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 conversational, even casual.  “Serious question.  If we have to put you down, I’m taking your hoard.”

Tiavathyris cle...

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 any idea what the corpse of an elder dragon is worth? In spell reagents and crafting materials alone!”

All five o...

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 stress hormones absolutely cleansed his system of any lingering transcendental dissociation; his last cogent memory of having ascen...

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. Mind and body both—no, wait.  It wasn’t that his body was changing in a way that his eyes or other senses could perceive, ...

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 that a shadow provided him no actual benefit, its absence felt wrong.  Also, having it properly attached was evidence that the E...

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, green and cool.  Forests were interrupted by meadows and the occasional cluster of distant smoke plumes that signified a vill...

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 this out of professionalism; since my brain problems were causing the stories to be interrupted and delayed, I felt my readers deser...

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 would like to bring up with the community before it comes to a head. I'm very interested in hearing what people think about this.<...

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.  And it hasn't been all that long, just a couple months, since my last unscheduled major break.  Stopping now feels unearned.&nb...

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 only by the forces at her disposal, but by the consequences of over-using them.

The square outside the cathedral teemed with a...

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 proved enough time for Madouris to not only wake up and shake off the winter chill enough to being the day’s business, but more cr...

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.  Ephanie and McGraw had already arrived, summoned by Yancey at Trissiny’s request, and Szith had come with them, the two sol...

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 view of Veilgrad spread out below.  The city’s predilection for tall buildings and decorate spires meant there was no unobst...

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 at the door through which the assembled nobility had just departed.  “Even the attempt would only have cemented the impressi...

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 update, so I'm counting today as a missed update for that level.  Which means...you know the drill.  Skipped update for oth...

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’re absolutely clear,” Melaxyna said by way of greeting, “did you ask Embras bloody Mogul to show up here a...

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 the several possible titles, by the one which tied him to her own regime, but Ingvar also knew very well when something was not wor...

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 when the Duchess herself and Trissiny returned from their own after-breakfast task.

“It itches.”

“No, it doesn’t...

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 chapter is running late because on Thursday I had what felt like a normal depressive episode that interfered with my writing. &nb...

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, Shiny Boots,” Ruda stated.

“And good morning to you too, my dear friend and comrade Zaruda.  I trust you slept...

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 his years in the city’s military police.  Then as now, it helped to be backed up by a squad of soldiers—even if the Holy L...

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 will make the final arrangements for your departure.  I emphasize, Basra, that they are support.  In essence, the...

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 call of a local owl, interrupted the pristine quiet.  This was a well-tended forest, left to grow somewhat wild during the i...

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 his head in greeting.  “Unless there have been more surprises?”

“These should be the last,” Razzavinax agreed....

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 underground laboratory.  “Nobody does!  It is not knowable!  There was no discernible interference at the time, ...