NowhereStars

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-7

https://nowherestars.net/early-chapter/

It's here! Thank you all for waiting - I'm very sorry again for the delay! This week's password is 'cocoon'.

Chapter delay

Owing to a perfect storm of much-bigger-than-usual editing plans for this current set of chapters, travel, and sickness, this week's advance chapter will be a little late. My editor and I are currently doing our best to get it finished today, and it'll be ready tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

Thank you for your patience until then, ev...

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-6

https://nowherestars.net/early-chapter/

It's another one of these weird formatting chapters! Yay!

From now on, every patron chapter will be posted on this page, a section of the main site that isn't publicly listed. It'll be protected by a password tha...

My Own and Only Light 4-5

“I’m not asking all these weird linguistics questions just to ask them, you know. Sure, the world isn’t gonna explode yesterday if we don’t figure them out, but there’s still important implications,” Isobel said.

“All your questions are things I’d like to know too, and I don’t expect they’d fall under any of the conspic...

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-4

https://nowherestars.net/in-the-dark-were-all-the-same-4-4/

More weird stuff this week! Read it over here on the main site - the password is 'bibliosoph'.

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-3

(No weird formatting notes this week. Enjoy, everyone!)

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Who is this Keeper? They can clearly sense the Harbinger, but what exactly is it like for them? I couldn’t just tell them this is my kill and I’ve got it handled, could I? Has any Keeper ever said that to help turning up? They must or there’d be more teams, it can’t ...

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-2

https://nowherestars.net/in-the-dark-were-all-the-same-4-2/

Same note as last time - this chapter contains weird stuff I can't do on Patreon! This week's password is 'nameless'. Enjoy! 

In The Dark, We're All The Same 4-1

This chapter contains some weird formatting that I wasn't able to manage in Patreon's woefully limited text editor. Because of that, rather than post a simplified form of it here, I've added it to the main site early! It's currently password-protected, which I'll remove next week. The password is 'formless', and you can read it over here: 2022-07-20 04:07:54 +0000 UTC View Post

Where We Come From 3-4

The faint stench grows only slightly stronger as I follow it, but eventually, its trail does end. It’s on the outer edge of the Fields, the central urban district, centered in a single mid-sized craftsman house. I sense five mostly-healthy people inside, which… that kind of crowd could be very bad. None of them feel corrupted yet, though. I�...

Where We Come From 3-3

Esonei’s cluster of faces melts into the ground, and its ghostly voice grows louder. I reach out and draw my infection out from the quivering heap of its body, the way I ripped it out of Yurfaln, but it’s already too far gone. It’s dying just as quickly, screaming and weeping as shreds of its essence slough away with my magic. Soon it’s ...

Where We Come From 3-2

A dirt path winds through the field west of the hospital, where the spring flowers are well into withering and dying. The sickly-sweet smell of wilt is much milder than the way my senses interpret ill people, but right now, it feels like it’s everywhere.

Maybe it’s not the best omen for this adventure, but omens aren’t real....

Where We Come From 3-1

New Claris is quietest on moonless nights, beneath the stars’ pale light, but a city is never completely empty and still. It’s never lifeless. I mean, unless it’s abandoned out in a wasteland with no plants or animals for miles or something. Which this one isn’t yet.

Anyway.

Stepping onto the university campus south of the ho...

Duet 2-7

“I’m heading out! Bye!” Shona shouted through her house.

“Don’t slam the—”

Shona was out the door before Mom could speak the last word. As she left, she turned around, pulled the front door all the way open, then smashed it back into its frame with every bit of strength she had, smiling as it made a satisfying crash. On...

Other Horizons 2-6

Life surges into me through pale green tendrils. Nothing could be less like my regular infusions. A dozen showers of warm rain fall through my body in all directions, pooling into my wounds until I can hardly feel them at all. Still it flows, filling me with vigor I’ve only ever dreamed of having. The well I draw from is clear and deep, deep e...

Other Horizons 2-5

Irakkia’s presence fades into the background noise of the Wound, even as its voice lingers in my skull. Where is it going? With the way this place works, can I even trust that it even is going? What could it be doing?

None of that matters if I don’t know what I’m doing. Plan. I need a plan. Yurfaln’s world had an ...

Other Horizons 2-4

Through blurred vision, I watch the darkening sky just above the tower start to crack. Glowing fractures arc through it  in a shifting rainbow of colors like flashes of prismatic lightning. Out and out they spike, each new fissure opening with a high-pitched knife-on-a-bottle sound, until…

I try to close my senses off. Too late. I c...

Other Horizons 2-3

There’s a pressure in the air inside the Soul Sanctuary. It's nothing harsh or really heavy, just… strange. It’s a faint phantom sensation of something like being underwater, if water only weighed a tiny bit more than air, and comes with the same muffled sound of blood flowing through my head.  Shona marches right on ahead, paying it ...

Other Horizons 2-2

“Well! It’s very very interesting that you should happen to call right this moment, becaaaaaause…” Shona says, then trails off into silence. “...as luck would have it, I’ve recently…” A longer pause. “Yes! Yes in fact I do! There’s a threat we were just on our way to investigate! It’s a little out of the way, but if you wan...

Nowhere Stars is now on Top Web Fiction!

https://topwebfiction.com/listings/nowhere-stars

Hi, everyone! Just a little announcement before today's update — I've added the story to Top Web Fiction.

For any of you who aren't familiar with this site, it's a ranked list of people's current...

Other Horizons 2-1

Sunlight is just starting to flood through the gauzy curtains when I wake up choking for air. Hot, sharp pangs burn through my chest. My head spins as I try to sit up. I’m breathing the wrong way, I know I am, but it’s a losing struggle to correct myself all the same. Even then, nothing changes. All I can do for relief is squeeze Pearl until...

Death Inverted 1-7

The floor’s charge nurse insists on all the poking and testing and measurements she can think of. They obviously won’t find anything, but I can’t really tell them that. I tried to think of any decent explanation I could use as an excuse, but every lie that popped into my head sounded shoddy.

Oh, it's nothing to worry about, I ju...