The CHALLENGE chugs on!

[Icewalker]

Another 1500 words of Reliquary down. May write some more of Prisons of Thieves now that we've had another session, so may post some of that next week.

[Some Android]

Got my art up.

Still using deviantart for the time being. Might go back to blogger though.

[Xiander]

I managed to get 1674 words ready, I hope I am not to late.

Spoiler: The Crew of the Mist Dragon

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The MistDragon

Wess “Drake” Jansonn
Rank: Captain
Appearance: Known as the shortest captain in Lord Melmott’s navy, he stands 5’2 tall. He wears his uniform grudgingly, and tends to roll up the sleeves and leave some buttons open by the neck. He cares little for medals, and has often been reprimanded for not keeping his uniform in good condition.
His hair is wild, brown and perpetually in disarray. He wears it in a ponytail, to keep it out of his eyes, but even so, strands of it tend to come loose, flowing in the wind. His eyes are ice blue, with a steely will in them.
Personality: Strong willed and headstrong does not even begin to describe Drake. People who know him well, doubt that he has the ability to back down, even in the face of impossible odds. His will and stubbornness leads him to triumph in difficult situations, almost as often as they lead him into trouble in the first place.
Drake has a deep rooted scorn for people who follow rules without questioning the reasoning behind the rules. He accepts that rules serve a purpose, but if the purpose is ever overshadowed by the rule, he will not hesitate to forget the rule and act to serve the purpose instead.
Background: Wess was born into an exsistence which held very little promise of greatness. While his parents weren’t exactly poor, they were neither wealthy nor noble. It was expected that Wess would follow in his fathers footsteps and become a notary at the local courthouse.
Wess had different plans.
Even at a young age, Wess was drawn to the sea, and at the age of ten he made it clear that he would join the navy at some point. His father tried to dissuade him, but Wess was as headstorng then as he is now, and there was no swaying his decission.
He joined the navy at age thirteen. At fifteen he first set foot on the Mist Dragon. He took a liking to the ship, and stayed on even after his term of service was up.
When Wess was 18 he found him self in a pitched sea battle with a ship much larger than the Mist Dragon. Halfway though the battle, both the captain and the first mate of the Mist Dragon were taken out of action, when an explosion threw the first mate overboard and sent shrapnell flying everywhere. The Shrapnell wounded the captain gravely, sending the entire ship into disarray. The battle seemed lost, and most of the sailors were ready to surrender, until Wess took command of the bridge and ordered a frontal assault.
Somehow, the young sailor managed to rally his troop and lead them in a desperate push to take out the much larger opposing vessel. In the end the enemy Captain ordered a retreat, Wess ordered persuit, but the Mist Dragon was too dammaged to keep up with the enemy vessel. After this, Wess earned the moniker “The Young Drake” and not long after he was elevated to captain of the mist Dragon.



Jason Frederik Mark
Rank: First mate
Appearance: Tall and handsome, Jason gives of an air of selfconfidence whatever he is doing. Short cropped black hair and a glaring white smile, makes him a very attractive man, and he knows it.
He never really got used to wearing the naval uniform, an whenever he can he will forego it for am relaxed look. White shirts, opened just enough to show of a bit of his chiseled chest, are his favorite.
Personality: Jason is above all laid back, he does not let anything stress him out. Trouble never really stuck to hims, and even when it did he always managed to make the best of it. Nothing really vexes him, and he can be infuriatingly coolheaded even at the worst of times.
Jason likes girls, drink and gambling, not necesarily in that order. He takes pleasure in life whenever he can, and he has the ability to take pleasure almost anywhere.
Background: Jason’s father was a minor noble, who got fed up with his second son afte the third time a young girl claimed she had gotten a promise of marriage from said son. Not wanting to straight out disown his son, Jason’s father instead paid for a navy commision and granted it to Jason. The father hoped the post would teach Jason responsibility and shape him into the kind of man the father wanted him to be.
Jason made himself comfortable in the navy, he did reasonably well as a first mate, but he did not take the post serious. He was shifted from ship to ship as his captains got enough of his laid back attitude. He found a more permanent spot on the Mist Dragon, as Drake did not care for formalities, and his more relaxed personality could sometimes ground the high strung young captain and keep him from doing something stupid. After a while the two had formed an unlikely freindship, realising that they work well together and do much to balance out each others flaws.



William Crane
Rank: Ship Sage
Appearance: Young and unmarred, Wiliam has a pretty face, crowned with a mane of golden blonde hair. His hair is well kampt and it is clear that he takes good care of both his hair and his clothes. Even if he doesn’t have much, all his garments are kept in the bes possible state, and indeed you will often find him sewing his worn clothes together again to make sure they will not fall apart.
Personality: William is a freindly soul, he is always polite and helpful, and he does not expect much in return. For a sage, he is deceptively normal. Most sages are easy to pick out, as they seem somewhat out of touch with their surroundings, or in some cases complete unable to sync up with the world as they focus on the shifting and splintering of the reality a little farther away. Whether William is just to young to have been consumed by his profession, or he has some resistance to the mental stress visited upon sages, is unclear.
Background: There is one building in the splintered academy, which sometimes lies close to a small coastal village. One morning 20 years ago, a young mother came from the village and knocked on the door of the Academy.
She offered her baby to the clerk which opened the door. She did not have the money to raise a child, and the father had taken off with a ship, before even knowing that she was pregnant. The young boy was taken in and raised by the clerks, and taught by the Grand Sages. At the age of ten he had a better grasp on the splintering and relocation of the world, than most sages have when theyr graduate from the academy.
Today that boy has graduated himself and Wiliam now seeks passage on a ship, he does not know were he is headed, he just feels the call of the horizon and the need to follow. This call first led him to Safe Waters, where he visited the Aural shrine and met Basalt. Now he seeks the post as sage on the Mist Dragon, with Basalt following as a personal bodyguard.


Basalt
Rank: Hired Muscle
Appearance: Huge and heavy, Basalt stands more than 7 feet tall. He wears well worn leather armour and carries a crul looking Falchion. His face is carries countless scars from old wounds, and he has taken to wearing a heavy iron mask when he goes into battle.
Personality: Stoic and silent, Basalt only speaks when absolutely necesary. He will however not hesitate to act when action is necesary. For a big man Basalt is fast, and his skill in battle is undeniable. Anyone observing him in a fight will quickly realize, that Basalt is well aware of his prowess and that the giant has no fear, even when he is heavily outnumbered.
Background: Very little is known of the masked giant.
Basalt turned up at the Aural shrine in safe waters not long ago, he said nothing of his purpose in comming there, and did not interact with anyone unless they approached him first. Only when William Crane visited the shrine, dit Basalt shed his cold demeanor in order to approach the young sage. He offered up his service as a bodyguard and pointed out that there was a ship seeking sailors and, more importantly, a sage.

Spoiler: Safe Waters

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Safe Waters:
There has always been a rivalry between Lord Trask and Lord Melmott. Before the current lords took over, their fathers were rivals, and before that their grandfathers held a subtle but deadly disdain for each other.
In the strait between the lands of the two lords is an island, which has been disputed land as far back as anyone can remember. That is until Armande Trellanian managed to lay claim to it by a series of clever maneuvers.
Abord his ship The Chimera, Armande did a series of impressive deeds at the behest of whomever was willing to pay what he demanded. He was a legend in his own lifetime and The Chimera was known as the king of ships back in those days.
What tasks he did for lord Trask and Lord Melmott is unknown to all but Armande and the Lords. What is known is that the cunning captain somehow managed to talk both lords into granting him their claim to the island which lies between their lands. Armande had a keep build, and declared the island a saf place for anyone who would act in accordance with a set of simple rules. He named the place Safe Waters.
A comunity quikly sprang up on the island, and soon enough the city had outgrown the land, today most of the city is buld on pillars over the water, bridges connecting a number of stores and houses. At the middle of the thing is Armandes keep and the Aural shrine.

[jseah]

2509 words for the AT fanfiction.

Spoiler

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Aya lugged her trunk up the stone steps to the bridge, wishing that her magic was stable enough for her to just levitate it.
No no, bad idea, who knew if the church would consider it blasphemy to use Song Magic for frivolous reasons? Aya glanced around guiltily but the only other people on the steps were three knights and a church reyvateil, in their fabulous white armour and flowing robes. They stood there chatting and completely ignored Aya.
Her luggage landed on the white stone of the bridge with a hollow thud. Aya frowned and looked around the side.
She immediately regretted it. The bridge ran out from the mainland towards the El Elemia church island, right over open air. Just over the edge, Aya could see all the way down to the Sea of Death, fluffy grey clouds rolling over the surface of the planet. Specks that were airships flew through the sky, coming and going from the airport. Further down from the airship lanes was a blurry blob hanging just off the bottom of the Tower, Firefly Alley.
And all the way down to the Sea of Death and below was a huge round metal cylinder, dwarfing even the floating city of Firefly Alley. The First Tower of Ar Tonelico.
Her eyes couldn't help but trace the Tower upwards, like they had so many times. Starting from the base of the tower, the size of entire mountains, the metal surface rose out of the grey clouds and grew upwards into the sky, tapering ever so slightly as it went. Here and there, patches of green dotted it, entire villages and towns living on the surface of the Tower. The single glowing ball of the Plasma Bell, on the Tower at a height just below the lower half of Nemo, supporting the entire Wings of Horus continent.
Still higher the Tower went, past the huge golden pipes of the Silver Horn, why was it called the Silver Horn when the material was gold? Higher and thinner still to the Ion Plate and the Frozen Eye, one of the Plates missing when it crashed down to Horus in the virus war. And further up, the blurry invisible bulge that was the city of Platina, just below the ever-raging storm of lightning and wind, the Blastline. And even there, the Tower did not stop, it extended above the Blastline itself, although what lay beyond was unknown to Aya.
A dizzying incomprehensible height that stretched from the ground all the way to the sky and beyond. Her eyes rebelled at the sheer scale of the construction, the overawing grandiosity that pressed her down into an insignificant speck on the ground. A reminder of the glory that had once been, to raise such an achievement. What great works had been done to build this Tower? What sacrifices, what armies of humanity had been required?
The Tower of Sol Ciel, Ar Tonelico. It reached out towards her, seized her mind and eyes, refusing to let her look away. Aya had to forcibly remind herself that the legends said humans built this to stop her body from clutching the ground in panic.
She gulped and took a step back from the edge and sank to her knees. Suddenly, the safety railing looked very inadequate. The ground she could see out of the corners of her eyes seemed too close, like she was in a different world looking out at the Tower. How could it exist in the same world as the streets of Nemo that she was familiar with? It was simply too huge...
A hand on her shoulder shook Aya out of her daze. The church reyvateil was there, smiling down at her.
"You okay?" she asked kindly.
Aya blinked dumbly at her for a long while before nodding slowly.
"Are you a reyvateil?" the woman asked, "new one maybe?"
Ay frowned, how did she know? But she was Aya's senior and Aya answered by nodding again.
"Ah, I knew it!" the woman smiled, "the Tower can be a bit overwhelming the first time you see it. Just don't fall off the bridge and you'll be fine. "
Aya kept her frown, "I've seen the Tower before. " Indeed, with how the Tower dominated their lives and world, it was hard not to see it. Every man, woman and child alive knew of the Tower and its legends.
"Not as a reyvateil, until just now," the woman looked out at the Tower with a wistful sigh, "we reyvateils have a close connection with the Tower, you see. It provides us our Song Magic and houses our minds. You understand the Tower just by looking at it. In its entirety, not just by what we see with our eyes when we were merely human. I remember my first time when I looked at the Tower as a reyvateil. I cried terribly. "
Cried? Aya blinked at the woman.
She got a wink in return as the woman waved to her and left with the knights. Aya sat there on the bridge for a moment before realizing she hadn't even gotten the reyvateil's name.
Aya looked back out at the tower, feeling its weight. It didn't hold the same fascination anymore, just a huge block of airmetal again, the whispers in her mind she studiously pushed to one side. But not completely out of her mind, the Tower would always be there, now that she knew how to feel it in herself. No matter where she was, even underground or blindfolded, she knew she could point unerringly at the Tower.
Well, it would certainly help her sense of direction, what reyvateil could get lost when they had a personal compass with them at all times?
Aya sighed, picked up her trunk and continued onwards to the church.

The aging wooden boards protested noisily under her feet. Subtle noises in the knocking of walls, the creak of the floors and the old smell of ages of human dwelling, they all blended together into the spitting image of an ancient building.
The class D dormitories could not have fit the stereotype better. While it wasn't rundown, it seemed as if the entire building was made of repairwork. She could hardly go two stons without passing a discoloured section of wall or mismatching foundation brick.
Elsewhere in the building, there was signs of human habitation, dull voices and hushed footsteps. Although Aya couldn't have guessed from the deserted corridor she was walking down. The doorkeeper had looked at her registration papers, handed her her keys and a building map and more or less told her to find her own way in.
"101... 103... 116?" Aya consulted the map again. She looked up at the newly boarded up wall on her left with a sigh, a branch corridor was under renovation work. The new wall there would stand out in any other building, but here it was just one more patch in the mosaic.
She continued onwards, still lugging her trunk behind her, and two doors later, Aya found her room at 121.
Aya looked down the hallway again. There were rather a lot of rooms, and this entire hall seemed to be empty. Why assign her a room in the middle of nowhere?
She shook her head and stuck the key into the lock, she could just ask the doorkeeper or her fellow reyvateils later. The key didn't turn.
Um. Aya blinked and tried again, rattling it around inside the lock just in case the mechanism was stuck. No luck.
Then there was a scrambling inside the room and a high voice called to her, "it's not locked! Come in!"
Oh, Aya's cheeks burned a little as she realized her error. And she had a roommate too, a hole seemed to appear in her stomach. No no, just get on with it or she will think you're weird. Aya cleared her doubts forcefully and tugged on the handle. The door swung open smoothly.
Inside, the room was just like the rest of the building. Old and new wood met in a seam after the first room, where a tiny kitchen shared space with an equally tiny dining table. There was a little space where a stack of cushions had been placed and through the far doorway, Aya could see into the bedroom, two sets of bunkbeds and a closet with four doors.
Open windows let air and light in, and surprisingly, Aya didn't see any dust swirling. All the furniture was neat and clean too.
The reason for that was the girl sitting up on the stack of cushions. The room was occupied. So that was why they had assigned this room to Aya.
The girl herself was tiny. Even standing, Aya estimated that she would not even reach Aya's shoulders. Her baby cheeks and light brown hair were small and cute, with a pair of expressive black eyes to complete the picture. The rest of her body was dressed lightly in an airy dress that shone in the warm sunlight. She looked like a fairy.
Aya blinked, suddenly aware she was staring. For that matter, the girl seemed to be staring at Aya too. The picture perfect moment shattered and the girl was a normal human again.
"Um, hi," Aya said lamely, "uh, I'm Aya. I was assigned to this room starting today. "
"Oh!" the girl sprang up from her perch on top of the wobbling cushion stack, "I'm Yoake, uh I was told you were coming. Nice to meet you!"
The girl gave an awkward bow that Aya returned. She looked up to find the girl staring into her eyes. Were they both nervous about this meeting?
Aya couldn't but giggle. Yoake paused for a short instant then the grin spread onto her face as well. Their giggles burst out into laughter as it echoed between them.
"Ah, and here was I being nervous about meeting a stranger," Aya rubbed tears from her eyes. Strangely, the fact that she had just laughed so much on meeting a new reyvateil didn't seem odd.
"Well, I was also being nervous about a new roommate," Yoake smiled, "what if she's nasty? But you look nice. "
Aya grinned, "I'll try to be nice, but if you're not happy about something, do just poke me. "
"Poke?" Yoake raised an amused eyebrow that caused Aya to flush again. Poking each other was a term she shared with her friends and it just somehow slipped out.
"Uh, I meant you should just say something," Aya clarified.
"No no," Yoake grinned and walked up to Aya, "I think I'll poke you instead. That sounds so much more fun!"
She promptly jabbed a finger into Aya's side. Aya yelped in a most unladylike manner and hopped nearly a foot into the air.
"Gya!" Aya clutched her side, "I'm ticklish there! No wait, why did you do that for?"
"Well, you're standing halfway in the corridor with your trunk still out there," Yoake stuck her tongue out and placed a hand on Aya's luggage, "let me help you get it in..."
The smaller girl tugged on the handle but the trunk did not budge. Aya watched in fascination as the girl strained until her face turned red with effort but the trunk still refused to yield.
"What the heck do you have in there?" Yoake huffed.
"Nothing much, just a week of clothing, some books and stuff," Aya said, "I packed lightly because my family lives just on the other side of Nemo. "
"This is called 'packed lightly'?" Yoake gazed at Aya's trunk incredulously, "what part of the word 'light' do you not understand? Or did you work on the airship docks as a hauler?"
Aya put her hands on her hips in mock irritation. "I'll have you know I was an apprentice librarian," she said in her best superior voice.
Yoake raised a skeptical eyebrow, "really? Then where did you get that arm strength from?"
"Street fights. And don't diss librarians, books are really heavy," Aya snorted, "if you knew how much a box full of books weighs... oh, but you do now!"
Yoake looked down at Aya's trunk and back up at her, the younger girl couldn't think of a witty comeback. Then the comedic timing passed and they both broke down laughing again.
Mid laugh, Yoake poked Aya in the side again. "That's for still standing out in the hallway," Yoake grinned and pranced away into their room.
Aya tried to beat down the fire of her embarassment, she didn't even know she could make such a high pitched squeal.
She picked up her heavy trunk and moved it into her room. Perhaps this whole business of being a church reyvateil wouldn't be too uncomfortable, Yoake seemed friendly enough.

Yoake brought her to the cafeteria that served the knights later that morning for brunch, the church provided them free to employees. It reminded Aya of her time in school. The class D reyvateils were more like students than employees, having to obey standardized class times and practice rosters. Still, they were given much more freedom than a human school and the first practice session was only in the afternoon.
Getting free food and lodging, pay, though tiny, and free diliquity. That seemed rather generous for reyvateils that weren't even qualified for proper monster hunting work. Aya said as much to Yoake.
The little girl just shrugged, nibbling her funbun, "we grow up eventually. Once we train enough to pass the test for class C, we'll start to the earn our keep again. "
Which only solidified Aya's impression that the church treated class Ds like children. She sighed, "I hope I can qualify soon. "
"That's common to all of us class D," Yoake said.
There was a short pause.
"Say, Aya, where did you come from?" Yoake asked, "did Tenba treat you badly or...?"
Aya frowned and shook her head, "no, I never worked for Tenba. Like I told you, I was an apprentice librarian until I awakened as a reyvateil last week. I'm new here. "
Yoake's eyes were round with surprise, "you're new? You're old to be new!"
"Sorry for being an old lady," Aya growled, smiling slightly, "how old are you and when did you awaken? I'm fifteen, by the way. "
"Oh!" Yoake looked Aya up and down, "I'm thirteen, I've been a reyvateil for a year now. Fifteen is really late, I never heard of anyone turning into a reyvateil older than my age. "
So she really was younger. That explained a lot. "Well, I don't know why either," Aya shrugged.
Once they had finished their food, Yoake stood up and tugged on Aya's arm, "let me show you around, the others will want to meet you. "

And 3787 words for Hero's War.

Spoiler

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The stormy footsteps marching up to his office mostly gave it away, but Cato had the dramatic sense to act surprised as Polankal slammed open the door and thrust a folded sheaf of papers onto Cato's university office desk.
Seeing quiet and meek Polankal get angry would be a matter for some comment but Cato merely tilted his head questioningly.
"They... they're printing such... licentious rumours!" the peasant turned secretary sputtered, hissing like an angry cat.
Cato put down the latest report on the woodworker adoption of standardized manufacturing to pick up the paper.
The dense words printed on cheap rolled paper resembled that of the early newspapers in Earth's history. In the entire paper, there was only one image, and that was merely a line drawing copied from Muller's still too crazy plans for the Tine river bridge. Pictures had to be laboriously hand carved onto printing plates and were a luxury only afforded by the Minmay newspaper. The nascent journalism section was still losing money compared to the weekly goods price listing but Cato had wanted it and people listened to him.
Polankal stuck a finger at the offending article at the bottom of the page and Cato squinted to read the badly spaced text. The printing press had not moved beyond fixed width type yet and the text was compressed to save paper and ink.
"Head of university relationship confirmed, Iris alliance possible" said the article title.
Hm. "I don't see how the editors thought this was worthwhile piece of news," Cato sighed.
"I only knew of this article because I overheard the maids gossiping about you," Polankal snapped. She lifted the sheet to reveal an older clipping from the stack, "they've been running this for weeks now. "
"Um, to be honest, the situation with Landar... it's complicated, but I can always ask them to write a retraction," Cato shrugged. Who cared about what a newspaper said? Although if they were wasting space on such frivolous things, that meant that the region was getting more peaceful.
"They've been writing lies!" Polankal hissed again, "the article last month claims Landar only got where she is because she's sleeping with you. And two weeks ago, they even dared to claim that I also..."
Cato frowned. It was disturbing yes, but he was loathe to suppress the printing press on a matter of principle. The freedom of the press, wasn't it one of the important elements of a civilized country? Abusing his influence as the center of the university was not going to do good things further down the line.
"Let them," he said, "it's not doing any harm. "
Polankal blinked in surprise. "Aren't you angry they're writing these lies?" she exclaimed, "some of the other presses are even copying them!"
The existence of those uncontrolled independent presses, run more for interest and fame than profit, had been a major sticking point between Cato and Minmay. Minmay wanted to control the spread of the printing press but Cato had argued for letting them be. Beyond just distributing free copies of books and encouraging literacy, the smaller village and towns ran their printing presses to promote interesting news, inter-town gossip and political awareness.
Only the fact that almost all of them viewed Minmay in a favourable light had convinced the Chancellor not to crack down on them with the Guards. He had settled for funding his own newspaper which had a permanent column following Aesin's charity work and the various improvements the university was making. Cato had discreetly slipped them an endowment, with the support of some of the minor guilds, and by now their sales were keeping them financially independent of the Chancellor. Minmay still had major influence though, ten rimes a week was serious money after all.
Finding out that the 'official' paper was printing tabloid articles about Cato was an unpleasant surprise but in the greater view, inconsequential. It could be interpreted as a good thing in fact. That enough common people had disposable income enough to want to buy newspapers, and read them, that popular opinion articles like this could attract sales.
After all, the rural nobility and Central Territory merchants who paid for the high quality paper version couriered at great expense were unlikely to be interested in gossip.
Cato shrugged and gave the papers back to Polankal, "let them write. I'll tell the newspaper not to go overboard but I don't see anything to worry about. "
Polankal looked at Cato as if he was crazy, clicked her tongue and walked out.
Two weeks later, Minmay called Cato to his mansion for a discussion.
"Cato," the Chancellor said, "why haven't you suppressed these articles? It's gone beyond just the Minmay News now. I was waiting for you to take action. And don't give me that excuse about an independent press, if you wanted to, I know you could do it. "
Cato looked down at the familiar newspaper cuttings. "I didn't see a need to," Cato said, sipping the cold wine Arthur had placed in front of him.
Minmay seemed just as stunned as Polankal, then he frowned, "Cato, aren't you even a little angry about these rumours? What about your reputation?"
"I didn't think forcing the newspaper to write what I want was worth the damage that action could do to the independence of the press," Cato leaned forwards, "I've read it, Chancellor. It is just a frivolous article full of nonsense made to sell more papers, I doubt anyone could believe whatever was written. And yes, I am trying to keep the newspapers independent of the university. "
"Cato," the Chancellor said seriously, "this is not just your reputation at stake. I know you and Landar could care less about what other people say, throw her into a room full of magical toys and she'll be happy enough. But you are the face of the university. "
"But-"
"The university can work without you, yes," Minmay held up a hand to forestall Cato, "but when people think of the university, they think of you. Like it or not, what you say carries weight with me, with Kalny, with the Ironworkers. You might have been a commoner in your world, but here you are an important person. If you do not counter these lies, people are going to get the wrong idea. They will think that you can be bribed with beautiful women and will try. "
"It won't work," Cato pointed out.
"But they don't know that, Cato," Minmay sighed, "and what would the Greater Council think if the university acquired a reputation for being easily influenced?"
He looked at Minmay for a long long while.
"If you don't write a letter to the newspaper and get them to retract it, I will march a squad of Guards down myself and make them," Minmay snapped as he ran out of patience, "understood?"
"Understood," Cato could only sigh as he got up to leave.

"Arthur?"
"Yes, Chancellor?"
"Find out the source of these articles, whatever Cato says I cannot believe the peasants want to read this filth enough to pay for newspapers. "

Aren hurried down the street, his light flickering in the freezing rain. He was getting late but the rain was not letting up. The man hunched in his heavy oiled coat and struggled against the rain, shouldering his way into the wind. His boots were already soaked through and his feet were freezing and he was getting thoroughly miserable.
But he wouldn't miss this for anything.
He came upon a heavy wood door with a large brass knocker. Above it was a metal star that looked burned into the wood itself, the sigil of the Academy. Indeed, that star had been burned in with fire magic.
Aren examined the enchantment on the door and nodded as he reached out with his magic to knock on it.
A metal plate opened at eye level and the gatekeeper looked out. "Who goes there?"
"It's me, Aren, just let me in already, this Little Night grows cold," he snapped with a bit more irritation than normal.
The gatekeeper eyed him for a while longer, lingering on his face, then the eyehole closed and there was a sound of the bolts being drawn back. More importantly, the enchantments on the door shifted into quiescence.
The Academy did not take kindly to those attempting to intrude on them and no thief dared to challenge the door or walls. The sort of thief who was willing to try had long since died off, not even Aren would dare to try to force his way in and he had a hand in making some of these enchantments.
This branch of the Academy was in the Magic Town Tirien. Academy's Ektal branch trained the knights and alchemists of all of Ektal country and the town had earned its name through having an unusual number of Alchemists. After all, alchemists rarely decided to leave the comforts of a cozy city, they could enchant magical weapons and ammunition to be used anywhere and were generally poor at fighting. The famed Academy was meant to be the center of human knowledge, the place where people went to in order to learn, and Tirien had a major branch of it.
Only now, the Academy was facing an new upstart. The University of Minmay had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and inventions were pouring forth.
The Academy wouldn't have been worried about the iron smelters or new masonry techniques, those weren't magic and were therefore inferior. But the Mad Alchemist and her helpers were churning out original magical inventions at an unheard of rate. Plus, in two short years, the university had advanced magical understanding with two revolutionary theories underlying the borehole and compression engine projects.
Worse still, the inventions had started out small and comprehensible, like the bowguns and linked wands that the Academy was receiving huge orders for. Then they rapidly grew more and more complex, to the point now where even with the supposedly complete diagram in front of them, the best Tirien alchemists still couldn't figure out what was going wrong. The Academy alchemists had only finally admitted two months ago that the magic circle was better than any alchemist.
They were starting to feel a bit redundant.
Today, the top alchemists were trying to duplicate Landar's spell forming wands. She called it a casting assistance device but the similarity to the traditional stored spell wands was obvious. A wand that used the caster's power to fire the spell instead of its own, so the knights had insisted on calling it that. The alchemists knew better, the spell forming wand was much much more complicated than a bolt spell bound to a stick and placed in abeyance.
This was the device that was giving them so much trouble. If not for the fact that the Academy observer at Minmay had testified that Landar's magic circle was indeed sufficient to make it, the Tirien alchemists would suspect some foul play. Design fraud was a serious offence. You either published a design in full, allowing everyone access for a hefty payment from the Order, or you kept it your trade secret and sold it to the highest bidders until the secret inevitably leaked and someone sold the design.
It didn't help that the Minmay University's magical device design library considered a magic circle diagram sufficient documentation. Technically sufficient, you only had to tell others how to make your magical device, not explain how it worked. In the past, alchemists simply had to understand how their enchantments worked in order to build them so the question didn't come up.
The Academy protested, but Minmay University pointed out that magic circle designs were in fact a direct description of the principles as the threads individually represented one of the fundamental building blocks of a spell. And besides, no one could make these magical devices without circles anyway. The problem was that the interlocking threads did not directly correspond to the position or linkage of the components of the spell, one had to keep in mind how the diagram was wired to place those components. Doing this was giving all of them headaches.
Aren, now dried, warm and clothed, strode into the inner atelier to face the chaos.
The word 'circle' was getting rather stretched. Bits of the magic circle ran all over the floor, under and over tables, and even delicately hung on pins in the walls. They had tried to segregated the sections logically but the design was interconnected.
The primary atelier of the Tirien Academy was too small. Aren remembered scoffing when the Minmay observer reported that the Mad Alchemist loaned an entire warehouse to build her circle. It didn't sound so ludicrous anymore.
Three of his colleagues were peering at a table on the far corner, arguing about something.
"I'm here now," Aren said, jerking them out of their thoughts.
"Did you get it?" asked Parer.
Aren nodded, holding out the oiled bag in his hands, "ten sets of threads, direct from Minmay by courier. "
"Give it here," Parer snapped and snatched the bag out of the air when Aren tossed it to him. He bent back to the table, already fussying out a single line from the tangle inside the bag.
Aren said nothing about his attitude that he might have, after two weeks of worrying about this, they all knew each other's quirks. And Parer might be surly and apparently uncooperative but he did good work.
Aren didn't want to admit it, but he would accept just about anything at this point if it would make the circle work.
"You're late," complained Yimiss.
He shrugged at her statement, "it's raining cats and dogs outside. "
"What's that mean?" she asked, confused.
"It means it's raining heavily," Aren sighed. Easily sidetracked Yimiss. Why was it all the best alchemists were the crazy ones? Except Aren of course. "I heard that from a merchant, I don't know who he got that from," Aren anticipated her next question as she opened her mouth, "I just thought it sounded interesting. "
Yimiss nodded and settled down before turning back to the table.
They reviewed the connections again and consulted the published diagram. Everything seemed to line up, all the colours in the correct position.
"All right," Aren nodded and released the stored magic.
They watched the magic zip down the lines and leap into the rod placed in the center of the circle.
The enchantment finished but none of them made a move forwards immediately. One too many burned hands or scorched souls had taught them caution. Aren pulled the trigger when it was clear the rod wouldn't explode immediately. More stored magic raced down a set line and up into the rod.
Nothing happened.
"Darn it! What went wrong now?!" Aren gritted his teeth and glared around the room. The worst part of Landar's invention was that even the slightest error could sometimes make a huge difference, or an entirely missing line might not do more than delay the workings slightly. It was nearly impossible to tell without first making the mistake. And when you made more than one mistake, sometimes one mistake might cover the effects of another so you didn't find out until you fixed the first one.
That also meant that when the final product didn't work, it was hard to tell where the problem was in the magic circle.
He stalked over to the rod and glared at it, daring the magic to... oh, the power was clogged in one of the compressed circles, an error in the power line section of the internal circle template?
He whirled over to another table, this one in the middle of the room with lines hanging off every edge. An error in this tangle was about enough to make him want to tear his hair out.
"What's a cat?" Yimiss asked.
Aren turned an eye towards her that promised bloody murder and shrugged, "who knows?"

Willio strode down the catwalk, earning nods and bows from the ironworkers hustling around the furnaces below. The ironworks area downstream of Minmay had changed massively. Where individual forges and workshops had dotted the hillside for a generation, there now stood a veritable army of giants. Steel wrapped around limestone bricks, the blast and Bessemer furnaces spewed a never-ending plume of choking black smoke into the sky. The ironworks never stopped now, it cost far too much in fuel to reheat a shut down furnace and they were only taken offline for maintenance. Even at night, the glow of raw molten iron and coal gas lamps kept the site lit.
Where individual blacksmiths had once pounded their hammers, that work was now relegated to the upstream and upwind team workshops. Bulk hammering and tempering was done under the massive steam driven drop hammers, and recently, a rolling press. Hot metal flowed from the furnace taps into the casting beds, and while still barely solid, were fed into the massive pair of hardened steel rollers that steamed them flat, like Razzi's paper. Pressing steel like paper was a ludicrous idea that would have gotten the proposer laughed out of the Ironworkers but here it was.
Not all of Cato's strict process requirements were impossible to implement. While Willio's people were not able to achieve the frankly insane tolerances Cato wanted, the production capacity they were building here was incredible and his step by step manuals had at least made the batches between different furnace teams at least somewhat comparable.
Ahead, a blast of heat heralded a new pouring of a batch of steel, the glowing molten metal hissing and spitting into the casting pans. The deep groundshaking thumps of the drop hammers beat in time with the quieter roar of the steam engines. It was a sight that swelled his heart every time Willio overlooked his domain and he took the time to tour the place every time Willio came by. An industrial army, his army, that poured out one and a half tons of first grade steel a day and ten times that of cast iron. There weren't any other grades of steel being produced any more, why settle for less when the furnaces could make first grade? And while an old Ironworker might have thought the ludicrous quantities of steel would not find buyers, as the price dropped, it seemed that more and more people wanted to use steel.
After a while, it seemed that whenever anyone ran into a problem of strength, where wood and stone failed or a design was too heavy, they turned to steel and iron. Willio thought that the wagon makers and builders were even getting lazy! Some of Muller's revolutionary designs for bridges, sewers and water towers simply assumed steel reinforced concrete as a base material, instead of a substitute at key loading points. It was a train of thought that Willio took care to cultivate in his customers. Have a problem, just use steel!
But today, the Ironworkers guild branch leader was here for another place. One smaller but just as or even more groundshaking.
The workshop off to the side was in the walled off experimental area. Colloquially called the Blast Zone by the main plant workers, the name was quite justified by the number of accidents, explosions and even magical spills that occurred here. But the expense was all worth it.
Today, Cato and the master ironworker were about to demonstrate controlled steel composition.
In front of the workshop crucible, Bashal and Cato watched as the apprentice ironworker lowered a length of steel wire into the tiny pool of elemental Water. It dissolved the steel wire quickly.
The saturated pool was then quickly transferred into the pressure chamber. It was pressurized by the raised counterweight outside, an expensive but smaller scale substitute for a steam driven pump. As the gas pressure rose inside to each preset level, the ironworker watching the dials opened the valves that drained the Water into the steel holding chamber while opening the pressurized test chamber.
The silvery silicon powder was removed and the Water pumped back into the test chamber again, pressurized to a yet higher level and the process repeated more times, each time yielding a different elemental powder.
Pressure displacement of the dissolved elements, also neatly separating the component impurities the steel and allowing the Ironworkers to know exactly how much of each was in their steel. Using the process at production scale instead of for analysis was the responsibility of the Corbin branch, once they got the direct reduction process working first. Let that man Elma deal with the dangerously large quantities of elemental Water where they wouldn't risk destroying the steelworks here.
Each of the ten crucibles here contained iron sourced from a different mine across all of Ektal. Each mine had its own subtleties and sets of impurities, the Ironworkers had collated extensive knowledge on which sources were good for which applications, and how much of what to add to make each grade of steel from them. But here, they were used to adjust the final concentrations of each impurity, with the assistance of the expensive pure iron powder.
The dream of all smiths. Each batch of steel thus made would have the same contents, the same properties and the same reliability. They would know what their steel was made of and capable of. Gone would be the cracked sheets, over stressed beams and the dreaded failed batch. If it took a special set of quality control workshops equipped with this new magical device, then Willio would pay for and build it.
As the finished steel bar quenched in a fiery gout of steam, Willio smiled. The bar was retrieved and smashed with the hammer, properly cold short as the experiment demanded.
Complain about losing the old ways? Nonsense, every smith would see this and jump for joy. The days of hammering to remove impurities were gone, the ancient laborious practice of folding and layering was gone, the uncontrollable art of steel forging was gone. Here came the new steel, designed and built for its purpose. The age of designer steel.
Without a word, Willio strode from the workshop, obvious pride in his every step. In his eyes, he was already seeing the new addition to the steelworks of Minmay.

So that makes 11.5k words for AT and 3.7k for HW.

Did I just write at Nano speed for a week?!

[Artman77]

Holy crap it's monday already! #wheredidthetimego
Art on tumbler, per the usual.

@android; what kinda pic do you want for you 25-week success?

[Glass Mouse]

Hi peeps, I am so so sorry, I thought I had already written here. I am currently traveling on vacation. Everything is fine, I'm just restricted in terms of Wi-Fi and usability, so I won't make any status posts until Thursday morning (when I'll catch up on two weeks). Again, I am so sorry for not letting you know, I just slipped up. If you upload this week's stuff as per usual, no worries, but you can also wait until Thursday if that suits you better.

I hope you're all doing fine and enjoying the summer.

[Some Android]

Got my art up.

I'm also back to blogger. I also managed to break over 65.

[Xiander]

I almost forgot to post this today, hope I am in time.
Here are 1554 more words on different things from my oddyssey

Spoiler: People

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Jack the Ratcatcher
Rank: Deck hand
Appearance: Ruffled and dirty is the normal appearance for Jack. His clothes are worn and patched, his hair is unkempt and yet he is always smiling. His ocean blue eyes holds a spark which never quite disappears, not even under extreme stress.
Personality: Jack is the truest type of optimist. Even the worst of days finds him with an expectation of something better in the morning. Even in the darkes night, you will find him looking for patterns in the stars.
He has very little shame in him, and even less snobbery or reservedness. If you are kind to Jack the Ratcatcher, he will be kind to you.
Background: Jack grew up on the streets of Safe Waters. The city is free of the tyrany of any of the Royal lords, but it has its share of poverty and helplesness, and Jack has seen the darkest parts of it in his short life. With no family to speak of, and no one to shelter him of pay for his food, Jack has made his own living on the dirty streets.
Early on, he discovered a knack for catching rats and other vermin. And he managed to make a decent living by lending these skills to captains before they set out on voyages.No one wants vermin on their ship, and Jack had a knack for cleaning house. It wasn’t a glorious life, but more often than not he had enough coin to eat.
Naw, 16 years of age, Jack seeks a life outside Safe Waters, and hopes to find a ship willing to carry him to unknown horizons.


Lord Armande Trellanian
Age: Unknown, but at least 70
Appearance: Tall and lean, Armande is an imposing pressense even at his age. Those who have stood eye to eye with him report that a flame burs in his eyes, and that his cofidence is so complete that he makes others believe in him against their own interests.
His dark hair is greying and his handsome features have aquired some wrinkles, but still he manages to instill respect in all those who come before him. His dark eyes seem to hold some deep secret known only to him, and his enigmatic smile gives nothing away. Stories say his pokerface is perfect.
He dresses in stylish but practical clothing. Unlike most lords, he does not adorn himself heavily with jewelery, or wear overly intricate shirts and wigs. His only extravagance is the long dark coat which he wears everywher and keeps in the best of shapes. And the jewel, topping the walking stick he has taken to using at his later years.
Personality: Armande is known to drink, gamble and entertain himself in all sorts of other interesting ways. Rumors has him doing everything from fishing to blood rituals, just to pass time. Still, every rumormonger agrees, that Armande Trellanian loves women.
Those who have met Armande have all seen his calm mask, dark unscrutable eyes and the infuriating smile he always shows. They say he has a temper, but no one can ever remember seeing him loose it. They say he takes vengeance against those who wrongs him, but it has been a long while sinse anyone dared seriously wrong him.
He is a man of action, and never lets opportunity slip him by. HeIs fiercely intelligent, and stories abound of him fooling or cheating his way out of a bound. Just as many stories center around his skill with a blade, only a few swordsmen in homland and perhaps ten on all of the Splintered Sea are his equal, they say.
Background: Some say he was born in poverty and fought his way to power and ritches. Others hold he was the son of a noble, who ran away from an existence which bored him. Some stories tell of Armande stealing the Chimera. In other stories he won it in a game of cards, where every player was cheating heavily.
The one exploit everyone knows he did was Work for Lord Melmott and lord Trask simultaneously, and talk both of them into giving him Safe Waters and their word that they would protect his claim to it. At the time both thought that the promise meant little, as their rival would never relinquish the island and thus Armande would never truly be able to profit from it. In the end Armande made Safe Water a haven for all sorts of folk, as no one can interfere with his affairs, without invoking the wrath of both of the lords of the coast.

Spoiler: On Shrines

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Shrines:
Some places in the world are grounded. Safe places, which remain relatively stable even while the world is splintering around them. On these places, Shrines tend to be erected. Most cities at build on relatively stable spots, and almost every city has at least one shrine.
The shrines are build to honour gods, legends and heroes, known and unknown. It is tradition to stop by a shrine whenever you are on stable ground, to pay reverence to the gods, and remember the legends.
There is a vast procession of remembered legends, and probably even more who are forgotten. Any person who did a deed of heroic proportion could rightfully be honoured at a shrine. Of course some Legends hold more of a following than others. Magnus The First Sage is often praised at the shrines. Lienna the Whisp, who first sailed to the Glass city is praised by sailors everywhere.
Gods are also praised at the shrines, whough for the most part, people have no names for the gods they praise. After all, few gods feel the need to share their name with mortal men. So people praise the gods by the names they know them by. They praise the land, the sea the sky, the praise thunder and rain, and ask the sun and moon to shine on their path.


The Aural Shrine:
Shortly after Armande founded Safe Waters, someone discovered the cave. It lies by the coast and can only be entered by swimming under the water into the cave mound. Inside lies what can only be described as a natural shrine. The cave wall in covered in luminous stones, unknown to any other place. Anyone who has set foot in the has felt the pressense of something larger than themselves. It is widely agreed that the cave is a natural Shrine to the Sea.
Of the three men who first discovered the shrine, one set out to sea with the next tide, never to return. One continued his life as a fisher and has been catching well ever sinse. The last man, took what money he had and spent it to build a shrine on the bare earth above the cave. At the center of the shrine stands a statue of the goddess of the sea. In the beginning, the place was small, but it quickly grew, as some travellers added small statues of legends and gods, and other helped build chambers to house the growing shrine.
Now the aural shrine holds a room to praise almost any god or legend one can think of. And even if the legend you seek to remember is not represented, you are free to contribute a statue of your own, so that the comming generations can praise the legend you remembered.
The shrine has become so famous that people travel to see it. Some have dubbed it a wonder of the world. Those who have seen the cave beneath the shrine have no doubt that whatever made the cave, also made the Aural Shrine what it is today.

Spoiler: The city of glass

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The city of glass:
How far away anything lies, can be hard to say when the world splinters and realigns around you even as you travel. Still, every one who has visited it, agree that the City of glass lies further from Homeland and from Safe Waters than more or less any other place.
“At the Edge of the world, lies a city made of glass and onyx.” Was what Lienna the Whisp wrote in her memoir. The people who has dared venturing to the city, have returned with stories of great ritches, and with tales of a temple, where prophecies are spun, which always hold true and never fail.
In the city, they say, live glass people. They look like normal people, but they break and bruise much easier, and so all of them avoid fights whenever they can. The city is peaceful and safe for anyone who enters it lawfully. There are rules, but all of them are benign and helpful rules.
People who never saw the city, wonder why the city has never been invaded by enemies, or why no one has stolen it’s treasures. The answer is that not only Glass people live in the city. There are others, who do not break and who do not shy down from a fight.
The Onyx Guard are fierce and fearless warriors, and no one dares doubt their prowess. They wear black armour, with scarlet markings of rank and station. Their weapos are carved out of black stone, yet they hold an edge like the inest steel. These grim warriors patrol the streets, man the walls of the city, and most importantly, they guard the temple of profecy.

[jseah]

Some 3k words for Hero's War.

Spoiler

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The pub reader held up his broadsheet theatrically and cleared his throat. The circle of listeners around him held their silence politely.
"Ahem, let's see," he squinted at the tiny font, "the Chancellor of Minmay today accepted a formal initiation into the Greater Council of Inath. The honour was bestowed for his achievements in battle against the traitor Duport..."
A small cheer went up at the mention of that battle. Bards and storytellers had earn plenty of meals by simply telling and growing the tale of the legendary battle.
"Quiet now," the reader hushed the crowd, "and the spread of bene... ficient? knowledge to all mankind. The King Ektal proposed his lifting to the Council once the prestigious University of Minmay had completed a branch in the capital territory. "
This portion of the news was met with a more mixed reaction. Anxious murmurs met hopeful whispers.
"


Landar huffed as she tweaked the line again. Making the tiny shield mobile was not too difficult. But the controlling circuits to determine where the shield moved were problematic. They had to be aware of where the shield was to determine which active line was the closest.
But that was the fun part. The part which created the spell forming circle inside the experimental iron cube was getting tedious. It was fun to build the first hundred or so times, when she was still learning new things and working out the bugs. But the design had more or less stabilized now, so it was boring.
And every time she built a new circle for enchanting objects that performed the function of casting spells from an external power source, she needed to reconstruct it. While Landar had more or less memorized the entire thing, she still made mistakes even when looking at a diagram copy of past circles. Two hundred threads was too much to expect anyone to build correctly the first time.
She looked out over the open floor of the warehouse. The threads and sheets of thick paper spacers were almost a carpet. Yes, while she was concentrating like this, Landar could keep the entire circle in her head, point to any section and dictate what it did.
But how much more could she keep in mind? Already, it took hours to get started and Landar was loathe to break her concentration. She hadn't stepped out of the warehouse other than to wash for the last week, working from the crack of dawn well into the night just to make a little progress. Maybe she was lacking in intelligence, but Landar felt that she would soon hit her limit.
Just thinking about what the interceptor spells would require gave Landar a chill. A magical power sensor could be restricted to a single cone by surrounding it with magical barriers, and to determine distance and speed, she would need two preferably three sensors linked and computing the intercept. Add a way to track and calculate change in position over time. Link all of that to the circle that automatically cast disruption bolts at incoming attacks.
Or she could design a disruption bolt that had a sensor at the top and would home into any source of magic signature. And the launcher would have to gauge the power and direction of incoming attacks and create an appropriately powered disruption bolt, only the launching spell itself would be as complicated as a spell forming wand while itself being casted from a spell forming wand...
No, there was no way she could build that. It would be easily twice again as large as the circle she was building now, probably more since it was more than just two spell forming circles. The logical links required would be insane.
Finding the problems in the design, another impossible task. Oh, with a lot of testing and work, and perhaps months of time, she could probably do it. But the circle she built would be the only circle able to create the final device. Building another enchanting circle would take the same months to test.
What she needed for some substitute for these threads. They worked decently for what Landar had built them for originally, repetitive and simple enchantments. And while they had grown to handle hugely complex tasks, mere multi-function threads meant as useful shortcuts were reaching their limits.
If only she could keep the tedious well-known parts out of her mind, and not have to think about them, maybe Landar could handle more complex circles.
It was theoretically possible, she supposed, nothing stopped her from baking an entire thread pattern into a block of steel, with little hooks for her to tie incoming and outgoing threads. Threads were huge, from the perspective of the enchantments, like how magic circles were huge compared to the final enchanted object, and the steel would let her build much more robust enchantments that would last longer. But a steel block was not easily changed, unlike threads, and every spell you wanted a spellforming wand to cast obviously required a different casting process and therefore a slightly different spell forming thread pattern. That was why she used threads in the first place.
She didn't notice that she had stopped working on the shield test. Of course, to... what was that word Cato said?... to abstract out the process of a spellforming wand, to create a steel block substitute without needing to rewire anything, Landar would need to have a thread pattern that could create the power transfer and spellcasting sections for a spellforming wand for arbitrary spells, given an input to control what spell was casted by the final wand.
So the block would thus need to receive instructions on the precise steps of how to cast the desired spell, probably best done with new special threads for the control of the spellforming template block, ones that told the block what to do, rather than normal threads that told the circle what to do. The information was all there, it was possible. It would probably be hideously complicated, but she could do it. There was a certain elegance in the way that Landar was going to make a magic circle to build the thing... she would call it a spellforming template for now.
Landar looked down at the doodles on her notepaper and saw the parallels to the magic circle. The magic circle abstracted away the process of the alchemist personally casting the enchantment, so that the alchemist only worried about the design of the desired circuit and not the process of making circuits. This spellforming template abstracted out the process of creating a spellforming section, so the alchemist only worried about the design of the spell the spell forming wand was to cast, and not the mechanics of the spell forming wand itself.
In fact, Landar swept her eyes out across the massive circle laid out across the floor, she could abstract other things too, virtually all functions of a spell could be logically grouped and abstracted out. Movement, spell boundaries, magic power detection, even logical control circuits!
She jerked forwards and began to tear apart one and a half weeks of work. This was more important than some lousy shield.

Landar looked up in a daze. What? Her arms felt like lead and her skin was sticky with sweat. The gentle midday light had been replaced by the dim glow of liquid Light lamps. Against one wall, a table held a dinner plate with food that lay forgotten and ignored.
She stood in the middle of the warehouse floor, surrounded by a veritable carpet, with a large black rope in her hand. The main control line, with so many activation threads running out in all directions that she couldn't see most of her hand.
No no, she couldn't be distracted now! Not now! The template wasn't anywhere close to done and Landar had to keep the image of the circle in her head. If she lost it now, she would take all day to get it back and... Landar mentally scrabbled at the thoughts, but they just scattered like rats into the dark corners of her brain.
Landar stumbled a little, feeling the tears building in her eyes. She was so close! Er, well, not really but it was so frustrating to lose her thoughts like that! There was a sound, something outside the warehouse. People shouting?
She dropped the control line and stormed towards the door, whoever had disturbed her would get a firebolt to the face. Tears flying, she flung it open, a ball of fire building in her hand.
Landar squeaked in surprise as Cato rushed in, followed by more familiar faces. Omal, the alchemists, even the cook? Wait, university staff?
She turned to see them spreading out over the floor and-
"No!" she screamed as the idiots began to trample over her circle threads. What if they broke it! She would have to recheck all the lines! "Stop it! Get away! What are you all doing?!"
Landar jumped into the circle, landing in a clear spot, brandishing her ball of fire wildly. "Back off! Get out!" she yelled wildly, the crowd drawing back. There was more shouting and commotion from outside the warehouse and the crowd surged forwards again, pushed from behind.
"Landar!" Cato ran over, running over her threads! Somehow that was even worse than seeing the Recordkeepers do it. They were just clueless, Cato should know better! He knew how sensitive circles were. The sting in her chest made the world turn blurry and she tried to wipe away the tears, futilely.
Landar snarled at him but he caught her hand, "sorry Landar, but this is an emergency. I know you'll have to build it again, but-"
"But what?!" Landar shouted. She tried to twist out of his grip, this was so unfair! How did Cato get so strong? And why... why... the threads were already breaking under the outdoor boots the staff were wearing. It was over, she had to rebuild.
"This circle was important!" she yelled into his face. Her anger seemed to be running away with her, filling her with an unbounded rage at his sheer insensitivity.
"More important than a civil war?" Cato said, facing her levelly.
"Yes!" she snapped reflexively. Wait. "Civil war?" she blinked, as all her thoughts seemed to crash to a halt, "What? No, wait, don't distract me, this circle is the most important thing!"
"Have you even left this place in the last two weeks?" Cato asked, "the peasants are rioting out there, we needed a place to take cover and this test range was the best choice. "
Indeed, with steel reinforced concrete walls, enchanted with disruption shields, barred and meshed window slats, and heavy cast iron doors, the magic testing warehouse was impenetrable without siege weapons or lots of magic. The tendency of the creations inside to explode was famous, and this 'warehouse' was probably the strongest structure in all of Ektal save the fortification walls of the border forts themselves.
"But... but how?" Landar muttered. Peasants? What about the Guard? Or even the Knights? And why?! Landar looked down and saw the ball of fire still hanging above her hand. And the large berth the university staff was giving her and Cato.
Oh Selna, did she just threaten the entire university with her magic? And even Cato too?
Landar's anger washed away like a candle in a breeze, replaced with sudden horror. She dispersed her firebolt with a pulse of power. "I'm sorry," Landar gulped. The tears in her eyes spilled over. It was all she could do to just apologize over and over. Oh no, how dumb could she get?
Cato just hugged her, patting her hair soothingly. "It's all right," he said, "you didn't shoot anyone. It's all right. "
He continued to hold her as she cried unintelligibly. After some time, Landar's crying had subsided into a leaden weariness. Seated in a chair at the side of the warehouse, she had one of the few seats. The rest of the staff squatted or sat on the stone floor, her ruined circle folded up in one corner. She just looked at Cato dumbly, the fog in her mind dulling any thoughts.
Cato glanced at her condition, eyeing her up and down. Landar coloured in embarrassment as he lingered on the stains on her dress. "And how long ago did you eat? Or even drink anything? You sound terrible," he asked, he traced a gentle finger on the black bags under her eyes, "you have been missing sleep too. How long?"
Landar thought back, but all she could remember was a maze of lines and logic. Sleep? Um. She gulped and looked away. "Two days?" she whispered timidly.
Cato shook his head at her, "Landar, I warned you the last time you did this and you promised me. I still think shutting yourself in here is unhealthy but you were at least keeping yourself alive last week. What happened? I haven't seen you for three days and you're half dead. "
"I... I was building, a new idea," she said weakly. Oh, yeah, that promise. She had even broken the promise to take care of herself. The tears threatened again but he hushed her with a hand on her head, the other hand still holding hers.
Cato looked back out over the messy threads, it was impossible to read now of course, if anyone but her could even understand the thing at all. "What were you building?" he asked, "did the mobile shield work?"
Landar shook her head, "I wasn't building that. It's... a magic circle for magic circles. " She cast about for an easy way to explain, but the scurrying thoughts didn't want to line up in her head. "Make spell forming wands by instructions on how to cast spells. Abstraction. Special threads to control spellforming template. Movement templates, logic templates, everything templates! Abstraction, that's the key idea. New threads, new patterns. "
There was another deeper idea, one that had come to her in her frenzy but now just lurked unseen. It was even bigger than her initial abstraction, but it didn't want to surface now. "Abstraction," Landar whispered to herself, trying to coax it out, the idea returning to her in more detail as she spoke, "no more threads. Just special new threads only. Circle describes function, not design. Everything template? Template for templates? Need more abstraction. Abstraction of the abstractions, no control line, templates talk to each other. Templates talk using templates, pass template as message. Live input, automatic testing. Find errors immediately. "
Cato blinked and frowned, "Landar, were you trying to build a compiler?!"
"I... compiler?" Landar blinked up at Cato. She was dimly aware that what came out of her mouth made little sense, but it all lined up in her head. That was a new word though.
He proceeded to give a short explanation about Earth computers and their programs. Yes! That was it! A spell compiler! Sort of. A template for making templates was analogous. The fog lifted as her excitement blew it away but Cato caught her hands as they twitched towards the rolls of thread on the table. Landar relaxed again.
But it wasn't the end of her idea. "The idea of templates," Landar hurriedly explained, "you can use templates as messages between the templates of the spell. Like a spell's function can be different from enchantment to enchantment... you can group similar templates that acquire bits as they pass along. Templates to manipulate other templates and even themselves!" This wasn't working. She bit her lip, "I don't know how to explain it! But it's needed for the other idea, the big one, to put many interceptor launchers on the wall and coordinate them so they don't all shoot the same thing. Things and interceptors are represented by templates, you pass them around to track them, the launchers and detectors create them. "
Cato seemed to understand though, as his eyes were incredulous, and more than a little bit respectful. Landar shrank back, not sure she deserved that after she had broken that promise.
"Did you really think all the way out to object oriented programming?!" Cato was clearly amazed but Landar didn't understand why.
She just blinked at him dumbly. She knew it was exciting but Cato seemed to already know what she was talking about, there was no way she could have explained her thoughts in any coherent fashion. She had to build something, or at least write it down. Her hands twitched again but Cato was still holding them.
"That can wait," Cato sighed, he went to the table that held her untouched dinner and pushed a cup into her hands, "drink that and try to rest. "
"But-"
"No Landar, even geniuses need to sleep," Cato smiled, "you will still remember this in the morning. It can wait. Trust me. "
He stroked her hair again, like how her mother did. Her agitation was replaced by a serene calm. She was floating in a sunlit pond with nothing to disturb her. Landar nodded sleepily and drank the water. All the while, he continued to whisper gently and pet her. It felt like she was a child again. Yes, she could sleep.

Cato looked up as Landar's breathing evened out into a deep sleep. She lay on the thin mat, her peaceful face contrasted the wild unstable mood swings just a few minutes ago. He really had to pay more attention to her or Landar could easily kill herself. She hadn't even realized how weak she had become, for Cato to so easily hold her. And that mental state couldn't be healthy, no matter how brilliant she was when in it, seeing Landar act with a mental maturity of a ten year old was disturbing.
"Is she always that crazy?" Omal asked, "I thought the Mad Alchemist was just obsessed but this is..."
Cato saw the university alchemist shaking his head, "she hasn't slept in two days. Some emotional instability to be expected. "
"Well, you're in for a hard time. Do you just like the crazy ones?" Omal nudged Cato conspiratorially, "better you than me though. "
"We're not like that," Cato shook his head.
"You two are the only ones saying that now," Omal grinned, "an Iris daughter will certainly do the university good. Is that why the Central Territory branch is starting first?"
"That's because it's closer, you should know that that article is nothing but lies," Cato rolled his eyes, "and I believe we have something much closer to worry about now. "
They looked up at the small windows, where a fire's light flickered across the roof. One of the university buildings was providing that light.
"I do hope we can get out of this alive," Omal said nervously.
"Me too. "

[Artman77]

Art on Tumblr.

[LeSwordfish]

I'm sorry i'm so late with this! I spent the weekend running a game jam which had five times as many entries as I expected, and spent monday dealing with the site and server dying as the jam came to a close. Here, though, are eight more space marines.

[Icewalker]

I was traveling in New York and working a lot (and also oh god the heat) for all of last week, and did not make writing happen. It's Tuesday, and the update has been delayed, so I could ostensibly still get in before the update, but it feels like a cop out, so I think I'm just going to take the hit. I'll fail the week of the 24th. I didn't get it done.

[Glass Mouse]

Aaaand I'm back, sun-tanned and culturally enriched! I’m gonna do the past two weeks in one status post because everyone seems to have been trucking along without issue (good job, guys, your work ethics way surpass my administration!). So, status for the weeks July 11 - 24!


Glass Mouse passes with a gazillion city photos.

Lycunadari passes the first week with four people drawings and five nature photos, and the second with six photos.

LeSwordfish passes the first week with eleven space marines and the second with eight space marines.

jseah passes the first week with 11.5k words of fanfiction and 3.7k for Hero’s War, and the second with 3k words of Hero’s War.

Some Android passes the first week with 65 sheets of anatomy and the second with 65+ sheets of anatomy.

Artman77 passes the first week with three sketches, a goblin, and three shirt designs, and the second with three logo designs, a floaty blue man, a fighter fairy, and a freak-out Red.

Icewalker passes the first week with 1500 words of Reliquary and did not pass the second.

Xiander passes the first week with 1674 words of writing and the second with 1554 words.

TheWombatOfDoom cropped up with 1300 words of D&D letter, 222 words of monster slaying, and 140 wedding seat decorations.


Thus, Icewalker and TheWombatOfDoom FAIL this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, LeSwordfish, jseah, Some Android, Artman77 and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

Show

Glass Mouse
Current run: 6 weeks
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 185 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

LeSwordfish
Current run: 7 weeks
Longest run: 24 weeks
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 24 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Some Android
Current run: 30 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

Artman77
Current run: 3 weeks
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Icewalker
Current run: -
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 3 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

TheWombatOfDoom
Current run: -
Longest run: -
Themes: -

No theme this week, since it's Friday.

Next week's theme is chosen by Xiander - let me know in PM or this thread, and I'll include it in the next status.

---

So that makes 11.5k words for AT and 3.7k for HW.

Did I just write at Nano speed for a week?!

What even ARE you, man???

-large image snip-

It feels like that image encapsulates my entire life these days.

I was traveling in New York and working a lot (and also oh god the heat) for all of last week, and did not make writing happen. It's Tuesday, and the update has been delayed, so I could ostensibly still get in before the update, but it feels like a cop out, so I think I'm just going to take the hit. I'll fail the week of the 24th. I didn't get it done.

Aw, sorry to hear that. You just managed to reach your old record. Kinda weird how 13 is the number where that keeps happening, huh?

[jseah]

What even ARE you, man???

You know how sometimes your muse grabs you and won't let go?

Or more like grabs you by your collar and shakes you up and down while stuffing a keyboard under your fingers.
Yeah. That happened.

Ar Tonelico's setting in particular is really good for this. Before I knew it, I had a story outline for 40-50k words and the first 10k written.
I even burned lunch breaks at work to write. T_T

My writing spree is over though, I still want to reach a nice stopping point but the muse keeps expanding the story. I fear it will be 30-40k words before even the first arc is complete.


Oh, and the HW chapter is now complete with 3095 additional words from last week's (it took longer because it's a longer than usual chapter).

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3238329/88/A-Hero-s-War

[Some Android]

Got my art up.

@android; what kinda pic do you want for you 25-week success?

OH! WHOOPS! Guess I missed this. Um...something involving guitars, lasers, and robots.

[Icewalker]

Bah, how silly. I'll have to make sure I get more than thirteen weeks to do away with that, then. Sending you the latest pile of Reliquary!

[LeSwordfish]

This week I wrote two major things: Firstly, a showcase for the game jam I ran, clocking in at 1337 words, and secondly a battle report, for another 1652 words.

[Xiander]

1564 words of exposition on Lord Mellmot, Lord Trask and the mysterious Argentum Bazaar.
Here you go.

Spoiler: The Lords of the Coast

Show

Lord Jeremy Trask
Age: somewhere in his sixties
Apearance: Lord trask is no a young man, but his appearance still engender respect in those around him. Always dressed in the finest suit and with his hair meticulously combed, he purposefully presents himself as a perfectionist.
A strong jawline runs in the Trask family, all the men have had jaws you sould cut your hand on and Lord Jeremy Trask is no exception. His chin is adorned with a closely trimmed goatee. Both his hair and beard were jet black in his youth but have started showing a sprinkle of white as he is growing older.
Personality: He carries his age undaunted and with pride. He has refused to adobt a walking cake and still can be seen taking walks in the gardens every day. Jeremy Trask has never been a man for compromise, when he takes a decision he sticks to it, come hell or high water. He is a master tactician, has a good head for economy and most of all, he inspires people around him. There is and aura of confidence and pride around Lord Trask at all times. Those who served whith him in the navy, claims that he could stand in the mittle of a hurrycane and still remain calm an access the situation.
Lord Trask has no time for weakness, not his own, nor that of others. Iyou cannot fend for yourself, he sees no reason to fend for you. On the other hand he respects strength, anyone able to help themselves, could be a worthwhile ally to the Trask house.
Background: The trask family took upresidence on the Grey mountains more than ten generations ago. The mountains were not the most welcoming home, but for those strong enough to survive there, the mountain provided, in its own cold way.
While food was scarce and the ground was mostly unfit for agriculture, it was not long before Iron and copper ore was discovered in the ground. The trask family laid claim to the rich sources of metal, and build an army and an empire, founded on their military might.
The ore of the mountains produced strong steel, while the rough enviroment produced hardened battle ready men to wield it. It was only a few generations before the trask army and navy where known for their strength, tenacity and ruthlessness. While the mountains are their home, the Trask empire has stretched down the foothills and all the way to the coast. Now Trask and Mellmott together are known as the Lords of the coast, as each hold a stretch of the only stable cost known In the Homeland.
Being a child of the Trask bloodline, Jeremy Trask has had a strong education in matters of military, strategy, swordfighting and leadership. At ten years old he wielded a sword in a duel for the first time, drawing first blood and winning the duel against a boy five years older than him. Over the years he competed with his brothers for the post as head of the family, and even though all five brothers are acomplished captains or generals, none of them have ever been able to challenge his claim to the throne and the place as leader of the family.
Today, Lord trask commands a great navy, and an army composed of battlehardened mountain men. While every other lord wishes to have a share of the minerals in the Grey mountains, none would dare to challenge Trask in a direct battle. The only lord to oppose trask directly is Lord Melmott, and even he has never made the mistake of engaging in open battle with house Trask.


Lord Toulin Melmott
Age: 49
Appearance: Short and squat, if Toulin Melmott was ever thin, that time is long past. His heavy build and his multiple chins are supplemented by a set of heavy, narrow eyes, which send piercing glares at whatever holds his interest at the givven moment. Toulin has never grown a beard, and his light brown hair is cropped short. He favours colourful clothes, espcially liking blue, red and purple colours.
While he eats a lot, and not always without spilling, Lord Melmott makes a point of his clothes being alway clean, new and showing little or no wear. Rings and other jewelery are always adorning his fingers and neck. After all, what worth is wealth if you have nothing to show for it?
Personality:Toulin is extravagant in everything he does. Everything is a grant gesture and all his gestures look expensive to the point of tastelesness. Toulin Melmott solves everything with money. And to the average person, it would seem that he does not realise that there are limits to what money can accomplice.
To more insightful watchers and those who knows lord Melmott better, there is a hidden sight to him. While he seems superficial, almost ignorant to the world around him, Lord Melmott’s demeanor is a show. People tend to underestimate the man, as they see him as a weakling constantly hiding behind his wealth.
The truth is, Lord Melmott is fiercely intelligent, with a flair for businiss and strategy, he acts like a useless dandy, exactly to elicit the responce he gets. If people view him as someone to be tolerated because of his wealth, he figures, they are less likely to view him as an actual threat. Behind the schenes, Melmott runs a tight ship, keeping an eye on everything that goes on in his substantial trade empire.
Background:
The Melmott family always resided by the coast. In the beginning they were fishermen, then they started trading with the Islanders, the Argent Bazar, the Willow People and even stranger people across the seas. For a long time, only Melmott ships dared traversing the sea to find trade with the strange people on the other side.
As a result, the Melmotts grew wealthy. They traded with the Lords of Homeland and they established themselves as the trading link between homeland and the stranger places across the sea. Slowly they grew from wealthy to rich, and soon enough no one else could compare to them when it came to money. Shrewd businissmen, the Melmotts were always ready to take pay in the form of favors, and today there are few powerful nobles who owe nothing to the Melmott Clan.
Toulin Melmott was the only child of his own parents, and had a lavish upgrowing. Always treated to the best food, the best teachers and in general the best of everything, Toulin was groomed to be the enheritor of the house from he was just a child.
He took to the task like a fish to water, and now he is running the largest trade empire in the splintered land. His rivalry with Lord Trask is legendary, and no one dares to come between the two. No one except Armande Trellanian.

Spoiler: The Argentum Bazaar

Show

The Argentum Bazaar:
Deviously hard to find, the Argentum Bazaar seems to move around even more than most other islands, when the world splinters. Some believe that the Bazaar holds some sort of sentience and goes where it wants to go, and that it only allows itself to be found by those who have something worthwhile to sell, or buy,
Whatever the metaphysical nature of the Bazaar is, there is no doubt of what it’s practical purpose is. It is where people come to buy sell and trade all sorts of wares and services. There is a saying on the Bazaar: “If it isn’t for sale, it is only because the right price has yet to be offered.”
The indiginous merchants of the Bazaar hold to this truth as the only true law of the place. Everything can be bought and sold. Everything is a ware and everything can be the proper payment for the right ware.
To outsiders the Bazaar can seem both wonderous and strange, with it’s huge asortment of rare and exotic wares. It is only when you see the darker corners of the place that you realize the more sinister side of the Bazaars philosophy. If everything is buyable and sellable, what is the prize of your right hand? Your first love? Your life?
Stay long enough at the Bazaar, and someone will offer to buy them all off you.
From the coast, the bazaar looks like an Island covered entirely in tents, with barely enough space to move between the hundredss of booths. The sound of vendors shouting the price of their wares is deafening and a thousand smells permeate the air.
The vendors generally police themselves. But the nature of the Bazaar is that it needs little policing, If someone stole your wares, perhaps he merely payed you with the silence of his feet and the swiftness of his fingers. If someone is murdered, the price of his heartblood was probably steel.
Only seldomly does the Bazaar need ruling, and when that happens, it is up to the reighning Plutarch to make a decree, laying down the rules for what to do. When the Bazaar turns to the Plutarch his word is always obeyed to the smallest detail.
And how does the Bazaar appoint it’s Plutach? Obviously the role is appointed by auction. Every seven years, the highest bidder gets to take Argent Moonstone Gem, and by the aincient compacts of the place, the holder of the gem is the Plutarch.

And I have to pick the themefor the comming week? Uhm... lessee...
The Theme will be: Giants!

[Artman77]

................art on tumblr

[Glass Mouse]

Status for the weeks July 25 - 31!


Glass Mouse passes with 2521 words of witch story, and a portrait.

Lycunadari passes with one elf drawing and five nature photos.

LeSwordfish passes with 1337 words of game jam, and 1652 words of battle report.

jseah passes with 3095 words of Hero’s War.

Some Android passes with six sheets of ears, and 62 sheets of legs.

Artman77 passes with a Medusa, a Wakfu armor thing, Jim Carrey, a fey, and a handful of monocolor sketches.

Icewalker passes with 1502 words of Reliquary.

Xiander passes with 1564 words of exposition.

TheWombatOfDoom did not upload/send me anything.


Thus, TheWombatOfDoom FAIL this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, LeSwordfish, jseah, Some Android, Artman77, Icewalker and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

Show

Glass Mouse
Current run: 7 weeks
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 186 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

LeSwordfish
Current run: 8 weeks
Longest run: 24 weeks
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 25 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Some Android
Current run: 31 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

Artman77
Current run: 4 weeks
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Icewalker
Current run: 1 week
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 4 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

TheWombatOfDoom
Current run: -
Longest run: -
Themes: -

This week's theme (August 1 - 7), chosen by Xiander, is Giants!.

Next week's theme is chosen by TheWombatOfDoom - let me know in PM or this thread, and I'll include it in the next status.

---

You know how sometimes your muse grabs you and won't let go?

Or more like grabs you by your collar and shakes you up and down while stuffing a keyboard under your fingers.
Yeah. That happened.

Followed by periods of time where the muse sits in a corner, pouting, no matter how many treats I give it? Yeah, my muse is totally a cat.

Bah, how silly. I'll have to make sure I get more than thirteen weeks to do away with that, then. Sending you the latest pile of Reliquary!

That's the spirit! Push further than that unlucky number!

And I have to pick the themefor the comming week? Uhm... lessee...
The Theme will be: Giants!

A theme? That’s mighty big of you!

[Xiander]

A theme? That’s mighty big of you!

It's as I always say: Go big or go home

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Theme for next week: Mash up

[Icewalker]

My campaign-turning-narrative The Prisons of Thieves has finally had another couple sessions, so I am back to writing up the narrative version of the story, and so can post 1523 words of Seturou and company here.

Spoiler

Show

Elendithas swallowed a mouthful of oatmeal. “I don’t have high hopes. You remember what Njol Steelbrow was like last time: he’s not the type to listen to appeals to his morality.”
A gruff voice chimed in. “Probably because you are assuming he has one.” Theodorus sat down at the inn’s table. “Having worked for the man the last four years, I can assure you he does not. It’s good to see you again, Elendithas.” He extended a hand, and the diplomat took it firmly.
“So, Theodorus. What’s all of this about? You forwarded a letter from the druids? Seems a rather unorthodox choice.”
He grunted. “Well, official company policy says everything is going fine, so my calling for a diplomat would be frowned upon to say the least. Luckily there’s at least one person out on the woods side of the story who is as worried as I am. The fact of the matter is, if something isn’t done soon, I fear Durand and Drockwell Logging will end up in an all out war with the local druidic circle here. And I have no desire to see them killed.”
Lyaera sipped at her tea. “You underestimate them.”
“Durand and Drockwell is a massive-”
Elendithas quieted him with an extended hand, “Yes, they underestimate you as well. But that’s exactly the problem.”
Dharmos sat heavily into a fourth chair, his thin frame wavering slightly back and forth.
Theodorus balked. “Are you alright, man? You’re pale as chalk.”
Dharmos gestured to his back, managing to keep balance in his chair, and covered his teeth with his free hand. “Infected I think. Demon bite. Maybe bad. I’ll be okay. Probably.”
“You should change the bandages,” came the soft voice from beneath the table.
“Who’s-” Theodorus started, looking beneath the tablecloth to see Seturou, sitting knees to her chest underneath. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head, mouthing silently, ‘druids’.
Elendithas struggled to keep his professional composure, a small smile leaking through. “Tell us the full story, Theodorus.”
“Aye, let me start from the beginning. How well do you know the treaty signed a few months back?”
“Not verbatim.”
“Well turns out the devil is in the details, as per usual. The contract was supposed to establish non-aggression between the company and the druids, and set up a sustainable logging balance that both sides could agree with. The company would mostly cut old and sick trees, and trim branches. The druids would do some replanting, turns out they didn’t trust us with that part anyway, for whatever greenblood reason. Nobody is allowed to take a go at anybody else with an axe, and everybody lives happily ever after.”
Elendithas nodded. “I’ve seen that kind of arrangement work, once or twice before. What went wrong?”
“Well, the company and the druids have rather different approaches to words. I was forced out of that meeting by Steelbrow, so he could ensure that he got his way with the language and that the druids would go in unaware of what was going to happen. See the thing is, the treaty never explicitly specifies what counts as old or sick for a tree, and the decision is left up to the workers themselves out on the logging front. Workers who have no training to judge tree health, and who have large quotas set by the company. Treaty backs them into a corner. Logging continues as fast as ever, and Steelbrow can say that not only is he following the treaty to the letter, but that it’s the laborers’ fault if anything is getting pushed too far.”
“And as far as Athsakatas is concerned, the company isn’t obeying the treaty at all, because they cutting as much as ever.”
“Exactly. And said ent has decided that if we’ve broken the treaty, then it’s broken, and he isn’t bound by it either. It’s been subtle so far, but they’ve started sabotaging our operations. Safety gear has been stolen or tampered with, and we’ve had two workers die in accidents due to the faulty equipment. There have also been animal attacks, which I’m fairly certain are being magically induced by the druids. I’ve tried to get in touch with them, to set up new negotiations, but I get nothing in response. Eventually ‘Whitefeather’ sent that letter, but he looked damn nervous doing it. I don’t know what’s going on over there, but I don’t think it’s good. I don’t know how long it’ll take for things to escalate, but they will, and it’s not going to be pretty.”
“Alright. Could you get me a copy of the treaty in full, and anything else you think might be valuable? I want to try to meet with the druids, if they’re willing, and will come by your office later in the day.”
Theodorus nodded. “I can do that. I’m worried about this one, Elendithas. As long as Steelbrow is pulling all the strings, I’m not sure how anything can change.”
“I don’t see a way out yet either. But there’s always more to a story than there first appears.”
“What if you intimidated them into following the treaty? If the druids are more powerful than the company thinks and all,” Dharmos offered. “Seturou has nature magic, maybe she could do something.”
Theodorus raised his eyebrows looking down at the table. “No uh,” he muttered quietly, “no offense to your friend but she isn’t exactly the most threatening person I’ve ever met. And besides, I doubt it would do much good. Steelbrow is nothing if not stubborn.”
“You really should change those bandages,” was heard quietly from beneath the table.

“You’re certain?”
Dharmos nodded. “I’ll be okay. I’ll just stay in the inn and get some rest.”
“But a cleric or doctor could-”
“I don’t tend to have cordial experiences with either doctors or clerics. I’ll manage by myself.”
“Ah.” Elendithas tried not to look at the Dharmos’ brow or teeth. “Yeah. Alright, but we’ll check in on you in the afternoon, make sure you’re doing alright.”
Dharmos gave a tired smile. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Let’s go see if the druids are willing to show themselves. And you come along. You get into enough trouble with supervision.” Elendithas and Lyaera headed out, Seturou trailing behind. Cerbois trotted after, a fish gifted to him by some friendly individual hanging from happy jaws.
The summer air was warm and the woods bright with dappled sparks of light streaming in between leaves. Lyaera smiled. Business aside, it was always nice to walk through these woods, especially off of traveled roads. Seturou was disappearing now and again between the trees, once or twice returning with antlers tucked under an arm.
“They’re avoiding us,” Elendithas noted. He was clearly enjoying the walk as well, and did not seem terribly concerned by this. “At least one of them would know we’re here by now.”
Lyaera once again watched a flicker of movement between trees in the distance. “At least one of them does.”
Elendithas followed her eyes. “We’ll let them approach us if they want. If they don’t want to talk, they don’t want to talk.”
Seturou trailed off to the right, eyes flicking from trail mark to trail mark, following the route of some buck.
“Hoping to find his antlers?” The tall figure leaned on a tree, watching Seturou track. He had wild and matted blond hair, wide and shaggy down to his shoulders. A second bend in his legs led to a hoofed foot, scratching absentmindedly at the earth. He grinned at Seturou’s stare. “You won’t have much luck. Those were left by Fel, he spent a couple months as a stag recently. That trail won’t get you anything more than a facefull of grumpy elf. Something I suspect you already get enough of, with the company you’re keeping.” The satyr’s eyes tracked Elendithas and Lyaera as they continued through the woods, some distance away.
“Elendithas isn’t grumpy,” Seturou countered.
“Nah maybe not, but Lyaera sure gets scary when she’s serious.”
“Well. Yeah okay,” Seturou conceded. “Who’re you? I like your hooves.”
“My name is Whitefeather. I like my hooves too. Who’re you?”
“I’m Seturou. This is Cerbois.”
“I should talk to your friends. I sent them a letter after all. They need to know about the tomb.”
Seturou nodded, unclear on what was going on. “Okay! Come on,” she grabbed one of the satyr’s hands, making her way back through the woods to the two elves. They emerged from between trees to find Lyaera already waiting, having placed herself between them and Elendithas. Upon recognizing the satyr, muscles in her shoulders and legs subtly relaxed, combat readiness no longer necessary.
“Whitefeather!” Elendithas extended a hand and the two gripped at the wrist with a smile. “It’s good to see you. So what is all of this about?”
Whitefeather’s demeanor had shifted over the approach towards the diplomat, his eyes flitting to either side, and feet light, even twitching a little, shifting his weight continuously.
“Not so loud, please. I’m sorry. I don’t know. Athsakatas said we shouldn’t contact you, but I was so worried.”

[Some Android]

Got my art up.

[LeSwordfish]

Seven more space marines.

[Xiander]

Here comes my 1674 words of the week. And I managed to sneak in some giants ;)

Spoiler: The Giants garden

Show

The Giant’s garden
Out on the sea, sailing on the splinters of reality, finding the same place twice can be a challenge. This is true for normal, relatively stable places. But some places seems to defy the odds even more so. Ellusive places which are barely ever found, and never by anyone looking for them.
The Giant’s garden is one such place. Stories of this mystic island abound, but must of them carry the signs of being retellings of the original, blown out of proportion and twisted to suit the whim of the storyteller.
There is one reliable record though. In the Anals of the splintered academy, is an account of thelast words of a sailor, who washed ashore in a small fishing village. The man was injured and raving, so the villagers brought him to a splinter of the Academy, which was nearby at the time. While Sages and Doctors of the Academy did there best to help him, the sailor recounted a tale so strange that most believed it an artifact of his fevered imagination.
He had set out on a ship, The Autumn Wanderer. The captain had set a course for the Roiling Lighthouse, in the hopes of going on to the Emerald Cliffs to bring back a cargo of Emeralds. They never reached the Lighthouse.
Within a week of leaving harbour, the ships sage got sick. The man died within two days. After that, they hoped to reach a harbour where they could hire a new Sage, but a massive splintering sent the ship of course, and before they knew it, the crew was lost on the waves. They rationed their provisions and hoped to make harbour before they ran out.
Weeks later, the lookout finally called out: Land ho.
The Crew cheered and hooted at the prospect of a harbour, and safety from the tyrrany of the waves. What they found was something different. The island was void of any settlement, instead trees towere over the lost sailors, a jungle with vegetation many times larger than it would be anywhere else.
And it wasn’t just the trees and plants. There were animals many times larger than normal members of their species. The sailors set up camp and started foraging for food, with a little luck they might survive long enough to come up with a way out.
At this point in the story, the injured sailor seemed to loose his grasp on sanity. He started raving and flailing. “There was something else in the jungle.” He shouted. “It came for us in the night. It took us one by one.” It took a life boat and made for somewhere else before it got to me.”
He shouted warnings at anyone close snough to hear, and after thrashin and flailing for a while, he passed out. He died within the hour.
The sages doubted the details of his story, until a vilager handed over the man’s meager possesions. They were wrapped in a cloak made of animal hide. Upon close inspection the naturalists of the academy, determined that the article of clothing was made from rat skin. Only, there was no sign of smaller scraps of skin being sown together, Instead the cloak seemed to be made og the skin of a single rat.

Spoiler: The silver isles

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The Silver Isles
These four small Islands are knit together by a series of reefs, and are home to a community of peaceful people, who thrive on selling their art and their jewelery. Rich in silver and gems, the small community had always been threatened with war and destruction, until peace was brokered with several of the stronger nations of the Splintering Sea. Today, compacts exist to protect the isles, by requrering their trade partners to take up arms on their behalves, should the need arise.
The people of the Silver isles are known for their artistry, every one of them is either a sculptor a painter, a jeweler or an artist in some other way. The mines and farms of the place are managed by the community, giving everyone spare time to persue their art.
On the biggest of the islands, the silver spires stand.


The Silver Spires
Over a sea of emerald green, the Silver spires rise like a shining beacon. The emaculate towers are the pride of the people of the Silver Isles. They are the home of the Royal family, but the gates are open, and inside the people of the Isle find the protection of their rulers and the promise of safety and learning.
In the Silver halls, all who wish to learn a craft or to persue an artform can find a tutor and apire to be the best at their craft.

Queen Meriile
Queen Meriile was fair and good. She brought peace to her people and watched the small island community prosper. She build the spires. She made trade agreements with Homeland and the people of the Wild Reaches. She was loved by all and admired even by the scant enemies who clung to their hatred.
That is how the story goes.
How true it is is hard to say, but the people of the Silver Spires hold them to be true and still venerate her as their founder and their saint. They tell stories of her kindness and her wisdom. Wild and fanctfull tales. Of these stories, none is more widespread than the story of her Love, her promise and her death.

Spoiler: The roiling lighthouse

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The Roiling Lighthouse
On the splintering sea, some places are almost impossible to find again once you leave them. Other places draw ships like moths to a flame. The Roiling lighthouse is not an actual lighthouse, but rather a steep cliff formation. On the top of the cliff a green flame burns eternaly, without either fuel or heat.
The Sages of the splintered academy have studied the cliff for centuries, but have yet to find an explanation for the everburning flame. What they have found out, is that a sage who knows what he is looking for can always tell if the lighthouse is close by. The longer tim the sage has stared into the flames, the longer away he can feel it’s draw. This is not without danger though, staring into the flames seems to take a toll on the man who does it, and the more you look, the more you will want to return to the flame.
The top of the cliff is marked by several gravestones of men who lost the will to leave and spent the rest of their lives staring at the green flame.
The lighthouse has become a stepping stone for merchants and venturers, who wish to travel outside the reach of homeland. While The lighthouse does move with the splinterings, it never seems to moove to far from the shores of Homeland.
Most sages make a point of looking into the flame at least once. This way they can use it as a safe first destination and the venture on to the further reaches of the sea from there. As a result a small village build on boats have sprung up at the foot of the cliff.
Merchants and mercenaries ply their trade by the foot of the roiling lighthouse, selling their goods and services to ships who find themselves needy of provision or protection.

Spoiler: The Temple of Idris

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The temple of Idris
In the heart of the city of glass, lies a vast complex of buildings, made i glass of all colours and supported by pillars of Black stone. The site is holy to the glass people and to the Onyx Guard. It is the temple of Idris and any who disrespect it will feel the wrath of the Onyx Guard.
Those who have visited the City of glass, and who had a mind to ask, have learned that the people of the city hold one deity over all other.
Idris the all seeing, the ever waking, the watchful one, the eternal gaze.
The people of the city claim that Idris watched the creation of the world, and that she is still watching. She sees all, present past and future, and those who know to cast away their own illusions and seek her wisdom, can sometimes share in her truths.
In the temple of Idris, hundreds of priests spend their days, always in the persuit of enlightenment and wisdom. The priests encourage visitors to let go of their pride and their vanity and realise that the Ever waking one knows better, and that she is willing to share.
Some visitors have set aside their lives and joined the priests at the temple. To anyone else the main atraction of the temple is the profecies the priest are able to produce. The common wisdon is that a profecy of Idris holds at least one truth, and often three more that you will only see later, when your eyes are unclouded.


The Eye of Idris
The Temple of Idris lies in the center of the city, raised to have a view of the entire island. In the middle of the vast temple lies a small number of chambers, door always locked and barred. Only the three highest priests can enter the chambers and they never speak of what is inside.
All the priests of Idris claim some manner of prophetic ability, but when a true profecy must be made, a prophecy which no one can doubt, the priests will enter the chamber, and will emerge a few hours later with a profecy.
Though no one but the hig priests know the whole truth, everyone has a thought on what lies in the chamber. Over the years, a common belief has manifested, that the chamber holds the eye of Idris. A physical manifestation of the all seeing providense of the Godess.
One thing is certain: When the high priests have consulted the eyes and brought forth a true profecy, no one dares ignore their words. The prophecies of the eye always come true, even if they seldom come true in the way you expect.

[jseah]

Latest chapter is 3820 words.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3238329/89/A-Hero-s-War

[Artman77]

I had stuff done, but didn't upload. Maybe next week...

[Glass Mouse]

Status for the weeks August 1 - 7!


Glass Mouse passes with a dozen digital drawings.

Lycunadari passes with six nature photos.

LeSwordfish passes with seven space marines.

jseah passes with 3820 words of A Hero’s War.

Some Android passes with a whoppin’ 84 sheets of anatomy studies.

Artman77 did not upload/send me anything.

Icewalker passes with 1523 words of Seturou.

Xiander passes with 1674 words of worldbuilding, including a creepy island of giants.

TheWombatOfDoom did not upload/send me anything (again).


Thus, Artman77 and TheWombatOfDoom FAIL this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, LeSwordfish, jseah, Some Android, Icewalker and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

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Glass Mouse
Current run: 8 weeks
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 187 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

LeSwordfish
Current run: 9 weeks
Longest run: 24 weeks
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 26 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Some Android
Current run: 32 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

Artman77
Current run: -
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Icewalker
Current run: 2 weeks
Longest run: 13 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 5 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: 1 week

TheWombatOfDoom
Current run: -
Longest run: -
Themes: -

This week's theme (August 1 - 7), chosen by TheWombatOfDoom, is Mash up.

Next week's theme is chosen by me.

[Some Android]

Got my art up.