Dick
By Ives Benton Eaton
This is the story of a wizard and an unfortunate encounter with a succubus.
Now, aside from the soul-draining aspect of their kisses—or other more intimate “embraces”—most males would regard an encounter with a succubus to be at least interesting, if not good.
Not so for our wizard, who went by the cumbersome name of Erhain Aragard Dystellenol. Erhain was a lore-master in the Magnus Bibliotheca of the Ordo Ars Magica—or, in plain language,

Chains Stronger Than Steel
By Maomix and Ives Benton Eaton
Sometimes you get the dragon, and sometimes the dragon gets you.
—Gerehardt Grenthaler, dragon hunter, several months before a dragon got him
It was a good day for dragon slaying.
A single rider made her way across the ford in the river, then examined the green and gently rolling plains surrounding the low limestone cliff-face exposed by centuries of erosion by that same river. The spring had brought out the characteristic blue cor

Comes the Storm
By SomethingSilly and Ives Benton Eaton
“You may be called upon to lead men and women to face evil—good people who are not battle-hardened warriors, nor brave adventurers, nor powerful in arms or magic. You may call upon them to exhibit bravery beyond your own, since you have martial and divine power beyond their ken. Your ability to do this is at least as important as those powers.”
—​ Kelligan Corman,
Knight-Commander of the Knights of Sacred Just

A Fairly Fair Ferry Fare
By 1ring42 and Ives Benton Eaton
Put not your trust in dragons, for they speak with forked tongues.
—Psenellan proverb
It was time to go.
The half-elves Āelyssa and Altāvion had spent many a month in Spellkeep, that fabled and mighty city of wizards and the center of power for the Ordo Ars Magica, the Order of Magical Art. Āelyssa was there to learn sorcery under her mentor, Hucinseram Nomen; Altāvion was there because he could never, under any circumstances, b

A Study of Dragons
By Ives Benton Eaton
Given that dragons may have been magically constructed in the distant past for the titanic wars whose histories are now but dim echoes, it only makes sense that they would be made as terrible as possible. Such creatures would naturally be made to regard humans as food, for how else could such huge beasts be kept fed in the field but on the bodies of foes?
—Felciti Faranal, loremaster, “A Study of Dragons”
It was the last dawn she’d

Another Fine Mess
By Skitten and Ives Benton Eaton
Hessana wished nature wasn’t so messy.
She had been traveling for weeks from the Heartwood, the mystical center of the Deepwold, now far to the northeast. She liked it there; it would be a rare sierfāen who did not. She certainly liked it better than where she was now.
She had resented being sent on this mission. She didn’t see why she had to be the one to leave the Heartwood. There, nature was—well, orderly. The creatures wer