The party was half victory celebration, half heartfelt reunion. I rarely found myself at a loss for words, but today was one of those times. My old teammates surrounded me, slapping me on the back and congratulating me.
They'd changed in the year we'd been apart. A...
2024-11-01 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostQuick author note: I realized that I should be having them climb up, not down, and have gone back and ret-conned this, but if you read the previous chapter where they were climbing down I don't want confusion.
Two-thirds of the way up the maze of ladders...
2024-10-31 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostCOLIN POV
We held a council of war as soon as we got back. Everything had changed. We just weren't sure yet just how.
"Sam will tell Shad, and then Shad will figure out something," Sage said. She was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. "This is wonderf...
2024-10-30 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostMin found herself at loose ends for the first time in many years. She rattled about in the nearly empty sect house, directing the servants to clean dusty corners or better rearrange the rooms to suit the new needs. She reordered supplies and filed the paperwork Chang-li had left for her with the ...
2024-10-29 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Grandpa was in a meeting.
"Get me in to see him as soon as possible," I told Coyote. "Cancel his next meetings."
Coyote hesitated. "Are you sure this is wise?"
"He needs to know everything I do as soon as possible."
"We don't fully understand the ...
2024-10-28 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Chang-li was trepidatious as they entered the green-tinged corridor. For the first few minutes, it seemed like the ones they'd been in before. Then, abruptly, it turned sharply and ended in thin air. Joshi put out his arm. The whole group stopped.
Chang-li came forward, peering...
2024-10-26 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSHAD POV
Our portal opened onto a lush, green valley. The alpine mountains were stark against the sky, snow-capped and rocky. The valley was shades of green I hadn't had words for before I'd joined the army and gotten out of Arizona. I took a deep breath, hand resting on the ho...
2024-10-25 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Chang-li had no idea how long they had been inside the tower. Without the sun and moon to indicate time, he had to go by the rhythms of his body. Ever since reaching the Peak of Bodily Refinement, those had become less familiar to him. He suspected that when plunged into...
2024-10-24 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSHAD POV
When Kvaltash and his people came calling, I was ready.
“Captain Williams. We have a task for you. The last piece of the key is in a zone that three corporations — Proxima, Antares, and Kuala Rdia — are all squabbling over," Kvaltash said. "I've got...
2024-10-23 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
The orange corridors posed a new threat. When the orange lux first gathered in the walls around them, Chang-li slipped on his limiting bracer and prepared himself. Sharp, spiky light filled the air around them, dazzling him. He sensed the attack just in time...
2024-10-22 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Sage and I slipped inside the wooden hut full of dispirited prisoners. They were wearing shabby, gray clothing, thin and emaciated. Outside the walls of the prison hut, artillery boomed and roared.
"Who's in charge here?" I demanded.
They looked us over, taking in the uni...
2024-10-21 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChang-li knew they were on the right path when the deep crimson color of the light in the tunnels began shading to orange. He was practicing Mind's Wall as they proceeded, his bracer off, riding in his satchel where he could grab it easily if he needed to. Now he sipped at the lux, passing it thr...
2024-10-19 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostCOLIN POV
"We have an opportunity," I told Sage and Rok'gar. With Gambler’s help, we had moved Victoria's garden back to our headquarters at Monte Carlo and re-sculpted it around our town core. Now we sat in the shade of tall willow trees beside the pink snail mo...
2024-10-18 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
As Chang-li and his companions entered the gash in the third floor of the tower, the Inquisitor and several guards awaited them. "I was beginning to think your sect was not going to attend this," the Inquisitor said, frowning as he looked them o...
2024-10-17 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostSHAD POV
I was starting to get just a little too comfortable in my dress uniform, and that bothered me. Juana gave me a look over and nodded approval. She was dressed to the nines. We and several other high-ranking members of our expedition had been invited ...
2024-10-16 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Chang-li and Joshi stood atop a stretch of bare rock. This oasis barely deserved the name. A pool of water bubbled up from the center. Beside it lay the corpse of an enormous basilisk, its body all hard stone. It was on its back now, its underside scored wit...
2024-10-15 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostCOLIN POV
"She's got a fortress," Sage reported as she sent back images with Coyote's help. She was mounted on her dragon, whom she had named Mr. Smokey, above our heads. I was at the forefront of the invasion fleet. We had everyone with us: all of the surviving allied minds, m...
2024-10-14 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Chang-li stood beneath a rainbow whirlpool sky, his feet as steady as they could be on the stark white sand as he cycled through the pattern the ancient scroll described.
Having thoroughly established command of the physical lux, weave in a strand of life lux to stabilize t...
2024-10-12 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostColin POV
Maybe a week later, Sage and I were standing on the beach by Monte Carlo at the forefront of an army as an invading fleet sailed up to our shores. Victoria had gotten tired of waiting. Her island was now only a short d...
2024-10-11 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor's note: due to a chapter heading mix up, there is no chapter 27: the next chapter, labelled "28", is the next in the sequence. By the time I realized I had a bunch more posted and was afraid of messing things up worse.
The party was at last winding down. To Cha...
2024-10-10 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostShad POV
We plunged deeper into the Progenitor laboratory. Clearly, Kvaltash knew what he was looking for, but I was lost.
"You learning anything from this?" I asked my team.
"Probably lots," Henry told me, "but we won't know for sure unless we get a chan...
2024-10-09 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostHiroko ignored the rap on her doorframe. She huddled on herself, sitting in a corner of her darkened room, the shutters pulled against the late afternoon sun, her arms wrapped around her knees.
She hadn't moved from this spot all day, not since her attendants had forced her to rise, rolling...
2024-10-08 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostShad POV
Two days later, I was standing in the assembly bay with my hand-picked squads. We had three military units under the command of Lieutenant Jankowski. I'd worked with him in the past. He'd be providing perimeter security for my t...
2024-10-07 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChang-Li POV
Chang-li entered the Scribes’ Office, escorted by Magistrate Bao. He’d been dreading this moment whole trip up the mountain, at least once he'd been able to think of anything beyond the fiasco of his wedding.
Inspector Dah lo...
2024-10-05 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostShad POV
"So, what have you got for me this week?" Grandpa asked as I sat down in the chair across from him in his office. He was seated behind a desk, piles of papers on either side with a set of framed pictures of me and Sage's kids on it.
...
2024-10-04 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
As the caravan broke apart after reaching the cultivator camp, Min lost sight of Chang-li. They had barely spoken for the last day and a half as they traveled back from Fail-lan City. When they began the climb up the mountain this morning, he had told her abruptly that he would need ...
2024-10-03 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostColin POV
Sage had no difficulty taking on the fragment we scouted out. She had called back and requested a couple of squads of different units, which I sent over on the second scout boat we built. The boats all needed an intelligent mind to guide ...
2024-10-02 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Joshi POV
The next day was a repeat of the first. With every swap-off, Feng seemed to grow more angry. He was bringing larger and larger groups of enemies back to the others. Joshi, his pride stung despite his best intentions, matched him.
It was pa...
2024-10-01 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostColin POV
"It needs a name," Sage asserted, looking around at our new base. I had to agree with her. The giant pink snail shell stood in the center of a bustling town.
In the direction we had arbitrarily denoted as "north" stood an ado...
2024-09-30 12:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
By the time Joshi and the other cultivators returned Hiroko to the Dowager, the princess was glowing but exhausted. All of the Young Masters made their bows. Feng swaggered off immediately to where his disciples had been waiting for him. Joshi could hear him boasting to them as he we...
2024-09-28 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post