Potions, Charms and Grimoires [Progression Fantasy, Time Loop, Slow Burn]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Another world falls...

Fia wakes on the edge, caught in an endless cycle as the end of days looms ever closer. Once, she and her sister ran a shop filled with rare and mystical curiosities. But since Sophie's disappearance, the shelves have gathered dust, the magic faded.

Then a stranger walks through the door, her first customer in ages. He offers her a bargain: scour the ruins of her dying world, seek out its treasures, and in return, he'll show her a way out. A path forward.

If he's telling the truth.

If such a path even exists.

If she's willing to pay the price.

*****************What to Expect*****************

Single POV. (Though there may be one-off contextualizing chapters. These would be in addition to and not part of the regular release.

Low Progression. The MC progresses via two main paths, Shop Stock and Spellwork.

Weak to Strong progression. This will be fairly slow.

Shorter Arcs (10-chapter range) with larger overarching plotlines.

Time Loop.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2025
Author: Cjames

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.8/ 5.0
Followers: 160
Views: 20,085

Reviews

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Community Reviews(2)

KraeticRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
"Potions, Charms, and Grimoires" starts with Fia, a former shopkeeper, stuck in a time loop as her world crumbles. She spends her days running a tiny stall, selling trinkets to the same people over and over—until a mysterious stranger offers her a deal: scavenge the ruins of her dying world for a chance at freedom. The early chapters build intrigue with their eerie atmosphere and slow-burn tension.
The time loop is not thrown at the readers but well crafted making it orginal and different from other time loop novels. If you like fantasy with mystery, survival, and well-paced character growth, this one’s worth checking out.
Ryujin2xdRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I started Potions, Charms, and Grimoires expecting a well-crafted fantasy. What I got was something much heavier, much more personal, and far more layered than I ever could have expected.
This isn’t just a story about magic. It isn’t just a war story. It’s a story about loss, memory, survival, and the way time itself becomes a prison when grief is too big to process.
Fia is a phenomenal protagonist. She isn’t a warrior. She’s not some legendary mage wielding impossible power. She’s a survivor, which makes her all the more compelling. She’s broken but functional, still going through the motions, keeping up her sister’s shop, tending to customers she barely cares about, because what else is there? Her grief is suffocating. Sophie is everywhere in her thoughts, and it colors everything from how she eats, how she interacts with the world, how she refuses to let go. She doesn’t fight in the way you expect. Her power isn’t in brute strength, it’s in knowledge, memory, and navigating the nightmare of her own existence.
The world is rich, but in decay. This world feels alive, even as it’s falling apart. The descriptions of the Upper Ward contrast sharply with the city’s lower levels. The starving refugees, the empty markets, the hollow-eyed soldiers who know they’ve already lost. You feel every inch of this world crumbling. The city is a husk of what it used to be, filled with people clinging to the past or desperately trying to pretend things will go back to normal. The war is inevitable, creeping in like a disease. It’s not framed as an epic conflict, it’s just the natural consequence of history playing out. The magic is subtle but devastating. Spells aren’t flashy, they’re tools, weapons, and crutches. The kind of magic that doesn’t solve problems so much as shift them into different forms.
Then the story reveals its biggest twist: the loop. Fia is stuck in a time loop. Her sister, Sophie, likely created it. The loop is only three days long. Let that sink in. She’s not r