I just posted the first chapter of Beyond Ruin over in OTC! Again, I’m not sure this part does anything particularly new or special, so I’ll just summarize the basics of the idea here.

Beyond Ruin is intended to be a set of short pieces fleshing out the characters and world of my work-in-progress story Divine Strength. It takes place at a point in time where the Queens, who have been constantly at war for the three hundred years since their creation, have just defeated monsters known as the Ruinous and declared a truce. This peace will (for the most part) last for thousands of years, at least up until the timeframe I want to set the main story in. Since this is a huge turning point for the Queens, I think this is a good time to explore their characters, as what they do now will come to define them for well into their future. The review topic also has a short FAQ that hopefully clears things up for newcomers, though if it proves ineffective I’d love suggestions to make it more user-friendly!

Updates will be sporadic, but the second one should be up fairly soon—it’s done for the most part, I just want to edit it a bit. I hope you enjoy the story!