James Osiris Baldwin

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 27

With Karalti keeping the infantry busy, I ran for the door of the Keep, glancing over my HP and Adrenaline. The door was smashed into the dense barricade of furniture the defenders had piled up behind the door. Some of it had been shoved back by Karalti, but not all of it – not enough that I could Shadow Dance past the blockade.

[Light Burst II deals 351 reduced Light damage to Lesser Shades!]

[Raven Helm protects from Blindness!]

I winced anyway as the spell went off like...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 26

Author's Note: The version you guys are reading here is still subject to edits/changes as we build into the final stages of production and publication. I encourage all of you to submit major editing issues to me in the comments, or by PM here or on the Archemi Discord server. I definitely want to hear your feedback and catch any plot/characterization mistakes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A helpless grin split my fa...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 25

My own experiences as a paratrooper had drilled a set of images and smells into my memory: the cavernous spartan troop carrier, little more than a big flying tube with rows of folding seats down the length of the plane. Every seat held a grim-faced soldier. Some feigned relaxation. Some meditated or prayed, others jittered their legs or chewed bits of paper, or just ground their teeth and stared at the exit doors. I could still hear the roar of the engines fluxing, the sergeants barking over ...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 24

Now that we had confirmation that our parachutes worked the way they needed to, it was time to start the preparations for our mission: prying Bas County out of Zoltan's greedy hands.

Operation Girlpower was far from the first mass combat quest we’d taken on, but The Last of Her House was unique among the quests I’d received since uploading to Archemi. It was completely open-ended, with no framework or parameters other than the timeline.

When Suri, Karalti, Rin and I h...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 23

True to her word – and thanks to the miracle of videogame crafting – Rin had the parachute ready by the afternoon: a near-replica of the HI-5 ram air chute used for free fall jumps, except it was made from bright blue and red silk instead of olive drab ripstop.

Suri cocked an eyebrow at the semi-circle of men gathered around her. Taethawn had joined us, along with three of his bloodriders, the captains who led his forces on the ground. Istvan, Wing Commander Vasoly, Captain Vilmos, ...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 22

Training always began with a brisk 3-mile run in full gear, accompanied by wholesome songs about patriotism, duty, and sacrifice.

“Airborne Ranger was a hell of a man! Walked through the bar with his cock in his hand! Shit on the table and pissed on the floor! Wiped his ass with a forty-four!” I happily bawled out the lyrics as I jogged through The Orphans’ camp, clanking on every step. “A hundred women queued against the wall! Bet a hundred bucks he couldn’t fuck ‘em all! F...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 21

I went with Rin to the smithy, where she'd set up her quarters. It was still fairly chaotic. Rin's workspaces were neat - organized by shape, size and color - but her personal belongings were heaped on her bed in a pile.

“Hi, ladies!” She sang out as she opened the door. I hung back as her artificed sentinels, Lovelace and Hopper, scuttled over to greet us. They were Artificed mobile turrets the size of large dogs. Hopper was heavily armored and engineered for defense, capable of de...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 20

A quarter of an hour later, me, Suri, Kitti, Rin and the commanders of my army had gathered around the dining table offside the Great Hall, listening as the scouts delivered their report with the aid of maps spread out on the wooden surface.

"The biggest problem is this road," Corporal Bognar said, pinning a thumbtack to the canyon that formed the official border between Racsa and Bas. "Gallo has taken Peacemaker's Bridge, the only direct land route between Karhad and Solonovka. He has ...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 19

By the time we reached the stairs, Jacob’s screams of rage gave way to sobbing as our footsteps faded. Suri and I climbed the stairs without saying anything to one another, but when we reached the surface, we both took deep, grateful breaths of fresh air and turned to look at one another.

“I think that went pretty well,” Suri said. “He squealed like… well. A rat.”

“He sure did. I wonder if there’s some way we could let Nick know his butt buddy bitched him out.” I...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 18

The next morning, Suri and I woke early: her in the bed, me in the sandpit. We skipped breakfast, huddling together on the sofa with small cups of dark, strong coffee. The sun was just starting to rise by the time we picked our way down to the dungeons. They were part of a small cellar complex drilled into the solid stone mesa beneath our feet, with only four cells and a storage room. Only one cell was occupied.

On Vash's advice, we kept the place softly lit and quiet. No torture, no sh...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 17

Hours later, I stirred in the warm covers, half-asleep. Suri was out cold, snoozing softly to my right. By the soft lamplight from my study, I was able to see the results of two hours of enthusiastic, rambunctious lovemaking: the messy hair, the tangled sheets, the bruises from my mouth. At Suri's urging, I'd bitten her on the insides of her thighs, taking just a little blood. But even with the twin hungers of blood and sex sated, another, deeper hunger was gnawing at me. My body needed the D...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 16

"I can't believe it." Rin balled her fists on top of the table in front of her. "The Warsinger... he destroyed her?"

The five of us were seated in the dining hall: me, Vash and Suri on one side of the table, Rin and Istvan on the other. We had plates of torkany in front of us, the characteristic Vlachian stew of tender Europasaurus meat, vegetables, dried peppers, sour cream, and potato dumplings. It was delicious, but only Vash had cleared his plate: everyone else had forgotte...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 15

The Queen of the Sands was recognizable only because of her size. The Level One Hundred and Fucking Twenty [Voidwyrm Empress] was now as black as coal, jerking and writhing oddly as she exploded out of the sand.

A tic started beside my eye. This was Not Okay. The new and improved Stranged Sandworm Queen was now big enough to pop Karalti in her mouth like a potato chip. “Karalti? Please go sky now.”

Karalti didn’t need to be asked twice. She launched into th...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 14

Twenty minutes later, we were in the air and ready to jump back to Dakhdir. I hung on to the saddle without any tie-downs, as relaxed as a surfer kneeling on his board. Suri, who hated flying, was strapped to the saddle with her chin down and her shoulders hunched.

As my dragon beat her wings and gravity pushed down on my shoulders, I felt my breath catch. Karalti had gotten stronger and faster with her last level. She always did, but this time it was like going from a 650cc street bike...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 13

A.N: There might be a bit of a delay between this chapter and Ch. 14, as we progressively edit the manuscript :)

------------------------------------

I lost track of the room around me, my body, and the sounds and smells of the present. Mentally, sensorily, I was back in the desert, mouthing off to Baldr, sending Karalti off, then realizing that the man in front of me wasn't Baldr at all. It was just Ororgael. I listened with growing horror as he explained Baldr's fate, then initi...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 12

The first thing I did after returning to my quarters was to go into my KMS and spend almost all of our hard-won money on the three things we needed to make Myszno one of the wealthiest provinces in Vlachia.

A little over 30,000 olbia got us two destroyer-class airships from Litvy, medium-sized warships to replace the ones we'd lost battling the Demon. They were fast, quiet, and able to carry a decent number of troops. I also put in an order for a team of high-level NPCs - a mage, an art...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 11

“Plague?” I unconsciously gripped the armrests of my throne. "Just the one?"

"Yes, my lord.” The Mayor bobbed his head. “The Hospitallers are trying to find out if she had contact with anyone other than her family, but with half the city in ruins and many still living in tents as the cleanup continues, it is impossible to know for certain."

Vash rumbled and shook his head. My blood ran cold. I didn't know what Thornlung was, exactly, but I knew from intimate personal exper...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 10

Somehow, I - Dragozin Hector, formerly Hector Park, Private First Class - had ended up in charge of a Vlachian province large enough to be its own small country. The fantasy of ruling a nation was pretty common in the gaming world, and if you were able to put the game down and go eat some Cheetos when you felt like it, being the lord of all you surveyed was a great way to relieve stress. But Archemi didn’t feel like a game anymore. I’d been here nearly six months, and now it was just… l...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 9

Thanks to the fact that Karalti could now carry about a thousand pounds of stuff, we were able to pack in a LOT of treasure. I threw out every item I didn't need from my own Inventory, and we crammed in everything we could loot. And then, with the protective spells over Lahati's Tomb deactivated, we teleported home.

We appeared in the air right over my castle – a statement which still felt weird to think, even though Kalla Sahasi had been ours for almost a month. The castle loomed ove...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 8

All of the lava flows in this mountain range emptied into the antechamber of Lahati's Tomb. Directly across from us was a black glass bridge that arched over the lake of fire far below. As we entered, I looked to my left and saw the small door I'd used to enter this place the first time: a door that led to a small portal room. That portal would warp us back to the main draconic graveyard that lay under Krivan Pass, not that far from Myszno's capital city, Karhad.

My head jerked back as ...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 7

The pair clashed chest to chest, foreclaws locked as they strained against each other. Karalti began to pump her wings, using the draft generated by the huge membranes to drive her and her enemy forward along the ground. Claws shrieked and sparked against stone as she pushed the slavering, mutated dragon back toward the wall, and bodily rammed her into another of the bulging lava domes.

The stone shattered under the impact, and magma spurted out around the Sporemaiden's shoulders. The S...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 6

I had to flatten down so Karalti could crawl through the hole in the cave wall. She got down on her belly, using her front claws to pull herself forward, and paddling the dirt with her back legs and tail. We emerged into a narrow geode corridor, bluecrystal spires jutting out crazily in all directions. Broken crystals littered the ground, as if a larger dragon had brute-forced their way inside, cutting a route through the crystals. The air was humid, laced with an unpleasant odor like burning...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 5

Sorry about skipping a day: I was bedridden with a lupus flare for about 48 hours T__T. I'm posting Ch. 5 and 6 as well today to make up for it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

As we got closer, I revised my opinion. The tunnel wasn’t lined with web. It was way, way grosser than that.

“I am like, 99-percent sure that’s fungus.” The steam that billowed out past the door carried a damp, earthy scent, like mushrooms m...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 4

My first stop was the sacrificial well. Karalti hung back while I hopped up onto the altar, then sprung onto the edge and held a torch out over the abyss. Like the well I’d used to get into Lahati’s Tomb a month or so ago, it looked to be bottomless.

“Jumping into one of these worked last time,” I said aloud. “Maybe you can polymorph, and we can try it again?”

“Uhh…”But before Karalti could meaningfully reply, we felt the room exhale around us.

“...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 3

I woke again: this time, to the deep, comforting sound of two thunderous hearts beating against my back.

“Shh… you’reokay.” Karalti shifted on the floor. She was laying like a resting lion on her belly, her tail curled around us, her wing covering me. “Take it er…alright?”

Every muscle in my body ached - including my back. I’d never felt anything like it in Archemi before. The game removed most of the aches and pains of real life, aching spines an...

Spear of Destiny: Chapter 2

[SEED#: NUMBERFETCH 00-001A-TypeNew[HeraldOfMT]_PARAGON: Hector Park.]

[… ]

[Hector Park]: Thank you for your contribution to [Learning Cycle 3944390-SI: Anomalous Malware Activity Resulting from Corrupted Player Data and Data Fragments.] In response to a serious attempt to modify, corrupt, or delete your personnel files, patches and security updates are being applied to your Seed Data.]

[… ]

[We would advise you that [FETCHE...