Sorry for the delay! I was traveling this weekend, and so I had to edit this chapter last-minute before posting and it took a bit longer than anticipated.
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There was something thrilling about willingly going into a dangerous situation prepared for anything. It reminded Edwin vaguely of the build-up to a rollercoaster, a hint of ...
2021-09-21 16:15:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe Guildmaster’s declaration didn’t overly surprise Edwin- he had been half expecting something like this for a while now. However, he wasn’t expecting to be approached on the street by the Master herself. Heck, he didn’t even really know that the guildmaster was a she until just now.
…He needed to get better a...
2021-09-16 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostHow did you prove germ theory to someone who didn’t believe it? It was actually a surprisingly difficult question, given that technically speaking, even back on Earth it was, still just a theory. A germ- ahem.
Granted, it was a highly tested and unanimously accepted theory, but because it was a matter of biology, it cou...
2021-09-14 16:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Wait, you were actually working on that?” Edwin found himself taken aback slightly by Cope’s declaration. He had mildly assumed that Cope wasn’t actually keeping up any part of his deal, but apparently he was?
To his credit, the man looked slightly taken aback, “But of course! You’ve done a remarkable amount of work, it is onl...
2021-09-09 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostEdwin didn’t see much of Inion over the weeks he spent in Panastalis. She would drop in every so often to see how he was, but she was usually doing… something off in the Verdant. Whenever Edwin prodded her about it, she refused to elaborate, which was… well, it was slightly annoying. He wanted to know what was up with his best fri...
2021-09-07 15:57:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Xares above, I swear if those two don’t stop scheming soon, I will personally throw them off the branch.”
“I’ll carry Keir if you get Rhita,” Edwin agreed, handing Fissath one of the white logs they used for heating the kiln, “Are we aiming for the river?”
It had been two days since the sabotage/attack from Othniel...
2021-09-02 15:56:43 +0000 UTC View PostEdwin’s new accommodations were nothing special, but he at least had the room to himself- well, himself and Inion, so functionally all to himself- and that was something. A roughly double-sized bed in a medium-sized room, some shelves on which he could keep his stuff, and some hooks on which Edwin could hang his combat gear.
Naturally, h...
2021-08-31 16:04:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhile a few people had naturally taken note of Edwin rattling up to the entry of the town, none paid him much attention. It made a certain amount of sense, they probably had loads of travelers and merchants coming in and out of the town on a regular basis.
In fact, he could even tell where the inn for the town was thanks to the row of wago...
2021-08-26 15:59:00 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, first off: nobody panic. I'm not going to just up and vanish. Tomorrow's chapter will be coming out on schedule, and I will return next week. Any permanent changes to my schedule will be done at the end/start of a month, just because you guys are the greatest and I don't want to pull the rug out from under you.
When I say a break, I ...
2021-08-16 20:07:00 +0000 UTC View PostSleeping was wonderful. Not just the action, but the Skill, too. Even though his dreams had been tumultuous and vaguely nightmarish, as Watchful Rest ensured that even unconsciousness wasn’t enough to entirely disconnect from reality, by the time Edwin returned to full awareness, he just felt refreshed on a fundamental level.
Hi...
2021-08-12 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostThough the pressure may have subsided, Edwin was still very aware he was talking to quite possibly the most powerful person he had ever met. This merited his full attention.
Cough.
Hopefully his brain got the memo. He was hopeful, given the constant pressure he was feeling just from speaking to someone so p...
2021-08-10 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostSorry about the delay, something went strange with the chapter posting.
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The soldiers stood straight, staring expectantly at Edwin. He sighed and downed the remainder of his soup in a single gulp, dismissing his Apparatus utensils as he stood up. As an experiment, he enabled Flight to suspend him just a hair ...
2021-08-05 16:40:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Well, you’re braver than I, that’s certain,” Rizzali noted, reclining in his seat as he made the last few notes on his stack of papers. “Taking two Paths pertaining to the fey?” he shook his head, whistling softly, “This is what sets the successful Adventurers apart from the failures, I do suppose.
“Although I must s...
2021-08-03 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThis is the marginal start of volume 3. Hopefully we'll get some actual adventure-y stuff soon!
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“So you’re sure that this won’t hurt, won’t permanently fuse us together into some kind of abomination, won’t create an utterly unbreakable bond between us, won’t corrupt me into something else, won’t turn me ...
2021-07-29 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt was only when he woke up without so much as a trace of lingering soreness that Edwin finally appreciated just how much work Sleeping must put in to refresh him so completely every night. Still, he couldn’t say he wanted to put himself through that ordeal very much. If he were a masochist, he could use Overcharge every night to level it and ...
2021-07-27 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostAt long, long last! It is time!
Enjoy!
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Even with his Paths selected, he still needed to figure out what order he wanted to take them. Fortunately, this wasn’t nearly as tricky. All that mattered was he took them in approximate order of how cool he thought they were, with perhaps a slight eye towards estima...
2021-07-22 16:00:26 +0000 UTC View PostAt long last, it was time for Edwin to make his last few preparations before finally tiering up. Sure, it had taken him some four or five months (he’d stopped keeping track at this point) to get these last ten levels in each of his Skills, but now he was just a handful away before his break-even point was reached at long last!
Edwin slept fitfully, dreaming of fire and water, of shadows and blood. He woke up several times to find Inion next to him, tending to his wounds.
When finally he awoke fully, it was nighttime, and Inion was cradling his head in her lap. While Edwin felt mostly light and sturdy, he was still sore in many places, leading to him trying to pu...
2021-07-15 16:28:51 +0000 UTC View PostEdwin mentally cursed as he ducked behind the ‘wall’ surrounding his kiln, trying to get cover from whatever assassin had been sent at him. He knew that his constant paranoia about the dwarves had to have been justified. How had he been tracked down now, though? It had been months since he’d been anywhere close to people....
2021-07-13 16:08:23 +0000 UTC View PostWhew.
I think this is the fastest I've ever written words. If there's errors, please do let me know either here or on Discord because I would not be surprised if a few typos or small continuity errors slipped through.
Heck, I'd be surprised if none had.
Also, The Way Ahead is now on TopWebFiction! If you...
2021-07-08 19:19:00 +0000 UTC View Post*wipes forehead*
Whew. 5k word chapters are monsters, both to write and to edit. Thursday's chapter will probably also be a bit late, but will hopefully still be on Thursday.
Also, I made a couple of small changes to chapter 70 to make it flow better into chapter 71, mainly just having Edwin ask a follow-up question ra...
2021-07-06 18:24:03 +0000 UTC View PostHey all! For... many reasons, I wasn't able to get the chapter done quite in time for my normal release time. Chapter 71 is still coming out tomorrow, it will just likely be later in the day rather than in the morning.
Sorry. Hopefully once I settle into the schedule a little bit more, this won't be an issue in the future. It might happen ...
2021-07-06 06:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostJust a quick reminder that this is the last chapter on the 5/week schedule, and the next chapter will be released on next Tuesday (the 6th for my previously 10-ahead folks). Going forward, advance chapters will be based on and labeled by weeks ahead, rather than chapters ahead.
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“Lady Tara! Welcome! What brings you to my offic...
At some point soon, I'll be updating the Patron and Apprentice Patron tiers to the descriptions of '2 weeks ahead' and '1 week ahead' respectively. You guys won't notice anything different, it'll just reflect the new schedule.
Novice Patron, though, will become a legacy option.
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“It’s grown so much!”
“Wait,...
2021-07-02 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostEdwin may have been lacking in magical expertise, so his current testing methodologies, limited as they were to exposing objects to Mana Infusion and Firestarting/Infused Firestarting, were rather inadequate.
The Grimoire claimed that there were loads of materials which utilized various kinds of mana. Seagrass was strongly water-aligned, f...
2021-07-01 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostHey all,
Just a heads-up that tomorrow's chapter may have to be delayed by 1 day, meaning you'd get chapter 70 on Saturday. Hopefully with the new schedule (currently looking like Tuesday/Thursday), this will happen much less frequently.
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Edwin was ecstatic. While it may have objectively been a ...
2021-06-29 15:59:01 +0000 UTC View PostWhich days each week should I release chapters?
RR will get their own version of this poll, but that will be for their chapter releases. I don't need to have everything on the same days.
The top two days will win.
2021-06-28 16:59:21 +0000 UTC View PostFor those of you who didn't see the poll yesterday, next week I will be switching to publishing 2 5k word chapters/week instead of 5 2k word ones.
More polls will be coming soon to figure out which days I'll publish on and how to get RR (and the lower patreon tiers) through the transition.
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Edwin’s entire world wa...
2021-06-28 16:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostHey all!
So, while I really wish that I could just write all the words all of the time, the simple fact of the matter is that writing and editing 5 chapters/week is quite time-intensive. It's not even the matter of the words, just the fact that I have essentially no room for error, that I need to be writing every day with al...
2021-06-27 17:04:57 +0000 UTC View PostEdwin jogged alongside Inion, who casually floated through the air at approximately eye level. Well, ‘jogged’ was perhaps something of a misnomer. While prior to Joriah he might have classified his pace as just shy of a sprint, these days the effort didn’t even wind him.
“…and, of course, she decided to finally trust fall jus...
2021-06-25 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post