D. Wolcott

The Morovian Pleasure-Rotunda is legendary across the eastern gulf for exquisite spiced wine, death-defying aerial displays, and sweeping harbor views. Built atop sixty lashed pontoon hulls, the sprawling three-tier pagoda serves as the floating crown jewel of maritime trade. But when mutinous privateers seize its heavy defensive battery and train sixty stolen carronades on the waterfront to extort the shoreline, the grand banquet turns into a slaughterhouse. Trapped aboard the drifting palace as harbor warships prepare to incinerate the structure, the only patrons capable of resistance are three bickering martial artists from rival traditions: Boleslav Krikunov, an insufferable sabre grandstander who weaponizes spilled vintage and refuses to strike unless someone is cheering; Danika Mravik, a sharp-tongued assassin whose rotational footwork redirects bullets into her flintlocks' line of fire; and Rostislav Benov, an aerial socialite who fences while swinging from chandelier chains. With the pontoons leaking, the powder magazines ticking down, and imperial galleasses closing in, the unlikely trio must dance through grapeshot and banquet wreckage to retake the artillery deck before the entire pavilion goes to the bottom.

Across the fractured bronze-age moonlets of the Ringed Realm, cultivators do not fly on swords or command ethereal beasts—they surf the roaring ether on giant bronze-threaded war banners, catching the kinetic friction of passing comets. When the legendary Golden Comet hurtles through the void carrying the primordial steles of the Nine Heavenly Katas frozen in its crystalline heart, an ancient martial decree is reawakened: whichever warrior keeps their colors staked to the stele's apex through the gauntlet of three moon-realms shall inherit the celestial legacy. Three irreconcilable banner-masters plunge into the comet's glittering wake: Mengubek, the vainglorious spear-skimmer of the Sky-Javelin League; Torgantay, the unbending halberd champion of the Nine-Cauldron Citadel; and Chormaqanoglu, an irreverent flag-fencer whose gossamer banner can snare any weapon. But as rival void-corsairs and an expansionist warlord move to shatter the stele and smelt its primordial bronze into realm-conquering siege engines, the three rivals must balance fierce mutual combat with desperate survival across the burning copper trails.