So, last week was the Final Installment of SSCS 03: Those Monsters We Have Dreamed About.

I hope you enjoyed it!

The next SSCS will start up in January. As usual, SSCS 04 was written using the same approach as all the other SSCS’s, and this time I think I gave myself quite a run for my money, trying to keep all the details (characters) straight!

Although I won’t be posting the SSCS 04 story title or first installment until next year, below is a tiny sneak peek with two clues about the story to come. 1. An obscured version of the icon image. 2. The very first paragraph (which, very generously, introduces both the setting and one of the main characters).

Any guesses where the quest will take us in 2026?

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SSCS 04 sneak peek:

In the glimmering near-dusk, in the glitter of wrought-silver railings and the glinting of the low sun upon the water, five travelers stood upon the northernmost archway of the city of Kolssidir, which had been built upon the widest stretch of the river Tide, and so was known as the City of Bridges.  Despite the dazzle before them, all were brooding, weary, and lost in thought.  The five were Last-Seekers-for-hire, the Breathbound Lazarine, and though they’d made the full ring of this city in one day—twenty-two bridges just to mark the city’s outer boundaries—still they had sensed no hint of the thing they searched for, the thing they’d been bound into finding, by oaths, and by ancient magics also—their lives were forfeit should they fail.  Their leader, El, guessed they had at most two days left to accomplish it.  After that would be too late.