Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 8
- Stretch Goals: Lord British vs. Darkstarr
- Upcoming Duke and LoM Events
- Star Citizen Vanduul Polearm
- Royal Founders: Recognizing our Original Backers
- Ancestor Tombstone
- Developer Tinkerer Certificate
- Pets at Founder Tier: Option to get all 3?
- Knight’s Lighthouse Animation
- Cubit Measure of Prosperity
- Website Upgrades: Pledge Page & Campaign Statistics Page
- Pantheon Kickstarter Special Cross-Game Cloak
- “Hearts of Britannia” Valentine’s Poetry Competition!
- Only 59 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges
Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 8
The latest installment of the serialized SotA novel, Blade of the Avatar (BotA), written by Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott, is now available for download! If you are an Early Founder, or you purchased BotA in the Add-On Store, then you will find a download link for the current installment of the novel on your personal SotA account page (log into SotA website and click on “Account” in the top-right corner). If you are a Kickstarter backer you’ll need to have your Kickstarter account linked to the SotA website (click here for instructions to link your Kickstarter account).
Here is a brief excerpt of the latest installment (illustration by Denis Loubet):
Chapter 8: Hilt
Evard Dirae, Craftmaster of the Cabal of Obsidians, rode his horse through the last and grandest of the gates of the fortress at Hilt. The challenge which the guards tried to voice at his approach died on their lips, each falling silent at the passage of a sorcerer.
Evard kept his cold, pale green eyes forward as he passed into the upper courts of Hilt. He did not need to look back down over the multiple concourses that formed the fortress. He had taken them all in with mounting anger as he rode up the various switchbacks, passing through each gate with increasing disdain. Now, as he passed through the final gate, he felt entirely too familiar with the grand structure and, so far as he was concerned, the true reasons for its existence were all too evident.
What had once been a small mountain bowl nestled above a steep, stony canyon, was now an unfortunately crowded construction site. A grand tower keep, far more impressive than practical, was nearly complete toward the front of the bowl just behind the still incomplete defensive curtainwall. The five cascades from the surrounding peaks contributed to the deep glacier lake at the back of the bowl. This, in turn, emptied into the swift moving river that plunged through a gap in the curtainwall and down its restricting channel over the concourses below. In every other otherwise reasonably dry spot, buildings of various size and designs were evident in every conceivable state of incompleteness. Some were cleared ground only, whose foundations had barely been laid out. Others had their walls partially completed with stone pillars standing free, either in their intended place or on their side. A very few others appear to be nearly complete, only lacking in a few finishing details such as a roof or doorway. The shod hooves of Evard’s horse rattled against the newly laid cobblestone paths which wound between the structures.
Such a pointless waste, Evard thought. A monumental conceit that served no real purpose…
Read more…
