Jason looked at the rabbit standing nervously in the hall. His brow furrowed in thought as his mind started putting pieces together. The transformation zone, Healer’s missing gift, the rabbit construct he created in his soul space. Now, this rabbit. It was no construct; there was a soul in there.
It was only normal-rank. It must have been terrifying, crossing all those territories when ...
2023-08-07 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostG'day all. The chapters will resume tomorrow, but I wanted to make a post about some issues with billing some of you have had. Patreon has reached out to me about this issue and here is what they said:
An issue with a payment partner is causing a slightly higher-than-normal number of your patron payments to be declined by their banks. We've traced the increased declines back to p... 2023-08-07 00:21:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Barely seconds passed between the aura appearing at the edge of the territory and reaching the group. Only the gold-rankers had a chance to intercept it, but it avoided them with blink teleports to slam into Humphrey, bowling him over in the long savannah grass. Gold-rankers swarmed them, only for Humphrey to hold out a forestalling hand from where he lay under Sophie.
“It’s fine,” ...
2023-07-28 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJust a reminder that there won't be any chapters next week. I'll be on the other side of the country visiting my mum, along with catching up on the sleep I missed editing book 10. And probably doing my taxes. Yay...
2023-07-28 22:00:41 +0000 UTC View PostUndeath’s avatar moved through the lightning field in massive strides. As tall as the iron towers dotting the landscape, lightning peppered it to no effect. The magical electricity was more attracted to the avatar than the lightning rods. The undead behemoth reached the mesa in which the controls for the lightning were hidden. It was abandoned now, but electricity arced around the ring of tow...
2023-07-26 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostMahk Den Kahla found the messenger in front of him a worrying oddity. His mannerisms were bizarre, with none of the dignity he would expect of a messenger, especially a gold-rank one. Even his clothes were strange. Mahk had woken up in clothes not his own, but very much in the typical messenger style. This Boris Ket Lundi, as he introduced himself, wore clothes reminiscent of the servant races....
2023-07-24 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHere is book ten in full for all Patrons in both light and dark backgrounds.
2023-07-24 20:03:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe air was hot and heavy, despite the deluge of rain. A gold-rank messenger, Mahk Den Kahla, floated in the air, his aura pushing aside the downpour. That didn’t help visibility, the sky filled with a grey haze. He could only make out a handful of the countless massive stone spires that rose from the rainforest below like arms grasping at the sky. At the top of each spire was an ancient ruin...
2023-07-21 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostRick gestured to the illusionary map floating over the table like a hologram. It showed the bottom fragment of a circle, divided into territories.
“This is everything we know about the layout of the transformation zone,” he said. “We can make some guesses based on this, but what you’re seeing here is what we’ve confirmed.”
He gestured again and five territories the botto...
2023-07-19 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“I don’t like leaving it here,” Taika said.
“We can’t use it and we can’t take it with us,” Humphrey told him. “Our best move is to leave before it brings trouble down on us.”
Belinda and the two men were standing over a shimmering orb that had refused to enter either Humphrey or Belinda’s storage spaces.
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Item: [Stable...
2023-07-17 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCas Vin Baral signalled that he’d found them by firing a magical projectile in the air. When Kol Kelis Vel arrived, however, he was in a far from triumphant position. He was in an area with powerful ice energy, leading to trees white with snow and a large frozen pond. On that pond were two Cas Vin Baral’s, both of whom immediately started explaining that they’d been captured and they were...
2023-07-14 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostTL;DR: The story schedule will be paused for the first week of August and all of September. Patreon payments will also be paused for September and you will not be charged for that period.
Also, I'll be at Dragon Con this year.
I've mentioned this in various places, but this is the official announcement that I will be in the United States for the...
Belinda was huddled inside a hollow log as it floated downriver, banging off rocks. She'd conjured a plug at the open end to keep out the water and was back in her human form. Messengers were just too big. Her arms were curled around puppy Stash. Light came from the now-active ritual circle carved into the inside.
There was little chance of the gold-ranker sensing them through the interfe...
2023-07-12 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWith each territory Belinda's group claimed, the number of messengers in their group expanded. The messengers brought from stasis weren't abnormal like the elemental messengers of the soul forge tree, instead being ordinary, if rather confused. The gold-ranker, Kol Kelis Vel, no longer had a peer to discuss it with and had taken to using a silver-ranker instead.
Of the silver-rankers, Rel...
2023-07-10 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostNeil looked up at the sky as Dustin, Durrum and himself rode through the mud on a flat stone, courtesy of Durrum’s earth powers. He thought it might be sundown, but it was hard to tell when the blanket of black clouds made for a perpetual night. At least the lightning bolts were avoiding them, courtesy of the rabbit controlling them from the mesa.
“It was weird seeing a bunch of messe...
2023-07-07 23:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe brighthearts and the cultists had gathered under a humungous stone arch not far from the battlefield. It was the best shelter they had found while roaming the territory before the battle. There wasn’t enough room for all the messengers who had been left scattered around various lightning rod poles.
The space was large enough to fit all of the cultists and brighthearts comfortably. C...
2023-07-05 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostRain hammered from a dark sky, the light choked off by black clouds that turned day into night. The erratic flashes of illumination were unwelcome, coming as they did from the deadly strikes of lightning. Each stroke of lightning passed, leaving fresh victims and thunder rumbling in the dark. The flashes meant that no one adapted to the lighting conditions.
In this battle, the powers poss...
2023-07-03 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostNeil and Dustin shared a look as the anthropomorphised rabbit paced back and forth over the elevating platform, its low muttering punctuated by regular bleeping sounds.
“This is strange, right?” Dustin asked. “I know that we’re adventurers roaming through a strange unreality after battling an undead army deep underground to win a tree by breaking the universe, but…”
Dust...
2023-06-30 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostFarrah glowered as she reached for another handhold on the icy cliff face. The steam produced by the ice carried on the powerful winds blasting her was immediately carried off by those same winds.
“Oh yeah, let’s all just jump off this cliff,” she said bitterly in voice chat. “We can all fly.”
“How was I meant to know?” Sophie asked from the top of the cliff. Her fligh...
2023-06-28 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostI've been slack about being available for the weekly Q&A since I got into the back end of book 10. I'm getting back into a more relaxed routine now, so I'm going to be kicking it off again this week. I will be available to answer questions on discord in the weekly questions channel following the release of the mid-week chapter, starting tomorrow. That's 9am for me, but I don't know if I'll ...
2023-06-27 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe three-headed dog hadn’t been hard to take down with the gold-rankers Clive’s group had on hand. The creature dissolved into rainbow smoke almost immediately, leaving behind a basketball-sized crystal orb. Inside, motes of blue and orange light swirled through inky darkness. Clive was the one who examined it.
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Item: [Stable Genesis Core] (unran...
2023-06-26 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostFarrah wore obsidian armour, covering everything but her head. She flew down to join Jason and Sophie just over the bush canopy, rubbing her temples. All around them, the bush was aflame.
“There’s still plenty of them left,” Farrah said. “I’ll go again once I get some mana back. The lava cannon is fun, but not especially precise, and these monsters seem quite springy. I don’t ...
2023-06-23 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason slowly meandered along an empty street with shops to his left and the beach to his right. The ghost town wasn’t a true replica of his hometown but a nostalgic version of it from his youth. There was an Aussie rules football memorabilia store, several of which had cropped up, failed and closed as he grew up. He stopped in front of Mrs Kim’s Takeaway, a favourite before she sold up and ...
2023-06-21 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe main entrance to Jason’s mountain fortress was the mouth of Jason’s giant stone head. Inside was the central transport hub where three elevating platform shafts were set out in a triangle, giving access to the upper and lower reaches of the complex. Archways were set into the walls all around, one of which held an active portal. Filled with blue, silver and gold light, it led to Jason...
2023-06-19 23:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostRick Geller was not happy. He had no compunction about putting his life on the line to protect people; he was an adventurer and that was the job. He’d known that when he signed up and he’d lived that life ever since. But every time he was in the same city as Jason Asano, that job got extravagantly out of hand.
He knew Jason wasn’t causing these things, or even involved all of the ti...
2023-06-16 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAs a quick reminder, the livestream event will begin in half an hour, as of this post going live.
https://www.facebook.com/podiumaudio/events
Both in the underground realm of the brighthearts and previous transformation zones, dimensional powers had been tricky. Still floating in the air with his familiars, Jason tried opening a gate to his soul realm and was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked. A circle of milky white stone appeared in the air and was filled with rainbow light as the portal opened.
At least in the terr...
2023-06-14 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
TL;DR: Livestream event this week. June 14th, 6pm (US Pacific), 9pm (US Eastern). 11am for me, which is nice.
https://www.facebook.com/podiumaudio/
My audio publisher is holding a livestream event this week. It's on Facebook, apparently, which probably means I'll have to log into it again. A...
He was standing next to Gary, chatting in an oddly calm fashion given their presence in an underground necropolis. They both felt the surging disruption in the fabric of reality and Jason gave him a smile.
“See you on the other side, brother,” Jason said.
“Is this going to hurt?” Gary asked.
“I don’t know,” Jason told him. “You’re the first person I know to p...
2023-06-12 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is an early look at the cover art for book ten, coming late November.
Chapters will resume on the normal schedule next week.
2023-06-08 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post