ddwebb

H - 6: I Do

Once again, a stunned silence fell, filled by the distant background music of water and ancient machinery.

“Have you lost your mind?” Emeralaphine finally asked, her voice oddly conversat...

H - 5: Oh, Is That What You Think

“Ugh.”  It was the white dragon who broke the ensuing silence, in a tone of utter contempt.  “Why, you little thug.  Did you have to vaporize him?  Boy, have you ...

H - 4: You Are Just in My Way

There was nothing like a jolt of pure, animal terror to ground a fellow after an out-of-body experience.

Kaln froze exactly like a rabbit, momentarily ceasing even to breathe, as a flood of s...

H - 3: Do Not Try to Go Alone

Was this what it felt like to die?

That was the last thought Kaln experienced before the nature of thought itself melted away into something…else.

His mind was…expanding. M...

H - 2: There's No Way It's That Easy

At least the invisibility thing involved getting his shadow back, just in time for it to disappear again.  Still, knowing it would be there once he was visible again was a comfort; for all tha...

H - 1: I Think I've Found the Flaw in Your Plan

The weeks of hiking through the desert and up the mountain almost seemed worth it in the moment he crested that great ridge and gazed down over paradise.

A vast valley spread out before him, ...

So I've been going to therapy for a while...

And I'm going to TMI a little bit now.  I've long made a habit of being open about my mental health struggles, despite the fact that I generally prefer to be a private person.  I began th...

The future of TGAB

Irrespective of my ongoing mental health issues and the impact they keep having on my publication schedule, there's a specific matter continuing the future of The Gods are Bastards that I ...

burnout

So...I think I might need to pause again for a while. 

I hate doing this - I always hate doing it, but I especially hate to coming so soon off a recent scheduled break.  An...

17 - 16

Controlled chaos was the best they could hope for, under the circumstances.  Ravana exerted as much control as she was able, of course, mindful that the limits of her grasp were defined not on...

17 - 15

They did not come with the crack of dawn, as would have better suited a story.  In politics as in war, timing was everything, and so they waited for their moment.

Two hours after dawn pr...

17 - 14

“Ravana!  We need more power crystals!”

Fortunately, Fross’s sudden entrance occurred after the discussion had mostly wrapped and the group in the solarium had begun to break up. &...

17 - 13

“I can’t believe he did it!  The son of a bitch actually went and did it!”

Natchua glanced over her shoulder at him, then returned her gaze to the manor window, with its v...

17 - 12

“Your Holiness?” Branwen asked hesitantly.

He laughed, softly but suddenly, causing her to flinch.

“There wasn’t a thing I could have said,” Justinian mused out loud, gazing a...

The once and future schedule slip

Last Avenist update was a partial chapter; the full one wasn't completed until today, just in time for it to go up for the other Patreon levels.  I can't count that as a full Avenist-level upd...

17 - 11

It was well into the afternoon when Natchua and Jonathan returned home, appearing in the reconstructed entry hall of Leduc Manor in a swell of shadow.  They were expected.

“Just so we�...

17 - 10

“And…  This place was your family’s summer hunting lodge?”

“Are you by chance a student of history, Sheriff Ingvar?”

He did not miss her choice to address him, out of t...

17 - 9

Most of the group departed toward their own various objectives, but Ravana’s school roommates, plus Scorn and Fross, had congregated in the cathedral-sized grand entrance hall of Madouri Manor wh...

Schedule interruption

Yeah, this is a real awkward time for it, being right in the middle of restarting the normal schedule after the normal break week, but it can't be helped.

As previously announced, the Avenist...

17 - 8

Trissiny was the last to arrive at breakfast—dressed casually without her armor, yawning, and with her regulation braid emitting a few uncontrolled blonde wisps.

“You look like hell, Shin...

17 - 7

“Sir, please.  This is a place of peace.”

“And there’s no reason it can’t remain such,” Colonel Ravoud said in the tone of stern and implacable calm he had perfected during h...

17 - 6

“I have assigned you a handpicked team to be your support in this mission,” Justinian said.  “Meet with Colonel Ravoud as soon as he returns, which should be within the hour.  He wi...

17 - 5

The silence of the winter night was barely disturbed, and mostly by noises too minute for human hearing.  Only the steady whisper of the slight breeze through bare branches, and the occasional...

17 - 4

Toby looked up at the swell of darkness that rose amid the falling shadows of evening, but it was only Gabriel and Razzavinax arriving.

“Good timing, as ever,” said Ampophrenon, inclining...

17 - 3

“I don’t know,” Rector exclaimed in exasperation, throwing his hands up and accidentally losing his grip on a fragment of power crystal, which went spinning away into a corner of the...