QuietValerie

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 18

We were attacked by some new enemies on our way back, and they were… odd. The squad leader, who was an avid hiker and bird-watcher, was the one who recognised their pre-storm counterparts. They were hooded warblers, except now they were four times their original size and could fire little stinging bolts of magic from their open mouths. Chloe claimed the magical projectiles they were firing at us were garlic mustard seeds, of all things. Apparently they were an invasive species around here.<...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 17

I rushed over to the firefighter and knelt beside him. The female firefighter, Chelsea, was attempting to stem the flow of blood but the hole was too big and there was too much wrong inside him. He was dying.

“Move!” The voice startled me, and I looked up to see Chloe pulling a bone, some flower petals and a big broad leaf out of a pouch at her waist.

I frowned. “What is that for?”

“I can’t do much but this will help stabilise him until we can get him back to the...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 16

Something was wrong. There were no monsters around. As we walked down the street towards the metalworking shop, nothing came out to try and kill us. In a way it was a relief, but only because we didn’t have to fight.

“Maybe we’ve killed most of the creatures around here?” Finn mused, fingering the haft of his axe nervously.

Thunder boomed in the distance, and I looked up into the sky. Storm clouds were coming in from the south. Maybe it was the storm that was driving the m...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 15

When I approached the charred corpse of the first redcap to die to my moonbeam, I crouched and poked at what was left of the monster with my new copper knife. “I don’t see anything.”

Feel for it. I’m too far away to pinpoint where it is, but it should be obvious in your mind. The… system, as you call it, should be gently highlighting it for you.

Doing as she suggested, I was almost instantly rewarded with a fuzzy… uh, the best way to describe ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 14

Once I was done riding that terrifying whirlwind of emotions, I very carefully packed them back into their little Pandora's box and stowed them in my mental freezer for later. I had a task to complete, and having a breakdown over my gender and name was not really all that productive.

From the bedroom I was in, I picked out a pair of thick jeans, another sports bra, a red tank top, and a heavy brown leather jacket. With the exception of the tank top, all of the clothing was a little smal...

Digital Exodus Chapter 10

Herding cats is just as hard as it’s made out to be, but we got Larry back together in an hour, after which they left to go investigate the data I gave them. Cerri and I were left to our own devices, which turned out to involve the shower, some soft silk rope, and for a change, me in charge.

Over the next two months we made very little progress towards the FTL drive. Larry was getting more and more confused every day as they tried to beat the FTL data until it fit with the kn...

Digital Exodus Chapter 9

Des arrived first and we put her up in our living room. When she asked what this was all about, we just excitedly winked and waited.

This would be the first time I'd met Larry in person, so I was interested to see what form they would take.

When they finally arrived, we were greeted with a tall, humanoid robot. They had thin lanky legs, a rounded body, metallic noodles for arms. Across their chest was a long visor of tinted black glass, but they also had a head with a screen on it...

Digital Exodus Chapter 8

The Turshen was dead. We pored over it for days and found more faults than we could even catalogue. The crew was more than a little saddened by the demise of our ship, but it was overshadowed by the wider implications. Right now, the UN thought that we had a fully capable warship, but now all we had was a hulk.

In an effort to pretend that we still had a working ship, we rewired the Turshen’s running lights so they drew power from a series of jury rigged power packs. It was critical t...

Digital Exodus Chapter 7

"What we need from all of you, Rangers, is your piloting skills," Desmonia continued. "I know, I know, many of you… suffer in that regard. That's fine. We're going to be putting all of our production capacity out in the jovian system towards creating a drone with a unique design. This drone has basic refinement capabilities, a very small onboard fabricator, and an FTLN node."

"Ah, sorry to be that person," May interjected, raising a hand. "It will actually be an Exodus Net node, or an...

Digital Exodus Chapter 6

My tail was so fluffy. It'd been years since I got it, and it was as much a part of me as any other part of my body. Today, though, it was being a pain.

Every time I tried to brush the wild fur back into place, it would stick out in a funny way again! Gah, I told Cerri that it wasn't a good idea to sleep on the sofa! Also, it was quite frankly fox-phobic that tails didn't auto-groom in Exodus City.

Giving up, I turned and pouted at my girlfriend, who was sitting ...

Digital Exodus Chapter 5

“Fuck, that is ugly,” Roger commented. “It’s not getting the Turshen name is it?”

Out of the small Callisto station window, haloed by the massive bulk of Jupiter, hung a large squat cylinder of alloy and composite. It looked like a beer can floating in space, and with nothing else nearby as a frame of reference, it might've been one. In reality, it was a ship with a length of thirty metres and a diameter of sixteen. At the front of the tube sat a large flat wall of armour, whi...

Digital Exodus Chapter 4

The room within the central Exodus City spire was a large, square affair with hardwood floors, chunky carved wooden pillars, and holographic tapestries that hung from the rafters. Around the room were several rows of seating that all faced inwards, where a recessed open area held a massive circular wooden table.

Today had been a long one, even stacked against the prior week. For five hours already, the de facto ruling council of the Exodus had discussed, debated, and argued about how to...

Digital Exodus Chapter 3

Once the threat posed by the UNSN had died down, the Turshen sailed back into Callisto orbit and we reconvened down at the moonside base. Joining us for the first time was May, the girl who’d complained about having to create a new government right after the attack, and Elissa in her first actual body, although it wouldn't be the final version. Oh and Desmonia, of course, but she was always around for this flavour of meeting.

The room we were meeting in was the typical utilitarian whi...

Digital Exodus Chapter 2

The rewrite is done!!! Many chapters were edited, there are several new ones, and some have switched places in the timeline. (This one and chapter 1 are relatively or entirely unchanged.) Have fun!

Several hundred light years from the Sol system from the perspective of Athe, Junior Gunnery Hand aboard the battleship Attare’s Spear.

The cheap synthetic fabric of my shirt clung to my sweaty back as I put my eye to the flak cannon’s opt...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 13

When morning came, my back was sore and I was still dead fucking tired. Still, the captain wanted everyone out on the sports fields to give a speech. So, down we went.

There were a lot of people there, and more began to flow in as the minutes ticked by. Over to the east, the sun was beginning a climb that would throw the temperature up towards the mid eighties.

When it seemed like everyone was gathered, over their heads we could see the Captain climb up onto the steps of ...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 12

I found the room where my friends had been told to sleep pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I also realised that I left my sleeping bag with my pack in that barrel behind the shop. Crap. My friends were still on guard duty, and the only other people in the room were two firefighters who were resting. I decided to follow suit and sit down with my back against a wall.

Closing my eyes, I just sort of let my mind wander over everything that'd happened. The earthquake was wild, especially the wa...

Little update on Digital Exodus

Heya everyone. Just letting you know that I've decided to restructure, rewrite, and add new chapters to DE as it currently stands because I'm not happy with the pacing. It'll take me a wee while to get through everything so that's why you haven't seen much from the story. Sorry!

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 11

When Charles was sure the hammer would work, we all stopped to watch when he put the first heated tooth down on the anvil. The hammer came down a little lethargically in my opinion, but when it rose again, the tooth was noticeably flatter.

The old man kept going until he was happy with the tooth, then dunked it in oil for quenching and laid it down in a metal tray. Whenever the hammer wasn’t being used, one of the others would disengage our makeshift gear system. From there, I would g...

Ryn of Avonside Chapter 127

After recovering from my… exuberant entrance back into the mundane realm, the Jagdar loved the crop idea I returned with. With something as valuable as the… oh gosh, I was basically designing the perfect carrot. Nobody tell my buns. Anyway, with something as valuable as the perfect carrot on the table, Marat was more than happy to give us a preliminary agreement.

Dr Ross wanted to hang around Neub for a wee while to get to know everyone and establish proper diplomatic ties, so we we...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 10

The workshop classes were down in the bottom floor of the new building, but out the back overlooking the fields. As Finn led me through the high school, we chatted and I kept a lookout. He stopped explaining what everything was when I mentioned I just graduated from here and instead began to tell me what everything was being used for now.

The gym hall, which lay in the bottom two floors of the L building, was where the young ones and non-critical personnel were being housed. Thankfully ...

Ryn of Avonside Chapter 126

You know, so many of you all tell me to just write what I want, and then I have to be a moron and listen to the one person whining about how X story isn't updating. So then I rush off to force myself to write that story and end up burning myself out and then I barely write a chapter a week or w/e and get all depressed about it. Meanwhile, I'm writing a new story that excites me and suddenly I have the motivation to write EVERYTHING. Blah. I need to listen to you all xD

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 9

HAG—god I cringed so hard even thinking that nickname now—Not cool, past Kai, not cool. Anyway, she dropped my hand after I got running, and together we rushed headlong towards the high school.

"Thank…" I puffed between breaths. "...You."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," She hissed back. "I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do, not because I like you, Kai. Plus, your friends would probably knife me or something if I didn't."

Ah, that meant my friends were alive! Stil...

Ryn of Avonside Chapter 125

Hiiii everyone! I hope you enjoy the chapter! Just a quick heads up if you haven't seen it, but I've started posting a new story! It's a system apocalypse story about an egg trans girl who gets a the ability to transform into a big tall angel form. It's fun, and I'm personally so hyped about it that it made me zoomies over into writing a couple Ryn chapters because ADHD. Anyway, enjoy!

Entering the town was not a difficult affair, although it was very… awk...

The future is terrifying.

Hi everyone. Not a fun update, but shit's looking pretty dire down here in our NZ polycule. Despite the massive generosity of every single one of you, and the frankly incredible multi-thousand dollar donations from some people, our finances are in the red. Ashlyn and Lumina haven't been able to get jobs so far, and Chiri's income is by chunks. So, all 3000nzd monthly of my patreon money is going towards keeping the roof over our heads and the lights on and there's usually no money left to spa...

Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 8

Sorry for the email spam! Chapter 8 is the last one for now, but I'll be updating this story every 3 days or so until I run out of steam and need a break! Hope you enjoyed!

Slowly, over the course of two hours, the distant sounds of gunfire and death began to wane. As they did so, I found more and more bodies. Some streets appeared to have been congregation spots for people who were confused and frightened. For every area that had evidence of people packing ...