Yeah, I'm terrible at writing stand-alone short stories! Everything I write turns into a frickin' series because I try to cram big ideas into a small plot. Then I feel like I have to write more stories to do the ideas justice.

I didn't mean for this to happen, but this story is now going to tie into an idea I had months ago when I was doing my early worldbuilding brainstorms. I need to do a lot of background development to keep going though because while I know basically what's going on, I don't know who the various organizations are, how they negotiate the relevant social systems in this world, etc.

So next I'm going to either post a story I wrote several years ago that actually does stand on its own fairly well---it's basically an 8000 word prologue for, or short story prequel to, an incomplete novel I started in 2015---or continue one of the two branches I left open at the end of The Demon of Tal Afar. Probably the latter, since it ties directly into the story I'm planning to write for Swords of Saint Valentine. Or maybe both. We'll see.