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“Kate!” Darlryan had teleported into Kate’s room as soon as he sensed that her father and step-mother were asleep. He smiled as he realised that the only bit of her which was visible above the covers was the top of head. She was surprisingly cute when she slept. She hadn’t stirred so he said her name a little louder and reinforced it mentally.

Part of her face appeared above the covers as she mumbled something about it not being time to get up yet. Better, but she was still sleeping. He waited, but she started to slip back down into a deeper sleep. Read the rest of this entry »

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A/N: Torvawk please check your email

A/N2: Tales of the First now has it’s own site as Patreon wasn’t really suitable and its posting schedule would drown out everything else on here. Why not check it out?

“Hopefully this won’t take too long.” Kira faced Ophelia across the training room, tossing a silver fireball from hand to hand as she spoke. “Especially since the Key already knows how to do it. We’ll try it with you concentrating just on shielding first. If you manage to deflect ten attacks in a row we’ll move onto something trickier. Tell me when you’re ready.”

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“I know,” Kira said. “Midnight at the latest, I think.”

“Yikes! That’s a bit hairy,” Sera said. “Sometimes mum and dad aren’t even in bed by then, let alone asleep.”

“Sheesh! Parents!” Ophelia pulled a face. “Will you illusions cover this situation, Kira?” Read the rest of this entry »

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“So should we still call you Silver?” Sera said when Kira appeared that evening. “Or would you prefer we call you Kira?” She positioned herself by the door to listen for anyone coming upstairs.

Kira shifted into her human form and shrugged. “Call me Kira in this form, other than that it’s up to you.” She sat down cross-legged on Sera’s bed. “I spoke to my family. They aren’t happy. Mother threw a fit and ordered me to ignore anything the key said. Gran and dad shut that down, but they are worried too. They don’t want Ophelia involved in a war with the Idri Council – it’s too dangerous. She can’t just banish Kithreiri like she can the Lost Ones, and no one wants a war on two fronts. But we can’t see any alternative – we don’t have anyone strong enough we can spare for the fight and Ophelia would have to go anyway because only the key knows where we are going.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“I’ll have to tell dad about this,” Kira said as they walked to the gates after school. They had tried to talk to the Key again at afternoon break but it had just repeated the same images as before but with more urgency. “We have to do something. I don’t know what to think about all this but that hole scared me.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“I think,” Sera said dryly. “That stopping whatever that thing is, is everyone’s fight.”

“You’re right,” Kira said. “But why is it showing us this? The Idri Council were at least partly involved in its making. If they want this thing, shouldn’t it be on their side?” Cold waves of fury emanated from the crystal at that. Fury aimed at its creators. “I guess that explains it, but why is it so angry?” Read the rest of this entry »

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It was a forest, dark, dank and full of buzzing creeping insects. Wet and hot, far hotter than the unseasonably warm weather afflicting Caredale. Unless the Key was showing them a hot house somewhere Ophelia was certain this was nowhere in Britain. Somewhere in the tropics maybe?

Looks like it, Kira said. But it feels slightly off.

She was right, Ophelia realised. This might just be a vision but something was scratching against her skin. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ophelia didn’t hate Physics as much as she hated Chemistry, but it certainly wasn’t her favourite subject. Especially since she and Sera had been having trouble getting their circuits to work in the last lesson and she hated feeling stupid.

“I did some reading,” Sera said as they took their seats. “I know what we were doing wrong.”“I hope so,” Ophelia said. “I’ll die if we fail again.” Read the rest of this entry »

General:

Not much to report here – life goes on.  I have a holiday in Scotland coming up at the start of August which I’m looking forward to.

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Story Updates:

Dragon Wars – I’m still working on getting Arc 3 ready for its book version. I’m hoping to be able to release it this autumn but I need to find the money for the edit and I’m hesitant to run another Indiegogo campaign. Meanwhile the rewrite of Arc 4 is going slowly. It’s too long for one arc really so I need to find one or two natural break points then I can start untangling the plot lines. If you’d like to help with this so it can be done faster drop me a line.

Caredale – The first really big turn of the story is coming up in the next few installments.

Haventon and Whisper – I’m still working on building up buffer. I promise these will be back before Autumn but I don’t have a timescale yet.

Shattered – Episode 2 of Shattered went live on Gumroad late last week. Remember it’s Pay what you will and £0 is an acceptable subscription amount. I’ll pop the discussion link up soon.

Indigo – a while back I started working on a superhero fantasy and it’s been sitting on my hard disc gathering dust. So I’ve started posting it on my Patreon at a rate of 250-300 words a day. It’s public so you don’t need to be a Patron. (I haven’t posted for a couple of days because certain real world political developments have setting implications I’m thinking through but I’ve decided to play it by ear). I am considering moving it from Patreon (Patreon is not great for serial content) either to the site or a more likely a separate blog for design reasons. (Why a separate blog? Partly because the navigation bar of the website is getting a bit crowded and I don’t have the time or money to do a redesign and partly as an experiment to see if multi-story sites like this or single story sites do better at attracting readers). I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts on the matter.

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A/N: As promised I have started posting Shattered on Gumroad. It’s PWYW (and £0 is acceptable so there’s no risk) so subscribe today. If you want to sample it first then you can read the first chapter on my facebook page. If you like my stuff you’ll love Shattered.

Or if you prefer superhero stories I’ve started posting 250-300 words a day of a superhero story on my Patreon. These posts are public so don’t have to be a Patron to read it. The first fourteen posts are already up so why not take a look?

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“Are you mad at me?” Kira asked in a small voice after Ophelia dragged her and Sera into a corner out of earshot of anyone else at the start of their morning break.

Ophelia looked at her slumped shoulders and sighed. “I’m not mad. A little irritated maybe, but mostly confused. Why didn’t you just tell me?” Read the rest of this entry »