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Day 56 – Beniar   This was how they came. A woman and a girl rode down towards the village in the distance. The woman was tall, thin, and her hat and dress were black. Properly so. Not midnight black or as black as sin, just black. She rode a horse. It wasn’t a racer […]

(Hey, I’ve got news! Volume 2 of The Wandering Inn might come out as an e-book soon! The Audiobook is scheduled for September 10th! Madness! Find out more details here!)   Day 55 – Durene   Help was on the way. That was the thought that Durene held in her head when she woke in […]

Day 54 – Ryoka   When the Wind Runner of Reizmelt woke up, she knew it would be another rainy day. Honestly, she was sick of them, but they were symptomatic of Izril in the spring. Wet. And it was still better than Liscor, whose spring rain season was the thing of nightmares. Even so, […]

(Hey, I’ve got news! Volume 2 of The Wandering Inn might come out as an e-book soon! The Audiobook is scheduled for September 10th! Madness! Find out more details here!)   Later, at lunch time, The Wandering Inn was faced with an unusual sight. And that was by the standards of the inn, which meant […]

It was night when the traveller arrived in Celum. Mainly because he had been moving all night. He wasn’t tired, although he had beaten the sun’s rays to the gates of Celum. He’d gotten his sleep on the wagon, riding here, in pleasant company with a very amiable [Wagon Driver] with two fine horses. And […]

Day 51 – Durene   Fifty-one days. At first, Durene couldn’t believe it. But when she stepped into Riverfarm and looked around, she had to accept it. The village she knew was gone. Riverfarm had always been a village of a hundred people, sometimes more, sometimes less. A family moving out of the village was […]

Day ?   Dawn struck the city of Manus, illuminating the tops of the buildings first and working its way down the Walled City. It took a while for the sun to reach the center, the secret center of the city where they gathered. And that was fitting; even light could not so easily find […]

The Walled City of Salazsar was silent at dawn. Silent, and cold. Frost touched the roofs and stone walkways near the top of the city. Even in the spring, it was so; the braziers that were always tended to with great attention were mundane, not magic, for that very reason. They kept the frost from […]

Erin Solstice woke up. She stared up at the wooden ceiling overhead and had a flash of panic. Things felt different. She twisted—and saw a pillow next to her. And then a drop. She was lying in a bed. Her bed. And then Erin remembered. She was in her room, the first room by the […]

Springtime in Liscor was disgusting. True, the initial rains had passed. And the muddy Floodplains were drying. A few valleys were still mudpits where the most stubborn amphibians and fish still clung to life, but the rest of the hills and valleys were now soil. And greenery. The flowers were blooming. Little shoots of grass […]

(The Wandering Inn is on break until July 13th! 15th for public readers. The author must rest. See you then!)   Wing Commander Embria Grasstongue of Liscor got up like she normally did. For a minute, a good, nice, long minute, she lay in bed as the dawn’s rays began tickling the scales on her […]

Klbkch sat in a small office inside the Hive of the Free Antinium of Liscor. He had a desk, a proper wooden one, and a chair. Aside from that, his office didn’t resemble any other building by the name in this world or Erin’s. At least, Klbkch assumed this was the case. If there were […]

The grass was lush and green. The perfect height, which was to say, short. Not like the tall, whippy, adult grass that was what real grass actually looked like. This grass was fresh. It had the kind of green quality and density that you only saw on lawns religiously tended to by their owners. It […]

Magnolia Reinhart. To many, she was as much of a legend as any Named Adventurer that Izril could boast of. She was a name that defined the continent, for better or worse. Pallass. First Landing. Tyrion Veltras. Saliss of Lights. Deniusth the Violinist. The Bloodfeast Raiders. The Terland family. Zel Shivertail—or who would now step […]

War. Was it just her, or was there too much war? Both in her world and here. Not a day passed when Ryoka didn’t hear about the King of Destruction in Chandrar or about some conflict in Baleros between companies. A spat in Terandria between kingdoms. Battles at sea. Dead gods or living ones, wasn’t […]

I am dreaming. Dreaming of a small child following me with wide eyes. Her fur is forest brown, and she sniffs as she pads along behind me. She makes no sounds, but she trusts me. As I descend into the crevasse and reach for her, she trusts me. As the Goblin takes my fingers, she […]

There she was. Like a soiled yellow bell pepper, poking up out of the ground. Or—or a lemon covered in crap. Or maybe a yellow onion that someone had dropped in a latrine, half recovered, and then sprinkled with bits of pink— You know what? There were no proper analogies. None at all. Umina’s yellow […]

“You lost your money pouch.” “No. Maybe. Perhaps. It might be down here.” “Are you really searching—” “Oh dead gods, Venaz!” “Shut up, Marian. Move those hooves. I have to find my money pouch. I had a lot of gold in there.” “It’s not worth looking through—watch those hands!” “I am going to murder you.” […]

The city of Daquin was one of Baleros’ many port cities. It wasn’t quite a metropolis, but it was large. Its harbor could hold as many as eight warships at the same time without being overcrowded; the buildings were by and large stone, a product of a nearby quarry and the city’s rich history. It […]

“Hey. Did you do your homework today?” “Of course. And it was a pain. What about you?” “As if I’d turn up today without having done it.” It was a curious phenomenon. An odd system. As immortal in its own way as mountains or geography. Somehow, despite magic and monsters and the passage of time, […]

Talenqual. It wasn’t cool enough for a proper name, like the City of Serpents, the Ironforged Hearth of the North, the Titan’s School, and so on. It was just Talenqual. That was fine. Unless you had an ego issue about something like that. This may have been true for the company that controlled the city […]

People liked to insult the local City Watch, especially in Human cities. Ask any local and you’d get some commentary about how their local law enforcement was about as effective as a hamster with a toothpick and as corrupt as a bag of [Lords] with their britches stuffed full of gold coins. The comparison was […]

[Martial Artist]. A term for people who use Skills and techniques designed for combat, be it self-defense, war, competition, or other activities. They differed from traditional [Warriors] in a simple way. While anyone could learn to use a sword, and there were indeed teachers of swordplay or soldiering, anyone who knew how to fight could […]

“Ashfire Bees, huh?” Selys shook her head as she left the Adventurer’s Guild. She’d put in her time; it was past midday, which meant she’d been working for nine hours. That also meant she’d been at the Adventurer’s Guild since before dawn, but that was the life of a [Receptionist]. “Yeah. It was surprising. I […]

“You know, I could quit. Right now. I could quit my job, walk into grandmother’s office and tell her to go eat her tail and walk out. Just like that. I could quit and do something else for the rest of my life.” Selys Shivertail looked around the Adventurer’s Guild. She glanced sideways at her […]