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Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 13 - Learning, Part 1

For the first few days at Uncle Kho’s, the old men admonished Sen to find something to do. He felt a slight sting of rejection at first. Yet, later, he realized that old men were catching up on a truly staggering amount of personal history. More to the point, most of it involved people that Sen...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 12 - Uncle Kho

Sen was stunned. He hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but this enraged cultivator was not it. Once again, Sen found himself wondering why. Why had Feng brought him all this way just to die? While Feng might stand a chance against that kind of power, Sen would never survive the fight. One loo...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 11 – A Manor in the Sky

Sen was wary of the cultivator the next morning. He kept waiting for another agony pill to appear. The memory of pain was still fresh, but Sen felt oddly removed from it. It felt like remembering something that had happened to someone else. He was at a loss to explain it. Sen’s fears notwithsta...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 10 - The Wilds, Part 6

Sen opened his eyes and said the most appropriate thing that came to mind. “You bastard. A bit uncomfortable?”

Sen’s voice sounded off to him. He supposed that maybe he’d gone hoarse with all the screaming. Feng’s face appeared in Sen’s line of sight. The man looked lik...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 9 - The Wilds, Part 5

Sen wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened. Yet, at some point on their third day out from the town, they had transitioned from the forest onto the mountain. It wasn’t that there were fewer trees. Much of the lower part of the mountain was covered with them. Rather, it was the transition fr...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 8 – The Wilds, Part 4

“Did you really just feed that cat some of your breakfast?” Feng asked in a voice that was half-amused and half-exasperated.

Sen shot to his feet. He hadn’t thought about what Feng would think of him just giving away part of the fruit. Would the man be angry? Sen wondered if was about...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 7 - The Wilds, Part 3

Morning came all too early for Sen’s tastes. The sun wasn’t even up yet. Instead, there was a kind of gray, pre-dawn illumination that made it just possible to see. Despite the early wakeup, though, Sen felt good. In fact, he felt better than good. It was like energy was bursting from his ent...

Cultivation? Xianxia? What?

Anyone who has been following my work for a while knows that I like writing urban fantasy. Hell, I’m writing an urban fantasy novel, Jericho Lott, right now! I’ve also got a space opera in the editing and revision phase that is about ready to go. So, announcing that ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 41

Even after I sweet-talked the social worker, or Gabriella did, who can keep all those details straight, there was still stuff to do. First, I had to take Gabriella to her mom’s place so she could pick up some essentials for her and Mateo. There was still a uniformed cop on the door when we show...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 6 - The Wilds, Part 2

Something warm and wet splashed over Sen’s face, rousing him from unconsciousness. It smelled wrong, almost like metal, but then a noise washed over Sen, freezing him in place. No, he realized, not a noise. It was a roar. His eyes snapped open. He looked up and saw, he didn’t know what he saw...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 5 - The Wilds, Part 1

Cultivator Feng wasted no time, walking directly to the town’s western gate. It wasn’t a direct path to the mountain, which Sen knew to sit north of the town. Yet, there was no Northern gate. East or West, those were the only choices. For all that Sen spent most days on his feet, and all that...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 4 - Leavetaking

It took a couple of days before Sen found himself once more at Grandmother Lu’s door. He never came during the day, so even he was a little shocked at how run down her little hut looked in the sunlight. At an impatient noise from Cultivator Feng, Sen roused himself, reached out a hand, and knoc...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 3 - Luck?

The mayor and all of the nobles stood straight again. Sen found a bit of grim amusement in their looks of discomfort. The mayor was fat, his belly straining the confines of the robes he wore. Supposedly, he’d been some kind of a warrior in his youth, but Sen found it hard to believe based on th...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 2 - The Cultivator

Grandmother Lu woke him early the next day. Very early. The sun wasn’t even really up yet, just the barest suggestion of light on the horizon, but Sen didn’t really mind. He had been given shelter for a night. That was more fortune than most of his ilk enjoyed. He simply bowed to Grandmother ...

Unintended Cultivator: Chapter 1 - The Escape

As he ran, Sen felt the burn deep in his legs and in his lungs. He could hear the shouts of the noble boys behind him, close, always too close, and tried to run even faster. Sometimes, he could get away. He hoped that today would be one of those days. He clutched the precious burden in his arms a...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 40

I had to work hard to suppress the grimace I wanted to make when I first saw Mateo. He looked tiny, the expanse of hospital bed simply dwarfing him. His pallor was washed out. The dark rings under his eyes made him look older, more careworn, and the cast on his arm looked uncomfortable. I’d bro...

What's in the Works?

So, I've recently come back to the Patreon with the intention of giving it a more serious go. That started with uploading a lot of chapters of an urban fantasy novel that is a work in progress for me. I've been posting these chapters over on Royalroad as well, mostly to see if they'd get any trac...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 39

The cop looked down at Gabriella’s hand in mine for a few seconds and then, much to my surprise, about ninety-five percent of the suspicion in his eyes evaporated. He even gave me something of a rueful smile. Held out his hand toward me.

“Detective Lindsey,” he said. “Sorry if I cam...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 38

I’m sure it’s not a universal opinion, but I consider visiting a hospital as one of those things best avoided by anyone with even a touch of spiritual awareness. While it’s undoubtedly worse in places like prisons and war zones, you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in civilian life...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 37

I gave everyone a carefully edited version of events. The ultimatum I gave George and the merciless beating that followed got glossed over as a fight. Bill looked away and kept his face in a ruthlessly neutral expression. Jessie cocked an eyebrow at me, but let it pass. They’d both seen evidenc...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 36

I expected the drive back to Gran’s to feel like a long journey. Yet, I’d been so caught up contemplating my conversation with Carter and vaguely dreading the inevitable questions George’s absence would trigger that I was absentmindedly parking the car before I realized the drive was over. ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 35

Carter sat in pensive silence for a moment, perhaps to gather his thoughts. Then again, he could have been thinking about what he’d order for dinner later. He offered me a thoughtful look before he spoke again.

“What’s your name? Seems like I should know your name if you’ve decided ...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 34

Surprises are part of the game when you live in the magical community. There is always some new variation on a power or some player you didn’t see coming. You get used to it and even learn to prepare for those moments. You train, study, and lay in bed at night trying to imagine what new crazine...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 33

As a general rule, I don’t consider myself a vengeful man. I don’t sit around and plot the downfall of my enemies or fantasize about ending their lives. It’s a lot of effort to keep that kind of hate rolling along for weeks, months, or even years. Especially when you’ve got no guarantee t...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 32

You can do a lot of spectacular things with magic. Some of them are even useful in the right circumstances. Most of the time, though, the most useful magics aren’t spectacular at all. There are no towering pillars of fire or gale-force winds, just a slight nudge of the world to set you off in t...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 31

I rounded the corner and almost fell over as I stumbled to a stop. The diner was fine. There was no sign of Carter. What I did see was so much worse. Gabriella was sitting on the steps her arms wrapped around her brother in mute defense. One of her eyes was swollen shut and blood was leaking from...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 30

A hush fell over the room as we all looked over at Annie. It was obvious, and I had overlooked it. By the expressions on Bill and Jessie’s faces, they’d overlooked it too. I suppose we could all be forgiven for the oversight. I always worked alone. I assumed the same was true for Bill and Jes...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 29

Nobody said anything for a moment when Bill and I wedged ourselves into the overcrowded living room. Annie sat on the couch and visibly shuddered when she looked at Uncle Bill. I frowned at her and wondered if there was some kind of history there. Jessie looked at the two of us with curiosity. Ma...

Jericho Lott - Chapter 28

For a moment, my emotions cartwheeled with such intensity that it felt like I was falling. He knew who my parents were, and he’d never told me. All the hopes and dreams that I’d bottled up so long ago burst free. Parents were such a basic fact of most people’s lives and such an emp...