Oof! That's gotta hurt!

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This is page 20 in a chapter that I thought would be on the short side, and we're still in the first scene... Boy, were my initial calculations off! 

Using your own claw against you? I wonder if Fear SAW this coming... *rimshot*

(Well loremaster Rippy saw it coming... Rippy, you're 2 for 2, got any other predictions?)

Ghost energy laser convergence!!!!!!

The stars are aligning... to kick Fear's butt.

The Orinthope! It's where the ghosts go.

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Friendly reminder that I have physical and digital copies of HoT books for sale! 

Heroes of Thantopolis Book 1 physical

Heroes of Thantopolis Books 1, 2 and 3 ebooks

Any sales really helps me out!

Silly Cyrus, you can't bring a ghost object into the Orinthope! It'll pass through!

During the production of Chapter 14, I was trying to figure out how I could foreshadow that Fear was susceptible to ghost energy. Helene creating the ghost energy net in Chapter 15 was my solution; however, I had forgotten about this interaction at the end of Chapter 1. 

We also get a Chapter 4 reference! I wonder what Iota would think of Cyrus now. 

We're back! But there's no time to celebrate, an eldritch monster is breathing down Cyrus's neck!

Part 2 of a double update! Click for the previous page!

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Ta-dah! It's Wolf!Cyrus!

I hope this isn't a shock to anyone XD I mean, if Cyrus's mom is a wolf, and all his siblings are (or will be) too, then he was going to be one, right? <u<;;;

No update next week due to the double update this week. 

Cyrus, chou shinka!!!!!

This is a double update, be sure to click through to the next page!

The imagery of breath in this scene was inspired by the song "Breathing" by the band Faded Paper Figures. Give it a listen! The album Relics is really good from top to bottom (how can you dislike an album with a Philip K. Dick-themed song on it???).  

Listen to yourself, Cyrus!! Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself??!

Oh, I get it now! He's the CLICK guy! Mystery solved. 

...OK, so he's not just the CLICK guy, he's also Frenzy, a long-time character who exists in the world of HoT. But it wasn't always going to be him! I made another Slides document about his appearance in the comic, if you care to read. 

EWWW! Put that gross eyeball away!

He squandered the gift! SQUANDERED IT!

Well, that answers one question... just one. 

This is Page 4 of a 4-page update! Click here to read Page 1!

I hope you enjoyed the cold open! Now let's really get back to Cyrus. This situation seems quite familiar, doesn't it? But where is he this time?

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A little housekeeping:

• Updates will resume the usual Thursday schedule next week. (I got the date wrong when I made the promo poster XO)
• While on break, I released the Book 2 and Book 3 ebooks! You can grab those, plus Book 1 and the supplementary DECADEs e-zine, on my itch.
• Friendly reminder that you can follow me on social media on Bluesky and tumblr! 

This page is a homage to a comic I made in high school, called Circel Dukes Saga. I actually posted the entire comic on my blog a while back, so you can give it a read if you want it. Fair warning -- it is not a very good comic, nor does it make a lot of sense. 

To spare you having to read the whole thing, the homage is specifically to this panel:

Yep, that's me. I had long hair in high school. 

Circel Dukes Saga was top of mind when I starting writing Heroes of Thantopolis, and I thought it would be a stroke of genius if I created this call-back by reversing what the character in the original comic was asking for. Open, instead of close!

I guess you could say had a big ego in high school XD I felt like I had accomplished something monumental by making it to senior year and was on top of the world. Then I learned how small that world was and how much more I had to learn and grow. Still, I wanted to do right by my younger self and keep this scene in HoT. 

If you need a little reminder, Orphincus is the ghost of a demi-god who runs the Tournament of Souls on Helene's behalf. During Halloween, all the ghosts of the city storm the Tournament, and he has no choice but to let everyone out of the Snake Gate and into the Land of the Living. This happening twice in the same week is kind of out of the ordinary. 

Hey, that's not Cyrus!