To my few readers,

I wish you all a happy new year. Hopefully y'all had a great time these days. Family reunions where allowed, lots of presents, good food, warm atmosphere. There are two points of notice in my letter here, one personal and the other hobby-related.

I for myself have ended that year on a humbling note. Lockdown, various prohibitions, each more annoying than the last, Corona news to curse at for days and...burglars.

Days before Christmas, looted rooms, destroyed pots, dirt and water everywhere and of course missing items. But know what? What angers me most is not really the monetary damage my family would require some years to foot the bill (if ever).

It is...the disappearance of emotional goodies. Of trinkets with history. My family's history. Of physical evidence of the passage of time, the evolution in my ancestor's quality of life, struggle, ups and downs...

In my part of the world, there is hardly any family without some gold or silver wares older than the houses they own. Things you'd expect to see in a museum, actually. Things that'd be either sold or melted down somewhere, sometime if they haven't already.

Considering most have lived here since the...what? Middle-ages or something? You get what I mean; it's been a crazy long time. The city I'm living in was founded by the ancient Romans by the way. So...maybe my calculation is off.

At this point, I'd like to remind you to look after your possessions. Anything of emotional value that isn't strictly necessary or often used should be kept somewhere these nasty buggers don't ever expect or think to look for.

And surely not at the usual places in the house. Safe, I'm accusing you. Nothing's more obvious. Shitters got experience and possibly also a degree in (human) Psychology, who knows.

Now to the hobby-themed announcement. I'll be dropping this series. Madness Led by the Hands shall be no more. Does this come out of the blue or did you already expect so much?

Let's be real here. The story I started with had nothing going on for it except the wordcount. I knew nothing about what makes stories great in the beginning. Have read many myself; but between replicating, concocting and living the story lie entire worlds.

There was a half-baked goal (survival), a retarded protagonist with mental problems an author can but come to hate because what makes stories come to life is beyond what that creature is capable of.

We had companions (the queen and the mimic) and in the planned chapters two returning people (the orc chieftain and the lamia) who would've come with their tribes. Then there was some weak foreshadowing done.

That's all. 48 chapters in and...that's all. Just to give an example, most authors on this site would've managed to write the same in 10 chapters tops and the better ones even less but with greater immersion and flare.

The book wouldn't have had any future. And I knew it. Since before the Writhaton, actually. But it's hard to let go, you see. Anyway, as a saying teaches us in my mother tongue: Better a horrible end than endless horror.

...got definitively a better ring to it in my tongue. Anyway, the main problem the story had was that before even starting to publish things here on RR, I already had 30 chapters ready.

To make sure I'd have chapters ready even when I lacked the time. Guess what? Even now I still have like 20 chapters unreleased.

Writing a certain passage, I got ideas for what could be more interesting...would make a better alternative...would add to the immersion...would deal with all the grammatical glitches I was prone to make and sometimes still am.

The results tripled or even quadrupled efforts in rewriting older chapters (or even those I had and have yet to publish). Time I should have better used to actually do something for the story got consumed by these struggles.

I always hated the work of an editor and was now compelled to endlessly do the same. For months. I killed my story with my own two hands typing away at the keyboard.

In all honesty, I might still be able to somehow "save" the story, but the efforts are first inhumane and second would end up in a patchwork of frigging pieces.

Therefore, I began anew. You read that right. I began planning and plotting for a new book, this time with content and reason rather than word acrobatics nobody cares for.

The new submission has yet to be accepted by the site, so you might need to wait a bit longer for the first chapter (if you still want to stick with me, that is). More chapters will definitively come (much) later. I'm still undecided at the moment.

Aethernum---Cradle of Yore promises to become much more than MLbtH ever was. If you need to decide if this is worth your time, you can read the synopsis I've included here as a spoiler.

If that's not your cup of tea (no system, no utter madness, no dual personalities, no crippling characteristics except a background that actually makes sense and some slight game elements) and you'd rather read other wonderful stories here on RR, I thank you for your interest. Fuzzy feelings, here we come...oh, wait. Later perhaps, my bad.

For those who plan to give me another chance, thank you for sticking with me for an(other) exciting development. Sooo...let this new year start with a baaaaam! and become great! There are enough hotspots that need fixing after all.

Oh, and have I already told you the most important thing?

Stay safe out there, especially in these harrowing times!

See you soon,

Vicissimus

Diary Number 999, year I-don't-care, location home.

Parenting.

Of all I've found clear answers except for this most mundane topic. And not for the lack of trying. My library, so humongous my good friends told me one after the other there is no book it doesn't contain helped little.

There are crumbling tomes of ancient magic, vocabularies depicting the evolution of the magical language itself, grimoires and holy bibles of cults long past, rows and rows filled with scrolls bearing the efforts of my magical research, contracts, diaries, letters and more.

But parenting?

There was none. Yet a struggle nearly every member of the Races is not foreign to. I...must have lived under a rock. Over aeons no less. What a humbling revelation.