iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Now available in audio! When Connor Rourke, supernatural locksmith, agrees to do a favor for the mage Elise, he has no idea what he's signing up for. Looking for a missing professor? In London? ...and then the zombies show up. Kind of. Not really. books2read.com/MechanicalAd...

Audiobook cover image for the novel Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key by Aaron Sher.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Slightly increase a band: Mild Steel Maiden

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

I'll be at this event with some of my local author friends (look for the West of Mars banner) - come have some wine and check out all the vendors!

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Applied Leverage, along with a few…hundred… other amazing books will be FREE on Kindle this weekend! Check it out at www.stuffwithfantasy.com.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key, will be FREE this weekend on Kindle, along with hundreds of other books! Check out the full event at stuffwithfantasy.com/event/6989fe... and get ready to be crushed under the weight of your impossible TBR list!

Promotional image for the Stuff With Fantasy event, March 20-23, at www.stuffwithfantasy.com.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Applied Leverage, along with a couple hundred other books, will be FREE on Kindle this weekend! Check out the whole list at stuffwithfantasy.com/event/6989fe...

Promotional image for the Stuff With Fantasy event from March 20 through 23, showing six book covers in the category Urban Fantasy and the URL www.stuffwithfantasy.com.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key, will be FREE for several days starting next Friday! Also, there might be one or two other books in there - you know, if you're into that kind of thing. www.stuffwithfantasy.com

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Post your favorite "Lord of the Rings" character. Wrong answers only.

A group of dwarves from the movie "Time Bandits"

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

It never feels quite real until I get the paper copies.

A box of paperback copies of the novel Mechanical Advantage.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Release day! Book two of the Origin Key series is now available on Kindle, KU, and paperback. Magical action, international supernatural politics, a little bit of romance, zombies... sort of... it’s urban fantasy with a side of snark, and it’s on sale today! aaronsher.com

Cover image of the novel Mechanical Advantage, showing the three main characters in front of the London skyline, with a full moon and some sort of giant robot creature in the background.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Of course, a couple of amateurs are so certain that they can do better than the trained ME without even seeing the body… A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Connor Rourke," he interrupted. "I know who all
of you are. I know what you have done, and I know what you hold. I am tasked with ensuring it is not misused, and there is no way for me to do that with the knowledge you have. This conversation is pointless."
"All right then, we'll skip a few steps here. I think
your real enemy here is White. She has way more information than we do. She knew enough to have Pinto killed, for one thing."
That seemed to take him aback, though it was hard
to read body language when he was smashed under Nia.
"You know this for certain?"
"We have a medical report showing that Pinto did not die in a car crash, though of course the doctor couldn't interpret the evidence of magical assassination. White knew he had no heirs, and she had him killed so that she could acquire his house legally."

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Despite the legal disclaimer at the front of the book, this cat *might* be based on someone I know. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

At that moment I was startled by a mraow from
almost directly above my head. Taking a step back—which was a trained tactical maneuver to make
space and not at all a panicked flinch—|looked up. It was a cat, white with some splotches of orange, looking down at me from its position atop a cheap particleboard wardrobe with the inherent superiority of the feline race.
Noticing my attention, it looked away as if I had been of only passing interest.
Had anybody been feeding it? It didn't look
starved or desperate. I looked around and found a half-full gravity feeder and a large bowl, almost dry, under a desk.
"Good thing we showed up, hey kitty? Would have started to get uncomfortable pretty soon."
The cat glanced once at me with a look of utter contempt, as if of course it had alternative sources of food and water lined up and ready whenever they were needed.
Then it looked away again as if something on the far side of the room was vastly more interesting than anything I might do.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Not a lot of options this time. My narrator did an amazing job with Quint and now I can’t think of him any other way. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Through the little wired-glass window in the door
I saw the lights were on, so I pulled on the door and made the little bell jingle. Quint was where he always is: sitting almost crouched on top of a high stool behind his counter, smoking a pipe and reading a big heavy book. The man is short and ageless—I was almost sure he was over thirty, but beyond that I couldn't have told you. He was totally bald, with a long drooping mustache. Not a fashion choice
I would have made but to each their own-
-maybe "80s
movie kung fu master" was the plan, or maybe it was a happy accident. The air in the store was thick with pipe smoke, incense, and probably some other less legal stuff as well. I was used to it; I almost managed not to cough as I walked the three steps from the door to the counter.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Wouldn’t you make your armored bunker lab nicer if you could? A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

In the very center of the space, there was a steel rod welded to a big steel plate set into the concrete floor.
The surface of the plate and the floor around it was blackened and bubbled like it had been exposed to very high heat, but not in a neat circular pattern—this was wavy radial lines, like the light in a plasma ball.
In one corner of the room, there was a steel box the size of a person-just. It was made of solid steel plate with a window, like a phone booth designed for use in an active war zone. It was mostly covered with more foam and its walls sloped a bit like they were designed to deflect bullets.
"What in fucking hell is this?" asked Nia.
"Workshop," said Elise matter-of-factly. "White
has one kind of similar, though hers is a lot nicer. She doesn't use it much, she keeps it for some of the people on her staff."
"For what kind of work?"
"The kind that is likely to go boom," Elise
explained. "Magical research is dangerous."

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I'm collecting ARC readers for Mechanical Advantage, book two of my urban fantasy series Origin Key. You'll get a free copy of the book (with instructions on how to access the first book) in exchange for an honest review on Amazon or GoodReads. Sign up at forms.gle/MhgF61WNkMv1...!

Cover image for the novel Mechanical Advantage

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Narrator: he didn’t have an idea. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Nia took a big swig of her coffee. "Crap. I hate
smart bad guys."
"So, we've got three problems. First, how do we get in? Second, what kind of security spells do they have?
Third, what do we do about the golems?"
"Fourth, what about the fucking mages?" asked
Nia.
"Um... yeah, and there's that," I said glumly.
There was a long pause.
"Why is everybody looking at me?" I asked.
"This is usually the moment when you say 'I have
an idea' and convince us to try some absolutely insane thing that somehow doesn't get us killed," said Nia, deadpan.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I'm opening ARC signups for Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key! forms.gle/MhgF61WNkMv1...

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Is that really how anybody plans their day? A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Watching the fire splash off the empty air a few inches from my face and feeling the heat starting to bleed through was... well, not how I planned my day.
Jeeves must have been really angry—he was actually showing human-like emotions on his face. He snapped out, "Take that shield down!" and the other four mages began pouring various energies into the shield.
All I could do was stand there, anchored to the ground, and watch five different flavors of death pounding into my invisible defense. My powers were useless against energy. I couldn't dodge. The best I could do was cover my head with my hands, which I did even though it was stupid.
Oh, actually that wasn't all I could do: I triggered
the trap.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

See, the plan had been to grab the notes and run. Time for a new plan. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

....
"Spread out and see what you can find," I said.
"No need," said Elise. She had pulled a clipboard from a hook next to the door I'd come through. "They're on
rack three, shelf two."
"Ah, I love an organized villain."
Rack three, shelf two turned out to be about fifty
feet long, but the very first box was marked "Pinto".
"There it is," I said.
"And the next one," said Nia.
"Um... I think we have a problem," said Elise slowly. She was moving down the rack. "They're all from
Pinto."
Well, crap.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

I modeled Connor’s apartment after a dorm room I had in college. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

My apartment looks like it was furnished from
thrift stores and the occasional dumpster find, largely because it was. The furniture is all a bit worn, there are posters on the walls, and the fridge was surely top-of-the-line in 1990 or so, but it's comfortable and it's mine. On the single end table next to the worn futon-couch was my laptop, also old and worn but functional. It doubled as my TV, and the screen was small enough that the fuzzy video my anemic internet connection fed me was fine for my needs.
Some people would say that my apartment needs
"a woman's touch". My last couple of girlfriends definitely agreed with that, though their touch seemed to be the kind you'd use to dispose of a dead rat: reluctant and at arm's length. My social life has been... let's call it "challenging"

0222

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Kind of tempted to write a flashback about Pinto, just because he’s such a fun character in my head. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Something occurred to me. "What about Principio
Pinto?" I asked.
"Who the fuck is that?" asked Nia.
"Guy who owned the house that White bought," I said. "I turned him up in my research. He died and the city auctioned off his house."
Elise said, "I visited the house with Mr. Mortenson
while they were cleaning it out. Whoever he was, he was making focuses. He had a whole lab set up, with engravers and drafting tools and torches and everything. They took it all out and put it in a truck, so I assume White has it somewhere."
"Focuses? So maybe he was part of the creepy-psi
squad?"
"What the hell kind of a name is Principio Pinto?"
said Nia. "Is it Italian? Spanish?"
"A weird one," I said. "A weird name for a weird
guy making weird things. Who just happened to die without heirs, leaving the house available for White to buy. That seems like it might be convenient, doesn't it?"
"I wonder," said Nia.

0221

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Doing vibes today. Blake vs DeRose is a clash of titans in the poise department. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Blake was ensconced in DeRose's commandeered
office, somehow effortlessly making the guest chair look like the one on the correct side of the desk and the Grand
Magister seem like a visitor. They were dressed today in a different gray silk suit, a bit more loungewear than boardroom but still by far the most elegant thing in even this room. The pipe was firmly in place and filling the room with a sweet not-quite-tobacco smoke. They gave me a warm smile.
"Connor, I wanted to thank you for letting me
know that my old friend James was here."
DeRose, impassive as always, leaned back in his
chair. He made it look casual, but I suspected he was trying to get away from the pipe smoke. "Now," he said in his rich voice, "as pleasant as this visit has been, perhaps we can come to the point? Time is rather pressing."

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Elise has some specific interests. Connor is interested as well, mainly because they keep trying to take his head off. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"...but there's a whole other layer to golems having
to do with the imprinting of the construct within the vessel. If you do it wrong you don't get all the benefits of shielding the construct energy, or it might not even be able to move the vessel properly. One expert could do it, but I bet the London mages used at least a circle if not an actual ritual for theirs. That's probably part of why they had the globe, actually—that way they can keep their golems continuously powered without having to rebuild the constructs all the time."
I'd actually followed maybe fifty percent of that,
which was better than usual when Elise went off on her
magical research. It might have been even more, but I got distracted by the way her eyes glowed with excitement as she talked. I remember thinking she was terribly quiet when we'd first met; I just hadn't known what to talk about, then.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Throw me the idol and I’ll… A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Right. I think the psi tried to kill me in the bar, using that giant oaf as a tool and you as bait, to keep me from opening the safe."
"He was a tool, all right. Makes sense. And Elise
said that guy was using focuses, so maybe the idol thing belongs to his faction?"
"Idol?"
"I don't know, it just looks like an idol. Doesn't
it?"
"Um... sure, whatever. Oh, and there's that. The
thing doesn't seem to need power." I demonstrated the trick with the pen.
"Um... so you know I'm not exactly up on the whole magic thing, but isn't that impossible?" Nia asked.
"Been hearing that word a lot recently," I
commented.

0222

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Give Fox an inch and he’ll take the highway, the off-ramp, and all the rest stops in between. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Name it," I said, fully prepared to commit the
College to whatever he might ask for.
"I want a cheers."
"A what?"
"A thank you."
"Of course," I said, puzzled.
"Not from you. From the College. In writing." I thought about what it would be like to try to get
DeRose or, worse, Andrews to publicly thank a psi-and even more so, a teep—for supplying critical intelligence in
a crisis.
"I can make that happen," I said, probably lying
through my teeth.
"In the form of a limerick," he added.
"Don't push your luck."

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Going with “weave”. Nia’s most un-Nia-like moment in two books. Needs must and all that… A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Want to try to pick his pocket?"
"Which pocket? What am I grabbing? I don't think
it works like that."
"Always gotta make me do things the hard way, don't you?" she asked. Getting up, she moved towards the man, a bit of a weave in her step that I knew she hadn't had enough beer to justify.
Fascinated and a bit terrified, Elise and I watched her chat the guy up. He'd apparently been in the process of ordering a drink; we couldn't hear the conversation, but it looked like Nia got him to buy her one too and then she went back to his table. Thankfully he seemed to be alone; I don't know what we could have done if there had been a
whole table full of mages.
"Any idea what we can do to help?" I asked.
"None whatsoever," Elise said.

0202

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

It’s not laziness, it’s a forensic countermeasure! That’s my story, anyway. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"And what do you think they were up to?" I'd really expected this conversation to go a bit better than this. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
Franklin put down his tablet and actually looked at
me for the first time. "We don't know. Obviously there was something going on. They lost a bunch of their people..."
"And one of ours," put in Elise.
"Rothbauer, right," said Franklin a bit sourly.
"And then when Ms. Vaughn showed up to investigate they tried to kill her."
"And Connor and Nia," Elise prompted.
"Whatever," said Franklin, picking up his tablet
again. "So there's clearly some shady stuff going on and we need to know what it is. We were hoping to find records but they're such a disorganized mess here that it's an almost perfect shield."

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

If you’re going to make magical golems out of something, why WOULDN’T you make them out of suits of armor? A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Do it." Nia said. "We'll buy you time." She stuffed her flashlight, too small to be useful as a weapon, into a pocket and moved forward with empty hands. I recalled that she'd lost her belt in the cemetery, and that
pen probably wasn't going to be useful against armor.
Terrific.
I hefted my cane and backed her up. The actinic light from Elise's wand swelled behind us, but too slowly.
The first armor lowered its halberd and stabbed at
Nia with the spear point on the end. It was slow and awkward, and seeing that I felt like we might actually have a chance at this. Nia slipped to the side and grabbed the shaft with both hands... and was almost flung down the hall as the armor raised the weapon again, totally unimpeded by her weight.
Slow, but very strong. Noted.

0212

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Not considering telekinetic locksmiths is at LEAST one star off their Yelp rating. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

She went on, "And now, here you are, robbing my
private office. You didn't think I'd have magical alarms on it?"
Crap. Of course she would. I'd gotten caught up in
the idea that mages usually relied on physical protections, and neglected to think that usually didn't mean always.
Come to think of it, the spells on the safe were probably what the tracker had been leading us to, not the focus itself.
"Well, the rest of your security was so shoddy, I figured maybe you didn't care if people wandered in and out." I mean, what did I have to lose?
"I admit, my consultants evidently did not design
the system with telekinetic locksmiths in mind. An
oversight."
"People who put in lousy security systems make
my job a lot easier overall. I vote you give them an At rating and pay them a bonus," I said. At this point, I was just letting my mouth run in order to stall for time. I wasn't sure what I was hoping would happen, but whatever it was, it didn't.

0354

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

I went with “start”, and conveniently it’s literally the first word of my debut novel. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Chapter 1: Starting in a Bar is a
Cliché
The fireball made arcs of light as it flew back and
forth across the table. It wasn't much of a fireball, only a few inches across and burning a dim orange, but it was bright enough in the dim light of the bar and it would certainly burn your skin if it touched you. The mages were playing a game involving trading off control of the thing-as I understood it, if you let it go out or lost control, you had to drink. Alcohol doing what it does, somebody usually got burned. Typical.
I was sitting a couple of tables away, and the damned fireball kept flashing in the corner of my eye and catching my attention. I was trying not to watch-mages can be touchy to us "lesser folk", and I didn't want a tableful of drunk mages catching me staring at them.
Tossing a fireball around in a dusty wooden room full of alcohol was already a pretty good indication of their state of mind, so discretion felt like the better part of valor. Not that valor is a thing I usually worry about.

0213

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Always disconcerting to trip over an army you didn’t know was there. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Rome?"
"Aegis central command."
Aegis was a single worldwide organization? Id
thought it was sort of like local police, individual commands reporting to the local College chapter. I took a moment to think through the implications of that one, while Andrews gave some orders repositioning the outside teams or something like that. I really wasn't following the tactics going on, though I'm sure that Nia was.
If Aegis had a central command, and I had to assume units attached to many chapters of the College, that meant... hell, the College had an army. And they weren't all mages, meaning that they could recruit mercenaries or retired military or whoever they wanted.
The College could certainly get their hands on the kind of ordnance that would normally be ridiculously illegal for a non-governmental organization to have. And then of course there was the magic.
Why did they need an army?

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Maybe a cemetery isn’t the BEST place to fight the undead? A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Averill and his lackey weren't doing so well. They
had personal shields as well, of course, but the zombies had so much sheer mass that just standing up was a problem. I was sure that if they went down before that wave of rotting flesh and bone that would be the end of them. Averill was calling thunderbolts down from the sky like I'd seen White do once, though seeing it from this angle wasn't nearly as impressive as it had been at ground zero. Edwards was using his crystal-tipped wand like a whip, trailing a line of blue flame that cut through zombies like they weren't there.
All of it, all the devastating magic, Nia's
enchanted axe and my cane, the explosions and the fire, all of it together...it wasn't enough. There were just too many zombies. And now DeRose's wall of water had died down and they were after us again. I set myself to go down swinging; I didn't see any way out of this.

0243

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

The introduction of Elise! She, ah, turns out to be important. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Suddenly, there was a flash and the dog was gone,
leaving swirling energy in its wake. I heard a pair of muffled screams from the direction of the mages. When I looked over, I saw Jeeves and the other man down on their knees, holding their heads in what looked like blinding agony. At least, that's what I hoped it was. The woman, on the other hand, was sprinting full speed towards us. "Go!" she yelled
I started to ask a question like an idiot, but Nia wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She grabbed me by the hand, hauled me to my feet, and took off towards the door again. By the time we'd gone two steps I had my feet under me and I was analyzing the locks on the door to see what we'd need to do to get it open. A second before we reached it, however, it exploded outward in a shower of splinters and we ran out onto the lawn, the woman who'd evidently saved us hot on our heels.

1212

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

The story is set in London in February, so the weather is a bit off a running theme. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

And here we were back at the cemetery yet again.
At least it was daylight this time for a change, though it was doing what the meteorologists euphemistically call
"wintry mix"—in other words, there was slush falling from the sky in tiny droplets that burned with cold when they hit skin.
There weren't a lot of people in the cemetery
besides us, for some reason.
Marks stopped in at the office to explain that there
was some kind of special police thing going on and that they might need to restrict access to a part of the cemetery.
I had no idea what excuse he used, but if it worked I didn't care. Elise stayed with him; the plan was that the two of
them would come in behind us, keeping at what we hoped was a safe distance but within screaming-for-help range, and try to fend off wandering people.

0231

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Telekinetic prank war. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

I lifted my glass again, ready this time for the nudgeto the side this time, where it would have been hard to stop with my hand. My mental grip had no such limits and the glass stayed perfectly stable.
Simultaneously, the probably-joint fell out of Fox's mouth—his own mental hold notwithstanding—and somehow found its way directly into his drink. On top of that-with my third mental handhis cap somehow flew from his head, falling off the far side of the table and rolling improbably into the crowd on the dance floor below.
He stared for a second. Damn few teeks could
have pulled off either the glass or the joint against resistance, and with the cap as well... I had him outclassed and he knew it. He grinned and tapped his finger to his forehead where his cap ought to be in a salute. I raised my glass to him.

0221

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

That’s not a word I’m likely to ever use, I think. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

It was interesting that neither of us were willing to
name the Artisans out loud, even though she'd just openly admitted to ordering a murder in front of a half-dozen of her flunkies. It probably meant that she'd kept that bit of knowledge to herself, which was good news for me. And likely also for the flunkies if this fell out the way I was hoping it would.
"Shall I go back and tell them that, then?" I took a
casual step backward, away from all the guns and mages.
"Away" felt like a really, really good idea at this moment.
"I think not," White said. She made no gesture, not
even a flick of her eye, but I felt bands of invisible force clamp around my feet like cement shoes. "You and I will have a more... extended conversation inside, I believe.
You have information that would be useful to me. Mr.
Mortenson, if you would please subdue him."

0243

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

The magic self-driving cars work better than Teslas, but not quite as good as Waymos. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Elise had her wand out, a pale foxfire glow
dancing at the tip. "The car is a golem," she said.
"Boy, these folks only have one trick, don't they?"
I complained.
"I told you, the London mages are known for
specializing in golems. If I spend a few minutes on it maybe I could break the spell?"
Nia said, "Leaving us in a suddenly-not-self-driving car traveling at highway speeds.
Could we not?"
Just for something to do, I carefully tried the door
handle. Of course it was locked.
"I guess we wait and see where the magic car is
taking us."

0273

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

This book goes to beta readers today! A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Elise, the door's open!" I shouted, but I wasn't sure she could hear me. She was almost in the doorway, wand and free hand both extended to hold the shield, braced like there was a strong wind coming down the hall.
"Get ready to slam the door!" yelled Nia.
I took a step to the side and put a hand on the door.
Nia stepped to the other side. She met my eyes-then reached out, grabbed Elise by the collar, and yanked her sideways out of the doorway. I slammed the door just as the first licks of flame breached the shield. I heard the lock click.
There was a moment of stillness, the only sound
Elise's raspy breathing. She sounded like she'd just run a footrace through an erupting volcano.
"You OK?" I asked.
"Um... I think so," she said. Her eyes weren't
quite focusing.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

At least things can’t get any worse, right? Right? A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

He crumpled like someone had cut his strings,
surely dead before he even registered the attack.
I moved up on still-shaky legs, being very, very careful to stay behind the bulk of the golem. "Elise, you've
got to get out of there!"
"No!" she shouted. "I can do this!"
She herself wasn't doing anything visible, but the
golem was yanking hard on its stuck leg. It was making progress, but it wasn't going to be fast enough. I could see the globe in front of her—it looked hot, almost burning from all the magic it had absorbed. We were using it in a way it had never been designed for and clearly it wasn't handling it very well.
And that's when I saw the first zombies.

0211

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

It’s the “cheerfully” that makes this but for me, I think. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Well, fuck," said Nia, with my complete
agreement.
If Elise got herself badly hurt, I wouldn't be able to go home again. On top of that, if she didn't show up for the cops in a week there would be all kinds of trouble, and I still wouldn't have any idea of what was going on.
Not that any of that was the real reason, of course—I could never have let her go down there by herself no matter what. Equally of course, Nia was already moving, leaving me standing alone. In the cemetery, in the middle of the night. The potentially zombie-infested cemetery.
"Right behind you," I said cheerfully.

0222

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Explaining the dead guys is an important part of any plan. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"Does that mean they don't think they can handle
us themselves?"
Elise said, "Or maybe they don't want to try again,
for fear it would draw attention to them. Somebody's going to be looking into the cemetery, right? And we were there and also at the Hermetic Society, which links the damage there to the mages. I think somebody's building a cover story here."
"For the dead guys at the cemetery? Sounds right
to me," said Nia. "Put all the bad stuff on us, and they're just the victims. What, did we go to the cemetery to meet a fence and sell these books we supposedly stole? Maybe that went bad and there was some kind of fight?"

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

The Bruise Fairy must have visited during the night. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

I must have made some noise because Nia's eyes snapped open as if she'd been just faking being asleep. For all I know, maybe she had been. "I think I figured something out," I said quietly.
Nia sat up. "What have you got?"
"A headache, a bad attitude, and a set of bruises I
don't recognize at all."
"Welcome to the club. We should have T-shirts."
"T-shirts would be pretty useful, actually," I said.
Like all of us, she was still wearing the same clothing she'd had on yesterday, though she'd taken off the camo coat that was now liberally splattered with Elise's blood.

0272

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

The full English, with bonus tea joke. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Joining Nia and Elise at the tiny breakfast table, I watched Marks happily working in his kitchenette making the most extraordinary spread of food: back bacon, sausage links, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, toast, hash browns, and probably a few other things I didn't spot amid the piles. There wasn't room on the table even for all of our plates, so we filled them from the counter and held them to eat. No coffee, still, but we made do with tea.
Nia used two teabags and left them in the mug
while she drank it. I tried not to watch Marks wincing every time he looked in her direction.

0252

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

I mean, come on. You just don’t say things like that out loud. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

"It'll take them a few days to get here, though.
They're traveling incognito and separately so that they don't tip off the London mages, just in case the whole chapter is corrupt."
"They can't just call somebody closer?" Nia asked.
"They don't dare. If the London chapter has gone bad, who knows who's trustworthy? He did give me a local contact, though, 'for use in emergencies.' Some old friend of his named Blake."
Nia snorted. "That's OK, hopefully we can just hole up and not draw attention until they get here. More
mages usually means more problems."
She should have known better than to say
something like that-
-because at that point, predictably,
everything went to hell.

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Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

I love this tiny little exchange, because it really captures the three of them in a nutshell. A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Nia said, "There are pictures of the inside here.
How in hell did he get these?"
"Don't care," I said. "What's it look like?"
"Pretty small for a warehouse. Looks like a single
storage room with an enclosed loading dock in the front and an office above the loading dock. There's a rolling door between the street and the loading dock, and another one between the loading dock and the storage area in back.
He doesn't have any pictures of the back, but he does have shots of security cameras and several door locks."
"You know this is a trap, right?" I asked.
"Of course it's a trap," said Nia.
"Why would it be a trap?" questioned Elise.

0251

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I’m picturing mages lined up in rows practicing spitting out single syllables with anger, contempt, derision, dismissal… A snippet from Applied Leverage, book one of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

The mage turned on me with clear recognition on
his face, along with the kind of searing disdain only achievable by the alchemical combination of arrogance and alcohol. "What's it to you, little psi?" It shouldn't really be possible to put that much contempt into a single syllable, but he managed. Maybe mages get special training? Being a psi, a psionic as opposed to a mage, meant I was lower-class in supernatural circles. Mages had vastly more power than we did, and they never let us forget it.
I looked up at the mage. Quite a long way up.
"Come on, everybody's little compared to you. I know Joe's fries are great, but maybe lay off them a bit?" My mouth sometimes has a mind of its own when I'm scared, and it usually doesn't have to pay its own bills.

0241

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

The only time in the whole book where Nia gets to use a gun. Not very effective, it turns out. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

That sounded like a really excellent idea to me, and I started backing towards the tunnel entrance. I faced where I thought the slithering sound had come from last, though who knew if that was actually where the thing was or whether I could do anything about it if it chose to attack. Nia moved with me, her gun up.
Nothing happened.
My back touched the wall of the cave and I glanced back to find the tunnel entrance. At that exact moment, there was a sharp crackling sound and an indistinct rush of movement in the light-spangled blackness of the cave. Nia's gun went off twice, deafening
in the enclosed space. I threw myself into the tunnel and started scrambling up, heedless of how the sharp bits of glass cut my fingers, and heard Nia right on my heels.

0221

Aaron Sher @aaronsher.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Close as I could get. The lack of guns in London is really crimping everyone’s style. A snippet from Mechanical Advantage, book two of the urban fantasy series Origin Key (see my pinned post). #amwriting #WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #fantasy 📚💙

Her smile made me feel warm. She had such confidence in me. I wish I felt like I deserved it. I wish I didn't feel like the splint on her leg was somehow my fault for not being more useful.
"I hope he's willing to help. I'm going to have to
pitch it to him just right, I think. Ultimately, though, I don't see how this doesn't come down to a fight, and if
there are forty or fifty of them like Andrews said then we're seriously outgunned. And we don't even have guns."
"I may have an idea about that. I need to work on it some more." I knew that look. She was coming up with
some magic gizmo or something that nobody had ever heard of before.

1232