Ch. 318 - Someplace New
The road continued, and four days after they left Ifrin’s Crossing, they reached the foothills that marked the true borders of this Kingdom. Charia and Brin might end and begin at the river they’d crossed so recently, but the culture didn’t change noticeably until they reached the first moun...
2025-09-22 13:58:00 +0000 UTC
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Side note, but I finished writing book 3 this week. On to book 4! How does it end? I guess we'll have to find out in a month or two...
Ch. 132 - An Impasse
The Iron City was a collection of smithies, warehouses, and cages. There were no homes to speak of. The closest anything came to that were long barracks filled...
2025-09-15 14:00:22 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 184 - Restless Peace
For the better part of the next week, things were mostly quiet. A few more nobles died, but this time neither Lucas nor anyone in his employ had anything to do with it. He was so enchanted with his fiancée that he barely paid attention, and unless a couple of assassins paid him a visit one night...
2025-09-15 13:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 315 - Hero of the Day
After his orb disappeared into the darkness above, Simon sat just where his doppelgänger had been a moment before and waited. Instead of reflecting on that strange disconnect between the man and his aura or even the irony that he was sitting exactly where the other man had been sitting a few mi...
2025-09-15 13:58:00 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 129 - Heart of Fire
“Me?” the Ebon Blade asked. “A sword can do nothing alone, but with the right wielder, anything may be accomplished.”
The group of souls debated those ideas for a time, and the Ebon Blade was able to bring several around to its way of thinking, just by emphasizing the glory of battle...
2025-09-08 14:00:16 +0000 UTC
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I don't want to spoil anything, but in the spirit of making sure people don't renew their patron subscriptions more than they need to, I will say that this book is only a few weeks from ending. While I love the note the story ends on, it makes me want to write another trilogy picking up where it left off after I edit the series.
You'll see...
2025-09-08 13:59:03 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 312 - The Long Way
Despite his hurry to leave Hepollyon, Simon was in no hurry to arrive in Ionar. That urgency had been caused by the growing discomfort of trying to live a life that wasn’t his anymore more than any tight timelines. He still had more than a year before the volcano was due to erupt.
So,...
2025-09-08 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 126 - Lost
Inch by inch, the blade was buried in filth. While it stood there, unused and embedded in the stone, the tiny demons built a terrible sort of nest around it, and then multiplied inside that ugly thing like evil wasps. The blade hadn’t been able to keep track of the passage of time very well up until now ...
2025-09-01 14:00:17 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 180 - Watch Out
Mage ambushes aside, on some level, Lucas felt safest when he was riding down a dark road at night. Given the number of monsters in this world that was crazy, of course, but he believed it just the same. Out here he might get attacked by a goblin or a giant spider; a freaking owlbear might even try to...
2025-09-01 13:59:02 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 309 - Uprooted
After over a decade and a half in Ordanvale, Simon finally decided to leave and journey south to see the Oracle in her mountain-top city. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining who he was again for the third time, but he had to; it was the only place where he was likely to get answers about what he ...
2025-09-01 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 123 - Smoldering Embers
When the tide of bottle up evil thinned into a fog, they strode forward. Now the blade could study the details of the plain stone corridor and its rotted contents, and even without any obvious signs of violence, it could see that something was very wrong with the place.
While it st...
2025-08-25 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 178 - What to Do
Seconds later, the two men succumbed, and he and Lord Torvin were all but alone amidst the limp bodies of his rivals. “Going straight for the throat, huh?” Lucas asked as he set his glass down.
“I only did what I learned from you,” Lord Torvin answered. “I’m surprised you noti...
2025-08-25 13:59:02 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 306 - A Stranger
Simon had been in Ordanvale for more than half a decade when he saw someone he was sure was part of the Unspoken for the first time. He was hardly the first stranger. There had been so many travelers and peddlers that Simon could hardly hope to count all of them. There had been tax collectors and nob...
2025-08-25 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 120 - The Songstress
Lucian fell from the sky like a bloody comet, and as he did, the blade absorbed souls all along the way, devouring the lesser ones as best it could. There would be no survivors in the meatgrinder that the building had become, and through the archmage and whoever else had occupied the eighth floor...
2025-08-18 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 176 - Muted Celebration
No matter how much neither of them wanted to let go of each other, eventually they did, if only because Lucas was absolutely dead on his feet. Together, they went inside where Lucas was given porridge and tea. That’s when he broke the news to Danaria, Kar’gandin, and every servant that hap...
2025-08-18 13:59:02 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 303 - Further Experimentation
Despite Simon’s near miss with the orb, he was undeterred. While it was fun to improve the lives of those in Ordanvale, and that summer he opened up a copper mine after a goblin purge one valley over from the small town, his focus continued to be on his own experiments. Indeed, now tha...
2025-08-18 13:58:00 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 117 - A Real Challenge
There were no other hunters or divine attacks in the days that followed that terrible night. The Ebon Blade and its wielder made good time and defaced two more small waystones, further altering the magical landscape, making it look like they were going to go south when they were, in fact, about...
2025-08-11 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 174 - The Perfect Ambush (part 2)
Lucas fell end over end for several seconds before he stabilized his fall. That gave him just enough time to decide how he wanted to land but not enough time to come to grips with the fact that he was probably going to break every bone in his body. Endurance potion, don’t fail ...
2025-08-11 13:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Wooooo! Chapter 300! What a milestone. I love it.
It's amazing how quickly stories add up if you just keep going. If you go this far, thanks for reading!
Ch. 300 - Field Research
As the winter progressed, Simon lost himself in his research. That wasn’t enough to bind him to the town he found himself, of co...
2025-08-11 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Alright, we are back to three chapters a week, with (hopefully) no further commercial interruptions. Thank you for your patience!
Ch. 114 - The First Link
Part of the Ebon Blade expected another massive pillar of fire to appear the moment they approached the first standing stone, but that didn’t happen. There wer...
2025-08-04 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 172 - The Tolling Bell
The bell rang nine while Skylara was getting ready, increasing Lucas’ anticipation. He felt more like bait than a dragon slayer, but he was committed now. It’s not as if he could just bail. Heisenburgle would have no way to see his target. He was trusting that Lucas would have her standing ...
2025-08-04 13:59:02 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 297 - A Short Delay
Simon spent the rest of the night hacking the little green monsters to pieces. He was in no hurry, even from the beginning, before the grim work exhausted him. Why should he be in a hurry? With the collapse of the other two tunnels he’d found, he was reasonably sure that the only way out was thr...
2025-08-04 13:58:02 +0000 UTC
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So first, let me preface this post by saying I'm just fine. To the best of my knowledge, I'm in perfect health. That said, last week I had a sort of thought-provoking scare.
One night after a dinner of chicken and fried rice, I was slammed with one of the worst migraines of my life. Easily the worst one I had in a decade. Fortunately, my ...
2025-07-30 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
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I'm making a post about it in a couple of days, but just to let everyone know, I plan to resume posting this story three times a week next week or the week after. While I will still be posting Brewing Bad for a couple of more months, it is now written, allowing me to focus on two books, and my ongoing editing projects. Thank you for your patienc...
2025-07-28 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 170 - Last Chance
They reached the River Palace a few hours before dawn, which was even bigger than he imagined it to be. He’d heard both Heisenburgle and Skylara describe it in passing as a lesser palace or a vacation spot of the prince, but neither did it justice. The thing was too elaborate to be called a castle...
2025-07-28 13:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 294 - Never Alone
For the first few minutes, Simon just enjoyed the change of scenery. As the distant rumble of the volcano faded along with the portal, he listened to the sound of rain softly pelting the leafy canopy above him. It both felt and smelled like peace, and he decided right away, as he pulled his cloak up...
2025-07-28 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 110 - Impact
The young mage fell silently and invisibly from his perch toward the hard ground below. He tried to struggle and squirm, but the blade held him, twisting his body only slightly so that he made two full revolutions before landing on his feet.
When he hit the ground, the only evidence that he passed ...
2025-07-21 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 168 - A Dangerous Liaison
‘My dearest Mr. Blue,’ the letter began. ‘I can see now that I might have been hasty in judging you. Perhaps we can arrange a rapprochement, and in time, perhaps more will come of it. I look forward to dancing with you again soon, Dutchess Skylara.’
It was a short memo, but the...
2025-07-21 13:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Ch. 291 - Experiments
Simon went hunting that afternoon, but more to practice with his bow than for the food. He was planning to stay for a couple more days to trace runes and dig through the wealth of knowledge he’d collected. A deer would have been too much for that, so he’d been hunting for a rabbit or perha...
2025-07-21 13:58:01 +0000 UTC
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