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32. Basil - Recovery
Chapter 32RecoveryThe room we found was in the lower levels, unassuming, and tucked away from the regular thoroughfares of the Palace. Within, stacked and forgotten, were small towers of furniture, draped in blue and gold throws that were caked so high in dust one would think the storage hadn’t been touched since the stones of the keep were first laid.The three of us and the elite Souls we had kept summoned for protection had to angle ourselves when entering, lest we overturn the precarious arrangement and alert our enemies to our new locatio...
31. Hull - Barging In
Chapter 31Barging InI tottered toward my room, managing to feel both wretched and satisfied at the same time. My younger self was a little asshole, but he was my kind of asshole, and he was starting to warm to me, at least insofar as such a little monster could. I had to show him how to be human, yes, but he was showing me how to be a demon, too. We were both of those things, after all. An extended brush with death was worth it to hear the stories he told of working with Mother in all her travels, of demons, Fae, and other things I’d never dr...
30. Basil - Seeing Red
Chapter 30Seeing RedI stalked after my Souls as they battered Felstrife from one end of the ballroom to the other, the crunch of glass against my boots a counterpoint to the scrape and screech of battle. It would not be a quick process, this beating of an entirely new deck from my foe, but Atrea and the rest would never tire, their steel, claws, and talons as sharp as they day their Souls were smithed. Felstrife let out a keening wail as she was repeatedly struck, Dodging where she could but unable to do much more than hand block with the two c...
29. Hull - What's Underneath
Chapter 29What’s UnderneathI stared at the forever-long staircase and my body rebelled. If I tried to walk down that thing I’d end up rolling most of the way, and that felt like a pretty embarrassing way to empty my Mind Home. Half of me still wanted to walk back into the throne room and continue my… conversation with Xemris, but the way she’d been talking, that might end up emptying my Mind Home even faster, not to mention saddling me with guilt and the possibility of a bastard of my own down the road. I had absolutely no interest in r...
28. Basil - To the Death
For reference:https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/ability-list/https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/source-powers/https://furiousscribe.com/cards-lists/source-explosions/Chapter 28To the DeathOur fight would have been over before it started if not for my Master Shieldbearer. The burly Soul shoved her way in between Felstrife and me, breaking the lich’s hold. More importantly, my Bodyguard took the strikes intended to strip my cards. I’d seen Emerus kill a demon with a single swipe, but the Master Shieldbearer weathered the backhanded blo...
27. Hull - Ways and Wiles
Chapter 27Ways and WilesI sat on my bed and tried to focus on the notebook I had taken from Hestorus’s vault. I’d started off lying down – I didn’t think I’d ever been so tired in my life – but when I laid myself flat it felt like my heart was going to stop. As much as I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, I didn’t much fancy not waking up, so it looked like napping was off the table for the moment. I squinted at the script. My single Order Source was better for reading than any of my Nether, if not so good as a candle.Raxier opens...
26. Basil - Common Ground
Chapter 26Common GroundIt was amazing to me that after only a short time in Hull’s presence, I felt more myself than I had in days, perhaps even weeks. A creeping numbness had consumed me, allowing only the darkest emotions to gestate, and yet now I felt a lightness seeping into my soul, like dappled sunlight breaking through heavy clouds. Not that I had returned to some form of normalcy or level-headedness – I didn’t think I’d ever be that again – but I was a step closer to it, and I had my friend to thank for the reprieve.The warm b...
25. Hull - Work Out After All
Chapter 25Work Out After AllBasil wasn’t right. He wasn’t himself. I saw it in the way he’d barely reacted when he’d been given Esmi’s card, and I saw it in the ugly, dangerous look he leveled at this black-robed asshole holding his Master Assassin. If I’d seen someone looking like him back when I lived on the streets, I’d have hidden until he left, rich pickings or no. Even the stupid helmet couldn’t make him look like anything less than death waiting to happen.“If that card is not in my hand by the time I count down from ten...
24. Basil - Arrival
Chapter 24ArrivalThe jubilee was a tangled mix of wights, vampires, and other oddities, but I hardly gave them a thought when I spotted Hull. My friend noticed me at nearly the same time, and without needing a shouted word or coordinating gesture, we made a hurried beeline through the press of people to reach one another. I used my shoulder to forge the sea of pasty flesh, and at one point I thought I heard Emerus demanding that someone empty their Mind Home, but I never considered slowing to see.“You really are alive,” Hull said when we me...
23. Hull - Shedding
Chapter 23Shedding“You’re here!” I said to Esmi the second I was close enough. “How are you here?” I was half tempted to pull her into a hug, but being watched by a room full of bloodsuckers left me awkward and reserved. That, and the fact that I might pitch over on my face if I reached out and unbalanced myself. The torn, bleeding feeling inside of me was only getting worse. Every breath burned and every step was agonizing, but I’d let the Twins damn me before I gave my enemies the satisfaction of knowing it. If they thought I was ...
22. Curly - Guests
Chapter 22GuestsThe vampires knew how to set the stage for a party, Curly would give them that. The drapes and carpet had all been replaced, the new set a rich maroon with tasteful, gold-threaded edges. A summoned arachnid creature had woven webs to and from the rafters, the gossamer material shining like silver during the day, but when candles were lit, shifted to a shimmering gold that unified the space from floors, walls, to ceiling. The room itself had been cleaned within an inch of its life, including every piece of furniture, from the sma...
21. Hull - Old Man
Chapter 19Old ManI felt torn inside. Not in some oh, what do I do now kind of bullshit way, but like some muscle or organ deep inside me had pulled free and was pumping blood into places it wasn’t supposed to be. I didn’t think anything like that had really happened when Mother worked her card-stealing trick, but by the Twins, it sure felt like it. My body kept panicking, my heart pounding erratically and my head swimming. I wasn’t surprised that everyone else Mother did this to died.But I had my young self’s card in my hand and I wasn...
20. Basil - Asked and Answered
Chapter 20Asked and AnsweredIt didn’t take long for us to encounter more undead as we traveled the enemy occupied hallways. There were skeletons and zombies – actual skeletons and zombies, not summoned Souls – the same as those who guarded us in the ballroom. The distinction was easy to tell since their bones and rotting flesh lacked the extra vibrancy of cards but also because my Mindtrap didn’t activate when my attention fell upon them.The creatures shuffled about, the zombies moaning occasionally, but none of them tried to bar our wa...
Announcements!
OK, folks, I am very glad to announce that I have an new cover from Kart Studios for Book 1 of Source & Soul! Feast yer eyes!They're already working on the cover for book 2 as well. As for book 1, the editing is a way bigger bear than I expected, so it's still going to take me some time to actually get the thing up on Amazon, but it's coming! I'll keep you all posted.As you may notice on that cover, this is now the Treledyne Trilogy. The thing about trilogies is that they only have 3 books (sorry, Robert Jordan: it's true). ...
19. Hull - Torn
Chapter 19TornI wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to snap off her horns and punch her face into a red pulp like I’d done to that vampire. It was all such a tangle of shock, hurt, and rage inside me that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and I said nothing. My card. She wants my card. Again.“Fight past all that useless human emotion and think,” Mother said, sinking into an ornate couch in what I assumed were the quarters she’d claimed. The rooms were beyond opulent, and their location, directly off the grand staircase i...
18. Basil - Persuasion
Chapter 18PersuasionHull had been here, just outside the room I was held captive in. I would have been none the wiser if not for the Master Assassin I had set to guard the entrance. The black-clad Soul had reported to me about my friend’s unexpected appearance and Felstrife barring his entry.I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about the news. My emotions were a muted shadow of themselves ever since Esmi’s death, but even so, there was a deep pull in me to see my friend again counterweighted by a gnawing worry that my selfish request was pu...
17. Hull - Gifts and Bargains
Chapter 17Gifts and Bargains“I think that’s everything,” I said, peeking out into the corridor for the hundredth time. Still no one in sight. I’d picked a small empty room in the servants’ hallways to stay in – falling asleep in one of those idiot noble four-poster beds was just begging to get sneaked up on and stabbed – and from the looks of it, not a Twins-damned soul cared to keep track of me. I hadn’t seen my mother since she’d stalked out of the throne room with Xemris, and the Palace’s contingent of wights and low-leve...
16. Basil - Battle Ready
Chapter 16Battle Ready“Only two,” I lamented, staring up at the pair of Air Source that lazily circled my head.Justine was jogging in place beside me, her feet beating a steady rhythm. “Is that bad?”When Felstrife had succeeded in adjusting my helmet so that I could summon again, the first thing I had decided to check on was the state of my Sources. Caught up in survival, leveling, and secret gathering, I’d thoroughly neglected my cultivation and had known there would be consequences. Of course Air, the Source of freedom and movement,...
15. Hull - True Respect
Chapter 15True RespectWe walked up the broad, yellow-carpeted stairs forever. I wasn’t keeping track of the steps, but it felt like a longer climb than getting to the top of Hillside from the depths of the Lows. Just in case I needed a reminder that Hestorus was an asshole: he made everybody in the world climb a gods-damned mountain of stairs just to talk to him. He’d been a monumental prick and, it turned out, a scheming madman bent on shaping humanity for his own ends. Yet somehow, each morning that he wasn’t there in the sky doing his ...
14. Basil - Elevation
Chapter 14ElevationIt could have been the middle of the day or night for all I knew, trapped in my mirrored prison, Felstrife working me to the bone. The duels I had once found so intriguing now pained me just as much as the deluge of cards ever did, my mind feeling like it was splitting in twain, especially whenever I strong-armed the memory into looking aside, unearthing moments of the lich’s past.Sensing that I might soon break or become little more than a gibbering fool, I was forced to take refuge in the shelter of Esmi’s card – a tr...
13. Hull - Stupid Risks
Chapter 13Stupid Risks“They can’t make you do this,” Afi said as we walked through the sewers, the reek of ten thousand shits so strong in my nostrils it was almost a taste. “You could just walk away, you know.”I peeked over at her in the dim light of our Sources. She was chewing a thumbnail, and her forehead was creased. How had I thought her odd and unremarkable when War Camp had started? I’d been an idiot. “Why don’t you do the same?” I countered.“It’s different,” she said, shooting me a glare. “House Erlun sponsors...
12. Basil - Tutelage
Chapter 12TutelageAfter Afi’s brief infiltration, Felstrife worked me even harder than she had before, and I welcomed every minute of it. Our sessions were easily twice as long and composed entirely of duels, force-fed into my mind from start to finish so I was able to observe every play, every decision. We spent so much time together, I wasn’t sure if I slept or ate regular fare anymore, my thoughts overflowing with memories that were not my own.As near as I could tell, the matches were ones Felstrife had either observed or participated in...
11. Hull - Plans Inside of Plans
Chapter 11Plans Inside of Plans“I must admit I’d hoped to see you again under better circumstances,” the Queen said, breathing heavily as we pelted up the front stairs of the City Watch headquarters. Someone was swinging the great doors closed behind us and dropping the bar back into place. Edaine’s Spirit Souls clustered all around us, glowing faintly and keeping a suspicious eye out on all sides even now that we were safe. I’d expected them all to be identical, but the one on the left was female and the one behind her was grizzled a...
10. Basil - A Welcome Guest
Chapter 10A Welcome GuestHull was alive, alive. Who else could it be in the Lows, summoning demons, and strong enough to defeat an Epic? When that suited vampire had come asking after such a personage, I knew precisely who it had to be. Of course, I hadn’t given up Hull’s name or likely whereabouts – I made it clear that would only happen once I had Esmi’s card in hand – and this time the hulking vampire seemed keen to agree.As flush with excitement as the news made me, regaining my love’s card was only one third of my plans, and I ...
9. Hull - Stronger
Chapter 9StrongerThe door that led up from the sewers into the City Watch headquarters was banded with steel and likely protected by Artifact traps, not to mention the pair of beefy summoner watchmen standing guard. They saluted smartly when Lord Hintal approached, but there was no flourish or pomp in it. These men had dented breastplates and one had an unhealed slash across his face, meaning he’d taken enough damage to eat through his deck and leave him wounded. No doubt whatever healing cards the Watch had at its disposal were being stretch...
8. Curly - Hearthflame
Chapter 8Hearthflame“She’s been shed? Are you sure?”Those were the first words Curly heard as she was summoned into the sitting room of the living. Well, the partial-living: they were vampires, after all.“I’m afraid so,” Stafford replied, taking his ease in one of the high-backed chairs that surrounded the coffee table. “It happened on the outskirts of the city, apparently.” He shrugged. “You know how she liked to forage.”“First Lustra, now Beliss?” Alexi said as he poured himself some tea. He wore a fluffy bathrobe the ...
7. Hull - Allies
Chapter 7Allies“If both of us have realized that the sewers are the best way to get around, others will have as well, and they might not be friendly,” Basil’s father said. I thanked Fate that he’d recognized me from the Rising Stars Tournament and his son’s descriptions of me; I’d have hated to fight him, his squad of men, and all their cards in the dark of the tunnels. Despite the fact that his youngest child was perhaps my only true friend, the only time I’d ever darkened their door was during the ill-fated Gala the night this w...
6. Basil - Guards, Guards
Chapter 6Guards, GuardsCards.I loved cards.The comfortable weight of them, the glass-slick feel, the perfect images, capturing for a frozen moment the essence of who or what something was. They were beautiful, and not just in form and function, but in what they represented: a chance for us to steward those who had come before, and in turn, receive their insight and aid. One of my earliest memories was my father summoning two Guards when I admitted to him that I was frightened of the nightly shadows that waited in my rooms. He listened to my con...
5. Hull - Tight Spots and Traps
Chapter 5Tight Spots and Traps“The Big Man deigns to grace us with his presence,” said Brin Jagorin, the hulking don of the fighting pits. “Guess he had to wait for his balls to drop first.” I’d heard of the man and his eyepatch with the angry eye painted on – all us street kids had – but I’d never come within two blocks of the place back before I had cards. There were too many stories of kids going missing around this cavernous building, and I hadn’t wanted to be one of them. In the months since becoming Big Man, there had al...
4. Basil - The Workshop
Chapter 4The WorkshopI didn’t have to wait long to find out what happened to the gifted girl from Burlon. By the next day, she had joined me in the cavernous ballroom along with three others. The five of us hardly made a dent in the grand space, but I found their presence preferable to being alone with the lich and the visions of cards that assailed me, extracted from her mind and force-fed into mine.I only got to see my fellows in the brief reprieves Felstrife allowed me, but in those moments of clarity I tried to observe as much as I could,...
