Elania dodged the spear by jumping backwards, a purely instinctive reaction. In contrast, channeling her [Power] into her legs to give her a burst of speed was purposeful. One thing she had noticed right away was that the Mushroohums weren’t agile. The hidden hunter chased after her, but she quickly left him behind in the trench-like maze between the grassy Elnat plateaus.
As...
2023-09-29 04:57:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Anton made one final lap through the complex; his arcane sensing stone dialed to its highest sensitivity. There was no sign of any further artifacts or cultists that he had found, and yet he had failed in his mission. The summoned lesser demon had escaped, and the leader of the cult had nearly killed him before the tides had reversed and the Black Bishop had utilized a t...
2023-09-29 01:39:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Two crimson orbs mirrored back at Elania, her reflection painted a vibrant shade of red within the water’s surface. She traced the contours of her face with slender fingers, her eyes not leaving the sight of her own reflection staring back at her. The tanned hue of her skin had been replaced by a pale color that looked like she’d never been embraced by the sun before.
Her hair, once a tangl...
2023-09-28 07:04:54 +0000 UTC View Post
The attack came so fast that the only reaction she could muster was to raise her arms. She caught the creature on its shoulders while its dazzling array of razor-sharp teeth snapped viciously in her face. The impact was strong enough to send her flying backwards, and it was mostly luck that she managed to lay her feet into the thing’s stomach and kick off, sending it flying away from her.
It ...
2023-09-28 02:39:35 +0000 UTC View Post
The feeling of Fire and Water was all-encompassing.
As Elania slowly regained consciousness, the first sensation she had was of being covered in a copious amount of sweat; if someone had told her they’d just fished her out of a lake, she’d have believed them. Her robe was soaked thoroughly and dripped onto the floor.
As she sat up, her heart pounded in her chest like she’d run a mar...
2023-09-27 07:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post
The choice to evolve into an Ash Demon or not, hung in the air, taunting Elania for over a minute. If this was a monster evolution game, then ‘evolving’ might make her stronger. Maybe even better suited for the hellish landscape that remained after the massive fire that she’d accidentally started.
Despite all the game-like systems that floated in the air, nothing said that any of her choi...
2023-09-26 22:53:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Yolani scanned the man as she turned to bolt, a quick info card appearing informing her of his class and level.
[Bodyguard - Human – Lvl 140]
A second soldier was behind her and reached forward and grabbed her shoulder. “Going somewhere in a rush?” He asked gruffly, while grabbing the fabric of her leather jacket. His half helmet failed to hide the man’s rough fea...
2023-09-25 21:40:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Morning had ended and the light stones overhead had reached their maximum intensity as set by the city’s day and night cycle. The Noble’s District straddled the line between the Conclave District and Mercenary District, not too far from the City Guard’s fortress and the Artisan District. There weren’t any direct access ways from the poorer slums to it. A series of deep chasms acted as a moat,...
2023-09-25 21:28:47 +0000 UTC View Post
The light-hearted banter died as they crossed the threshold into the Mercenary District. A half dozen other guardsmen nodded to Henri as they passed by. Traffic flowed freely between the market and the district, but only under the watchful eye of the authorities. If someone wasn’t dressed the part and tried to pass into one of the other, higher districts, there would be questions.
Yolani frowned as she took in ...
2023-09-25 04:38:52 +0000 UTC View Post
The insistent tolling of the morning bell reverberated throughout Neftasu; its rhythm as unyielding as the stone edifices that comprised the subterranean city. An audible groan escaped from Yolani as she stirred. The glint from the massive light stones hanging over the city proper invaded her room, finally forcing her to roll to the edge of her bed.
She barely managed to untangle her sheets fro...
2023-09-24 01:33:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Time lost its meaning in the dark.
Eventually, Elania nodded off for a nap. Eventually, consciousness slowly returned.
Submerged in the murky depths of her refuge, her tear-streaked face reflected palely in the dim light as she scanned her surroundings, taking stock of her situation.
The absence of the luminescent moss plunged the caverns into semi-darkness, leaving only a few glowing f...
2023-09-21 22:26:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Elania didn’t slow down as she ran blindly through the dimly lit maze of corridors, her heart pounding against her chest with every adrenaline-fueled step. The sounds of combat between the cultists and the holy knight faded behind her. Numerous intersections and heavy looking closed doors d...
2023-09-21 20:14:15 +0000 UTC View PostI'm working on the rewrite for New Life of a Summoned Demoness. Those who have read it before will likely find it familiar, but there has been a considerable amount of changes to things.
The original story ended abruptly at 115k words; I estimate the rewrite will add about 50k words to that, improvements to the writing itself (After writing ShipCore and Sigma 16 I think my writing has improved a little...?) and h...
2023-09-20 19:33:15 +0000 UTC View PostUSD: Thirty-Six hours and thirty minutes since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar System, MNS Aegis Flag Bridge
The cruisers on the battle line slightly retreated as the targeted vessels accelerated, scraping together an extra fraction of a second for better targeting. All the ships in the unit simultaneously reduced their acceleration and executed a flip to face the incoming missile salvo with their bows.
Alex bit her lip as the ma...
2023-09-19 11:13:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Talia headed into the Bootstrap module and aimed for the decontamination chamber. The bio-research part of the research module would hopefully provide insight into the planet’s micro-biological climate and be capable of providing a vaccine that would enable her to survive without a contained environment. It would be nice to be able to walk outside without her suit on, although it probably wasn’t a great idea to do ...
2023-09-16 17:05:40 +0000 UTC View Post
After several hours of monitoring and taking care of anything that needed to be supervised or adjusted, the jungle mining operation was largely taken care of and on its way to full automation. It was going to take time for the CRD-X9s to dig their way to the deposit, even with the extra load of ST-100 Fusion Cells waiting to recharge the vehicles so they wouldn’t have to return to base in the middle of the process. 2023-09-16 17:05:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Sigma 16 Book Two - The Ferroin Gate
Talia faces new challenges and unexpected alliances as she fights to escape from the planet she crash landed on, Sigma 16.
Struggling to expand her fledgling industrial base, she must navigate a delicate balance between resource exploitation and the planet’s increasingly restless native lifeforms. An unlikely alliance offers her the edge she needs, but at what cost?
As Talia ventures closer to her crashed starship—a k...
2023-09-13 19:55:37 +0000 UTC View PostUSD: Twenty-four hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar System, MNS Aegis Flag Bridge
Alex didn’t need Nameless to provide her psych eval reports for her to notice the undercurrent of fear and stress on the flag bridge. The flag lieutenant reporting to Admiral Parks had small beads of sweat forming on the side of his face, a signals officer’s voice cracked slightly higher than was usual, and the tone of the line section comman...
2023-09-12 12:44:28 +0000 UTC View PostNote: This should have been part of last week's ShipCore chapter, but I was just having a hard time with it. So just consider this the second part of 193 that should have been together.
**
USD: Twenty-Four Hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar, MOR-1, Solarian Diplomatic Cutter
The small diplomatic cutter’s bridge was quiet enough that the atmospheric recyclers were the loudest thing to penetrate the tension. Velian...
2023-09-09 12:29:54 +0000 UTC View Post
The rest of the day had been uneventful. The Blue had remained safely contained in the new prison module. Her spider friends were content to sleep in their growing metal nest. CRD-X9 units arrived on time and delivered the resources they’d gathered. Construction of the (9!) modules required to construct the research facility continued in the fabricator.
The feared attack on her resource gath...
2023-09-08 07:01:28 +0000 UTC View PostUSD: Twenty-Four Hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar, M3 Orbital Works, MNS Iron Horse, Moonlet Construction Black site
The Iron Horse’s engines hummed softly throughout the bridge as it maneuvered closer to the moonlet’s surface. It was little more than an oversized asteroid, but care had been taken to reshape the outer shell into something resembling a spheroid. A chaotic jumble of small craft were moored on the wharfs at...
2023-09-06 04:37:13 +0000 UTC View PostThere are lore entries I've been posting but they haven't made it onto Patreon. So here they are!
Lore - MXL-182 HEM-Enhanced Fusion Shell
Lore Entry - S-100 ‘Standard’ Fusion Cell
Lore - UFE Exploration Lore: The Heinlein Warp Drive, Shifting MegaCorp Dynamics, and the Rise of DRM in Space Exploration
Lore: Neural AI Chips: The Current Pinnacle of Human Advancement and Ethical Complexity
Verrrox’s eyes darted to the holographic monitors that hovered near the command dais at the far end of his office. The screens displayed the most up-to-date information from his Century’s various worlds, but it was the blinking red icon representing World 416 that held his gaze.
The room, usually a sanctuary of power and control, felt like a prison. The polished obsidian tiles underfoot se...
2023-09-02 23:08:20 +0000 UTC View Post
[Informative: It appears that the Blues may share some similarities with the spiders in their dietary requirements. However, more data is needed to confirm this hypothesis.]
Riiight. More observation. More likely, they needed the research module online ASAP.
“Neo, what have you determined about how we can use the Computronic Research Module and Data Core to rebuild a d...
2023-09-01 06:17:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Talia took a deep breath of the cool sterile air her suit produced as she stepped out of the Bootstrap Module. It had taken nearly half the day for her to finish repairing her suit manually, and that made it the longest she’d been out of her suit since before the crash. It was even long enough that when she had sealed herself back inside the steel cocoon, it had felt… comfortable.
The last...
2023-09-01 06:17:32 +0000 UTC View Post
The repair module for her suit had worked wonders on the outer shell and the larger parts that needed replaced. That it didn’t even require her to take the suit off to apply the repairs made it just like one of the upgrade modules, like the one that had installed her exo-skeleton upgrade. Unfortunately, that had been the end of the easy part.
Once she’d gone through the trouble of cycling ...
2023-08-31 02:50:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Before retreating into the refuge of her habitation module, Talia approached the Blue ‘Taker’ and did her best to make sure the alien was still alive. The spiders immediately became more agitated, but she sent them down the ramp to their nest with an order that was surprisingly obeyed without any further resistance.
A LIRU that had taken up guard duty at the base during the mission and had...
2023-08-29 01:44:12 +0000 UTC View PostUSD: Nineteen Hours since hostile fleet incursion.
Location: Meltisar, MNS Aegis Flag Bridge
Captain Young was forced to return to tending to operations when Nameless came up with a new formation makeup that forced the Aegis to maneuver. Alex shook her head and watched the man’s back before looking back to the strategic maps on the holographic table. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he said.
Or thinking that he was wrong.
From...
2023-08-27 05:26:04 +0000 UTC View Post
***
The Seeker-H7 flashed through the air toward her remaining Lynx-M3 units and the CIWS turrets that still protected them. The aircraft’s ladder groaned as Talia finally finished pulling herself up and into the compartment. “Neo! Don’t go too fast. You’ll shake the spiders off the fus...
2023-08-25 01:48:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Middleboro towers were the central hub of the Cloud district’s middle class. The four massive towers were aligned in a square formation, connected by a multitude of arches with walkways. Near the central floors, there was even a circular tram network that ran two trains in a never-ending loop. Talia winced as her aircar opened up on one of the lower levels, a light drizzle of rain falling from a t...
2023-08-24 00:30:12 +0000 UTC View Post