Chapter 32
Recovery
The room we found was in the lower levels, unassuming, and tucked away from the regular thoroughfares of the Palace. Within, stacked and forgotten, were small towers of furniture, draped in blue and gold throws that were caked so high in dust one would think the s...
2025-08-16 19:35:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 31
Barging In
I tottered toward my room, managing to feel both wretched and satisfied at the same time. My younger self was a little asshole, but he was my kind of asshole, and he was starting to warm to me, at least insofar as such a little monster could. I had to s...
2025-08-13 02:04:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 30
Seeing Red
I stalked after my Souls as they battered Felstrife from one end of the ballroom to the other, the crunch of glass against my boots a counterpoint to the scrape and screech of battle. It would not be a quick process, this beating of an entirely new deck from my foe, bu...
2025-08-10 02:38:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 29
What’s Underneath
I stared at the forever-long staircase and my body rebelled. If I tried to walk down that thing I’d end up rolling most of the way, and that felt like a pretty embarrassing way to empty my Mind Home. Half of me still wanted to walk back into the throne room and co...
2025-08-06 01:19:08 +0000 UTC View PostFor reference:
https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/ability-list/
https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/source-powers/
https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/source-explosions/
Chapter 27
Ways and Wiles
I sat on my bed and tried to focus on the notebook I had taken from Hestorus’s vault. I’d started off lying down – I didn’t think I’d ever been so tired in my life – but when I laid myself flat it felt like my heart was going to stop. As much as I wanted to...
2025-07-29 23:57:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 26
Common Ground
It was amazing to me that after only a short time in Hull’s presence, I felt more myself than I had in days, perhaps even weeks. A creeping numbness had consumed me, allowing only the darkest emotions to gestate, and yet now I felt a lightness seeping into my s...
2025-07-27 01:35:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 25
Work Out After All
Basil wasn’t right. He wasn’t himself. I saw it in the way he’d barely reacted when he’d been given Esmi’s card, and I saw it in the ugly, dangerous look he leveled at this black-robed asshole holding his Master Assassin. If I’d seen someone looking lik...
2025-07-23 02:26:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 24
Arrival
The jubilee was a tangled mix of wights, vampires, and other oddities, but I hardly gave them a thought when I spotted Hull. My friend noticed me at nearly the same time, and without needing a shouted word or coordinating gesture, we made a hurried beeline through the press o...
2025-07-19 16:33:17 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 23
Shedding
“You’re here!” I said to Esmi the second I was close enough. “How are you here?” I was half tempted to pull her into a hug, but being watched by a room full of bloodsuckers left me awkward and reserved. That, and the fact that I might pitch over on my face if I rea...
2025-07-16 02:36:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 22
Guests
The vampires knew how to set the stage for a party, Curly would give them that. The drapes and carpet had all been replaced, the new set a rich maroon with tasteful, gold-threaded edges. A summoned arachnid creature had woven webs to and from the rafters, the gossamer material s...
2025-07-13 00:21:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 19
Old Man
I felt torn inside. Not in some oh, what do I do now kind of bullshit way, but like some muscle or organ deep inside me had pulled free and was pumping blood into places it wasn’t supposed to be. I didn’t think anything like that had really happened when Mother wor...
2025-07-09 02:04:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 20
Asked and Answered
It didn’t take long for us to encounter more undead as we traveled the enemy occupied hallways. There were skeletons and zombies – actual skeletons and zombies, not summoned Souls – the same as those who guarded us in the ballroom. The distinction was easy to...
2025-07-05 23:37:22 +0000 UTC View PostOK, folks, I am very glad to announce that I have an new cover from Kart Studios for Book 1 of Source & Soul! Feast yer eyes!
They're already working on the cover for book 2 as well. As for book 1, the editing is a way bigger bear than I expected, so it's still going to take me some time to actually get the thing up on Amazon, but it's coming! I'll keep you all posted.
As you may notice on that cover, this is now the Treledyne <...
2025-07-02 23:16:58 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 19
Torn
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to snap off her horns and punch her face into a red pulp like I’d done to that vampire. It was all such a tangle of shock, hurt, and rage inside me that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and I said nothing. My card. She...
2025-07-01 23:13:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 18
Persuasion
Hull had been here, just outside the room I was held captive in. I would have been none the wiser if not for the Master Assassin I had set to guard the entrance. The black-clad Soul had reported to me about my friend’s unexpected appearance and Felstrife barring his entr...
2025-06-28 23:19:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 17
Gifts and Bargains
“I think that’s everything,” I said, peeking out into the corridor for the hundredth time. Still no one in sight. I’d picked a small empty room in the servants’ hallways to stay in – falling asleep in one of those idiot noble four-poster beds was just b...
2025-06-25 00:19:34 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 16
Battle Ready
“Only two,” I lamented, staring up at the pair of Air Source that lazily circled my head.
Justine was jogging in place beside me, her feet beating a steady rhythm. “Is that bad?”
When Felstrife had succeeded in adjusting my helmet so that I could ...
2025-06-21 22:29:49 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 15
True Respect
We walked up the broad, yellow-carpeted stairs forever. I wasn’t keeping track of the steps, but it felt like a longer climb than getting to the top of Hillside from the depths of the Lows. Just in case I needed a reminder that Hestorus was an asshole: he made everyb...
2025-06-18 02:49:40 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 14
Elevation
It could have been the middle of the day or night for all I knew, trapped in my mirrored prison, Felstrife working me to the bone. The duels I had once found so intriguing now pained me just as much as the deluge of cards ever did, my mind feeling like it was splitting in t...
2025-06-15 01:12:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 13
Stupid Risks
“They can’t make you do this,” Afi said as we walked through the sewers, the reek of ten thousand shits so strong in my nostrils it was almost a taste. “You could just walk away, you know.”
I peeked over at her in the dim light of our Sources. She was che...
2025-06-11 01:44:39 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 12
Tutelage
After Afi’s brief infiltration, Felstrife worked me even harder than she had before, and I welcomed every minute of it. Our sessions were easily twice as long and composed entirely of duels, force-fed into my mind from start to finish so I was able to observe every play, e...
2025-06-08 00:32:01 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 11
Plans Inside of Plans
“I must admit I’d hoped to see you again under better circumstances,” the Queen said, breathing heavily as we pelted up the front stairs of the City Watch headquarters. Someone was swinging the great doors closed behind us and dropping the bar back into plac...
2025-06-04 02:36:15 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 10
A Welcome Guest
Hull was alive, alive. Who else could it be in the Lows, summoning demons, and strong enough to defeat an Epic? When that suited vampire had come asking after such a personage, I knew precisely who it had to be. Of course, I hadn’t given up Hull’s name or l...
2025-05-31 18:50:33 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 9
Stronger
The door that led up from the sewers into the City Watch headquarters was banded with steel and likely protected by Artifact traps, not to mention the pair of beefy summoner watchmen standing guard. They saluted smartly when Lord Hintal approached, but there was no flourish o...
2025-05-28 00:14:27 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 8
Hearthflame
“She’s been shed? Are you sure?”
Those were the first words Curly heard as she was summoned into the sitting room of the living. Well, the partial-living: they were vampires, after all.
“I’m afraid so,” Stafford replied, taking his ease in one...
2025-05-24 19:13:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 7
Allies
“If both of us have realized that the sewers are the best way to get around, others will have as well, and they might not be friendly,” Basil’s father said. I thanked Fate that he’d recognized me from the Rising Stars Tournament and his son’s descriptions of me; I’d...
2025-05-21 00:27:26 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 6
Guards, Guards
Cards.
I loved cards.
The comfortable weight of them, the glass-slick feel, the perfect images, capturing for a frozen moment the essence of who or what something was. They were beautiful, and not just in form and function, but in what the...
2025-05-17 23:51:48 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 5
Tight Spots and Traps
“The Big Man deigns to grace us with his presence,” said Brin Jagorin, the hulking don of the fighting pits. “Guess he had to wait for his balls to drop first.” I’d heard of the man and his eyepatch with the angry eye painted on – all us street kids h...
2025-05-14 02:57:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 4
The Workshop
I didn’t have to wait long to find out what happened to the gifted girl from Burlon. By the next day, she had joined me in the cavernous ballroom along with three others. The five of us hardly made a dent in the grand space, but I found their presence preferable to be...
2025-05-10 22:02:14 +0000 UTC View Post
