Brandon Sanderson's Blog, page 2

New Fan Bundles on Sale Now! + Weekly Update

New Fan Bundles on Sale Now! + Weekly Update

Hey, Brandon here. Weekly Update time. We’ve been gone for a little while. Thank you for coming back to find out that Stormlight 5 is at, Bing! 100%. In fact, Stormlight 5’s 2.0 revision is at, Bing! 100%. That’s right. Because I wrote the 2.0. I stopped and did revisions. You might remember that from watching these Weekly Updates all through last year. I was periodically forced to stop and do revisions. Well, that means that I had only about 10%-ish of the book, more like 15% of the book left that I needed to do revisions on, and I did those during the break. And so we are actually on 3.0, which is at, Bing! 4%. This week I started, on Monday, the 3.0 draft. This will be probably a four-draft book. If it’s not a four-draft book, there needs to be another draft in there, then Editorial is going to panic, because they don’t have time for it right now. But it’s looking really good. So I will be working on the 3.0 of this for the next three months, I believe, and then I’ll have three months on the 4.0, and then, you know, then we go.

So, let’s mention also, with celebration, since we’ve had several hundred percents, Bing! Skyward Legacy is also at 100%. So, Janci has finished that book and delivered it to me, and I am starting to read that to do my pass on that during kind of the extra time that I sometimes am able to find.

So, let’s talk about some Stormlight stuff. Stormlight 5, when in truth, preorder is live! And you can go preorder a copy. Now, we are going to be celebrating this book launch at Dragonsteel 2024, our convention. Our group hotel rates are now available. We expect them to fill up. So, go to Dragonsteel.com to book if you want to come. And remember that there will be a package for Dragonsteel, if you’re coming, where you can purchase a signed, numbered copy. So, that’s in contrast to going and preordering, unless you want to have multiple copies of this wonderful book. You may want to wait for that, if you’re planning to come to Dragonsteel, so you can buy your signed, numbered copy. Not to tell you not to buy my book, but some of you, don’t go buy my book yet. Don’t preorder it if you’re planning to get one that other way.

What else do we got? Well, the Store lets me know that the Stormlight and Sanderson boxes are now available. So, if you want to get a pin of me, that one’s in the Sanderson box. That was the surprise that was slipped in, plus other fun stuff. So those are up for sale.

We have a crowdfunding campaign for the Words of Radiance leatherbound coming up—boy, we’re about a month and a half out now, aren’t we? We’ve been releasing videos about the various orders of Knights Radiant. And we thought maybe some people are curious why we’re doing this. Well, the theming for these Stormlight crowdfunding campaigns we do is kind of this idea of kind of picking your order, and then you get swag based on your order as kind of part of the campaign. So we thought we’d do these videos kind of helping people understand the various orders, help them maybe kind of self-select themselves into whichever order they want. So, if you haven’t been watching those, they’re really fun. You should go check them out. The team’s done excellent work on those. And Dan wrote up some really fun kind of introductions in-world to the various orders. You can find those here on this channel. Or, if you want to see them early, go sign up for our BackerKit page for the crowdfunding campaign because they launch there early. So you can watch them as they all come out, and you can be in the know when everybody else has to wait for the normal release on YouTube.

All right, two more things for you. First off, for Utah locals, Dan—not me—and the Dragonsteel Events Team will be attending and sponsoring the Authors in the Dungeon event at the Provo Mall this Saturday. Dragonsteel will have a booth there with some items that are not available online. So, you may want to go to that. I have a prior engagement, but everybody else is going to go have fun with that. And there will actually be some cool authors there, including Christopher Paolini, who’s coming back into town. He likes it here, so he’s going to come to that. We have Brian McClellan. I don’t know why you would want to go see him. You know, Brian, eh, you know. If you do, tell him he stinks. I’m joking. Brian’s a good friend. Charlie Holmberg, she will tell you that I stink. She is also a wonderful person. Trisha Levenseller will also be there, and lots of other people. So, go check it out. Say hi to all my author friends. Make fun of McClellan. And a fun time will be had by all.

So, last thing, speaking of my writer friends. This is pretty exciting. Lynn Buchanan, who is an employee here at Dragonsteel over in the Art Department, she took my class a number of years ago and then ended up becoming my TA at my class, and then ended up getting hired into the Art Department after just kind of being a really useful person who was there doing stuff for us when we needed it done. She actually got a book deal recently, last year. Some of you who maybe took the class during those years she was TA-ing, where she was stressing about selling a book, well, it actually happened. She got a book deal over with Harper. And I have read this book and it’s quite good. And she’s doing a cover reveal this week, and this is the cover of The Dollmakers. I think you guys would enjoy this book. It’s got a really fantastic magic system. Lynn is great. We really love Lynn, and we’ll be, you know, helping her book out. We don’t, you know, I have no vested interest in this other than Lynn being a friend of mine and me thinking that her book is definitely worth you guys reading. So, we’ll probably have her on the channel to have her chat with you about what it took to sell the book in today’s market environment, and we’ll probably let you in on some early chapters and things like that. So, congratulations to Lynn, and hopefully you guys will all check out her book.

And I will be back next week to talk about progress on Stormlight 5’s third revision. Until then, my nose needs to go back to the proverbial grindstone. So, revisions away!

Stormlight 5 Finished! + Weekly Update

Stormlight 5 Finished! + Weekly Update Weekly Update Stormlight 5 is Finished!

Stormlight 5 Preorder Live Now! + Weekly Update

Stormlight 5 Preorder Live Now! + Weekly Update

Hey, everyone! Weekly Update time.

First, Stormlight 5, Wind and Truth is where the title is starting to land, and it is at, Bing! 97%.1% up from last week. I’ve been doing a lot of revisions. We’re getting really close. It could be next week. Probably not. It’s probably the week after that. But we’ll see. Hopefully, I can get it by next week because we’re going to be off for a while after that. So maybe it’ll be January. Who knows? But we’re getting very close.

Celebrations are in order. Skyward Legacy is at, Bing! 100% Janci has finished the entire first volume of our follow-up series. I get to read that starting on January 1st. So I’m very excited. And then we will have, on here, a new progress bar, before too much longer, of revisions on that. 

Speaking of Wind and Truth, the preorder for that book is live. That’s right. We have put the preorder up. We have picked a publication date, and the title, Wind and Truth, is 99% confirmed. So at that point TOR is ready. We don’t have a cover yet, so it’s just going to be one of those placeholder covers. But you can start preordering the book. So yay!

State of the Sanderson is out. You can find that on my website, the text version. If you’d rather have me read it to you, I’m going to do a version for YouTube. I didn’t have the State of the Sanderson ready quite soon enough to record it today, on Thursday when I do these videos, and I don’t want the recording team to have to, like, crunch to try to get it out. So, you know, the YouTube version will take us a few weeks. It might be as long as January. You’ll get it eventually. You can go over there and look, or you can just wait for it here. It just kind of goes over all the projects I’ve been working on, and kind of my year in review. So, eventually here. Right now, the text version is live. 

Speaking of this special day, the Koloss Head-Munching Day, also coincidentally my birthday, tonight we’re going to have a stream. It’ll be a spoiler livestream, 6:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. So you can come, and you can, you know, be warned, it’s everything spoilers. We are going to do a specific 30 minutes at the end of that, so we’re going to do an hour of regular spoiler stream, and then 30 minutes talking about Yumi, where you get to ask questions specific to Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Because, you know, we’ve done that for the other books. We’ll find one for The Sunlit Man in the future. We’ll be taking questions from Reddit and the YouTube, plus TikTok chat. Indeed, we will be streaming this on TikTok. We found that we want to do some sort of live things on TikTok, and their platform gets scared of you if you haven’t done previous streams. We’re like, well, we should start streaming things to TikTok so we start establishing that so when we want to use it we can. So, if you want to watch it on TikTok instead of YouTube, for whatever reason, you are more than welcome to do so.

We released, this week, a free eBook. This is Long Chills and Case Dough, one of my very–I wouldn’t say very early. My very early short stories were all terrible. One of my middle years novellas that I wrote in those years leading up to when I sold. This would have been written somewhere in the early 2000s. Right around that time when I wrote Defending Elysium, when I was working on the original draft of Way of Kings, which we call Way of Kings Prime. I wrote this novella that Peter in my company has long been a proponent of. He’s long fought to get it released because he really is fond of it. And we found a place for it. It came out in our last box from the Kickstarter. And because it’s what we call a Sanderson Curiosity, it’s from my pre-published days, we released a free eBook of it. It’s available on our store. You can just download it. It also was shipped to the backers, and the hardcover is for purchase at DragonsteelBooks.com. Those will go out after the New Year. We’re not going to try to ship those all out to you before the holidays, so after the New Year. But if you want a copy of that for your Sanderson Curiosities, it is a fun read. You know, it is 25 years old at this point. But if you like looking back at the history of my writing skill, you can compare that to my modern writing. And anyway, like I said, Peter, my Editorial VP, really is fond of the story. So he was a big force behind us sneaking that in to the last box.

Speaking of our crowdfunding campaigns, we do have the crowdfunding campaign for Stormlight 2 coming up. And if you go to BackerKit, we’ve got some new content there, just some–we’ll be doing little tidbits now and then leading up to the crowdfunding campaign. So, go log in to your BackerKit, or go sign up for BackerKit, in preparation, and you can find sort of our pre-launch page there where we’re adding some things now and then, to get you ready for the upcoming campaign.

So, speaking of crowdfunding, we are done, officially, with shipments on our crowdfunding campaign, our biggest Kickstarter of all time. The last box went out today. Someone’s going to get it. It actually says, “This was the last box,” on it, and it is signed by all the people who were working on the line that day. And thank you. Thank you, everyone. You know, I did not start out to have the biggest Kickstarter in history, let alone double the number two. But we did it, and they went out. And I’m very pleased with how the whole experience went. I hope that you all are as well. And for those who participated, if you didn’t see the QR code in the last box, there’s a little thank you video from me. It’s unlisted on YouTube. But you’re free to share it around with people if you want to. But anyway, we’re done. And yay! We are also shipping out—there were some add-ons that people were able to buy as part of the BackerKit after sort of thing you can do with Kickstarter. And so those who bought, like, collected pin packs, it will have even the mystery pin, the secret pin, in it. We are going to ship out 631 of those to the people who ordered one this week. So if you ordered one of those, all 631 of you, you’re going to get yours soon.

Lots of crowdfunding campaign news today because our good friend Gama, who has been on the channel before and has long been a great friend and colleague, he’s got a Kickstarter going for the third book in his series. I thought some of you might be interested in this because he came on the channel to do a Five Favorites when the first one—well, for the launch of the second one, promoting the first one. Anyway, the third one’s on Kickstarter. I am backing that. So I hope that you’ll give it a look at least. He’s a good friend, and he’s a good writer, and he deserves some attention. 

So Dragonsteel’s going to be closed December 23rd through January 1st, inclusive. Happy Holidays! My company gets to take those days off and enjoy themselves. And so we’re not going to be fulfilling ticket requests if you have problems. We will get to them starting January 2nd. Feel free to send them in. You may not get a reply. There may not be Weekly Updates. We are encouraging all the employees to go spend some time with their families, and/or playing video games, or whatever it is that they like to do.

All right, we will, I’ve just confirmed with the team, have a Weekly Update that will be going live probably on Christmas Day. Maybe we’ll have it go early a day early, on the 24th. We’ll let them decide. They can preschedule that and they can go on vacation, and it can go live. So there will be a Weekly Update next week. There won’t be one the week after. 

Thank you very much. We’ll see you next week, briefly.

Dragonsteel 2023 LIVE NOW + Weekly Update

Dragonsteel 2023 LIVE NOW + Weekly Update

Hey! Brandon with your Weekly Update. An exciting one this week. We are at, Bing! 90% on Stormlight 5. And Skyward Legacy is at, Bing! 77%. So both of those are getting very close to being done. You can follow along. I’m supposed to turn mine in one month from the 15th, which was last week. We have less than a month left for me to finish Stormlight 5. I’m on track. I’m looking good. I finished my revisions. I actually got them done a little early, and together the revisions added about 1%, and then I got another 1% this week. So that’s how we’re at 2%, even though I spent a couple of days this week doing revisions.

Let’s talk about the Defiant release. It releases today, November 21st. This is the fourth and final book of the Skyward series. I am very excited for you to be able to read this book. You can get it everywhere you would normally get books. So, if you want to participate and you do live locally, we’re opening the doors at 6 o’clock, and everyone’s going to be seated by 7:00, and then the event takes place 7:00 to 9:00. We will be streaming it starting at 7:00 PM, probably a little bit before that, I would guess. The streaming team is nodding at me. So 7:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. So you can show up here on this channel and you can listen to our cool announcements, and you can listen to the reading from Stormlight 5, and things like that. So hope you are going to join us for that. And either way, I hope you enjoy Defiant. I like writing exciting endings, and I feel like this is going to fulfill your expectations for that.

So, we do have a lot of cool merch that we have been announcing the last few weeks. Remember, all of these will be for sale at our convention, but also go up on our store this Friday. That means if you want one of those awesome sweaters, they go up on Friday. I have heard that the product team is a little worried we might sell out of those. So that’s the item that we have the least number of. Theoretically, there should be ones available on Friday, but you may want to check early when those go up. They’ll be on the Dragonsteel store. We also have new bundle deals on the store. So check them out this weekend at Dragonsteelbooks.com.

Speaking of awesome merch, every year, for charity, in association with my foundation, Lightweaver, we have ornaments that we do. And all of our proceeds from these go to charity. This year we’re supporting the Primary Children’s Hospital, the School Zone, which is a local hospital. Basically the School Zone is for kids who have to spend long term time in the hospital. It helps them with their education and with other activities and things like that. We are one of the big funders of that through our charity efforts. So your money will go toward helping sick kids with their education. And we have five ornaments this year that you can get. We have the limited edition secret project ornaments, wooden ornaments based off of the cover art of the various secret projects, the Dragonsteel cover art. And we have a nice Defiant/Skyward themed ornament with all of the ships on it, and a nice 2023 on it. So those will go live when Jane? 

JANE: They’re on Black Friday.

BRANDON: On Black Friday as well. Yeah. So this upcoming Friday, these will go live. I have Jane here who’s in charge of the Foundation. And just so you know, money that comes through us, none of it is spent on administration for our charity. I fund all the administration fees and all the salaries and everything like that, so that your money can go directly to the causes. We’re still getting together kind of a report on what we spent our charity money on this year. We had a couple of things, such as selling the numbered copies of some of the secret projects. I’ll try to get back and be accountable to you guys for where that money ended up going. But do know, I pay for all the incidentals that come through with running a charity.

So, Gollancz decided to do some cool hardcovers of the Stormlight Archive. We’ve been pushing them to put the books out a little more availably. Availably? A little more in the UK. It’s sometimes hard to find the hardcovers of some of my books, and indeed, we have been persuading them to bind them in a single volume rather than splitting them. And so they have done these nice, sprayed edges versions of the Stormlight Archive hardcovers. You might have seen them if you’re browsing Reddit. They’ve got this red design on the sides. They look really slick. They’re going to be shipping those on December 7th. And so those are available only in the UK and places to which the UK distributes. They don’t ship to the US, but those of you in the right places, you can order those online and get them shipped to you. That’s just—it’s nice that they do that because our shipping to the UK is still pretty monstrous. We’re finding ways to try to make that cheaper. But we do encourage the UK publisher to do some cool things over there, just because I know it’s hard for you to get the leatherbounds over there.

We do have lots of Black Friday deals from multiple retailers, so check out the description. Lots of people have been sending those in, book sellers and things. So you should look at those. And of course, on our store we’ll have all sorts of fun things on Black Friday, all the way, of course, through the weekend.

So anyway, I hope to see many of you at the convention. I hope I’ve been seeing you, actually, already, because I’m recording this on Thursday, but when you’re seeing this, I will be at the convention. And I will look forward to talking to many of you, and I hope that you enjoy Defiant. It is out right now.

New Products Showcase + Warbreaker Box Now For Sale

New Products Showcase + Warbreaker Box Now For Sale

Hey! Brandon here with Brandon’s merch table, and also our Weekly Update.

So, book update first. We are at, Bing! 84% on Stormlight 5. Going along really well, inching toward that deadline in December. It might actually speed up a little bit in coming weeks. We’ll see. We’ll see.

Skyward Legacy is at, Bing! 49% Janci’s moving along on that as well.

So, speaking of Skyward, Defiant is coming out in about a month, and we’ve actually started to get our early copies in here so that I can get some of these signed for various different things that we’re doing and whatnot. There have been a lot of questions about the audiobook of Defiant. I can tell you that we have indeed recorded one. The audiobook is going through quality control right now, so it is ready. We’re still working on how we’re going to distribute this. I should have news for you next week about how and where the audiobook is going to be available. So I’ll put you off for a week, but we hope to have answers for you soon.

Let’s talk about some of this stuff. So, first off, the Warbreaker box (whoop), which has this nice Nightblood letter opener, and this very nice—these coasters. Warbreaker box up for sale as of right now at Dragonsteelbooks.com. You can grab that.

Along the lines of fun things we’re doing, we will be doing our Halloween livestream next Tuesday at 6:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time. So, I will be in costume. If you have seen the previous ones, my costumes can sometimes be, um, terrifying? Is that the right term? This one shouldn’t be quite as terrifying as last year. But we do these. They’re fun. Emily comes usually in costume as well. I open fan mail on that livestream. So, if you’ve sent me something during the last year, I will be opening it next Tuesday. And if you want to send me something to open, it’d have to be here by then. No guarantees we can get it in. But we will be doing our best to open and answer fan mail questions, and open all the interesting things that people send me through the year.

So, what do we got here? All of these little things. Well, we have some cool new products that we are going to have at our convention. And they’ll be on the store after the convention so you can get them too. So, what do we have? Well, we’ll start here with Mervin. We have Mervin plushies. Mervin is from The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook to Surviving Medieval England, designed by Steve Argyle, who did all these little comics in the book. If you want to have your own little wizard to go on adventures, you can grab a Mervin from us.

Our most requested item was Tress’ cup from Tress of the Emerald Sea. These are very nice teacups. They have a nice little heft to them and weight. So we will have those for sale. They are—looks like ceramic? Is this true? So they are—yep. Dishwasher-safe ceramic. So there you are. Dishwasher safe. We have—we were very, very proud of this, coming up with this idea. We have an official Noodle Princess ramen bowl with actual Noodle Princess branding, in-world branding on it. It doesn’t actually say it in English. We wondered after we got these if we should have written it in English. But it’s in-world right now. So, that’s what you can get there. These also are ceramic, quite a nice weight to them. Also dishwasher safe. And microwave safe. With the obligatory ramen spoon and chopsticks. So, if you want to have official Noodle Princess merch, here you go. We just had fun coming up with that idea. Once everyone on the team had read the book they were like, “Well, we need to have ramen bowls.” I’m like, “Well, we’ve never released anything like that before.” But we decided to do ramen bowls. So there you go.

Finally, those of you who love the pins, well, we have a batch of pins that we will have for sale at the convention. Because we didn’t want to actually put the characters from the secret projects as pins in their boxes because they might be slight spoilers or things like that. And so instead, we have a four-pack of the secret project characters. Even though Mervin’s not in the Cosmere, he gets to have a Cosmere character pin. That’s just how we’re branding these. So, we have Yumi. Ooh, Yumi. We have Mervin. Ooh, Mervin. We have Tress with her cup. And we have Nomad, right there. So, those will be for sale at the convention, like I said, and then afterward. And then we have a couple extra pins. We’ve got a Spensa pin if you’re a Skyward fan. And we’ve got this nice, kind of different sort of Vin-looking pin, kind of a match to each of the bookends that we did. And so those are some of the things that we’ll have for sale, that you can grab. Usually, we do these things at the convention and then we put them up on Black Friday for sale on our website. Yeah. So, these should be for sale Black Friday through Cyber Monday. And yeah. So, if you want cool stuff, we got cool stuff.

So, just a couple of reminders. I will be making an appearance at the MTG Summit, October 26th through 29th. They’ve got some things for me to do there. I actually think I only need to be there one of the days. I’ll be there the 28th. Yep. So they’re going the 26th through 29th. That’s run by some friends of mine. I really like them. You know, I’ll be showing up and demanding that they give me cool merch and products and things like that. But so, probably won’t be doing a cube draft like we did last year. I think they have something different for me to do, like a box break for charity or something like that. So anyway, I will see you there. Like last year, I might be signing some things, but don’t expect a big signing at MTG Summit. Like, I might be able to sign a book here or there, but no guarantees. So don’t come expecting a big, long signing line. But I will be around for one of the days.

The other thing is, Barnes & Noble has a ticketed virtual event for the release of Defiant, Thursday, November 16th. I’ve talked about that before on the event page. Just wanted to remind you of it. That’s 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. Again, it is ticketed, so you have to buy your book through Barnes & Noble, and then I’ll be doing a virtual event with them. So if you can’t make it to Dragonsteel and still want to be part of some of the festivities, well, you can go that direction.

I’ll be back next week, probably not with quite as much merch to show off, and I will have another Weekly Update for you as we inch closer and closer to finishing Stormlight 5. Thank you, guys, so much.

Lightning Signing Reveal + Weekly Update!

Lightning Signing Reveal + Weekly Update!

Hey, everybody! Time for our Weekly Update.

Stormlight 5 is at, Bing! 82%. I did get some good writing done while I was in Hawaii, and I think we’re going to be in a smooth sail to the rest of the book. We’re probably actually a little bit more than 82%, to be honest. But I want to be conservative about how far along we are, because this is where we get into the sticky part where I’m not exactly 100% sure when the book will be done. And indeed, I’m supposed to turn in the book before it will be done, because I’m going to do the interludes after the book’s turned in. So it’s going to start getting fuzzy what counts as 100% done. But I’m looking very good for my turning in everything but the interludes by December 15th, which is my first kind of big deadline on the book.

Skyward Legacy is at, Bing! 45%. 

So, we are filming here in my lair today. We’re doing The Sunlit Man Book Club, so be looking forward to that. The other three Book Clubs are all up on my channel. So, hopefully, as you read the book, you can go watch the Book Club and enjoy the conversations about the book you just read. 

As a reminder, The Sunlit Man is available for purchase on our store. This is Secret Project 4, which we are now using the full title of, rather than the Secret Project title. We also have a bundle of all four secret projects for sale. Those will start shipping as soon as we’ve finished backer fulfillment, which looks like it’s going to be done pretty soon here.

If you missed our announcement last week on social media, we have added some lightning signings to Dragonsteel 2023. You can get the details at Dragonsteel.com under News. But let me explain what these are. We recognize getting books signed by me is part of the fun of coming to a convention. It’s really hard for me to sign everyone’s books. If I sat at went at my normal speed and signed everyone’s books who came to Dragonsteel, it would take me somewhere around 50 hours. So, I would have to sign eight hours a day for, like, an entire week in order to get through all of them. Obviously, just not doable. So we’ve been experimenting at other conventions with what I call a lightning signing, which is everyone lines up, holds out their book, and I just walk down the line signing books as I go, saying hi to everyone. This prevents me from stopping and chatting too much, which is where a lot of that other time comes from, is I can be a little verbose at times. So, we are going to be doing lightning signings at Dragonsteel. We think we can get about half of the people attending a chance to get one of their books signed. So, we’ll be doing drawings. They’ll happen in early November. So make sure you get your badge before the end of the month if you want a chance at one of the lightning signings. Again, we’ll be able to get about half of you. So, theoretically, if you keep coming to Dragonsteel, eventually I’ll be able to sign a book for you.

Also, keep an eye on Dragonsteel’s social media for some sneak peeks on products we’re going to debut at the convention. We have some really fun things coming up. 

And the last thing I want to make you aware of is Barnes & Noble is doing a ticketed virtual event for Defiant, Thursday, November 16th, 7 o’clock. So, if you want to be part of that, we have details in the description. That’s 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Standard Time.

I will be back next week with a Weekly Update for you, and we are getting closer and closer, about a month out from the convention. So, things will start to get a little haywire around here. See you next week.

Yumi | Chapter One

Yumi | Chapter One

The star was particularly bright when the nightmare painter started his rounds. The star. Singular. No, not a sun. Just one star. A bullet hole in the midnight sky, bleeding pale light. The nightmare painter lingered outside his apartment building, locking his eyes on the star. He’d always found it strange, that sentry in the sky. Still, he was fond of it. Many nights it was his sole companion. Unless you counted the nightmares. After losing his staring match, the nightmare painter strolled along the street, which was silent save for the hum of the hion lines. Ever present, those soared through the air—twin bands of pure energy, thick as a person’s wrist, about twenty feet up. Imagine them like very large versions of the filaments in the center of a light bulb—motionless, glowing, unsupported. One line was an indecisive blue-green. You might have called it aqua—or perhaps teal. But if so, it was an electric variety. Turquoise’s pale cousin, who stayed in listening to music and never got enough sun. The other was a vibrant fuchsia. If you could ascribe a personality to a cord of light, this one was perky, boisterous, blatant. It was a color you’d wear only if you wanted every eye in the room to follow you. A titch too purple for hot pink, it was at the very least a comfortably lukewarm pink. The residents of the city of Kilahito might have found my explanation unnecessary. Why put such effort into describing something everyone knows? It would be like describing the sun to you. Yet you need this context, for—cold and warm—the hion lines were the colors of Kilahito.

Needing no pole or wire to hold them aloft, they ran down every street, reflected in every window, lit every denizen. Wire-thin strings of both colors split off the main cords, running to each structure and powering modern life. They were the arteries and veins of the city. Just as necessary to life in the city was the young man walking beneath them, although his role was quite different. He’d originally been named Nikaro by his parents—but by tradition, many nightmare painters went by their title to anyone but their fellows. Few internalized it as he had. So we shall call him as he called himself. Simply, Painter. You’d probably say Painter looked Veden. Similar features, same black hair, but of paler skin than many you’d find on Roshar. He would have been confused to hear that comparison, as he had never heard of such lands as those. In fact, his people had only recently begun to think about whether their planet was alone in the cosmere. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Painter. He was a young man, still a year from his twenties, as you’d count the years. His people used different numbers, but for ease let’s call him nineteen. Lanky, dressed in an untucked buttoned grey-blue shirt and a knee-length coat, he was the type who wore his hair long enough to brush his shoulders because he thought it took less effort. In reality it takes far more, but only if you do it right. He also thought it looked more impressive. But again, only if you do it right. Which he didn’t. You might have thought him young to bear the burden of protecting an entire city. But you see, he did it along with hundreds of other nightmare painters. In this, he was important in the brilliantly modern way that teachers, firefighters, and nurses are important: essential workers who earn fancy days of appreciation on the calendar, words of praise in every politician’s mouth, and murmurs of thanks from people at restaurants. Indeed, discussions of the intense value of these professions crowd out other more mundane conversations. Like ones regarding salary

increases. As a result, Painter didn’t make much—merely enough to eat and have some pocket cash. He lived in a single-room apartment provided by his employer. Each night he went out for his job. And he did so, even at this hour, without fear of mugging or attack. Kilahito was a safe city, nightmares excluded. Nothing like rampaging semisapient voids of darkness to drive down crime. Understandably, most people stayed indoors at night. Night. Well, we’ll call it that. The time when people slept. They didn’t have the same view of these things that you do, as his people lived in persistent darkness. Yet during his shift, you’d say it felt like night. Painter passed hollow streets alongside overstuffed apartments. The only activity he spotted was from Rabble Way: a street you might charitably call a low-end merchant district. Naturally, the long narrow street lay near the perimeter of town. Here, the hion had been bent and curved into signs. These stuck out from shop after shop, like hands waving for attention. Each sign—letters, pictures, and designs—was created using just two colors, aqua and magenta, the art drawn in continuous lines. Yes, Kilahito had things like light bulbs, as are common on many planets. But the hion worked with no need for machinery or replacement, so many relied on it, particularly outdoors. Soon Painter reached the western edge. The end of hion. Kilahito was circular, and its perimeter held a final line of buildings, not quite a city wall. Warehouses mostly, without windows or residents. Outside of that was one last street, in a loop running around the city. No one used it. It lay there nonetheless, forming a kind of buffer between civilization and what lurked beyond.

What lurked beyond was the shroud: an endless, inky darkness that besieged the city, and everyone on the planet. It smothered the city like a dome, driven back by the hion—which could also be used to make passages and corridors between cities. Only the light of the star shone through the shroud. To this day, I’m not a hundred percent certain why. But this was close to where Virtuosity Splintered herself, and I suspect that had an effect. Looking out at the shroud, Painter folded his arms, confident. This was his realm. Here, he was the lone hunter. The solitary wanderer. The man who prowled the endless dark, unafraid of— Laughter tinkled in the air to his right. He sighed, glancing to where two other nightmare painters strolled the perimeter. Akane wore a bright green skirt and buttoned white blouse, and carried the long brush of a nightmare painter like a baton. Tojin loped beside her, a young man with bulging arms and flat features. Painter had always thought Tojin was like a painting done without proper use of perspective or foreshortening. Surely a man’s arms couldn’t be that big, his chin that square. The two laughed once more at something Akane said. Then they saw him standing there. “Nikaro?” Akane called. “You on the same schedule as us again?” “Yeah,” Painter said. “It’s, um, on the chart . . . I think?” Had he actually filled it out this time? “Great!” she replied. “See you later. Maybe?” “Uh, yeah,” Painter said. Akane walked off, heels striking stone, paintbrush in hand, canvas under her arm. Tojin gave Painter a little shrug, then followed, his own supplies in his large painter’s bag. Painter

lingered as he watched them go, and fought down the urge to chase after them. He was a lone hunter. A solitary wanderer. An . . . unescorted meanderer? Regardless, he didn’t want to work in a pair or a group, as a lot of the others did. It would be nice if someone would ask him. So he could show Akane and Tojin that he had friends. He would reject any such offer with stoic firmness, of course. Because he worked by himself. He was a single saunterer. A . . . Painter sighed. It was difficult to maintain a properly brooding air after an encounter with Akane. Particularly as her laughter echoed two streets over. To many of his colleagues, nightmare painting was not as . . . solemn a job as he made it out to be. It helped him to think otherwise. Helped him feel like less of a mistake. Especially during those times when he contemplated a life where he would spend his next six decades on this street every night, backlit by the hion. Alone.

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bottom: auto; right: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .fancy-date a { top: 10px; right: 10px; left: auto; bottom: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .post-entry-content { padding: 20px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .entry-title { margin: 3px 0 5px; font-size: 20px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; line-height: 16px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .entry-meta { margin: 5px 0 5px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .entry-excerpt { margin: 15px 0 0; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .post-details { margin: 5px 0 10px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-3f01908ffa548ad3e4334006a3eb7a62 .post-details.details-type-link { margin-bottom: 2px; }} [image error] Yumi | Chapter One [image error] Yumi | Chapter Two [image error] Yumi | Chapter Three [image error] Yumi | Chapter Four [image error] Yumi | Chapter Five [image error] Yumi | Chapter Six [image error] Yumi | Chapter Seven

Tress | Chapter One

Tress | Chapter One

In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock. This was not an ocean like the one you have imagined. Nor was the rock like the one you have imagined. The girl, however, might be as you imagined–assuming you imagined her as thoughtful, soft-spoken, and overly fond of collecting cups. Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women’s features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided. In her estimation, “light brown” was sufficiently descriptive–though the hue of her hair was not its most interesting trait. That would be her hair’s unruliness. Each morning she heroically tamed it with brush and comb, then muzzled it with a ribbon and a tight braid. Yet some strands always found a way to escape and would wave free in the wind, eagerly greeting everyone she passed. The girl had been given the unfortunate name of Glorf upon her birth (don’t judge; it was a family name), but her wild hair earned her the name everyone knew her by: Tress. That moniker was, in Tress’s estimation, her most interesting feature. Tress had been raised to possess a certain inalienable pragmatism. Such is a common failing among those who live on dour lifeless islands from which they can never leave. When you are greeted each day by a black stone landscape, it influences

your perspective on life. The island was shaped rather like an old man’s crooked finger, emerging from the ocean to point toward the horizon. It was made entirely of barren black saltstone, and was large enough to support a fair-sized town and a duke’s mansion. Though locals called the island the Rock, its name on the maps was Diggen’s Point. No one remembered who Diggen was anymore, but he had obviously been a clever fellow, for he’d left the Rock soon after naming it and never returned. In the evenings, Tress would often sit on her family’s porch and sip salty tea from one of her favorite cups while looking out over the green ocean. Yes, I did say the ocean was green. Also, it was not wet. We’re getting there. As the sun set, Tress would wonder about the people who visited the Rock in their ships. Not that anyone in their right mind would deem the Rock a tourist destination. The black saltstone was crumbly and got into everything. It also made most kinds of agriculture impossible, eventually tainting any soil brought from off the island. The only food the island grew came from compost vats. While the Rock did have important wells that brought up water from a deep aquifer–something that visiting ships required–the equipment that worked the salt mines belched a constant stream of black smoke into the air. In summary, the atmosphere was dismal, the ground wretched, and the views depressing. Oh, and have I mentioned the deadly spores? Diggen’s Point lay near the Verdant Lunagree. The term “lunagree,” you should know, refers to the places where the twelve moons hang in the sky around Tress’s planet in oppressively low stationary orbits. Big enough to fill a full third of

the sky, one of the twelve is always visible, no matter where you travel. Dominating your view, like a wart on your eyeball. The locals worshipped those twelve moons as gods, which we can all agree is far more ridiculous than whatever it is you worship. However, it’s easy to see where the superstition began, bearing in mind the spores–like colorful sand–that the moons dropped upon the land. They’d pour down from the lunagrees, and the Verdant Lunagree was visible some fifty or sixty miles from the island. That was as close as you ever wanted to get to a lunagree–a great shimmering fountain of colorful motes, vibrant and exceedingly dangerous. The spores filled the world’s oceans, creating vast seas not of water, but of alien dust. Ships sailed that dust like ships sail water here, and you should not find that so unusual. How many other planets have you visited? Perhaps they all sail oceans of pollen, and your home is the freakish one. The spores were only dangerous if you got them wet. Which was rather a problem, considering the number of wet things that leak from human bodies even when they’re healthy. The least bit of water would cause the spores to sprout explosively, and the results ranged from uncomfortable to deadly. Breathe in a burst of verdant spores, for example, and your saliva would send vines growing out of your mouth–or in more interesting cases, into your sinuses and out around your eyes. The spores could be rendered inert by two things: salt or silver. Hence the reason the locals of Diggen’s Point didn’t terribly mind the salty taste of their water or food. They’d teach their children this ever-so-important rule: salt and silver halt the killer. An acceptable little poem, if you’re the sort of barbarian who enjoys slant

rhymes. Regardless, with the spores, the smoke, and the salt, one can perhaps see why the king who the duke served needed a law requiring the population to remain on the Rock. Oh, he gave reasons that involved important military phrases like “essential personnel,” “strategic resupply,” and “friendly anchorage,” but everyone knew the truth. The place was so inhospitable, even the smog found it depressing. Ships visited periodically for repairs, to drop off waste for the compost vats, and to take on new water. But each strictly obeyed the king’s rules: no locals were to be taken from Diggen’s Point. Ever. And so, Tress would sit on her steps in the evenings, watching ships sail away as a column of spores dropped from the lunagree and the sun moved out from behind the moon and crept toward the horizon. She’d sip salty tea from a cup with horses painted on it, and she’d think, There’s a beauty to this, actually. I like it here. And I believe I shall be fine to remain here all my life.

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bottom: auto; right: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .fancy-date a { top: 10px; right: 10px; left: auto; bottom: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .post-entry-content { padding: 20px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .entry-title { margin: 3px 0 5px; font-size: 20px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; line-height: 16px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .entry-meta { margin: 5px 0 5px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .entry-excerpt { margin: 15px 0 0; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .post-details { margin: 5px 0 10px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-8828a51d37aab02ba755ac2e01fa3c4f .post-details.details-type-link { margin-bottom: 2px; }} [image error] Tress | Chapter One [image error] Tress | Chapter Two [image error] Tress | Chapter Three [image error] Tress | Chapter Four [image error] Tress | Chapter Five

Frugal Wizard | Chapter One

Frugal Wizard | Chapter One

I came alert, fists raised, an electric jolt of adrenaline surging through me. I spun, light on my feet, looking for someone to punch, sweat streaming down the sides of my face. I was in a field. A sunny field, with a forest nearby. What the hell? What the ever-loving hell? Heart thumping like a bass beat, I tried to make sense of things. Something sounded behind me and I spun, hands back up at guard. It was only a bird. This was just a field. Ridged and furrowed, with undulating lines in the earth. There was a burned-out section around me, marked by charred stalks of grain and smoldering ash. I searched my memory for clues and found it blank, like a white room ready for paint. Empty. I was empty. Except for . . . a vague dislike of swimming? At the moment, that was the sum total of what I could remember about myself. No name. No background. Just a latent fear of large bodies of water. I raised a hand to my head and glanced around, trying to make sense of my emptiness. The plants growing outside the burnt area were a few inches tall. My inability to distinguish the variety indicated I probably wasn’t a farmer.

The strange burn marks made a circle, maybe ten feet in diameter, with me in the center. Looking closer, I noticed that the plants under my feet hadn’t been burned. I glanced behind me, and found an unburned portion in a distinct human shape. My shape. A person stencil. Maybe I was fireproof? Perhaps I had augments to that effect. I appeared to be male, of average height and muscular build. I wore a pair of sturdy laced boots, a long shirt, a brown tunic on top of that, and a vibrant cloak over that. So I probably wasn’t going to get cold any time soon. Under the tunic . . . Blue jeans? With a tunic and cloak? That was odd. Oh hell. Was I a cosplayer? And why could I remember that word, but not my own name? Right, so I’d gone out into a field to take pictures for the local Renaissance faire or whatever. I’d brought along pyrotechnics to make for a cooler shot, and I’d accidentally blown myself up. That seemed plausible enough. So where was my camera? My phone? My car keys? My pockets turned out to be empty except for a ballpoint pen. I stepped away from the me-stencil, my feet crunching on the crispy remains of the former plants. The air smelled of smoke and sulfur. I quickly searched the area, but I didn’t find anything of note. Dirt, vegetation. No pile of belongings; I was beginning to doubt my photoshoot theory. Maybe I was simply a weirdo who liked to dress in old-timey clothing to . . . go explode in fields? You know, as one does.

In the distance, I saw a dirt road leading to a cluster of antiquated wooden buildings with thatched roofs and few windows, with a taller structure beyond them. They were partially obscured by a hill, so I couldn’t tell much else about them. I shook my head and let out a lengthy sigh. I had to— Wait. What was that on the ground? I rushed over and plucked a fluttering piece of paper from between two larger plant stalks. How had I missed this? The edge was burned, and it had only a few lines of text on it.

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England Fourth Edition By Cecil G. Bagsworth III I read the words three times, then glanced at the old-timey buildings again. I wasn’t a cosplayer. I was visiting some kind of theme park. Was that more or less nerdy? Now that I knew what to look for, I spotted another loose piece of paper over near the woods. Maybe it would have a map on it—or at least list where I could find a first aid station. I’d obviously hit my head or something. This page was burned worse than the other one. Two chunks of the text were legible: one on the front side, one on the back.

can be traumatic, though don’t worry! As part of your package, a suitable location will be chosen for you to recuperate upon arrival. In addition, it is suggested that you use the handy notation page at the back of the book to record pertinent information about your life.

The transfer process can leave the mind muddied—a few facts about one’s life can jog loose other details. Don’t stress the initial disorientation. It is a common side effect, and all you need to do is What a perfectly awful place to cut off. I flipped the page over. seem that the offerings of more expensive packages, sold by so-called premium companies, might be more useful in helping you recuperate. Servants, a luxury manor, and medical staff. Though we can accommodate such requests, don’t fear if you can’t afford them! The Frugal Wizard doesn’t need to be so extravagant. Indeed, such services might make things too easy! (See the study done by Bagsworth et al., page 87.) Yes, the Frugal Wizard is capable and confident on their own, and does not need coddling. Read on to learn all the tips and secrets you will need for All right, so I’d bought some kind of travel package. One that was . . . really hard on the body, for some reason? A thought flickered at the edge of my consciousness. I’d chosen this. I wanted to be here. For a moment, I felt close to answering the more important questions. Then it was gone. I was back to staring at a white room inside my brain. Regardless, I hadn’t arrived at a “suitable location” to recuperate. I’d woken up in the middle of a burning field. The review almost wrote itself. An ideal experience, if you happen to be a pyromaniac cow. One star. Wait. Voices in the distance.

My body moved before I registered the sounds. In seconds I’d slipped into the forest and put my back to a tree trunk. I reached to my side by reflex for . . . Hell. Was I reaching for a gun? I wore nothing of the sort, and was also uncomfortable at how quickly—and silently—I’d dodged for cover. It didn’t necessarily mean anything nefarious. Maybe I was a champion hide-and-seek player. Paintball hide-and-seek? I’d been thinking about finding help, so I should have been happy to be noticed. But some instinct kept me hidden behind the tree, my breathing slow and deliberate. Whoever I was, I had experience with this sort of thing. I was close enough to hear when the people arrived. “What is it, Ealstan?” a timid man’s voice said—speaking perfect, modern English, albeit with a vaguely European accent. “Landswight?” “This was no act of a wight,” a stronger male voice said. “Logna’s flames, maybe?” a woman’s voice said. “Look at the outline of that figure. And there were all those incantations scattered about . . .” “It looks like someone was burned alive,” the first voice said. “That clap of thunder on a bright, sunny day . . . maybe fire from heaven consumed him.” The deeper voice grunted. I resisted the urge to peek. Not yet, my instincts whispered. “Call everyone together,” the firm voice eventually said. “We’ll put out sacrifices tonight. Hild . . . that skop. Did she leave yet?” “Earlier today, I think,” the woman said. “Send a boy to chase her down and beg her return. We may need a binding. Or worse, a loosening.”

“She’s going to like that,” the woman said. Another grunt. The crops rustled as the people retreated. I finally peeked around the side of the tree and picked out the three people walking toward the distant buildings. Two men and a woman in archaic clothing. Tunics and loose, baggy trousers on the men—weren’t they supposed to wear hose? I could swear I’d seen that in a museum. Their clothing was dyed in faded earth tones, though the taller of the two men wore an orange cloak—a color so vibrant, I had trouble believing it was period authentic. The woman had on a sleeveless brown dress over a slightly longer white dress with long sleeves. Other than the colorful cloak, they looked the part of old-school peasants—at least, better than I did, with my jeans. Another point in favor of this being a theme park? Yet, wouldn’t workers in a theme park speak with old-timey British affectations? “Thees” and “thous” and “mi’lords” and the like. But would they keep up the act when nobody was around? I needed more information. I noted another person running up to them, carrying something. Scraps of burned paper. Most of the pages of my book must have blown toward the town, and someone had gathered them up. All right. Mission accepted. I needed those pages.

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bottom: auto; right: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .fancy-date a { top: 10px; right: 10px; left: auto; bottom: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .post-entry-content { padding: 20px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .entry-title { margin: 3px 0 5px; font-size: 20px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; line-height: 16px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .entry-meta { margin: 5px 0 5px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .entry-excerpt { margin: 15px 0 0; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .post-details { margin: 5px 0 10px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-54036e470f54930fedb2b3059ff75228 .post-details.details-type-link { margin-bottom: 2px; }} [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter One [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter Two [image error] Insert: Your Own Dimension [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter Three [image error] FAQ: Have I Time Traveled? [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter Four [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter Five [image error] Frugal Wizard | Chapter Six

The Sunlit Man | Chapter One

The Sunlit Man | Chapter One

Nomad woke up among the condemned. He blinked, his right cheek in the dirt. Then he focused on the incongruous sight of a plant growing in fast-motion before his eyes. Was he dreaming? The fragile sprout quivered and twisted, heaving up from the earth. It seemed to stretch with joy, its seedpods parting like arms after a deep sleep. A stalk emerged from the center, testing the air like a serpent’s tongue. Then it stretched left toward the dim light shining from that direction. Nomad groaned and lifted his head, mind fuzzy, muscles sore. Where had he Skipped to this time? And would it be far enough away to hide from the Night Brigade? Of course it wouldn’t be. No place could hide him from them. He had to keep moving. Had to … Storms. It felt good to lie here. Couldn’t he just rest for a while? Stop running for once? Rough hands grabbed him from behind and hauled him to his knees, jolting him from his stupor. He became more aware of his surroundings: the shouting, the groaning. Sounds he’d been oblivious to in his post-Skip grogginess. The people here, including the man who grabbed him, wore unfamiliar clothing. Long trousers, sleeves with tight cuffs, shirts with high collars all the way up to the chin. The man shook him, barking at Nomad in a language he didn’t understand. “Trans … translation?” Nomad croaked. Sorry, a deep, monotone voice said in his head. We don’t have enough Investiture for that. Right. He’d barely reached the threshold for his last Skip, which would leave him nearly drained. His abilities relied on reaching or maintaining certain thresholds of Investiture, the mystical power source that fueled extraordinary events on most planets he visited.

“How much?” he croaked. “How much do we have left?” Around fifteen hundred BEUs. So, in other words, under eight percent Skip capacity. Damnation. As he’d worried, the cost to come here had left him destitute. As long as he maintained certain levels, his body could do exceptional things. Each cost a tiny bit of Investiture, but that cost was minimal—so long as he kept his thresholds. Once he had over two thousand Breath Equivalent Units, he could play with his Connection. Then he could Connect to the planet using his skills and speak the local language. Which meant Nomad wouldn’t be able to speak to the locals until he found a power source to absorb. He winced at the breath of the shouting man. He wore a hat with a wide brim, tied under the chin, and thick gloves. It was dim out, though a burning corona lit the horizon. Just before dawn, Nomad guessed. And even by that light, sprouts were growing all across this field. Those plants … their movements reminded him of home—a place without soil, but with plants that were so much more vigorous than on other worlds. These weren’t the same, though. They didn’t dodge to avoid being stepped on. These plants were merely growing quickly. Why? Nearby, people wearing long white coats pounded stakes into the ground—then others chained down people who didn’t have those coats. Both groups had a variety of skin tones and wore similar clothing. Nomad couldn’t understand the words anyone was shouting, but he recognized the bearing of the condemned. The cries of despair from some, the pleading tones of others, the abject resignation in most as they were chained to the ground. This was an execution. The man holding Nomad shouted at him again, glaring through eyes a watery blue. Nomad

just shook his head. That breath could have wilted flowers. The man’s companion—dressed in one of those long white coats—gestured to Nomad, arguing. Soon his two captors made a decision. One grabbed a set of manacles off his belt, moving to cuff Nomad. “Yeah,” Nomad said, “I don’t think so.” He grabbed the man’s wrist, preparing to throw him and trip the other man. But Nomad’s muscles locked up—like a machine that had run out of oil. He stiffened in place, and the men pulled away from him, surprised by his sudden outburst. Nomad’s muscles unlocked, and he stretched his arms, feeling a sudden, sharp pain. “Damnation!” His Torment was getting worse. He glanced at his frightened captors. At least they didn’t seem to be armed. A figure emerged from the crowd. Everyone else was swathed in clothing—male or female, they showed skin only on their faces. But this newcomer was bare chested—wearing a diaphanous robe split at the front—and had on thick black trousers. He was the sole person on the field not wearing gloves, though he did wear a pair of golden bracers on his forearms. He was also missing most of his chest. Much of the pectorals, rib cage, and heart had been dug out—burned away, leaving the remaining skin seared and blackened. Inside the cavity, the man’s heart had been replaced by a glimmering ember. It pulsed red when wind stoked it—as did similar pinpricks of crimson light among the char. Black burn marks radiated from the hole across the man’s skin, extending as far as a few specks on his face, which occasionally glittered with their own much smaller sparks. It was like the man had been strapped to a jet engine as it ignited—somehow leaving him not only alive, but perpetually burning. “Don’t suppose,” Nomad said, “you fellows are the type who enjoy a comical blunder made

by a newcomer to your culture?” He stood and raised his hands in a nonthreatening way, ignoring the instincts that told him—as always—that he needed to run. The ember man pulled a large bat off his back. Like a police baton, but more begrudging in its nonlethality. “Didn’t think so,” Nomad said, backing up. A few of the chained people watched him with the strange, yet familiar, hope of a prisoner—happy that someone else was drawing attention. The ember man came for him, supernaturally quick, his heart light flaring. He was Invested. Wonderful. Nomad barely dodged a mighty blow. “I need a weapon, Aux!” Nomad snapped. Well, summon one then, my dear squire, said the voice in his head. I’m not holding you back. Nomad grunted, diving through a tall patch of grass that had sprung up in the minutes since he’d woken. He tried to make a weapon appear, but nothing happened. It’s your Torment, the knight helpfully observes to his moderately capable squire. It has grown strong enough to deny you weapons. As usual, Aux’s voice was completely monotone. He was self-conscious about that, hence the added commentary. Nomad dodged again as the ember man slammed his baton down in another near miss—making the ground tremble at the impact. Storms. That light was getting brighter. Covering the entire horizon in a way that felt too even. How … how large was the sun on this planet? “I thought,” Nomad shouted, “that my oaths overrode that aspect of the Torment!” I’m sorry, Nomad. But what oaths?

The ember man prepared another swing, and Nomad took a deep breath, then ducked the attack and bodychecked the man. As soon as he went in for the hit, though, his body locked up again. Yes, I see, the knight muses with a conversational tone. Your Torment now attempts to prevent even minor physical altercations. He couldn’t so much as tackle someone? It was getting bad. The ember man hit Nomad across the face, throwing him to the ground. Nomad managed to roll and avoid the baton and, with a groan, heaved himself to his feet. The baton came in again, and by instinct, Nomad put up both hands—catching it. Stopping the swing cold. The ember man’s eyes widened. Nearby, several of the prisoners called out. Heads turned. Seemed like people around here weren’t accustomed to the sight of a person going toe-to-toe with one of these Invested warriors. The ember man’s eyes widened further as—with teeth gritted—Nomad stepped forward and shoved him off balance, sending him stumbling backward. Behind the strange warrior, blazing light warped the molten horizon, bringing with it a sudden, blasting heat. Around them, the plants that had grown so rapidly began wilting. The lines of chained people whimpered and screamed. Run, a part of Nomad shouted. Run! It’s what he did. It was all he knew these days. But as he turned to dash away, another ember man behind him prepared to swing. Nomad tried to catch this blow too, but his storming body locked up again. “Oh, come on!” he shouted as the baton clobbered him in the side. He stumbled. The ember

man decked him across the face with a powerful fist, sending him to the dirt again. Nomad gasped, groaning, feeling gritty soil and rocks on his skin. And heat. Terrible, bewildering heat from the horizon, still building in intensity. Both ember men turned away, and the first thumbed over his shoulder at Nomad. The two timid officers in the white coats hastened over and—while Nomad was in a daze of pain and frustration—manacled his hands together. They appeared to contemplate pounding a spike into the earth and pinning him there, but rightly guessed that a man who could catch the bat of an Invested warrior could rip it out. Instead they hauled him over to a ring that had been affixed to a section of stone, locking him there. Nomad fell to his knees in the line of prisoners, sweat dripping from his brow as the heat increased. His instincts screamed at him to run. Yet another piece of him … simply wanted to be done. How long had the chase lasted? How long had it been since he’d stood proud? Maybe I’ll just let it end, he thought. A mercy killing. Like a man mortally wounded on the battlefield. He slumped, the soreness in his side pulsing, though he doubted anything was broken. So long as he maintained around five percent Skip capacity—around a thousand BEUs—his body would be more powerful, more endurant. Where others broke, he bruised. Fire that would sear others only singed him. Healing engaged, the hero says with a confident voice to his humiliated valet. You’re under ten percent Skip capacity, so your healing won’t be as efficient as you’re used to. At times he wondered if the enhancements he bore were a blessing or another part of the Torment. The light increased with the heat, becoming blinding. That smoke in the distance …

was that the ground catching fire? From the light of the sun? Damnation. Damnation itself was rising over the horizon. That light, Aux said. It’s far too powerful for ordinary sunlight—at least on any habitable planet. “Think the light is Invested?” Nomad whispered. “Like on Taldain?” A plausible theory, the knight says with a musing curiosity. “Think you can absorb it?” Possibly. We’ll likely soon see … If he could absorb enough, he could Skip right off this planet and put even more space between himself and the Night Brigade. Wouldn’t that be nice for once? To have a head start? Still, something about the intensity of that light daunted Nomad. Worried him. He stared at it as the nearby officers—including the ember men—finished locking down the prisoners. Once done, they ran to a line of machines. Long and thin, they had six seats each. Open to the air, with a windshield in front and controls for the front left operator. They kind of looked like … six-seater hovercycles? An odd construction, but he wasn’t sure what else to call them. You apparently straddled each seat—there was an opening for the inner leg—though they were all locked together along a central fuselage with no outer wall or door. Regardless, he wasn’t surprised when fires blasted underneath the first of these, raising it in the air a half dozen feet or so. What did it matter? He turned toward the ever-increasing light as the plants—vibrant only minutes ago—browned and withered. He thought he could hear the roar of flames in the distance as the full-intensity sunlight advanced, like the front of a once-familiar storm. He had a guess, watching the strength of that light, that he wouldn’t be able to absorb it. No

more than a common cord and plug could handle the raw output of a nuclear reactor. This was something incredible, a force that would fry him before he could make use of its power. Uh, Nomad, Aux said in his monotone voice. I get the feeling that trying to absorb and use Investiture from that is going to be like trying to pick out a snowflake from an avalanche. I … don’t think we should let it hit you. “It will kill me if it does …” Nomad whispered. Is that … what you want? No. No, even though he hated much about his life, he didn’t want to die. Even though each day he became something more feral … well, feral things knew to struggle for life. A sudden frantic desperation struck Nomad. He began pulling and flailing against the chains. The second of the four hovercycles took off, and he knew—from the speed of the advancing sunlight—that they were his only hope of escape. He screamed, voice ragged, straining against the steel, stretching it—but unable to pull it free. “Aux!” he shouted. “I need a Blade! Transform!” I’m not the one preventing that, Nomad. “That light is going to kill us!” Point: it is going to kill you, my poor valet. I am already dead. Nomad yelled something primal as the third hovercycle took off, though the last one was having troubles. Perhaps he— Wait. “Weapons are forbidden to me. What about tools?” Why would they be forbidden to you?

Nomad was an idiot! Auxiliary was a shapeshifting metal tool that, in this case, he could manifest physically as a crowbar. It formed in his hands as if from white mist, appearing out of nothing. Nomad hooked it into the ring on the boulder, then threw his weight against it. SNAP. He lurched free, hands still manacled, but with two feet of slack between them. He stumbled to his feet and dashed toward the last of the hovercycles as the fires finally ignited underneath it. He summoned Auxiliary as a hook and chain, which he immediately hurled at the cycle. It struck just as the machine took off. At Nomad’s command, once Auxiliary caught it, the hook fuzzed briefly and sealed as a solid ring around a protrusion on the back of the vehicle. The other end of the chain locked onto Nomad’s manacles. The sunlight reached him. An incredible, intense, burning light. Prisoners burst into flame, screaming. Oh, storms, the knight shouts. In that moment, the slack on the chain pulled tight. Nomad was yanked out of the sunlight, his skin screaming in agony, his clothing aflame. He was dragged away from certain death. But toward what, he had no idea.

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bottom: auto; right: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .fancy-date a { top: 10px; right: 10px; left: auto; bottom: auto; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .post-entry-content { padding: 20px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .entry-title { margin: 3px 0 5px; font-size: 20px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; line-height: 16px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .entry-meta { margin: 5px 0 5px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .entry-excerpt { margin: 15px 0 0; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .post-details { margin: 5px 0 10px; } #page .blog-shortcode.blog-list-shortcode-id-1d8fedc6aca7d772c98c2667320988dd .post-details.details-type-link { margin-bottom: 2px; }} [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter One [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Two [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Three [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Four [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Five [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Six [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Seven [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Eight [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Nine [image error] The Sunlit Man | Chapter Ten