nixia_writes

Main Project Poll

Hey everyone,

I'm in every author's favorite place: caught between two projects!  Now that Dungeon Devotee is just about ready to fully fall to once-per-month, I have two different options for what I'll write next.  Rather than doing what a normal human being would do and carefully weighing my excitement, the marketing appeal, and potential pros and cons of each project, I did what most writers do and started writing both.

So now I have two chapter 1s and I need your hel...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Clear the Air

Edmund emerged to false sunshine and a warm breeze and the rhythmic crash of lapping waves. His boots sank into loose sand. His eyes glimpsed a dark cliff to his right, a calm sea to his left, and a golden haired girl with fierce green eyes in front of him.

“Edmund!” Amelia Morathian, crown princess to the kingdom of Linaria, greeted him with surprise and joy on her face. Before Edmund got a chance to appraise her growth since last they’d parted, be...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Up in Smoke

Edmund trod upon not rough but sturdy stone nor packed earth nor soft soil, but carved and springy wood. The fresh smell of sap and pluming leafage just barely snuck past the overwhelming acridity in the air to reach his nose. There seemed to be more smoke than normal, but Edmund had long given up questioning the details of his Madness. He peered past it at his immediate surroundings. They weren’t much.

He stood upon a narrow balcony overlooking ...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Across the Frozen Lake

Edmund emerged into howling wind and biting chill. The world shined white all around him, a flurry of snow blown about by the unceasing gale obscuring all but a few feet ahead. All Edmund’s eyes could make out were two steep hillsides walling him in, forming a path ahead and into the blizzard.

He slid his hand into his satchel and rooted around, only stopping when he managed to slip his finger through the rough stone of his swelter ring.

...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: A Different Kind of Field

Edmund fell backwards out of the entrance, landing hard on his backside upon a cool metallic floor. The azure fox was nowhere to be seen. Well aware of the rules about safety in entryways, Edmund’s first instinct was to open his constellation and view the upgrade to his sigil, but a familiar voice behind him took precedence.

“I’ll give him this; his entrances aren’t nearly as good as his exits.”

A pasty hand appeared i...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: For I Must Scream

Edmund emerged onto a narrow platform of porous black stone. Waves of heat wafted both from over the platform’s edge and through the stone itself, drawing beads of sweat from his brow. Dark storm clouds roiled above, threatening yet failing to deliver on their promise of relief from the unrelenting swelter.

Already Edmund could see the exit ahead of him, open in the wall on the opposite end of the circular space. Between him and it sat open air and ...

The Wish - Part 5

Happy April Fools!  You can read part 1 here, or continue on to your regularly scheduled chapter.

----

Edmund had grown mostly certain the genie wasn’t real.

It stood to reason.  No being could fathomably manipulate the Eternal Depths to such an extent other than the Depths itself.  It had to be some trick of Liam’s,...

Dungeon Devotee - Interlude 1

Interlude: Into the Darkness

Edmund stepped into a white room. Its walls stretched no more than twenty feet apart, its ceiling hanging but three above Edmund’s head. Across it stood the exit, already open, the darkness behind it already beckoning to him. First, he had to get past the room’s sole occupant.

Liam.

The dungeon’s avatar sat at an ornate wrought iron garden table, a furnishing clearly designed for an outdoor space cluttered with nature. In the plain, sterile...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The True Value of a Cup of Ale

“A word of advice,” Liam’s voice greeted Edmund the moment he set foot on the hardwood floor, “don’t drink the ale.”

Edmund blinked as the words mingled in his ears with the chorus of laughter and singing and conversation that saturated the space around him. “There’s ale?”

“Aye, there’s ale,” a woman answered, clearly thinking Edmund’s question directed at her. “Chest here grants one token to each delver ...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 15

[I think this is my favorite chapter so far.  I hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write!]

Chapter 15: The Unreal Touches Back

Edmund emerged into a cramped and gloomy chamber, a cave by any definition of the word. Rough, natural-seeming stone made up the walls and ceiling, from which pointed stalactites hung in chaotic formation. The floor, as per usual, was unnaturally flat, still rough and formed of stone, yet missing pillars and stalagmites and other obstructions ...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Slings and Arrows

Edmund stepped into a room lit partially by a smokeless torch on either side of the entrance, but overwhelmingly by the pale light of day blasting through the doorless doorway opposite him. He squinted as his eyes struggled to adjust to the bright outside and the comparatively gloomy chamber.

The floor and walls were stone, cut and carved rather than the natural formations of a cave. Edmund thought the construction rather resembled that of the prison ...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Among the Charcoal Trees

Edmund stood upon a bed of ash.

Woodlands stretched out around him, trees of all shapes and sizes littered the flat landscape, sparse enough to allow free passage, yet dense enough to obscure his vision more than a dozen yards away. No branch bore leaves, no bark dripped sap, no root remained unscathed.

Edmund looked out into a forest of charcoal trees. Whatever fire had ravaged them had long passed, its heat vanishing to leave only a per...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: A Field of Blades and Blood

Edmund found himself alone in yet another stone room, lit by yet more smokeless torches, casting yet more dancing shadows upon the dark corners of the space. So ended the similarities to previous floors.

Instead of an enclosed beginning chamber with a passage to the level proper, instead of an empty section of hallway leading up to a junction or opening where the danger truly began, Edmund stood at the entrance, and the entire floor stretche...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Hints of the Past and Inklings of the Future

Edmund emerged to noise and light and heat.

The noise of humanity cascaded through the air, the all too familiar clatter of people buying and selling and laughing and lying. It sent a wave of relief coursing through him, a sense that he’d somehow left the dungeon behind and returned to the city streets and bustling squares he’d once called home. If only for a moment, he could forget where he was.

The light of a cle...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Don’t Fall

Immediate relief washed through Edmund’s mind as he felt the soft scratch of loose soil beneath his boot. He exhaled. It’d been some time since he’d stepped onto a floor and known he’d have a way to use his rootmother’s sigil. Not having to worry about how he’d find his next meal or drink of water freed that portion of his mind to focus on the things that mattered, like not dying in the next ten minutes.

A strong breeze swept across his face, d...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Through the Fingers of the Crimson Hand

Edmund emerged into a narrow hallway, his shadowhide boots stepping softly across even floor. Carved and mortared stone lined the walls and ceiling, its gray surface cold and uninviting. The smokeless torches hung in sconces, their tops decorated with studded iron rings through which the flame rose.

Liam didn’t show himself.

Perfectly happy to be left alone, Edmund surveyed the space around him.

The walls stretched s...

Looking Forward

Hey everyone!

As This Quest is Bullshit! comes to an end and Dungeon Devotee picks up, I want to take a moment and talk about the future of this patreon.  My original plan for Dungeon Devotee was to build up a backlog of 16 chapters before posting 1-6 publicly and keeping the remaining ten back for patreon.  Once that backlog was complete, the story would've moved to a monthly upload schedule while I worked on another project offline.

It has become clear I'm not going to...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Across the Basalt Steps

Edmund found himself standing upon a large, uneven surface, surrounded by walls on three sides and empty space on the fourth. Foot-wide hexagons made up the floor beneath him, each some inch or so higher or lower than its neighbors, resulting in a treacherously varied yet ultimately level platform overlooking the abyss before him.

Said abyss began roughly ten yards from the floor entrance, at which point the landing abruptly ended. Unwilling, for...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: No Lost Little Girl

Edmund stepped out into a cave. That is, having never actually seen one before, he stepped out into what he assumed caves looked like. A rough path of solid stone stretched out ahead of him, stalactites hung from the ceiling above, just out of reach, and dull gray rock lined both walls.

Rather than torches, the angry red glow of magma both lit and heated the space from where a large pool of it sat and bubbled in a natural basin in the corner. No fume...

Dungeon Devotee - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Signs of Life and the Azure