HankTheMoose

3.35 Innovation

Alright, so that third post didn't really work out last week, but I have an extra long one for you today!

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“What does that mean?” Torvald asked. Bernt had found him and several of the others gathered around a table to hear Nirlig drunkenly regale them with the story of how he’d lost his two missing fingers.

The mood had sombered up quickly when Bernt brought the news.

“It’s bad business.” Ksuwa grumbled around her cup. “Big demons never came ...

3.34 Gobford

“You need to go in there and talk to them,” Olias told Torvald, huffing as he marched next to his grandnephew and pointed ahead to the carriage. It was obvious to Bernt that the old man didn’t get much exercise. “You have to trust me on this. It’s important.”

“And say what?” Torvald protested. “I don’t want to get involved. I’m going to the Sacral Peaks, and voting however the goddess tells me to.”

Bernt frowned at the paladin. “You can’t – that’s n...

Sick Notice and Publishing Update

Hi all, I'm down with a fever again so posts may be a bit irregular this week. Today's post is unfortunately not going to be on time. I should still be able to get all three done, though.

In other news, Underkeeper Book 1: The Dragon's Gambit will be published by TimelessWind on February 18 in Ebook and Audiobook formats! This is my very first published book, and I need hype to make sure I can write full-time in the future. Authors live and die by their reviews. To this en...

3.33 Eyes in the Night

As the news spread that the demons were out there, the mood in the camp grew tense. Captain Emata, who had somehow put herself in charge, assigned guard duties to every combat-capable person available, which was everyone except Angjou, Surin, Olias and Regin. They took their assignments without comment. A week earlier, the assertive young officer had shouted down a high priest of Noruk and somehow gained what passed for respect with the man. No one wanted to try her. Bernt supposed it was jus...

3.32 Escalation

Jori pulled the bone stopper from the small demon skin vessel and focused on its contents, slowly drawing the soul from it. Her control had improved, but it was still hard to move souls or soul fragments without drawing them into herself.

There wasn’t much left of this one – a headless arm and torso that Xoryath had found drifting aimlessly over the endless, dead plains to the north, walking on legs that weren’t there anymore. Scavengers had snatched pieces off of this one, but it...

3.31 Reinforcements

Bernt sat in the inn’s common room, tapping his foot nervously. With the addition of Torvald's great uncle, they were fifteen people in all, though Torvald himself wasn't here. He was currently being questioned by the City Guard because of his latest divine mission. He'd bolted out of bed in the middle of the night, shouting, and run clear across the city to the lake. By the time Bernt caught up with him, two guards were watching the paladin drag an unconscious dwarf out of the water. Both ...

3.30 The Price of Failure

When the City Guard came to knock on their door in the morning before sunrise, Bernt feared the worst. Uriah’s bed was still undisturbed, his small pack leaning against it exactly as he’d left it. But Uriah came walking through the door a moment later, looking stiff and pale. His robes were covered in crusted blood. One of the guards behind him was holding his staff for him.

“What in the hells happened to you?” Nirlig asked, aghast.

“A demon, I think. Unless the Duergar ...

3.29 Whisperer

The guild was a beautiful structure that dated back to imperial times, with high ceilings, carved marble columns and a general sense of gravitas that Halfbridge lacked. Unfortunately, the place had seen better days. While it was clean and mages moved about their business as they did back home, entire wings of the massive complex were roped off and mothballed, including its defunct research department.

Leaving Uriah at the front desk to ask the receptionist about reliable enchanters, Ber...

3.28 Emancipation

“Well, thank the gods that’s over.” Ed said with feeling, turning away from the corpse. He’d started to feel like he’d be stuck in this hellhole forever, sitting in a cave with nobody but imps for company. All things considered, it could have been worse, but that wasn’t saying much.

Jori scuttled off over the rocks, back toward the cave. “Come on! We have to check on the others.”

By the time he got back, the cell was packed with imps, several of them singed a bit b...

3.27 A True Death

Bernt’s banefire spell clipped the hag’s flank as she tried to dodge. She shrieked in pain and again the sound didn’t reach Bernt’s ears. Someone was protecting them from the creature’s withering screams. It fell to the ground and writhed in agony as the spell devoured its flesh.

Two imps burst from the trees, hissing as they dove down at the adventurers. Bernt caught one with a handful of manaburn as Nirlig tried to sweep the other out of their air. The burning imp crashed to...

3.26 Guerilla Demons

“You can’t be serious.” Uriah said, glaring at Bernt. “You’re talking to a demon in the hells, and you’re surprised we got ambushed?”

“Hey, watch it!” Elyn reprimanded him. “Jori is our friend – she wouldn’t betray us.”

“Besides,” Torvald added reasonably, “Ed is with her. Do you think he’s the kind of person who would let something like that happen?”

Uriah visibly controlled himself, seeing that nobody else was apparently on his side of t...

3.25 Honesty

Hi all, this one took a whole lot of editing back and forth, to the point where it's kind of blurring together in my head now. So I'd like to ask you guys to point out if you notice any unnatural breaks/transitions anywhere that need smoothed out. Thanks!

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Bernt looked around at the mangled camp all around, feeling sick. Those demons had been tracking him.

The entire fight had barely taken twenty or thirty seconds – as long as it took the priests to...

3.24 Demons in the Night

Hi all, I wanted to add a notice here to let you know that there's some additional content on the RR version of the END of Chapter 16 and the beginning of Chapter 17. This was done to flesh out the Bernt/Jori conversation and give us a bit more of Bernt's mindset and goals in the wake of that conversation as per your helpful feedback. I also ...

3.23 The Cripple

By the time noon rolled around, the novelty of traveling forth into the unknown had worn off. There were fields, copses of trees, more fields, villages in the distance, and even more fields. This region was the northernmost portion of Besermark’s heartland, which was roughly a triangle marked out by the cities of Teres, Yetin’s Harbor and Fergefield.

These lands were well-protected between the Uvner River, which they’d just traveled down, and the Aelan River to the west, which ran...

3.22 Expedition

At the paladin’s insistence, Bernt and Torvald accompanied the two gnomes back to their house, both to keep Linnie from trying to pursue the ogre and to try to explain things to the locals. Judging by their behavior so far, it seemed likely that they would try to take out their misguided anger on the nearest scapegoat – in this case Nils and Linnie.

The villagers received them with angry glares, and a few harsh words for Nils. Ignoring them, Torvald made straight for the tiny shrine...

3.21 Pied Piper

Another one hot off the presses. I caught another (or maybe the same again) strain of toddler sickness, but the chapter's done! And with that, we resume Patreon billing and the regular posting schedule. Happy New Year!

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“Hold on a minute, now,” Uriah said. “You can’t seriously be planning to release a live ogre in the middle of a village. You know they eat people, right?”

“He’s right.” Nirlig chimed in. “Ogres are dangerous. S...

3.20 Side Quest

Bernt went to find the Fergefield Mages’ Guild while the others went ahead to the bakery. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at Bernt’s scrawled note, but she agreed to submit it to the scryers when he pulled out Iriala’s token. Ideally, Bernt would have liked to spend the day here, looking through the library to see if they had any interesting texts about pyromancy, sorcery, or even elemental summoning. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work out today.

Torvald, now an officia...

3.19 A Call to Adventure

Hi all, it's late, but at least one post got done this week. Not sure if I'll get you guys another one before Christmas, but if not, you'll get a post later next week.

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Uriah pulled a face as gray banefire shot from his outstretched hand, splashing down not far away in the wake of the boat. The spell was a bit wispy, and it didn’t have the proper fireball shape, coming out more like a diffuse stream. Still, it would work in a pinch.

“That was good!” Bernt s...

‘Ware the Toddler Plague

Hey all, sorry there’s no update today, whole family’s down with the sickness.

3.18 Expedition

Hi all, so the ink isn't dry on this one yet, I literally just finished drafting it. Buuut, I didn't want to put you guys on hold again while I edit, so you're getting the beta version. Feel free to drop issues into the comments. I'll run my own edit tomorrow and paste in the cleaned up version at that time :) Cheers!

Bernt tied a bit of string around the neat stack of folders on his table and dropped the packet into his bag on top of his bedroll. They contained neatly organize...

2nd update delayed to Friday

Hi all, I'm going to be on the road tomorrow, so your second post this week is going to drop a day late on Friday the 13th. Cheers!

3.17 Legitimator

Bernt stripped off his clothes in the chilly changing area, noting with some embarrassment that he smelled a bit under one arm. He’d meant to get up earlier today and bathe before coming, but he’d been up late, finally recreating the portal to nowhere in the back room of his house and talking to Jori. The opportunity to catch up had just been too tempting to pass up and they’d spent hours well into the night doing just that.

It had been good to learn more about Jori’s project an...

3.16 Portal to Nowhere

In the end, it wasn’t quite as simple as Bernt had predicted. Hallan had a strong grasp of runes and warding and it took the librarian only a moment to point out several obvious problems that needed solving before they could actually try to create a portal to nowhere.

For one, there was no guarantee that such a portal would be stable, or that its collapse wouldn’t cause an explosion, or that some unnameable horror from beyond space and time wouldn’t come climbing out of it at the ...

3.15 Hypothesis

Hi all, Happy December. I didn't manage to get this all properly edited before posting, so please let me know if all the magical theory is too unclear. I'm also going to be suspending patreon billing in December and slowing down posts to 2/week for the Holidays since I'm going to be traveling. Cheers!

The next several days, Bernt focused as best he could on working his way through Iriala’s books. He made sure to visit Pollock as often as he could, refining ideas for po...

3.14 Demon Hunting

“Alright.” The pimply young solicitor said, pen scratching on paper as he took down Bernt’s report. “So, the shade had a three-dimensional shape in the darkness? It was standing up?”

Bernt fidgeted, his arm bumping into a wall in the cramped, broom closet sized office at the Solicitors’ temporary offices in the Crafters’ Quarter. Their building in the Lower District was still undergoing repairs.

“Yes.” he confirmed. “That’s what I said.”

“But it cou...

3.13 Priorities

“Tell me what you’ve worked out about the Temples, so far,” Iriala demanded, stabbing her fork into some greens. She’d summoned Bernt to her office for lunch – the second time she’d done so since he’d been reassigned to the guild. 

The first time around, she’d grilled him about post-Madurian history. He’d answered her questions as best he could, but the archmage had exacting standards. Sure, he knew what happened and when, but she’d wanted interpretation and app...

3.12 Give Me Your Tired

Bernt pulled an icy hand from his sleeves to wave to Palina as he entered the tunnel down to the Undercity, dodging oncoming traffic to skirt around a group of weary-looking people who were slowly shuffling down the passage. Snow hadn’t fallen yet, but it was clear that winter had arrived. He wished he’d remembered to bring a scarf and mittens, but they were still in his chest at home. The Undercity was always temperate, which made it a bit more difficult to dress appropriately for the we...

3.11 Studying

Bernt’s knees ached as he triple-checked the chalk markings on the stone behind his desk. It was already late in the evening, but there was no way he’d go home to sleep before he tested this. The rune circle in front of him wasn’t his own design – he’d copied it from a book – but that didn’t mean he could afford to be sloppy.

Familiar bonds didn’t create a direct connection between the caster and the familiar the way most people imagined. There was no mutual mind-linking...

3.10 Run, Hide, or Fight

Bernt squared his shoulders and knocked on Iriala’s office door, doing his best to appear calm and confident. He didn’t need to be nervous—the archmage had asked for him specifically, and she’d traded her influence to get him here. That should have reassured him, but he still couldn’t quite keep himself from nervously sweating into his clothes. What could she want him for?

No one answered. 

What was going on? The guild was nearly deserted and almost ee...

3.9 Taking Risks

“Really? You’ll do it?” Torvald said, clearly excited.

“I’ll accept if the count appoints me.” Bernt hedged. “You said yourself that you can’t just choose me.”

“Eh.” Torvald shrugged confidently, pulling out a piece of paper and scribbling something on it. “My mom was born a princess. I mean, barely—but still. She grew up in the king’s palace in Teres! Narald is going to listen to her. At least, as long as nobody else with more practical i...