“Kat!” Kaleek called out, his voice echoing through the catacombs as he draped an arm over her shoulder. “What has you so distracted? Usually you’d have a quip or comment by now, but you’re as quiet as a tomb.”
She looked back at him. Cocking her head to the side slightly as she looked around at the moist clay and decaying arches that filled her surroundings. After a second, she squinted.
“Are you saying that because this is-” she bega...
2025-07-03 15:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostMana crackled through the air around Kat, infusing her domain with potential. About thirty paces to her left, Dorrik was squaring off with some sort of flying diamond that flickered with pearly iridescent light as it summoned spears of light that darted through the air toward the dodging and slashing lokkel.
Kat glanced at the diamond in frustration. Ordinarily she already would’ve used her control over gravity to toss the dungeon boss around, but it had no weight. I...
2025-07-01 14:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostJaalin was glaring at Belle, and it took everything in Kat to not laugh at the lokkel as Belle calmly sipped a cup of tea.
.”I’m trying to open your people up to the galaxy,” Jaalin ground out, all four of her hands opening before squeezing into fists. “Clan Ahn would front the cost of building a state of the art spaceport. In exchange, your company could rent out a substantial amount of space for shops and hangars, letting you have the first crack at tourists and me...
2025-06-25 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post“We need to have a sit down meeting with Jaalin and Belle,” Kat remarked as she peered over the side of a massive hole. Dorrik and Kaleek were with her in a dark tunnel. The walls around them were made of stone bricks, loosely bound with old and crumbling mortar. As Kat looked more closely at the pit in front of her, she noticed even more of the old brick lining its walls.
“Looks like a well of some sort,” Kaleek noted, eyeing up the shaft. ...
2025-06-25 13:58:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you ready Kat?” Kaleek asked, a fist sized rock in his palm as he stood about twenty paces away from her.
She took a deep breath before closing her eyes. Without the distraction of sight, the sphere marked by her gravity domain jumped into sharp focus. Kat could feel the Earth itself pulling down on Kaleek in front of her as well as Whippoorwill and Heather on either side.
Beside the three of them and the machinery mounted on tripods in front...
2025-06-25 13:56:21 +0000 UTC View PostKat threw herself into a roll, dodging to the left a fraction of a second before a perfectly spherical ball of stone zipped past her and detonated pelting her with shards of rock that opened a dozen tiny cuts on the unarmored portions of her forearms. Without thinking, she focused on her opponent, a sphere of undulating gelatin attached to the ceiling of the dungeon, and poured mana into a Gravity Spike aimed at the center of the monster.
Only for nothing to happen.
The spel...
2025-06-25 13:54:40 +0000 UTC View PostMaybe she’d done enough for Earth. It might be time to let the planet fend for itself for once.
That was the only thought filling Kat’s mind as the high heeled shoes she’d forced herself into pinched her toes. Some sort of fancy music, either class or jazz, Kat couldn’t tell the difference and she didn’t really care to try, came out of speakers embedded all over the ball room.
Honestly? Kat felt like she’d taken a handful of allergy pills and chased t...
2025-06-24 14:33:26 +0000 UTC View Post“Do I-”
“Yes,” Kat replied, cutting off Dorrik as the lokkel paced back and forth fretting wildly. “Your scales are shiny enough for me to see my own reflection in them.”
“They are not too bright are they?” Dorrik asked, glancing worriedly at one of his forearms. “I want them to look well cared for but not too well cared for. I am a warrior, and it would not do for my appearance to resemble the pampered scion of nobility.”
“But y...
2025-06-24 14:31:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe door to the boss room opened, and almost immediately, Kat was assaulted by hot, fetid air. She took a step forward and the ground squelched under her foot. She bounced once on her toes, testing the springiness of the floor.
Her actions were rewarded with a splash. Kat glanced down with a grimace, confirming that she was standing in a shallow moss covered pool of water. She pursed her lips as she looked over the rest of the boss chamber.
A swamp.
T...
2025-06-24 02:50:42 +0000 UTC View PostKat crouched behind a rock, crossbow trained on a furry sex-legged monster that was about the size of a small car. It shuffled slightly, a dangling trunk sweeping back and forth over the dungeon floor as if trying to vacuum up crumbs.
A metallic scrape at her side marked Kaleek shifting his weight slightly. The monster perked up, the four oversized eyes in its lumpy head swinging back and forth as it tried to find the origin of the sound. Kat muttered a cur...
2025-06-24 02:47:32 +0000 UTC View PostKat struggled to keep a smile off of her face as Dorrik scowled right next to her. To their left stood five hover tanks, four combat models supporting a more lightly armed command control and electronic warfare vehicle. All of them floated a half pace off the ground, their primary engines warmed and ready. On the other side, a squad of twenty five 3445 mercenaries in APEX suits stood guard, a quartet of combat engineers operating a massive shield generator that was projectin...
2025-06-24 02:46:10 +0000 UTC View PostWind whipped through Kat’s hair as she stood atop the viewing platform, the smell of ash and burning ozone burning her nose as she squinted into the distance. Whippoorwill snorted at her side, shaking her head even as her pink hair was blown back and forth.
“Just use your smartglass Kat,” Whip said, her eyes unfocused as she followed her own advice. “Security made us set up about a league from all the fun. You’re not going to be able to see anything with just...
2025-06-24 02:44:43 +0000 UTC View PostKat stood at the edge of the moat of dark brown hissing liquid. About a hundred paces in front of her, the tower leading out of the eighteenth floor jutted out of the ground, the bubbling brown tar around it serving as an unappealing moat.
“Are you sure the entrance is under the water level?” Kaleek asked unhappily, his nose scrunching at the heavy scent of sulfur that clogged the air. “Maybe we should look for another. Really hard. Anywhere. Pl...
2025-06-23 23:34:58 +0000 UTC View PostKat glanced up from the table where Dorrik was inspecting the goods that he’d ordered. The marketplace was bustled around them.
She rolled her eyes. Maybe bustle was too strong of a word. There were about six vendors and twice that many shoppers, and in all honesty the vendors were more brokers than anything. There just weren’t that many people on the eighteenth floor. It didn’t really make sense for the merchants to carry much more than standard cons...
2025-06-23 23:32:56 +0000 UTC View PostKat dove across the table, knocking Jasper’s coffee out of the way as she tackled him. For a fraction of a second she saw his eyes widen, and then her shoulder hit his chest, knocking him out of his chair a moment before the security guard behind him managed to pull his trigger.
The bullet whipped through her awareness, a ripple of gravity traveling almost too fast for her metaphysical senses to track. Then, it struck her upper back just below her shoulder like...
2025-06-23 23:22:48 +0000 UTC View PostKat could hear a pin drop. Even the barista froze, sensing the mood, and she was functionally deaf from the high tier earplugs she was wearing.
Belle sat frozen with a deeply uncomfortable smile on her face. Honestly? Kat couldn’t remember a time when she’d seen the woman look more uncomfortable, and that included the conversation where she’d convinced Belle to finally start opening up a little bit.
She coughed, breaking the silence.
“You appear to ...
2025-06-23 23:21:24 +0000 UTC View Post“How have you not discovered where Millennium is hiding out?”
Kat kept her face even, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes as Richard Ricket blustered wildly. The older shareholder had been a thorn in her side since she assumed her position. At the end of the day, she wasn’t sure if it was her age or the circumstances of her birth, but there wasn’t anything she could do that was good enough for the man.
“It’s been over a year since their connection to thes...
2025-06-23 23:10:06 +0000 UTC View PostKat fell through the sky, shifting herself away from the flailing tentacles of the giant jellyfish with a tweak to her personal gravity. She fired her crossbow, feeling her mana drain as the bolt whipped across the intervening space, punching a tiny hole in the side of the monster and instantly casting Overpressure.
A jet of thick liquid sprayed from the wound, joining the other three bolts she’d shot into the creature as they tried their hardest to drain the boss of its innards...
2025-06-23 23:07:47 +0000 UTC View PostA trio of quills hit the sand next to Kat, each of them sending up a plume of detritus as they buried themselves an arms length deep, leaving only a small amount of their sharp chitin vibrating in the humid air. She kicked off the ground. Gravity responded to her will, and even though Kat wasn’t able to get much of a foothold on the unsteady and shifting earth, she launched herself easily into the sky a fraction of a second before the sand collapsed into a sinkhole under her, re...
2025-06-23 23:05:49 +0000 UTC View PostHyperactive pop music pumped through the room’s speakers, setting Kat’s teeth on edge, forcing her smile into something more akin to a pained grimace. A couple paces away her mother was laboring over a cheap charcoal grill, flipping hamburgers while Kat’s sister chatted excitedly with one of her friends.
The friend in question, a quiet girl named Stacey, seemed terrified. Kat didn’t really blame her. Stacey was the daughter of one of the executives that worked ...
2025-06-23 23:03:02 +0000 UTC View PostKat’s knife cut through the metal bar with ease, shaving off a sliver of glittering steel. She set her weapon down and picked up the circle of metal, probing its sides with her index finger.
Completely smooth. One clean cut without any hitches or sawing.
“No fair,” Emma said with a grumble. “I’m in the Tower of Somnus just as often as the rest of you and I can’t cut through solid steel.”
“All I can do is hit it with my batons a half do...
2025-06-23 22:50:01 +0000 UTC View PostPreviously
After sneaking, stabbing, and extorting her way to the top, Kat is in the uneasy position of having her role reversed. She is the target, stationary and unable to fully conceal herself from her enemies. Millennium, long one of the most powerful mercenary bands in the world, has been driven underground after their collusion with the stallesp has been discovered.
Now, Kat and her friends find themselves struggling against phantoms as the remna...
2025-06-23 22:47:31 +0000 UTC View PostChapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
2025-06-23 22:28:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
“I don’t think you understand how rich we are now,” Belle said, her voice raised so that Kat could hear her over the hum of the hovertank. At Kat’s side, Whippoorwill was pressed up against her, unwilling to leave her even for a second.
“The arbitration board was more than a bit displeased with VodCom,” Belle continued. “We were about to win the case anyway, but with one arbitrator dead and another in a coma, that left only our representative, and the arbitration h...
2024-12-13 18:49:00 +0000 UTC View Post“KAT!” Cobra screamed, and they both blurred into motion simultaneously. Kat’s gravity doubled and her Pseudopod pushed her toward the ground as she drew her pistol.
Ice Cobra fired first, her bullet whipping past Kat and ricocheting off the floor behind her. Kat’s shot didn’t miss.
She didn’t bother shooting at Cobra. The other woman ducked back under cover faster than Kat’s hand could track. Instead, her bullet shattered the overhead light, bathing the ...
2024-12-13 18:46:55 +0000 UTC View PostKat hovered quietly, her Pseudopod and gravity working together to move her swiftly down the hallway, past the bodies of the dead doctor and samurai and toward the door beyond. She paused for a second, closing her eyes to focus her hearing.
At first the sounds blended together. The gentle hum of machinery. The soft whir of blowing air as a ventilation system did its job. A distant conversation between two people behind a closed door four or five hallways away. Then, there was a fa...
2024-12-13 18:44:59 +0000 UTC View PostKat awoke to the sensation of a bucket of ice water being dumped over her head. The samurai from the truck stood a pace away from her, a sheepish expression on his face and an empty bucket in his hands. Two or so paces behind him, Ice Cobra glared at Kat. At her side stood an overweight bald man wearing a red shirt and pants.
There was something wrong with the man. Kat couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe it was that his eyes were slightly too far apart, maybe it was that ...
2024-12-13 18:42:41 +0000 UTC View PostKat opened her eyes and immediately wished she could pass out a second time. She was zip tied to a metal chair that was welded to an enclosed truck bed. With each bump in the road she jolted against her restraints sending a spike of pain through her leg. About three paces in front of her was a samurai slumped up against the back of the truck’s cab, sleeping with an all too familiar submachine gun in his lap.
She hissed as the truck rattled, stabbing another flash of agony into h...
2024-12-13 18:40:42 +0000 UTC View PostKat only got a fraction of a second before the explosion reached her. There wasn’t enough time for a spell, so she did the next best thing. Gravity twisted around her, upending the heavy wooden table that she was sitting at and flipping it over as she ducked behind it.
All of that only took an eyeblink. Then the blastwave hit.
Luckily, Kat’s table was crafted from genuine wood. It was thick and sturdy enough to survive the wall of light, sound, and fire that slamme...
2024-12-13 18:34:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe questions were quick and sharp. Each one tried to pry and twist a half truth from Kat so that VodCom’s attorney could twist them enough to craft some vast saga about how Kat and GroCorp were trying to illegally destroy VodCom.
She managed to keep calm through everything. The attorney tried to trip her up by rapidly switching from queries about her business practice to much more personal questions about her relationship with Whippoorwill as he interrogated her. More than once...
2024-12-13 18:32:13 +0000 UTC View Post