These woods were grown to disarm you
Fayn Builder’s Codex
Monitor: Prefect Marce
Entry One
This one really is my own. Two tanned hide covers, coarse thread binding through the spine in a spider knot pattern, calfskin vellum pages, all blank. No precepts. Nothing. My own private codex.
Ten years of having every word I wrote or spoke examined by a precept, every deviation from the ideal corrected by a scholar. And they send me off to my first work with a blank book.
I don’t know if

[Transcription of last transmission from lens room before failure.]
Arcane science. Dark age pulp.
Okay, I’ve got it.
Look at that. We work so well together.
Now’s not the time for congratulations. I’m about to commit the single greatest act of hubris in mankind’s history. You’re complicit. Let’s show some gravitas.
Oh, but isn’t it exciting? We might be the first people in the world to really and truly TALK to something else. Not a human from another cu

I said you've given me less than you know I can handle
So the witch on the hill lit a single black candle
Keziah was a small stop between Danvers and Andover, along the brim of Harold Parker State Forest. It had the look of a 90s small town; shops on the edge of going out of business but not quite there yet; local eateries that looked ready to give up to chains but still holding on; a tiny school that looked like it would brag about having computers. What Keziah didn’t have was any of the

Cleavers up, bring ‘em here
Midway through her journey, Serenia found herself lost within a gloomy forest. A wild and unseasonal cold had swept in, and snow covered the path, causing her to lose the way in the midst of the thick trees. With diminishing supplies and hope, Serenia bundled her cloak about herself and stumbled her way through the woods, hoping against hope to find a break in the trees, a sign of the road, anything that would lead her back to the right way and the path.
She w

The Umbra Family controlled most of the West Side, which was the high class, wealthy parts of town. All of the businesses past the river had some connection to the Family, and those that didn’t either operated online and anonymously… or didn’t stay in business long.
Francis Dalton, Aesop among the Family, was an ideal example of an Umbra Family member. The young man was tall and statuesque, with a slender, toned figure and graceful, ageless face beneath a golden fall of blon

It was somewhere between Plantagenet Street and Wilde that the cocaine came out. Margie Rouse had been back in town three days, but she hadn’t taken a hit in that time. Nothing but the wine and bourbon in her family’s collection and the last of the pot she brought back from Seattle. As Catherine Tanner, who was driving, rolled up the windows, Casey, who had the stash, brought out a mirror and started talking about her boyfriend in Vermont.
“He’s always wanting to jerk of

Corvia took in the majestic, sweeping architecture of Cumu Castle as she was led inside by the castle’s steward, Sir Veigar. The old soldier moved a bit too slow for Corvia’s taste, but she couldn’t complain as his wobbling gait gave her ample time to take in the impressive stone work of the high walls, spiralling towers, and dizzying domes of the castle.
Corvia was a young knight and had not spent much time among castles and the grandeur of the royalty. Most of her training h

“‘Perhaps you need to take a break.’ I do not need to take a break. I’m a grown woman, and I’m perfectly capable of handling myself. Rotten busy body.”
Standing in front of her closet, Miranda mumbled to herself complaints directed with the soft, semi-friendly vitriol of her nature towards the Vice Provost of the college. After years of badgering from the badger that she should “be careful of overwork” and “enjoy some of the time she’s