Michael Clark

Tunnel Rat Chapter 167

Raw, just finished, need a donut and coffee before I collapse. This will get some more work, as I'm sure there are errors or badly phrased areas of it. But here's the big fight. Feedback appreciated

H'Splat hissed and screamed at her host of arachnids. "Kill it! Kill it quickly! Sting and Claw, Bite and Slash! Fill it with poison or it will kill us all!" H'Spat had seen Cheese Fiends fight during the Mammal Rebellion and the Rightous War of Glory. The beasts were nearly unstoppable unl...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 235

The day had been long, and the crew were tired but in high spirits. The light that trickled down from Skye and up from Fyre was fading. The crew ate their dinner, with several retellings of the fight on the Conquest and the other battles the crew had taken part in. A full flagon of rum for each crew member was poured out for the enjoyment of everyone.

The shake-down cruise of the Splinter had been judged successful. Chains had been moved to adjust the sails. Cargo had ...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 234

The Splinter was under full sail, moving away from the graveyard of wrecked ships. Captain Woodrat ran the crew through drills, constantly calling for adjustments in the sails and moving the ship to a different course. The crew members were gaining more confidence in each other and sorting out the hundreds of small details that turned a group of individual sailors into a tight crew.

Ozzy was a conundrum to them. The first mate could light the smaller sails with his heat, and ...

Tunnle Rat Chapter 166

Ten students surrounded the machine Professor Arlothe was working on, holding tools, machine parts, and wire coils. The professor had declared that from now on, each day would be spent experimenting with new ways to generate electrical power and storm-aspected mana. And, of course, finding ways to unleash that power. The ten students had followed him down and out of the tower, standing nearby, ready to assist him as he tore apart and rebuilt the generator by the waterfall.

Throughout ...

TR165 expanded.

I added several hundred words to the last chapter. If you already read it, scroll down to where I note the changes. 

TunnelRat Chapter 165

Narwhale spotted the monster running across the caverns first. Most scavengers had a high perception and Look Out skill. Narwhale had spent days on end manning observation ports or crow's nests. "We got trouble coming. Load a shell, and I'll see how many legs I can blow off of it!"

Boom-Boom smiled at the thought of watching his new bride blowing things up but stopped Barracuda before she loaded the small cannon. "You might get more than you bargained for. I'm guessing that the person ...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 164

The cheese Danish was truly delightful. Gilad was impressed with how quickly Rifkin was filling the shoes of his predecessor. One of his new apprentices had knocked on Gilad's door three times before entering his home and leaving the large tray of cheesy desserts on his table. Gilad recognized him from when he had been attending his classes. Blackfungus? Blacknose? Something like that.

Gilad had dropped down from his favorite napping spot in the rafters to try a piece and had ended up m...

Butcher of Gadobhra, Ozzy Tier 3 Options

The current list of options Ozzy will get for tier 3. Note that in all cases he will have a Role to play in the town, and like all Roles that players accept, it comes with bonuses as well as minor drawbacks. The player gains a place in the game, might gain a home or business, but then spends time in the role. Currently, this includes running his butchershop, delivering meat to Jenny, the tavern, the inn, and the legion, and handing out quests.

Feel free to toss feedback.

Cong...

Tunnle Rat Chapter 163

Milo had a very good understanding of what projectile weapons could do. Many dwarves had a fascination with them and would spend hours sipping beer and talking about their ideas for hand cannons while they tinkered with other projects. Some, like Boom-Boom, skipped the guns and went right to the heart of the matter by focusing on more powerful explosives.

From the sound, rate of fire, and how the large caliber rounds had destroyed the stone walls Milo knew that the miners had nothing th...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 233 Raw Draft

Sat down, and this just poured out. Totally raw and will get a lot of editing for errors.
"Too late for that, my good Captain Woodrat. There is nowhere you can run from me. Not on my ship."

Lord Peerson stood on the main deck. His coat was tattered, and his hat was missing. Long white hair steamed behind his gaunt, black face. Other than that, he seemed unharmed. Thick black chains surged from the deck, wrapping up Ozzy and dragging him to the main mast. He straine...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 232

"At them, my hearty crew! Lord Neddleson demands the head of the man who dared to make war upon the Queens and, worse, who damaged my ship! I'll suck his soul dry and mount his head on the bowsprit." Lord Neddleson was rapidly becoming a pain in the ass for Ozzy.

"Ok, we can slow down a little. We're keeping ahead of them easily. Hopefully, that strings them out, and we can start cutting down the odds." Butterbelly and the rest of the crew were breathing hard, although Woodrat seemed...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 162

As the spiders surged over the improvised barricades walls of earth and rock erupted from the floor, and the magical stone grew until it touched the ceiling. Not all mages spent their time in the Tower of Spite, studying advanced dueling and battle magics. Several of the miners were Earth Mages and had been moving rock around all of their lives.

Two narrow areas were left for spiders to move through, each of them just big enough for one eight-legger. The ratkin on either side of the ope...

Ozzy's Heritage

So now that confused you with heritage, let's talk about Ozzy. These are some chaotic thoughts on his heritage options.

Contract Workers in tier one could buy extra stats, up to 3 per stat. The cost was 2pts if you added them to your heritage, and 3 points if you didn't. Of course, no gamer is going to pay extra.

So Ozzy has a big chunk of his heritage in STR and CON. This is one of the reasons he's a lot bigger than average. Butcher adds to that as well, along with One Fist o...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 231

The next day, Captain Woodrat took oaths from his new crew, and they set to work. There were many chores: Freeing the ship, lighting sails, finishing repairs, cleaning the hull, transporting and mounting the ballistae, and securing a supply of food.

So of course they started by rescuing the rum.

Woodrat pointed out that they had two strong mates who could each haul back a ship's boat full of swag, and it would be a shame to leave all this lovely rum just sitting here. Two boats...

An rambling explanation of Heritage

Heritage pops up almost immediately in the early chapters of Butcher of Gadobhra, and there are choices characters have made about it that influence them.

But what is it?

Normally, heritage would be something you're born with, passed down from parents, grandparents, and ancestors. It's already set, and you can't go backward and choose better ancestors.

In GENESIS, it's a little different. Players can discover their heritage that was hidden from them, even choose between ...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 230

Mariah raced ahead, and Ozzy couldn't tell if her feet were touching the ground. Woodrat and Derrick were running as fast as they could, with Ozzy bringing up the rear. The ashy, top layer of the sargasso put up clouds of dust as they ran along and they could see similar being kicked up in the distance. As they ran further and further, Derrick began to slow down, and then Woodrat as well. They'd been running over a mile at this point and Ozzy was slowly gaining on them. As he overtook them at...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 161

P'tashPak'r, the Exalted General of the 10th Host, beloved of the queens, and champion of the Many-Legged Army marched forward at the head of her army. Behind her came countless brave and deadly spider warriors. The noise of her army's passage was much less than normal. She had remarked on this and he second in command told he of the stealth training each of her warriors had undergone prior to be selected for her army. Indeed, if she didn't know better, she would have thought that her army wa...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 160

The Hollow was starting to wake up. Most everyone had slept well, with no bad dreams. And no good dreams. In fact, no dreams at all, just sleep. Things seemed so much clearer today. It was time to go to breakfast.

Milo saw most of the Hollow lining up at the mess hall for the morning meal. Most mornings breakfast was a long and staggered affair, with people showing up from fourth bell to 9th bell to eat and then the evening meal from 6th bell to 12th bell. Was Rifkin serving something...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 229

Ozzy had told the story of his days adventure. Woodrat had laughed, especially when the mast had fallen over with Ozzy at the top. At the end he told them about having put one of the globes in the cargo hold along with the other things he'd found on various ships, prefaced by the information that it was already gone. Both Woodrat and Mariah had been horrified at the thought and what it could have done to both them and the ship.

Those thoughts quickly turned to how to use the globes to m...

Non-Story: I need opinions on the last couple of chapters with Rosie and Buttercup.

(Small obvious spoilers.)

I need opinions and how people reacted to the last couple of chapters. Specifically the details about an obvious badguy turning two little girls into Cheese Fiends and training them to be murder machines used in battle.

Spoiler: Things work out better for the girls in the end, they don't get torn to pieces by dwarven cannon or have to fight Milo or Larry.

The subject matter involves what is pretty much child abuse, which goes beyond 'we enslave...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 159

Saved from sudden death at the claws of some rat monster, TheBlueBIishop got to his feet and dusted himself off. Behind him was crater with the bodies of three players who had been unlucky enough to be in range of Narwhales first rocket. The garishly clad bishop had just lost most of his hearing, so he could be excused from not hearing the screams of injured players asking for his help. His perception of 0 had something to do with that as well. Every player had a few dump stats and BB hadn't ...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 158

Grackle had been a fiend tender all of his life. When they took over this little shit hole of a Hollow, he'd become its new Fiend Master. All his hard work would finally pay off!

His father had tended fiends for Wurchwitz Hollow and he had started teaching his oldest whelp his trade early in life. "Remember, they all look like monsters, but every fiend is different. They still have pieces of themselves from before. Those pieces fight with the animal that's taking over. Some get sneaky, ...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 157

The spell was cast, the animals looked up in panic and began to move about, their eyes turning from a placid pink to an angry red. The effect of the spell was an illusion that invoked fear. Against horses, sheep, or cattle it would cause a stampede. In the lizards' minds they saw and smelled their most feared predator stalking them. The result of the spell was more than Duskarrow had expected. A heavy scent came from the affected animals, the panic spread from the animals within spell range t...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 156

Starting up a chunk of chapters to catch Milo up with Ozzy. I want to maintain five chapters ahead on each of the stories now. This one is a little short, but this was a logical stopping point

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Petey and Milo sat in the cave next to Smiley eating jellybeans. Petey checked on Smiley, took his pulse, turned him a bit and got him to swallow a couple of jelly beans and some water. "We need to get him to the Old Healer. This is almost the same as what happened to Bleusnout."
2022-12-09 05:48:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 228

A little rough, needs some polish. But the main story won't change.

Before anything else happened, Ozzy carefully removed the glass spheres from the smoke, nestling them into the salad so they wouldn't roll around. It was stressful, being that close to so many fragile bombs. Which reminded him about the one he'd naively brought back to the Splinter. Hopefully his idea of how to use the deadly bombs would placate Woodrat when he found out that Ozzy had brought one aboard.
<...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 227

Ozzy was not a sprinter, but he also wasn't slow. This had surprised a couple of people before. The sculpted perk gave him a leaner body with little to no body fat. Right now, he needed every bit of help he could get. The smaller gators were running at him to close the circle. If even one of them got in a good bite, it would slow him down and it would be all over. The Imperator was still in its burrow in the salad, and low to the ground. Bits of vegetation were flying in the air as it shook i...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 226

After seeing to Derick and helping him get his heat under control, Ozzy got him a plate of sausages and made him eat. "We have plenty of food. Regulate your heat by making smoke. If you fill up on smoke, then get to work and use it up. It's hot out here, as I'm sure you noticed. Heat will kill you sure as no heat will." The boy nodded and a little later got to work making chain, a job he was slow at, but his links were far better than what Ozzy had been making until recently.

He'd deb...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 225

Ozzie awoke and rolled over on the hard deck. It took a few seconds to remember why he slept out here and not in his hammock. After seeing how much of the deck he had destroyed because of bumping his head, it seemed like a good idea to sleep out here. He looked over at the mast where a chain ladder went from the deck up to the crow's nest at the top.

Grumbling some, he started working his way to the top. He hated the chain ladder immediately. It didn't stay still and was hard to climb w...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 224

Writathon has been conquered. Starting the process of rebuilding my chapters here on Patreon. 

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When asked about how the hell you ate the core of a shark, Woodrat had just smiled and said "Like you eat anything else. Just chew a couple of times and choke it down. No worse than the cooking on a lot of ships."

Ozzy was relaxing in his cabin, off duty for a few hours while Woodrat took his turn on lookout. His hammock swung back and forth as he held the smal...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 155

Charlotte's strikes had been faster than Milo had been expecting, almost as fast as Gilad, but he'd been expecting her to try something since the first step she took towards him. The weird swaying thing she did were her tail and hips he didn't understand. Maybe something to distract him the way a cobra confused prey? In any case her stance gave away both the hidden dagger and the preparation for the claw strike.

Milo had been sparring relentlessly with three very scary opponents. Gil...