Where a roof stands between you and the sky, the cup makes peace. Salt closes the teeth of quarrel; water cools the tempering fire. The host who offers a bite or a sip takes the guest into his shadow; until the next dawn, no blade speaks. The guest lays his grudges at the sill and bears himself as kin. To spill blood after bread is to...
2025-08-29 10:12:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe stone vases of the Dwarves are a quiet boast of their craft. They start with deep stone, hollow it by steady hand and sight. They read the veins, turn flaws into patterns, and polish until it wakes a deep, dark shine. The shapes soften into the curves that will hold their Ancestor Gold, a symbol of the flowing Earth-blood that liv...
2025-08-28 00:11:20 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 26 - Life Reset
Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
- Tennessee Williams.
Everything tilted toward chaos. A lesser soul might have panicked, might have fumbled as a dozen variables spun like knives in the air. Ser...
2025-08-26 23:29:17 +0000 UTC View PostThe dwarves harvest the glowcap beds, great fields of glowing haze. They bruise each cap with a white, tame mold, the ‘sweetmaker.’ A few days later, they harvest the fungus. The wort is cooled in stone vats before it is racked into mushroomwood barrels. Months later, or when it is judged ready, a Brewmaster will tap the barrels.<...
2025-08-25 14:45:55 +0000 UTC View Post![Apocalypse Reaver [Formerly Gilgamesh] Now Available on KU & Audible!](https://img5.artiststrend.com/storage/1/ef/tw/c201ab-019e8b75-eb59-7c66-8339-e78c725da84e.jpg)
Hey everyone! I’ve always loved LitRPG, but I kept wondering where the convincingly wicked protagonists were. So I went ahead and wrote the kind of villain I always wanted to read about.
Anyways, Apocalypse Reaver is finally out on Amazon! If you're into gritty fantasy, rich worldbuilding, and anti-heroes, you’ll probably have a good t...
2025-08-25 13:38:07 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 25 - Revelations On a crowded path, a man carrying a cup was jostled. The tea splashed and stained his robe. He turned to blame the
Chapter 25 - Revelations
On a crowded path, a man carrying a cup was jostled. The tea splashed and stained his robe. He turned to blame the stranger. An elder said, “Do not...
2025-08-24 22:23:00 +0000 UTC View PostI, Klaust Solaxe of the line Solaxe, sound of mind and steady of hand, set my will in stone on the eve of seeking the Earth Mother’s blessing and the Runes; I name my sister, Lashane Solaxe, sole blood of my house, heir and executor, and bequeath to her all my worldly possessions—coin, hoard, forge-rights, tools, arms and armor, keepsake...
2025-08-23 14:35:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 24 - The Hero
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
- Plato.
A crowd had gathered in the small courtyard of one of the Alchemy Laboratories near the Academy’s Menagerie, fewe...
2025-08-21 15:46:17 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 37 - A Challenge
He who belittles his foe invites the unknown blade to claim his own throat, for in arrogance lies the seed of downfall, and in vigilance, the root of victory.
- A Quassian Aphorism.
“Listen closely, Horothric. As a small boon to you, I would suggest you flee Bronzega...
2025-08-20 16:23:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 23 - Raining On My Parade
Don’t let expertise fool you into seeing false boundaries or underestimating those with wild dreams.
- Naveen Jain.
Much as the business of the upcoming duel between Velens and Hughes weighed on her mind, Seraphina still kept a rather full schedule of “ext...
2025-08-19 16:25:54 +0000 UTC View Post![Seraphina in armor AE ad [different style]](https://img5.artiststrend.com/storage/1/rm/yi/c201ab-019e8b75-eb9f-7220-8e70-70bbfcc3c185.jpg)
In period-correct brigandine and plate.
2025-08-18 15:43:49 +0000 UTC View Post*Was a bit tempted to put a status update, but there hasn't been much in the way of big moves except for one attribute. I need to plan this to be an audiobook, so too many status pages become annoying in the extreme.
The assay is the appraisal of a metal or2025-08-18 15:40:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 22 - The Challenge
Marriage, in life, is like a duel in the midst of a battle.
- Edmond About.
Seraphina basked in the applause as a butterfly might greet the first rays of dawn, wings spread wide to drink in the warmth. Her name now fluttered from lip to lip, whispered through the hal...
2025-08-17 04:39:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Sydney Sweeney American Eagle : Great Jeans spoof
2025-08-16 09:17:13 +0000 UTC View PostOne should not drink poison to quench thirst.
- Unknown.
The warrior-woman Cordelia came to me as I finished a breakfast of oat pancakes with a rare finger of honey shining on the top. My servants had also managed a pan of stewed apples. Steam curled from my cup; Estaza had brewed a strong, bitter tea that sm...
2025-08-15 15:42:30 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 21 - The Dance of the Seven Veils
Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.
- Charles Baudelaire.
Anaselena’s gift of foresight—troubling if Seraphina thought on them too long—were, at least, convenient for communication. If Seraphina wrote a letter to her mother at her desk, informi...
2025-08-14 07:06:10 +0000 UTC View Post“Good fortune smiles on those who are prepared.”
- The Principles of Conflict by General Damien de Savant circa 234 AC.
We reached the foothills at last. We stepped off from the ancient road, leaving it running straight as a spear to the north and through the smoky mountains. The Dragon—just under a thousand men—now marched o...
2025-08-13 04:49:57 +0000 UTC View PostAt the end of Book 5 and the start of Book 6, Gilgamesh enters an “echo of the past” during a Trial. I’ve worried this sequence might be underdeveloped and could use a few extra beats. This would include interacting with a few other "superheroes" and "villains." The trade-off is that expanding it could read like filler or over-explain the ...
2025-08-12 10:18:32 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 20 - Print
The press is our chief ideological weapon.
- Nikita Khruschev.
The trick with bad news was to get ahead of it. Frame the situation, and you controlled it. It was finally time to set Rashana to writing something that actually mattered. Or, in fact, to set Rashana to write som...
2025-08-12 04:55:50 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 19 - Declaration
When two men fight over a woman, it’s the fight they want, not the woman.
- Brendan Behan.
As if it were any other day, he came upon Seraphina in a secluded corner of the Academy gardens, where she had been reading a slim volume of romantic verse. Startled and ...
2025-08-11 13:06:26 +0000 UTC View PostDeeper than the graves of the old gods lies a world brighter than any sky, yet hollow as a tomb—a night-bound vault where elder titans still roam in all their terrible splendor.
- excerpt from the Lavella Tablets unearthed from the Old Ruins in the Beacon Mountains.
In my old life, time leaked away in pinpricks—...
2025-08-11 07:51:40 +0000 UTC View Post![Seraphina with Greatsword [sketch]](https://img5.artiststrend.com/storage/1/id/ex/c201ab-019e8b75-ed7a-7121-95cc-e72ef46e8107.png)
American Eagle ad parody. Seraphina has a greatsword.
2025-08-10 10:05:06 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 18 - The Great Blue
We all fly. Once you leave the ground, you fly. Some people fly longer than others.
- Michael Jordan
Today was one of those exceedingly rare days of rest. The morning light filtered through the library’s high windows, barely reaching the secluded corner where Sera...
2025-08-09 13:52:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe song of Mana is the most predatory lender. It advances itself sweetly and collects with compound interest—first from the hours of your effort, then from your thoughts and habits, last from the very shape of your name. Many who boast of mastery are merely debtors who have forgotten the day the note comes due.
- Unknown. 2025-08-08 11:19:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 17 - Loyalty
Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.
- Morihei Ueshiba.
Morning in Meridian slipped across the sky in shades of pinks, all fresh light and blush. On a quiet str...
2025-08-06 14:11:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe Black Flame will come when the once-innocent breathes its name. It will destroy those of the Green from root to crown, a devouring wind made fire. The heavens will burn like oiled night silk, the land drowning in ash. Pray to stone and river; neither hears. Only the coming blaze listens for judgment.
- Attributed to...
2025-08-05 14:15:29 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 16 - The Devil Dances at Noon
“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”
- Martha Graham.
It required some time, as might be expected, for Seraphina to resume the accustomed rhythms of academic life. This was due, in no small part, to the lamentable extension of classes, a develop...
2025-08-04 13:59:50 +0000 UTC View PostThey name it Mar-Samhala in the old tongue, the Sun’s Lost Daughter, a small yellow bloom that rises first from ash or from rare drought. Its five lantern-bright petals are cupped about a heart of saffron threads. Steeped in clear spirit, its stamens yield the Tincture of Noon, a cordial that burns fever from the blood and steadies a falte...
2025-08-02 13:36:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 15 - The Devil Dances at Midnight
Neutral men are the devil’s allies.
- Edwin Hubbel Chapin
The dark-haired woman looked over the curious dark display that to this day she could not believe held so much information. Even though she had lived in this world for some time now, the new M...
2025-08-01 12:57:41 +0000 UTC View Post![Armored Seraphina [AE spoof]](https://img5.artiststrend.com/storage/5/rd/eg/c201ab-019e8b75-ebca-7b82-9729-309671bc62c3.jpg)