The Lockkeeper of Brackwater
A LitRPG Portal Progression NovelBy Cassian Rowe
Length7h 43m
About this audiobook
Brackwater's lock is a small thing by the standards of the great canals, but for twenty years it has been Eddan Voss's. He rebuilt its northern gate after the flood of Year Twelve and oils its chains every tenday. His daughter drowned in it when she was nine, while he was at the winch and did not turn it fast enough, and ever since he has counted the turns of the wheel to keep the memory at bay.
Everyone else counts minutes. The System logs and charges every arrival and departure, and in the big ports on the Waypoint Chain, people say a late ship can cost a man a month of his life. Eddan has never seen the Chain and never wanted to. At noon on a good day, the canal goes dark, a buoy of black iron and cold blue light rises out of it with water spiraling upward off its sides, and a countdown hangs in the air. The lockhouse tears loose from its foundations with Eddan clinging to the winch.
He lands on cold, ridged metal in a station called Waypoint Alpha, where an amber notice has already opened his ledger: Arrival status: 3 minutes late. Toll due: 3 XP. He has none. So the System takes a year of his life instead, and he feels every morning of it drain away.
"That's how it starts," says the old merchant beside him, who has been paying for forty years and can no longer remember his wife's face. When his own toll comes due, eleven minutes' worth, he refuses to pay. The System collects anyway, and Eddan watches him wither into a drift of gray dust on the station floor.
Audiobook details
GenreFantasy
Length7 hrs 43 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
18The Broken Clock Strikes
2The Lock at Brackwater
19The Unmeasured Moment
3The Ledger of Arrivals
20The Fall of the Chain
4The Courier's Debt
21The Return to Brackwater
5The Timely
22The New Flow
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6The Understation
23The Courier's Forgiveness
7The Sealed Waypoint
24The Whistleblower's Reward
8The Toll of Mercy
25The Lockmaster Who Makes You Late
9The Assassins' Compact
26The Ghost of Halvard
10The Warden's Hunt
27The Remnant War
11The Rescue at 9:00
28The Keeper of the Flow
12The Broken Clock
29The Daughter's Lock
13The Core of the Chain
30The Chain Reforged
14The Lockmaster's Choice
31The Lockmaster's Legacy
15The Weight of the Chain
32About the author
16The Traitor's Gambit
33Series hook
17The Greatest Delay
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