Michael Clark

Tunnel Rat Chapter 387

In a huge cavern, home to only a swarm of giant large bats for many years, the stillness of the underground was broken as new people moved into the area. A dwarven drill machine broke through the wall of the cave and advanced unsteadily on its tracks, belching too much smoke and making too much noise. Thirty feet into the cavern, something went wrong. There was the sound of metal shearing and the machine came to a stop, restoring the silence of the cave. Over the next hour, the support crew f...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 478

The sun rose on a bleak and dreary day, mostly obscured by clouds and rain. Marceline grinned, it was perfect for drilling the new troops. They'd last longer with the rain cooling them down, and be twice as miserable. She and anyone else who wanted breakfast before they started was heading to the tavern where the Baron was supplying them with simple but nutritious food. She'd actually complained the first day. The quality had been too good. She wanted the troops to train on the same type of f...

Needed: Clever People with Clever Words

Butcher Volume 1 is heading to the narrator. It's slated to come out in July.
But...I need a tagline! A clever quip. Something niftier than "Welcome to Sedgewick." Much as I felt that was appropriate, it's not going to work for Amazon.

I immediately thought of "Have Cleaver, will Travel." but he doesn't really travel until book 3. And I doubt many people still remember the old western series with Paladin.

So, anyone have a clever idea?

Tunnel Rat Chapter 386: Sending out the Weasel Patrol

The old caverns that had been silent for almost a millennia were now disturbed by the loud sounds of enthusiastic children stacking fifty-pound ingots of Deep Copper. They had diligently practiced making letters for as long as they could hold themselves still and then ran off to play. Currently, they were piling up the metal ingots into a maze of small 'rooms' in a playhouse. Milo could hear the difference in these ingots. The small bits of silvery alloy that remained in the copper gave a sli...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 477

Vern didn't run, he could only sort of lean forward and shuffle along faster.

The short distance to the hill exasperated Marceline with his constant need for breaks. "No one is this out of shape. Let me see your character sheet."

With Ricardo's help, Vern managed to share his character sheet with her. Ricky had expected to see the typical line of zeros for a starting character but instead saw negative numbers with asterisks and a list of footnotes detailing the reasons.

Ma...

The Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 476

After their latest adventures in the Pit of the Butcher, the group split up. Rolly and Squirmie were off to play Shepherd to the growing flocks around Sedgewick. Ozzy was heading to the Butcher's Guild and Suzette to her tavern.

Ben was escorting Ricardo to Hungrytown for coffee and pecan pie. The Courier was curious about the Rogue's group and their tactics in the pit. Learning about the different dangers and bosses went a long way toward not dying horribly, as Ben had so recently fou...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 385

"Back it out! The drill head is overheating again! We melt another one and we'll fall even further behind!"

With much cursing and arguing, the Tunnel Tyrant crew disengaged the drill head's power and reversed the treads, slowly backing their machine into the large cavern a hundred feet behind them. The drill head was red hot in places, the result of spinning in place when the drill couldn't gain leverage against the hard rock layers they were hitting. Engineers armed with picks and bla...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 384

Milo had a million thoughts running through his head, and so much to do, but...his foot itched! The pain from losing his foot had been terrible, but he had focused on it and shoved it to the side. The itch was another thing altogether, cutting through his defenses.

Brutus had put a sort of large sock on his leg and tied it at the ankle. "You've never had to regenerate something? Fine, here's the rules: You don't look at it, don't poke it, don't pick at it. You let it grow back at t...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 475

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them doggies rollin'
Rawhide

Vern was woken up at six in the morning by the sound of whips cracking, and the rolling guitar melody of the theme song from Rawhide. He sat up in his narrow bed and looked around the unfamiliar surroundings in confusion. Then he remembered and got angry, laying back down and putting his pillow over his head to drown out the sound...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 474

There may be a second half to this chapter coming, or it might become 475 on the length, but here's this part for now.
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The Many-Drinks tribe of goblins had traveled for many weeks through the wilds to the North of Gadobhra, into the swamps where wyverns and giant leeches made travel difficult. Then into the old forests where the shaggy trees and towering treants debated points of theology and killed noisy things that disturbed them. Finally reaching the ...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 383

Milo ran back to the group. "We have Snake trouble. It's not as big as the last one I fought, but it's been corrupted and mostly transformed. Looks old and clunky, but that could be deceiving. And Copperheads have a nasty poisonous bite. Although..." Milo looked at the girls, "It shouldn't affect the girls with their Fiendish Resistance, and my Poison Resistance is better than it used to be."

Brutus patted his potion bag, "Guards all have Poison Resistance, have to with some of the stu...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 382

After making thoroughly sure that nothing was left alive and no more of the things were coming out of the hole Milo went to the small camp where Brutus and the girls were recovering. Buttercup was sitting in a bed of pillows while Brutus examined her legs. "These are deep cuts. I'm going to clean them with iodine and then stitch them up so your regeneration heals them nice."

"Iodine?! That's the stuff Mama puts on people and even Larry doesn't like it!"

"It will sting a little. ...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 381

Curiosity got the better of Milo and he waited to see what emerged. He should have been able to see what it was, darkness didn't affect his sight. But something was keeping the outlines of the creatures hazy and indistinct. The scratching of metal on stone and the squealing screams as metal was ripped in half made him imagine nightmarish creatures. When he could finally see them, he decided his imagination hadn't been trying hard enough to scare him. These things were worse.

But while ...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 473

The surviving minions that worked for Grinder argued as they scraped what was left of their boss off the floor and tossed him into bags to haul over to Oink. Oink didn't like working with cooked meat, so there wasn't a lot to haul. After some consideration, they passed out the cooked sausages to other minions, hid the hard-cured and smoked links in a storage room, and took two bags of raw bits down to Oink. Oink was already working hard, creating new masterpieces to turn loose in the dungeon,...

Chapter 472: Everything is Sausage

Grinder, Sausage Beast of the Pit, Monstrous Level 20 Butcher Boss
(Minions, Monstrously Strong, Extra Health, Physical Resistance to punctures and bludgeoning.)

Grinder didn't waste time talking after his opening shout. He stalked toward Ozzy, throwing a right haymaker at him. Ozzy didn't try to dodge. He swung hard at the oncoming fist, bringing both cleavers forward in a double, overhanded chop. They hit the fist, with the combined fo...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 380

Sorry for delays, still sick, but can at least write now.


Senior Engineer Milo was seen everywhere for two hours before he hopped on board a fast train to the Uptop. He visited each of the teams working on new variations of tunnel drillers, making cryptic comments and dropping hints about how close the other teams were to starting.
By the time he left, the teams were in a feverish race to once again redesign their machines for better fuel efficiency, more power, and sharper dril...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 471

Ozzy surged forward towards Grinder, noting that while the other Butcher looked like a large, ungainly monster, he didn't move like one. He kept his balance while kicking minions out of his way and swung his two-handed 'hog splitter' in a sweeping figure-eight arc as he moved across the smoke-filled room. As Ozzy was preparing to block with one cleaver and hit with the other, Grinder planted one foot and pivoted, bringing his weapon around even faster and taking him away from Ozzy's swing. Oz...

Poll: Would this interest you in being a paid Patron

I'm thinking of making changes to my Patreon Tiers, and wondering if people in the Free tier were interested in these options.

Thinking of changing my Patreon tiers, need feedback

And no, despite Patreon constantly telling me to keep up with inflation and raise my prices, I'm not thinking about it. (They really do, it's annoying.)

Currently, there's some work in having different tiers for the same story, and I know it annoyed some people. I went from 5 to 10 chapters but then added another 10 in the top tier. A few people wanted to stay at five dollars but didn't like knowing there were more chapters available.

If I change things, (and unsure right now, h...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 379

Milo found himself hustled off to the pre-surgery scrub room and given a crash course in scrubbing for surgery: Rhebus style. The first step involved a shower using a decontamination booth that not only cleaned him but took off three layers of dead skin cells. Protective eyewear kept the chemical bath out of his eyes, but the fumes tickled into his nose uncomfortably. His siblings shouted out encouragement.
"Make sure to use the stiff brush to loosen things up."
"And the smaller brushes...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 470

Sorry for the delays. Still sick, but can at least write now.

Ozzy was leaning against the bony carcass of Hungry Dog and catching his breath, thankful that he no longer had holes in his lungs. Rolly had done what he could to patch him up and Suzette had given him three of her best healing potions, he drank the last of the three down, getting his health above 50%. "I may have gotten a little overconfident. We were clearing those Gristle Daemons so easily. But that damned dog thing wasn...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 378

Back to my regular schedule. This one took forever, I kept getting distracted with dives into the internet researching odd things and suddenly it was nearly the next day.
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Mama got the explanations she needed and got to work organizing parts of her extended family to make sure everyone was fed and rested. Bork, Algernon, and Onyx were surprised when Rusty sounded an alarm and announced "Warning! Incoming high-priority message from Starfleet Command."

Alge...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 469

Had fun with this one.
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Ricardo was trying to come up with a day that had sucked worse than this one but was drawing a blank. Granting, his thinking process had a lot of distractions right now, like seeing one of his teammates slowly lowered head first into a grinder. The whole group was trussed up with twine and hanging from a slowly moving conveyor belt. They'd watched as carcass after carcass was fed into the mechanical grinder while a dozen minions and the...

Tunnel Rat Chapter 377

The change in the alphabet from excited children having fun to focused professionals happened in less than a minute. Part of Belinda watched as all of them began to focus and work together. Onyx proposed a new project: Study the new batch of data and find a way to cure Belinda. The study would begin immediately and take priority over other projects.

Belinda and Milo watched as each person took thirty seconds to give their thoughts, and then they voted. It was unanimous and the...

Butcher of Gadobhra 468

Plans were not finalized until Christmas Eve when it was finally decided that we would rise at 6 am, pack up everything under the tree and the five of us would drive to Baltimore, unpack the car, and open presents with the rest of the family. Only an hour late in leaving, which is on time for my family.

Presents and wrapping were strewn all over the house, and then we figured out what was heading north and repacked the car before taking naps while the roast beast cooked. I think the G...

So, about these "holidays"...

This time of year is a bit stressful for me. I own stores, and the workload gets hectic and goes right up to Christmas Eve. Thankfully, not in a mall anymore. Used to work 6 am to midnight for a couple of weeks.

I was on a good roll with the stories up until the last few days when the fatigue finally caught up. I don't intend to take a break, but my writing schedule is chaotic. Since I don't have the required time and energy to get words flowing, I'm doing a lot of outlining upcoming...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 467

The last part. Squeezed it out tonight.
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VP Belmont held up a hand, "Let's back up a bit. You and Vernon have been feuding for months, you've proven to us your worth, we remove Vernon to a place where he can't interfere, and you want him back?"

Layla smirked, "Sort of. Happy to have him stay in Nebraska, and he's desperate enough to stay working that he's agreed to an arrangement where he retains his VP position, but works for us, instead of us f...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 466

Whew! Didn't expect this one to go so long, and still not done!
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A smiling security guard and large nurse met Uncle Vern as he left the room where his career at ACME had taken a sudden turn right turn at Albuquerque and stranded him in Nebraska. Vern didn't know much about Nebraska other than the fact that if ACME sent you there, you didn't come back. Many people might have enjoyed vacationing in a place with few people and beautiful wilde...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 465

The ACME Corporation had seventeen different board rooms of varying sizes, importance, and age. When part of the Board of Directors met, the room used gave clues as to what was being discussed and who was in attendance. The Grand Board Room was used once a year to celebrate the yearly increase in their profits and rarely for anything else. Today's meeting was quite minor if judged by its size. The Burnished Gold Room had enough room to seat fifty people at one table and was luxurious enough t...

Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 464

Long after the evening had set, two dozen workers set out from their homes for Gadobhra. It was time to butcher. The recent 'upgrade' in the Barony only formally announced what the butchers and hunters of Gadobhra had seen happening for months: The critters were getting bigger.

The enchanted stockyards rarely produced a herd of Sedgebeasts, and if they did they were from strange varieties that lived in the deep caverns or mossy woods. Ben was delighted to see the herd of "Deep Caver...