alexclaw

B2-11 - Maya Goes to War

Nerves rattled Maya as she sat in her command chair. She knew what she was about to commence was a just action, there was no doubt. The satellites in orbit had finally arrived to their positions and Samanco’s controlled area had been scanned. The first images of the towns and under his rule had brought a profound silence to the Cage as they witnessed the atrocities that were being committed by the man.

The death sentenced had been handed down, Maya had been the fir...

Brewer King 10

Snow was falling in thick clumps as evening arrived.

San walked through the snow and Wolfram followed at his side. The wolf ram had retuned after Nexion had left, the big man not saying much after they had enjoyed a cup of tea together. As he parted, he had given San a dagger. A beautifully wrought foot long double edged weapon.

San had tried to refuse the weapon, but Nexion had been insistent. Finally San relented and bade the man goodbye.

That had been a week ag...

B3-10 - Chimbote, Peru

“Six thousand five hundred and forty two landsharks were killed when they entered the Cage,” Yosi said. “The average weight was about a hundred and fifty kilos, although Bell claims that we can harvest twenty-five percent of five thousand of them, as the rest were turned into meat paste by the fall and weight. Those landsharks can be processed into alchemical ingredients, ingredients that his Matriarch will buy.”

“Easy money,” Maya said, looking down at the tablet...

Brewer King 09

San awoke confused, he lay in a straw filled bed and the smell of woodsmoke and faint sickness filled his senses. He looked to the roof above him, still shrouded in darkness in the early morning, but clearly made of thatch and thick wooden beams. The room he was within was warm, but there was a chilly nip to the air.

He sat up, looking at the small one square foot window that was installed high in the wall. It wasn’t a glass window, but some kind of other material. San susp...

B3-09 - Purified Mana

“So what is experience points,” Maya asked as Bell, Yosi, Tender, Veskari, and she sat around a dinner table. The others glanced at her and then one another, pondering the question. “I don’t mean, the simple answer. I mean, what exactly is it made of. Is it mana?

“There’s essence mana, the thing that’s killing reality, then there’s ambient mana, generic mana, mana mana used by SIL, and then experience points. The System rewards bonus experience points when you...

Brewer King 08

The bone white face leered at San as it dropped from the trees, the body was a misshapen orb of hair with five jointed chitinous legs sprouting from it. He realized that the face wasn’t the monster’s head, instead it was a plate of bone that eerily looked like a human face.

San saw the real face of the creature, underneath the hairy orb was a gaping mouth that dripped drool. There was a dozen eyes glittering in the waning daylight, sitting atop of stalks that sprouted fro...

B3-08 - Pride and Patriotism

Congrats, Beirut has now achieved Level 3 in Defense Settlement. Settlement Area increased to 75 square kilometers.

+ 3 percent increase to combat XP gains

+ 12 percent Defense Bonus

- 6 percent XP gains from Crafting

- 6 percent tax gains from Settlement

“Hmmm… no Skill gained this time,” Maya said as she read the message. The upgrading of the settlement deed to level two had giv...

Brewer King 07

The monster was dead, San had gained a level, he had powers now, which was an oddity, but more than that; San finally had a good night’s sleep since he had arrived. He awoke as the sun was high in the air, the wolf ram lay panting beside the fire, a low groan coming from it.

San sat up to see the yellow eyes staring at him, the wolf ram was still in pain, but from what little San knew of veterinarian medicine, which was none, he looked well enough. The poison that would hav...

B3-07 - Catch and Release

Bell was happier than a pig in muck. He dug through a nearly whole corpse of one of the landsharks and with Hanna’s help, began separating the organs, bones and various bodily fluids. Hanna seemed competent, she had degrees in biology and chemistry; and was peppering Bell with questions as they dismantled the corpse.

Nan was among them, analyzing the ‘pureed’ flesh of the first batch of landsharks that had fallen into the pit. Veskari and Yosi were preparing for the cro...

Brewer King 06

Playing the pyromaniac never interested San as a child. He knew plenty of his friends who loved to blow things up, burn items, and all around try to be edgy by playing with fire. The only flames that interested San was the fire that burned beneath his brew kettle.

Now he was tasked with killing a monster with fire and then burning a village to the ground. He could recall one childhood friend who would have loved to be in his position.

As evening approached, the storm ha...

B3-06 - Landsharks

Hanna had in fact visited Beirut before. Although that had been nearly twenty years ago, when she claimed she was ‘finding herself’. That had also been pre-Integration.

George and Yuri were excited about the satellites and Maya had to stop in orbit first, to toss off a test device. The only satellites that Maya could recall ever seeing were images of Sputnik and the Hubble Space Telescope, they were iconic and a part of history. Though she didn’t know if the Hubble coun...

Brewer King 05

The wind howled and hard frozen pellets of snow pelted San as he moved down the empty streets of the village. The clouds had thickened and darkened, but the storm was taking its time.

He passed the barracks and took a deep breath as he looked up the road toward the keep. The stone and wood building dominated the area, its empty windows gave the visage of some great beast looking down upon the village. It was where the Flesh Horror lived. It was where it spent its days before coming out ...

B3-05 - Easy Come, Easy Go

The sword came down faster than Maya could parry, she brought up her axe at the last nano-second. The shock of the strike caused her stumble back, pain flaring up her arms.  A booted foot slammed into her exposed chest, turning the stumble into a full on fall.

As she hit the floor, Maya rolled with the fall narrowly escaping the sword that slammed down upon the deck where she had been. The reprieve was momentary as she tried to orientate herself only to feel another boot...

B3-04 - Asoltolia Revvena

“Rockets?” Maya asked looking at the plan. “I don’t think we can make rockets.”

“You made the rocket that sent us Roci,” George said. He pulled up a diagram of the rocket he wanted to build. “Something similar can push the containers into the correct orbit.” The tablet displayed a simulated cargo container moving in an arc around Earth and finally falling into the atmosphere. From there parachutes would deploy and the container full of food, shelter, water purifiers, a...

Brewer King 04

The wolf ram didn’t have any hesitation in leaving the hut as San did. It gave him a look; then pushed its way through the threshold and vanished among the other collapsed huts of the village.

San knew he should leave, but he was also terrified. What was the creature that had come in the night? It reeked of death and rot; San had no doubt that it was reason the village lay abandoned. What had he walked into.

The fire crackled and San got to his feet. He hadn’t unpacked his pac...

B3-03 - Creepy Flying Hoarder

The rogue AI ant skittered back, leaking black goo as it moved. Smooth bulkheads surrounded it, offering no purchase or escape. It had suffered too much damage, its limbs bent and one sheared off, the armor along its thorax was punctured and ruined, and it was sluggish to respond to the incoming threats.

Another ant appeared, then another; they were battered, unlike the cornered ant, they were not on their last legs. They moved efficiently and fell upon the ant, their bladed ...

Brewer King 03

The cold creeped into his bones and San could not stop shaking. He trudged forward, staggering and nearly stumbling in his haste to make it to the castle. The exertion should have warmed him, but he could barely stop shaking from the cold.

He moved through long abandoned fields, the stalks of some kind of grain brushing against him and being crushed underfoot. The cleared area around the castle were fields, he realized. He didn’t see any tractors or farm machinery, but he d...

B3-02 - Back to the Hiveship

“I can’t go back empty handed,” Maya said as she and Tender walked toward the doorway. “I mean, sure I got me some fancy potions from Bell’s matriarch, but I need more.”

“There is still Pegarios,” Tender replied.

“Yeah, we totally gotta get back with him. He’s got about a dozen million of our credits. If we could snatch that up again and then maybe we could buy more potions from Bell’s grandma.”

“I don’t think she’s his grandmother.�...

Brewer King 02

The beast lunged at San. He was paralyzed for a brief moment as the creature closed the distance between them. He saw his death coming, the glistening maw, and the cruel yellow eyes. For a moment, San sat there awaiting it, but that moment past by and he jerked himself out of the monster’s path.

Pain blossomed across his right shoulder as the creature missed him, but the bulk of the monster shoulder checked him and threw him even further. Hot water scaled his arms and he cr...

B3-01 - Matriarch Domakun

01 - Matriarch Domakun

A storm rumbled outside; rain sluiced down from the heavens and bent the long grass outside. It dripped along the window pane, leaving behind long watery smears that distorted the distant lights of the city. A flash of light cracked across the sky, silhouetting the tall swaying pines in the the distance and sending a rumble that rattled the window panes and shook the burning oil lamp beside the figure.

Maya Sullivan looked at the rain and set her hand agains...

Brewer King - 01

/AN: So,yeah, i was attempting to write the Dungeon in the City for NaNoWriMo, but alas I seemed to have hit a wall in that writteng process.  It's like I know what I want to write, but I don't know how to get there.  Not really writer's block, but pacing and set up issues. therefore, I've decided to let the story simmer for a while as I work out the kinks. 

This new story, Brewer King, is one that's also been simmering in the background for a while too.  I think i b...

B3-01 - Convalescence

A storm rumbled outside; rain sluiced down from the heavens and bent the long grass outside. It dripped along the window pane, leaving behind long watery smears that distorted the distant lights of the city. A flash of light cracked across the sky, silhouetting the tall swaying pines in the the distance and sending a rumble that rattled the window panes and shook the burning oil lamp beside the figure.

Maya Sullivan looked at the rain and set her hand against the glass, it wa...

B2 - Epilogue

Day 11

Melissa, Texas

“Form up, form up!” Pops Sullivan hollered. The men and women around him clattered and shifted, their makeshift shields and weapons clanking and clacking. “Mind your spacing.”

The ground rumbled as they moved, a hundred men and women who less than two weeks before had been accountants, clerks, business people, and all the other occupations that no longer existed. Now they stood s...

B2-45 - Golden Ticket

The scout rats did their job and sent back information on the unshielded core. Maya pulled up the hologram and studied it, she looked to her two companions and they both nodded. They were as ready as they could be.

Maya formed a door that was flanked by Bell and Tender. They had their weapons drawn and pushed their way into the darkened area before her. She had protested, not wanting to be protected by the two, but she was a mess. Maya limped forward, her half healed injuries...

B2-44 - A Mind and A Goal

The first of the new arrivals into the Cage were three meter tall cylinders with four thin legs. They immediately sat down heavily upon the deck and began pulsing with light. Maya felt the space around her begin aching, not the pain she felt with the mind flies, but somehow the cylinders were effecting the dimensional space around her. Another arrived, then another, each sitting down and locking down the dimensional space Maya controlled.

In a five meter radius, she could not...

B2-43 - The Hiveship Strikes Back

“From my point of view, it’s been several days since you were kidnapped,” Maya said, rubbing her tired face. She yawned and looked at Bell and Tender, they were in the midst of repairing their armor and preparing to rejoin the fight. Maya sat on her command chair and idly ate a ration bar. “Mistress of Time and all that.”

“You are taking this revelation in stride,” Tender said.

“I mean, it’s what I used against Shen back in the day and the whole doorways being ab...

Dungeon in the City 02

Darkness surrounded Inez.

She could feel nothing.

She could see nothing.

She could sense nothing.

She was nothing.

Just a thought admit the vast black. She choked and gasped and shuddered as the realization of what she was gripped her.

She was dead.

She tried screaming, but nothing came out. She tried thrashing, but she had no limbs. She wailed with her soul, but there was nothing.

This was hell.

She tried grasping at the prayer...

B2-42 - Working the Body

Time and space didn’t exist in void space, it was an area of nothing. Yet, somehow it created what Maya needed, air, gravity, in that small area that the Cage existed within, Maya was a god like being. Of course, she didn’t think of it that way, but the truth was whomever controlled the Cage could control reality within void space.

“Bell!” Maya cried and didn’t see him anywhere on the hull of the ship. The ants scattered as the big burly ant turned its weapon toward...

Dungeon in the City 01

/Author's Note:  I've tried many times to do the NaNoWriMo challenge, writing an entire novel of 50k words in a month.  Since i also do enjoy Dungeon Core novels, I thought it would be nice to write one that has been bouncing around in my head for a few months now.  the working title is called "Dungeon in the City" but that might change. 

Chapter 01

“You’ll regret this, you bitch. Do you know who I am?” the man cried, staggering back...

B2-41 - The Hiveship Cometh

The glowing liquid bubbled and churned, within it lay a power barely seen across the multiverse, mana so condensed it would power a planet, mana so plentiful and pure that the greatest enchanters would give up their lifeblood for a liter. It was the most sought after resource in the rainbow sky hellscape and near impossible to create in the multiverse at large… and Tender was bathing in it.

“It’s alive!” Maya cackled, prancing about the container that Tender was occup...