KnightofTempest

Chapter 83

"So, it seems your luck has finally run out. It appears that your attempts to embarrass my House have run afoul of other parties. By the looks of things, the Lannisters and the Tyrells have seen fit to come to the aid of my family over your lot of upjumped bastards, exiles, and foreigners." Sneered Lord Alyn Harte as he gloated over the unveiled tourney bracket.

"Is that so? I think our chances are somewhat higher than you might expect, though." I responded between spoonfuls of soup. 2024-05-28 15:03:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 42

In the recent past, Pergamon had been a minor provincial Poleis, a subject of first the Lydian Kingdom and then the Persian Achaemenid Empire, eclipsed by other Greek Cities in Asia Minor. Miletos was more respected, Ephesos more wealthy, and Smyrna stronger on land and sea. When King Kroisos moved west and subjugated the Ionian League, Pergamon was barely a small stopover on the way west to the Sea. In the two-and-a-half centuries since, things had changed quite a lot.

The fortun...

Chapter 11

It happened in the dead of night, while most of the senior officers were asleep. Roughly three weeks out of Port Keunman in the Contested frontier with the Earth Kingdom State of Kim, the Dragonhawk had begun her wide northward turn toward the Waegu Gap between the Northern Water Tribe Province of the Nattirhiurtuq Coast and the Whirlpool and Pirate-infested Waegu Archipelago. The idea was to avoid any patrols by Earth Kingdom Naval Junks, as while they might be inferior ships to mod...

Chapter 64

The rest of December and the first three weeks of January passed in a bout of yet more training. Xander, Sheila, Amy, and I, aided by the Neuroplasticity Enhancing Circlets, Fatigue Cures, Alchemical Bruise Healing Salves, and Memory Enhancing Potions, managed to get in the equivalent of a year and a half's worth of training in. Xander mentioned something about all these training multipliers acting as some kind of Hyperbolic Time Chamber, but the reference was pretty lost on me. What it effec...

Chapter 23

"So, to sum up, you're from a completely separate timeline, though you do have some useful knowledge about the Second Wizarding War due to cross-time records of some form. You possess several capabilities that are outside context problems for Wizards in our timeline, which is the reason for your defeat of the Death Eaters that had attacked Diagon Alley. In your timeline, it is currently late August of nineteen-ninety-seven, some two years and one month from the current date here. Finally, you...

Chapter 32

Blackstone was a world of three-hundred-fifty-thousand people. A hilly world, not quite mountainous outside of one area where the Darnin Hills and the Tyrnan Highlands met just to the northeast of the Planetary Capital of Onyx City. Much of the world's wealth came from various minerals mined from the Gritstone and Basalt hills and bluffs that dotted much of the main continent. What wasn't mining was some level of basic manufacturing, textiles, glue, and leather goods from the various flocks o...

Chapter 60

It took me twelve hours to find what I needed. The historical records surrounding the time of the Obsidian Empress were fragmentary, written in an ancient dialect so old that it may as well have been mutually intelligible with sealing script. Fortunately, I was versed enough in archaic writing and Fuuinjutsu to decipher it in a mere eight hours. The tale itself painted a very bleak picture of the state of the world at the time.

As I read, the degree of civil strife that preceded the Gre...

Inner Sphere: Interlude: Star's End II

The Space Battle over Star's End lasted for just one single hour. Without being able to rely on their SDS System, and with the Ducal Guards Flotilla emerging from a pirate point inside the defense envelope, already the Belt Pirates had lost their main defense and hadn't been given time to scramble a defense. That the Steinberg Mount was already inside the small formation that could be scrambled was just icing on the cake.

Attacked from without, backstabbed by sup...

Chapter 41

The trip to Pergamon was quiet. Nobody wanted to mess with a ship being escorted by Dromons and Quadriremes, after all. We weren't at war with anyone at the moment and our escort was too beefy for Pirates to try. It just wasn't worth the losses they'd take and that's even assuming they could win, which was also unlikely. As it stood, I had plenty of time to spend with my family on the way to Pergamon.

Mind you, Ptolemy busied himself learning everything he could about how ships worked....

Chapter 82

The Feast at the end of the first day of the Hand's Tourney was packed with all sorts of nobles. Not just Contestants, but also members of the Royal Court and Non-Competing members of various Contestants' retinues. Aside frome the people I'd seen so far, I also noticed Lord Varys, Grand Maester Pycelle, and Lord Petyr Baelish as members of the Small Council, along with various wives and children of some of the Contestants. Ser Jacelyn Bywater, Commander of the Gold Cloaks was also present, sp...

Chapter 2

Jackie'd spent the first day of his training getting beat on by Sun Wukong. Tests ranging from dodging the fire blasts sent at him to trying to last more than four seconds in a spar, to all sortsa weird stuff that was probably meant to figure out how tough Jackie was. The whole thing was fucking exhausting, and Sun Wukong ain't seemed ready to let up yet. He'd beat Jackie down only to force-feed him some healing pills and they'd go right back at it.

This last spar saw the Monkey King k...

Chapter 22

I immediately dodged away as eight more Killing Curses were snarled my way, using my physical capabilities to leap clear of any spellfire and up onto the top of Flourish and Blotts. Immediately an Amber Spear coalesced in my hand and I tossed it out at one of the Death Eaters who conjured a shield to defend himself. The spear struck the shield and the shield spell shattered like it was made of glass, allowing a conjured lightning bolt to streak in at the Death Eater and splash into his torso....

Chapter 8

The City of Nexus lived and died off trade. Salt and Horses from Marukan, Spices and Jade from Lookshy, Artifacts and Ivory from Sijian, Grain, Wool, Leather, and Tallow from Puyo, Wine, Copper, Tin, and Iron from Varsi, Fish from the communities along the rivers, Wood and Stone from the East, and so much more all came through the single crossroads that was Nexus. Accordingly, the City had a large number of markets, both legitimate and illegitimate, along with the largest forges in Creation o...

Chapter 10

The Abbot's Dining Hall was indeed a place of great wealth and luxury. Exquisite silk tapestries that showed scenes of the Spirit World in richly dyed threads were hung all around the walls. Lacquered wood furniture of imported teakwood and upholstered with high-quality silk cushions sat around a long, jade, table carved with stylized images of Sky Bison. The golden pillars were lined with literal gold, rather than the bronze or brass that was normally seen. It struck Bikki that for an Abbot ...

Chapter 21

After thirty-six straight hours of sleep, followed by a shower and an interesting and tasty breakfast. Bartholomew had prepared me a breakfast of a Gartro Egg Omelet with Jerba Cheese, Gornt Sausage, and Protato Hash, all washed down with a Raktajino. It was mixing universes to a level some might consider heretical, but I found it tasty, filling, and good fuel for my day. I'd planned mostly to do a bit of light spell studying, and maybe do a bit of crafting to relax. I had very little intenti...

Chapter 1

As Lady Meifang told the story 'bout what went down the last time Darkseid showed up, Jackie listened in. The whole deal was enhanced with some kinda illusion magic what made pictures of the whole thing dance on the wall like some sorta shadow puppet show. Jackie watched as a buncha Gods pitched in and did their part while the rest of their Pantheons sat on their asses hoping Darkseid'd pass them by. It was a pretty stupid plan. You only had to look at what went down with the Nazis to figure ...

Interlude: Stars End I

Captain Jennifer Zamoyski and Lieutenant Commander Elisa Bohm had spent the past six months ingratiating themselves and their crew to Morgan Fletcher and her subordinate Pirate Lords. Their Avenger-class Assault Dropship, the Steinberg Mount was rechristened the Valkyr and repainted to a matte black with silver-grey accents instead of the more uniform red and white of the Grand Ducal Flotillas. It helped that a lot of their crew had roots in Rasalhagu...

Chapter 63

My outfit for the day wasn't super-festive, I wasn't a Christian to actually celebrate Christmas, but it was nice. After all, when you had tangible proof that Pagan Gods existed and not tangible proof that Jesus existed, it was hard to take Christianity on faith like that. No, instead of wearing anything red or green, I opted for a three-piece suit, tie, and dress shirt, along with a hat that I felt looked pretty stylish. A gold Rolex watch and gold tie clip completed the outfit. True, it was...

Chapter 59

Inside the cave, a small shrine lay near to a doorway cut into the stone. A look inside the doorway revealed steps carved into the living rock of the mountain, leading down into the depths of the world. I paused for a moment, frowning and decided that making an offering at the shrine before heading down might not be the worst idea in the world. I reached into one of the various storage scrolls I kept on my person and pulled out a bowl of white rice and a pair of incense sticks. Placing the ri...

Chapter 40

Time with my family was always fun, though the fact that we'd apparently adopted a cat on the urging of my youngest, Eurydice, was an adjustment. The ginger cat, Timoleon, was Eurydice's constant companion. Like all ginger cats, Timoleon seemed to only have a single brain cell which he shared with every other ginger cat in the world. Eurydice being a tiny gremlin child didn't help matters much, and the pair would often get into hijinx together.

A week after I'd returned from campaign, ...

Chapter 81

Immediately as the trumpets sounded, I was engaged by Lord Alyn Harte, who wasted no time in charging me along with his brother, Ser Elwood Harte. Unfortunately Ser Oswell Cressey and Lord Olyvar Mallery were occupied by Ser Loras Tyrell and Lord Randyll Tarly and unable to distract the Hartes. Fortunately for me, as they charged, Ser Narbert Grandison charged Ser Elwood with a cry of 'Foul!', forcing the younger Harte brother to face him instead of double-teaming me with his brother. I had n...

Chapter 7

Shi Hou burst onto the deck to find the crew engaged in repelling boarders. Burly sailors with cutlasses and improvised weapons clashed with snarling, crocadilian, Beastmen. The beastmen wielded an eclectic array of weapons, from large-bladed chopping swords to daggers, to one with a large, bone, tetsubo that seemed to be made from river dragon bone and was scribed with Thaumaturgical Sigils. That last one likewise wore a breastplate of golden metal with a briliant, yellow, hexagonal, crystal...

Chapter 20

We were winning, it looked like Bastion was finally starting to run out of Sentinels. The amount of Omega Sentinels coming out as reinforcements had slowed to a trickle and even the pace of Prime Sentinel reinforcements was slowing down. As I aimed another Ferromantic Anti-Tech Spell at one of the last few Omega Sentinels remaining, this one aiming some kind of nanomissile launcher at Thor, I figured that we might actually finish up out here before the infiltration team got out of the base wi...

Chapter 9

The Northern Air Temple Archives was a long, low, squat, long, hall that was completely out of synch architecturally with the rest of the tall, rounded, spindly, buildings that made up the Northern Air Temple. The reason for that was practicality. It was easier to preserve perishable goods in this sort of cool, dry, larder-like space. Bikki knew that because dried meats and fish were often kept in rooms like this back on Nagai Island and it seemed like the Airbenders had known in too and bowe...

Interlude: The Day the Old Gods Died

Apokalips was advancing on multiple fronts. The New Gods of that dark and misrable realm had set forth to conquer the heavens in the name of Darkseid, the head of their Pantheon of Monstrous Deities. Already many had fallen, the survivors forced to flee into the Dreaming, as not even Darkseid was powerful enough to so easily assail the Endless in their own domains. If not for the Sacrifice of most of the Aesir and Vanir, the situation would be even more dire. Asgard had fallen but it had been...

Chapter 62

With Spike still at large, albeit on crutches, and Drusilla now back to full physical health, even if she was still quite mad, I redoubled the pace of my training along with that of Amy, Sheila, and Xander. We couldn't afford to slack off now that one half of the Whirlwind was in play. What this primarily meant was a renewed focus on training as opposed to social obligations, something that was not great for our various relationships. While I still made time once a week for Cordelia, that was...

Interlude: New Avalon

Major Kong Li of the Capellan Maskirovka was nervous. An operation like this had never been tried before. Not in the heart of the Enemy's power like this. Fortunately, his team were professionals, veterans of dozens of undercover operations. Even if they were internally nervous, externally none of them dared to show it. Thankfully, their papers held up perfectly to scrutiny at the Avalon City Spaceport. They were to infiltrate the First Prince's Townhouse near the High Council Hall posing as ...

Chapter 58

The Main Hall of the Fire Temple was decked out in Gold plating and red-laquered wood. Giant, bronze statues of Susanoo, Ameterasu, Inoshishi-no-Kami, Hachiman, and Kagutsuchi gazed down at me as Chiriku led me into the main hall and past the altars with their various offerings. We passed by a table with a bronze brazier inset in the center similar to the one that Master Tenzin of the Konoha Fire Temple had used for his divination, and back behind an enshrined group of blade fragments that a ...

Hello all!

Advanced Chapters of my various stories are coming up soon, starting with an Advanced Chapter for Autumn Road.

I'll be adding new advanced chapters as I go, so keep an eye out for that!