Omens

It was a truly strange moment. Well, for Adam anyway. He stood there in the faint light of the restaurant coming through the window, the snow falling light and soft around him. He and his fiance, Juliet, had just left dinner with his family, celebrating his birthday. His parents, always asking after him, only wished […]

Ashes and Smoke: The Price of Mortal Magic

It was well past nightfall by the time the riders reached the tower in the woods. Between Claudia’s urgency and the relative nearness of the laboratory, they pushed their mounts into the dark, using the torchlight from the tower as a beacon for their direction. When they arrived at the gates, they were open, but […]

Ashes and Smoke: Vanishing Light

As concerned as they were about the Ravenguard following, none of the passengers truly understood the risks of crossing the Barren Waste. The autocart that carried them through the grassy fields and into the red rock desert was powered by electro-magnetic sciences, a development in the recent years of the war since the few remaining […]

Ghost Story

Stories and rumors always circulated about the Ashford place in the woods, a remote cabin the named family used as a summer home for the kinds of people that could afford such luxuries. Ritual murders, cult suicides, possessions, human sacrifice; whatever myth you could associate with a haunted house was there, and it was just […]

Ashes and Smoke: Sabotage

Dagger on her hip, pack over her shoulder, Claudia stopped in the taproom on her way out. Lanterns filled the room with the flickering light they could give as the black night in the windows offered little detail to the world outside. Bastion, working the bar, approached her as casually as any other patron. His […]

Ashes and Smoke: The Smith

There was a great bit of missing time between Gideon’s blackout and when he came back to his full faculties. As much as Taas did the best he could for his companion, he wasn’t known for being a healer, unless you count amputations and merciful executions as means to a better quality of life. In […]

Ashes and Smoke: The Many

The rain had finally stopped entirely and the storm had passed, but the voices continued to berate Gideon. He did his best to focus his attention on other things. Now in the woods, the shade from the trees offered some protection from the cloudless sky as the sun rose higher, approaching midday. Water still dripped […]

Deep Cut with Commentary: By the Ravings of Lunatics

Recently, I rebuilt my desktop PC, and in the process of doing so, I had the chance to backup my hard drive. To my complete shock and surprise, I found a couple of folders containing my early-ish writing. Nearly all of it is from around 2010-2013, roughly; short stories and some incomplete works. More than […]

Ashes and Smoke: The Morning After

The morning sunlight had begun to pour through the cracks of the wooden shutters on the window. No roosters signalling the daylight and the muffled voices in the street below indicated that it was not dawn, but still early morning. Gideon rolled over, turning his back on the window and pulling the cover over his […]

Ashes and Smoke: Rumors (Cold Open)

The cellar storeroom was cramped and cold, but well lit. The barrels, sacks, and crates were pushed and stacked against the walls, making room for a table, with its chairs off to one side. Claudia leaned over the table, her palms flat on the surface, as she read the messages that had come in from […]