cathfach

Unbound Soul Mating Season: Day 2

The second of three. As before, it's in the NSFW channel on discord.

Unborn Hero Chapter 37: Making More Magic

There's been a substantial influx of new patreons over the past week, with Unborn Hero proving unexpectedly popular on royal road. (And I don't say this often enough, but thank you very much, patreons new and old. I greatly appreciate the support.) In fact, it's not only reversed the drop-off when Unbound Soul finished, but left me at an all-time high patreon count. Given that, I think it would be appropriate to promote Unborn Hero to my current 'main' story. It sure has come a long ...

2023-03-13 06:19:58 +0000 UTC View Post

A Serious Incident (Part 2/3)

Mr Tailor waited patiently inside the clothiers, placidly watching the man in the neat suit and shoes that were somehow still shiny despite the street's inch thick layer of manure. It was unfortunate, but such excrement-encrusted conditions were always a danger in any city that relied on equine locomotion.

Meanwhile, Mr Butcher, the owner of Butcher's Bespoke Robes and Vestments, talked to the man.

"I already told you government lot everything I know. Guy came in, ordered two doze...

Unbound Soul Mating Season: Day 1

Today's double-length chapter is on discord, in the new age-restricted NSFW channel. This patreon isn't marked as containing adult content, and I'm unlikely to write any further NSFW content, so I don't want to change that just for a three chapter mini series.

If you don't want to link discord and patreon accounts, ping me on discord with your patreon u...

Unborn Hero Chapter 36: Different Worlds

Grace walked down a corridor towards the guest rooms, feeling a little light-headed. The final words of her father—ruthlessly dispatched while she was busy trying to stop choking—echoed in her mind.

"Your request is denied. It would be a massive insult to the [Hero], and, from what I've heard, you were vital to the defeat of this morning's demon. You're too important to let you quit over a mere difference of culture. But since you take your duties so seriously, I'll give you another...

A Serious Incident (Part 1/3)

This is a short story set in Glimmerhome (Anya’s base of operations for the first part of A Friendly Voidling) set at a nonspecific time shortly after her time reversal. It also marks the first time I added footnotes to a chapter, which of course patreon doesn’t support, it thinking bold and italic fonts are the cutting edge of text formatting. Sorry for the clunky replacement. They can go on the same pile as the rows of -'s for horizontal rules.

Mr Black sat behin...

Unborn Hero Chapter 35: Audience

The end of February is rapidly approaching, which means it's almost time for the Tuesday and Friday slots to restart. In turn, that means I need to decide what to occupy them with. I've been haemorrhaging patreons this month, which isn't a complete surprise, but if everyone here for unbound soul alone is leaving, it does take the pressure off to continue posting it at its previous pace. Therefore, Fridays will be occupied with new(ish) stuff - we'll start with A Serious Incident, a t...

2023-02-27 05:51:24 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 34: Bathhouse

ding
Achievement unlocked: [War Veteran].

War Veteran (Uncommon)
You have played a significant role in a conflict between sapients, with at least ten-thousand opponents arrayed against you. Given the horrors of war, it seems strange that people insist on doing it so often, but at least this achievement will help inure you against such horrors. Provides a 25% resistance to fear and panic effects and aids coordination when working in large groups....

Unborn Hero Chapter 33: Victory

ding
For getting your message across, [Light] advances to level 9.

"Finally!" thought Mystery. "She has an ability to purge miasma in a wide area, and as far as I can see, demons practically run on miasma. Why didn't she use it right at the start?"

Mystery was forgetting that her ability to see miasma was a rare sub-skill that grew out of her ability to see mana, which itself was uncommon. Not everyone advanced their skill sets as easily as she did, n...

Fetch Quest/Lonely Dungeon: A Chaotic Meetup

... Is over on royal road. Part 1 of this rather silly crossover chapter is here (against fetch quest) and part 2 is here. (against lonely dungeon) It didn't come to patr...

Unbound Soul Volume 8 Afterword

Posting this separately since it's so damn long. This is the final bit of volume 8. I'll be e-booking it tomorrow, so if anyone has corrections or continuity errors to point out, now's the time to say so. Unbound Soul will resume on 3rd March, Unborn Hero will continue as normal, and... remember that post I did contemplating future options? Wellllll, forget all that, because I chose something new*. I did put up the character creator of that unbound soul text rpg in discord, though. I...

2023-02-09 05:44:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Unbound Soul Side Story: Earth's Regret

This is the final side story of volume 8, but will still be a post tomorrow; the double-chapter-length volume afterword. Even if you aren't interested in that sort of thing, you might want to scroll down to Peter's adult status, below which is a brief description of what he was up to between the last chapter and the epilogue. The first paragraph lists some of the upcoming chapter topics, too.

Not long after Harry had first fled to Erryn's world, Gregory Charles found h...

Unbound Soul Side Story: Maximilian's Madness

A shadow's width away from Erryn, on a world where mana was so sparse that magic was unusable and even the least of monsters couldn't survive on the ambient supply, a madman stared in awe at the culmination of his work. The true owners of the world—for whom all of humanity existed only to pave the way—were reborn at last. A goddess, engineered to consume flesh and absorb the concentrated mana contained within. And, more importantly, an intact mind. Intelligent eyes bore into him, looking ...

Unbound Soul Side Story: Peter's Celebration

I lay on my front, face smushed into my pillow. It made it hard to breathe, but I'd needed to give [Regeneration] some time to deal with the latest claw wounds on my back, during which it had been the only comfortable position. Now the cause of those scrams and scratches was clinging to my arm, purring in her sleep, with a massive, contented smile on her face, and I had no way of rolling over without waking her.

While I needed to admit to having no prior experience of what the act was s...

Unborn Hero Chapter 32: Strength

Next unbound soul chapter coming up in ~10 minutes.

"I'm sorry, but I really need to address the ogre in the room," said Rose after they'd resumed their jog towards the assumed demon. "Hayedalf, do you still have a... you know."

Hayedalf did indeed know, but damn well wasn't going to admit it. "A what?" he asked innocently.

"... Never mind."

Hayedalf had, of course, considered the question. It was hard not to. At first, the horde of monsters had admit...

Unbound Soul Epilogue

"Sorry sweetie, but Daddy needs to visit Synklisi today," I told Catherine, trying to detach the [Clingy] catkin toddler. She'd inherited her own take on her mother's hugging tendencies, and the damn trait boosted her arm strength. I could still overpower her easily enough, but with her low endurance, I was worried I'd break something.

"No! Want to play!"

"You can play with me instead," came Cluma's voice from nowhere in particular, before she stepped out into existence behind me....

Unbound Soul Chapter 268: Verdict

Epilogue and 3 side stories to go before the break.

"Where did you get that last part from?" I asked.

The illusion of me shifted and warped, becoming an image of Dominic. I gave a sharp intake of breath and took a step backward away from it. "That was self defence," I claimed.

"His death was not required for your defence," said the image, now using a warped, monotonous version of Dominic's voice. It was true, too. But how did it know about it? Had it not ju...

Unbound Soul Chapter 267: Judgement

My [Redistribute] completed, and I stood up to join Cara and Calvin, who were staring around in awe.

"Where are we?" whispered Cara with reverence, the surroundings being sufficient to momentarily distract her from her group's imprisonment and Dominic's death.

Perhaps I'd been a bit hasty in teleporting them here. The first time I'd set foot on this floor, I'd struggled to even breathe in the dense mana, so like my [Inventory], there was a chance they'd end up outright cooked. Lik...

Unbound Soul Chapter 266: Self Defence

Harry swore.

"Language!" I exclaimed, still grinning. I wasn't quite sure why. I was feeling somewhat manic.

"How long have you been there?" he asked, shoulders slumping.

"Why would I want to answer that?" I pointed out, not wanting to give the overly insightful devil-wannabe any more information than absolutely required. "Long enough to know who my enemies are, at least."

"Enemies? We would never have harmed Cluma, and you know it."

"No, I don't know it; she'd h...

Unbound Soul Chapter 265: Dilemma

We’re coming up to the end of the volume, so as I’ve done with other volumes, to give myself some admin time to get the e-book out, February will be front-loaded with Unbound Soul. There will be no chapter tomorrow, but starting Thursday, there will be a week of daily chapters, then no further chapters until the end of the month. Unborn Hero will continue each Monday as usual.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll do once it resumes; as mentioned, this is the fin...

2023-01-31 06:06:59 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 31: Wyrm

At the start of the battle, Zyfyl'p continued to grin to himself, even as his own forces were decimated at the outer wards. It didn't matter; he had plenty to spare, and he could see the defences weakening. They would shatter in mere seconds. He could still feel his target—an uncomfortable itch that he couldn't wait to permanently scratch—waiting inside. They hadn't come all the way to the outer barrier, but neither were they fleeing. A challenge to come and take them.

The grin wide...

Unbound Soul Chapter 264: Found

There came various noises of exclamation and surprise from three of the other four, but Russel moved directly into bodyguard mode, drawing and aiming his gun in a single, smooth movement.

Not that I was standing where he was aiming any more. With skills like [Far Step] and [Timeless World], he had no hope of tracking me with his childlike stats. He was the second one to vanish into my [Inventory].

While I'd been fairly sure the skill would work on them even against their will, giv...

Unbound Soul Chapter 263: Lost

Volume 1 of the fetch quest audiobook is out today. When I started writing, it was simply because I was bored. I never expected audiobooks or to be partnering with real publishers. But then, I never expected to be self-publishing e-books or starting a patreon either. Weird how things escalated. Weird, but cool. Now I just need to work on the webtoon, the movie, and ...

2023-01-24 05:45:48 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 30: The Fourth Magical Girl

Mystery has been suffering a derth of dings lately, so I've tweaked a few of the earlier chapters. [Demon Slayer] is now [Demon Slayer I], implying additional achievements in the chain. In chapter 21, Mystery earned herself [Monster Slayer I] for helping Kellela to dispatch the bone hornets. There's also a couple of new sentences in the prologue, for reasons that will become apparent later. (I still plan to split that into separate ScribbleHub and RoyalRoad versions at some point, wi...

2023-01-23 05:55:42 +0000 UTC View Post

Unbound Soul Chapter 262: Debate

Mia and Lucas would no doubt be pleased that my haste hadn't resulted in them getting, to pick a random example, [Hive Mind] instead of the basic [Telepathy] that I'd assumed they'd get if I asked the System to give them a telepathy skill.

What the heck sort of skill was [Hive Mind]? What class would someone need to obtain that legitimately? Several skills in the list the System had presented us with had raised questions that I really wanted answered, but Serlv was still adaman...

Unbound Soul Chapter 261: Rehabilitation

"Hey, can you hear me?" asked Jason gently, the wolf that used to be Benjamin splayed out on the floor.

He raised his head, obviously struggling, before it flopped back down again.

"It's okay. Take your time," he said, as I inspected the final results of Maximilian's handiwork. From appearance alone, there was nothing to indicate he used to be human. His fur was a light grey, unlike the darker, more wiry bristles of the dire wolves of Dawnhold. I assumed he was a lower levelled mo...

Unborn Hero Chapter 29: Lèse-Majesté

"What?" asked Kellela incredulously, the utter ridiculousness of the news beaten only by the fact she was host to the astral projecting embryo of a [Hero] with a weird fetish for short, revealing dresses. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously," replied the [Lieutenant], somehow keeping a completely straight face.

"How the heck can they have an unveiling event for the [Hero] when the [Hero] hasn't even been born yet?"

"The [Hero] has already earned the [Demon Slayer] achievement, and ...

Unbound Soul Chapter 260: Mutation

Once again, I'd messed up. I'd counted fifteen kids, but the System had told us only twelve were diseased. Why did I stupidly assume that meant three had been spared? The healthy count matched the size of the beastkin party; there were no others left over, but I'd assumed that even that coalescence of insanity disguised in human skin wouldn't have murdered babies.

Of course he would. They were the first to die; the three the System had identified as victims of heatstroke. Heats...

Unbound Soul Chapter 259: Victims

We're coming to the end of the volume again, and this time, it's also the end of the main plot. The final regular chapter will be 268. I intend to follow it with a sizable pile of side-stories and epilogues, but I may lose my regular Tuesday/Friday cadence.

And speaking of side stories, there's the first half of a new fetch quest/unbound soul crossover available here, in ...

2023-01-10 06:01:28 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 28: The Third Magical Girl

"How did she know?" asked the [King], somewhat infuriated. "Even by teleportation, the Vale of Myllearn is a multiple day trip from Karn's Vigil. She must have started travelling before Kellela left the capital. Even we didn't know at that point."

"I believe the answer to both that and the question of how she entered Flinel undetected are one and the same," responded an aide, delicately thumbing through an ancient tome with gloved hands. "She said her name was...