Welcome to our first prequel story, "Ethan Rex and the Ghostly Abbot," drawn by guest artist JingleJude.

In their own words, Jude is a "professional Vietnamese ailurophile, grandiloquent enthusiast, and artist, I guess." An extraordinary artist, in fact––check out their Instagram and prepare to be wowed.

We feel lucky indeed to have the opportunity to work with Jude, who in addition to their dazzling art skills also has a marvelous aesthetic sense that's very in tune with the vibe we were looking for in these prequel tales. 

"Ethan Rex and the Ghostly Abbot" was the first prequel story Nicky and Andrew wrote for this series, and the first story they worked on with Jude, and it went so well that they wanted to work with Jude some more, and at this point it's developed into an ongoing collaboration––so you'll be seeing a lot more of Jude's art as our series of prequel stories unfolds.

Nicky and Andrew wrote "Ethan Rex and the Ghostly Abbot" before they'd decided that the present batch of prequel stories would mostly focus on Madeline de Verninac's quest for information on the Corvus Drive. So this story isn't connected to that particular plotline; instead, it was originally conceived as the first installment of a series called Tales from the Endless Plateau.

Nicky and Andrew do plan to write more installments of Tales from the Endless Plateau eventually. In the meantime, enjoy "Ethan Rex and the Ghostly Abbot," in which we find young Reality Patrol agent Ethan Rex seeking temporary refuge during an ill-advised solo trek across the Endless Plateau.

In case you've forgotten Agent Sojac's mention of it back in Chapter 1.4, the Endless Plateau is the chaos-warped "nightmare wasteland" that surrounds the city-state of Tal Sharnis. We'll learn a lot more about it in future volumes of Weird Luck!