QuietValerie

Next focus story, etc

So, if you've seen my scribblehub profile or the discord, you might know that I've been doing something unthinkable for me- I've been editing one of my stories. With the power of the new meds, I've made it all the way to chapter 45 (so far) of Lieforged Gale, fixing the mistakes of unmedicated past-authorbun and... to be honest, it's been hell. The sheer quantity of notes that a LITRPG-lite produces is staggering, and that's before you factor in the wider troubleverse.

Somehow, despite...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 81

The moment we stepped out into the wind and snow, we lost the ability to communicate except for vague hand gestures. I’d opted to make this trip as Silver, after first finding Charles as Kaia to inform him that I was going to go snuggle up somewhere warm to think about the steam engine.

So it was as Silver that I held the door open for Chloe while we bustled into the foyer where Chloe had originally been doing her growing experiments.

Closing the door, I was alarmed when it resi...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 80

I was still thinking about the enchantment walking staff as we left the workshop. It hadn’t done anything when I played around with the finished metal engraving. Not even when I sang at it, which was kinda disappointing. Maybe Chloe could help me, or possibly it would just be a useful tool for anyone taking the conductor role in a ritual chant—Make it easier to hold the sigil together. All thoughts of rituals and etching fled the moment we reached the stairs, and there was a very good rea...

Digital Exodus Chapter 27

“Alia,” Rusti said urgently. “Plug the phone in. We'll spoof your location and draw the cops off your trail.”

“Right,” I said quietly, still slightly stunned by the sudden ejecting of the cop from our van.

There were several data cables on little spools for exactly this sort of occasion, so I pulled one out and attached it. The phone—a rectangle of transparent polymer with a silvered bezel—took the little cable and happily asked if I wanted to est...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 79

“Here,” Chloe said, laying the piece of paper down on the desk in the classroom she'd claimed. All her plants were in here now too, lined up on the thick windowsill. A windowsill that was now covered in badly cured animal pelts to keep out the freezing cold. It even muted the screaming wind as it plucked at the building, desperate to find purchase in the steel and concrete construction.

On the desk where Chloe had been working was a simple snowflake shape drawn on paper, but heavily...

Digital Exodus Chapter 26

The cop car I’d just eviscerated with two hundred and eleven bullets was only the first. Dozens more were hurtling up from behind as the civilian traffic desperately pulled aside in an attempt not to become casualties in the senseless crusade the police were conducting against us.

Careening down the freeway past the cars, I set myself in a more stable position and began to fire much more controlled bursts from the LMG. At first I aimed for tires, but the cops had similar ones to ours,...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 78

The morning after returning from our trip, I headed to the workshop. Snow covered everything, and only thin paths had been shovelled out. April's forge, at least, appeared to be free of snow… until I realised it was covered in ice.

April saw me as I approached and waved a tired greeting in my direction while she hammered away at something with a wooden mallet.

“Kaia.” She said, groaning and standing up so she could stretch her back out.

Holy hell. Everything in the for...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 77

It took us around the same amount of time to get back from the quarry to Edgewood, but that was because we had to stop singing for a day due to the cold air of the eternal winter—it was like razor blades in our windpipes.

Getting back under the cloud cover might’ve saved our eyes from the sun, but it was far from fun. The cold was… hideously biting, and our metabolisms had to rush to regain the burn rate that just a few days ago they’d started to cycle down. Strangely, it almost...

Digital Exodus Chapter 25

The van lurched as Gloria wove through increasingly panicked civilian traffic. Traffic that the cops didn't care at all about hitting with their excessive attempts to stop us.

“Damn it, how many missiles do those birds have— Motherfucker!” The whole van bounced and tipped alarmingly. Gloria, even as she continued to swear up a storm, righted the van with a deft twist of the steering wheel. “Alia! Pop the door and take them out! I threw the MANPADS under th...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 76

“Why aren't you angry?” I asked tentatively as we picked our way back through the woods towards the camp.

The coyote corpses were left behind, neither of us had the will or energy to lug the useful parts all the way back to Edgewood. It was also very much at the bottom of my priority list right about then.

Even in the dark I could see the side eye that Chloe was throwing in my direction. “Why would I be angry?”

“Because I didn't tell you a very important secret,...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 75

Chloe was a lot quieter on her feet than me, so I couldn't actually find her in the darkness. The sounds of combat continued ahead, though, so they were my beacon.

I heard when she arrived on the scene, because there was a series of shrill, terrified animal cries. A dull thump echoed through the trees a few moments later, to be quickly followed by a strange hissing sound.

Scrambling over a log, I tried to get a better fix on where the sounds were coming from. Was it— a staccat...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 74

Edit: Fixed Double discovery of Dolostone with chapter 70 (This chapter was edited so that it's just reiterating the discovery).

Keep those continuity error corrections coming when you see them people! Thanks Gabby for pointing this one out!

My biggest worry after seeing the eternal grudge match that had personified the previously mundane struggle of machine versus stone, was how we were going to sleep. Every time one of the golems died, the very ai...

Digital Exodus Chapter 24

Just like us digital sapients, our van was significantly more terrifying than it appeared.

Frame-jacked to the nines and back, the SWAT team threatening the van appeared to be standing motionless around it. Their plan hadn't been a bad one. If their opening attack didn't kill us, then we'd still be stranded after they removed our means of escape. Unfortunately for them, I had remote access to the van, and it had a bunch of automated turrets.

Rapidly designating the SWAT people as ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 73

I got barely any sleep, thanks to my own dumbass brain. So little sleep, in fact, that I dozed my way through the watch period while Chloe actually kept an eye out for problems. She appeared not to mind, other than giving me several looks that ranged from bemused to concerned.

One by one, the others began to wake up, and soon we were sharing a tough, stringy meal in the quiet morning.

“Hey guys,” Chloe said, after taking a swig of water. “I wanted to try something while we w...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 72

I said nothing about Chloe's flirtatious pet name for me as we cleaned up after the fight. I said nothing when we put foot to path, either. I couldn't. My whole fucking brain was scrambled, to the point that I had to not so subtly nudge Ollie until we were far enough away from everyone else to have a murmured conversation.

“What is it, Kaia?” She asked, curiously. “You're acting mega skittish.”

“I'm— I need your help,” I replied, idly hopping a ditch to get onto the ...

Digital Exodus Chapter 23

Jason’s fist hit the door gently, but the sound was still jarring in the eerie quiet of the back streets. Nobody moved as the knock echoed between the tightly packed temporary housing units, although I noticed everyone save for me had their guns at the ready.

There was silence for a long time, until the door suddenly flew open and a very short, somewhat overweight woman hurtled out and collided with Jason.

“Jason!” She cried, voice shrill with emotion.

“Oh, shit!” ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 71

We got permission to go on the trip, but then we spent four days waiting for ‘Silver’ to show up so she could be asked to help. Silver, of course, did not show up. The Captain was hesitant to let us go when I didn’t show up as Silver, especially over “some stone bricks for a forge”. When we mentioned that we might need those bricks for defences, other buildings down the line, or any other crafting project that needed stone, he reluctantly agreed.

So, after a day's preparation ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 70

Halfway through making the focus for Brielle, the three of us realised something. If we changed where the inside loop of the handle-shaped focus was, we could let her cast with pretty exceptional accuracy from the palm of her hands. It took only one test with a jury rigged prototype for us to realise she looked like she was blasting things Iron Man style. So yeah, the blaster focus was born right there. It also turned out that what she’d said earlier about the ‘smooth’ way that the moun...

Digital Exodus Chapter 22

With one day left before the Cherish arrived, we were on the clock in a very anxiety-inducing way. Despite having an address for where Jason's stepdad was hanging out, we had no way of knowing where that actually was in this inscrutable labyrinthine warren of humanity. See, addresses in this place were more like… suggestions than actual places. Plus, it appeared that the stepdad had set his app to be a drop point rather than having the food brought to the door.

So, we w...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 69

A couple of days after the sawmill frame was finished, I finally found a crossbow cocking design that worked for me. Inside the stock, below the flight groove, I installed what the medieval weapons book called a crannequin. The one in the book was very different to mine, but the broad idea was the same—A straight metal rod that was attached to some sort of leverage mechanism.

Mine was actually quite funny, because the mechanism I copied was fairly ubiquitous among folks who'd ever nee...

Digital Exodus Chapter 21

Okay, I have 3 chapters of this scheduled now with a release cadence of 1 every 5 days. I think I can keep this up tbh. It's feeling very doable- having patreon story posting every 5 days and public main story every 3 days. I hope this works for everyone! :D

“Here, I think they're starting,” Roger said, throwing up a shared virtual screen.

To anyone not hooked into our group, it'd look like we were staring at the blank wall of a dingy hotel room...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 68

The next two days saw my friends and I going out to fell tree after tree in the area directly surrounding the tower. There was a small part of me that was worried about chopping down too many trees, but the woodland area extended out into what used to be the outskirts of the suburbs and even beyond. There were enough trees that a reforestation effort wouldn't be needed for a decade or more.

While we were cutting trees, I had a few mages digging out several post holes in the area that us...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 67

The Bandoners didn't stick around long after we gave them the samples and a map of the dangers around Edgewood. I did give Brielle an orb from our stockpile, though, and explained how I found one of their people dead and frozen with an orb. I'd used the one he had, but I figured it'd be a nice gesture to return an orb to them, at least. Brielle was grateful, and she said she thought she might’ve known who I found.

When all was said and done, and it was just me, the Captain, a...

Digital Exodus Chapter 20

Hi! So my plan is to try and have a 5 day release cadence for this story from here on out. I don't have too much of a backlog, though, so we'll see if that pans out. Either way, I hope you enjoy, and as always, let me know if you see any continuity issues or whatever. Troubleverse is a hell of a setting to write in nowadays considering all the different stories and my previous utter lack of note-taking. (It's crazy, but I did actually start taking notes recently, so hurray! Progre...

2024-05-20 14:09:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 66

We picked out and began to fell some trees while we swapped stories and information with our new friends. They were very interested in our weapons and armour, which were significantly better than theirs. Then, in passing, I mentioned Edgewood’s food issues, and that had the Bandoners sharing a bunch of meaningful looks.

“We have plenty of food,” Brielle said after a few moments. “A ton of our older folks went and chose gardener classes for some reason. Now we have a full food fo...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 65

“I can't believe he took away my hex bags,” Chloe pouted, folding her arms as we left the admin block. Then she glared at me. “Oh, and I'm not forgetting that you gave that kid my knife!”

“I agree with the Captain, you can't be trusted with weapons right now,” I said, trying not to show how amused I was. “Plus, the kid was pretty excited to have a knife that's been stabbed into a dude.”

“Vicious little cretin,” she grumbled, still pouting.

I couldn't help...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 64

Harmonic Chanting, it turned out, was a way for large numbers of people to sing huge ritualistic spells into being. The book was mostly about how to apply the concept to building roads and digging drainage ditches by having everyone sing a song that greatly increased their work speed. It was fascinating stuff, but not really something we could use right then.

“I wonder what other rituals these people had,” Chloe said wistfully, laying her head down on the table to stare at the spine...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 63

“You’re not going to kill it,” Cynath told us the moment I suggested killing the Storm Bird.

Frowning, I shared a momentary look with the Captain and asked, “Why?”

“Your current martial abilities are simply not up to the task. Even if you mustered every man, woman, and child within these walls, it would not be enough,” my goddess explained sombrely.

“We've gotta do something Cynath,” The Capt...