that ...
2025-10-16 20:09:00 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I got back home I was tired but… jittery.
Dad was camped out in the living room, like he expected me to make a break for it.
Ridiculous.
Neither Coil nor the ABB were currently the kind of group I could go after immediately. But—
I blinked.
An Email from Greg on my Investigator account. It had only been a few days and—
Holy Shit. Three hundred ...
2025-10-16 07:24:42 +0000 UTC View PostSeveral hours passed and the snow fall and winds slowly started to decline. Better, the darkness around the covered windows started to vanish.
I pulled out my watch, a gift when I’d first become an apprentice, the best, spell reinforced steel and springs. I knew when I’d been sent here, and it was getting dark so…
The day/night cycle was close to what home was like, so no thir...
2025-10-13 07:21:01 +0000 UTC View Post“I don’t believe she’s a thinker, at least not as some are seeing it.” Dr. Lori Manstern was an older Woman, actually a contemporary of William Manton, but where that vanished man had focused on powers, she focused on the minds behind those powers.
The fact that she was here spoke volumes about the importance of Taylor Hebert.
“Her abilities seem to say otherwise...
2025-10-11 05:42:18 +0000 UTC View Post