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A Couple of Sideways Shifts

Today's chapter in "Student Bodies: Transfer Students"  is the last one I'll be posting there, as it is the completion of a commission. It is also a break from the recent pattern. Where "Burning a Bandmate"  was the last in a straight-shot storyline, "Invader from Mars"  jumps back to an earlier chapter to bud off a new branch. It's a little awkward to have only a one-chapter branch, but it was the only way I could manage the commission.

Over in the Archives, meanwhile, there's also a sideways jump. "Templar Is Taken"  lay at the end of one branch, while today's chapter, "The Senior People" , jumps back to continue "The Good Soldier" , which branched off earlier.

And speaking of "The Wandering Stars" , I will be starting a commission in that interactive, for the first time in I don't remember when. That's the reason that I've been posting chapters from that interactive in the Archives, and tomorrow will bring a sequel to today's reposted chapter. The story thus far (if you have not been keeping up with what I've been posting in the Archives):

It's ten years after the events of "The Book of Masks," and Will has been working for Fane, as the chief of their gang of shapeshifting agents. He's got a special grudge against the Stellae, as he was apparently blinded by one of them, forcing him to live inside the mask of Paige Knotts. (And this is the identity that all of his colleagues believe is his real one.) He has just returned from an assassination assignment (successfully performed, though with one casualty), and Professor Hyde-White has just revealed to him a new machine that will allow Fane agents to essentially "soul swap" with other people -- including the Stellae. Will's new assignment will be to infiltrate the Stellae by inhabiting the actual body of one, giving him not only their memories but also their prodigies. And in the last chapter to be posted to the Archives, he and Hyde-White have narrowed his choices down almost to their final determination ...