Recent entries

Questioner

Is there an advancement beyond Judges?

Will Wight

Not currently.

Astro

Did the builders of the labyrinth ascend and return to Cradle with power from other Iterations?

Will Wight

No, they did not. Good question. That is not something that the builders did.

Telewyn

Maybe none of them want to, but do any of the Dreadgods have the capacity to ascend from Cradle under their own power?

Will Wight

No, they do not have the ability to ascend. The Dreadgods cannot ascend. It's not a matter of power level; they are too much part of the rules/substance/fabric of the world. That actually will come up a little in Dreadgod. It doesn't get super explained, but that subject is in there. So it's a good question, it's just a little technical.

King Fox

Does Reigan Shen have a plasma bolt in his vault, or is such a treasure too rare even for him?

Will Wight

You know, maybe at this point I should start regretting having given you guys the phrase "Plasma bolts" and nothing else for my new story I'm working on, but I don't actually regret it. I'm glad I did.

Does he have a plasma bolt in his vault? No. He couldn't sell his entire vault for one single bolt from plasma.

Questioner

Does ascending grant more power in addition to being able to modify the physical form, as stated by the Abidan?

Will Wight

When you ascend through a normal process that most people do, you are transforming yourself into a higher level of yourself. You would become physically more like your ideal form... usually. That's not always how it works, but that is usually how it works. So, Makiel not only has access to all the magic and technology he could ever need to genetically alter himself, but also, he has obviously ascended so he could have changed himself, but his ideal form was kind of... himself. So, that's kind of what that says about him.

Does it also grant you more power? Yes and no. It grants you access to more things. It doesn't immediately make you more powerful. You don't just level up like you do in Cradle. That's a Cradle thing.

SirMisterGuyMan

Lindon fighting Malice amp can reasonably be explained with his with Silent King amp. How about Yerrin? The two have always been able to fight above their weight class but she's still "just" a newborn Herald. In previous books they said they'd need to reach peak Archlord to be a true Herald/Sage so she's not really even a real Herald yet.

In my head I just assume that Malice must be really exhausted from her continuous fights. I'm not totally happy with that explanation but it's all I've got at the moment.

Will Wight

My view of Yerin in this fight is that she’s roughly the equivalent of a normal Herald. She has some unique advantages, but so do many Heralds.

Fury, for instance, could have beaten her.

But she’s at the level of being able to participate in this fight while Lindon puts the lion’s share (tiger’s share?) of the pressure on.

That’s my general thought process, anyway.

irishNerdDnD

The gap between these stages of advancement is HUGE! people are trying to scale Lindon and the gang and it seems people think sage/Herald are closer to monarchs than they actually are.

The 8 man empire are the equivalent of one monarch. That's not because any 8 sacred artists at the level of sage/Herald (S/H) are the equivalent of a monarch, they need the help of special magic space armor to combine their significance to reach that level. This fact alone means that without the magic space armor, that I would take over 8 S/H to rival one monarch. The way the story talks about the 8 man empire I would guess it would take many more that 8 S/H to rival a monarch.

Will Wight

Let me take a few minutes to address the 8ME.

A group of 4 Sages and 4 Heralds all fighting a Monarch together could win. And probably would, all other factors being equal.

The disadvantage is that none of them could 1v1 the Monarch, so they’re prone to getting picked off and defeated separately. Are you going to stand there and fight eight guys? No, you run and pick your moment later.

The advantage of the 8ME is that they don’t need to be together to combine powers. And that they can fuse their power to perform Monarch-level feats, which Sages and Heralds can’t normally do.

How does a Monarch beat a Sage? Engage them physically or in a straight-up power fight. How do they beat a Herald? Keep throwing workings at them they can’t match and make them waste willpower and concentration shutting them down.

An 8ME member can draw on the power of the others to remove those weaknesses at will.

How would you defeat the 8ME? Force them to spread out. They have a finite pool of power to draw on, so if three of them (for instance) need to draw on Monarch-level power at once, what does that leave for the rest?

Problem is, no faction has two Monarchs. So let’s say Reigan Shen wanted to take them down. He engages Larian in combat, and he assigns or hires a Sage or Herald for each of the other seven.

How does that actually play out?

They don’t pump Larian up to Monarch-level. She flees and runs and hides and does anything she can to survive with only her own power, and they pump whoever has the weakest opponent.

Suddenly, the person facing down a single Sage has Monarch-level power. The enemy is crushed. Then they move on to the next-weakest enemy, and so on.

Larian might die. Maybe she couldn’t hang on either.

But it’s still WAY faster and easier for the 8ME to pass power between each other than it is for Shen to travel through the Way to face the other members. So, in all likelihood, they become the Six-Man Army but all their non-Monarch opponents are dead.

Then they replace the lost two members and now they’re gunning for Shen.

And that’s the story of why the 8ME still exists.

Questioner

Which Judge has the most seniority?

Will Wight

OK. That's Makiel. Makiel is the one that has been around the longest. He's the 3rd generation Makiel and therefore, he is an early (relatively early) generation. So, none of them are 1st generation on the court now. The 1st generation Abidan have been gone for a long time. And 3rd generation is the one who's been around the longest. So that's, that's Makiel.

Questioner

Can you add a secret stretch goal reward of a second round of hot wings and rating the flavors?

Will Wight

No, because I won't do that again. The hot wings that we did... so we did the hot ones challenge at home. My brother, Sam, got what ever the cases they sell a bunch of different hot sauces for wings. And we went and got Publix wings at Publix grocery store, because we're in Florida, so we are privileged enough to have Publix. And we brought the wings home and we rolled them in the hot sauces and what we did, unfortunately, was they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, not on the scale but which spiciness level. So you're supposed to eat them in order and what we thought was the second one was actually the second to last.

That was shameless shilling for Publix, you're right. I shill for Publix all day long. It's like my name is John Q. Publix.

So we accidentally put the one that is second-to-last one second and we ate it. So we misunderstood the order. So we went from, yeah this hot sauce has a nice smoky flavor, it's like a rich Tabasco, to my tongue tried to kill itself and leave my mouth. That was pretty abrupt.

So because of that, then we went on and did the rest of them in order and we ended with the Last Dab and that one was an experience. Sam dunked his face in the pool. I don't remember what I did. I remember a light. That I remember. Then I remember photos from my childhood. It flashed in front of my eyes. I remember spirits whispering my name. So that was an intense experience that I don't want to repeat. I'm going to leave it as a singular memory. But if you guys want to do it, by all means, you can send me your videos. Please don't do that.

Questioner

Has the amount of the support from the KickStarter opened any new doors for you as an author?

Will Wight

Unfortunately, I do not have a great dramatic answer for you. It's hard to tell. It's one of those things where it's not like the KickStarter itself has blown open wide. It's not like we immediately got a movie offer but, at the same time, there was a huge showing of support and we keep moving forward and we're hoping with the KickStarter itself the results will get us into bookstores. So those would be some doors that would be opened.

Questioner

Is there a sylvan seed for every aspect of madra? If not, what aspects can become seeds?

Will Wight

Here's how I see sylvan whatever seeds. I see them as natural spirits that form from centers of especially pure aura. So anything where it's not capable, where that wouldn't happen naturally, I suspect there would be no sylvan blade seed for instance like why would there be that many swords occurring naturally, that sort of thing. In general, I think most aspects do indeed have their own little blue equivalents, little green, little purple. Little green is the healer.

Questioner

Are there types of madra that cannot be combined into a single path?

Will Wight

Yes, there are. There are definitely incompatible types of madra, it depends a lot on how the madra is expressed and what its source is. So in a lot of ways water and fire would be incompatible elements obviously as you would expect. But of course we have a character in the series who does follow a path that unifies water and fire so there are no absolutes I guess. But like for instance you couldn't blend life/death madra because it would be death madra. That would be it, that's all it would be. However, you could and this is a path - I was going to show off in the uncrowned king tournament but didn't end up having the time - where you could have a life madra AND death madra so what I was going to do is run into this guy who could use life madra and death madra because he had split his cores. Everybody's mentioned that as a possibility that everyone's aware of but rarely people use so I was going to have another person who had split their cores and they were doing this life/death yin-yang thing and I thought that would be fun but alas we didn't get to... Lindon's going to be the only yin-yang duality cultivator I guess.

Questioner

When they ascend beyond Cradle do the ruler-focused paths when they don't have access to aura still work?

Will Wight

They do still work! They start interacting with...whatever they previously interacted with but not using aura. Now it transcends that mechanism so if you used fire aura to control flame on cradle then you would be controlling flame directly after you ascend cradle not using any medium you would just be doing it. You would have authority over flames. So that was the original idea it was one of the original ideas behind ruler techniques, in general, was that they were the control option and that they led into this connection with whatever you were working with but I ended up not exploring that very thoroughly just because that would have been a lot of theoretical exploration for what is ultimately an action-adventure series

Questioner

Does anyone else have the void icon now?

Will Wight

Uh.. Yes, there are other people who have the void icon, who have manifested the void icon. I think Reigan Shen has it, I'm pretty confident on that, I would have to check my Icon sheet. Ya Reigan Shen has it, he might be the only one of the current monarchs that have it. But there have been others, it's rare in the sense that most icons are rare, no one icon is generally common.

Questioner

What does the manifestation of the death icon look like?

Will Wight

You know...I think probably it would be some kind of reaper scythe or a skull, the sort of thing you would associate with death. But at the same time, I've always seen it kind of as the... you know the giant black bird remnant from skysworn that doesn't take a contract against Eithan? That's sort of how I picture it. But icon manifestations change based on how they are manifested and who summons them. So that would be something that would depend on what context the icon was in

Questioner

Relationship between Eithan and Naru Saeya?

Will Wight

I mean, at the moment (Reaper, Cradle book 10), he thinks of her as a much much much much well removed protegee? Kind of? There's nothing on his end. On her end? Who knows? Maybe something.

Questioner

Who is your favorite dreadgod?

Will Wight

Uh, let's see. Believe it or not it's probably the weeping dragon. Sounds weird. It's gotten the least page space. I just think he looks cool. I think it's a neat visual. I think it's a cool visual image of like a sapphire blue dragon, miles long just sorta undulating over clouds like waves. Seems neat. I also like the idea of raining lightning, living lightning, that kinda slithers around. I think that's cool.

Questioner

Do you ever read the online wikis for your books?

Will Wight

I have before, I don't as a rule. I don't generally.

Questioner

You should write the story about the puppy who gets sad.

Will Wight

No.

Travis Baldree

Qirani shifted her goggles from her eyes to her forehead and leaned back from the engine. Fire aspect Remnants burned inside the metallic chamber that was bigger than her entire house. She could see the spirits through the viewpoints pursuing their strange Remnant tasks. Even with heat and dampening scripts it was a sauna in here. Though not nearly as relaxing as the actual saunas she visited on her occasional holidays. Without her goggles she could get unfiltered looks at the engine’s control panel. It seemed fine. She'd welded two metal plates together and the control script was whole again. She gave it long eye making sure the light stayed steady.

When she was certain that the script was functional she sighed in relief and gathered up her tools. Her personal bound spirit was contained in a tank on her back. Burning Swan was a natural fire spirit she’d raised for years. And she could channel his energies for welding or, theoretically for combat. She hadn’t seen any duels since graduating the Academy and she didn’t expect she ever would again. Her grades in the arena had been adequate at best. 

Her supervisor, a pudgy woman named Torkle, slammed the door open in an enthusiastic burst and practically danced down the stairs. She had a massive cloud of gray hair and a pair of smaller spirit tanks strapped to her forearms instead of a large one on her back.

“Oh my darling, my favorite how are you doing this fine evening?" Torkle sang. She did a pirouette and finished her spin with a flourish as she reached Qirani. Qirani smiled in spite of herself. Today she had planned to duck her supervisor and get home on time for once but Torkle’s enthusiasm was infectious. 

“Not so bad” Qirani admitted “Finished sooner than I thought and we didn’t have any further breaches.” Torkle gasped in amazement, raising her hands to her lips. “You’re a genius and a savant! Without you we would be ashes in a crater.”

If Torkle saw someone lace up their boots she would exclaim that no one had ever tied such a perfect knot. When Qirani had finished her hundredth job with the company  Torkle had commissioned a light sculpture of the triumphant moment. The job had been the inspection of rivets in a sewer runoff pipe and it had taken fifteen minutes. Still Qirani’s cynicism melted before Torkle’s positivity like ice under the sun “Nothing that bad, maybe a few burns.”

“Burns!” Torkle fluddered her collar as though overcome by the heat though she had only been in the engine room for a few seconds. “Theres nothing worse than the heat. To me you stave off doom. You’ll have dinner with our family tonight won’t you? I’ll take no for an answer but I won’t be happy about it.” 

Qirani considered the offer instead of rejecting it out of hand like she usually did. A little money saved was a little closer to the vacation of her dreams. A local travel agency had been promoting a tour of the exotic Ashwind continent home of the dragons. She’d always wanted to see the place and since the tour made use of existing portal networks they could keep travel times down to only a month’s journey either way. Any use of portals skyrocketed the price since those were the workings of a Sage. Of course there was the cost of missing several months of work. But steadily she inched toward her dream.

She was about to accept Torkle’s offer when Burning Swan whispered in her mind. "Enemy" the spirit whispered. Burning Swan didn’t speak in actual words but in complex impressions passed through their bond. Suddenly the familiar clanks and hisses of the engine room sounded ominous and the shadows in the corners deepened. Qirani extended her spiritual sense but felt no one other than herself and Torkle. The supervisor frowned noticing her distress.

“Oh my, what’s wrong? You didn’t forget something did you? I left my spare wrist strap here last week and wouldn’t you know it that was the very day that my first one broke. I had just bought it too and it was a nicer one than I usually

She continued prattling but Qirani was paying more attention to her bond spirit. "Enemy?" she asked. The simpler the message the more clearly the spirit would understand. Burning Swan’s mental impression was firm."Enemy." His thoughts focused on Torkle. Qirani wondered if she should take Swan to a Soulsmith. Maybe a drudge could figure out where his senses had gone wrong. Torkle was harmless in every sense of the word. Not only had she once wept when she accidentally shut the door on a lizard’s tail but even if she did go mad and suddenly attack she wouldn’t be much of an opponent. Qirani wasn’t a fighter but she had still been forged through years of hard work. Torkle was soft and frail and much older.

The supervisor had one bond spirit of life and one of dreams which she used to monitor and coordinate her workers. Qirani was in more danger from burning her skin on an overheated bolt. Even so she decided to play it cautious. Just in case. “Torkle? You haven’t had any strange dreams have you?” Only days ago after the sky had turned black and the world had panicked one eyed leaves had drifted throughout the city and whispered reassurance. The voice of Emriss Silentborn the Monarch, spoke to the citizens directly and told them they were safe, protected.

Everyone Qirani knew had gotten the same message. Probably everyone on the continent had. But the Monarch had left a warning as well to remain on guard in their dreams. If they met a stranger there who asked to enter their minds they should deny him. That had been strange, of course but it was the warning of a Monarch. Torkle gasped when Qirani asked about her dreams. “Oh I almost forgot to tell you, I have had the best sleep of my life lately. I have this tea that you drink before bed and Emriss stake my lips now if I know what they put into it but the second I close my eyes I drift right off. 

She kept chittering but she didn’t say anything about meeting a stranger in her sleep, Qirani didn’t hear anything wrong. A wary voice came to her again. "Look!" Burning Swan commanded. Qirani’s senses shifted somehow in a strange direction that she didn’t have the words for. She opened her Copper's sight and looked at the world but only a little. She extended her perceptions halfway too. This felt like Burning Swan had forcibly made her open an eye in her spirit halfway. The sensation was hazy and frustrating even uncomfortable but after only a moment Qirani saw something. A glimmer of white light hovering behind Torkle’s head. like a halo or perhaps a crown.

Qirani’s breath died and for a moment she couldn’t even speak. Then she bolted for the exit. She took the metal stairs two at a time leaving Torkle sputtering in confusion behind her. Qirani dashed down the metal catwalk reaching out her perception for a script on the wall ahead of her, the emergency alarm. Qirani triggered it with a flow of madra as she flew out of the room slamming the heavy door after her. She panted as she leaned against it. Through the thick glass of the round porthole at the center she saw Torkle heaving her way up the stairs. The enthusiastic energy that had filled the supervisor earlier had wiltered leaving a heavy weight of disappointment that hung visibly on her.

Her muffled voice came through the door. “Qirani why, this isn’t funny!?”

Tears filled Qirani’s eyes. She didn’t quite know what to do. She had heard the rumors of what happened to people wearing that crown, the legends really. But Torkle seemed fine. She didn’t know what to do but that was all right. She didn’t have to know. Security arrived a moment later, wearing thick tanks on their back and their limbs covered by the energy of their bound spirits. They strode up to Qirani as she stammered out her story.

“Torkle! She! My supervisor! Crown! I saw it! My spirit warned me!” Enemies, Burning Swan said. And this time Qirani heard the distinct tones of despair. Dreading what she would see she once again half opened her spiritual senses as Swan had shown her. Both guards had a faint white ring floating behind their heads. She backed up against the wall as the alarm died and the door slid open. A panting Torkle made it through turning to glare at Qirani. 

“What has gotten into you? If you don’t want to have dinner with us I’m not going to force you. Is it my cooking?” Torkle still seemed normal but disturbingly so. Qirani glanced down the hallway toward the exit. She would never make it not with security here. You didnt get to be a company guard by only getting mediocre grades in your arena classes. Torkle knelt at her side and gave her a kindly smile. “Poor thing you're so frightened? What do you think is going to happen to you?”

Qirani shivered and didn’t answer. “Come on then, shoo boys and leave her alone. Let’s talk in my office my sweet girl.”

Torkle led Qirani down the hallway but at the first corner they rounded Qirani shrieked. There was a body lying in blood soaked carpet. He wore a tank on his back and a security uniform. But without seeing his face she didn’t recognize him. The first guard strode over the body the second stopped at the sound of her shriek and Torkle turned with a frown. She was standing with one foot casually braced on the mans skull. Are you still scared? You’re safe with me Qirani I swear.

“Did you kill him?” Qiranis accusatory finger trembled. Torkle looked around blankly. “Who?” “Him right there! You’re standing on his head!” Torkle looked all the way around the hallway until her expression softened. “Oh dear. Oh dear. You need that vacation more than I realized. Stress can get to all of us sweet girl.” With a dawning horror, Qirani realized that this wasn’t an act. Torkle really couldn’t see the man’s body "enemy" Burning Swan insisted.

Qirani followed Torkle to her office and sat on a plush chair. The place was so ordinary and familiar that it was easy to forget anything was wrong. Torkle chattered as she brewed tea while Qirani remained silent. The supervisor poured two cups and slid one over on a saucer. "Take a drink and relax you poor thing. I didn’t mean to work you so hard.”

Qirani took it on reflex. She had tea with Torkle hundreds of times. Before she thought about it she had already taken her first sip. Someone hammered on the office door. Torkle didn’t seem surprised. “Could you get that for me, dear?”

Qirani had her hand on the door, but Burning Swan was vibrating in its case trying to extend fiery wings. "Danger!" She removed her hand. “Why don’t you get it?” “It has to be you.” Torkle sipped from her own tea and smiled. “Go on my girl." A man’s voice came from outside, regal and assured. “Let me in Qirani and I will explain everything.”

She stumbled back from the door and looked from her tea to her supervisor. “You brought me into a dream” The steel container strapped to Torkle’s left wrist was open and there was no shimmering purple light coming from inside. Her Dream Remnant was missing. She had used a technique or an elixir in the tea, or both. Qirani looked at the window which was made of the same thick barely transparent glass as most in this place. She wasn’t strong enough to break her way through.

But she could melt it. "Swan, please?" With a quick flick of madra she released a panel on the side of her spirit tank. A wing of flame madra emerged and plunged into the glass which began to glow red hot. Torkle leaned back so fast she spilled her tea. “Really now, you’re going to dry out my skin” Qirani’s own skin was singed by the time she melted enough glass and she wasn’t even sure that going out a different way would help her escape. How much of this was a dream and how much was real?

She had to try something. She almost leaped through but the red hot glass around the hole made her hesitate. As did the voice from the door. “There’s no risk to you,” the stranger said. “Life is far safer for my friends than my enemies.” If Qirani hadn’t been warned she might have opened the door already. But she knew who the voice belonged to, the Silent King..

She gritted her teeth and prepared to plunge through the hole in the glass to the desolate and metal and concrete streets outside. It was late enough that no one was nearby and she wasn’t sure if that was a curse or a blessing. The burning glass was a threat one she could risk. She snapped her goggles over her eyes and pulled up the collar of her thick fire resistant work uniform. Then she screamed as a face floated out of the shadows from the window a face but not a human one.

It was like a floating head with pebbly flesh such a dark purple as to be almost black. One giant eye took up most of its face and its mouth was stretched into a strange almost smile with an expression she couldn’t read. It had two boneless arms that undulated slowly. "I have come to pull you from the abyss of silence" the spirit whispered "To free you from the chains that bind your mind and restore you to the waking world."

Then as though if it had suddenly remembered something it added "And don’t be afraid" Qirani commanded Burning Swan to attack but its fiery wing shivered and retreated. "Not enemy", the spirit told her, "and strong"

There came a crash from behind Torkle’s desk. The supervisor had hurled her teacup, part of a set she’d inherited from her mother to the ground. Where it shattered. She glared furiously at the one eye spirit with teeth bared.

“Get out” Torkle shrieked “I’ll claw out your soul!” The dark, floating spirit giggled. "That would be impressive." The Silent King’s voice from the door was amused. “Intruders? How bold.”

A force slammed into the door shaking the room. Qirani hesitated only another instant before she reached out to the strange spirit tendril. If this was an elaborate trick by the Dreadgod to get her to walk outside it was working. The spirit pulled her out through the glass coming within an inch of searing her flesh off. But Qirani didn’t land on the street outside Torkle’s office. She was back in the engine room standing before a welded steel panel. Had she fallen asleep after finishing her job? How would that be possible? The dark spirit still floated before her, chuckling in an unnerving voice.

"Walk with me, unless you wish to see the void of death." “Who are you?” she demanded “What’s going on?” "You’ll see "it said "And you can call me Dross."