Archives

A New World

Mar19

Kael was one of the most-know potion-masters of her time.  Too well known; she spent far too long dealing with would-be heroes and others who didn’t really need her help.  So she brewed up a potion to put her outside of the world for a while.

It would prove to be one of a very few potions on which she made a mistake.

All The Stories

The World

Kael’s Tower – a Patreon perk Map

A New World 28: Dangers of Distraction

Oct4

⚗

Kael made her way carefully back towards her Tower.  She had imbibed more than she’d intended to, and the world was even more different than it had seemed upon waking.  Louder, for one.

She had Gemma’s “number.”  She was pretty sure that she could figure out what to do with it, but she was also fairly sure that she would end up back at the museum where Gemma worked, trying to figure out the mysteries that made no sense.

Where was Joaon? He had to know what was going on.  Where had the potions go? Where were all the potion-masters, all the knowledge that she had so carefully studied and documented?   Where was everything she had worked so hard for?

Had she abandoned the world and left it without knowledge?  It couldn’t be – she tripped over a bar that seemed to be put in the middle of the sidewalk just to annoy her and caught herself with a curse word that was definitely no longer in the local tongue. Continue reading →

A New World 27: Burning Books

Oct2

⚗

After a moment, Kael realized that Gemma was staring at her.  She cleared her throat and, when that didn’t stop the staring, took a long sip of her drink.

“You know….” Gemma said slowly.  “The first thing you said to me started with idiots.  But I don’t see how making a plant extinct is a good idea.  And ah -” If she had been irked about the bar, she was trying not to be angry now.  “Is that how you see everything? Beautiful painting, oh, look, a potion ingredient. Lovely landscape, look for potion ingredients”

“Pretty girl,” Kael offered dryly, “either talk too much about potion ingredients, take her looking for potion ingredients, or think about the forbidden potions where a lock of her hair would be the final touch.”

“There aren’t- those are fairy tales, aren’t they?  Drop of blood, lock of hair, that sort of thing?” Continue reading →

A New World 26: Differences

Aug20

⚗

“Tomorrow night.”  Gemma had agreed to that much.  “Tomorrow, if you come by the museum after yours closes, I will take you to Jamhaier.  I don’t know why you want to go to that place, but I will take you.”

“Thank you.”  Kael wasn’t sure she needed a guide, per se, but she knew that she enjoyed Gemma’s company and that this city had far more to navigate than just the roads and other such things a map would show.

Like these very confusing relations between the Hoija and the others, and the way that almost nobody knew about any other nations.

Had the Hoija – who had not exactly been warlike, back in her time – wiped the rest of them out?  Or taken them all over and given them all their name? Continue reading →

A New World 25: Jamhaier

Aug10

⚗

The bar was not all that different from pubs and taverns that Kael remembered.  There was louder music, yes, the lights were different, but the drinks were much the same – just more variety.  She bowed to Gemma’s expertise for the first drink and got a wink and a decidedly flirtatious smile in return.

“Are you encouraging me to get you drunk, Madam Kaelingrade?”

“As a matter of fact, I might enjoy that,” Kael agreed.  “But I’d have to hope that you have better than an apprentice’s garret to take me back to, since that’s all that they give one for ‘room and board’.  Well at least for the room portion.  The board is quite nice.”

“Did she call you – did she call you Madam Kaelingrade?”  The bartender, a handsome man who was a little younger than Kael’s apparent age, looked surprised.  “Is there a new Kael in the tower, then? You look…” He studied her for a moment. “You look genuine.” Continue reading →

A New World 24: Mistress and Apprentice

Jul25

First: A New World
Previous: Idiots

⚗

“Perhaps I will teach you.”

Was she looking for an apprentice?  Or for – well. Certainly she hadn’t been at a lack for invitations since she woke up.  Of course, she had spoken to more people who did not work for her in the last day than she had in many months, perhaps many years, in the time before her long nap.

“I might enjoy you teaching me.”  Gemma smiled at her with an expression that might have been interested in learning – or in other things.  “You have a fascinating way of looking at the world. What is it that you do, that isn’t pretending to be an ancient potions-mistress?”

“Well, mostly, I am a modern potions-mistress,” Kael admitted.  “It helps to have someone in the Tower, I suppose, that knows what sort of potions will actually work, which won’t do anything, and which could be fatal if handled incorrectly.”

“It certainly has to add verisimilitude.   But there have to be other things you could be doing – working for one of the big corporations…” Continue reading →

A New World 22: Out

Jun22

First: A New World
Previous: Preparations

⚗

Kael slid herself into the bustle of people with the strange feeling that no time at all had passed. True, when she had been – when this had been her land, say that – she had needed to put a little more work into a disguise.  True, the clothing was stranger now, the faces had a wider variety of shapes, the hair colors and skin colors were more varied. True, the buildings – other than her Tower – were taller, and there seemed to be far more of them than there had been around her Tower before she went to sleep.

But the people bustled around and talked in much the same ways.  They were worried about children, and partners, and money, and food.  What to wear and where to get it, all of the things that had been common a thousand years before. Continue reading →

A New World 21: Preparations

Jun12

First: A New World
Previous: Drinks

⚗

Kael let Mr. Vibius show her where “her quarters” was after the meal.  He gave her a key that she wouldn’t (she hoped) need, told her a bit about the area, and then left to close down the museum.

She looked around “her quarters.”  Someone had taken some effort to do what she presumed was modernizing on the rooms, including a bed that looked wider than she remembered and thus a little tight for the space, but it was – or it had been – Joaon’s sleeping quarters.

They had not been his first.  She had built the room for a woman named Glerine, but she had, after five years of serving Kael, run off with a fur-trader who presumably had a more interesting life than a woman cloistered high in a potions tower. Continue reading →

First 2/3 of May on Patreon

May29

Posts marked * are free for all to read. 

Stories
Lost Niece – Lilac woke up in the middle of the night with a strange feeling of loss and, at the same time, like something had just made her stronger.
The Expectant Wood Chapter 23 — A Lesson in Plants – She nibbled on the nutmeat, finding it as described. “You really are quite good at plants.”
Run – a trunk story – “Run.” Sona grabbed Ree’s hand and, matching actions to words, began running. 

Reposts
Two Concurrent Stories of Zenobia *
Family Magic Revealed  * Demifiction written in the Aunt Family by  dialecticdreamer, back in 2014.
Kingmaker Cake *

Map: Kael’s Tower

Misc. And Meta
Mer-May and Tarot *
The Aunt Family House & Victorian Awesomeness *
Aunt Family Tree-in-Progress *

Bonus
With a Cage * It started with a cage, the way such things do. It was a very nice cage, as such things go…

A New World 20: Drinks

May24

First: A New World
Previous: The Hoija

⚗

Kael didn’t need the potion to tell her what he was asking; what she did need was some way to tell her if she wanted to agree to his proposition.

“Maybe not tonight?” she offered, hoping that would go over as she meant it.

From the rueful look on his face, probably not.

“I just moved in here,” she tried.  “And I don’t even know where everything is yet.  In a week – next Yorday? – I’ll have drinks to offer you that aren’t potion reagents.” Continue reading →