Wombat's Writings

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 20 - Eliminated

Okay, I rewrote a part in the middle. Cut out a particularly awkward conversation between Teddy and Nyx. It really didn't fit their relationship at all.

Unfortunately it made the chapter a little shorter than usual, but it also made it better overall.

After that the simulation ramped up in a predictable way. 

The small groups of Model Threes turned into swarms. Then those swarms picked up the occasional Model Four, Five or Six. They weren’t ...

Unexpected Guests - Interlude 5 - Bath time’s over

“I almost had her! I demand a rematch!” Kass yelled through my tablet. 

“You literally just finished fighting,” Bella giggled. “Maybe you should wait until we finish the match, before you demand a rematch.”

“I can’t believe I got so close, and I couldn’t finish the job,” Kass whined as she slowly lowered her head to the table. “I managed to stab her with one of my knives and everything!”

“That may be true, but you took a lot of chances to get ...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 19 - Storage room Sweep

Don't think I'm going to drag this out to a full combat arc. Now that we've seen Jennifer and Teddy bonding I'll probably try and wrap it up in the next chapter or two... Unless you think there's a reason to extend it.

I slipped down the stairs and surveyed the wrecked storage room. There were half a dozen Model Threes clumsily climbing over the shelves, sniffing at the wreckage. 

As I raised the woodpecker at the closest target the reticle appe...

Imaginary - Chapter 22 - Cooperation

“Now I don’t want to take up too much of your time today, it is your first day after all, but I did want to ask you something important,” Dr. Michaels said once everyone had calmed down. “Do you remember anything strange happening during the rift? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Ummm… can you be more specific?” Olivia asked, shifting in her chair. “I don’t think either of us have enough experience with rifts to tell what is and isn’t normal.”

The doctor gl...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 18 - Shots fired

While Jennifer took up a position at the top of the stairs, behind the makeshift barrier, I stood off to the side watching the stairs through the thin metal railings.

“Do you even know how to use that?” I asked as Jennifer raised her tiny semi-automatic pistol.

“I know the basics. Make sure I keep the safety on, the weapon pointed away from everyone, and my finger off the trigger until I’m ready to fire,” Jennifer replied nervously. 

I looked at the girl, surp...

New - Community Chats

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know I've created new chat... channels? Threads? Whatever they are for my stories. I haven't used the until this point, but I thought I'd open a few topics to see if anyone would like to chat about the stories.

I've set channel permissions to match the stories, so non-sub members will be able to read SS, UG, and Imaginary, while subs will have access to those three + TBoB

I dont know if anyone will find them useful, but I thought I'd give th...

SS - Chapter 40 - Moving up in the world

Not super happy wiht the last line, I feel like it should be something like that... but couldnt think of what to put!

Camille zipped around the room, sticking her nose into every closet and corner as I slowly sunk into the heavy chair, behind the massive hard wood desk in my new office. 

Even though I knew my mother was correct, that I needed to stop trying to micromanage everything, I couldn’t help but stick my nose in and check whatever one was w...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 17 - Fun and Games

I glanced up at the sky, trying to determine how fucked we actually were. 

Most of the rifts appeared to have opened over the factories, and were dropping their seed pods in that general area. That was good, they weren’t close enough to instantly overwhelm us with a full pod worth of antithesis, and the first wave was almost certainly going to come from that direction.

“Why’d you stop running?” Jennifer asked. Even though she wasn’t winded, she was covered with swea...

Imaginary - Chapter 21 - The Doctor

Hmmmm... I wasn't a fan of this chapter at first. It felt like it was going to be a continuation of the panic attack of a few chapters ago, but I like where it went in the end.

As Pam reached out to knock, the door was yanked open, revealing an excited looking brunette woman wearing glasses and scrubs. 

“Pam, you’re here! And you brought the students, excellent! Please, come inside,” she said, stepping aside and waving us forward. 

...

SS - Chapter 39 - Looking to the Future

Not sure if I like the way this flows, will look at it again later.

Also, have a doctor's appointment later, so I can't guarentee the second chapter will get done today.

We took the time to unpack the wagons, and get my brother settled, before finally taking the time to investigate the strange construct. Once we were done, I took the little maid back to the village hall, where everyone gathered around her.

“Why do you think she did that?” S...

Unexpected Guests - Chapter 12 - Showers of Gore

Come on... you know that if anyone was going to stand up to Teddy is was going to be Kass

“STOP…” I screamed as another pillar of water rose out of the water and slammed down on me, washing me a meter or so away from where I was standing. 

“Splashing me,” I finished, muttering under my breath. The smaller, child-like humanoids laughed and swam away, hiding behind the sirens and their army of aquatic animals. The first time we encountered t...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 16 - A Slow Start

“You don’t know how to use a mesh rig?” Jennifer asked in disbelief. “Really?”

“I can get all the information I need from either the city networks, or through Nyx,” I grumbled. “Why would I want to use a total immersion system to find the information I wanted?”

“The city information networks are biased, heavily filtered by the companies that control the infrastructure. The mesh is a far more open system, built on the back of samurai tech and much harder for c...

Unexpected Guests - Chapter 11 - Swimming Lessons

I picked up the strange crystal tablet sitting on the table in the middle of the room and ran my finger across the front of it experimentally. Even though it appeared to just be a large slab of crystal, with no external hardware or power source, it worked just like the tablets from back home.

There wasn’t much on the tablet, just a single question: Which teammate would you like to respawn?

I thought about it for a moment, and tapped one of the options. The air in front of me shi...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 15 - Advanced Entertainment Systems

Jennifer dragged me towards the back of the park. The crowds thinned out once we passed the main plaza, the facades slowly changed from the colorful cartoony versions we saw at the entrance to something more gritty and realistic.

We ended up in a section that looked like a run down industrial district. I briefly thought that we might have wandered into a backstage, or employee only area, but the area was absolutely filled with people, so it must have been a part of the park.

“So...

Imaginary - Chapter 20 - Deep underground

This took me soooo long. I ended up rewriting large sections of it, and I'm still not super happy with it. Still better than it was. Hope you enjoy.

An entire squad of security guards showed up, each one armed with a shotgun. While the team slowly swept all the rooms connected to the hallway, the leader came over to Pam. Although I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I couldn’t help but notice that they both glanced towards Olivia and I multiple times. I h...

Stickers!

Hey all!

Just wanted to let you know that RavensDaggers webstore now has stickers! I've been bothering the big birb for them for months, and as soon as they became available I bought a set.

Honestly, I just wanted to show them off. Look how spiffy my laptop looks now!

If you do want some though, you can find the through the webstore link in the footer of my most recent live chapters on RR and ScribbleHub

EDIT: I had to retrieve the URL cause I was on my phone.
2025-08-01 16:45:02 +0000 UTC View Post

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 14 - The most corporate place on earth

“This is… a lot,” I muttered as I stood in front of the truck and waited for everyone to gather. Nimbleland was a riot of sights and sounds, flashing lights and screaming people. 

And that was before we were even inside the gates.

The outer walls were covered in holo billboards which alternated between showcasing the various distractions and showing live footage of the inside of the park. Even though I found the rapidly swapping displays were g...

SS - Chapter 38 - What really matters

I spent most of the day running around the refugee camp making sure that all my new citizens were settled properly. 

Since I hadn’t planned for a kitchen ahead of time, I needed to find not only a cook, but someone that we could trust with access to the food supply. Thankfully my mother had a couple of suggestions, including the former head chef from the Ashbourne manor. I figured if the man could be trusted with my mother’s meals for over ten years, he could be trusted with th...

Direction of TBoB Book 5

So I just wanted to ask, what does everyone think about TBoB book 5 so far? I was planning on making it a little more family based, but I've begun to worry that people will begin to lose interest with the lack of action. Even in the less combat intensive arcs there was SOME action, something that's missing here.

I could add a quick action bit in the incursion simulator... but I dunno if that'd be that fufilling.

Honestly, although I'm enjoying the arc right now, but there's a li...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 13 - Reprisals

Sooo... I dunno where this came from. It's a lot of background and worldbuilding that I somehow hadn't covered in the story this far. Will it be relevant? I dunno. It just kind of flowed out of me, and came together really quickly. It does explain why Teddy hasn't experienced the same problem Cat did with corporate recruiters... tell me what you think.

After a good night’s sleep, and a quick breakfast, we were back in the truck. 

“So why do we ha...

SS - Chapter 37 - New Arrivals

When we finally climbed to the top of the slope, and I got a look at the mass of humanity in front of me, a cold pit opened up in my stomach. I knew that my mother had planned on bringing as many people as she could, but as I looked out across the meadow, I started having serious concerns that we’d be able to support everyone.

“How many people did you bring?” I asked quietly.

“At last count? Three hundred and fifty seven,” my mother replied. She must have seen my face, b...

Imaginary - Chapter 19 - Complicated

One down!

“You know how I said my situation was kind of complicated?” I said slowly, trying to ignore the fight at the other end of the hallway. Pam wandered over to the girl, and quickly checked on her condition. Once she was convinced the girl was fine, she took a defensive position at the end of the hallway, right next to Angelica. 

Even though her eyes were on the hallway, I could tell she was listening to every word Olivia and I said.

...

Unexpected Guests - Interlude 4 - Shenanigans

“I’m sorry! I let my temper get the best of me, and I didn’t even manage to take even a single one of them down,” Chelsea cried, her mane of auburn hair flopping about. “I was so confident too!”

“It’s alright, you did your best,” I gently reassured the crying girl on the other side of the tablet. “I watched your match, you did an excellent job, considering the circumstances. With your strength, I thought you’d at least be able to push through that big bear and dea...

TBoB - Book 5 - Chapter 12 - Hopes and Dreams

After lunch we spent a couple more hours at the seaside. This was not only the first time the rest of my family had seen the ocean in real life, but it was the first time they’d ever left the city. 

I never really enjoyed going out into nature, I didn’t find rocks and trees all that interesting, and they had a habit of attracting the Antithesis. All my previous trips outside the city were to deal with massive Antithesis incursions, so it tended to remind me of work. Not that re...

Unexpected Guests - Chapter 10 - Wild Thing!

Woo! Finally done, several hours later than I have the last few weeks....

Since I know my free members couldn't read the previous message I'm repeating here. Feeling a little sick today, that's why things took so long. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow, but if I get worse I may end up taking the day off.

I haven't come up with a clear plan for the week, but it's going to be something like: 2UG, 1SS, 1IM.

I may...