James A. Hunter

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Nine

It was full dark when they finished dressing and left the Irondown Burrows behind, trading in heated water and comfy beds for biting mosquitoes and the gloomy shadows engulfing the Forest of Chlorophyll Chaos. Arrow was disgruntled and Dizzy seemed to be on the hangry side of things—Velkan insisted that they forgo eating—while the Wolfman was as stoic as ever. But Kai and Bill both seemed to be in good moods and Sam was actually feeling pretty happy with the choice. He was tired ...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Eight

Sam dismissed the sword with a thought and an effort of will, then took a quick moment to survey the battlefield.

Dizzy was busy bludgeoning one of poor unfortunate droids into the ground with her war maul, though she looked decidedly worse for the wear. She was limping badly, and one arm hung mostly useless at her side—burned thanks to the arc welder attached to one of the automaton’s hands. But the droid had also suffered its fair share of damage. Its body was littered with dings ...

Viridian Gate Online 8 - Cover Reveal

Hey everyone excited to share this awesome cover with y'all! The final cover in the main VGO series, Empirical Endgame! What do you all think?

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Seven

“Well, is it warded?” Dizzy asked.

The team crouched at the top of a short descending staircase which ended at a set of impressively large bronze double doors, studded with rivets. A simple lever, protruding from the wall on the left appeared to be the activation mechanism, but no one wanted to pull it until they were sure the door was the onlything it activated.

“Looks clean to me,” Arrow said with a shrug. “Guess we’re gonna have to pull it to find out for s...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Six

The sun was hanging high overhead and sweat was streaking down Sam’s face when they finally pushed through a swatch of bushy ferns and hanging moss. The trek through the Forest of Chlorophyll Chaos had been exactly as difficult as Sam had envisioned. The second they crossed over some mystic barrier, they disappeared in the span of an eyeblink, their whole party materializing deep in a boggy section of forest with sucking mud pits, a tangle of creeping vines, and swarms of biting mosquitoes....

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tet let her scarab drop to the ground and it started to grow and didn’t stop until it was a massive monster, covered in hard black armor, with curved swords instead of mandibles—actually, they were massive khopeshes, swinging back and forth in front of the tank-sized scarab.

At the same time, Logan drew forth his Skullcap Waddlers, armed with crimson coral blades attached to sturdy sticks. Mariah Carey who raised her weapon. She was about to let out a mighty war cry when Logan shush...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next two weeks raced by in a series of grueling days of classes and even more brutal nights, spent tucked away in the Library or cultivating and strategizing inside the walls of the Coliseum. But by the end of it, Logan and Tet were as ready as they were ever going to be. Hopefully, it would be enough. Both Professor Zantho and Professor Arketa made it abundantly clear that the siege of the simulated town was a critical mid-term and the single biggest test outside of finals since it broug...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Five

Sam wrapped up his work, bound the final set of pages into his Fire Shuriken Tome, then headed over to the campfire where the rest of the team was milling around in a rather leisurely fashion. Surprisingly, Arrow was up, though he looked more than half-asleep—purple bags under his eyes, his hair ruffled and standing up at odd angles. He’d probably stayed up too late drinking, which was how he spent most nights. Kai, by contrast, sat a ways off from the others, crossed-legged, fists presse...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Six

Logan and Tet stood in the inner sanctum of the Tartarucha Cells.

Logan again apologized for getting such an intimate look into her life. <Can I look really quick into what might have happened in the Submerged Hell?>

<Yes, please,> the cat woman replied. <I’m curious myself.>

Logan had to sift through more recent memories, and it was weird seeing himself through Tet’s eyes.

Tet had pitied him at first, this tiny little mushroom man always getting ...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Four

Sam blinked his eyes open, which felt all wrong since he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was asleep—passed out on his bedroll in the Wolfman outpost. With a grunt he gained his feet and took a long gander around. The yurt was gone, so was the dancing fire, and the wooden palisade walls that enclosed Narvik. Instead, Sam found himself on a vast plain inside his own head. The space he’d come to think of as his Soul Chamber. He’d been here many times before, guided by Mage Akora d...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Five

That night, Logan climbed up the Ladder Hole and knocked on Inga’s door.

A second later, Logan heard her voice inside his head. <Why, hello, Logan. Did you survive the dressing down you received from Professor Zantho?>

<Yeah, and it wasn’t as bad as you’d think. It was bad, don’t get me wrong, but the worst part about it was that I think she’s going to try and make my mid-term harder. Speaking of which, I need to talk with you about something.>

A second...

Shadowcroft Year 2 Cover Reveal!

Hey everyone! Here's the Shadowcroft Year 2 Cover Reveal! I love how bright it is and I think the artist nailed Marko. Totally spot on. What does everyone else think? 

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Four

The holidays passed, the new year began, and Monday morning, Logan found himself at his Offensive Dungeon Design class with Melvin, the First Cohort, and the Ninth Circle cohort.

Professor Zantho had them assemble in the Golden Serpent Hall, which was strange, but no one was going to say word one against the fairy fetch. They’d all learned that lesson early on. Even Marko.

Professor Zantho was dressed in her Greek warrior gear, wings buzzing and throwing colorful sweet-smelling ...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Three

“Greetings, whelps,” Yurij BrightBlood snarled, opting to use the human tongue instead of speaking wolfman. Although Sam spoke the language of the People almost fluently, the rest of his pack members weren’t quite so far along. And although Bill knew every word, he couldn’t properly speak at all since so much of the communication had to do with body language. A fact that Bill felt personally slighted by. Discrimination against the bodiless, he said. The fact that Yurij was one of the ...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Three

It took Logan a week to get used to his new body, and it took another couple weeks until the other faculty, students, and staff stopped looking at him funny. A lot of the cores at the school simply didn’t recognize the tall, dark, and handsome mushroom man strutting his stuff all over campus.

Logan loved the glares he got from Chadrigoth and the First Cohort. It wasn’t so much his size; couldn’t be because Logan was still far smaller than either the abyss lord or Jimi Magmarty. It...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter Two

By the time Sam and his crew got back to the wolfman outpost of Narvik, the sun was lingering just above the horizon, threatening to disappear at any moment. Not that Sam had to worry about the setting sun the way the rest of the human-aligned players did. Sure, the threats that roamed the land after sunset were serious business, but the biggest threat of all was the wolfmen themselves—and that, at least, was one enemy Sam and company didn’t have to fret over. Still, though, it w...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Two

Logan had to throw the weary minotaur a bone. “It’s okay, Treac. I’ve basically made up my mind already. It wasn’t easy, though. Here,let me show you where we’re at.”

                                                    ...

Libriohexer (Wolfman Warlock Book 2) - Chapter One

A bird chirped off in the distance, its shrill cry cutting through the gentle rustle of grass and the whisper of the wind. It wouldn’t be long now, Sam knew. He reached up and swiped a hand across his forehead, obliterating the sweat trickling down his face. It was hot out here on the plains, waist high stalks of grass fighting against the party at every step—and the fact that he was in heavy, brown wool noob gear didn’t help things at all. He couldn’t wait to swap out this trash gear...

Writing and Publishing Update!

Hey everyone, sorry it's been quiet around here for the past few weeks. Things have been a little turbulent over at Shadow Alley Press. Our former Operations Manager, Kelly, left us. She's a great lady and is going to stay on as one of our editors, but she had to leave due to family circumstances. We were really sad to see her go for a ton of reasons, foremost among them that she is an awesome person and a great friend. Unfortunately, she also handled a ton of our administrative work at Shado...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-One

Logan stood in front of a full-length mirror in Treacle’s room, which was part machine-shop and part steampunk mad scientist’s laboratory. Little mechanical creatures marched here and there, and every so often, a fork of lightning would erupt from some contraption somewhere.

However, there were some homey elements as well. A merry fire crackled in the fireplace. A thick scarlet comforter lay on a bed half-covered in clockwork gears. A small army of plastic garden gnomes lined one wa...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty

Logan had no choice. The Boundless Wheel technique couldn’t handle the energy flowing through him. In desperation, he switched to the Radiant Serpent Under the Glowing Moon Technique. He pressed his eyes shut tight and envisioned his core. It was a perfect marble of jade and gray energy, shot through with veins of golden power. Always before there had been spindly threads of energy trailing from his core; but no longer. Boundless Wheel had done its job well, transforming Logan’s center in...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Nineteen

The next day Logan and company limped out into the Akros Coliseum. They hadn’t gotten much sleep. There had been more honey-covered fried foods, and Melvin and Inga talked spoons, but they didn’t talk about Melvin’s cookbook. Also, after Treacle made sure Logan was okay, the minotaur left Vralkag, but he hadn’t returned to his room. The minotaur came in hours later, waking Logan up when the big bull man climbed up the ladder up to his room.

That put a pall on an otherwise fun ni...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Eighteen

Inga’s antennae were tight against her head. “Something is wrong with Treacle, and he won’t talk about it.”

Marko was clueless. “Maybe he’s just not feeling well? Like he said. Bad grass? The cud not sitting well in his third stomach? Or maybe he needs to be milked?”

“You do that with cows,” Logan pointed out. “And don’t make the joke I know you want to make.”

“What joke?” Marko shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Maybe bull boy just needs some space. ...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Seventeen

Days later, Sunday evening, Logan and his friend emerged from the Dungeon Interchange of Entrances, or the DIE portal outside the Bone Vaults, the most undead of Arborea’s undead dungeons. The Bone Vaults had a massive necrotic entrance made of interlocking bones a 164 feet high and 148 feet wide. It was the Arc de Triomphe of skeletal structures. While there were mostly human bones, the remains of other creatures had been thrown in for fun, most notably a fully ossified dragon.

Aroun...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Sixteen

Logan stood at one the windows in the Golden Serpent Hall that faced the Akros Coliseum. He was wondering if Rainsap was going to have their class outside. He hoped so. That chill rain would make cultivating difficult, and Logan wanted a challenge for once.

Like that would ever happen.

It had been ten weeks since the death of Ed the Rot Troll. Ten weeks of Rainsap telling them they had to get in touch with their feelings. He was the worst.

All that autumn, Logan had been wor...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Fifteen

That night, Logan headed down the spiral staircase that led to the school’s library—he had his friends had a study session tonight. Originally, they’d planned on an extra training session in the arena, but after what had happened in the Mines of Madness Logan could hardly walk. It had taken Ned and Zed—the Treegee medics—hours to put his guardian form back together, and Logan still wasn’t one hundred percent. Lady Elesiel’s skeletal minions had definitely gone overboard in their...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Fourteen

“Keep my Guardian form safe, Noddle Doddle,” he said before sending his consciousness into the overgrown centipede floor boss. This was the ace up his sleeve. His symbiosis ability. Both his minions and Ingas had previously been infected with Braincap mushrooms. Those green fungal growths would allow Logan to effortlessly take direct control of any infected minion. He would also be able to directly use any of the abilities they happened to have. More than that, though, he could also tap i...

Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Thirteen

Logan and Inga moved forward, a little worried about what this psycho fairy would do to them. Professor Zantho had been made for boot camp movies—she was the stereo-typical drill sergeant in miniature Amazon armor.

Lady Elesiel also stepped from the ranks.

“Good luck, Logan!” Melvin called.

Chadrigoth’s corresponding laughter brimmed with malice.

Logan rolled his eyes and brushed off the remark not even bothering with a reply. Logan had been an underdog fightin...

Shadowcroft Year 2 - Art

Hey everyone! Finally got in the art for Shadowcroft 2. No title treatment yet, but man do I love this one. Bright and shinny and awesome, plus it's great to see Marko and Logan together. Marko is exactly the way I envisioned him. Fun and easy going and perpetually drunk. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below! 

Inkslinger Show - Intro Ep 1

Hey everyone, me and my buddy Aaron Michael Ritchey are doing a little Youtube show thing. Just once a week where we kind of chat about books, or writing, or (mostly) popular media, like shows and movies. I'll post these here on Patreon. If you have comments or questions, drop them below! Hope you guys enjoy.