DWinchester

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 108-109

Ch. 108 - A Bloody Game

The following day, the King’s children started to arrive in ones and twos. Those were the ones who lived in the capital, and most of them were too old to be of any use. Though the man had hundreds of children, most of them were dead, and even the...

Brewing Bad Ch. 166-167

Ch. 166 - Getting her Attention

The following week, Lucas attended two more parties. That wasn’t because he wanted to, of course; it was because he needed to. His to-do list was getting remarkably short, and unless he wanted to fight Skylara on her home turf or get doze...

Death After Death PLUS 288-290

Ch. 288 - Just a Shadow

Simon had started this life with high hopes. He’d planned on a nice, peaceful existence. He was going to relax, learn some magic, and learn more about another culture, but all that was over now. Even if the Magi’s super orb wasn’t going to sh...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 106-107

Ch. 106 - An Entreaty

It was only when all of that was done, and the throne’s bonfire glow caused by the blade’s expenditures had dimmed substantially, sometime after dawn, that the blade paused its efforts to deplete the thing’s reserves. Then, it looked around for...

Brewing Bad Ch. 164-165

Ch. 164 - Achievement Unlocked

After their successful poison test, Heisenburgle came up with a long list of minor improvements that he wanted to make to things, including a disconnect for the hose that had caused him to be drug dozens of feet across the ground. That gave ...

Death After Death PLUS 285-287

Ch. 285 - Into the Dark

No one else woke at their passing, but even though the man wasn’t particularly quiet, the way that his peers lay completely still implied that magic was involved. Have they put me to sleep like this often as well? Simon wondered. He was ...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 104-105

Ch. 104 - Last Gasp

The Ebon Blade watched as the ad-hoc army assaulted the gates and curtain walls for several minutes with cautious, probing attacks. Some of these were quite powerful, but each time they retreated. This was enough to make the weapon think that there wer...

Brewing Bad Ch. 162-163

Ch. 162 - Dialing it In (part 3)

The following evening, as Lucas and Heisenburgle prepared for their third test, with a higher charge and a lower viscosity poison, they discussed the ball and their target’s reaction to his presence. The gnome was skeptical of his interp...

Death After Death PLUS 282-284

Ch. 282 - Stepping Stones

That morning, Simon was offered a feast, but he forced himself to eat sparingly. He’d starved before, and the body did not like to switch from famine to feast too quickly. Still, he felt bad for leaving so much of his tiny banquet untouched. He...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 102-103

Ch. 102 - Lonely is the Throne

Feeling alone and vulnerable, the first thing that the Ebon Blade did was search the room for its wielder. She wouldn’t have abandoned it. The weapon was sure of that, yet she was nowhere to be found. Even if Evelyn had given into her rising...

Brewing Bad Ch. 160-161

Ch. 160 - Dialing it In

While it only took a day to gather the ingredients, it took Lucas a week to make something worth testing, because in its natural state, the Wyrm’s bane leaves were really only poisonous when they were burned. Then, they created a choking, acrid gas...

Death After Death PLUS 279-281

Ch. 279 - Lessons Learned

That night, he had another fight, and this time, it was against three boys. There was no attempt to challenge him publicly, as his rival had done before. The fight had occurred just after dinner, and it had been as surprising as it was brief. Simon...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 98-101

We're having 4 chapters this week since is the finale of Book 2. Book 3 starts on chapter 102. That's the good news. The better news is that I might extend it to a four-book series instead of the originally planned trilogy because book 3 is shaping up to be a lot of fun (and slowly getting longer...

Brewing Bad Ch. 158-159

Ch. 158 - Hangover

The following morning, Lucas’ intelligence had fallen by one. Bringing it down to nineteen. While that was expected, it turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. 

He spent those first few days in the lab looking at various ingredients and ma...

Death After Death PLUS 276-278

Ch. 276 - A New Home

It’s all part of the brainwashing, Simon reminded himself as he lay there pretending to sleep. It was hard to sleep on cold stone, but he eventually managed. Still, before the world faded to black, he lay there for at least an hour ponderin...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 95-97

Ch. 95 - Getting Her Affairs in Order

When they returned to Evelyn’s domain. The first thing the Baroness did was make a perfunctory visit to her dead husband’s grave. After that, when she returned to Gilles Hall, she wrote two documents. The first was to her father, ...

Brewing Bad Ch. 156-157

Ch. 156 - An Unexpected Audience

After that, the hits kept right on coming. Lucas wasn’t given the chance to even talk to Heisenburgle about this. Worse, as soon as he was ushered into the waiting carriage by the black armored guards, they left immediately. He was being...

Death After Death PLUS 273-275

Ch. 273 - The Selection

Simon didn’t have to wait too long to take the plunge. Though it sometimes took weeks of exploration and play through the vast and crowded city of Zurari for him to find the next Selection, the next one was only a few days later. Truthfully, he h...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 91-94

Ch. 91 - Toughening Up

For the next two weeks, the blade ran its wielder into the ground. The fact that Evelyn was a Baroness or even a Princess didn’t matter to it. All that mattered was making her into the wielder she needed to be. By night, this meant whispering dark...

Brewing Bad Ch. 154-155

Ch. 154 - Strengths and Weaknesses

The following night, they didn’t get any work done because Heisenburgle was still feeling unwell. Lucas didn’t blame him for that. It had taken him a week to feel normal after his own brush with death. It wasn’t like they had anyth...

Death After Death PLUS 270-272

Ch. 270 - Coming to Fruition

It felt strange to cast his first spell in months, but it was even stranger to watch what happened next. As the taste of sulfur filled his mouth and the faint tingle of power spread through his body, the slender lightning bolt he summoned came...

Better is a Process

Hello everyone. I’ve been pretty busy lately writing (as always) and doing online classes (only nine more left before I finish this degree!) Still, I wanted to pop in with a few updates. Though I’ve kept my writing output high, I’ve primarily focused on editing this month. 

Part ...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 88-90

Ch. 88 - At Any Moment

Over the next few days, nothing happened. Evelyn kept the Ebon Blade’s new wielder abreast of the latest developments, but it was not moved from its hiding place. She was informed by the captain of the guard as to all the places his men had search...

Brewing Bad Ch. 152-153

Ch. 152 - Only Helping

For a moment, Heisenburgle looked like he was going to explode like a particularly volatile mixture. “Preposterous!” he shouted. 

“You’re just saying that because…” he calmed down then, but only so he could whisper the terribl...

Death After Death PLUS 267-269

Ch. 267 - Further North

Simon rode off and on for three nights before he decided that he was far enough away from whoever might be pursuing him to risk another act of necromancy and summon the spirit of the Magi he’d killed so recently. Those first few days were hardly ...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 84-87

Ch. 84 - A Dead End

The first thing the blade did was study the man that held it. It was not yet convinced he would ever earn the title of wielder, but even as he struggled to release his own grip the blade’s first order of business was to peer inside his soul.  2025-05-19 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Brewing Bad Ch. 150-151

Ch. 150 - Aftermath

When the potions wore off and his attributes fell back to their normal level, Lucas braced for the worst, but surprisingly, he felt mostly fine, at least initially. There was no obscene soreness like there had been last time. There certainly should hav...

Death After Death PLUS 263-266

So, you may have noticed that this week there are four chapters, not three. This is because I screwed up the chapter numbering of DaD (somehow there were 2 chapter 262s), So briefly last week I posted 4 chapters to the DaD PLUS tier. That has been fixed, but i don't want to shortchange them with ...

The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 81-83

Ch. 81 - At Last

Ivarr! The blade screamed in Var’gar’s head as the orc merely gazed at the nearest figures and growled. It had longed to kill this man. Other than the dangers ahead and its ultimate goal, the blade thought of little else besides what it wanted to do to him, a...

Brewing Bad Ch. 148-149

Ch. 148 - A Moment of Truth (part 2)

In the end, Heisenburgle wouldn’t arrange the thing until Lucas had filled crates with the dragon’s drug of choice, but that was fine. He made a few of the bottles strong enough that even the smell might kill a normal man to screw with her, but mos...