As she sat on the main deck of the Flying Toaster, her gaze through the windows glued on the jagged mountains to the north, Arlette didn’t know what was worse: the long uncertain wait for Blake and Gabby, the low hum of the “propellers”, or...
“Sofie, I’m going to lock you in a cabin if you don’t stop that pacing,” she told the restless Earthling.
“I... I’m sorry,” Sofie replied. “I’m just...”
“I know, this s...
2020-08-02 01:01:34 +0000 UTC View PostWith a careful eye, Bazzalth watched the uptick in his readings as the kaersha came into contact with the small piece of his own flesh. Having already tested the substance multiple times with crawlers, this was the only thing left he could do to broaden his dataset. Testing on small pieces of his flesh, however, was as far as he would go no matter what. He would never test it on a person and not even Tavreth’s threats would be able to dissuade him from that.
Consciousness returned to Pari slowly, her thoughts little more than vague feelings and impressions gently drifting through her mind. All she cared about was this feeling of warmth. Warmth and safety. With each slow breath, her nostrils filled with an indescribable plethora of scents, enough to normally overwhelm her sleep-addled brain. But instead, she found herself focused on one particular scent, the strongest one of all by far. It smelled of strength and powe...
2020-06-17 22:45:13 +0000 UTC View PostBazzalth leaned in close, watching with rapt attention as the crawler writhed, the blood that filled the vat slowly consuming the crawler’s temporarily reanimated flesh. He could not be sure if the thing suffered in agony, or if the spasms were merely the last acts of decayed nerves and muscles firing haphazardly as the transcendent liquid dissolved them into nothingness, though the state of its soul suggested the latter. The ethereal sphere hovering above the body had taken on ...
2020-06-04 00:12:23 +0000 UTC View Post“Mama! Mama!” Pari Clansnarl pestered, tugging on Mother’s tail. “I want to eat!”
“Pari, what did I tell you about pulling on other people’s tails?” Mother scolded, her voice weary from a long day of housework. “Dinner’s almost ready. We will eat once your father comes home from work.”
“But I’m hungry!” Pari whined.
“You can hold on a little longer,” Mother assured her. “Erdi, pl...
2020-05-24 02:09:23 +0000 UTC View Post“Grandfather. This has to be him,” Sofie said, voicing the thoughts of everybody in the room.
“What does it mean by bubble?” Gabby wondered.
“The blister that swallowed the stone, probably,” Blake said, pointing at the translucent pocket of crimson liquid poking out about an inch from the rest of the fleshy arm wrapping.
“But how do you follow it?” Gabby asked.
“I think it’s the stone,” Blake expla...
2020-05-11 02:09:03 +0000 UTC View PostI made a post after finishing planning Arc 2, so I figure that I might as well make another for Arc 3 to let you all know what's coming. I know that I wanted to get the rest of the story planned by the start of April and it took me a whole extra month, but hey it's finally done!
Here's what we have in store:
AT LEAST 74 chapters (probably more as I break some up into smaller installments like I did for 89 and 90). In comparison, Arc 1 had 28 chapters, Arc 2 was planned...
2020-05-02 05:30:17 +0000 UTC View Post[This is my first chapter posting pdf and epub versions. If you have issues with either of those, let me know what's going on so I can try to fix them in the future. Thanks!]
The sound of Blake’s footsteps echoing through the hallways of his fortress rang out with a solitude that Blake wasn’t used to anymore. Back in the day, when it had just been him and Samanta, this feeling was the norm. Then, as the place slowly filled over time, first with Leo...
2020-04-27 01:34:20 +0000 UTC View Post[Hey everybody! I'm back again with the real s
2020-04-17 00:11:18 +0000 UTC View PostI don't feel like I got enough feedback on the question I posted with the April Fool's Chapter, so let's make it an official poll. Would you like me to provide pdf or epub versions of the chapter along with the text version that I normally do?
2020-04-16 23:57:39 +0000 UTC View PostFor April Fools, I set out to write a literary garbage fire of bad writing techniques, typos, cliches, and everything else I find in these types of stories that make me roll my eyes and close the tab. I hope you enjoyed this abomination. I had an absolute blast writing it. Working on real chapters now! It's good to be back!
OLD TEXT:
So apparently even Patreon has text size limits, XD. I was hoping to knock your socks off with Chapter 88 (my biggest a...
2020-04-01 13:01:06 +0000 UTC View PostHey everybody. Barring some sort of terrible unforeseen event, 87 will be posted tomorrow. That means Arc 2 will be done done done. And that means... Planning and Break Time! For those of you who weren't around when I finished Arc 1, I took some time off to unwind and plan out the chapter-by-chapter breakdown the Arc 2 events. I'm going to do the same this time, only it's going to take longer because Arc 3 is longer (I think? We'll find out!).
Since A...
2020-02-29 05:03:22 +0000 UTC View PostHey, it's me again. So the chapter is up to around 21k words now. I am working on rewriting a few sections, but it's closing in, I promise. Revision 2 will be sent tomorrow probably, so hoping to finally post it this week. Sorry again for the delay.
2020-02-10 07:17:34 +0000 UTC View PostHeyyo, everybody. I wanted to give you all a quick update on what's up with the next chapter. Back when I started, I was initially hoping to have it out sometime this week. That's not going to happen. Here's why:
1. The chapter keeps growing. I thought at the start that it would top out at 9k words or less. I'm now at 10k and there's probably another 3-5k words left, meaning this will be the second-longest chapter after the last one. Since this ...
2020-01-29 22:32:57 +0000 UTC View PostHey everybody. It's been 2.5 weeks since the last chapter and I just wanted to let you all know what's going down since the next chapter is likely not going to release for a good while still. This is for non-Discord people mostly, since those of you on the Discord server are get my rather frequent updates.
Basically, Chapter 85 is easily the longest chapter of this story by far. I believe it's already the longest and I still have thousands more words to write. It...
2019-12-31 02:34:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe air felt cold for an early spring morning, though the heavy gusts of wind had a lot to do with that. The weather these last few days had been nothing but clear skies and a cold breeze, winter’s final gasp against the incoming spring warmth and rain. Arlette would have preferred something a little calmer and balmier for this deciding day, but she’d settle for this because at least it meant no precipitation.
Trudging towards the citadel in the soft predawn g...
2019-12-21 02:26:08 +0000 UTC View PostTehlmar Esmae stretched his tired body as he sat outside his small, one-person tent. With a small cloth, he wiped away the sweat beading on his brow and let out a weary breath. He felt exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.
After several days of hurrying through the Stragman forest with his local “escorts”, he couldn’t help but once again be impressed with just how quickly Stragmans could move through the jungle they called home when they rea...
2019-12-01 22:37:41 +0000 UTC View PostThe karnak howled in pain as the club crashed into the middle leg on its left side. Though the massive pillar of muscle was easily over ten times the thickness of Akhustal’s weapon, the wooden bludgeon smashed through the scales, muscles, tendons, and bone as if they were little more than brittle twigs. With all three of its legs on the left side now completely unable to bear weight, the massive beast toppled uncontrollably onto its side, thrashing and screaming. Akhustal ...
2019-11-27 03:57:40 +0000 UTC View PostHoxoni bustled with activity as the Stragman people hurried to prepare for the Great Hunt—or at least, that was what Rudra assumed was going down. The day following the Chos’s proclamation, his remote cavern remained largely undisturbed. His cell still hung from the cave ceiling, rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly as he sat against a wall and wallowed in his misery.
He had failed. It was that simple. Any attempts to rationalize his actions...
2019-11-25 03:18:29 +0000 UTC View Post[Updated the first section due to reader feedback]
Sensation returned to Gabriela in a sudden rush as her head reformed into its original state, good as new. She blinked and her vision quickly gained clarity, revealing the same familiar tent that she’d become so familiar with the past season. Normally she would spend at least a minute or two staring up at that fabric roof in quiet resignation, wallowing in the melancholy that came with one more failure, but not today. &nbs...
2019-11-07 23:05:39 +0000 UTC View Post“...and we should hopefully have the new mine operational in no more than ten days,” concluded Martis Tievais, Blake’s Minister of the Interior.
“Excellent, well done,” Blake replied. It was times like this that he wished he didn’t always need to wear his masked helmet as part of his ‘Lord Ferros’ persona. It kept his subordinates from seeing his encouraging smiles. Still, it was important that he be ‘Lord Ferros’ to these people. T...
2019-10-02 05:34:36 +0000 UTC View PostMy two months of hell (a.k.a. all my many vacations) are over!!! I have time to write again! Wooo!!! However, now that I'm back from my final trip, I can't help but notice that there are are LOT of patrons who have yet to migrate to the new improved tier! I can't do it for you! If you don't migrate, when September ends, you're going to stop getting new chapters (or if you're one of the few tip jar people, you're going to miss out on getting new chapters for the same pr...
2019-09-24 02:12:56 +0000 UTC View PostAkhustal Palebane opened her eyes to the soothing chirps of the lizards and the warm light of the morning sun leaking through her window. Well, not really; the Stragman people still made their home in the dark, cavernous, sunlight-deficient confines of Hoxoni in the south of the Stragman forest. But in her mind, those warming rays of light and familiar sounds were as real as the glow of the glowmoss by her bedside. For the first time in seasons, Akhustal felt content. ...
2019-09-14 06:01:55 +0000 UTC View PostHello everybody. I wanted to talk to you all real quick about what I'm doing to change the tiers and why. I first created this Patreon for two reasons:
1. An attempt to get a little money to send to my friend who edits this story, both as a thank you and as incentive to get him to place it higher on his priority list.
2. To create a financial guilt, whereby the act of people paying to read these chapters would keep me from ever thinking about dropping the story when it...
2019-09-12 01:32:27 +0000 UTC View PostThe harmonies of millions of voices humming and singing filled the Stragman rainforest as an entire civilization traveled through the thick foliage to the site of their next home. Rudra Kapadia did his best to join in, though he didn’t know words or notes to the seemingly endless tune the way everybody else seemed to. The song, referred to by the Stragmans as “the beacon” or “the beacon song” seemed to be an age-old tradition from many centuries ago.
As ...
2019-08-20 19:06:49 +0000 UTC View Post