Note: Like many Christmas specials, this is not canon, and in fact, takes place in an alternate timeline (a non-canon alternate timeline, just to distinguish it from a hypothetically canonical alternate timeline). It was Amaryllis’ idea to have Christmas, maybe to cheer me up, maybe because it was a kind of Earth-tourism that really appealed […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 221: Target of Opportunity
Quest Completed: Fleshsmith – Pendleham will have to find a new moniker, because it is the City of Flesh no more. What will replace it is unclear, but with time, some sense of normalcy will set in, and a new member polity might find entrance to the Empire of Common Cause. Quest Progress: Slayer of […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 220: Doecent
I wasn’t planning to be in the same place as Bethel. I didn’t want to be around her, and there was really no compelling reason for us to be in the same place at the same time. I tried, briefly, to think about how she felt, what emotions were stirred up inside her by briefly […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 219: Homecoming, Part I
It would be a homecoming, in a way, which was a bit of a funny thing for a house, if you really thought about it. Bethel curled up her body’s lips in faint amusement, without thinking about it. Valencia had asked about that, about how Bethel behaved when there was no one around, and it […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 218: A Grueling Calm
“I’m going to need to rest soon,” I told the call of the gold as I landed in Necrolaborem. “Too much fighting and flying today.” It had been one of those long days, the kind that stretched on forever by virtue of having started early and been crammed full of taxing things. There was no […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 217: A Dragon’s Roost
“We need to talk,” I said as I flew through the air. “You’re supposed to give me a break.” You couldn’t really carry on a conversation with the call of the gold, at least so far as I’d been able to find. It would give instructions, for some people as a voice in the head, […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 216: Bureaucratic Melees
An Amaryllis had taken up position next to the manor entrance, which was now a large, burnt hole in the building. They had been lucky that the long elevator was untouched, because it would have complicated descent into the complex if it had been turned to slag. Unfortunately, the dragonfire was a mar on the […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 215: Post
“What is this?” asked Amaryllis when I placed the uniform down on the table. It took her a moment to find the patches, and when she did, she stared at them for a moment, then looked at me. “I have theories,” I said. “The top theory is that someone from Earth came to Aerb, not […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 214: Glass Houses
“I have reservations,” I said to the table of tuung. I did feel a bit odd, being the only human there, and I was definitely damp, since this room, like many in the complex at Poran, was equipped with a mister in the ceiling that sprayed at periodic intervals. Aside from me being human, I […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 213: The Endless Toil
I watched as the work crew dismantled Tommul. Dragon deaths were incredibly uncommon, the kind of uncommon event where a government workgroup might put together a committee to make a thick binder with plans and contingencies, which would then get left on a shelf for twenty years without being used, until the time a new […]
Substantial Differences Between Juniper and Myself
Some very mild spoilers for Worth the Candle follow. Also, a warning that I wrote this while in the mood for some introspection, and none of it is very interesting. Juniper is a self-insert, but a loose one, whose life is informed by my own, but not a direct copy. There are a few reasons […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 212: Spilled Ink
There wasn’t a lot of good information on who the most powerful gold mage of all time had been, but there was a decent chance that I was in the top one percent of all time. Gold mages were hampered by their quest for gold, and unstable by design, which meant that there were hard […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 211: Gilding the Lily
The Egress was incredibly fast, and landed in the park five minutes later, going well in excess of a thousand miles an hour in order to do so. It was a better ship than the Underline in pretty much every way but its controls, which were nothing more than a map you could use to select your destination. In […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 210: Push and Pull
It was a bit of a waiting game. We had to wait for Amaryllis to sync with a clone, we had to wait for reports to come through the Fourfold Flask, and we had to wait for some kind of secondary deal with the Dorises. When we’d finally negotiated with them, we were able to […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 209: Orison
“Is it done?” asked Perisev. Her voice carried on the winds, silky and smooth but also quite loud. I hadn’t remembered quite how big she was, nor the strange way she moved, as though unbothered by physics. “No,” I replied back, amplifying my own voice with vibration magic. “We have everything under control.” “I did […]