M.J. Markgraf

Tarnished Chapter 9

The days following John’s introduction were quiet. People in town were still getting a feel for what they could get away with now that a new authority figure had arrived.

John ignored most of the minutia of everyday life within Ember Creek. While it was important to establish a rapport with the city, that wasn’t his true goal here. Daniel Novarez had sent him here to figure out why his shipments were getting disrupted. But before John could check on these, he needed to ensure the to...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 6

The next few weeks were much the same for Alexander. His only customer was the same guy from before. At first, he didn’t mind. Work was work and he was still making money, even if it wasn’t much.

But after the man came in for the sixth time with a completely different component, Alexander started to get suspicious. So he paid to look up the component numbers. Every single item the man had brought him came from machinery used in various tasks.

That in itself wasn’t all that s...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 5

It was a strange feeling knowing he was free. Sure it had taken over two years, but it had come far faster than Alexander had predicted or even planned for. The fact that he hadn’t foreseen this possibility was a good reminder that he was still out of his depth in this new reality.

He barely even understood daily life on the station, let alone the complexities of their laws or bureaucracy. While he had read some of the laws because they were free to peruse, Alexander hadn’t spent mu...

Tarnished Chapter 8

“Now what?” Deputy Seline asked.

“Now you go back to the jail and wait for our illustrious Sherrif to come around.”

“Are you sure? Aren’t you worried about what Pappy Klein will do after what you did to Big D?”

John stopped, almost causing the Deputy to run into him. “Big D? Really?”

“Don’t look at me, that’s what he goes around calling himself.”

John just shook his head and continued walking. “Why would I care about what this Pappy fe...

Tarnished Chapter 7

What is your name, Deputy?” John asked as the pair walked through the town.

“Seline, Mr. Smith.”

“Call me John. Tell me, Seline, what are the major issues you deal with here?”

“Mostly the occasional drunk or fight. Usually, those two go together.”

“What else?”

“The occasional attack by the Harc’otti that are native to this area,” She sounded generally annoyed by this.

“Have there been any attempts to reach out to them?”

“...

Tarnished Chapter 6

The nervous foreman led John to a wrought-iron fenced-in two-story house. The fenced-in area around the house wasn’t large, but it was telling. Especially since no other house in town sported a similar design element. He looked up at the iron arch over the padlocked gate. It read ‘Novarez Estate’.

This surprised John. Not because he couldn’t picture his boss doing something like this. He certainly could. But he knew Daniel Novarez would never be caught dead in a small town such ...

Tarnished Chapter 5

As John approached the broken train car, he got a few odd looks from the people milling around outside. It seems people had been curious about what he was up to. The only person to approach him was the same worker from before.

As soon as the older man spotted the full box of dynamite John was carrying, he stopped in his tracks. “…Um. Two sticks would have been enough.” The man said, trying to keep his voice quiet.

“You ever blow up a train car before?” John asked as he w...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 4

After his eventful delivery on the fifth ring, a few weeks went by in blissful peace, where Alexander’s only concern was reading more technical documents and moving about scrap along with other deliveries. Not that he minded. The work was dull, sure, but every day brought him closer to his goal of freedom.

That bliss was shattered as a hurried set of steps neared the entry. It was a good thing his body had excellent hearing. Even so, Alexander had to rush to log out of the terminal an...

New covers

Got some temporary covers for when both books go live on RR. Let me know what you think.

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 3

LOCATION: PETROV STATION

SYSTEM: GLIESE 667

DATE: 2397

The days kind of just blurred into one another for Alexander. At least he wasn’t still stuck as a passenger inside his own body. Not that he told anyone of his ability to act independently, especially not Yuri. With his situation uncertain, he decided to take a cautious approach so he didn’t draw undue attention to his circumstances. It wasn’t like he was in a hurry.

This slow approach had worked in his favor...

Tarnished Chapter 4

By the time John walked back to the train, most of the people who had fled into the surrounding forest had made it back. Quite a few of those were milling around outside discussing something.

A few gazes came his way but the people quickly averted their eyes.

That was fine with him, he had other matters to deal with. John made his way to the front of the train and found the engineer and conductor in a heated discussion near two hissing pipes. Their conversation stopped when they s...

Tarnished Chapter 3

John was trying to read a book when he was rudely interrupted by the whistle of the train and the shouts of panic from the other passengers.

He wasn’t the smartest man around but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the train was getting robbed. He sighed and closed the book before glancing out the window.

The train was still moving so he knew he had time. He quickly got out of bed and started getting dressed, glancing out of the windows of his cabin to see what he could of t...

Blue Star Enterprises: Chapter 2

LOCATION: PETROV STATION

SYSTEM: GLIESE 667

DATE: UNKNOWN

Alexander stared at the lights and soon another image flashed by. He noted it and mentally started counting the seconds. He wasn’t sure if his sense of time was accurate in this place, but he got to the count of ten when the next image flashed by.

It was the same count as the previous one and the one before that. There it was again. It seemed there was a repeating pattern every ten seconds where an image flash...

Blue Star Enterprises: Petrov Station

Chapter 1  

LOCATION: PETROV STATION 

SYSTEM: GLIESE 667 

DATE: 2392 

The aging recycler smiled and stood from his chair to greet his newest customer. “Viktor! It’s been far too long. I don’t see Svetlana around. Has she finally wised up and found a real man?” 

The captain of the Amophor rolled his eyes and clasped the man on the back. “She hasn’t come to her senses yet, ya old coot.” 

They bo...

Tarnished Chapter 2

Cale Dawkins watched the horizon through a looking glass as he chewed on the tough jerky in his mouth. He wanted to savor the flavor because it was the last of their meat. If this job didn’t pan out, it was back to hard tack until they made a profit. Hopefully, his employers' information on this train was accurate.

He thought he saw something and adjusted his view back toward the valley entrance. From that distance, it wasn’t clear if he was just imagining things. He cursed the poor...

Tarnished: The Iron Frontier Chapter 1

John quickly buttoned his shirt, then threw on a grey pinstripe vest over it. It took him a moment to tuck the tie in behind the vest but he took the time to make it look good even though he was in a hurry.

A courier had stopped by over half an hour ago to let him know the boss wanted to speak with him. John had been sleeping at the time, just having come off his protection detail only five hours ago. But he knew the boss wouldn’t appreciate him showing up looking slovenly. Not that h...

New stories and Patreon update!

Hello everyone. I know it’s been a while, but the wait is almost over. Before we get to that, some changes.

The first change some of you might notice is I have gotten rid of the $3 tier. As much as I would like to continue offering it, Patreon’s fees make it unfeasible. So if you are on this tier and wish to continue getting content, you will need to upgrade to at least the $5 tier. That being said, I am increasing the chapter count to 20 for the $7.50 tier. That’s 20 chapters of ...

New series!

Alrighty! It is time to help me decide which new series to focus on. My goal is to write both of these concurrently, but one will take precedence over the other. The first two chapters in the rough draft are attached below. But first a bit of information on each one.

Book 1: Sci-Fi series. Little to no combat. This story will be focused on the characters so it could be considered a slice of life. It will also be a sort of merchant/corporation kingdom builder.

Book2: Fantasy Steamp...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 191: Picking up the pieces

Many of you asked what happened to everyone else, so here it is, Enjoy.

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“How is she?” Eugene asked as soon as Nolia stepped outside the bedroom.

She turned toward the door before motioning for Eugene to follow her down the hall. “She is doing better, but she still needs time.”

“It’s been a month though. The city is pretty much running itself, but I am getting questions. I...

Norman the Necromancer Epilogue

“Soo, slow down,” Ranthall called.

Soo grumbled under his breath. “We have hardly begun this expedition, Ranthall. How do you expect us to complete it if every five minutes, you expect us to stop and have tea?”

The Raigen family retainer bristled at his words. “Master Raigen, I only have your best interests in mind. You are far too reckless and need to be reminded that not everyone is special.”

“Fine,” he grumbled and slid dow...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 190

Norman whirled around, trying to find the source of the voice. But there was nothing except the chain of planets.

Then he tried to respond, only to realize he had no mouth. Then it dawned on him that he didn’t have a body at all. How was he even perceiving this place without eyes? More thoughts and questions swirled through his being before being arrested by the voice once more.

“Apologies,” it said from everywhere, yet nowhere all at once. “I shed my...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 189

“You have no idea what you are dealing with. If you unleash that amount of energy, it could be catastrophic,” Norman tried to reason with the man.

“More catastrophic than the end of the world? I don’t think so. But either way, I won’t be here to witness the aftermath. If it fails, you and your little kingdom go down in flames. If it succeeds, well… I get to claim credit for saving the planet. It’s a win-win.”

“You still die if it fails,” Norman shouted.

�...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 188

The Admiral shook his hand before motioning for Norman to take a seat. “Sorry for asking you to come all this way. I know it’s a hassle with the expansion. But I thought this was better done in person. How’s the family by the way?”

The Admiral looked to have aged twenty years in the last seven. Considering how much stress he was under, it was no surprise.

“They’re good, but you didn’t call me here for small talk, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” the man seemed...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 187

“This is the last one?” Norman asked.

Saliu flipped the page on the clipboard he was holding and scanned down it with his finger before tapping it. “Yes, this is the last one we are scheduled to build.”

He wanted to sigh in relief, but he restrained himself. It had been a rough two years. And the last collapse, less than five months ago, had been brutal. A full ten percent of the arrays, not just the ones Normenia had built, had to be repaired.

This was despite the f...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 186

Norman appeared in the middle of a small copse of trees. He looked around and found a helpful sign pointing in the direction of the array. He sighed and tromped forward. This was the seventh array he had visited and four of the previous ones needed to be fixed due to earthquake damage. One even had to be completely rebuilt because the ground split open where it had been placed, breaking the entire array.

One out of six working arrays was not a good start. They were going to need to prot...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 185

The workers went about laying out the array with rapid but precise movements. It wasn’t the first time they had done it, not even close. Norman had lost track of how many arrays his people had set up over the last three months.

He wasn’t even sure where he was at the moment, or at least where his golem body was. Just some random zone that was proving to be extremely dangerous. The technician teams had been attacked over a dozen times trying to place the arrays here. They had moved l...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 184

“Drop your gun and go stand over by your sister, and don’t try anything dumb. I have no reason to keep you alive.” Toby glared at Norman but put his gun down and slowly walked over to his sister.

Anna grabbed onto her brother's arm like a drowning woman as she too glared at him. At least she wasn’t still harboring feelings for him.

“Why is it every time I interact with you, it's always some fucking drama? You were doing so well the last time we spoke. I actually thought ...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 183

The much smaller group stepped through the portal. It was quite a bit different than using a teleporter. With a teleporter, you didn’t experience the time between points, but you did feel the after-effects. At least with the crude ones Normenia was able to produce.

With the portal, it felt like his entire body was twisted and compressed down to a fine point and then shot through a railgun. It was not a very enjoyable experience for Norman, even if there was no actual pain involved. Th...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 182

Norman stepped out of the stairwell into what felt like the icy fingers of death itself. That was pure hyperbole, he had died enough times to know what death felt like.

The creeping cold crackled against the enchantments in his armor, the magic not managing to harm him. Yet he still felt the cold, his breath icing and falling to the ground as soon as it left his body. When he breathed in, the air was so painfully cold that his body nearly rejected it. He imagined this is what Antarctica...

Norman the Necromancer Chapter 181

As Eugene waited outside the conference room, he occasionally heard someone cry or beg to be let go from the other side. He did his best to ignore what was going on behind the doors as he orchestrated the rest of their forces in California.

A few runners came and went as he handed out updated orders. He also received more up-to-date intel on the evolving situation outside. Which pretty much amounted to the whole building being surrounded by undead. The runners could get past them easily...