ddwebb

slogging ever on

The following is cross-posted from the update I put on the newest public chapter on RR, because I don't even have the mental energy to write a second explanatory post today.

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Hey, everybody. I'm really sorry about the long silence there. Don't worry, I'm not dead and not abandoning any of my stories, I'm just crazy. Over the years I've been very open about the mental illness I live with so I'll spare y'all another dismal recitation; what's relevant here is that I've been strugg...

And a happy new year

Welcome to 2025, everyone!

No great urgency in this notification, I just wanted to stay in contact for transparency's sake. Last you heard from me I was taking the holiday off and planning to be back at the start of the year with new content. That is still the plan, I am simply struggling through one of my depressive episodes that's making it really hard to work. Not impossible, I am writing, just...at a glacially slow pace.

Don't worry about me, I'm doing okay, relative to m...

I wish everyone a safe, happy, and blessed holiday season

No matter what holidays you celebrate, or even if there are none, I earnestly hope it treats you well. I know things are rough for a lot of us; just remember that no matter what is going on in the world, the one thing you can always do is to show some kindness and caring, to yourself and especially to others. I say this as a generally grumpy, frustrated, borderline misanthropic person who struggles with it: kindness is truly the ultimate power.

I am making this post both to express th...

Status Report

Hey folks! I'm here to provide an update on what's going on, what's been going on and what's about to be.

You've probably noticed the slowdown in new chapters; those who are active on my discord server are also likely aware I have been struggling through a particularly bad depressive episode recently. I'm pleased to report that the latter has broken and I have my ability to think and act restored. So that's a pure win! Less fortunately, I'm still struggling with the new chapters due...

Attack of the Return of the Revenge of the Brain-Eating Weevils

Hey folks.

I find myself once again at a place it seems like I've been too many times before. Specifically, the place where I recognize how many times I've been here before and what I have to do about it, that as usual I really don't want to even though long experience has taught me it's the only thing that works.

I still haven't managed to put out a new chapter because, at this point, the stress of not having put out a chapter is making me unable to work on it.

First the T...

Progress update

Sorry for the long silence, everybody!

As I indicated previously, I took a break from new chapters to work on the TGAB manuscript, and that...did not go as I'd hoped. The project itself proved a lot more difficult and involved than I'd anticipated, and then just for flavor I had a flare-up of an old dental problem and a bad depressive episode right in the middle of it. The upshot of all this was that not only did it take way longer than I'd planned, but the whole time I just didn't ...

H - 48: Tell Me

She should have gone to Dragonvale.

Cora’s week in Spiders Gorge had been productive; all her preparations there were laid, and should be undetectable to any passing adventurers. Nor had she taken so much as a scratch, being more than capable enough to handle colossus spiders. Even better, her shadowy ally had brought back some juicy intelligence from Dragonvale, surely enough to enhance her position here.

But…something had happened, something beyond what it had ...

H - 47: Living Well is the Best Revenge

“I’m sorry I kept this from you, Izayaroa.”

Kaln had rarely put so much effort into his delivery, but the stakes here were far more than just maintaining his relationship with her. He made his voice a performance, but a subdued one: sincere, warm, and above all, calm. That was the crucial thing. The Entity wanted rage, pain, grief, and the dragons chomping at the bit to avenge all that Kaln had suffered, and it had worked skillfully toward that goal. Kaln could feel ...

H - 46: The Truth Reflects Well on You

“You know Kaln as a smooth talker and a people-pleaser,” the shadow declaimed while they all pushed their will against the force of its words. “Now, I know we’re none of us on intimate terms, but I’m willing to bet that some of you can’t help reacting with contempt to that, even as others have quickly learned to appreciate it. But you know what I think? I think the impression Kaln has made here has not prepared y’all to understand just w...

H - 45: The Tale of Ar-Kaln Zelekhir

Kaln had lived through enough moments in his life in which everything fell apart that he was practically a connoisseur of them. To his surprise, now that this one had arrived, he found that it wasn’t all that bad, to the point he was almost unsure what he’d been so worried about.

In the worst case…he still had all the power here. Which was not to say he didn’t now have some explaining to do.

“How’s that expression go?” he asked aloud. “Fuck around and find out? For...

H - 44: You Tell Her

Kaln was not a fighter. Even in the rougher taverns he and the other scribes had sometimes frequented, he’d always been proud of his ability to talk his way out of fights with even the most drunk and aggressive dockworkers. So he’d simply never realized how liberating it felt to just haul off and punch someone in the face.

Especially if that someone was a dragon. Vanimax was right—this felt good.

Vanimax’s head was whipped back by the force of the hit, but he reta...

H - 43: Family Are the People You Find Yourself Stuck With

The toast was actually pretty good when separated from the charcoal; Kaln found the crispy texture of twice-cooked fluffy northern bread delightful, particularly when it was used in its intended purpose as a vector for butter and jam. The bacon was edible, once he showed Pheneraxa how to drain it. Percy didn’t have more than a nibble, but Pheneraxa was a carnivore and Kaln liked his food a little burnt. And his eggs, in the end, were okay.

Breakfast was altogether quite pleasant, more...

Having a rough time

Hey all, just checking in because it's been a while since I posted anything and I don't want y'all to think I disappeared or anything.

I'm having a flare-up of a long-standing dental problem that would cost way more than I can afford to have permanently fixed. So, once or twice a year, I get to spend two to six days or so in excruciating pain for no good reason. That itself is pretty distracting and not good for creativity, but the sleep deprivation it causes is worse.

The teal ...

H - 42: Do You Not Have Toast

“Good morning!”

“Hello,” Percy answered with less enthusiasm, emerging carefully into the kitchen where Kaln was making breakfast.

“Help yourself, I’m just finishing up here,” he said, scraping eggs around the pan with a wooden spoon—the pan handle glittering with jewels, the spoon made from an extinct tree and inlaid with silver. “I have pears sliced up over there on the counter, with bread, butter, and honey. Hope you like scrambled eggs.”

“Scrambled?...

H - 41: So She Would Be Safe

It did not matter how somber the mood in the palace or the city of Boisverd was—it mattered even less how the Queen suffered. There was work to be done, there was a nation dependent upon her. To be royal was to be responsible.

This view was not universally held among the household, but that was fine. What mattered was that she held it, that she would not forsake her duty to the people for any reason. If her ministers and servants were redoubling their efforts to smooth h...

H - 40: Why Would You Even Have Something Like That

“I didn’t say it was a long story,” she said defensively.

“No, but you said it was funny,” Kaln snapped. “Do I look amused?”

Vadaralshi twisted her head to an angle, studying him. “Little bit? But I figured your face was just shaped that way. You’re a smiley kind of guy.”

He turned a cold shoulder to her, staring out across the formerly green and lush valley. Fully half of it was on fire now; the smoke was just rising to the level that the s...

H - 39: Go Easy on Him

“Yes, that sounds fine,” Emeralaphine said vaguely, waving a claw at him without looking up from her books. Kaln had never seen enchanting being done before, and the spectacle was fascinating: she had one volume centered on a table, with the others waiting off to one side, and surrounding it was a veritable constellation of afterimages, glowing and translucent versions of different facets and surfaces of the book. The dragon was carefully moving them about with delicate swipes of her claw...

H - 38: Suck it Up

“I’m glad you’re gratified,” Kaln snapped. “And yes, I am being glib, but also genuinely. However, I asked you a question to which I need an answer!”

Tiavathyris’s smile faded. He could feel the shifting torrent of emotion in her… And after a moment’s consideration, deliberately backed away from that perception. Kaln was willing to leverage his power when he needed to—and in dealing with beings who were phenomenally powerful in their own r...

H - 37: Feel Better?

He stormed out through the front corridor, gratuitously scraping his claws against the Timestone. It was so much nicer now that it was clean. In that moment, he hated it.

Vanimax burst out onto the landing and paused, flaring his wings and swiveling his neck about in momentary uncertainty. Not that there was anything out here to confuse him, but… He just had no idea what to do next.

He could just leave. He was old enough; it was probably about time an...

H - 36: The Simplest Thing Then Would Be to Just Kill You

“I don’t…think my life is in danger,” Perseverance said slowly, frowning, then suddenly glanced around the room and grimaced. “I mean, um, at home, not…you know. I mean… I do not believe my family would have me killed. But, um… There are other ways to get rid of an inconvenient princess. And…I don’t know how it is in Rhivaak, but in Boisverd even the royal family doesn’t rule absolutely. Power is relative, that’s how Mother always puts it. It is,...

H - 35: This is Absolutely Hideous

It was really consistent with how this day was going that he didn’t get two steps before the next interruption.

“I hope you are not considering acceding to that…insane request, husband.”

Tiavathyris’s tone was notably flatter than usual. Kaln stopped in his tracks and turned to find her staring directly at him, the tip of her tail lashing in restrained agitation.

“Of course I’m considering it,” he replied. “This is no time to act thoughtlessly...

H - 34: The Balls on This Girl

This was a disaster in so many obvious ways that for a second Kaln was frozen, his mind locked up as he tried to simultaneously parse everything that was definitely going to go wrong as a result of this. What jarred him out of it was Izayaroa, who began stalking forward toward her son with a snarl of animal fury unlike anything Kaln had yet seen her display.

And Vanimax somehow chose this as the moment to finally stand up to her. Rising up to his full height, he flared his...

H - 33: Something Terribly Annoying is About to Happen

The day started with a good breakfast, or in Kaln’s case, an adequate one.

He managed un-burned scrambled eggs this time; really it was just a matter of using the right amount of oil—much less than he would have assumed—and taking them off the heat at the right time. They still came out a bit singed, but that was fine. The cook from the apprentice wing at the Archives had always burned everything, and Kaln to this day like a bit of char on his food. They were bland, ...

H - 32: It's Not Her Fault

He never approached the level of “friendly,” or even “personable,” but it was amusing how much better Shadrach the wizard behaved when under the eyes of two unimpressed elder dragons. Back in Kaln’s chambers in the lair that afternoon, he had just enough brainpower to spare from keeping conscious control of the wards and engaging in conversation to surreptitiously enjoy the grouchy mage’s discomfiture. Shadrach hadn’t even commented on Kaln’s slapdash arrangement of enchanted ...

H - 31: You Might as Well Come In

It was a surprise to Kaln how much he enjoyed flying; he’d always thought of himself as a bookish type, forced by life circumstances to go out and have physical adventures. But the thrill of it was incredible, something he would clearly have to ask his new family to treat him to regularly.

This was particularly important now, because Pheneraxa was very obviously trying to be as difficult as possible and he wasn’t about to ruin it by telling her she was only making it more fun. She k...

Well that sucked

The short version is my apartment flooded.

The slightly less short version is that I'm fine, everything is probably going to be fine, but things are going to be upended here for a little while and I expect this to have a distinctly negative effect on my work output.

What happened is my roommate was filling her fish tank and forgot about it, and I discovered something was wrong when the water had built up enough to be seeping through the floors and soaking my carpet in the next roo...

H - 30: It's Less Funny When it Happens to You

The hoard of Atraximos the Dread contained some truly surprising novelties. Browsing through the contents, Kaln discovered that it should be possible for him to assemble an entire kitchen out of various enchanted tools which would be able to do everything from conjuring its own water and banishing waste, to storing food in perpetual freshness and even automatically cooking food without the touch of any hand. Getting all that set up, however, would be at minimum an all-day project, and conside...

H - 29: The Second Answer is Portal Magic

Izayaroa snorted in such intense exasperation that she produced a puff of flame. Vadaralshi immediately mimicked the gesture, and then before she had the chance to evade, Tiavathyris grabbed her right behind the head with one talon and pushed her to the floor, shifting her whole weight to stand on her neck.

“Oh, are you dissatisfied?” Emeralaphine snapped, flaring her wings aggressively. “Since you’re the expert, by all means! Go set up your own portal network. 2024-05-01 00:04:16 +0000 UTC View Post

H - 28: A Whole Different Pair of Pants

“Hold tight, Kaln.”

“I see her.”

That was one inaccuracy per sentence; he actually couldn’t see her as such, but he was keenly aware of the presence of another dragon homing in on them with focused intent. It was by the same suite of dragon-related powers that he was affixed firmly to Izayaroa’s back, obviating the need to actually hold on—which was good, as she was simply too large and overall smooth for there to be anything he could grip.

The mo...

H - 27: The Affairs of Dragons

“They have departed the city?”

“As of an hour ago, your Majesty,” Clarent answered, seating himself at the conference table. “In precisely the manner I predicted. As such, there are as yet no further developments to report.”

“Very good, M. Clarent, thank you,” Queen Henrietta von Holtzmann said, nodding. “For the sake of the others present, would you please summarize the situation?”

“Of course, your Majesty.”

The spymaster shifted his attention;...