DWinchester

Death After Death Ch. 155-156

Ch. 155 - Turning of the Years

Simon spent most of the next few weeks and months in the library. He started going on longer and longer walks, and eventually, he went to the gym. That was mostly for the restorative hot springs, though he did eventually try to spar with men he’d once been able to beat handily. 

The results of those bouts were ugly, and when his opponents asked him what had happened to him, Simon told them a story about being set upon by a sma...

Brewing Bad Ch. 81

Ch. 81 - All Nighter

Lucas tried hard not to laugh as the three-foot gnome in front of him struck a pose and delivered his last statement like it was supposed to be intimidating. In the end, he was unable to keep the smirk entirely off his face. So, instead, he bowed low enough to hide it as he introduced himself.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Lucas said, “I’m Lucas Parin.”

“Hmmph - never heard of you,” Heizenburgle answered hau...

Death After Death Ch. 153-154

Ch. 153 - A Nice View

Simon’s recovery was slow, only compared to everything else he’d been through. He was used to healing or dying almost immediately, and there had been only a few instances where he’d been forced to actually let his body mend, the most notable of which had been ages ago when he’d fought with the orcs. There, he’d been afraid of scrambling his brains with the wrong healing spell, and he’d been forced to spend weeks in bed, letting the conc...

Brewing Bad Ch. 80

Ch. 80 - Meet the New Boss

Lucas left the manor, clean, well-dressed, and as prepared as he could be less than an hour after he arrived. Just like that, everything he’d spent so long was getting smaller and smaller behind him in the review mirror as he set out into the unknown. The rearview mirror was metaphorical, of course. The last thing he did was look behind him. Even if he was being followed, there should be nothing back there to see if they were doing th...

Death After Death Ch. 151-152

Ch. 151 -  Back in Bed

Simon woke, groggily. When he felt the blankets beneath him, he assumed that he was back in bed. That was expected, though, and he accepted it as the price of accomplishing the impossible. He only hoped that it was enough to finally solve the damn volcano level. It was only when he tried to rise and felt the pain shoot through him that he realized that’s not what happened. Somehow, he’d survived the impact, but he’d definitely hurt hims...

Brewing Bad Ch. 78-79

Bonus chapter! (Because this one is a 2 parter)

Ch. 78 - Starting Over

Lucas reached for his cup of tea. Despite the fact that it was still scalding, he took a sip to give him a moment to think. The idea that it might be poisoned meant nothing compared to everything else that was going on. Honestly, coughing up blood and choking to death here in this dim, over-decorated room might be the best thing that could happen to him because he felt like everything was s...

Death After Death Ch. 149-150

Ch. 149 - Impossible

Simon charged through the knots of people on the road where he couldn’t run around them, outrunning the insults and the outrage even before he could really hear them. None of that mattered. There was no time for politeness. While part of him hoped this was a false alarm, the rest of him was sure this was an emergency, and he charged heedlessly toward it. 

He wasn’t thinking about how, if he failed, he could do this all again. He wasn�...

A Few Updates

Hello everyone. I just wanted to make a few updates. The first one is that while scheduling posts I inadvertently sent out a post for Death After Death that's not scheduled for weeks from now. I would not recommend reading, because it is full of spoilers for the current content. 

Why am I scheduling so far out? Normally I schedule on Sunday, for Monday morning release, but in this case, I was scheduling things a month from now. This is because I am going back to Am...

Brewing Bad Ch. 77

Ch. 77 - Where it all Started

Though he was conscious when he fell, that became less certain over time as he was disarmed and trussed up like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Whether it was because whatever drug they’d put in the oil was continuing to take its toll the longer he breathed it in, or because it was in higher concentrations as the heavy fumes sank toward the floor, he didn’t know, but after a couple of minutes he could no longer associate meanings to the w...

Death After Death Ch. 147-148

Ch. 147 - Picture Perfect

It took another three weeks of walking, two run-ins with beast men, and an encounter with bandits that ended very poorly for them before Simon finally set eyes on pre-eruption Ionar. It turned out that his experience points didn’t go down on any of those days either, not even when he killed humans, which surprised Simon. 

He’d expected morality to be deeply tied into that number, but it was more subjective than that. Apparently, ...

Brewing Bad Ch. 76

Ch. 76 - Some Like it Hot (part 3)

Lucas immediately feared a double cross, but instead, it was just a handful of off-duty women that had come from one of the lower floors. They looked tired but bore no weapons; the most dangerous thing about them seemed to be the outfits they wore.

“I have some correspondence I have to address, but while I take care of that, these girls will be your… models,” Artesia explained. “try out your potions and salves on t...

Death After Death Ch. 145-146

Ch. 145 - South

The trip back to Schwarzenbruck was not much more challenging than the trip to the barrows had been. It was a few days longer because Simon chose to stay off the main road as much as possible. Both the rugged terrain and the extra days on the trail meant that he encountered more zombies than he otherwise would have, of course, but he didn’t mind that. They were only a nuisance when found in ones and twos, and every time he killed one, he freed some tor...

Brewing Bad Ch. 74-75

So first, as promised, a bonus chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Second, the chapters I've been writing for this story the last couple weeks... Well, they are awesome. No spoilers of course, but certainly well above average. I love all my stories equally of course, but lately Brewing Bad is the most fun to write. I blame Lucas.

Ch. 74 - Some Like it Hot

In the end, Lucas presented her four choices, one that was heavy on lavender and evercrimson, two that were more fr...

Death After Death Ch. 143-144

Ch. 143 - A Miracle

Simon wasn’t sure how this would work exactly, but there was no time left to deliberate. Any minute now, Freya’s heart was going to stop, her body was going to spasm as her organs shut down, and she’d be replaced by an abomination that could only ever be a mockery of the woman she’d been, and there was no way he could let that happen. 

So, he pulled the trigger. In this case, for once, that didn’t involve saying anything at ...

Brewing Bad Ch. 73

Alchemy this week, bonus chapter next week. Some fun stuff coming up!

Ch. 73 - Finally Alone

No one walked away from that little conference happy. Lord Torvin was not used to his plans being objected to, but he did agree that Lucas had a point and that he would find some way to address his concerns while still affecting a forced takeover of the docks. 

Lucas shrugged it off. He wasn’t about to let this little argument cast a pall over the fest...

Death After Death Ch. 141-142

Ch. 141 - A Bit of Preparation

The situation was much as Simon had left it and largely unchanged from his last few visits. There was trouble in the north. No one quite knew what it was or why it had stopped trade to the north, yet mercenaries had been hired and dispatched. In fact, asking around, it sounded like Butcher’s Bill had left a few hours before he’d arrived. 

He didn’t care about that, though. This time, he wasn’t looking for Freya. He wasn�...

Brewing Bad Ch. 72

Ch. 72 - Making Plans

Lucas was no judge of these things, but if he had to say so, he would have called the whole winter feast an unmitigated success. The guests were merry, the house was full, and by the end of it, the food had largely vanished. It was only after dinner was complete, and Lucas had stuffed himself so full of desserts that he knew he would regret it, that he finally rejoined Adin and the Torvins for the part of the night he’d been dreadi...

Death After Death Ch. 139-140

Ch. 139 - A Long Way from Anywhere

Simon didn’t have paper to document his journey. Instead, he used a stick to document his time. As near as he could tell, he was going to the south-west. Every day that he made good progress got a big notch, and every day that he made slow progress got a small one as he tried to go as straight a line as possible. He made thin lines through the days when he had to cross rivers but gave up just before he started a system to try to es...

Brewing Bad Ch. 70-71

Another bonus chapter for my fine readers. I think that brings us to 15 ahead of the general public. I can't wait until 2 a week is an every week sort of thing, but those days are coming.

Ch. 70 - A Long Cold Winter

The hectic pace only held up as long as the weather did. In those waning weeks of autumn, as the world began to shut down and the villagers started to prepare their harvest feasts, it became harder and harder to find men willing to work for coi...

Death After Death Ch. 137-138

Ch. 137 - Duties and Demands

When all was said and done, almost a season later, just as the heat of summer was starting to set in, they finally arrived in Crowvar once more. As an errand for the domain, it probably had not been worth that much time. However, Simon had learned enough that he really didn’t mind. It wasn’t like time held real value for him, especially not on a level without an exit. 

Still, as they got close enough to the city to make out th...

Brewing Bad Ch. 69

Ch. 69 - Harvest Season

Lucas wiped the sweat that had gathered on his brow in defiance of the chill. “Is that the last one?” he called up to where Hura’gh was manning the pulley above him. 

“Nah,” he called down. “Still a couple more to go.”

They’d installed this trap door so they could surreptitiously store all the extra tried herbs and purified reagents they’d been gathering for weeks now once all the other hands had gone to bed. Wh...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 168-169

Ch. 168 - Nothing Ever Happens

Leo regarded the cake as he would an enemy while everyone else sang him happy birthday, but he tried not to let it show on his face. After all, despite their differences, the other children had gone to such efforts to make this, and even though they didn’t see eye to eye most of the time, it was still a nice gesture. 

It was just too bad that the cake itself was pretty awful. It wasn’t their fault, of course. There was no su...

Death After Death Ch. 135-136

Ch. 135 - Slow Progress

Simon deliberated on it for a day before he decided on public executions. Courtiers and Varten’s widow spent that day arguing that he should torture one or more of them to get to the truth so fervently that he was fairly sure that they were in on it, but he ignored them. 

Not only did he have no plans to ever torture someone whose name wasn’t Varten Raithewait, but in this case, he was fairly certain that even those who weren’t d...

Brewing Bad Ch. 67-68 (End Book 1)

This completes the end of Book 1. Its a little longer than I anticipated, but I welcome feedback for anywhere in the middle you think I could tighten up and anywhere in the ending you think I could make punchier. Obviously this is not the end of Lucas's story, and the so new excitement is coming up in book 2. I'm well into act 1 now, and I love how it's shaping up.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! 

Ch. 67 - A New Equilibrium

By the time Luc...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 166-167

Ch. 166 - The Long Way Down

It took some time for Oroza to figure out that she was dead. Not just dead, but in the afterlife, at least in a sense. It should have been obvious from the beginning, of course, as she stepped free from the shredded remains of dull scales and emaciated flesh on the shore and strode into paradise. 

From the sea, the island seemed like a tiny thing surrounded by strange, colorful plants made of stone just beneath the waves, but as sh...

Death After Death Ch. 133-134

Ch. 133 - For the Right Reasons

It was evident from the first moments that Varten didn’t stand a chance against Simon. In the time since they’d last met, he’d grown older and lazier; his steps were not as sure, and his sword strokes were not as decisive as they’d once been. He was obviously out of practice.

Simon had grown older, too, but he’d spent the last several seasons using his sword constantly, and he was as sharp as he’d ever been. So, he parri...