Hey, remember this story? Hopefully, all of you who read the first two books and followed the story are seeing this update. If you discovered this story later, then you didn’t have to wait the months that everyone else did. Sorry about that. I got distracted.

However, this isn’t exactly a post to let you know that Book 3 is coming; well, it is, but not quite yet. Instead, I had this crazy idea to write four short stories between books 2 and 3. There is a lot going on in book 3, with several storylines, character arcs, and magical transformations all tying together by the end. These short stories explain much of the background for book 3 and writing them helped me nail down character motivation and explore the Realm of Infamy a bit more.

I also wanted to explore the ideas of things like: How do other players play the game? How do NPCs operate in the game when they are on their own? What does a normal module look like? These stories do that . . . I hope. None of them have Jace in them, but they deal with other characters that you have already met, like all of Jace’s companions and several other PCs.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The stories are about 8-12 chapters in length (I’ve written two of them at this point), and I plan to finish each story completely before posting it, so once I start posting a new one, there will be little to no delay in getting the whole thing. After that, I will move on to Book 3, and I hope to finish it before the end of the year.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments.

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The first story actually takes place during Book 2. At the end of Chapter 29, Jace splits the group. He, Draya, and Psycho leave to go learn about Draya’s past and about the layout of Stormhold, while Esther and Gromphy are sent on a mission to place a powerful curse on Draya’s new dress. I only hint at what took place during that mission since I followed Jace and Draya. The only important thing for book 2 is that they successfully cursed the dress. The rest of what happened is more about Esther and foreshadowing for Book 3.

Including it in Book 2 would have ruined the book's flow and distracted the reader too much from the main plot line. By taking this mission out, I am able to expand it and focus on the things I want. Also, I love writing scenes where Esther and Gromphy argue. Hopefully, you enjoy reading them.