I stood on the main street, the Adventuring Guild at my back. The Royal Bank sat behind Veyron, closed like a Steel Scuttler withdrawn in its shell.
I spun Roq in my hand.
The nearby townsfolk and adventurers had gathered around us at the promise of a duel between adventurers. It wasn’t something you could see every day, especially in a place like Dawnwatch. I sp...
2025-05-28 21:45:10 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m impressed at your self control,” Eryn said to Knut as I opened the door to the adventuring guild. “I checked my stats as soon as I woke!” she continued.
“Want to share surprise,” Knut said. “View with family. You all part of me and journey to breakthrough. So only fitting.”
I grinned and waved at Madeleine who was still at her desk despite the late hour....
2025-05-27 23:31:46 +0000 UTC View PostI stood in Knut’s room looking down at him, listening to Roq and Arclight talk of how we were going to turn him into the perfect tank.
“Bones, Ash!” Roq said. “We start with the bones. Make them denser, thicker. Like steelhusk trees rooted in the earth. A skeletal fortress!”
“Indeed,” Arclight agreed. “Increa...
2025-05-26 23:27:00 +0000 UTC View PostI stretched and grimaced as muscles, overworked and abused, screamed in protest. The Timberline’s backroom was filled with the fruits of our labour. One and a half days of intense forging. There were brand new sets of armor, weapons, and a few trinkets.
Knut was inspecting the edge of one of the axes Pa had forged for felling steelhusk trees. Torsten sat slumped against a stack of...
2025-05-23 08:07:39 +0000 UTC View PostI held the door to the Timberline open, and Eryn smiled as she stepped past me. The tavern was packed tight as a crate of horseshoes and noisy as five smithies in a hammering contest. A minstrel tucked into a corner strummed away at his lute, but it was barely audible above the crowd. That is, until Eryn crossed the threshold and a hush rippled through the crowd. The minstrel’s music faltered...
2025-05-22 20:05:27 +0000 UTC View PostI stood on one of our chairs in front of the unlit fireplace. The weight of Quarris’s black crystal crown was substantial yet comforting. It was heavier even than if it had been made from steelhusk, and it was cold in my hands. I stared up at our trophy wall. It was slowly becoming impressive. Proof of the adventures we’d survived.
“A bit to the left,” Eryn said, “And up a bit....
2025-05-21 19:11:10 +0000 UTC View PostI smiled as Pa slapped a hand on the giant carcass’ chest. It echoed with a resounding thud against the giant chest.
“Let’s start with this, because it has several sets of heavy plate written all over it,” he said, his voice brimming with excitement. “How tough was the crystal, son?”
“Our weapons barely chipped away at it,” I said. “Though it suppressed our passive...
2025-05-20 20:34:38 +0000 UTC View PostWhen we entered the adventuring guild, a shared exhaustion fell over us like a shroud. We’d agreed on the way to the debrief. Our faces were grim and demeanour serious. Not a hint of our triumph showed.
Not yet.
Harold, Vos, Corwin, and Mara’s expressions were unreadable as we filed in one after the other. A few other adventurers were scattered about the main hall, their c...
2025-05-19 21:01:16 +0000 UTC View PostAnd here we go!
----
“Edwin?” I asked, rising but already moving towards the hole in the wall. I shot Ming and Alex a glance, too, just to check they were alright. “What are your orders?”
“Chase!” Arclight snapped. “The prey cannot be allowed to escape!”
The commander was already back on his feet, and looking among his t...
2025-05-16 18:45:52 +0000 UTC View PostHere we go! Thanks for your patience :) Chapter 55 should come out later today or tomorrow.
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More and more energy flowed from my core and into Roq as Hammer To The Face charged up, and he glowed a deeper and deeper purple.
“It’s working! It’s working,” Roq shouted in my mind, sounding even more excited than when we took on this mission. ...
2025-05-16 05:47:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Heya!
I'll drop today's chapter tomorrow and then tomorrow's either then or Saturday, because I flew Asia-Europe yesterday and got the drafts done and Cassius has done edits but I'm too knackered to read through the edits right now (just finish drafting tomorrow's chapter) and these two are big ones! (4500 words and 3500-4000)
Apologies for the inconvenience, but I think it'll be w...
2025-05-15 19:05:08 +0000 UTC View PostI stood just inside the tunnel, looking at Quarris’ throne chamber. Four crystalline pylons rose in a square formation at the edges of the room, each as thick as a steelhusk tree and easily three times my height. It was the figure seated on the dais in the center of the room that commanded our attention.
Up close, Quarris, the Crystalkin Giant, was terrifying. A monstrous creation of pi...
2025-05-14 18:13:25 +0000 UTC View Post“I vehemently oppose your implication!” Roq protested.
“As if I would lower myself to mate with someone so…crass!” Arclight huffed.
“You’d be lucky to have me as a mate!” Roq said. “You don’t even know half the things I can do!”
“Nor am I interested in finding out,...
2025-05-13 01:04:28 +0000 UTC View PostWith this we are back on track!
Apologies for the delay, and thank you very much for your support :)
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We headed back to the ambush room and started exploring the tunnels, carving firebreaks in the crystals as we went to make sure we had somewhere to retreat.
Twice we ended up having to backtrack, but we steadily made our way down, all the while slaying Crysta...
2025-05-12 02:30:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe next wave, another twelve Crystalkin, tried to flush us out or overwhelm us in the confined space. But without the element of surprise, they were simple targets.
“As it should always be,” Arclight commented after Eryn put an arrow through the last one’s eye.
Afterwards, we headed into the tunnel we’d used once before, as Scavengers. When Roq had me...
2025-05-12 02:25:21 +0000 UTC View PostI glanced around as I scrambled to my feet. The Strikers were still fixated on Edwin and attacked him with a fury, likely because of his taunt ability.
More Strikers and Vanguards were coming in from the tunnels I’d planned to have Knut and Edwin hold. There were many more of them than I could have even imagined. My reasoning failed me, and all I could think of was that they’d e...
2025-05-12 02:22:58 +0000 UTC View PostWe headed for the cave mouth, Knut holding up his one-handed mace, and Edwin with fire already dancing along his sword’s blade. I walked behind them, Roq a comforting weight in my hand, with Eryn and Isaac trailing after me. Ming and Nabeeh followed, their staves tapping a rhythmic beat on the rocky ground. Alex, Edwin’s healer, came next, and Rowan covered our rear. His footsteps barely ma...
2025-05-08 09:01:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe rhythmic sound of hammers slamming down on wood echoed around us from the walls of Sentinel Station. The frantic energy of the days after the siege had subsided to a more measured pace that more resembled every other ordinary day. The gate had been patched up and reinforced, and guards were helping workers install another ballista next to it. More were being erected all around the wall, and...
2025-05-06 15:39:31 +0000 UTC View PostHi everyone,
A heads up that my co-author, Cassius might be out of action for a few days as he's on a trip for some health stuff. I don't currently have a backlog of chapters, except tomorrow's which is with him for editing.
Hopefully everything will go alright with him and he'll have time for the edits, if not I might post the unedited chapter, or I might wait until he catches up ...
2025-05-05 16:12:32 +0000 UTC View PostThe Adventurer’s Guild Hall was oddly quiet. Maybe it was simply that we were there early, or it could be related to how few monsters we saw Riftside, or even to Harold’s purse string being tightened by the central guild and people just didn’t want to go out for pennies. Maybe it was even just me and the weight of four hundred and twenty-one gold pressing on my shoulders.
Still, I f...
2025-05-05 16:05:11 +0000 UTC View PostHalf an hour later, scrubbed and slightly less grimy, Eryn and I walked side-by-side down the darkening street. The air was rapidly cooling, and it carried the scent of woodsmoke from the many cooking fires. A pleasant tune played somewhere in the distance, and I guessed that Johan had found a minstrel for the Timberline tonight.
“Where are we headed?” Eryn asked, hugging my arm and l...
2025-05-02 14:28:26 +0000 UTC View PostThe familiar heat and rhythmic clang of Steel & Scale put a smile on my face as we entered the wide open doors. Pa whirled from his anvil as I rapped on the door, hammer rising. Not Platemaw’s Fury, just a trusty workhorse.
“Jumpy?” I asked as he relaxed, wiping sweat from his bow.
“Skinwalkers always make me uncomfortable,” Pa said, looking at Torsten stan...
2025-05-01 12:10:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe familiar green shimmer of the Branchway Rift spat us back onto the packed earth of the central rift platform, and I drew a deep breath of Noros air. It was always a special occasion when we all returned home safe and well. Safety in a monster-filled world was never a given.
“Home,” I said, smiling, and we set off along the eastern bridge crossing the moat ...
2025-04-30 17:50:59 +0000 UTC View PostWe headed for the rift, crossing the wooden bridge, our boots thumping down against wooden planks and boards slick from last night’s rain. The water below was dark, and I knew spikes waited within for any monster foolish enough to try and get through. The tall walls of First Steel loomed all around us, yet it all felt somewhat subdued after the battle and all the struggle with House Domitius....
2025-04-29 14:18:13 +0000 UTC View PostEryn’s bedroom felt less like a room and more like an operating theatre prepared for war. The Windows were shuttered, door was locked, and furniture pushed back toward the walls. Ma had insisted on clean linens, a small, futile gesture of normalcy.
I swallowed against my memories as Katherine tied Eryn to the bed with thick rope, “for her protection and ours,” she said. Only Eryn’...
2025-04-28 14:50:19 +0000 UTC View PostI stood in the center of the forge, my mind reeling with the number they’d dropped on us
Four hundred and seventy-eight gold, and all we had was five days.
Pa leaned heavily on the anvil, his knuckles white where he gripped the horn, the usual fire in his eyes banked down to embers of despair. He stared blankly at the cold forge. Ma ...
2025-04-25 13:33:49 +0000 UTC View PostI ran through Dawnwatch, my boots pounding across the dirt and cobbles. Knut and Nabeeh were right behind me, though the fire mage was lagging behind.
“If they’ve hurt Ma, we kill them,” Roq said. “Right? Bash in their heads and then dip me inside. Whattaya say?”
“Would me saying ‘yes’ make you hope they hurt Ma?” 2025-04-24 18:12:50 +0000 UTC View Post
I stepped out of Harold’s office, shut the door behind me, and leaned against it. Madeleine shot me a curious glance, both of her eyebrows raised questioningly. I gave her a smile and tiredly waved a hand. She just nodded and turned away, giving me my moment of peace.
My hands were trembling and when I yawned, my jaw cracked. I was exhausted after hours of dodging hammer blows, ex...
2025-04-23 19:19:52 +0000 UTC View PostI pulled Pa's legendary forging hammer from my spatial storage and set it on the table before the guild officials. The hammer landed with a solid, resonant thunk, the sound echoing through the office.
For the first time since I'd entered, Mara stirred. She leaned forward, the muscles in her thick arms shifting beneath her sleeveless tunic as she rested her chin on the haft of her axe. Her...
2025-04-22 17:32:35 +0000 UTC View PostI sat at the dining table in our home, surrounded by concerned faces. Roq and Arclight were safely stored to give us both some peace of mind.
We’d just finished sneaking back into Dawnwatch. It hadn’t been too hard, considering the town had prioritised defending from Riftside attacks, not those from within Noros. Roq and Arclight had helped us avoid detection, even though they s...
2025-04-21 12:43:42 +0000 UTC View Post