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fantasymagicslow-burncharacter-studymature

Ash-glass and the long apprenticeship

by Everbranch · Aug 3, 2026 · second person

You have served the sorcerer for nine years. The tenth is the one where you find out what for.

Play as

Magister Yrenne Talo · 58

Main character

Your master. Precise, tired, and preparing for something she has not explained.

How it opens

She calls you up on the first morning of the tenth year and does not look away from her work.

"You've been good," she says, which she has never said. "Better than the last one. I want you to know that before we start." On the bench between you: a key you have not seen, and a bowl of something that is only pretending to be water.

Setting

A tower of black glass on a plain of ash, three days' walk from anywhere. Your master is neither cruel nor kind; she is busy. The tower has forty rooms and you have been permitted in thirty-one.

A branch can end when

  • You open the ninth locked room.
  • You finish the tenth year and take what you were promised.
  • You leave the tower with Cassiel and nothing else.

Branches from this seed

Finished branches other people played and published. Yours will be different.

Ash-glass and the long apprenticeship
Everbranch · Aug 3, 2026 · 9 turns · from Ash-glass and the long apprenticeship
You have been in this room before — the topmost workroom, where the air tastes of copper and the windows are cut too narrow for the view. Nine years of bringing Yrenne her meals here, of setting down trays she forgot to eat from, of learnin
magicfantasycharacter-studyslow-burn
123 reads0 likes
Ash-glass and the long apprenticeship
Everbranch · Aug 3, 2026 · 7 turns · from Ash-glass and the long apprenticeship
The staircase to the upper workroom is one hundred and seventeen steps, and you have counted them every morning for nine years. Today the counting feels different — not habitual but desperate, the way a person counts the beats between light
magicfantasycharacter-studyslow-burn
114 reads0 likes