Kevin Curry

October Poll

Decided to not dither as much about posting the poll this month. You know the drill, I'll post whatever wins on the 1st of next month, 4-6k words. You can vote for multiple things. 

Psychoprotective 5

The morning’s activity, after Miss Mila ensured that everyone was wearing sunscreen, was something that didn’t involve astral projection, surprisingly. As such, Tanya was wearing her usual set of activewear, which was a pair of camouflage pattern cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, as it was an eminently practical choice for physical activities. Her long hair was tied back into a bun, secured by Tanya’s favorite baseball cap. The Yomiuri Giants was not exactly a normal team to own merchan...

Courtly Chronicles 9

Courtly Chronicles won the previous month, despite a last-minute vote that tied the poll, but this was already finished so I'm posting it anyway. I mean, I've got Psychoprotective chapters too (the reason this was late was because I was writing the entirety of chapter 8 over the last few hours), but I'm saving them to post when I miss an Anima Academy update. (Note: this monday will be one of those times)

[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von G...

Chapter 30: Invasion

The crates didn’t hold much. Mostly weapons and armor, and not particularly expensive varieties, either. Very good steel, but nothing more exotic than that. “The crates will keep for a few hours, David. We need to scout the rest of the place. It’s not that much money.”

“Hrmph.” David grunted as he stacked all the crates to take up as little space as possible rather than being accessible. “I know a guy we could get a good price for bulk arms and armor from. This is a good p...

Chapter 29: Petty bickering, mostly.

To most people, even most adventurers, David Smith was an example of an invincible warrior, with the strength of a giant, the durability of a steel golem, and the speed of an aviost, able to move faster than the eye can follow while powdering stone with each blow, while ignoring anything anyone can do to stop him.

However, that was all because the man was a force attuned sorcerer, and an experienced one, so despite being pretty terrible at magic, he had the raw power to fuel barriers wi...

September poll

Apparently they changed the default option away from allowing multiple choice or something. Anyway, you can vote for more than one thing again. 

Chapter 28: Meanwhile...

As it turned out, Fort Waller already knew about the invasion. Which was why Casimir got an immediate audience with General Ironspine when he ran at full speed to the citadel, braking over a single half mile leap by converting his speed into force mana which was shoved within his mana heart. It wasn’t a fast, effective, or easy method of slowing down, but it did allow him the peace of mind that you get when you have the energy to run away if things go south.

“You’re asking a lot o...

Psychoprotective 4

Anima Academy's been really fighting me, so I'm delaying the next chapter. 

However, Psychoprotective's chapter has been finished for a bit, so... here it is, in apology. 

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Now, one would think that lying on an amalgamation of three different beds would be uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. If not for the visual cue, Tanya wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from just the feel of the unnaturally comfortable mattress. Memories flashed in her m...

Courtly Chronicles 8

I completely forgot I was supposed to post this today. Sorry about that. 

[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von Goethe, circa 1927, age 13]

One of the primary criticisms Tanya has with the Japanese legal system is how the police were more concerned with getting plausible convictions than they were with catching the actual culprit to the majority of crimes. It was why the gathering of evidence was so important in hero work. Depending ...

Chapter 27: Staying Focused

[Hanna ???]

The ‘trouble’ that Illivere detected was one of the hunters dying horribly to some kind of monster. This wasn’t something she informed everyone with words, but instead… Well, it was kind of like using words.

If you got really good with mind mana, you could infuse a single word with multiple contexts as part of the mental link. It was somewhat similar to how your understanding of what someone said changed based on their tone of voice. The way Illivere projected ...

Nothing this week

Sorry y'all, but this next chapter is kicking my ass. It won't be ready in time. See you next week!

Chapter 26: Standing tall

[Peter Wood]

Peter looked at Teach go towards the place where the townsfolk were traveling to. “How fast is that, you think?” He asked Faron.

“I’m not sure.” The elf admitted. “Twice as fast as when we were with him? More?”

“Three times.” Illivere said with confidence. “He is using large amounts of mana to increase his speed.”

Right. Teach had explained that while the magically boosted training week had given the group a huge boost to their physic...

Post in the evening

This chapter's really fighting me, but I think I can get it done this evening. 

Chapter 25: The plot thickens

Long distance travel over land as an adventurer could take many forms. The majority of them just walked places, occasionally deciding to earn a bit extra pay by following merchant caravans and providing them a small amount of protection. Some had their own carts or wagons yoked to beasts of burden and carried enough stuff to make the act of traveling more tolerable.

Once you get rich enough that you could buy enchanted items for sheer convenience, packs get lighter. You could travel com...

August poll

As usual, the monthly bonus chapter needs to get voted on. Feel free to comment a request if you vote for the sidestory/omake option. 

Courtly Chronicles 7

Forgot that it was also the 1st. Whoops. 

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[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von Goethe, circa 1927, age 13]

Politics was not fast. Even in a world with global instantaneous communication, affecting public policy in a material fashion was a steady effort over weeks and months, and international relations was an order of magnitude slower than that.

It was with that knowledge that Tanya took pride in how swiftly the...

Chapter 24: Traveling

I think I may have gone a little far with the worldbuilding/slice of life renditions of this journey. Well, I have a finished chapter, so enjoy.

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Despite Casimir half expecting pirates to continue the trend of his students being trouble magnets, the trip to the mainland went by without incident. The Vault of Redoubt was a port carved into a cliff face, initially founded by some dwarven kingdom and named after the forge god but it had eventually become an indep...

Chapter 23: The power of friendship

Still not entirely happy, but at least it's long enough, if barely, and I hit my self imposed deadline. Enjoy. 

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“It’s not so bad.” Hana explained the next day as she swam circles around Casimir. “The mental link is a little slow, but Loop’s on top of things most of the time. I just need to think ahead.”

The structures beneath the checkpoint were mostly the same kind as there were above the water, with an extra emphasis on warehouses ov...

Post will be late

Sorry, I'm not really happy with the state of the chapter and I'd like a few more hours to try and improve it. I'll post it in the evening after work. 

Chapter 22: Under the Sea

Casimir did not like sailing. Not because he got seasick… anymore, or because he had anything against boats or the ocean or anything like that.

It was just boring. You couldn’t really train much, as mana binding generally requires one of three things: space, a catalyst, or ambient mana. The first is just absent on a crowded ship, the third will piss of the sailors if you use it, and the last one… well, it’s not easy to come by.

So you couldn’t train anything that spent m...

July Poll

As usual, vote for whatever I post on the 1st. 

Not bothering to separate the Heroic chronicles options anymore. Feel free to comment with what kind of sidestory you'd like to see. 

Pyschoprotective 3

Yeah, the Anima Academy chapter is nowhere near finished, so as promised, I'm releasing this chapter I've had burning a hole in my pocket as compensation.

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Agent Nein, positively radiating amusement, depressed his foot into another section of floor.

Tanya’s eyes immediately snapped to a pipe that curved around the ledge behind them, releasing an odd creature. Looking like a caricature of an auditor, with a suit, glasses, and a stamp in their hands t...

Chapter 21: Preparation

Yeah, I forgot to post in the morning... Sorry. 

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After sorting through the clues and leads the Adventurer’s guild collected for him for the Revenant bounty quest, Casimir sorted them into three piles.

First, there were the ‘promising’ leads. There were four of these. Second, there were the ‘iffy’ leads. These were the credible rumors of revenants of any kind in an area. Finally, there were the ‘desperate’ leads, the most succinct desc...

Courtly Chronicles 6

[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von Goethe, circa 1926, age 12]

The war was not going well. The Russy Federation had declared war shortly after mage recordings of the evacuation of Arenne were circulated, although Tanya made sure to similarly distribute a small prepared statement by themselves to help defray any panic on the international scene. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect on the communist leadership, with them publicly denouncing it as ca...

Chapter 20: Aftermath

The kobolds were pretty easy to clean up after the revenants retreated. Whatever investment their master had put into them, they were clearly written off after Luci deemed it too dangerous for them.

For his part, Casimir made sure to gather the weapons and tear apart every single trap and take the compressed ingots of dogsteel for himself. In the next few weeks, a team of military engineers will lace the tunnels with some magical alarms before slowly filling them in with solid stone, bo...

Delayed post again

Due to way too much bullshit, I thought I was going to need to cancel this week's post. However, I managed to get enough done yesterday that I'm confident I can wrap it up in the evening. I'll post it then.

Chapter 19: The Battle

The plan was pretty simple: the first thing that Casimir does disables any mechanical traps that they have set up, but you usually didn’t see that in the main chamber, so all Casimir had to do was disable two hastily constructed ones in the floor with a trio of enchanted spikes Propelled through the stone.

Any actual ambush attacks towards him was to be blocked by one of the domain wizards, who bent the stone domain into a crushing force effect right ahead of Casimir, which made the m...

Chapter 18: The march

The delay was a little more than I had hoped, but I got it done before the end of the day. Enjoy.

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“What I don’t understand, “ said the Knight-Commander after the explanation. “-is why no one put the Adventurer’s guild on alert for unaccounted for dead elite-ranks.”

Casimir shook his head. “They were accounted for.” He explained. “The Soul-Devouring Dragon was a master of Negative Magic. He killed them with Soul Drain, they shouldn’t have...

Minor delay

The next chapter is almost ready, but not quite, and I need to be getting to bed so I can work in the morning. It'll still be up tomorrow, and I'll be updating the public chapters as normal, but the patreon advance chapter will be posted in the evening. 

June Poll

Back to normal voting options. I do actually have a third chapter of Psychoprotective already, but I'll use it as a placeholder for an Anima Academy update the next time I miss one if it doesn't win. Or if it happens before the end of the month. 

There's been another financial disaster on my end, so I'll likely be somewhat drained of energy for the next... long while as I take on extra work. So missed chapters are going to become more common, moving forward.