Where Sen had set a brisk pace before, he set a brutal pace now. He wanted as much physical and psychological distance from that fight as he could get. Although, he wanted those distances for very different reasons. The physical distance was practicality at work. Someone sent those people, and Sen was already wishing that they’d captured someone alive and sane enough to ask them questions abo...
2023-07-16 18:01:05 +0000 UTC View Post“That’s just how things are done here,” said Melody.
William Barnes was normally the sort of kind-hearted man that wraps up a stray puppy in his coat on a cold day, but Melody’s words made him want to do violence. He imagined himself seizing the heavy-duty, high-capacity, Swingline stapler – one capable of punching a staple through over 200 sheets of 20 pound bond paper. He saw ...
2023-07-15 17:33:45 +0000 UTC View Post1
They were waiting in the silence and darkness. He felt their cold, smooth lifelessness and thought of gargoyles, although they were not gargoyles. Gargoyles, at least, were made by human hands. What waited for him in the dark had known no human craft, human compassion, human love or none that could be discerned. Where they came from was a mystery, as was their method of selection. Even ...
2023-07-15 17:29:46 +0000 UTC View PostHey guys, I woke up today with a pretty vicious headache that is swiftly turning into a migraine. I took my medication for it and, hopefully, that will take care of it. But, it's made writing almost impossible so far today. I don't want to promise I'll post chapters later, so, here's what's up for today.
Instead, I'm going to post a couple of short stories I wrote. That way, you'll ...
2023-07-15 17:26:41 +0000 UTC View PostFalling Leaf glared across the table at the Caihong and resisted the urge to smash the teapot. No, she reminded herself for the hundredth time, Ma Caihong. She was so frustrated with the woman, with the situation, with the countless, stupid human rules that she had to learn. They had rules for everything. They had rules about when to sleep. Rules about when to eat. Ru...
2023-07-15 01:30:03 +0000 UTC View PostControl. So much in cultivation depended on it. Without it, strikes would not find their mark, or be turned aside with ease. Without it, one could shred their qi channels to uselessness. Without control, techniques could run out of control. That was a lesson Sen had learned the hard way. Seeing the destruction he’d wrought in that abandoned town with his poorly controlled use of Heavens’ Re...
2023-07-14 16:20:54 +0000 UTC View PostIt seemed that no one was expecting the offensive formation or the ruinous, charred remains of the first person to find it, which was lucky for Sen. The second or two it took him to engage his brain with the idea that it was time to fight were seconds he might not have otherwise gotten without that shock of the sudden death. Of course, the reactions of his body and his subconscious had been for...
2023-07-14 01:16:52 +0000 UTC View PostTraveling with Lo Meifeng again was both more and less frustrating than Sen expected. It was much more frustrating because she insisted on keeping up the farce that he was in charge. He loathed that extra responsibility. Sen didn’t want to wonder if every campsite he picked was going to be the one that the enemy found because he hadn’t chosen wisely enough. He didn’t want to imagine what ...
2023-07-13 16:22:47 +0000 UTC View PostSen was so startled by the familiar but long-absent sensation that he completely lost track of everything around him. He focused on that tugging sensation, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. That proved to be a somewhat useless exercise, since he didn’t glean anything except that it was somewhere farther west of them. He thought it might not be exactly, directly west, but they were ...
2023-07-13 04:07:51 +0000 UTC View PostBanjin Colle stared at the remains of the planet below on the viewscreen and felt a pang. He’d visited the place a few times before the idiots in research apparently mangled the planet’s magnetic field. Not that he’d known at the time that his government had a serious presence on the planet. He’d only found out about the facility and what had happened there an hour or two earlier. He si...
2023-07-12 17:57:13 +0000 UTC View PostFor a few moments, Sen didn’t know how to feel as vying emotions went to war inside his chest. A small part of him rankled at the knowledge that he was, once more, under the watchful eyes of a minder. Even though he’d suspected all of those bodies had been Lo Meifeng’s work, he was still shocked to see that she was actually alive. Part of him had truly believed she was dead. An irrational...
2023-07-12 16:41:27 +0000 UTC View PostAfter their short break, during which Lifen slept almost non-stop, Sen had pushed hard for a few more days. Then, he started noticing the bodies. He didn’t point them out to Lifen because there was no benefit to that, but he’d formed a working theory about what was happening. He hoped that he was right. If he was, he’d be able to put away a vague, gnawing guilt that had been working on hi...
2023-07-12 01:17:47 +0000 UTC View PostLo Meifeng was tired. No, she thought, I’m exhausted. She hadn’t been this worn out since before she’d become a core formation cultivator. It wasn’t that she hadn’t slept in six days, although that was wearing on her a little. It was that she’d spent most of those days running from people, chasing people, and killing people. Part of her was frustrated by t...
2023-07-11 14:32:15 +0000 UTC View PostSen kept them traveling at night. At first, it was simply to avoid other travelers, but things changed on the third day. While Lifen was sleeping the afternoon away in the tent, Sen felt a potent spiritual sense sweep over the entire area. It wasn’t enough to penetrate or collapse the obscuring formation he’d set up, but it was more than enough that Sen felt it strain the formation a bit. T...
2023-07-11 01:09:01 +0000 UTC View PostEven though he expected it, the fury of the weather still staggered Kalan as they stepped off the ship. A particularly violent gust of wind combined with the standing water on the pad slid Kalan sideways the better part of a foot. Temera slid past him, her lighter body providing less resistance, and Kalan snaked a hand out to grab her arm. The rain lashing them ran across the face shield of the...
2023-07-10 16:47:42 +0000 UTC View PostSen and Lifen left the inn quietly, only taking a moment to return their room key. The inn owners seemed startled but weren’t given a chance to protest before the two young guests vanished out the door. Once they got outside, Lifen turned a questioning gaze on Sen.
“Where will we go?”
“For now, we’ll keep heading south.”
“For how long?”
“There’s a wes...
2023-07-10 16:01:55 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, Sen woke up early. He’d noticed it more and more since his body cultivation advancement. He needed less sleep, a lot less sleep. Even knowing that moving between major stages meant substantial changes, he’d been a bit hazier about what that meant for body cultivators. With spirit cultivation, he could feel the difference in power between himself and other cultivat...
2023-07-09 22:17:28 +0000 UTC View PostOnce they were out of the city proper, Lo Meifeng seemed to relax a little. At least, Sen thought she did. Her answers to the occasional questions that Sen or Lifen asked were less sharp and terse. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but Sen liked to take his victories where he found them. Despite relaxing slightly, Lo Meifeng kept them moving until nearly sunset. At that point, the...
2023-07-09 17:45:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe next two weeks fell into something of a routine for Sen and Lifen. They’d get up each morning and cultivate for an hour on deck. Then, Sen began the grueling process of teaching and drilling Lifen on unarmed combat. It didn’t take long for the question Sen had been expecting to come up.
“I don’t understand,” said Lifen between puffing breaths. “I thought you were going to ...
2023-07-09 06:30:33 +0000 UTC View PostIt turned out that Sen had spent almost two full days on that beach. Once the captain figured out that nobody was getting on or off the boat for a while, he just put his crew back to work on repairing the ship. So, the ship was underway again almost immediately after Sen and Lo Meifeng were back on the ship. For all that Sen desperately wanted to seclude himself in some quiet corner of the ship...
2023-07-08 16:34:41 +0000 UTC View PostSen tried to get what rest he could while Lo Meifeng’s boat approached, because he suspected there would be little enough rest after she arrived. He made a point to commit the name Elder Bo had given him for the body cultivation technique he’d, almost accidentally, used. Five-Fold Body Transformation. Sen didn’t really understand what that meant, or even what it entailed for his current l...
2023-07-08 04:41:34 +0000 UTC View PostKalan glared at Temera. “Don’t speak to her.”
The spy gave him an unamused look. “I was just saying hello to the girl.”
Fresia looked deeply uncomfortable at the minor battle of wills going on between Kalan and the Ikaren spy.
“Don’t,” Kalan repeated. “I won’t let you use her.”
The woman managed to look offended and shook her shackled hands at him. ...
2023-07-07 14:12:23 +0000 UTC View PostSen’s first thought after the elixir went to work on him was, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
No matter how powerful he’d thought those extra ingredients were, it had been a pale, pale shadow of the truth. His previous body advanced had refined the tissues, the organs, even the bones. This refinement went so much further. He felt it like was ripping apart every cell in his body ...
2023-07-07 13:27:38 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, this should put us back on track. ~Eric
***
Sen found that the water stepping technique came easier to him than ever as he dashed from the side of the ship toward the beach. He didn’t think he’d broken through in any meaningful way, but it was still easier. Maybe he’d just reached an accommodation with water qi after that using that technique to...
2023-07-07 05:19:03 +0000 UTC View PostOf course, it wasn’t that simple. No sooner had the captain walked away than Lifen appeared. She smiled at him, clearly happy to see him up and about, but there was a line of worry between her eyes. Sen gave a quick, longing glance at the beach before giving Lifen his full attention.
“I’m glad to see that you’re awake, but should be up and about? Lo Meifeng seemed,” Lifen frowne...
2023-07-06 15:39:49 +0000 UTC View PostThere were blurry spots of semi-conscious, semi-lucid understanding in Sen’s memory. He vaguely remembered being thrown over a shoulder. He recalled someone throwing him into a bunk. Then, it was just intermittent flashes of storm noises and people yelling about things. Mostly, though, it was darkness and pain. He’d hurt himself with that stunt on the deck. It had been necessary to save eve...
2023-07-06 09:10:11 +0000 UTC View PostSen sat cross-legged on the deck of the ship with his senses and qi extended. The ship had many excellent qualities, or so Sen had told himself, but speed wasn’t one of them. Lo Meifeng admitted that the journey was moving slowly, even by the standards of sea travel. She also assured him that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. The longer they spent wholly unfindable, the more likely the demonic c...
2023-07-05 14:38:36 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as they exited the wormhole, Kalan turned to Tessan. The man stood on the bridge and looked outwardly calm. Kalan felt an irrational urge to do something to break that calm, but he pushed it down. It wasn’t the time or place for that kind of personal foolishness.
“Tessan, double-check the landing coordinates with Em. This is raider territory. I don’t want to spend a second l...
2023-07-05 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I realized I haven't done one of these in a while. I made this for myself the other night and, despite some initial misgivings on my part, it was delicious. It's also got a fairly short list of ingredients. Most of them are things that people will have in their kitchens. Also, this recipe works with any kind of pasta, so pick something you like.
Pro tip: If you're making this for on...
2023-07-04 16:11:45 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, and hopefully early enough not to disrupt family/holiday events on America's birthday. ~Eric
***
I woke up early the next day, but then I always wake up early. I don’t know if it’s hardwired into my nature or a byproduct of my particular role in Stormbreak. Either way, I was up and getting dressed at dawn. The Queen was already...
2023-07-04 14:24:38 +0000 UTC View Post