Dark Fantasy. Science Fiction. Horror. Stories and setting by Sander VanWilligen.https://wordleaves.com/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/dreamreel/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/dreamreel/A one-armed dream-mancer hires a blunt-spoken mercenary to breach a sealed tower whose leaking gas forces a village to relive the deaths of long-dead sorcerers.Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/corplore/mr-sixpounder/https://wordleaves.com/corplore/mr-sixpounder/In a demon-haunted hotel where ancient pacts govern the behavior of monstrous long-term residents, a meticulous concierge must manage a single catastrophic night: an off-schedule revenant, a lobby of insurance demons, and a vanished pact book.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/corplore/orientation-day/https://wordleaves.com/corplore/orientation-day/A self-styled demon of distinction attempts to con his way through a hellish corporate bureaucracy to steal someone's afterlife, only to find that CARCANA MC's labyrinthine onboarding process has other plans, and a long memory.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/maerbrang/https://wordleaves.com/maerbrang/A lone warrior haunted by prophecy threads an ancient forest, a treacherous fen, and a ruin thick with old names, hunting an enemy warlord while fate closes around him with each step.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/25,000-sugar-lumps/https://wordleaves.com/25,000-sugar-lumps/A princess ant leads a splinter colony away from their juice-addicted home to build something better, only to watch her own ideals crumble as the same addictive Ant Juice she once banned slowly consumes her colony.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/barndance/https://wordleaves.com/barndance/Four college friends sneak onto an Iowa State dairy farm on Halloween to kill a cow as a thrill-seeking primalism stunt, but their arrogance soon meets a reckoning they can't hack their way out of.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/beyond-the-flue/https://wordleaves.com/beyond-the-flue/On Christmas Eve, a young girl named Jenny chases her dying hearth fire through a secret tunnel behind the fireplace, discovering a hidden world where all the fires of every household possess names, voices, and stories of their own.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/epicurus-the-mouse/https://wordleaves.com/epicurus-the-mouse/A philosophically-minded magic mouse on a lunar city follows a haunting melody he alone can hear, venturing beyond the dome into the airless moonscape, only to find more than the music at his journey's end.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/fish-on-the-rotisserie/https://wordleaves.com/fish-on-the-rotisserie/A radio operator at a lonely listening post records voice memos to his friend Angie the day he intercepts an alien signal. Consumed by paranoia and a desperate need to be first to share it, he spirals toward a violent confrontation - unaware the message itself may be the weapon.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/keith-lionel-and-turkey/https://wordleaves.com/keith-lionel-and-turkey/A father determined to toughen up his young son pressures the reluctant boy into provoking a sleeping turkey at a petting zoo, setting off a confrontation that forces the dad to confront his own assumptions about courage, childhood, and being a good father.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/lumpy-bumpy/https://wordleaves.com/lumpy-bumpy/A plain-spoken Montana man, the sole composed survivor of a catastrophic plane crash, recounts his harrowing night to investigators - a night that tested the limits of his legendary unflappability, and an ocean haunted by; something.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/message-from-a-chosen-one/https://wordleaves.com/message-from-a-chosen-one/A Chosen One of the galactic empire composes a philosophical letter to comfort a grief-stricken survivor after their beloved home planet is annihilated without warning.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/scotts-dad/https://wordleaves.com/scotts-dad/A young man chosen for an annual sacrifice confronts the god-like AI that governs his city - only to find himself drawn into a conversation that challenges everything he believes about emotion, logic, and the meaning of life.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.csshttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.cssWed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.reacthttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.reactWed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.tshttps://wordleaves.com/sparse-code/sparse.tsWed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/the-taxidermist/https://wordleaves.com/the-taxidermist/On a snowy Christmas Eve, a small-town man is summoned to a remote lodge and discovers something ancient and malevolent has been unleashed.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/the-thankful-skull/https://wordleaves.com/the-thankful-skull/A runaway girl seeks shelter for the night with a strange, buzzing man in a dark forest - but her gracious host may be something far more dangerous than he appears.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/deadmans-pile/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/deadmans-pile/Three grave-robbers, descend into the ancient catacombs beneath Deadman's Pile, hunting a legendary frozen tohmb said to hold the remains of a holy servant of Sang, The Scratcher.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/lake-of-the-lost/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/lake-of-the-lost/A weary necromancer hauling a chained monster and a corpse is ambushed by bridge marauders, and his interrupted spell accidentally raises the lake's dead; now he must decide, should he unleash his chained creation to survive?Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/roundworm-woods/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/roundworm-woods/A bookish new recruit and a violence-loving veteran track a deserter through a plague-blighted wasteland, until they encounter a blighted monster that could end both their lives.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-alsoburg-siege/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-alsoburg-siege/Descending into an underground cavern under siege by wax golems and a maddened mancer called The Crawling Silk, the knight must break through an occupied city to reach the creature controlling the army.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-canopy-of-the-ents/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-canopy-of-the-ents/Driven above the clouds by rising poison mist, the knight and his Lady climb colossal living trees - and descend into the diseased heart of a dying one, where something is wrong with the knight's hands.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-coffin-rollers/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-coffin-rollers/Sheltering from a storm inside a traveling carnival, the knight and his companions discover the circus is a trap - its ringmaster a skin-stitched shapeshifter with no intention of letting them leave.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-court-of-the-leather-dragon/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-court-of-the-leather-dragon/The Lady's stepson is now a warlord on a fortified island. The knight must face him in a final duel - shieldless, bleeding, and carrying a choice about whether he wants to survive it.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-duel/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-duel/A reckless young man begs the knight to train him for a duel in five days, dangling a false lead on the Lady's stepson - but his opponent turns out to be someone the knight already knows.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-funeral-on-the-road-of-graves/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-funeral-on-the-road-of-graves/Fleeing assassins along the Road of Graves, the knight and his Lady shelter with a dying woman whose small kindnesses lead to a grim funeral - and a necromancer who won't let the dead rest.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-ghost-factory/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-ghost-factory/Deep in a gorge beneath Middlemoss, the knight discovers a factory where ghosts are captured, stripped of will, and bottled for sale - and the specter of the Lady's dead daughter is waiting.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-graveside-inn/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-graveside-inn/Locked inside a haunted inn after a guest is murdered, the knight must solve a string of killings among strangers - while an invisible force picks them off one by one.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-harridan-s-moon/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-harridan-s-moon/With his Lady dying from venom on a dark moor, the knight surrenders his sword to a crone who promises a cure - then must track down the walking hut that stole them both.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-house-of-maze/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-house-of-maze/Searching for the Lady's stepson, the knight enters a windowless guild house whose labyrinth of crawlspaces, revolving walls, and rat-swarms is designed to strip intruders of their sanity.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-hypnotist-of-yellowmoor/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-hypnotist-of-yellowmoor/Cursed with worsening nightmares that bleed into waking life, the knight seeks a cure at a manor on the yellow heath - where the healer and the trap are the same person.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-old-soulwood/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-old-soulwood/Separated from his Lady in an ancient forest that swallowed the Road of Graves, the knight must pass a sovereign tree's test of loyalty and fight through its predators to find her again.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-scarab-mine/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-scarab-mine/Hunted through a soul-filled mine by an enemy he cannot look at directly, the knight must fulfill a mancer's bargain and find a relic that can bring the dead back to life.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-sewer-under-khoroduhn/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-sewer-under-khoroduhn/After assassinating a poisoner in a rain-drowned mountain keep, the knight must escape through the city's sewers with a noblewoman and a mercenary, past sentient flotsam and a maddened Silk Giant.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-sisterhood-of-the-yellow-smile/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-sisterhood-of-the-yellow-smile/The knight arrives in Hornwater to find his Lady has voluntarily chosen burial at a sinister priory - and must break his oath to the Road to dig her free from a coffin she asked for.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-soul-sense/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-soul-sense/The knight's body, cracked from too many resurrections, begins to fail - his senses burning away. To survive, he must descend beneath the Road of Graves and claim a sense that isn't his own.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-spit-of-mool/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-spit-of-mool/A resurrected knight descends into the tomb of an ancient creature to retrieve a strange payment, only to find the catacombs alive with mechanical apes, bioluminescent jellyfish, and a sleeping mancer who doesn't stay asleep.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-stone-cocoon/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-stone-cocoon/Caught in a hallucinatory winter storm on a demon king's burial plain, the knight shelters in a cave where his Lady's grief and guilt finally surface - and a daughter's ghost demands to be seen.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-temple-of-lady-horsehair/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-temple-of-lady-horsehair/The Lady agrees to paint her own portrait in a goddess's temple in exchange for news of her stepson - not realizing the painting is draining her soul, and the knight must defy a god to save her.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-three-guests/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-three-guests/Three travelers share stories around a blue-flamed hearth in a cobweb-choked hotel - tales of a mercenary's forbidden love, a dying man's haunted forest, and a widow's revenge on a thing wearing her husband's face.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-tower-of-silence/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-tower-of-silence/When monks abduct the Blue Lady into their oil-black tower, the knight and a mercenary infiltrate through wine-soaked catacombs and blind monks to reach her before the Lidless does.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-tunnel-of-the-stillbreather/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-tunnel-of-the-stillbreather/In a labyrinth of green-glowing ice beneath the mountains, the knight hunts a preserved creature that won't stop breathing - and the Lady finds journal pages bearing a familiar crest.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-walkers-of-whiteeye/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-walkers-of-whiteeye/Crossing a dust-choked wasteland with a band of hardened survivors, the knight faces a twelve-day march haunted by a monstrous dragonfly that hunts by night and sings through the hills.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-weaponmaster/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/the-cck/the-weaponmaster/A figure from the knight's past reappears in Hornwater with a familiar voice and a rebuilt face - but the man who trained him may not be a man at all, and the Lady's stepson is finally within reach.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/wraithcotte/https://wordleaves.com/time-of-dying/wraithcotte/A bound soldier ventures alone through a monster-haunted forest and a crumbling undead estate to retrieve a coveted Silver Ring for his master - risking death, madness, and permanent cursing, and a final choice between loyalty and self.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-1-the-slaying/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-1-the-slaying/A Border Agency guide and a foreign explorer cross paths with a wandering philosopher in the mountain town of Aster-Szem, just as a tense political parade through the streets erupts in violence.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-10-siltstack/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-10-siltstack/Hearn and Ostok break into an abandoned grain processing facility at night, hoping to find evidence of the conspirators, and instead find themselves trapped as fire spreads through the old wooden floors.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-11-the-gorvoid/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-11-the-gorvoid/A volatile foreign diplomat barges into Odden's office with accusations and threats of mobilization, while Odden tries to keep the region from sliding any closer to open war.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-12-confession/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-12-confession/Irenna prepares to leave the city as the muira quarter is corralled, and a long-buried secret from Hearn's past finally comes to the surface in her hearthroom.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-13-the-funeral/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-13-the-funeral/From two embassy verandas, the diplomat Odden and the bountyman Ostok each watch the funeral procession cross the bridge, while Ostok lays out a sharper theory about where the assassin will run next.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-14-footsteps-in-red/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-14-footsteps-in-red/Hearn and Ostok wait in the dark of the cisterns to ambush their suspect, but the night does not unfold the way they planned, and larger forces close in around the city.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-15-the-chimes/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-15-the-chimes/Ambassador Odden burns the Barthan embassy's records as a muira elder arrives with grim news, and across the city, broken bells toll an unintended farewell.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-16-epilogue/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-16-epilogue/Outside the southern gate of Aster-Szem, the bountyman and his guide part ways amid a flood of evacuees, and the road south stretches forward into uncertain country.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-2-odden/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-2-odden/The Barthan ambassador navigates a charged diplomatic meeting as foreign delegates argue over jurisdiction and demand a neutral investigator be appointed to track down those responsible for the previous day's attack.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-3-widow-vabdas/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-3-widow-vabdas/A muira lockbreaker is wrongly accused of housebreaking in the streets of Aster-Szem, then returns home to convince a hesitant friend why he must accept the politically charged assignment he has just refused.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-4-echoes-and-wax/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-4-echoes-and-wax/Beneath the Longclasp Bridge, an old goldneedle dealer is approached by a hooded stranger asking pointed questions and demanding access to a hidden contact who enters the city through the cisterns.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-5-bountyman-agent/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-5-bountyman-agent/A muira investigator and his local guide survey the parade route, interview reluctant witnesses, and visit a chanter's academy as they piece together the methods behind a recent killing in the streets of Szem.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-6-presented-arms/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-6-presented-arms/Hearn and Ostok question a grieving sister at a Teironian noble's manor, where a small slip of formal etiquette pulls one of them into a duel under arbiter rules with a royal cousin.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-7-the-longclasp/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-7-the-longclasp/As muira families burn their possessions in the dry riverbed, two diplomats from opposing sides walk the banks toward the bridge, exchanging careful words about treaties, ultimatums, and what each nation might do next.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-8-call-a-lockbreaker/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-8-call-a-lockbreaker/Following directions to an abandoned hearth in old Szem, Hearn and Ostok hire a lockbreaker to crack the door, then comb the empty house for signs of the conspirators they have been chasing.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-9-kratocles-speaks/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/footsteps-in-red/chapter-9-kratocles-speaks/The Tyrant of Teiron delivers a sharp wartime address to a roiling crowd while a hooded woman threads through the audience, striking up an unsettling conversation with a tradesman beside her.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/abe-no-seimei/https://wordleaves.com/abe-no-seimei/A mythic sorcerer crash-lands on a desert world where a tyrant controls a stranded community's water supply. When the stranger's story-for-water exchange reveals he knows the tyrant's true nature, a brutal fight exposes that the sorcerer himself is something more than human.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/amidst-the-mist-and-dew/https://wordleaves.com/amidst-the-mist-and-dew/A grieving widow spends three sleepless nights guarding her husband's body in a burial mound, sculpting clay surrogates to hold back vampiric mist - until her statues run out, the earth cracks open, and only her own blood can save his soul.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/murphy-ginger-and-the-magic-cupboard/https://wordleaves.com/murphy-ginger-and-the-magic-cupboard/A battle-scarred knight's hard-won victory over demons brings unexpected consequences for his peaceful kingdom, forcing him to confront grief, guilt, and an uncertain future.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/nicholas-sing/https://wordleaves.com/nicholas-sing/A lone cargo hauler drifting through deep space discovers his ship's music falling dangerously silent, leaving him scrambling against time, a faulty AI, and jar of noise.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/number-brain/https://wordleaves.com/number-brain/A playful poem narrator, blessed with an incurable love for numbers and statistics, follows their cheerful obsession down a rabbit hole of fun facts and favourite integers - until the numbers lead somewhere impossible to laugh off.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/queen-of-the-hill/https://wordleaves.com/queen-of-the-hill/In 1911 Germany, an English diplomat's wife and her adventurous teenage daughter are stranded by a broken train in a remote Black Forest village, where a disquieting local woman takes an unsettling interest in the young girl.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/fill-the-dark-with-silence/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/fill-the-dark-with-silence/In a vast underground world of perpetual darkness, a master predator navigates by sound alone - until an organized pack of strange two-legged hunters turns the tables, forcing a brutal battle of wits, instinct, and survival in the echoing stone dark.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/nuclear-elves/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/nuclear-elves/A wretched flesh-eating ghoul haunted by multiple quarrelsome inner voices is driven across a frozen, endless cemetery by a pack of savage, starving dogs - only to find that the most dangerous thing in the lichyard may not be what the dogs have cornered him against.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-sun-wound/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-sun-wound/A veteran father returns to his aged mother in a remote woodland homestead with warnings of approaching war. When catastrophe strikes the sky itself, the two endure a siege of cold, darkness, and dwindling hope - sustained only by love, old customs, and stubborn faith that the sun will heal.Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-1-spinning/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-1-spinning/A lone man rows a flywheel aboard a small shell vessel crawling beneath a frozen glass sky. As his furnace dies and the cold closes in, only discipline and rhythm keep him alive through the long hours of night.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-10-shivering/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-10-shivering/Deep in the glaciers, icicles explode without warning in chain reactions The Man calls Shiverings. When flying ice shatters his spinning room window, he races to seal the breach against air cold enough to kill in seconds.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-11-stuck/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-11-stuck/Frozen solid in the glaciers with no wind and dwindling supplies, The Man exhausts every option to free his shell. As starvation sets in, he and his Phaen companion face the cost of survival in the stillest, coldest place on the sky.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-12-the-heart/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-12-the-heart/Trapped for a season in glacial ice, The Man retreats to the furnace as his world shrinks to a single flame. When the wind finally stirs, he descends to the shell's living heart and gambles everything on one desperate attempt to break free.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-13-second-choice/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-13-second-choice/Emerging from the glaciers starved and wounded, The Man hunts for food, fights through sickness to replace a broken window, and slowly recovers. As health returns, he faces the striation fork again and chooses the unexplored path.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-14-equalized-pressure/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-14-equalized-pressure/The Man spins through a pitch-black storm with renewed strength as the sky disappears beneath dark ice. Inside the overstoked furnace, pressure builds in silence, and a moment's carelessness triggers a violent explosion.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-15-anka/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-15-anka/Deaf and half-blind after the furnace blast, The Man discovers he is not alone in his shell. The sky's most feared predator has entered, and he must cross the dark vessel with one working hand to face it.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-16-the-cold-wind-blew/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-16-the-cold-wind-blew/With his body broken, his fuel nearly gone, and the shell stripped to its bones, The Man pulls at his spinner one last time. Through the mist ahead, something ancient and artificial waits on the glass sky.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-2-to-do/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-2-to-do/Between spinning sessions, The Man works through a punishing checklist of survival tasks: changing clothes, stoking the furnace, braking the shell, and climbing its icy exterior to clear snow and furl the sail before the stars wake.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-3-125-km-approx-dist/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-3-125-km-approx-dist/The Man logs the day's distance and charts his frontier map while a wartime radio broadcast fills his study. He searches old journals for accounts of Anka, a blind predator said to hunt by sound alone on the glass sky.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-4-the-furnace/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-4-the-furnace/A midnight hunt on the shell's roof is cut short when The Man spots smoke through the window. The furnace fire has spread inside, and the race to save his vessel costs him dearly in fuel and food.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-5-leeges-mission-broadcast/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-5-leeges-mission-broadcast/Exhausted and underfed, The Man discovers the striation ahead forks: one branch continues west, the other curves north toward the uncharted seacover. A dramatic ice cascade clears the way, and he makes his choice.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-6-puga/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-6-puga/The worst storm The Man has ever known tears a track from his shell and threatens to snap the rest. He descends into the hold to dump ballast in a desperate bid to keep his vessel on the sky.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-7-seacover/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-7-seacover/The Man wakes after the storm to find himself in the Engi, an uncharted wilderness of inverted glaciers, strange plants, and unfamiliar birds. Urgent repairs and a near-fatal slip from the shell roof test his limits.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-8-the-derelict/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-8-the-derelict/A frozen Leeges frigate blocks the striation ahead. The Man boards the ice-locked vessel and salvages critical supplies, but what he finds in the helm tells a grim story of the sky's deadliest predator.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-9-second-split/https://wordleaves.com/uppercrust/the-glass-sky/chapter-9-second-split/A routine evening turns catastrophic when shifted cargo pitches the shell nose-first into the glass sky. Injured and bleeding, The Man must climb a sixty-degree corridor and rebalance his vessel before the last cable snaps.Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT