Darkness so encompassing, you didn't know if you were in a large room or a tiny one.
Choose a bond to work with.
Adric's primal bond was at the tip of Harmony’s tongue with that same compulsion to answer that had made her choose violence the last round. No, you don't! Harmony braced herself and acted before she could speak. [Final Silence] shut her mouth, as the question prodded her to answer now. Speech...
2025-09-27 02:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostHa’zel Ri
A dog and their bones. Ha’zel Ri’s humanoid form lounged on this throne of skulls. His bushy dog tail and white ears could have him easily mistaken for a beast kin. Across the room, scenes played out for each competitor, scrys linked to them, limited in that only the competitors were under supervision. A flaw that couldn’t be avoided. Several of the mobile bonds often went off to do their own things, including that darn toad. Which wouldn’t hav...
2025-09-24 14:18:20 +0000 UTC View PostToday's post will be skipped because I've had covid the past few days and it has turned my brain to mush. Sorry about the delay.
2025-09-22 14:58:34 +0000 UTC View PostWincing, Harmony stumbled into the arena lounge. It’s a thinner crowd celebrating passing the next round. Rather than counting, she checked the number on the door to the social break lounge before it disappeared. Seventeen. This time, she didn’t hesitate when grabbing a glass from one of the servers with her free hand.
The calm tranquility she could do without, but it at least numbed her as it did more than heal a small cut in her mouth, as shattered ...
2025-09-20 02:09:59 +0000 UTC View PostNote- We are now 10 glimpses ahead or the Royal Road version. I'll be switching to one flash fiction every Wednesday now.
Additional Note - for the week of October 20th I'll be on a family trip to Paris France. If anyone wants to suggest ideas of what I could do, let me know. I'm unsure if I will be able to update during that week.
Hemlock -19
The complaints from the royal court sat unopened on Hemlock’s desk. Imagining that every one in the whole sta...
2025-09-18 00:16:20 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony didn’t consider herself a violent person, but sometimes the behaviors certain people brought that mindset out in her. This moment was a present created by Rose’s attitude. In a better mood, without the stresses of an absent pet, a troubled agent, and a pissy princess, when forced to choose a weapon, she’d like to think that words, knowledge, or even beauty would be what she’d volunteer as her option.
That being said, necessary violence was a fam...
2025-09-15 14:16:15 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony spat out the blood pooling in her mouth. The wound wasn’t worth the effort to use [Mend] on, and that skill wouldn’t do anything to help the ringing in her ears. Because, of course, the doorway wouldn’t lead straight to a destination, two hours of pushing through a sadistic obstacle course designed to need authority to counter it. Locks that needed you to command to open. Barriers that required an authority-infused strike to break. And worst was the chal...
2025-09-12 14:03:37 +0000 UTC View PostThe first one should fix a continuity error. Takes place before the Dungeon meet.
Grohl 15.5/17 {takes place before 16}
Grohl silently tapped his fingers to the sounds in the room. Threnody, her words, weren’t important; she had a voice like a metal brush on a drum, rasping and with increasing vigor. As a musician, sounds were important in that they defined your relationship with the world. Music everywhere, calling, shaping the world, an extensio...
2025-09-11 00:58:45 +0000 UTC View PostThey obeyed. There was grumbling, but they obeyed. With a little encouragement. Harmony rode Hyacinth as he loomed over anyone who looked like they were dragging on. “If the other tribes beat us there, I’m blaming you.” – “We don’t know what they'll throw at us, that's why I selected you.” – “If you don't like it, vote for a new leader... If I make it back.” Prey properly intimidated, Hyacinth shrank down to pocket size for the dash t...
2025-09-08 23:09:07 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony missed the ease of equipping Night as a full piece of armor instead of these adhered-on plates that required fiddling with extra bits to protect her and cover all the bare skin. At least, after feeding the pair-bonded armor, the plates had a more metallic sheen, silver as a polished mirror.
This latest version was inspired by how it used to be. But required a lot of wiggling and shoving to get close to the old look, and even then, it wasn’t th...
2025-09-06 01:12:24 +0000 UTC View PostBrix- 15
Brix, in his official capacity, observed Billups making a fool out of himself.
“How does it feel to bring shame to your kingdom by being one of the first two eliminated in the Ascendant Games?” Asked a Local reporter, not even evolved, throwing a blunt strike to gain professional experience.
“I was cheated. You saw it dump me in the middle of the woods naked to face those gold-furred hyperweasels. Then, when I got back ...
2025-09-03 14:43:08 +0000 UTC View Post“You did it!” Jenny’s excitement at the now dingy-looking bits of metal was overenthusiastic.
Taking one of the bits, Harmony squeezed the metal, flattening it by about half. It wasn’t soft, but she could squish it. “You sure this will be usable?”
“How freakishly strong are you?” Jenny blurted out, before shaking that off. “What matters is that I can modify the metal now, form bonds, temper, and fold it. We don’t have a l...
2025-09-01 15:40:52 +0000 UTC View PostIt took a lot of willpower not to abuse her position to cut in line at the growth chamber to see what, if anything, had changed. People, pets, and even Hyacinth put their names down to try out the analysis chamber. So, she simply added her name back to the growing list and planned out more ways to feed Night. Not that the options were great.
The whole tribe’s chitinous black garb was endemic to the issue. Resources, or the lack of them. Not to say there...
2025-08-29 23:53:43 +0000 UTC View PostAstel- 13
The last-moment decision to return to the Hazeldown Coodly Manor rather than taking up residence in one of the few acceptable hotels in Hazeldown had turned into Astel’s personal nightmare. The moment they’d left, pests had moved in. Gnomes in the garden, hand spiders in the attic, flies in the kitchen, this was all with having lost their best pest removers. Between Ambrosia’s birds and Hyacinth, it hadn’t been an issue before.
Lady Coo...
2025-08-27 23:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony’s eyes adjusted to a line of entrants, waiting for their turn to enter the chamber.
“You were there longer than Loap. I’ll have to recalculate the number of uses a day once I get more examples to average out.” Gareth half said to himself as the next one entered.
“Where’s Loap?” Harmony asked.
“At the Obelisk, but you should go get some camp stew before heading over. Don’t think we haven’t noticed that without Adric to re...
2025-08-25 23:26:51 +0000 UTC View PostA doorway collapsed inward, opening up one of the mysterious buildings that was close to the obelisk. Most everyone was a little stunned. By virtue of their teleport location, Tyler and his Loap were two of the closest. The beast kin hopped right inside. “Wait!” Tyler cried as the opening sealed shut with that same impregnable stone of the building.
“That’s what we won. I don’t think it’s a death trap.” Harmony assured him quickly.
“What ...
2025-08-22 17:30:30 +0000 UTC View PostDustine- 11
“I heard you got hag duty, Dusty. I wouldn’t trade a week's worth of easy shifts for your spot.” Tess joked as she strapped on her latest contraption with the help of her spiders.
Dustine shook her head. Not a political bone in that girl’s body. Maybe she could add a function to control her mouth instead of folding towels. “Lady White’s mother is actually quite beautiful. I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you say.”
“She’s playi...
2025-08-20 17:31:42 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony progressed room after room.
Chronostasis and [Recall] worked in tandem to align five clocks to strike thirteen simultaneously, opening the way. Each had a funny click when set to that unusual number.
The next room took timing without an object to weigh down a pressure plate that opened the exit. [High Kick] slid her through the door, taking advantage of her small size as it shut. [Stride Before the Fall] carefully kept on a trigger a...
2025-08-18 16:53:33 +0000 UTC View PostSomething was circumventing the rules of the Ascendant Games, or Haz’el Ri was involved with keeping her pet away. Trusting Hyacinth to keep watch, Harmony dove into her soul space and approached her primal bond with Adric. With her personal stat of connections sealed, tapping into the primal bond she shared with the prince should be less dangerous. Information mostly flowed toward the connection, feeding it to Adric and allowing her to issue directives, or call to...
2025-08-15 15:34:21 +0000 UTC View PostHoop - 9
“Kweh.”
“Hush, you.” Hoop patted the back of his yellow bird. Raised the beast since it was the runt of the hatchery, and the name, Big, had been assigned ironically. Now he towered above many of his kind and was the pride of the blue faction. Probably not in small part to the fact he’d formed a rare natural primal bond with the fowl.
For the third time, he lifted the spyglass up to his eye. Quick glances only. Rat pack gang members didn...
2025-08-13 16:34:48 +0000 UTC View PostNow they were eighteen.
Erin, who wandered in for a bowl of soup with nary a word to anyone before leaving, had been the low-hanging fruit. The recluse was already on the chopping block.
Louis, a literal horse trader, milked all the value he could get. Harmony's royal favor, a favor from Mr. Rising Dawn, Tyler, commitment that Prince Adric would owe him a favor, and backst...
2025-08-11 22:58:15 +0000 UTC View Post[ Sorry for the delay, camping and had to complete the Oregon writing fellowship grant yesterday... not sure the 25 pages of YA Superhero fiction will entice them, but you have to take the shot. ]
Chapter Forty
Gareth explained as they walked. The man wasn’t just about the numbers. Odds were inconsistent when you didn’t know the details of what was going on before a match. Did a fighter have a lingering injury before a bout, had their girlfriend just dumpe...
2025-08-09 15:34:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe Flows- 7
Grohl slowly played a funeral march on his drums in the corner. He made it to five minutes and twelve seconds, a new record, when the cushion collided with him.
“Broken strings, it’s your fault we’re in this situation. It’s not like you had to set Roxanne's hair on fire.” Jimmy groaned.
“All she did was chain skills together to sing her songs. ...
2025-08-06 14:57:33 +0000 UTC View Post.
“I don’t know what happened. My memory still has blank spots from her attack.” Harmony answered as they collected all the loot. Theories ranged from frightening in that she might have such a suicidal skill in her chest to something extraordinarily protective. Maybe [Eternal Fable’s Heart] was so advanced that the mimic couldn’t copy it properly, or it knew the mimic wasn’t the actual person to whom it belonged. Either way, that...
2025-08-04 16:32:40 +0000 UTC View PostNope.
Harmony stepped forward to end this. Her versions danced back, laughing as they did. The pieces clinked into place for their transformation to be complete, even their clothes and armor morphed out, extruding from their skin. If this lasted longer, they’d lose track of friend or foe.
“Wild readings of mimic’s replacing people were in the Grass Library, but it was considered hopped up chitter more than history,” Loap spoke...
2025-08-01 17:34:32 +0000 UTC View PostTess-5
Exosuit ThreeC blended in nearly perfectly with House White's new uniforms. Three layers to keep the illusion. One underneath the uniform, buckled to her skin. The second was sewn into the uniform with the help of Steven. Third, the only visible outside aspects of the control circles around the ankles and fingers like rings and bracelets. This was the perfect day to field test it.
“PeteOne, PeteTwo, any signs of occupancy?...
2025-07-30 16:02:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tyler asked as he climbed over the black shifting mound of spider corpses to get to the other side.
“Imagine needing to eat spider and root soup for the rest of the competition. We’ll all be begging to be voted off.“ Despite all the hard work getting here, the aftertaste from this morning’s bowl still lingered in her mouth. She could trade her sense of taste away, but that cost took something away t...
2025-07-28 17:26:23 +0000 UTC View PostHarmony took out her frustration on the wall of white webbing that now dominated the forest she’d passed through on the way to camp. [Manipulate Dead] after all of the frustrations of being sealed finally found purchase in the spider’s unliving creation without the crutch of [Beautician] or her stats. Working with the skill sealed had made her strong enough to do the heavy lifting without help. But she had to sweat for it.
“Do you want ...
2025-07-25 16:19:26 +0000 UTC View PostSteven-3
New servants meant new uniforms. With the delivery of fabric, needles, and thread, Steven could begin fittings. To think that getting emasculated at the Harvest of Talents ended up being the start of one of the most interesting and potentially profitable outcomes. Where the temples might have dug deeper into his past, their whipping up an employment contract and shipping him off to Lady White avoided most of that. But as his old master liked to say, “T...
2025-07-23 16:37:14 +0000 UTC View Post“What do you mean you lost the scent?”
Her familiar pointed out she'd also lost the trail of undead energy under the murky water first.
Too confident to start. Experience had been in their favor, but tracking fully skilled people and spirits would be more difficult than hunting beasts or monsters. Hyacinth knew all about being able to teleport, but it still stung.
Harmony signaled Hyacinth to stop the now aimless pursuit. ...
2025-07-21 15:09:15 +0000 UTC View Post