DWinchester

Death After Death Ch. 96 and 97

Ch. 96 - Dark Clouds

The next day, Aaric greeted Simon with sweetbreads and more questions about what it was like to fight centaurs. Apparently, they were a growing problem in the region. Simon was careful not to be anywhere near the door that might or might not be a portal, and when the boy opened it, it was to Simon's great relief the child did not vanish into a shadowy netherworld.

Instead, the two chatted for a few minutes as they looked for his father and f...

Sometimes Life Intrudes

Hello everyone, as my commentors no doubt noticed I haven't been around a lot this week. On Sunday, my wife had a medical emergency and was admitted to the hospital for four days. She is now home and resting comfortably. Tests are ongoing, and we still don't have many answers, but she's safe, and "fine" and that's all I can really ask for. 

Schedule wise, this didn't affect anything, because I'd already had everything scheduled. I did actually burn a touch of my backlog because I d...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 128-129

Ch. 128 - Battle Lines

Despite the setbacks at Banath, the Lich’s forces moved on. A small portion of its men and some imported chirurgeons were left behind to tunnel and triage, digging out what soldiers could be saved and building new constructs to fight from pieces of the old ones along with the corpses of those defenders that they found.

It was grisly work, and the effort was largely wasted as most of everyone had been crushed to powder. Fortunately, its s...

Broken System Ch. 89-95

Okay, I plan on slowing back down a little now.

Death After Death Ch. 94 and 95

Ch. 94 - The Long Way

Some part of him considered killing himself right there on the peer as he watched the ship sail off into the distance. A Quick reset would definitely be faster than waiting around to catch the next ship, he told himself. Still, he resisted, grinding his teeth in frustration as he stormed his way back down the docks to get a drink in the tiny, overpriced tavern.

“Miss your ship?” the barkeep asked as he poured Simon a pint. “The view f...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 126-127

Ch. 126 - Wall of Stone

Tenebroum’s armies had only just reached the twin fortresses of Banath and were pausing to gauge King Borum’s response to its generous terms when its carriage was detonated in front of the city gates of Rahkin without warning. One moment, The Voice of Reason had been riding sedately toward the open gate, and the guards seemed to have no interest in baring her way, and then next, fire arced out from a pair of mages on the castle wall, turnin...

Broken System Ch. 84-88

Book 2 has now been removed, and is now available exclusively at Amazon. 

Ch. 86 - The Night Before

The next week was a frantic affair. Despite just returning, preparations were made in record time. Goods were gathered, men were assigned, and items were made. What drove Benjamin forward was his own sense of urgency and nothing else.

They were not yet running low on food or wa...

Death After Death Ch. 92 and 93

Ch. 92 - Off Course

There had been a guard at the door when they’d come out, but when Simon reached the side entrance they’d used before, he was missing. Had he joined in the defense, or was he part of the attack? There was no way to know that, but the psycho vibes that Kaylee had been putting out made him fear it was the latter, not the former.

It killed him that he had to run away from that conversation when she was obviously more than ready to spill his g...

Brewing Bad Ch. 6-10

Alright, this last set of chapters is for my devoted readers and Brewing Bad patrons. 

Ch. 6 - Change of Plans

The four of them skulked from shadow to shadow as they made their way across the castle’s inner courtyard when they didn’t think anyone was looking. It was sometime before one, which was pretty much the dead of night.

The guards probably thought this was exactly the right time to slack off. That probably meant that they had a couple of ho...

Brewing Bad Ch. 2-5

4 more chapters for all my patrons! 

Ch. 2 - Making Friends

Lucas was frog marched back to the scene of the crime where he found the medieval version of a paddy wagon parked in front of the tavern. The Captain looked at him briefly, but didn’t even bother talking to him.

He just nodded to the wagon, where Lucas’s pockets were emptied, and his belt was taken. Sadly, that included his pouches and his knife.

He didn’t complain, though. The la...

Brewing Bad Ch. 1

Welcome to my latest story. I plan to launch it formally on RR/SH in March, but for now here is a teaser for everyone. Chapter 1 is available to everyone, chapter's 2-5 are available to all paying members of any tier/story, and chapters 6-10 are available to Brewing Bad and Devoted Reader tiers. 

Additional chapters will follow in a couple weeks. As with all launches, there will be a whole pile of chapters to start... I would say 25 in the first month before slowing down to 1 or 2 ...

Golemancer is Complete/Available for Preorder

Though Golemancer was never my most popular story. I Am glad to finally see it cross the finish line. After half a month of polishing and editing, it is now complete. If you read it on RR/SH it is largely the same story, despite being 20,000 words longer now.  I can't wait to get my hands on the paperback. Even the cover turned out nice. It's a combination of 3 AI pictures, and a lot of photosho...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 124-125

Ch. 124 - The Greater Good

When the ebony carriage rolled through the gates while the last sun was still high in the sky, no one thought to stop it or inquire as to the business of the vehicle’s sole occupant. Why should they? The undead forces that assailed the land were utterly inhuman, and they only ever struck in the dark of night. They didn’t ride into town in an elaborate carriage pulled by four pale horses.

Tenebroum had worked hard to make the masses...

Broken System Ch. 82-83

Almost to the end of book 2! Next week we will wrap it up, and then we can start on book 3! 

Ch. 82 - Shattered

They traveled for only a few minutes. Just long enough to reach the first island of trees in the sea of grass near the city and the river. The elves helped Benjamin from the carriage, and as he walked listlessly wherever it was, they were taking him. As he walked, he noticed that the grass was receding from his path even as it grew up and filled...

Death After Death Ch. 90 and 91

Ch. 90 - How You Say It

The grimoire’s cover was burned badly enough to be unrecognizable, but the pages were barely singed at the edges, so the whole thing was readable. Simon breathed a sigh of relief at that, and using the minor word of light, he briefly inspected a few passages to see if anything had changed, but it looked the same as he remembered it.

Once he was satisfied with that, he investigated the golem’s runes. And found them to be largely readab...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 122-123

Ch. 122 - Fog of War

After the ambush in the woods, Tenebroum laid low. It was not out of fear of the moon, though, but caution. It had built a large bronze telescope with fine lens that had been made from the clearest glass in the cities that it had sacked, but other than studying the pock-marked surface of Lunaris’s shield as she carried it through the sky every night or the heavily filtered wandering stars that the sun had become, it learned nothing new. So, it s...

Broken System Ch. 80-81

Ch. 80 - Aftermath

Only a few of the assembled mages had succumbed to the poison that the four of them had poured so freely during Prince Agardian’s posturing, but all of them reacted slowly to the shock of being set free in a way they’d never expected. Benjamin didn’t blame them. It was an impossible situation.

One minute, the Prince had been uprooting another plot for their amusement, and the next, he was dead, and the slaves around them that they’d ta...

Death After Death Ch. 88 and 89

Ch. 88 - What in the Hell

This time, when they arrived, the miller was already hard at work, using the gusty winds to turn wheat into flour. He was an earnest, hardworking fellow, and he didn’t seem nearly as sinister with the sun out, and though he seemed a little concerned when Simon stepped into his windmill armed and armored, the man’s demeanor quickly softened when he saw Simon had two children with him.

“I found them at the site of a … well, let’...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 120-121

Ch. 120 - Last Rites

Tenebroum had built the grotesqueries as shock troops and cannon fodder originally. They were a mixed group of hairy, misshapen things that resembled nothing too much as a herd of spiders made from the cast-off parts of farm animals, with just enough pieces of human left in the mix to easily bind a true soul to them.

They were hideous things that were the exact opposite of beauty, but the Lich found its own sort of appreciation in those dull...

Death After Death Ch. 86 and 87

Ch. 86 - Stranger and Stranger

When Simon realized he was back in his cabin instead of his sick bed back at the inn, he sighed and rolled over to go back to sleep. This was to keep away the parts of his brain that flickered to life with a persecution complex almost instantly more than any fatigue, though.

She only killed me because I was starting to find happiness, his mind told him.

That wasn’t true, of course, probably. It was far more likely ...

Broken System Ch. 78-79

Thank you to everyone who got a copy. As I mentioned in my note yesterday, the first book of Broken System had a very successful launch, and that was thanks to you! I really appreciate it!

As a consequence, I will probably be increasing the pace of these chapters to 3 or 4 a week until the end of book 3 because the publisher wants to launch book 2 sooner rather than later, but I want to make sure my patrons (and my wider audience) stay ahead of all that. 

Ch. 78 - &n...

2024-02-05 14:57:01 +0000 UTC View Post