As promised, I’ve begun my daily writing exercise for the month of October, with an adventure following the four characters I’ve introduced over the past few days:
Now, I’m primarily going to be doing this over on my Patreon, but in hopes of getting at least some more eyes on Patreon, I will at least be posting excerpts.
For example, this one:
© 2025 Joel Balkovec
Part One: The House of the Venom-Dripping Fang.
“This is the worst place in the world,” L’rea mutters, her feet sinking into the mire beneath, then struggling free with a wet squelch, only to sink again with the next step, her boots almost coming free of her feet as the swamp refuses to surrender them willingly.
“Aye,” Arslan says from the head of their little column. He laughs bitterly. “In my homeland, I was a prince. And now…”
He wordlessly gestures, sweeping his sword across the miles and miles of trackless swamp.
Wrenching her foot free, L’rea pulls too hard and feels herself going off-kilter. She totters, pitches forward and gasps in horror as the swamp comes rushing up to meet her.
She clamps her eyes shut and only just remembers to clamp her mouth shut, too. And suddenly…
… She stops falling.
She feels a hand catch her arm. Glancing back, she sees Ithirian holding her steady.
“T-thanks,” she murmurs.
The archer inclines his head and the corners of his mouth raise in that easy smile of his.
“We must be on the right track,” Genevieve notes, bubbly as the vapours of the swamp. “Who would want to live here but a Serpent Cult?”
That cult, The House of the Venom-Dripping Fang, has slithered into the domain of Mariburg. The farmers outside the city warn of strange lights and sounds coming from the swamp in the dead of night. Dead men with blue lips, black veins, and faces wracked by agony turn up in dark alleys. The temples of Mariburg are defaced with scrawled images of a snake coiling upon itself, with a darting tongue, flashing eyes – and the namesake of the cult: bared fangs and drops of venom.
You can read the full scene on Patreon here, and find every scene collected together here. Please consider subscribing to one of my paid tiers, because after the first week or so, the new scenes will be exclusive to paid subscribers.
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