When I quizzed fans on what kind of content they'd like to see between books, one of the most popular responses were cut chapters that didn't make it to the final books for whatever reason.
This is the first one of those. When I was drafting Kingdom Come, I actually started with the dolphin cheese scene as the first chapter, along with some worldbuilding stuff for Vlachia itself - specifi...
2022-12-18 20:45:38 +0000 UTC View PostI've been sick as a dog, and mostly cooped up in bed for the last month. I managed to get covid AND flu in Vegas. It has been a real bad time.
Anyway, I've had this sci-fi demon hunter/thriller idea banging around my head for the better part of two months now, and I had to get it out or it was going to eat my brain. Let me know what you think in the comments.
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2022-12-16 18:15:07 +0000 UTC View PostI kind of fell off the face of the planet due to getting covid while in Las Vegas. I'm tripled-vacced, so it was like a bad cold with a lot of fatigue and brainfog rather than anything dangerous. Still, it forced me to take a well-earned rest for a couple weeks. The fatigue was pretty awful.
I'm 80k words into Brute Force 1 and plan to resume writing tomorrow morning after reviewing the m...
2022-12-06 05:14:21 +0000 UTC View PostThank you guys so much for both bearing with me through a very difficult few years, and for reading along with Crowned in Black as it developed. I greatly appreciate you all <3
Patrons of all tiers will be sent a link to a free ebook copy of Crowned in Black over the coming days. If you'd like to help other readers find CiB specifically or Archemi in general, here's two ways you can h...
“Grrhhn... hnnnn...”
Lucien groaned as his awareness swum back in. There was nothing but solid darkness, and a crushing pressure pinning him to the ground like the hand of God himself. Everything hurt, especially his right arm. His HP was a sliver.
“Hrrn... haahhh...” He panted as he tried to struggle upright. Something was trapping him from above. Grimacing, Lucien twisted ...
2022-11-14 15:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostTwo Days Later.
I had a weird sense of deja vu as I woke to the bluish dawn light streaming in through the curtains across from my bed. We were back in the guest suite normally given to us in Vulkan Keep: all eleven of us.
Karalti was curled around my back in her human shape, snoozing softly by my ear. Suri was on the other side of the bed: apart from us, but within arm's r...
2022-11-14 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe cold wreckage of Istvan's old home was gone. In its place was a compass-shaped garden with four broad paths and four narrow ones, all of them leading to a pair of trees: one larger, one smaller. The trees were almost like willows, gracefully asymmetrical with long, sweet-smelling hanging flowers. The bigger tree had pale purple flowers; the smaller one had white. They were planted so that t...
2022-11-14 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post7 Days later
Crowds of people turned out onto the streets, awed and anxious, as the shadows of airships and dragons darkened the streets of Taltos. We let the warhorns blare as the lead ships - the Metternich, the repaired Illuminata, and the Destroyers Gae Bolg and Salamander - cruised in alongside the Silver Wing of the Shey’ru...
2022-11-13 15:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostFor the first time in a thousand years, Litvy fell under the shadow of dragon’ wings. The newly freed Solonkratsu flew in dizzying patterns above the city, exulting in their newfound freedom as Karalti held court in the parade ground in front of Litvy Castle's Great Hall. My Queen stood tall as the flight leaders of the Eyrie garrison landed ahead of us, each dragon touching down...
2022-11-13 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostWe appeared right over the entry to Vastil Pass, barely a quarter of a mile behind the might of Janos' fleet. A hundred and fifty dragons - white, silver, green and blue - with Karalti in the lead swooped down toward the unprotected sterns in a booming, screeching flock.
As we closed on the rear-most artillery ships, cheers went up - until the moment that Karalti's Queensong rolled throug...
2022-11-13 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post"Got you!" Lucien shrieked with laughter as he twisted the sword, leaning on it. "Got you, got you, got you! Both of you, dead! Now who's the king now, 'Ororgael'? Me! IT’S ME!"
Lucien was struggling to drive the sword through Ororgael's ribs and into my chest. I felt the tip of the Godslayer scrape my armor, and then an awful, cold, humming sensation as the Void-char...
2022-11-12 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostNone of the dragons stopped us as we flew for the Eyrie.
Karalti was near the end of her endurance, but flew with a grim determination I had only seen a few times before. The two hundred-or-so dragons stationed at the Eyrie had emerged in a great cloud of wings and scales, roaring, keening, shrieking and wheeling in the sky. They were attacking the top of the Eyrie - their prison - in exu...
2022-11-12 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post"Get away from me!” Lucien screamed and bolted for the other side of the room, holding the sword up the way a priest would hold a vampire with a cross. “Get aw...
2022-11-12 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostOh boy, have I been waiting to write this chapter for a LONG time.
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“Nice to see you here, at last. Knew you’d come one day.” Ororgael smirked as he strode through the door—the same one we had entered through—the Godslayer held naked in his hand. The whitecrystal blade crawled and spat with flecks of void ener...
2022-11-12 03:01:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe queen’s petrified body formed a crescent around an activation plinth: the one that would normally open the door to the reactor core of Solnetsi’s Dragon Gate. From the way she had fallen, it was clear that the Diamond Queen, the second Paragon of the Fifth Age, had died in agony. She lay on her side with one wing crushed under her. The delicate, sharp muzzle was twist...
2022-11-12 03:00:31 +0000 UTC View PostI vanished backwards, anticipating a hit—but it didn’t come. Karalti squawked as the whatever-it-was flew overhead and around, then hit the ground with a rumble that shook dust from the roof of the cavern and up from the floor. The dust clouds briefly framed the shape of something that looked almost like a giant cat… or a lizard, I thought, as the monster dropped its head and padded towar...
2022-11-12 02:58:21 +0000 UTC View PostNow the higher tier folks have had a chance to name Cutthroat's chicks, it's open to all Patreon Patrons!
Names can be Archemi-esque (and therefore reasonably lore compliant) or meme-hilarious, but in either case, it needs to be something that Justin and Lauren can pronounce.
There's 16 of you and 9 hookwing chicks, so I will pick what I believe are the best names for inclusion in ...
2022-11-08 03:28:35 +0000 UTC View PostThe first time I'd approached Fort Palewing was by land. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with no clue as to the sheer amount of shit I was about to get myself into, I’d ridden Cutthroat all the way from Lyrensgrove into the mountains of Ilia. The terrain and my inexperience had made it a seven-day trek, in which the charred farmlands and Stranged battlefields left over from Ilia’s civil war g...
2022-11-08 02:50:44 +0000 UTC View PostDouble post today!
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Flying straight into Fort Palewing - or even teleporting to Cham Garai directly - would pretty much be suicidal. So instead, Karalti and I went to her favorite hot spring so she could hunt and tank up on food while I called Nethres and finally told her our plans. I didn't even have to ask for an assist ...
2022-11-08 02:47:18 +0000 UTC View PostIt was only me and Istvan in the War Room today. I sat down while Istvan paced.
“Another hundred ships are joining Janos’s fleet. They’re building a fortress out on the plains. None of the 3rd Fleet defected to us. Because of fear or conviction in Janos’ cause, we don’t know.” Istvan’s voice was calm, but it had the edge of fretting as he walked around the table. “When tho...
2022-11-01 05:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWe were all exhausted by the time we reached Kalla Sahasi. I was having to readjust to remembering to breathe more than once every five minutes or so, and felt light-headed as I climbed the stairs to Ignas' room. The guards in the hallway drew their pikes in and saluted as all of us - the five of us returning from the Dragon Gate, Masha and Istvan - approached the door. I could hear Vash's voic...
2022-10-31 05:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe Spear sunk in and twisted easily, causing the center part of the activation plinth to drop down as the rest of it unfolded into... a control panel. An arcane control panel, with buttons made out of polished black stones gleaming with sigils.
"The first three at the top. Then the largest." Matir sounded oddly tired as he guided me.
I pressed the four buttons sequentially. There w...
2022-10-30 05:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostMatir turned and glided towards the sealed door, reaching a hand out toward it. His hologram seemed to merged into it as the whole thing hummed, and then broke into segments that withdrew down into the floor. The tunnel ahead was large enough for a dragon, and sloped gently down into the earth. The walls were smooth and flawless, with lights and piping and rails along the sides that almost made...
2022-10-29 05:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post“Okay. So… that didn’t go as well as we might have hoped for. But at least we all made it out.”
The group of us were back outside of the maze, recovering at our respawn point. None of us who’d died had respawned with full health, and it had taken about a third of our supplies to recover from the catastrophic loss against the Screaming Tree. It was the first boss fight I personal...
2022-10-28 05:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post"Eternally...?" I was seriously hoping Matir meant 'because of the Drachan' and not because of 'big bad boss capable of PKing Starborn', but before I had a chance to figure that out, the ceiling cracked apart, showering us and the ground with snow and dirt. The mechanisms sounded ancient, grinding as two halves of a dome - like an observatory dome - split over our heads to let in the moonlight....
2022-10-27 05:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe first things I heard were the clanging of metal and screams, but it was the pain that brought me back to awareness. My head throbbed with pain so intense that it woke me. My eyes flickered open, revealing nothing but blurry darkness. For a second, I wondered if I'd been shot, downed in the jungle at night. Then I realized that I was in Archemi. I could remember my name. I knew I was in the ...
2022-10-26 05:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostI led the way through the portal, Spear at the ready. The lack of mobs thus far surprised me. Most dungeons in Archemi had a few, at least. It was also bothering me, because we needed a fuckton of EXP if we hoped to face whatever boss monster lurked in here - and without anything to kill, we weren't leveling.
The portal seamlessly sucked me through into a small, low-ceilinged room with tw...
2022-10-25 05:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe hallway, big enough to admit a full-sized queen dragon on foot, seemed to stretch into oblivion. There were bizarre black fire torches lining the walls, shimmering and barely visible in the darkness. They cast no light, save for the thin rime of white around the outside of the flames. I'd seen that effect before: first in the tombs of Tuun and dragons under Taltos, and then in Lahati's Tomb...
2022-10-24 05:17:18 +0000 UTC View PostI went to see Ignas just after sunset, alone, while the others were getting ready for our trip to the Dragon Gate. I arrived to find Masha sitting by his bedside, quietly reading to him from a small, black leather-bound book. The language she spoke was different, but Churrvi was similar enough to Tuun that I recognized the lilting, soft cadence and some of the words. She was reading to His Maje...
2022-10-15 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostFor the first time since I'd moved into the place, Kalla Sahasi was alive with music, laughter, color and food. We'd had victories before, but not even a single day between crises to properly celebrate shit. But this time, after the first success for the newly formed Free Army of Myszno, we were determined to throw a party - even if I personally was still too worried about Ignas, Janos, Ororgae...
2022-10-14 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post