The kitri’s droning echoed through the massive vaulted halls, bouncing off the polished stone that seemed to compose every bit of the palace.
“Do not itch yourself in an unseemly place, do not spit, if you must cough, cover your mouth with your shirtsleeve.”
“Those seem specifically human,” Jeb said as the kitri gave them a final briefing on their way to the audience with the emperor.
“I spent an evening tracking down some other humans and compiling a list of thi...
2021-11-08 22:02:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
“I’m sorry, I gotta be back at home to receive word if my uncle has accepted the deal.” Vresh said, frowning unhappily.
“Rain check?” Jeb said with a shrug. He couldn’t do much more than shrug with the tailor literally holding a needle to his genitals and the valet hustling back and forth with various types of cloth, holding them up to Jeb’s face before shaking his head with a honk, heading off to find something else.
“What’s a rain check?” Vresh asked, glancin...
2021-11-03 22:53:47 +0000 UTC
View Post
“What in the nine hells are you doing here!?” Vresh demanded, shaking him lightly by his collar. As far as Jeb was aware, this was the half-time break of the dinner, where everyone got a chance to stretch their legs, and Vresh had taken the opportunity to drag him aside and get the whole story.
“Well, I got a letter I thought was from you, and since we parted on amicable terms, and there was a dead imperial valet in my hotel room, I thought you could…you know…help with that?...
2021-10-29 21:48:20 +0000 UTC
View Post
This question is mostly for people who've read both stories, but anyone can weigh in.
If you've read both WotR and Apocalypse: Generic system, you would know that they've got a bit of a different approach to how magic and leveling works.
Wake of the Ravager: The magic and levels were a way of taking a toxic substance leaking from another eldritch dimension and normalizing it by turning it into physical effects so our reality could process it.
Levels and the sy...
2021-10-29 00:22:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
***Emperor Pikaku, Uniter of the Continent, Ruler of Mestikos, Level 328***
“Water stress among the brovis continues to ease as the reservoirs do their job, and we expect to see a return on investment within a few short years. The Inulak people continue to insist that the harbor a thousand miles northwest of them is polluting their waters, and demand a cessation of activity…
Pikaku took his job as seriously as possible. Maximum benefit for the most people, but gods, it was dry...
2021-10-27 01:14:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Hello?” Smartass said into the dark of the abandoned building written on the crumpled note she held in her hand. “Anybody here?”
There wasn’t much in the room aside from some old crates that smelled of mildew, and a faint flickering light from the docks, that made all the shadows seem to come alive, following her around. Occasionally a breeze would roll in and the giant meathooks hanging from the ceiling would ring against each other, creating a gloomy music.
Smartass s...
2021-10-20 21:37:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
They glided to a halt at the landing pad. Jeb had been expecting a marble runway, but it was more of a marble helipad. Everything in Mestikos was white and shiny. It actually hurt the eyes a little.
Jeb glanced at the twitching men and women holding spears between him them like they were trying to ward off evil.
A helipad makes more sense in retrospect since people who fly don’t necessarily need extra space to speed up or slow down.
Jeb’s elbow was hanging out t...
2021-10-17 22:08:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
***Chris Campbell***
“Cold as a witches tit,” Chris complained, rubbing his hands together. Far enough south, and the enormous trees gradually shrank as the sunlight simply wasn’t enough to sustain them. His tools for starting the fire were frosted over, waiting for him to finish warming up his fingers.
At least Martha will appreciate that I’ve lost that weight she’s always on me to lose.
He was down maybe fifty pounds. He felt terrible, and thi...
2021-10-15 22:15:45 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom’ head snapped toward the sound.
A Vith warrior gushed blood from a slashed neck, his expression confused.
Gunn’s voice bellowed. “Kinzena!”
A moment later, Tom felt someone tackle him across his ribs, and he was driven to the ground by old man Gunn.
A whistling sounded above his head.
Thunk.
Gunn twitched.
“Get to the children!” He shouted over Tom’s head.
“They’re gone! A distant voice shouted back.
What...
2021-10-13 22:52:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Heads up! I am most likely going to be moving to New Mexico at the end of the year. Dec/Jan.
How does this affect you:
The amount of time that I am able to spend writing may suffer as we box up stuff and get ready to go. Be prepared for days missed when I have to drive around and cancel all my utilities, or donate my furniture, pack up boxes or haggle with the moving company, etc.
There's a good chance I will soon set aside Soulmonger for a couple months to focus o...
2021-10-12 22:00:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
“I’m bored.” Smartass said for the one hundred and thirty-second time.
“Flying through the upper atmosphere at supersonic speeds is boring you?” Jeb asked, glancing over at his fairy companion, who was lying face-down on the invisible plane of force that kept their cabin pressure at ground level, tapping her toes above her while she watched the land roll by far beneath them.
“Yes.”
Jeb tore his gaze away and glanced at Borg. Borg had curled himself into a ball,...
2021-10-12 21:28:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
*** Vendrith Kinzena***
Vendrith Kinzena had hated paperwork in his youth, but at his age…well, he still hated it, but he also saw the value in properly managed logistics.
So it was that Vendrith found himself staring at the letter detailing the disappearance of the hundred and eighty second comapny, nicknamed ‘the fire brigade’.
They had been patrolling the Vith side of the Dinamor stretch, keeping their eyes on the state of the Vith. Whether or not they would pose a ...
2021-10-11 21:02:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Sasha Honnekun gasped for air as she dragged herself out of the water flopping onto the beach like a clubbed fish.
Once her supply of air was secured, Sasha simply couldn’t find it in herself to drag her body further up the beach. She was too tired. The waves lapped against her senseless feet.
She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the ship, a massive pyre with several hundred souls inside, unable to escape in time.
The only reason she could get out was because her cabin h...
2021-10-08 21:23:41 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom woke up to the sound of screaming, and the smell of smoke.
Nema was out of bed faster than him, leaping across the room in a single bound to peek out the hut and see what the emergency was.
Tom, his brain half-addled from sleep, had come to conflate getting woken up in the middle of the night with emergency healing, so he staggered away from the door and towards the healing crypt, which rested on the wicker shelf alongside the other three crypts.
It saved his life.
2021-10-06 18:12:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Jebediah Trapper was sitting in the office of one of the most powerful beings on the planet. The desk looked heavy, and the shelves were stuffed with arcane memorabilia, but Jeb was fairly sure they were a clever mislead to trick the observer into thinking the owner of the velvet-floored room had a trace of mortal concerns left in him.
“Let me try and put this in terms you’ll understand,” Vex said, the skeletal keegan steepling his fingers. “A thief breaks into your house and st...
2021-10-05 20:40:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
***Serena Lovelace, Unambitious Lab Technician***
“Why are they doing this to us!?” Serena cried, huddled behind a desk, shivering violently. The supply of pure oxygen she clutched to her face was the only reason she hadn’t passed out with the rest of the technicians when they started pumping gas into the labs.
Her ‘boss’ gave her a raised eyebrow and a scoff as she held her back against the heavy steel door, which was beginning to bend under the inhuman assault from out...
2021-10-05 00:44:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom fell back on his ass, staring at the cracked stone patched with clay substitute. He’d spent the last week on the move picking up any rock he could find, mixing it with wet mud and trying to build a brick furnace in the back of the truck.
When it exploded from the heat, Tom realized exactly how out of his depth he was. Building a forge actually took skill and knowledge. It wasn’t something any ignoramus could slap together in a week foraging through the jungle with sticks, mud an...
2021-09-30 23:52:23 +0000 UTC
View Post
“What the hell?” Tom muttered, craning his neck to peer out the window. Tom might have thought it was one of his newfangled ‘actual’ dreams, if he hadn’t just been dreaming about the night before.
Just in case, he pinched himself a bit, finding the sensation crisp and realistic.
So where the hell did all these tents and shit come from? Tom asked, until elder Gunn appeared, having noticed he was awake.Oh god, it’s the same village. Why won’t these people ...
2021-09-28 22:05:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
Okay, so I've got about three pages of notes on Generic System 4. Enough for me to start hacking away at it. (3 pages is actually a lot for me)
The plan is to seesaw back and forth between the two stories for as long as my poor little writer-brain can handle it. Expect short chapters of Soulmonger 2-3 times a week, and one 3-4k chapter of GSA #4 once per week, until it is done, or I can no longer juggle the two.
If at any point, I am mentally unable to continue that pace, GSA wi...
2021-09-28 00:13:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
***Vol***
“Why are you asking me this?” Vol asked, leaning back in his seat.
“Because Tom can’t win,” Nema said, her eyes bloodshot from crying. “He decided to use his ‘gun’ instead of the sword, against my suggestion. I tested it on myself. It’s loud as brekor, but it’s less than lethal.” She said, holding up a swollen hand for Vol to see. “It won’t work on a Vith drawing from their well, but he refuses to listen. The damn thing only has five shots left,...
2021-09-25 23:14:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
“The chief, the shaman and the elders have agreed that everyone’s interests would be better served if you were elsewhere, so you’ll be banished three days from now. You may wish to take some time to prepare.” The Vith warrior said, leaning easily on a stone spear as he spoke to Tom. A half dozen men were emptying out Tom’s house, gliding past him with his stuff in their hands.
But not just the stuff he’d received from the village. Other things like his rear-view mirrors and ...
2021-09-24 20:27:52 +0000 UTC
View Post
Nathan Glover considered himself an optimist. He tended to look on the positive side of things for the most part.
Other people saw a dangerous-as-hell assignment babysitting a literal monster capable of ripping his head off, given free reign by bureaucrats who didn’t care how many people got fed to the meatgrinder as long as they got results.
Well, Nate saw that too.
But he also saw this as a historic, life-defining opportunity to physically interact with an actual, honest...
2021-09-22 22:31:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom sat bolt upright as a woman burst through the flimsy curtain separating them from the cold of night. She carried a child in her arms, unnaturally pale and listless. The child was male, about eight years old, and there was a horrific gash on his head. The scalp was peeling open to reveal the faintest hint of bone buried under the gruesome red flesh.
“What happened!?” Nema asked, leaping out of bed to attend to the child in less than a second while Tom was still clambering to his ...
2021-09-20 21:39:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom was learning the language the way most people do: Listening to fairy tales. His hands were occupied with printing Mr. Fluffybottom’s magical phone number onto the spell circle while he was listening to the closest thing to an audiobook the desert people had.
“A long, longtime ago,” Nema said, spreading her fingers apart dramatically for gravitas. “There was a council of sixteen gods, who shared power equally amongst each other. These beings were so often opposed to ...
2021-09-18 23:09:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Mr. President”
Carl snorted in surprise, his eyes gummy from falling asleep… he glanced at the time. Dear God, two hours ago?
Then Carl’s brain kicked on and he was no longer an old man without enough sleep. Now he was Carl Simmons, Leader of the Free World.
“What is it?” He said, suppressing a yawn as his sat up, his bladder protesting being moved.
“There’s a situation.” The secret service agent said.
“Better be,” Carl grumbled. ...
2021-09-16 23:53:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Mr. Graves,” Luz’s rich voice spoke through the magical hologram, greeting him with a welcoming smile. “Your planar address has shifted drastically.”
“Tell me about it.” Tom said, rolling his eyes.
“If you insist.” She said, before taking a deep breath.
“Not interested,” Tom said. “I need a sensitive gauge, and I need a bodyguard. Is Kar’el available again?”
“Let’s see…Ms. Kar’el left a note on her account that reads: ‘I don’t h...
2021-09-15 23:13:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
***DREAM***
Tom watched from his hiding place under a sand-covered rug as the smelly guy – Vol, that’s his name – waltzed into Tom’s house. A moment later faint smashing noises could be heard.
Tom was tempted to go in there and throw down right then and there, but a few things held him back.
Reason number one: none of it was real.
Reason two: Vol would probably win. Tom was a city slicker, and that estimate was before he included every Vith’s superna...
2021-09-14 22:46:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
***Nema***
Nema hummed, sucking on gor root as she planned out Tom’s new shoes. They were going to be stunningly big when they were finished. Her father had more than enough leather in storage, but the tricky part was getting the soles right. Tom’s feet were so big it was actually a little tricky to make a boot without irritating seams on the soles.
She had to pull from her father’s stash of game hides from the south, where the trees and the animals grew big and wild, but sh...
2021-09-13 22:17:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
Tom raised the root vegetable up to his mouth and began to chew, trying not to let any expression cross his face. Nema was watching him while sucking on some kind of licorice root.
The slight woman had brought him breakfast, and was watching him eat with an intensity reserved for hunters and serial killers. In either case, Tom was the prey.
The food was…fine. Tom was raised by old people, so they had the ‘finish your plate’ mentality, which helped him now, because the roots ...
2021-09-09 21:42:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Tom, I’m with child.” The black widow said to him, rubbing its belly with its many legs. The stomach was squirming and partially see-through. Tom looked closer and saw what was inside her stomach was not a baby, but chains.
Too late, the spider’s legs had already clamped down around him. Chains began to erupt from the spiders spinnerets, wrapping around him in a suffocating grip.
“Tom, I needthis, I swear I’ll pay you back. And let’s face it, you’re not g...
2021-09-08 20:19:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
