February 14th, 2024 Update!
Hey all, I'm gonna be trying to do this weekly now. So, quick update on things, first and foremost the book as that's what most of you come here for! I am 11k words in and about a little halfway done with the path that lets you participate in the next part with Lance and Alvarez. There is going to be quite a bit of variation in how a PC can choose to approach this scene; those Combat Stats exist for a reason!
As for things going on with Patreon, I have decided on a schedule!
Patreon content will release on Tuesdays and Thursdays!
I am going to attempt to stick to that schedule as consistently as possible, and I'm off to a good start on that! Part 1 of The Bureau Audiobook went up today and part 2 is going up on Thursday. Not to mention the small short story introducing the character Buck Marcellis went up last Thursday! The story is around 2.5k words long, if I remember correctly. An extra little thing going up today as well is the Poll to see what Interactive Fiction I will be reading as an audiobook next. That's right:
You will get to pick the next audiobook reading!
I've gotten a bunch of different author's consent to make audiobooks of their work, so anyone who is a subscriber to the Patreon, you will have a direct say in what Audiobook goes up alongside the one for The Bureau! Options include things like:
Kingdoms and Empires
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - An affair of the heart
When Life Gives You Lemons
Honor Amongst Thieves
The Operative: Fires of Revolution
Defiled Hearts: The Barbarian
Along with a couple of others that are on the list for possibilities!
Over the next few months, I will be more active for sure, and you can expect the update for The Bureau to come out before the end of March (I hope). Thank you all so much for sticking with me, and I hope to see you over on the Patreon, which, thanks to hyperlinks, you can conveniently find
RIGHT HERE! <-
The Forum Page for "The Bureau"
The demo for the game itself!
Thank you all so much for reading this update and for sticking with me and continuing to do so for the future! You are all awesome! Also big shoutouts to @when-life-gives-you-lemonssss, @kingdoms-and-empires, @theoperativeif, @leoneliterary, @doriana-gray-games, @defiledheartsblog for giving me permission to read their work on my silly little attempt at Patreon content; you guys are awesome!
Stay Brilliant,
-Vi
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OC Kiss Week - "War's Over"
Requested by @qt-kt, these are my Star Wars OCs 🥰 I'm in love with them a normal amount. Kaedmon is a Jedi (extremely former) who survived Order 66, and Uriah is an ISB agent (former). And yes I have like 2300 words of a rough timeline plotted for them.
Uriah will be up on the 21st for U and I've decided to replace one of my bonus characters at the end of the month with Kaedmon so you'll see her on the 27th for FebruarOC.
This is also the FIRST of the Kiss Week drabbles I wrote, and it is the longest. I decided to stick it at the end because it's just a good ending to the event! Thank you again so much to @ockissweek for organizing, best of luck with queuing everything, and I'm looking forward to next year!!
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Kaedmon pushes her way through the crowds, the death grip on her lightsaber hilt the only thing keeping her focused. It’s using all her concentration to keep the pain at bay, and if she lets that slip then she’ll lose the grip on it and with it any sense of composure she’s maintaining.
“Riley!” Someone grabs her by the shoulder and whirls her to face them, and it’s only because her hand is so numb that she doesn’t ignite the blade and run the Rodian through on instinct. “Woah, girl, breathe.”
She is breathing, her gasping inhales stymied by the respirator. She doesn’t feel like she’s breathing enough. “Vleewa,” she says as her brain catches up. Her heart rate doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Vleewa says conversationally, pulling the lightsaber free. “When did you arrive on Jakku?”
“Where are the prisoners?” Stop, try again. “I got here yesterday.” Stop, try again. What was she looking for? “Observatory.” No. Stop. Try again. “Please.”
Starburst black eyes study her, and Kaedmon is helpless against the gentle movements her friend makes to put the lightsaber away in the holster. “You need to go to medical,” she says instead of whatever else she wants to say.
Kaedmon’s entire right arm aches at the thought. Is her shoulder dislocated? It might be dislocated, her wrist is definitely sprained, and now that she doesn’t have a deathgrip on something the numbness is turning to a violent tingling pain. There’s worse things that could have happened to it. Clamp it down, center her mind, pain is a backdrop. “I need to find—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Still, Vleewa doesn’t seem too keen on hurrying up as she begins to scroll through something on her data pad.
Kaedmon tries to breathe. Didn’t Vleewa tell her to breathe? She’s trying. She inhales. She inhales. She inhales, because it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and she knows the respirator is working because she can feel it struggling to give her oxygen. This is how I’m going to die, she thinks deliriously as her vision swims and Vleewa’s tan coveralls blend into the tan sand. Having a panic induced asthma attack in the desert after the war is finally over.
There’s a beep on her vambrace that draws her out of her spiral and she looks down at it as Vleewa gives a self-satisfied smirk. “Second recon group, northern forward camp. Though promise me you’ll go to medical after?”
“Yeah. Sure,” she answers for the sake of answering.
“Ugh, Jedi,” Vleewa grumbles with a roll of her eyes but there’s a twitch of a smile on the Rodian’s face. “Go on then.”
Kaedmon slips back into the crowds before she’s even completely dismissed, occasionally glancing down at the map on her vambrace. Nearly four klicks north by north east. If she runs she can make it in half an hour. Except that her shoulder sends bolts of pain down her entire arm if it is jostled, and like any military base she’s been on there are people by the dozens milling around in some state of activity.
Small fighters are taking off and landing with little regard to available landing fields, commanders barking out orders, and pilots and infantry cheering and celebrating.
Over every comm, Mon Mothma’s announcement rings on a repeat. A few holos loop the signing of the treaty.
The war is over.
Wrapping her pain in a tight little bundle in the back of her mind, Kaedmon begins to run.
The northern forward camp is eerily calm, pinched faced officers moving with determination and soldiers standing guard around the orderly ranks of tents for political prisoners.
In a makeshift square, three uniformed commanders stand fanned out around someone in piecemeal trooper armor. He stands at attention, hands folded behind his back, fingers of one hand clenching and unclenching. They don’t seem to be interrogating him — more like they are engaged in an exchange of information.
The man in the middle, a major according to the insignia, frowns at her approach. “Master Riley,” he starts and she winces; now all Command knows her as is the rank she never took. “Captain Askoaro said to expect you—”
But the man with his back to her tenses at the first sound of her name and spins to face her.
It’s him, she realizes with a jolt, as the shape of his profile comes into view. His hair is shaved to grey-black stubble and his cheeks are gaunt. But even without the Force to carry his signature to her, she’d recognize him.
“Kae,” Uriah says, completing his about-face just as she throws her good arm around his shoulder and yanks him down to her. He folds one arm around her waist and the other hand in her hair and crushes her to him. He tucks his face against her neck, pressing the edge of her mask into her cheek but she doesn’t care.
“You’re alive,” she gasps and his fingers tighten their grasp. “I couldn’t get through. No one could tell me—”
“Full planet communications are still spotty, Master Riley,” the major says, clearing his throat and the two of them jerk back upright to attention. He doesn’t seem overly bothered by their break in protocol or Kaedmon’s belated left-handed salute. “It has been hard to disseminate information unless it is vital to the New Republic.”
Kaedmon is still having a hard time regaining her breath, and it sounds loud in her ears as she tries to get herself back under control. She never was very good at that even as a Padawan. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply that I should automatically have been made aware of things.”
He waves her off, then says, “Agent Marcos, we’ll continue this discussion later. Take a few minutes. You’re dismissed.”
Uriah salutes, and a second behind, Kaedmon does as well. “Thank you, Major Wadan. I’ll report back to you shortly.” He waits until the three officers have departed before turning back to Kaedmon. That’s when the full extent of the damage is finally revealed in the shape of an angry red wound where his right eye should be.
She inhales sharply and reaches up to him with her hand, pressing it to his cheek and studying the still-healing scar.
He allows for the inspection, holding her gaze steady with the remaining eye before covering her hand with his own and pressing his lips to her palm. “What did you do to your arm?”
“I don’t know,” she says and means to shrug but she doesn’t want to jostle the hand on his face and the other is a dull, constant ache. “Dislocated I think. Maybe broke something. Worst part was, it was my own fault.” She lets the tips of her fingers ghost over his cheekbone. “That was my favorite eye.”
His huff of laughter ghosts over her skin and she shivers despite the heat. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Kaedmon frowns though he can’t see the twitch of her lips.
Uriah presses the pad of his thumb to the furrow between her brows. “I didn’t know you were stationed on Jakku.”
“I wasn’t. Jedi business in the Observatory with all that Sith shit. Happened to find a pocket of leftovers.”
“That’s when you caught your fall on your arm?”
She clicks her tongue, though it sounds mechanical and emotionless through the vocoder. “And your eye?”
He doesn’t respond right away, sliding his hand back through her hair despite the fact that it’s coated in sweat and sand. “Shrapnel. My own fault. I panicked.”
They move together, his forehead pressing to hers as her fingers scrape uselessly for purchase on his pauldron before curling around his neck. “My Commander finally caught on when we fled Coruscant. I thought he was going to kill me. He fully intended to, blaster to the eye. Bam.”
His fingers press to the ridges of her spine, grounding both of them in the moment. “I managed to use something as a shield, but it shattered. Still lost the eye, but I kept the back of my head so I guess that’s a win.”
This time her shiver is far from pleasant as she reaches out into the Force to take his fear in her hands and lift it from his shoulders. “What a pair we make.”
“I think we deserve a nice vacation somewhere that won’t try to kill us, and the worst thing we fall into is a soft bed,” he agrees.
“And a pillow to the face.”
Uriah considers this before nodding in agreement. “Honestly, it sounds awful and incredibly unsafe.”
“We’ll never unlearn how to turn anything into a weapon,” Kaedmon warns and Uriah lets out a soft sigh before pressing a kiss to her forehead. She makes an answering strained sound of frustration before pulling back to yank her respirator down. The dust feels like it immediately clings to the inside of her nose and mouth but she doesn’t care.
She misses his hair as she cups the back of his head and pulls him down to kiss her.
“Take me home, Kae,” he says, lips against hers. “When we get clearance to get off this fucking rock.”
Her respirator wheezes out of time to their ragged breathing. “I will,” she promises. “Maybe even before then.”
His smile is weary and his face hasn’t learned how to take the missing eye into account when forming expressions, but it’s still everything she knows and recognizes and the sight of it is instantly comforting. “Maybe.”
Home, she thinks as he kisses her again. They’ll figure that out together.
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