Happy end of the week, blogosphere! I, for one, have had a splendiferous week. Since getting my wisdom teeth pulled on the last of January, I’ve written just under 20 000 words in Changeling – I’ve revealed two major plot points, and started a third and fourth – and I’m most pleased because I’ve reached a point where I get to describe a lot of chaos. As in, destructive magic galore. Like this:

The second man hung back, prepping his bow and arrows, and the first launched at me, screaming in F’lish. I loosed a jet of fire as soon as he came near; when it hungrily caught the cloth of his tunic beneath his leather armour, he screeched and dropped to the ground. The mud did wonders of putting out the flames; as soon as he was no longer burning, I lifted the water from the mud and wrapped him in it, then promptly froze it.

Something whistled past my head and thudded into the tree behind me. Alarmed, I whirled around to see the second barbarian preparing another arrow—this one crackling with electricity.

I lifted my lip in a snarl. Aeromancy. Those who could control lightning were basically pyrophorics’ overexcited cousins. I waited, hands forward and ready, until he released the arrow. With a grunted Gabalic word, I raised my arms and a wall of water sucked from the mud and nearby plants shot up in the same motion. The arrow sailed through and clattered onto a pile of rocks, but its static charge slammed into the water with such force that it nearly knocked me over. Before it could dissipate, I shoved forward and knocked over my foe. His screams were garbled and silenced altogether as the electrified water surrounded him.

Wiping my hair off my sweaty forehead, I turned to see how Hession was faring. He still stood strong, fighting off two of the barbarians. The third had been dispatched and was lying nearby without a head, and one of the two still living was bleeding, ready to fall. To speed up the process, I enfolded him in a bubble of fire, holding it even as he collapsed and tried desperately to put it out. When his sizzling body finally went still, I rounded on the remaining man, who seemed to have gained the upper hand in their fight. Hession was bleeding, still blocking but not finding the energy to make another attack. His healing magic would be keeping him upright. I was impressed.

Rather than watch to see if he could win on his own, I pulled his enemy back and lifted him high into the air. He screamed to be let down, begged for mercy; I released the psychokinetic magic and hobbled through the debris and corpses to Hession’s side.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, slightly out of breath. A scream quieted and something crunched behind me, and he paled several shades.

He sat on a bed of moss and cupped a cut on his side with his hands. “I’ll be fine. Gabal Mages are terrifyin’.”

“Magic at its worst.” As he healed his wounds, I worked my way over to the first barbarian killed, the one frozen in muddy water. I peered through the gloom surrounding him, then melted the ice. His body tumbled to the ground, cold and most assuredly dead. Suffocated, likely.

Aisling is one cold bitch. But she gets the job done, and thoroughly. Changeling is an outlet for my suppressed pyromania. I love having Aisling light things on fire and watch them burn. A little twisted that way.

I also adjusted the spellcheck for Changeling, so apparently I do care enough. Not sure where that change of heart comes from.

So! The main purpose of this idle update is to point out that I overhauled my blog. Took a plain white theme already in the system and just added headers and customized things. Take note: this is my extreme nerdiness showing through. All headers are screenshots taken during my time picking flowers and decapitating elves with Wuuthrad in Skyrim. I like this infinitely better than the generic hippie theme I was rocking before. Don’t get me wrong, I adore colour, but this is so pristine. I love it.

If you think anything can be adjusted, let me know. I’m still tweaking it.

I wanted to take a really pretty screenshot of the Balosar outpost space mission in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but for some reason the predator drone didn’t comply. It captured an image, but it only came out black. So I’ll fiddle around a bit and see what’s up. Not like Balosar is going anywhere. What I really wish I’d taken a shot of was the time I was top of the leaderboard in a PvP warzone. Playing against veteran MMOers, and the whole time unsure of our team’s overall goal, I simply slaughtered whomever I came across and got a lot of awards and points.  Like a boss.

Steam is having a marathon of Skyrim mods today. All free and available. I got a few mandatory ones – like faster arrows, faster weapons, a Dovahkiin retreat – but then there were the dumb ones. I almost downloaded a mod for Assassins Creed: Brotherhood Ezio armour for females. Somehow resisted that one. And mudcrabs in top hats? Really? Though, I got two pretty stupid ones – Psijic robes, unnecessary, and, get this, a lollipop war axe and great axe.

Naturally, I made one and gave it to Cicero. It only does one damage, but we’ll see if we can work around it.

Randomness over. Enjoy the new blog, and enjoy seeing Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D this Friday, because I sure won’t – my shitty little town can’t handle the badassery. Booooo.