Cool Sword Day: Requiem

The best magic swords don’t start out magic. They earn it through demon blood.
For Cool Sword Day, I’m breaking down the evolution of Requiem, the skymetal blade I invented for the Splintered Land series. It doesn’t begin as a glowing, chosen-one artifact. It starts as a heavy, unyielding piece of steel forged by a skilled smith who was a towering inferno of bastard energy.
Our hero, Geneve, chooses Requiem over the pristine, fragile glass weapons of her holy order because she learns that perfect obedience shatters on contact with the real world. Over the series, the blade graduates from a plain chunk of metal with a severe grudge against demon kings.
It’s the story of a bad man trying to be good, and a good woman trying to be better.
It’s a cool sword, man. Read More …

The Well of Lethe: 7

Korvus exited the elevator on the medbay level. The lighting flickered, a sure sign of an ailing reactor or control system. Neither failure was survivable on Lethe. If both died, the oceans would hunger in, scouring the inside of the prison colony like the high-pressure acid bath it was. I need to hurry. He picked up his pace. Herald’s cannon was locked in its firing position over his left shoulder, ready for whatever might come. How much ammunition do we have?||:KORVUS HERALD:||It was a short jump, so there wasn’t much computational residue from the drive. It only leaves you eight shots in the Adjudicator. I know you’re itching to use them, so I’ll say this once: don’t. You definitely won’t survive, and I probably won’t. Second, I’ve got twenty rounds in the cannon. Twenty isn’t a lot.||:KORVUS HERALD:||It’s more than Read More …

The Well of Lethe: 6.2

Navigating a ventilation shaft is grim, but for Korvus, finding what looks like shedded snakeskin is just the start of the weird. When he pops out, the guards are gone, his only company a sarcastic AI. Inmate Verity, a self-proclaimed former convict, helpfully suggests the missing guards went out the same way he came in, then accuses him of seeing God. Read More …

The Well of Lethe: 1

Welcome to Lethe SC90982: a backwater prison colony choking on a high-pressure, acidic atmosphere. It’s a forgotten place for forgotten people, run by a jaded warden who’s just trying to keep the lid on a powder keg of terrorists and dissenters.

…And, of course, something else waits in the dark.

But before the killing in bulk starts, an enforcer from the monolithic Integrated Collective—a Corrector—arrives. And as the warden knows all too well from his own tragic past, when a Corrector shows up, well… that’s when the murder begins.
This is for fans of:
– Boots-on-the-ground military sci-fi like Aliens or Warhammer 40k.
– Intense, visceral action that doesn’t worry about blood on its shoes.
– Rich, lived-in worlds where the tech is impressive but the synth-cotton collars are still too damn tight.

Let’s roll. Read More …