IanFlat

68 - In a Hole

The wooden floor shattered beneath me and I dropped.

Sparks faded. The world tilted. I heard Kathina gasping and panting.

Stones blurred to both sides as I fell, illuminated by the faintest flecks of skystone. A sledgehammer struck my hip and sent me spinning wildly. The dim glow of the lighthouse, receding above me, strobed in my vision as I faced upward, downward, upward, downward, upward--

Then darkness swallowed me.

My webtouch spread wide, trying to orient me in t...

67 - Depart

I made a shitload of noise as I fled the wraith, but I didn’t care. I just moved.

Well, I also ate every one of the pearl beads in my domain. There weren’t enough to make a gold but I still saw a nice immediate effect:

Health: 27/57

Mana: 2/24

That was better. It wasn’t good, but it was better.

By the time I’d crawled through the tunnel and reached the exit leading into the kobold village, Tiral-ur’s screaming had stopped. I g...

66 - The Faintest Touch

Still under Princess’s control, I shambled across the narrow edge of the fallen walkway toward the exit. Not, however, toward the exit to the traguld neighborhood. We’d already stumbled the wrong way for that. So instead, we shambled toward the exit leading toward the wraith cavern.

At least we tried to. She kept me balanced for about three steps, then I fell. Fortunately, I fell against the wall instead of down the hill.

<Oopsies,> she said in my mind.

“I’m ba...

65 - Tapestry of Soul

One of the soldiers tried to flee the lighthouse, to escape this untouchable, unkillable horror. She managed to dart to the side of the wraith, following the curve of the outside wall, and was moving fast when a spectral eel whipped at her. The tip of the eel moved through her armored boots and must’ve brushed her heel because a wave of frostbite cold washed through the area and the woman’s head snapped violently backward toward her feet.

Her shoulders followed.

Then she whimp...

64 - Pressure

The spark-shield roared down at us, solid as a brick wall, electric as sticking my tongue in an outlet. I took the brunt of the impact, because I was standing in front with Wren, and was six inches taller than her. The impact felt like a sledgehammer to the top of my head. Pain exploded into my shoulders and then into my side when the shield slammed me to the rough plank floor. Then I felt the sparks sizzling across me.

That first blow of Kathina’s shield would’ve broken my neck if ...

63 - White Noise

I nodded to show Wren that I understood, then mouthed, “Wraith Pits” to Tansy and Usim.

“Plus, an entrance into the kobold crater,” Princess sleepily informed me, tugging my attention toward a circle of dirty light, high in the left-handed wall of the cavern.

“Oh!” I thought back. “Thanks.”

“And entrance or an egress. No, wait. I mean ingress. An ingress.” Her voice faded as she continued. “Ingress, egress, egret ...”

I nodded at the li...

62 - This Is the Pits

“There’s movement,” Princess said. “Approaching.”

Except she didn’t say that, she didn’t even think it. She sort of made me think it, so my eyes sprang open in the darkness, and a hatchet appeared in my hand before I even realized that I’d awoken.

Oh. Speaking of which, I’d woken from a deep sleep, after hours of ... no training, no dreamscape. Just regular, restful sleep. Which was lovely, in its way, but I hadn’t even enjoyed a nice stately ...

61 - Sleep Knits the Raveled Sleeve

While Wren flailed at the ceiling behind me, I hustled down the slope. Debris slammed and clattered, dust billowed, but I didn’t turn. I scanned the gloomy, subterranean street for Tansy and Usim.

I didn’t see them, which made sense. Of course, they’d hide, in case the next people down that slope were Sixers. They knew to stay small and silent and--

“Mom!” Usim called as he appeared in a narrow doorway. “Where’s my mother? Alex, is she, is she ...”

“She’s...

60 - Embrace the Avalance

As I ran up the slope toward the fallen walkway and the exit, the loose shale of the crater floor crunched beneath my boots. Kobolds growled and yipped behind me and I heard the thud of Wren’s tail smacking flesh. Then I heard her gasp in pain. Still, I kept clambering upward, weaving between the kobold corpses on the ground and

Loot corpse?

Loot corpse?

Loot all the corpses, or leave them here for someone else?

Oh, shit, I’d forgotten al...

59 - Ripping Teeth

In a fraction of a second, the walkway collapsed from horizontal to vertical, and I tumbled ass-over-eyebrow down the incline. ‘Walkway,’ hell. That was a goddamn booby trap. The kobolds had attached ropes to the undersize and turned the planks into a trap door. The whole length of the ‘boardwalk’ swung downward on a hinge and literally removed the ground under intruders’ feet.

And now eight or nine of the sentries closed in as we crashed in a wild tangle of limbs toward the v...

A Quick Note on a Slow Subject

I'm going to slow my release rate to 3-5 chapters a week. I'm happily working away on Book 2, but I want to be sure that I don't burn out.

So I wanted to flag the change here, in case you don't want to renew your membership with fewer releases. If that's the case ... thanks so much for the support you've already given!

I don't know if I've mentioned this anywhere, but I'm a traditionally-published author, and this is my second attempt to break into this new field of publishing. I ...

58 - The Lighthouse

When I dropped inside the apartment building, the pain in my leg flared. Not too badly, thank fortitude. Still, I sucked in my breath--and the interior of the air tasted faintly mineral. When I tentatively sniffed, I noticed a hint of ammonia. I guess I’d been expecting the stink of rot and decay, but obviously after centuries there wasn’t much left.

I paused there, my hatchets in my hands. The skystones of the street glowed faintly behind me, and some of that light seeped in throug...

57 - From the Pit

I turned to follow Wren into the corridor when Usim told Tansy, “It’s okay, I can walk now.”

“Are you refusing to ride on ollieback?” she demanded.

“Um, no, I just--”

“You’re breaking my big brown heart!” she said, with a tragic sigh.

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Stay close to Tansy. She’ll grab you if anything happens.”

“I’ll grab you at super-beaded speeds,” she told Usim. “My toe-ring is a...

56 - Upwards

Holding my hatchet blade to the throat of the injured twin stopped his brother--and all the other soldiers.

It didn’t stop Kathina. Her shield sizzled through the air toward me. She could shape and aim the force-field a little. Enough to narrow the leading edge to about an arm’s length, though apparently no smaller. Which was good news. I didn’t want her to start jabbing lightning spears at me.

The bad news was that her shield moved too fast for me to dodge.

She yelled...

55 - Arched Throat

The kobold’s skin cracked like shatterproof glass beneath my boot. It didn’t break apart, but a spiderwebbing of lines spread across its rocky skin. My kick sent it flinging away, and it squealed as it slammed into the wall then tumbled to the floor. Kobolds were harder than they looked. The impact would’ve broken a few toes if I hadn’t raised my fortitude.

I barely had time to enjoy the sight of the spiderwebbed one gasping on the floor before the kobold that I’d dodged scram...

54 - A Wrong Turn

Usim cut the argument short by limping over to Tansy and letting her lift him onto her back. He wrapped his arms around her broad neck and she held him in place with one hand and left the other free for her weapon. I started off, retracing our steps. Wren fell in with me a few seconds later, her sword drawn as she scanned the street ahead.

Tansy stayed in the rear to keep Usim safe, which impressed me. I thought she’d hyperfocus on protecting me, but instead she focused on protecting ...

53 - A Beating

<Maybe notifications shift, modulate, or change as your Support level increases,> Princess said, in my mind, for absolutely no reason.

I frowned toward a skinbear corpse. <Huh?>

<You said that the latest notification wasn’t even in the same format as the ones earlier.>

<Yeah, because it’s fu--> I caught myself. <Messing with me.>

She shared her sleepy agreement. <Almost as if, my well-thumbed mammal, you’re not wholly in control o...

52 - Skinbears

“Don’t let him in there!” I yelled to Tansy, and started running toward her voice. “Keep him out!”

Wren raced past me, growing two inches with every step. “Usim! Usim!”

When she reached the junction, I shouted, “Left!”

She veered leftward, shockingly agile despite her size, and two heartbeats later I followed. Losing ground to Wren with every step because she sprinted like a monster. Except I caught sight of her again as she raced toward the rusted...

51 - Into the City

“Shit,” I said, hesitating there in the archway. “Shit! Okay, follow me.”

Usim shouted at Wren, “Mom, this way!”

She was already coming, charging at us like a bull, and I didn’t wait around for her to arrive. I turned and dragged Usim inside and across the storage space then clattered the first flight of stairs. Then I paused and told him to keep running as I blipped an entire vending cart into my domain and waited about four seconds until Wren--demon-Wren, Hulk-Wren...

50 - Earlier

EARLIER ...

After I woke from my nap--with Princess’s advice about traps at the forefront of my mind--I trotted across the basement and cornered Chetty.

“Don’t bother looking for Erdinand,” I told her. “I don’t care where he is. I know something better. I know where he’s going to be.”

She chewed her lower lip, her eyes clouded with thought. Then she exhaled worriedly. “You want to snatch him from Gallows Square?”

“Yep.”

“That’...

49 - Commander Wren

After only a slight hesitation at the corner, Commander Wren turned left toward the door at the end of the hallway in the Central Building. She balanced her tray in one hand, reached for the key ... then paused. Feeling uncharacteristically nervous.

She was a hero of beachhead seven, a leader of the Ryetown administration, the fifth-highest-ranking officer on Waldhill Island, and a noble-by-marriage. Still, she slumped against the wall and frowned. Not afraid! That would be ridiculous. ...

48 - Gallows Square

I paused just inside the archway to check what was in front of me.

Gallows Square was--shockingly--a square. It reminded me of a smaller version of the square outside the Six Coves administration buildings with the spire. It was about half the size of a soccer field, and was surrounded by two-and-three story buildings that had once been much higher. Even from the archway, I could see jagged lines of breakage on the upper stories. New roofs had clearly been added atop half-fallen walls. ...

47 - Lay of the Land

I told Hollis that I was going to waft through the bottleneck, and then didn’t do anything except check my sheet. Well, at least the important part:

Health: 55/55

Mana: 22/24

Yep. Still down a few point of mana after turning my arm to smoke. I decided to wait for that to fill up, so I asked, “What exactly are kobolds and redworms and wraiths?”

“You know what a chameleon is?” Tansy asked me.

“Sure.”

“Kobolds are like knee-hi...

46 - The Bottleneck

“Okay,” I said, my heart thumping. “Okay. So If I don’t turn myself in by tomorrow, they’ll kill Erdinand. Okay.”

Harris put his big hand on my shoulder from behind. “What’re you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at Chetty. “What’m I going to do?”

Old Chettur spat on the floor at her feet. “Lose a friend. Ga. That’s what you’ll do, boy. Lose a friend.”

“That’s enough, Mother.” Chetty gazed into the darkness of the underg...

45 - A Plague of Quests

I spent the rest of the day with Hollis drilling me on the basics of dual-wielding axes. Which he considered an awful choice of weapons. An axe and shield? Fine. Two daggers? Fine. But two hatchets? The very concept disgusted him ... though he admitted that the approach suited me.

“Especially given your advantages,” he added, after hours of throwing-axe practice.

We retreated to an out-of-the-way corner to explore the limits of my ‘gift.’ He wanted to help me lear...

44 - Sparring

“Don’t break the silverware,” Maryne told Tansy, eying the fork she’d bent.

“Sorry, but ...” Tansy sent a pleading gaze my way. “Can I ask about your gem?”

I lifted an empty hand, then bamfed a hatchet into my palm.

“Sweet garigrass!” she blurted, her brown eyes wide.

Hollis whistled, and I popped the hatchet back into my domain.

“Do it again!” Tansy said. “Do it again!”

I did it again.

“That’s just ... wow.” She tapp...

43 - Pins and Chains

In every fantasy movie I’d ever watched, the characters had deep, portentous, magical dreams. Sometimes they were terrifying, sometimes they were prophetic, but they always meant something.

Not me. In my own personal fantasy world, I dreamed that I was a bag of tortilla chips in a kitchen cabinet. Hanging out with the ramen packages and breakfast cereal and a tugboat. Like, a full-size tugboat. Which, in my dream, had seemed completely normal.

I was just chilling with my buddies...

42 - The Trap Door

The streets were quiet, with only a few early-morning farmers and shop-keeps going about their business. Well, them and bakers. The scent of fresh bread drifted from a corner shop where pushcart vendors bought bundles of what looked like baguettes.

My mouth watered. I considered crossing the street to mingle with vendors. Maybe buy a baguette or three. That way I wouldn’t stick out so much, because it’d look like I had business here, and was just bringing some bread home for breakfa...

41 - Bright Life

My plan was simple. Maybe too simple.

Soon after dawn, the guards would realize that I’d escaped the cell. They’d guess that I’d bolt for safety, far from Ryetown, because that’s what I wanted to do. That’s what anyone with half a brain would want to do. Yet I couldn’t leave, not with Erdinand still behind bars.

Which meant that I needed to give the Sixers a reason to believe that I’d left town, even though I hadn’t. If they thought I was long gone, they w...

40 - Cobbler

An instant before I splattered on the cobblestones, a thought occurred to me. If I kept a few points of mana in reserve, I could survive a jump from any height. I could skydive without a parachute. I just needed to turn to smoke a moment before impact, and boom.

Or not boom.

Instead of splattering, I’d dissolve into smoke and shed my momentum. Then I’d re-form, a foot above the ground. Or at least much closer to the ground. Which would’ve been a great reali...