I've re-written this intro like a dozen times now and none of the stuff I've tried as a 'Hey guys I'm back' lines have really felt right, so I'm just gonna wing it.

Hi folks. I'm not dead.

I have had a bunch of major life events that happened over the past... Damn, almost 9 months now. The fall from the roof you know about. I also had to move houses during the recovery period, had a bunch of financial problems crop up (Not strictly because of the injury, but it didn't help), wound up finding full-time work in town but that has a three-hour round-trip commute, a few other medical problems involving my eye, and... Well. Let's just say that things have been in a state of pretty near-constant upheaval and transition over the past three quarters of a year.

During that time I've been slowly working on Sam 3 as well. But it was rough going for a long while (for the aforementioned reasons, but also because as I was writing I found out that there was just something fundamentally wrong with the story.). I've got most of the problems ironed out now I think, and my life has finally settled down enough that I think I'm good to start up serializing again.

A couple things will be different from last time. First, I realized one of the fundamental problems with Sam 3 was that Sam, much as I love the boy, is not a character I designed to hold an entire storyline by himself, so when I put him alone and separated from his friends, I kinda torpedoed myself. It took me a couple months of turning the story over and over in my head to realize this, and then another month to bite the bullet and realize what I had to do.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

So there's some retconning happening. Starting from when the

Failstate yoinks Sam's Guardian powers away

, there's going to be a completely new direction/storyline, so the old chapters after that event will be changed or outright deleted to make way for the new content. (Spoilered, just in case)

Second, because of my work, my posting schedule is going to be twice a week, with a possible increase later on depending on how my writing schedule shakes out. I just don't think I'll be able to sustain any more frequent updates, at least at first.

Third, I'm also going to try and increase my presence online more. If you're on my discord, you'll be seeing me in the mornings on certain days (Schedule to be posted there when I nail it down) doing sprints or just chatting into the void about things that are happening both in the book and in life in general. Because I don't want to disappear again, that's a lousy thing to do to folks and I apologize for that deeply.

Lastly, Sam 3 will return on (Edit: Changed the release date so it doesn't sound like an April Fool's Day Joke 😋) March 31 for regular postings. After the initial release, Chapters will drop on Monday and Thursday at around noon Eastern

I'll plan on deleting the now-obsolete chapters from Royal Road this coming thursday, and then I'll post at least one new chapter (Probably two or three, just so that you guys get more than just a little update) on that Friday.

So yeah, that's about it. Not dead, DMS starts again on April 1, sorry it took me so long to wade through the perils of this thing called Life to get back here. If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, or cake recipes, feel free to leave them in the comments or drop by my Discord. I'll leave a link in the post-chapter notes.

See you all in the funny papers!