🧭 Why I Need a Side Quest (Hear Me Out)
Hi! I’m back in your inbox because it’s Monday and that’s just what I do. I hope my arrival brightens your week because I’ve got to talk about dragons, couch monsters, and time travel but maybe not in that order.
(I’m Ran from the Curse Breaker series in case you forgot.)
🏥 An update on my scribe:
Last week I said my scribe (Melinda) was down with a sinus + ear infection. She's feeling much better now. (Thanks, antibiotics!) So guess who's back to writing?
That's right. We've got adventures to go on!
(And by we, I mean she writes the stories, and I tell her what needs to happen.)
💡 I Have A Plan (Yes, It Involves a Side Quest)
Melinda did write last week. But I left her alone and didn’t bug her for more scenes. I will not leave her alone this week because I have a plan! And I want a side quest.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Wait, Ran. You’re in the final act of Rogue Characters. Why do you need a side quest right now? Shouldn’t you let Melinda finish the book, so I can read it?”
And you’re right. We’re almost at the grand finale. So this is a weird time to plan a side quest. Trust me. This side quest will be great! It has couch monsters and dragons. How can I say no to that?
⚔️ Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY Series
📚 The trilogy currently consists of:
Book 1: Catch the Scribe
Book 2: Book Battles
Book 3: Rogue Characters (in progress + maybe a bonus side quest?)
This trilogy tells how everything began:
Where did the portal come from?
How did we get a digital dragon to guard your email addresses?
Where did Dysteria come from and what’s her beef with my scribe and by extension, her characters too.
How did I find out I'm a fictional character from a fantasy world?
How did I take over this newsletter?
This side quest will be inside the Rogue Characters book so it won't be sold separately. It’ll be an extra fun addition to the book, assuming I can convince Melinda to write it.
This extra story will start after the main story ends. So don’t worry! You’ll still get a complete story for Rogue Characters plus and extra shorter story and both will have all the stuff stories are supposed to have like a beginning, a middle, a climax, cozy vibes, found family fun, and an ending because all good stories end eventually.
Since the Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY series is a prequel, that means it has to come before something, and that something is the Curse Breaker’s Companion series!
So now the Curse Breaker’s Companion series comes after the brand new Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY series, and that companion series starts with Dragon Spells. So now you’re probably wondering:
“How do we get from this to dragons chasing you in Dragon Spells?”
That’s why we need a side quest, to connect the end of Rogue Characters to the beginning of Dragon Spells. And that’s totally not confusing.
Why do those two books need a side quest to connect them?
That’s where the time travel comes into play.
⏳ Didn’t We Destroy Time Travel?
Yes, Rosalie destroyed the ability to travel backward in time in the book, Storm the Gates, book 3 of the Rogue Gods Trilogy.
Since we just released the full audiobook on YouTube, you can marvel at how Melinda destroyed the ability for all characters to travel into the past forever. She went all out on that one just to make it impossible for future stories to go back in time.
This will probably cause future story problems. So I urged her to by some NY grown popcorn that I can eat it while she regrets that decision. But I digress.
Since Storm the Gates published in 2024, we can still time travel in books set before that, much to my scribe’s annoyance. (Melinda hates time travel.)
So we obviously have to do one more time travel story while we can just to entertain you. That’s practically a requirement.
📚 The Timeline
I think I got off track somewhere. Let me go back clarify some things. Two major series are at play here:
✅ Tales of a Curse Breaker in NY (a new prequel trilogy)
This is series is based on stories in Melinda’s newsletters from 2016–2017. The series includes the following books:
Catch the Scribe (paid subscribers now have the full edited ebook)
Book Battles (paid subscribers now have the full edited ebook)
Rogue Characters (currently publishing 4 chapters a week as Melinda writes it) + a side quest
Follow the Kickstarter campaign to get the trilogy first.
✅ The Curse Breaker’s Companion series
It’s based on stories from our newsletter from 2019-2020, and it’s full of dragons behaving badly, rogue magic, and a lot of property damage. That last one is not my fault. The series includes the following books:
Dragon Spells (published in 2020)
Rogue Spells (published in 2021)
Storm Spells (not finished yet, but it will publish in 2025)
⌛ Dragon Spells came out first, so that’s why we need a side quest! It will create a seamless hand-off between the two series.
Did I convince you yet? I’m practicing my pitch to the scribe. Is it working? Are you ready to demand that side quest?
Wait! What about the stories from 2018?
If you’re keeping track, then you realized there’s a year-long gap between the stories in the Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series and the Curse Breaker’s Companion series. And that isn’t my fault.
At the end of Rogue Spells (book 2 of the Curse Breaker’s Companion series), Melinda was thrown back in time to 2018! Obviously, I followed her. After all, she is my scribe. I can’t not follow her if I want more page time.
Why go back to 2018?
In 2018, our newsletter told a story of our race to get our scribe out of her office and home safely despite a magical storm that tried to destroy her and us too. That story was based on a real events, and it was our first long-form adventure told weekly across several months. And that makes it special.
So I might have suggested that we do that storm story as the third book in the Curse Breaker’s Companion series. What could be better than making it the lead up to the grand finale/final showdown with Dysteria?
I couldn’t think of a better way to end that trilogy than with that story. Of course, Melinda will add loads of new stuff to that original story. So you’ll get that epic storm story in the book, Storm Spells.
And that’s why we have to skip a year between the two series, and I need a side quest to make that make sense. You see why, right?
🛋️ So What Happens Next?
I convince Melinda to greenlight this side quest before the antibiotics wear off and she remembers that she said no side quests. Did she really think I’d stick to that agreement?
Will she let me do it? I’ll check back in next Monday with the verdict.
Until then, I hope you read great books and adventure with cool characters like me!
—Ran, son of Sarn, writing on behalf of my scribe, Melinda.
📬 Want Early Access to Everything?
Paid subscribers get:
4 chapters per week of Melinda’s current WIP
New ebooks months before the public release
Behind-the-scenes updates just like this
🔓 Subscribe here:
📣 In Case You Missed It:
🎧 Listen to the full cast audiobooks of the entire Rogue Gods Trilogy!
Get the Rogue Gods Trilogy in ebook or paperback.
Storm the Gates, (book 3 of the Rogue Gods trilogy) is now on YouTube! 11 hours of magic and monsters, no cliffhangers or ads.
Coming Soon
Will you catch the scribe & battle for the fate of your books with some rogue characters?
Get the brand new Tales of the Curse Breaker in NY series which transforms our early newsletter adventures into 3 brand new novels! Follow the campaign for details. (Estimated launch date is early September 2025 but this is dependent on Ran not going off on too many side quests in book 3.)