riverfate

General Updates for December: Book 3 Is Coming Soon

Hi Folks,

I want to toss out a general update, especially for anyone who's swinging by after finishing Aster Fall on Kindle.

Feel free to respond here with any questions, comments, or things you'd love to see in the books.

I'll start releasing chapters here soon for Guardian of Aster Fall, Book 3. I...

Aster Fall, PDF Version

PDF version for those who want that.

Aster Fall, MOBI Version

MOBI version for those who want that.

Aster Fall is Now on Amazon KU

If you missed the epub and were here for Dec, shoot me a message here and I'll send it to you.

The Amazon KU release is live for Book 2. Let your friends know!

Amazon Link here: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

Aster Fall: Epilogue

The only thing left at the center of the battlefield was the sealed Grand Flaw, gleaming like a pinprick of dark flame in the ice. The shaman, the walls of ice, and nearly all of the Outsiders were gone, erased from existence.

Above, Caelus was just beginning to move out of alignment, and the power throughout the ruins ...

Aster Fall 55: Blood Winter

The shaman hadn’t delayed after attacking Elsanar. He had already turned around to grasp at the flaw again and was slowly drawing out another mass of spatial energy. This time, as Sam kept a careful watch on the Grand Flaw, he saw the sphere decrease in size, contracting inward by a couple of feet.

It had been 40 feet...

Aster Fall 54: Five Auras

With the force of the relic’s energy driving the enchantment, the Pure Water Elemental Crystal began to resonate. Despite its rarity, it only had one purpose, which was to create water, and that was the exact thing Sam was counting on. All around it, the aura enchantment he’d created hummed with power.

The water gus...

Aster Fall, Ch 53: The Flow of Time

A sense of overwhelming danger crashed down on Sam as he saw his father standing there. The Grand Flaw was much bigger than he’d expected, and with his dad’s position at the front, whatever happened, he would be the first to face it.

The careful plan to attack from a distance flew out of his mind. There was no way h...

Aster Fall, Ch 52: The Grand Flaw

As soon as he was back to where Siwasir and the other Ice Sylphs were waiting, Sam held a brief planning session and checked on his father’s location. Then he sat down with the Pure Water Elemental Crystal, placing it on his portable table as he got to work.

The voice he’d heard a few minutes before was still ringin...

Aster Fall, Ch 51: Preparing an Offensive

The Grand Flaw was on the seventh layer, a layer below and a little to the south. Sam’s feet skimmed across the top of the snow, throwing up a light powder as he ran. Behind him, the Ice Sylphs followed easily.

The feeling of freedom flowed past his cheeks as he let out a deep breath. He felt different now that Defian...

Free December Renewal

December will be a free month on Patreon for subscription renewals. So, if you’re here, stick around and set it for auto-renewal in December.

The last chapters of Book 2 will come out this week, and then I’ll be doing a little bit of editing and getting some sleep.

My daughter is just about two months old now....

Aster Fall, Ch 50: Horned Hunter

“Why would people work for Outsiders?” Sam growled to himself again as he flexed his talons, his attention turning to the three traitors that were still alive. After they were tied up, they had been tossed to the side of the room against one wall.

Even after killing the Visionary, his anger was still running hot. If...

Aster Fall 49: Transit Point

Sam sprinted across the tenth layer, his steps fluid. Behind him, the Ice Sylphs spread out in a wedge, their lean forms and white cloaks blending into the snow so well that they seemed to disappear between one moment and the next.

The snow curled around them in the same way it did for him, but it was much stronger. The...

Aster Fall 48: Natural Enemies

The elements roared in fury, spinning into a shield that shattered a moment later as the monster’s jaws snapped down. Shards of hardened wind and ice flew around Sam, ringing off the tiny scales on the matriarch’s head as his talons swept up to meet her, slashing toward her nostrils and eyes.

There was no time to do...

Aster Fall 47: A Distant Flaw

Crystal flame flared around him as he jumped, buffering his fall toward the third layer twenty feet below. Snow flew up in a welcoming billow around his shoulders as he landed.

He’d taken the staircase down from the first layer to the second since it had been too steep to jump, and then made his way around to the west...

Aster Fall, Ch 46: A Path of His Own

The plaza was silent as snowflakes drifted down, covering the corpses that were scattered across it. Many of them landed on Sam, layering him in white. As the snow gathered, it flowed around his body, slowly lifting him up. Before long, it was a foot deep.

Sam lay on top of it, his body covered in streaks of blood, shar...

Art of Sam and Jeric, Book 1, Basalt Gnome Warlord

This piece is one of the oldest I commissioned. It was just finished.

Here are Sam and Jeric fighting the Basalt Gnome Warlord back in Book 1, under the Abyssinian Plains.

Sam's Charisma is fairly low here, which I think worked out with his features. The artist tried to make them match the later sketches, with the...

Aster Fall 45: Iceblood Curses

The talismans struck the mangled corpses across the plaza, sizzling as the pale blood on them gleamed with an eerie, blue light. There had been twenty three monsters, but there were five times that many chunks of them in the plaza now.

The bone shards ripped into the corpses and then kept going, tearing out the far side...

Aster Fall, Ch 44: Moonlight Blades

Moonlight streamed down the walls of the buildings as Sam ghosted away from the plaza and the trap enchantment. In his hand, there was a chunk of glowing, green crystal with a moon rune engraved into the side. It was the final part he needed to activate his plan.

The question was if it would be enough.

Ha...

Aster Fall, Ch 43: Iceblood Trap

He had an hour to prepare and the Outsiders shouldn’t know he was aware of them. His thoughts burned like wildfire as he considered the best approach. He wanted something that would destroy them.

A few minutes later, he reached the hideout he was aiming for, a small ice cave he’d dug out beneath tumbled pillars, and...

Aster Fall, Ch 42: Hunting the First Layer

The storeroom closed behind him with a resonant hum as the earth flowed back in, sealing over the entrance and restoring the unblemished appearance of the keystone. The three moons settled back into their positions and went dark.

The ice wall he’d created was still there, but his awareness swept out past it as he scan...

Aster Fall, Ch 41: Moonlight Storeroom

The sun rose slowly, turning the sky to a pale rose gold as Sam made his way to the location the Guardian Star had marked. Caelus hadn’t risen on the eastern horizon, but there was a soft blue glimmer that presaged the moon’s appearance.

All around, the peaks of the Western Reaches had begun to glow, soaking in the ...

Aster Fall, Ch 40: The First Layer

The plateau was a circle roughly a mile across. Its edges ended in steep cliffs with no visible trail to the layer below, which was half a mile down in a nearly straight line. The only way Sam could imagine getting off the plateau and back on was teleportation or flying.

Had the builders been able to fly?

On top o...

More Art of Sam, Book 2

Some things to like here.

Aster Fall, Ch 39: The Top of the World

The land spread out beneath Sam’s view in dark, soaring mountains and snow-filled valleys. The Western Reaches stretched far off into the distance to the north and south, a line of white, night-edged peaks glowing with trails of mana. He was standing at the tip of a diadem, each peak a shining gem set into a band that cross...

Aster Fall, Ch 38: An Old Formation

The currents of multicolored energy in the void spun around Sam as he turned in place. It barely felt like he was moving and it was hard to get a grasp of up or down. The only markers here were the strands of energy.

Moonlight? The thought flickered through his mind as the colors registered. They matched with t...

Aster Fall, Ch 37: Ice Pillar

The adventurers were not in good shape. Cesten was standing on his own and it looked like he would recover shortly, but Selis, Arena, and Obel were a wreck. Many areas of their skin were ash grey, with areas that had hardened completely to stone, especially on their hands, forearms, and legs.

Obel had been doing better ...

Art of Sam (Colored), Book 2

Here’s the finished version of this piece.

 I actually like his face in the half-finished version better. (The one with less definition to the flames).

Aster Fall, Ch 36: Bounty Hunter

His essence was nearly depleted, so Sam grabbed four auras from his storage and combusted them, taking himself back up to 92. He’d have grabbed more, but he wasn’t sure how much his meridians could handle. Then he braced himself for the basilisk.

It arrived like an avalanche, pushing a tide of snow and rocks in fron...

Aster Fall, Ch 35: Greystone Basilisk

His father raced through the scattered Coldfangs, following the path that the starflame arrows had cleared. A moment later, he sprang into the air, leaping twenty feet as he aimed for the top of the basilisk’s head.

The basilisk reared upwards, its head tilting back like a lizard’s as its mouth opened, preparing to ...