When magic is just another extraction industry, an average joe with student loans can't afford to have principles.Pherul Baker is a standard-issue lab technician at a corporation that harvests mana. The fact that he works with faerie-people is a secret from the public, but he's had years to grow accustomed to them. When one turns up dead, it throws life at the isolated dig site into disarray: the humans didn't know these beings were mortal, and it might have been f...

A group of roommates has been called upon to save their city, but forget the fact that they don't know how. These people have jobs, and those dishes won't do themselves.Several thousand years ago, the first people on the continent disappeared to an individual. The humans, elves, and sebus who moved in since found something better than treasure in the ruins: a language that can make objects obey, their nature change. They call this power wizardry.Jendaiar Ph...

No one but a mage can kill a mage, according to the saying. And now they're vanishing.From the ashes of a terrible war rose a system that elevated peace and trade. Its enforcers: mages, possessed of uncanny martial skills and the ability to change the world around them just by thinking. Their centuries-long lives, they devote to others and not themselves.Somewhere under these ideals, though, a canker grows. Two bodies of mages have gone missing, and no one ...

30 years ago, a stranger sat down to have a drink at a small-town inn…When 2 townsfolk are maimed by unknown means trying to help the drunken stranger up to bed, the Holy Sanctuary's crack detectives get called in. Their suspect is happy to explain; he blames a high-court faerie prince, and he's keen to tell them how they became friends. No one else has seen the faerie, but he pulls off tricks human wizards can't. Either the faerie is real, their suspect is the gre...

Civilization may go up in flames if a group of people who hate each other can't learn to be friends.The 3,000-year-old Barrachite Empire is in decline. A vestigial aristocracy worries about debt while the emperor bends knee to trade cartels. Modern Barracheh is still the mightiest civilization in the area, but they no longer birth conquerors or visionaries. No one is building monuments anymore like the massive pyramids near every older city.Sathriel has traveled Barracheh f...

Last week, he didn't know he had a family. Now he's trying to save the world from them.Maru was raised in isolation in a monastery, convinced he was a foundling. Then a glamorous foreign magician appears. He claims to be an emissary of Maru's father, none other than the Premier, who has sent this trusted intimate to fetch his secret son home to the capital. A more cynical person might wonder if there's a catch, and a more cynical person would be correct: the Premie...

He thought this mission was a joke at his expense, and now he's got the fate of the region in his hands.Liath-Tamren is the largest urban center in a land around an inner sea that was all once claimed by an empire. The Cities reflect the diversity and trade that flow across the Halu, enriched by numerous immigrant enclaves and temples to foreign gods. Not all of its citizens find that pleasing, and there's no people more misunderstood than the Malisaat, with their ...

In the elven world, it's not unheard of that the Chosen One may also be the villain. Vykollo men yedeva, they call it: Nemesis.It's been two hundred years since humans got tired of sharing the world with their elven neighbors, beings longer-lived and magical in ways they weren't. They waged war - and lost - and now live in nameless towns built up around the walls of the great elven cities. Within the walls, traumatized elves who lived through the war and remember i...

The difference between justice and revenge may come down to having a friend.The Tabbaqeran Empire is defended by the Scolate, governed by the Illiumate, guided by the Hakam; its people worship a thousand-thousand gods. But there are none more revered than the masters of martial arts who serve as living cages to the Archetypes of War, primal spirits created by Chaos before the dawn of time to destroy the mortal world.A complex class system holds Qanath back from her chosen c...

Civilization may go up in flames if a group of people who hate each other can't learn to be friends.The 3,000-year-old Barrachite Empire is in decline. A vestigial aristocracy worries about debt while the emperor bends the knee to trade cartels. Modern Barracheh is still the mightiest civilization in the area, but they no longer birth conquerors or visionaries. No one is building monuments anymore like the massive pyramids near every older city.Sathriel has...

Alia and her friends got what they came for, but Zaeldroug is under siege and their plan didn't stretch past the Mage-Killer. They know there's a traitor in their ranks, so going back to the Complex is a gamble. That all the war and death is the doing of one of them is the only thing they know, including what the little bottle of mysterious liquid does.At the Complex, Dyafer's plan to unite Congress bears fruit, and she's able to send mages to investigate Pathmelon and New Towtiel....

Alia has come home in search of answers. What she gets in place of information is new obligations. Allies who complicate her difficult situation. Shisum finds himself in a leadership position, raised on high by the society he's trying to rebel against. The Complex disintegrates while Dyafer and Mairid circle each other watchfully.Boden has reached a point where he ought to be able to stop and catch his breath, but life isn't willing to oblige him. Mages still loyal to the Code will...