***Nema***
“May their bones tumble about the wastes forever,” Nema cursed around the gor root between her teeth as she rubbed the faint hand marks off of her arms. The most recent altercation between her, the chief and Vol had nearly escalated beyond what could be forgiven.
When she’d tapped into her Well to throw Vol’s hand away from her arm, she’d seen in his eyes, how tempted the young shaman was to draw upon his own and assert dominance.
Nema suspected the pres...
2021-09-07 22:44:41 +0000 UTC
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“Heave!” Tom shouted to no one in particular. It was just him and Suzie, tugging on a leather strap looped around the truck’s hitch.
The red sun beat down on them as they pulled, trying to get the truck to budge.
“Okay, give it some slack.” Tom let go of the line and furtively darted into the truck’s kill-range to carve away a bit more of the dirt, using a piece of metal armor as a makeshift shovel.
Geez, Jacob couldn’t have had a tac-welder and a bunch of ...
2021-09-07 22:42:46 +0000 UTC
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“Suzie no. No. NO. Suzie NO!”
Tom and Suzie made eye contact. The frog familiar’s tongue began to slowly reach toward the fat-pan, as if he wouldn’t be able to see it if she moved slowly enough. Like he was a T-rex or something.
The familiar darted away when Tom stomped the dirt between her and the sizzling lizard.
Mean. Cruel.Suzie radiated her disapproval straight into his mind as she glared at him from the shade of the truck.
“Okay, I kno...
2021-09-04 20:17:27 +0000 UTC
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***AWAKE***
Tom’s eyes snapped open. The first thing he noticed was that it was cold! An involuntary shiver swept through his entire body as he gasped.
The second thing he noticed was a throbbing pain in his elbow. The back of his arm had gotten pressed up against exposed metal in his sleep, and judging by the sheen of frost on the metal, it was below freezing.
Tom gasped and tried to rub the back of his arm, worried about frostbite.
Unfortunately...
2021-09-03 19:49:40 +0000 UTC
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***DREAM***
Tom walked back toward the hollowed-out mobile home where Reese and Jacob had died. Her neighbors hid in their own hovels, peering furtively out at Tom, presumably unable to call the cops on account of the self-replicating NDA curse that prevented anyone from mentioning the company of armed knights who’d stormed through about twelve hours ago.
Tom assumed it eventually wore off, but there wasn’t going to be any official response tonight. Hadn’t been la...
2021-09-01 19:39:50 +0000 UTC
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In the middle of an endless ocean of desolate cracked earth, there was a single monument taller than the occasional stubborn gnarled bush hanging on for dear life for the yearly rains.
It was brown, a bit darker than the surrounding tan land, reddish from a distance. Like everything else, it radiated light-distorting waves of heat as the relentless red sun beat down on it. And while there was no life in this cooked land larger than a tiny lizard that pissed dust, if one liste...
2021-08-30 17:18:47 +0000 UTC
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Feel free to jump in the comments with suggestions and questions about the next arc in addition to the vote.
The Endless was a fun boogeyman, and I've got an interesting idea how I see it turning out.
The Endless is Tom, if his daughter is killed, and it's his daughter from the future if she's not.
If she dies, he has motivation to throw away all morality and curb-stomp them by Infinite replicating through time shenanigans. If she doesn't die, she most likely ca...
2021-08-27 02:26:46 +0000 UTC
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***The Hall of Worlds, Kinzena, Deraan continent.***
Sasha Honnekun wiped her sweaty palms on her bright white healer’s jerkin for probably the hundredth time.
The tension was palpable.
Marida En’hol herself, the powerful seer known as The Omniscient, was standing in the center of the room, tossing around terse orders with the absolute confidence they would be obeyed.
She had barged into Kinzena land uninvited and browbeat The Immortal into following. Her uncle was...
2021-08-26 18:41:05 +0000 UTC
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Tom forgot that Carol had eyes, ears, and a brain. She heard what he heard, and saw what he saw.
The Outsider was slamming the belt of ammo into place and had engaged the first round before Tom finished speaking.
The Outsider cursed, something unnatural and guttural that felt like cold talons sliding down the back of his neck, then she took aim at the thickest knot of knights, standing idly around a barrel like co-workers chatting around the water cooler in a cubicle-pa...
2021-08-25 20:52:08 +0000 UTC
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“Alright, got that taken care of,” Carol said cheerfully, wedging the machine gun in the back of the sedan. The weapon was too big to fit in gracefully, and Carol spent a minute finagling it in diagonally, with the barrel over Tom’s left ear, something Tom was entirely not comfortable with.
Once that was done, Carol took the ammo boxes and heaved them into the rear foot space, then hopped in the passenger seat.
“So Tom, where are these goons?” Carol asked.
…
<...
2021-08-24 21:00:38 +0000 UTC
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“On the planet Orsoth, on the Deraan continent, where the sun, water, and fertile soil create a veritable paradise for great civilizations to rise to prominence, there exists dozens of kingdoms vying for supremacy under the oversight of the Emperor. Each of these kingdoms is ruled by a family of people with special, magical abilities. For the sake of convenience, we’ll call them Alia. That’s Outsider for ‘Quicksilver-souls’.”
“Now on Orsoth, there are dozens, if not hundre...
2021-08-23 19:14:35 +0000 UTC
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***Tom***
“911, what’s your emergency?”
There’s a bunch of murderous LARPers on the 88th interstate, mile 105.
….
“Sir?”
Tom’s mouth was open, his tongue was working, his brain knew exactly what he wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come out.
“H-Hold on,” Tom stammered.
“Sir, what is your location?”
Mile 105 on the tollway, Tom tried to force himself to s...
2021-08-20 17:24:57 +0000 UTC
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***AWAKE***
The swelling had really set in, and Tom’s face felt like the Toxic Avenger’s, all swollen and throbbing in the most grotesque way.
Honestly, Tom was aching for the opportunity to do Grant the same favor. Intellectually, he supposed he understood why it might have been a wise precaution, but you never really forget your first bitch-slap.
He was still tied to the horse, his face jammed into stiff horse-hair.
He could have tried going to ...
2021-08-19 16:45:11 +0000 UTC
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***DREAM***
“I fucking warned you,” Ken’s voice came across the phone.
“Shut up Ken and listen to me very closely. I’m about to do you a huge favor. I’m gonna scratch your back real good, and then you’re gonna scratch mine. Understand?”
“Speak.” Ken said.
“You might have wondered how I got your bank account info and the code to exit the holding cells. Short answer: I’m psychic. It’s not one of the gold thingies you stole, it’s a...
2021-08-18 03:54:30 +0000 UTC
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***Tom Graves***
“We’re gonna be alright, son,” Grampa said over the phone. “Somebody got that bastard through the window. She’s right outside, taking care of an accomplice or something…Is that a horse?”
A horse? What?
“Umm…It’s getting a little weird over here. I’ll have to call you back.”
“No, leave the phone on –“
Click.
Damnit!
“So, they’re not dead?” Jacob asked.
...
2021-08-17 20:06:21 +0000 UTC
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Tom’s brain went from his typical sleepy idle to a blistering hundred miles an hour as his body dumped adrenaline into his veins.
First, he analyzed every hostage/revenge phone call he’d ever seen in a movie and identified one ingrained weakness: The bad guy had to offer terms, or make contact with the target of their revenge and establish a dialogue before the killing started.
Tom hung up.
That’ll buy me another thirty seconds.
Tom’s gaze flicked over...
2021-08-16 15:27:28 +0000 UTC
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“What the hell was that?” Tom asked.
The young man lying on the grass looked confused for a moment before wincing and grabbing his forehead.
“I’m sorry, I must have just prophesied,” He said, levering himself to his feet, stretching out his cramping muscles. “Terribly inconvenient. Where was I?” Grant grabbed the spoon off the ground and resumed stirring, as if nothing had happened.
“You just prophesied?” Tom asked.
“Mmmyes?” Grant said, ...
2021-08-13 16:48:17 +0000 UTC
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So I wanna prove I can finish a story, and I’d like to spend 2022 making that happen for at least one series.
It’s just downright unhealthy having so many unfinished series. So, by order of age, which would you guys like me to focus on closing out in 2022?
The Outer Sphere
Wake of the Ravager
Systems of the Apocalypse
I’m down for anything, and I’m pretty confident that by next year I’ll be rested and ready to finish one of these.
2021-08-12 22:53:42 +0000 UTC
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***Chris Evans***
Tap, tap, tap, tap tap taptaptap
“You got somewhere to be?” Chris asked, glancing over at Ken, whose shoe was clicking against the laminate outside the principal’s office.
“I just fail to see what this is going to get us. We’ve got his records.” Ken said.
“Sure, but those records don’t tell us jack shit about who we’re chasing. An interview can offer ten times more insight. Didn’t they teach you that in detective training?...
2021-08-12 17:00:39 +0000 UTC
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The material a spell phrase is composed of is more important than anything save the spell phrase itself.
Material spells are part art, part science. There have been many attempts to chart the effects of different materials, and yet, while often similar, no two charts wind up being identical.
The most accurate, consistent measurements, is the longevity of the material’s ability to retain a spell phrase, which seems to be directly linked with a material’s a...
2021-08-11 17:45:22 +0000 UTC
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“Then it is agreed. House Ku’leth is to be removed, root and stem.” The grizzled head of house Kinzena said. “These ‘crypts’ that allow any common-blooded peasant to imitate their betters cannot be tolerated.”
But..Lily is a Ku’leth…
“Hey!” Grant snapped out of it and realized he’d overpoured the wine on the council member’s glass. It was Harren of house Morkel. The emaciated curse-witch eyed Grant with a contemplative gaze that sent shivers of f...
2021-08-11 05:32:29 +0000 UTC
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“Mi dealer's casa es su casa.” Jacob said, gesturing expansively to the double-wide trailer with the sagging flooring and scent of mold.
“Two nights.” The woman on the sofa said. Reese was slender, with a gun holster bearing pistol over a baggy t-shirt and jammies. Her skin sported a rather terrifying amount of tattoos. “If you don’t get out by then, I’ll bury you out back.”
Tom had a hard time looking away from the woman’s prodigious ink. ...
2021-08-10 01:46:16 +0000 UTC
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I'm taking a trip down to Oregon to visit my wife's grandmother.
2 weeks, from the 9th to the 23rd.
I've got my laptop, and I'll try my best to maintain a high level of output, but this is just a head's up that there may be a few days that I fall behind because of getting my cheeks pinched or what have you.
Other news: Next month I'll start posting the Teen necromancer story to Royalroad, which will allow $1 and $5 subscribers to start catching up. It will most like...
2021-08-08 02:20:33 +0000 UTC
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***DREAM***
“What the hell is a key fob?” Tom demanded, grinding the muzzle of the gun into Chris’s bleeding face.
Tom was currently holed up in the interrogation room, with the door forced shut by the detective’s girth. Tom made sure to hide from the one-way mirror in case they decided to shoot him through the glass.
“It’s a digital key we use to get into restricted areas and our computers. Most people carry it on their keychain.”
“What’s it look lik...
2021-08-06 20:03:58 +0000 UTC
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***Chris Evans***
A burst of adrenaline allowed Chris to catch the kid’s hand before he got himself killed, forcing it back down to his side.
“Shut your mouth,” He whispered, wrangling the lanky kid down the hall toward the cells.
Once they were away from prying eyes and ears, their conversation covered by the sounds of the office.
“Who was it? Describe him?”
“I don’t wanna sound…bigoted or anything, but you cops all kinda look the same to me. Buz...
2021-08-05 20:29:50 +0000 UTC
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Chris Evans studied the kid in front of him. Tom Graves had pale skin, brown hair, and a frankly exotic face complete with brown eyes that seemed to appear brighter at times, orange or gold in the right light. Easy on the eyes, but Chris couldn’t place his ethnicity, which was odd, given his decades of experience as a detective. Recognizing ethnicity at a glance was one of the tools in the toolkit a detective was expected to have, as it could give clues to a suspect’s motivations, what th...
2021-08-04 22:40:29 +0000 UTC
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***Kenneth Peterson***
That could have gone worse, Ken thought, blinking burning tears out of his eyes as he drove. He could be dead right now, face bit off by a goddamn mountain lion.
On the flip side, it could have gone a lot better too.
Obviously, the kid couldn’t have trained a mountain lion to dodge gunfire, carry bear spray and explode it on people between now and last Wednesday.
So, probably another demon.
On the plus side, he ...
2021-08-03 19:28:43 +0000 UTC
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Tom did smell smoke. He saw it, too, rolling across the ceiling from the basement door.
The house was on fire.
Grampa built the place back in the seventies before the sprawl of Chicago suburbs engulfed it, and like so many other old houses, it was built entirely out of highly flammable carcinogens.
Shit, maybe I can put it out or something.
Tom ran up the stairs and lunged for the doorhandle a moment before Jacob tugged him backwards by the shirt coll...
2021-08-02 21:53:57 +0000 UTC
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“Okay, let me get this straight. The demon spirits who are going to inhabit the skeleton have resumes?” Jacob asked incredulously as Tom flipped through a sheaf of aged papyrus with the demon’s vital statistics, cost in soul-pulses, and work history.
“Apparently.” Tom said, flipping to the next one.
Eighteen hundred years of work experience, faithfully guarded a hallway for thirty years, successfully defended the tower of Miandri from invaders, heroically sa...
2021-07-30 21:38:06 +0000 UTC
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“Huh, kid’s alive,” Ken said, watching the local news on his living room TV.
Thomas Graves was wearing a blanket, sitting in the back of an ambulance, with a thousand-yard stare, a cup of hot cocoa in his hands and a news camera up his nose.
“You’re welcome,” Ken told the kid, putting his feet up on his ottoman and taking another sip of his beer while twiddling the ring between his fingers. When he put it on, he felt an unpleasant burn inside him, so he wasn’t gonna ...
2021-07-29 21:16:40 +0000 UTC
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