That evening, the four of them gathered around the kitchen table. Sam had fried up a mess of vegetables and cuts of ham, and poured a spicy Jade Empire sauce over the whole of it that reduced to a thickly sweet dark syrup.
Harald, freshly washed, had been gratified to realize he’d lost weight. Despite the copious amounts of food he was devouring each day, somehow he’d become trimmer. He still sported a belly, still looked much the same in the mirror, but not only had he tightened hi...
2024-04-22 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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It took two days for Nessa to get her shit together.
That first night culminated in her screaming in rage around Third Bell at Vic, demanding he release her. Their argument was fierce and ongoing right until Sam suggested they leave a few bells early for their morning run.
The darkness was a balm. Harald ran, preoccupied, interrogating himself. Sam was distant, frustrated, clearly believing him a fool.
But was he?
Memories of the past few years slid through his mind. N...
2024-04-21 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Evernessa arrived just after breakfast, opening the front door without knocking and calling out her hello.
Harald led the way out from the kitchen, and there she was, wearing leather breeches, a peasant’s blouse cinched around her narrow waist with a broad belt, and her mass of dark curls gathered by a band of gold to then cascade down her back.
Evernessa. For years, he’d dreamed of her being more than a friend, had watched her through so many late-night revelries, admiring he...
2024-04-20 13:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Harald froze, staring at the familiar, crabby script. For how long had this envelope sat here? Had his father written it the day he’d descended into his final raid, or years before that, leaving it there for the right moment?
There was no way of telling.
“What is it?” asked Sam, drawing closer.
Harald pried the envelop free. Turned it about. Stiff, square, light. It wasn’t sealed. He opened it and drew out a simple card.
Your inheritance is your...
2024-04-19 13:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Harald stilled.
The world became like fractured glass, a composite of disparate shards that were suddenly revealed to fit together all too well.
Ustim was watching him with avid, hungry intensity.
His question hung in the air.
It prompted an immediate response, whether emotional or a simple demand for more information.
But Harald felt his emotions grow cold. His body, strangely, relaxed. He stared at Ustim, and something in his gaze made the older man narrow his ...
2024-04-18 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Training the next day was interrupted by the arrival of the representative from the Platinum Rose Auction House.
Harald and Sam were engaged in footwork drills on the back patio when she suddenly straightened, face momentarily going blank.
“No time for panic attacks,” drawled Vic from where he lounged in a recliner, a hand towel draped over his face. “Keep at it, young disciple.”
“There’s a guest at the front gate,” she said, tone businesslike. “Harald? I thi...
2024-04-17 13:00:10 +0000 UTC
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The world narrowed down to Vic.
Smiling, lethal Vic, his wastrel friend turned deadly swordsman. Their blades gleamed in the morning sunlight, and the air had never felt more fresh, tasted more sweet.
His pulse pounding in his ears, Harald slashed down with his blade.
Only for Vic to slide forward and parry the blow cold.
Steel rang on steel, but Harald felt off kilter, weak, uncertain.
“Terrible,” said Vic, his voice grave with disappointment. “Look at you...
2024-04-16 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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“We’ve seen longswords before,” said Sam dryly.
Vic swung it about, the blade flashing in the sun, and then rested it on his shoulder. “You see, this is my thinking. Sam, wine?”
“Fetch it yourself.”
“A shocking lack of respect for your instructor. Regardless, there is no earthly way that you’ll catch up to Yeoric in terms of sheer physical fitness or actual sword technique. He’s a Level 2 Iron Vanguard, but to you, Harald, he might as well be the Skull Ha...
2024-04-15 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Vic showed up the next morning at Ninth Bell, a long, heavy bag slung over one shoulder.
“Alas!” His grin was as merciless as it was bright. “From your expressions, you seem foolishly intent on going through with this needless form of suffering. Your last chance, Harry-boy and Lady Head Maid. We could put an end to this nonsense and set forth in search of the perfect brunch.”
Harald, still winded and worn out from his morning run, rose from the kitchen table and tossed the...
2024-04-14 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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That evening, Harald felt wrecked. After finishing the workout in the basement, he’d slept for a couple of hours, then gone for a two-bell walk around the park wearing the weight vest Sam had used for her workout.
She’d left to go run errands, and for a long time he’d simply pushed himself to walk as quickly as he could on his burning legs. He carried a large waterskin over his shoulder from which he’d continuously sip. He was sweating so much that Sam was worried he’d dehydra...
2024-04-13 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Their day, however, had just begun. After grabbing a drink of cold water from the well and a piece of fruit from the pantry, Sam led Harald down into his father’s old basement gym.
For a couple of months, Harald had made his way down here regularly. At first it had creeped him out. He associated the cold, damp room deep underground with his father’s mysterious arts. A few times as a child, he’d crept down here to watch his father train, and the intensity he’d seen in the man’s...
2024-04-12 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Sam woke Harald at Sixth Bell.
Which is what they’d agreed to the evening before.
To Harald, it had sounded like a great idea. An early start, a savage way to begin their first day of training.
But in the pre-dawn dark, his body had other ideas.
“Harald. Harald!”
“I’m…” The siren call of sleep was wicked. The warmth of his bed. His pillow had developed a suction power that made it impossible to lift his head. And he hadn’t slept well. Had awoken a...
2024-04-11 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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It took Harald far too long to clean up. He just wouldn’t stop sweating, and his heart kept racing. It was almost as if his body was affronted at having been abused in such manner.
Still, elation kept Harald’s chin up. Every once in a while he’d check his window and admire his Constitution of 6. One run. But the puzzle remained. Constitution was a reflection of your hardiness, your stamina, your resilience, your ability to keep going.
How ha...
2024-04-10 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Harald draped a heavy cloak of the finest wool over his shoulders and headed out into the afternoon. The cloak was of sufficient quality, dyed a charcoal gray and trimmed in cobalt blue, that he’d not be bothered by the guards despite his otherwise plain training gear.
He left Sam behind to contemplate her life as he set out to think on his.
Change.
He’d embraced it, had made big decisions and spoken even grander words. That moment of heartfelt unity with Sam had easily ...
2024-04-09 13:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Sam stared up at him, eyes glimmering with tears, her expression vulnerable, raw, devastated.
Then she tore her hands free and fled the kitchen with a cry.
“Sam!” Harald lurched after her, then stopped in the doorway. A moment later, he heard her bedroom door slam shut.
“Damn,” he whispered. Had that been a mistake? No, it felt right. It had been so obvious, so overdue. But… Harald hung his head, then ground the base of his palm into his eye. Maybe he could have ha...
2024-04-08 13:00:17 +0000 UTC
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Harald awoke, confused.
For a moment, it was all he could do to stare at the sunlight flooding through the windows. What day was it? What had happened?
He sat up, and felt something profoundly wrong. His hand went to his head, and felt only a bristly fuzz.
That’s when it hit him, everything that had transpired, and as if to confirm it, he summoned his window and stared again at the changes.
Soul Nature: Insatiable Void
Soul Ran...
2024-04-07 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Exhaustion swamped Harald like a lead cloak. When had he eaten last? He’d not had a bite today, hadn’t eaten the day before.
Normally, he’d have collapsed by now. But the demon had done something to him, restored him in some fashion, so that he was merely exhausted, not delirious.
Still. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked so much, been through so many trials, without a restorative meal or glass of wine.
Woozy, he considered just stumbling upstairs to co...
2024-04-06 13:00:09 +0000 UTC
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It took Harald a long time to walk home.
Not that he didn’t know the way; it was a simple matter to follow the curvature of the Eternal Circuit all the way round to the Angelic Quarter.
But he moved as if through a dream. There was a constant sense of latent urgency, but it wasn’t to get home. Rather, it was to pierce the fog through which he moved. A mental fog that, on some level, he’d always existed in.
Leather armor banging against his knee, one hand resting on the...
2024-04-05 13:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Harald awoke in the tepid gloom of his dying lantern. He sat against the tunnel wall, legs kicked out before him, hands lying limp in his lap.
Alive.
It took him what felt like a decade to gather his wits. Fragments of memories came back to him in snatches. Rats. His blade flashing. Blood. Pain.
Vorakhar.
With a gasp, he sat up, heart suddenly thundering.
Had that been real? Had his father’s greatest conquest returned to interrogate him?
But his father ha...
2024-04-04 13:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Harald stumbled out into darkness. The air was damp and close and cold, the smell mineral and earthy.
No light. Nothing but pure black.
It was all Harald could do to not scream. He stood there, hand clenched tight around the pommel of his sword, staring wide-eyed out at nothingness.
Just the void.
It had eaten him.
“No,” he whispered. “Light, I need a light…” He dropped to one knee, his nausea and exhaustion forgotten, and swung his pack down off one sh...
2024-04-03 13:29:27 +0000 UTC
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Power and currency in the metropolis of Flutic comes in the form of scales. These are harvested from the depths of the vast dungeon beneath the city, salvaged from the divine corpse of the Fallen Angel and brought to light to both ignite the economic engine of the continent and empower the greatest heroes with magical might. This chart is meant to facilitate the reader's understanding of how the scales relate to each other in value, with the humble Copper Crescent as the base unit. Hope it he...
2024-04-02 13:32:03 +0000 UTC
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The Humble Petitioner’s line was interminable. Without his expensive writ, Harald had been forced to get in line with every greenhorn, has-been, and desperate raider who hoped against every odd to strike it rich in the 1st Level of the dungeon.
The sun punished him. His leather armor was starting to feel water-logged from all his sweating. Everything chafed, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent so much time just standing around like this for so long. His feet ached, h...
2024-04-02 13:25:16 +0000 UTC
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(Hello everyone - welcome to the first chapter of Throne Hunters. This is from the updated edition that was published on Amazon, and as such is current and canon. I'm going to update every chapter published here on Patreon, so that all confusion and old errata are removed. Cheers!)
Harald awoke with extreme reluctance. Someone was shaking his shoulder, calling his name, but his head pounded and his stomach was trying to ooze up his throat. He turned away and buried his head und...
2024-04-01 14:26:12 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone!
If you enjoyed Dawn of the Void from back in the day (feels like 5 years ago already), then maybe you'll be excited to hear that on Feb 15th I'll be launching a Kickstarter to print deluxe hardcovers for the whole Dawn of the V...
2024-01-29 14:31:11 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone,
And that's a wrap. Dawn of the Void is done. The whole tale is over 450,000 words long, and will be released as a trilogy over the course of this year along with audiobooks produced by Podium.
Thanks for being part of this journey. When I set out to write Dawn I had no idea how long it might be or where the plot would go. I was writing two or three chapters a day during those first few months, and it was a blast. But the webnovel format is t...
2023-01-20 15:01:14 +0000 UTC
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James’s words rang out over the snow.
The scene was subtly different from the last time he’d been here, some two or so months in the future. Then the place had looked abandoned, desolate. But now there were still signs of life.
The work station out to the side of the yard was tidy and the sawhorse table had been cleared of snow. Freshly chopped logs were stacked against the side of the cabin. An old and much abused snowmobile was parked beside them, a bright blue tarp half blo...
2023-01-20 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
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James cracked open his eyes. He lay in a recessed doorway, his body stiff and numb from the cold, the cardboard beneath his ass having done fuck-all to insulate him against the January cold. The skin on his face felt like it was burning from the frigid temperature, and his breath condensed before him with each exhalation.
He lay still. The Brooklyn street was quiet. It had to be way past midnight. Every store was hidden behind it’s roll-up metal grill doors. A cat froze on the far sid...
2023-01-19 13:48:19 +0000 UTC
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James brought all his focus to bear.
This was it.
“Ready.”
Connecting James Kelly to potential Void-brane energy
That distant storm pressed in upon the limits of his mind and his vision blurred, his sense of self fragmented and then came rushing back together.
And then:
You have 1 novemdecillion unspent points
James blinked at the text. Novemdecillion? ...
2023-01-18 13:55:39 +0000 UTC
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James inhaled deeply and gazed around the geodome. The Seraph was busy fixing the last of the spools, coaxing forth threads that it then spun until they revolved of their own accord. Jelly hovered excitedly before him, gleaming gold.
And his friends.
Serenity. Olaf. Yadriel. Kimmie. Kerim. Denzel. Even Jason. All of them frozen in place, insensate, unaware of what had transpired.
“Well, let’s get to it,” said Jelly. “You want to say goodbye to Crimson Hydra fir...
2023-01-17 14:04:13 +0000 UTC
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Jelly’s words hung heavy in the air.
James glowered up at the small robot, but he felt rock by the Animus’ revelations. If they were true. But how could he contest his account? How could he argue with a creature whose motivations and goals spanned millennia, who could see across galaxies, who could take in all of humanity at a glance and find it lacking?
An ornery defiance arose within him.
He couldn’t argue with the Eluthaarii.
But he could refuse it, deny its t...
2023-01-16 17:18:38 +0000 UTC
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