Seersucker

Ch 24: We'll see how the next roll goes

With the deal made, Dantes left Mez to his brewing and headed back to his cave. The trek was easy, particularly without the weight of the sack he’d carried on the way there. Once he was back in his cave he checked his ratmark and saw that one fang mark was full again, lit gold on his skin. The rats had clearly enjoyed the meal he’d offered them, and their god had granted his favor for it. He’d head back into the garden shortly to feed the plants his blood that they so desired, but he ha...

Ch 23: Dust, weed, favor, coin if they have it

Dantes moved quickly and comfortably through the outskirts, shifting through narrow passageways, and avoiding sealed passages and dead ends. This was a more frequently tread path for him, one that he didn’t need much thought to move through. It had the added benefit of being rarely traveled by anyone except for him. The kobolds would approach from a different direction, and while he’d occasionally seen a random orc or drunken dwarf with Mez, none of them would’ve approached from Collare...

Ch 22: Hungry and cruel

Dantes walked back to his cave, his mind forming plans on top of plans on top of plans in the midst of the euphoria he was experiencing. The immediate threat was gone, and now he had more tools to work with than he’d ever had before. He felt like he’d just done a fat line of dust. He didn’t just need to survive and wallow, he could build, maybe even find a way out of the Pit.

It had happened before. There was Tristan two lives, a mage that had managed to remove his collar by killi...

Ch 21: I was made for the stage

“Alright mutt, want to take your place on the stage? Or do we need to drag you up here?”

Dantes smirked. “Don’t worry, I was made for the stage.” He began walking forward, his escort dispersing now that it seemed like the elves were going to honor their part of the bargain. He saw Tel grinding his teeth as he walked toward the it, and saw Pinion wearing an impish grin. Maybe if he was lucky he’d be able to kill him too.

Dantes climbed up, and Reivare leapt up on to it ...

Downtown Druid EPUB/PDF Ch 1-20

For those catching up

Ch 20: A fools game

Once all Dantes’ preparation was done, he returned to the Collared to find not just Wane, but Tel waiting for him by their entrance. He felt the rats that were trailing him slip through cracks in the walls, or scurry through dark corners as the majority of them made their way to the undermarket. Roughly two dozen stayed near him, including a couple he’d tied mirror shards to. He trusted Merle to do his best to keep things civil, and he already knew that the Kings had accepted the deal tha...

Ch 19: I have squats to do

Merle chuckled at his own joke, then grabbed a rag and began wiping the sweat from his oddly muscular frame. He stretched his neck left, then right, eliciting audible cracks each time that made Wane flinch. He stood and approached them.

“Let’s not waste any time. One of my people is almost certainly on their way to sell you out and tell the Kings that you’re here, ripe for the murdering.” He lifted the top part of his robe back up and over his torso, leaving the majority of his ...

Ch 18: Dead man walking

Dantes looked over the rats arranged before him. They ranged from black to white, with a few having the same brown coloration as Jacopo. Some were large and well fed, others slim and starved. All of them primarily focused on him aside from a few glances around the cavern.

He focused on a corner of the chamber.

Move

They obliged, all scrambling there without a second thought, moving over one another like a shifting pool of liquid fur. He checked the mark on his arm a...

Ch 17: A god? Of...rats?

It was dark, and cramped. Dantes could feel earth pressing down on him from all sides, but he felt oddly calm. The dark, and confining space felt natural, and comforting. Dantes moved through it, wriggling through the dirt and rock as naturally as he’d walk through a hallway, feeling pulled toward a destination.The tunnel he was in opened up into a larger chamber and he stood up, though doing so felt oddly unnatural. In front of him was a strange gray wheel spinning in mid air, at least tha...

Ch 16: He wanted to rule it

Dantes stayed in Syn’s room for a few more hours, waiting for the coast to clear. He may have failed with his plan, but he was alive and that meant he still had options. Jacopo’s condition remained unchanged. Dantes could no longer feel his lifeforce slipping out, but he also didn’t seem to be improving. Dantes counted the pieces of broken mirror. There were thirteen shards. He could no longer use them to bargain, or to acquire resources for himself, but there was still one option left ...

Ch 15: Head shape that indicates low cunning

Two dwarves dragged Dantes through their halls, and out to the entrance of their territory by the maw, then tossed him out. He was battered, bruised, and his plan was in tatters. He made a fist, feeling the sand at the entrance to the pit slide through his fingers. It was familiar, the only difference between being thrown into the maw this time and the last time, was that this time didn’t also come with the sting of betrayal.

He stood and looked around. A few scrawny looking dwarves, ...

Ch 14: The possibilities are endless

Dantes didn’t have to walk much further to reach the first dwarf. He was short and stocky, which was unsurprising, with a shaved head and a long braided beard full of decorations of bone and carved stone. A large stone hammer was leaned against the wall next to him as he observed the hall with a calm sturdiness.

He noticed Dantes as he approached, and casually lifted the hammer off the wall to hold it in his hands.

“The fuck are you doing here, Mutt,” he asked, sounding almo...

Ch 13: Too small a meal

They began walking through the tunnels, Tek leading the way as they moved. Even with him guiding them around traps, Dantes still tested the ground with his metal rod, and stayed on his guard, as did Jacopo. Still, it began to seem as if his fear was unwarranted. Tek was very careful to take him around the traps, even moving him around those that wouldn’t have triggered for him, but would activate for Dantes due to his greater height and weight.

Eventually they reached a large...

Ch 12: The cannibalism didn't bother him much

The clapping made Dantes jump, but he kept himself from lunging into the nearest of the kobolds in an attempt to take them down before they could take him down.

“Good job with the lock,” said one of them to his left. His scales were green with flecks of gold and he spoke at an odd, deliberate pace.

“Yes, very impressive for one of the clumsy handed races,” said a different one. He was red with a single silver eye and he spoke with a bit more confidence.

A third, blac...

Ch 11: Taller than a dwarf. Bit shorter than me.

Once he was done following through with the odd compulsion he felt, surprisingly, revitalized. As if the planting he’d done had been restorative for him somehow. That didn’t seem right, but whatever his new abilities were, he didn’t know all the rules yet, and that meant all he could do was roll with it until the pieces all came into place. Or ask someone, but he was still of the mind that he needed to play things as close to the chest as possible.

He’d decided, in the midst of ...

Ch 10: You are strange

“You’re fucked. Absolutely fucked!” said Tel, as Dantes lead him through the remaining passages to Collared territory.

“Probably, but it’s not your problem so don’t worry about it.”

They ducked beneath a collapsed section of wall and into a tight hallway.

“They had actual blades. Not just whittled down pieces of old metal, fresh iron, hot from the forge.”

“All the gangs have access to real weapons…except the Orcs. Though they’ve likely stolen a ...

Ch 9: Or mad. Or Dead

“Roast meat?” asked Dantes.

“Yes, that’s what magic smells like to me.” said Televor, turning the mirror over in his hands. “And this smells to me like a Lady of the Hearth feast to end all feasts.”

“Don’t get too attached. I’ll be keeping that once you’re done helping me.”

“This is what you needed? For me to decipher its use?”

“I have a general idea of its use. It’s meant to transfer goods from outside the prison. There’s a s...

Ch 8: I really don't want to be stabbed

Tel’s room was much as Dantes had expected it to be. A small stack of books in one corner, crudely carved incantation along the surface of the walls, a cushion on the floor, and a pile of them in the corner atop which Tel laid, snoring softly. Dantes knocked on the wall with his knuckles in an attempt to wake him, but he didn’t stir. Well, I tried, he thought before giving into his natural instincts and began searching the room. Among the books, he found nothing uncommon, which was likely...

Ch 7: Do you think they'll treat you kindly?

Dantes turned the mirror over in his hands, looking for some kind of activation rune, but found nothing. He could tell the item was magical, there was a feeling to things that had magic. It presented differently for everyone. Some people heard a low hum, others said the air around magic smelled like the air before a storm, others would feel a chill up their spine. For Dantes it was a tingling in the tips of his fingers. He felt that sensation keenly as he held the mirror.

His attention ...

Ch 6: Skittered away

Jacopo moved with practiced ease through the narrow crevices within the walls. This was his home, and he knew its paths and temperament better than even his ancestors had. He peered out of a crack to observe the nearby room. He saw a number of pointy eared creatures, elves Dantes had called them. He sniffed the air twice, counting around ten of them gathered, along with the smell of old bread and alcohol. There would be crumbs and puddles to sip from aplenty when they were done. Jacopo was af...

Ch 5: Your kind can be slow

Dantes looked at the rat, watching as it nibbled on the piece of potato that he’d just thrown at him.

“Did you just talk?” he asked.

The rat stopped eating, and swallowed the mouthful of food it had. “Yes?”

Dantes paused. “And you can understand me?”

The rat cocked its head. “Huh, yeah, I can actually. Strange.”

Dantes squinted. The rat looked the same as it had before. It was large, about the size of his foot, and mostly a reddish brown in colo...

Ch 4: Filthy mutt

Dantes pulled himself away from the fresh green scent and looked down at the dwarf, ignoring his comment in favor of asking a question.

“How did you grow all this down here?”

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “You trying to steal my secrets?”

“No, I’m asking for them directly.”

The merchant chuckled, taking a pull from his pipe and letting some smoke seep slowly out of his mouth. “Mutt’s like you wouldn’t know, but the Pit is a big place. Us dwarves have...

Ch 3: It doesn't matter how you look

On either side of the entrance to the market stood dwarven guards, members of the smallfolk consortium, known by anyone outside it as the smallfuck consortium. They ran the undermarket, and the gang was made up of halflings, gnomes, and the smattering of kobolds and dwarves that had either joined willingly for the perks or been hired on as muscle. Initially I expected the smaller races to be at a distinct disadvantage in the Underprison, but there were a lot of benefits to being small in a se...

Ch 2: You'll owe me a favor

Dantes cut one of the potatoes in two using a sharp outcropping of rock in the corner, then he took a few pieces of dried meat, a bit of hardtack, and a few grapes and set to eating. He poured some water over the hardtack to soften it as he ate the rest, hearing the rat eating in the corner as they each ate their separate meals. When he was done, he went to the spot where fresh water dripped from the ceiling, and used it to rinse the blood off of his hands before drying them on his jacket. He...

Ch 1: The Maw

The crowd was packed together closely, writhing in a mass of loud, screaming flesh covered in the scent of sweat and misery. It was the first day of the month, and that meant one thing, fresh meat. The noise began to build as they saw activity at the top of the maw. Men pushed and shoved each other to get a better look as they saw guards and goods start to take their places at the edges of the pit.

Dantes watched everything unfold from the edges. He knew from experience how dangerous it...

Patreon

Hello everyone,

I've decided, after two weeks of thinking on it, not to continue with this patreon. The amount of effort I put into it is just not worth it for me at this time. This is partially my own fault, as if I'd set up an easier tier system and simplified things for myself from the beginning then it would've run much more smoothly, and I may try again with that in mind if I ever get enough chapters banked. I've already paused for the month, and I want to say that I appreciate eve...

Paused Payment for August

Hey everyone, 

I'm planning on placing both Deadman and Young World on a two week hiatus while I rebuild my backlog and do a bit of extra outlining. As such I'm pausing the billing for August. You'll still get some advanced chapters this month, but I didn't want to charge people for only providing those chaps for part of the month. You don't have to do anything on your end.

The hiatus will begin after Ch: 60 of both books is posted next Tuesday. Conveniently it's the final ch...

Deadman Ch 59: Pre-flight Checklist

“You trading, or paying?” asked Bill.

“Paying.”

He rubbed his chin. “3 points.”

“Seems a little steep. Especially considering you weren’t able to sell it to him,” she gestured at me with a tilt of her head.

I was surprised she had been able to slip into the store without my noticing. Particularly since my senses were in overdrive from the recent bloodshed. She was disguised as a normal waster. She wore worn out rags and cracked sunglasses, along with ...

Young World Ch 59: Ctrl V

The reflections walked out of the mirror, and moved to stand in front of us. They looked exactly as we did, even wearing the same confused expressions we were as we all stared at one another. The Tib’s raised their shields in suspicion of on another, our Millicent started making arcane gestures behind her back which meant theirs was too, the Patience’s were sizing one another up while slowly moving their daggers into position, the Nica’s were staring at one another with their bowstrings...

Deadman Ch 58: Rosy Language

I started my walk back to Jasper, going through my notifications as I did so.

Excellent work Marshall! You’ve successfully performed a secondary goal of your job ‘Combat’! You’ve earned 60 Patriot Points!

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned ranks in Long guns! Good job exercising your 2nd amendment rights!

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in tracking! Like the brave indian on the fertile grasses of the west following herds of...