Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

Cubbins arched his eyebrows, and his mouth tightened into a little line. "Is it, um, the same story you always tell, Ace?"

Ace snapped his head around and glared at the little Hat Magician over one powerful shoulder.

"That's right," he barked. In the stone-walled room, his words rattled the air like the beats of a corporal's snare drum. The squad of elite archers in the corner glanced at him in cowed silence.

"It's the one story I got. The story I gotta live with. My origin story." He crossed his enormous, muscular arms and smiled a narrow-eyed smile. "Only this time, Cubbins, this time, for the first time...it's got a happy ending."

He threw his head back and aimed his words at the ceiling. He wanted the archers to hear this, though he wouldn't give so much as a boot-rag for any three of 'em. "This is the story of Holly Shortcake, Chief Dollamancer of Jetstone."

Cubbins frowned. "How can that story have a happy ending?"

Ace grinned like a bobcat. "Well for her it can't. Hahaha!" He pounded the hardwood table, making some of the implements on it jump. "I meant happy for me. This is a great day!"

"Oh," said Cubbins. He set one of his hats, a silk top conjurer, on the table. He was careful not to let it touch Ace's things.

"I never met her," said Ace, "and it's just as well, 'cause I hate her all the same. And you know why."

He turned his head and scowled at the archers. "You all know anything about Dollamancy?" They stared at him dumbly, or looked at the floor. Some mumbled quiet negatives. "Course not. You don't know. Cubbins here knows, 'cause he's a smart Caster. Right, Cubbins?"

Cubbins cleared his throat. "There are different applications of Dollamancy," he told the men, his tone reserved and apologetic. "Lady Shortcake was fond of fashioning cloth golems. She was very imaginative."

"Precious, puffy-looking animals," sneered Ace. "The hit of the parade. And when she wasn't doing that, she was always designing new raiment for the changing fashions at court! So of course, all the Courtiers loved her. N'you know what I think of Courtiers, right?"

Cubbins forced a tight little smile. "Yeah, Ace."

"Yeah, you do," said Ace. He pointed a finger to the air. "And so do they! Anyway. She made lots of these adorable lumbering cloth creatures, most of which I guess were okay in battle, too. But she didn't really give a crap about stomping the enemy flat! She worked plush! And glass!"

Ace's jaw set sternly for a moment, and he looked around the room. "Look, there's a lot you can do in Dollamancy. It's fabrication with a motion element, right? If we want. But that's way over your heads, ain't it?"

The archers stared.

"I'm just saying, it doesn't have to be all raiment and animal golems. It can get really good!" He punctuated this by punching his open palm. "You got all kinds of Stuff you can do. I do plush, but I don't like it. I don't like dolls, either. That pervert they got in Transylvito...eesh. That ain't me, all right?"

Ace stared into the distance for a moment. Then a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he snapped his head around. One of the archers had a hand half-raised.

"What?"

"Um, sorry Lord. What happened to Lady Shortcake?" said the man. A couple of his comrades looked at him askance.

"Oh right, the story. Eh, you don't need the long version," said Ace. "Basically, she went out on a mission to deliver some Battle Bears. They went into the woods, but they were in for a big surprise. Ambush. Not even her disguise saved her."

The archer looked saddened, but said nothing.

"Apparently all of Jetstone mourned her, though. They had a parade, the works, et cetera. King Slately was at a loss for what to do without a Dollamancer. They were all set to rewrite the side's whole strategy. When bam! I popped in Dhrystone."

Ace stood up and resumed pacing the room. "Dollamancy is Fate magic, so I know something about that. Jetstone must've been fated to have a Dollamancer. But I ain't like that broad they had before!" He stalked over to the archer who had asked the question and pointed at him. "You! What's my title?"

The archer swallowed. "Lord Hardware."

"That's right!" barked the Dollamancer. "And that's what I was popped for! Not golems, not dolls, not scarecrows. Action figures! And not raiment. Accessories! Hardware!"

His fists were clenched at his side. His rippling back muscles tightened, making the enormous multi-bow accessory he kept harnessed there rise up a few inches. His voice became quietly harder.

"But they didn't see it that way."

He turned and walked back to the table. "I've served under four Chief Warlords now. The first two had me making Cloth Golems and Tchotchkes under Holly Shortcake's designs, and the rest of my juice goes for raiment. Only Ossomer let me spend any real effort on what I was meant to do. And then only accessories! I made him that bracer blaster, with force beam action, that really lights up! And he loved it! He was gonna let me do more of that stuff, but the war hasn't been going so great..."

Ace looked up and seemed to notice Cubbins for the first time. His shoulders slumped and his fists unclenched. "That's where you've helped me out, buddy."

Cubbins smiled a little, and Ace turned back toward the archers. He pointed at the Hat Magician. "This guy... I woulda gone crazy without my friend Cubbins here. You know that? Cause he saw I was hurtin'. He could see it. And one turn he said to me, 'you know, I can do some small object conjuration for you. You just have to tell me what you need.'"

Ace gestured at the wooden table, full of hooks, rope, looking glasses, backpacks, chains, horseshoes, bows, missiles, and odd parts. "Almost everything you see here, Cubbins helped me put together in our spare time. Some of it's unfinished junk, but most of it works and you can take it into battle. Which today, this turn...we're finally gonna do. This is a great day! A great day!"

He slapped the table with an open palm, then turned to pace again.

"We're gonna show Prince Tramennis how useful the right kind of Dollamancy can be. Let's make him an accessory special to this fight." He suddenly ran up to Cubbins eagerly. "Whaddya say! You wanna?"

Cubbins shrugged. "We haven't been ordered..."

"Come on," begged the Dollamancer. "For me, Cubbins. I need this fight! It's a lock we'll win it. But this is my one chance to be in a battle with the new Chief Warlord."

"Ehhh..." Cubbins tilted his head dubiously.

"C'mon, pal! It's how I can get my happy ending. I gotta show him just how helpful Ace Hardware can be!"

Cubbins smiled slightly, and nodded even more slightly.

"Okay, Ace. What do you need?"

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

We're releasing this as daily updates for the 24 days leading up to Intervention, where we will release the physical book and have all three creators on hand to sign it. If you can possibly make it to Intervention, please come! There will be an Erfworld suite party, and the guest lineup is huge for webcomics and all kinds of other things.

I decided to use an experimental donation-supported model for Duel. At this point, the experiment isn't looking very successful. We're nowhere near recovering my costs, though I am very grateful for everyone who has donated so far. I was really hoping this would work as a means of funding side projects. I had visions of pairing other well-known authors with accomplished illustrators and writing the scripts and publishing the books. I am not ready to write that off as doomed, but I am pretty sure it won't be a blockbuster breakthrough in webcomics business models now.

I would really like to recover my costs at some point. So to spark some more tips, I'd like to announce that the next 75 people who donate enough to receive the book will get it signed by all three creators. (Everyone who is getting a book so far will also get it signed.) I'll change this message when we have hit that mark. [EDIT: We have hit the mark, thanks everyone. Still a long way to go to recover costs, though.]

And remember that the biggest single donor between now and September 30 will also receive the one-of-a-kind misprint proof copy, also signed.

Regardless of whether you have kicked in, I really hope you're enjoying the comic. We worked pretty hard on it and I am proud of the results. Thanks.

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

Mounted upon the flying carpet, Ossomer fretted and floated aimlessly within the Foolamancy baffle, unconvinced it offered them any significant protection. When the enemy opened up, they could afford to miss most of their shots. Especially with a Dittomancer at hand.

In the fog, his view of the city was thoroughly obscured. Even members of his own stack were difficult to make out. Lady Sylvia loomed close by, and was easily recognized. But could he not feel the palpable pull of the Arkenpliers, he would not even be certain which of the two dwagons to his left carried his ...Commander, he supposed. If such was her desired title.

She had yet to seek his counsel. Had he not been Prince of this city?

"Commander" Wanda had, in fact, seemed fully satisfied at Stanley's strange appointment of a garrisoned Level 2 to Chief Warlord. A Lord...Hamster? Far from considering this move preposterous, she acted almost as if it settled their predicament entirely, and no battle planning was needed. And the Foolamancer concurred!

Casters.

Ossomer sighed. "This is not the sort of procedure to which I am accustomed," he said aloud. He spoke to the air, but knew that Lady Sylvia was the only one within his earshot.

For a long moment, she did not reply. He turned and looked at her. She was staring ahead, fixated on a blank point in foggy space.

Another long moment passed, and she turned her head to meet his eyes.

"Adapt," she told him. She held his gaze.

The leather saddle beneath him scrunched as he straightened his posture. He was somewhat offended by the bluntness of the reply, but had to admit it had merit. He had not long been a part of this side, and supposed he would require some time to adjust to its customs. He also supposed he hadn't much time left to do so.

"Help me," he said. "Help me to do so."

She nodded, her eyes distant. "What do you need?"

"This new Chief Warlord, he is only Level 2," he said. "How can he--"

"He is Level 20," said Sylvia. "He is Level Thousand. He is Level Million. It does not matter."

Ossomer lowered his brow and said nothing.

"He is of Fate," said Sylvia. "Lady Firebaugh has said as much, and I have seen as much. I have held the Arkenpliers, did you know? Have you?"

Ossomer nodded solemnly. "I have. Each Prince of Jetstone held them at least once, in hopes of attunement."

For the first time, Sylvia smiled. It was only the barest tightening of the lips, but it made her seem present in a way she normally did not.

"Do you remember the sense of the divine? Did you feel that your hands were in contact with something greater than the world?" she asked. She turned her head and looked into the featureless distance. "The Arkentools were used to build the world. I wielded the Arkenpliers, and had the feeling that they could build more worlds than only this one. Their power was primal, undeniable, and very strange."

Ossomer thought back to the sole moment that the Arkenpliers had been handed to him, in a small ceremony in the presence of three of his brothers and King Slately. Ansom had placed them in his palm.

He had stood, felt their heft. He resized them slightly. He struck an en garde, swung them through the air. Guards brought in a Twoll prisoner, and he deftly executed it with a mighty blow, to polite applause. Then they brought him an Uncroaked prisoner and he did the same, turning the skeletal form to gritty dust.

At no time had he felt what Lady Sylvia described. At most, there was a warmth to them. But he merely found them an awkward and inelegant melee weapon. He was happy to return them to Ansom, who seemed worried and protective. For this, he now felt somehow ashamed.

"I suppose..." he said noncommittally.

"But then, the mountain shook. I thought it was more traps, but the walls all fell and the ground cracked, and the city exploded. I stood there in the ashen rain and met my Fate. I croaked that turn, burned alive by the very ground I stood upon." Her smile broadened now, and seemed eerily at odds with the story she was relating. "But as it was happening, I felt something else, Warlord."

Sylvia pulled her armored shoulders in toward her body, smiling like she had been given a warm blanket on a cold night. "I felt another power. Not greater, but closer. More active. More alive. And just as alien. I never knew what it could have been, but my Lady Wanda was kind enough to explain it. Do you know what that power was, Warlord?"

Not for the first time today, Ossomer was lost. "I do not."

She smiled and closed her eyes. "It was Lord Hamster with an idea."

"I...see," said Ossomer, dubiously.

"You will," said Sylvia, snapping her head toward him suddenly. "This city will yet burn." Her eyes drifted away to a point in the sky. "I rather hope he will burn down the whole world."

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

"A Duel in the Somme," the 24-page stand-alone comic that I co-wrote with Ben Bova (illustrated by Bill Holbrook), will begin daily updates right here (and at its own site) on August 18th. It is completely done and to the printer. It was a lot of work. More about that when it goes live.

The pre-orders for Issue 1 of Book 2 have required doing a lot more work over than I expected. That work is ongoing, and I think the physical books will ship by the end of September at this point. Thanks for your pre-orders and your patience.

Erfworld Book 1 is still a monster amount of reworking. We are relettering the entire thing so from my end it's been like doing 3 years of work over. It was delayed for 6 months with a publisher who said we wouldn't have to reletter, then that fell through. Those, I guarantee we will have in time for Christmas gifts.

I can't guarantee when updates will get faster, but I make you this promise: the best part of this story is yet to come. I am not lost, I am not blocked (except a sort of stage-fright kind of block where I am not convinced what I am writing is good enough). You've all been really patient and supportive and I will need more patience, but I really appreciate how everyone's been. Hang with us, it'll keep rolling in one gear or another. Thanks, everyone.

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

The megalogwiff could shift a prisoner around within its huge gummy body. It might do this of its own will, or at the order of its rider. Jillian chose to fly on for a while with Ansom’s reddening head poking out from the underbelly of her enormous mount. If he had anything further to declare from down there, it would be mercifully muffled.

It failed as much of a punishment, though. Immediately after that, the stack passed through three hexes of rain showers. Ansom was dangling below, but he was dry. The group hunkered in their saddle-perches. Duncan read her look, and knew to fly close and shut up. The formation stayed tight.

Eventually, they flew out from under the clouds and entered a sunny hex. Clear of enemy units. Jillian sighed through her nose.

What was she doing? Receding away at her back was the battle she had come so far to fight. And at such a huge risk! But...

Was that really the battle she had come to fight? She felt like she had already fought her part of it.

And she won, right? She walked away from Wanda. And she took Ansom back from her. That was the right move. It was.

Disband it, it was!

So what if he didn’t feel “rescued?” And he was loyal to Wanda. So what? She knew that. So flippin’ what! It didn’t mean he was a mindless drone, like Jetstone always claimed. Ansom was no Uncroaked. She could tell. He was still Ansom. He still had his mind.

And if that mind was under Wanda’s power, then he could be forgiven. He should be pitied, in fact. She had been there herself, many times. Wanda was a force.

Yeah, well. So was Queen Jillian of Faq. She stomped her mount’s rubbery armor plate. “Get him up here!”

There was a bit of yaw in their flight as the mount shimmied Ansom’s body around the side. His stoic, unamused face rotated around toward her, as he was squeezed and kneaded up over the beast’s yellow horizon. His head was all that protruded from the megalogwiff’s body, and the beast slid it up and under an armor plate in front of her perch.

The Prince (ex-Prince?) stared up at her. His jaw and lower lip were set like the prow of a galleon. His stubborn blue eyes held her gaze. Disband him for still being so handsome, anyway.

“I want to tell you something,” she said. The wind in her face was stern and chilly, and she matched her tone to it. “You had a price on your head. You know that?”

“Of course I had,” said Ansom. “Is there a kingdom which doesn’t stand against us?”

She shook her head. “Not a kingdom. Charlie,” said Jillian. “The price on your head was probably a kingdom, though.”

Ansom scowled. “I don’t understand.”

She told him about Sammy, and what her exchange with him had meant, just before Ansom felled him. “I didn’t come here to dust you. And I didn’t intend to let it happen, if I could help it. Charlie...I guess had other ideas. But he doesn’t usually like to get directly involved in fights unless someone hires him. So I’m trying to figure out what he did to Haggar to lean on them, and why.”

Pinned in the gummy niche below the armor plating, Ansom’s head made a weak side-to-side motion. “I cannot imagine.”

“I can,” said Jillian. “And if it’s what I think, then I don’t know if I can keep doing any kind of business with him.” She glanced over at Vanna, riding the megalo to her right. She couldn’t afford to keep a caster on her own right now, but she would still need Vanna around to work on turning Ansom. She really couldn’t break ties with Charlie, not while he was footing the bill for her. Maybe after she sacked some of Stanley’s cities she would have some leeway. But then, she’d also have a Royal heir’s upkeep soon. A daughter or son...

“What do you think he was doing?” Ansom looked no less rigid, but he seemed curious now.

“He’s a Thinkamancer, right? Kind of? I guess.” Jillian bit her lip. There were things you knew you shouldn’t say, even as you felt the words coming out of your mouth. “I don’t know what he is. But he does Thinkamancy. And I think he was trying to...remove a distraction. From me.”

Ansom looked at her without any indication he followed her line of thought.

She cleared her throat. “Natural Thinkamancy,” she said. He made another vain attempt to shake his head, the goo of the megalo’s body tugged at his ears.

Jillian rolled her eyes. “Love, you idiot.”

“Oh,” said Ansom.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” she snapped. “He reads minds, and he’s a weasel. I wouldn’t put it past him. ...What?”

Ansom’s brow was wrinkled. He looked at her almost sadly.

“I was that much-- I was that severe a tactical distraction?”

Jillian looked at him for a long moment, not knowing what to say.

“Here we are, aren’t we?” she said at last.

He had no reply. She looked out at the distant hills and took in a deep breath of cold, clean air. She let it out slowly, through puffed cheeks. “You need to go below again. I’m gonna call Charlie.”

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!

BTW, Jamie Noguchi designed their new logo:

Rob's comic project A Duel in the Somme is updating daily until Intervention. Read it from the beginning!