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Book 4 Chapter 42

Walls melted, roofs began to rot away, and the earth around them began to collapse into miniature bogs filled with murk as the monster fired countless attacks, destroying the village as it tried its best to kill Kay. Destructive beams of magic were mixed in with exploding orbs that spread the essence of rot and decay when they erupted. Whatever insane change that had happened to the vampyr’s eyes when it became the eldritch monster had messed with its aim, but the sheer volume of attacks an...

Middle Triumvarate Book 1 Chapter 1

"Middle Triumvarate" isn't even the working title, it's just a placeholder I'm using to ID the story in my own files. Once a working title and/or final title get picked I'll go back and replace the chapter names, but until then...

Also, for thes series/overseries I'm going to try and do more traditional titles/screens, but Patreon's text editor doesn't support that, so It'll be simple style at the moment. I'll look into how much work it is to do pictures of screens that I then put in wi...

Book 4 Chapter 41

“We’re getting close. We’ll be able to see the edge once we clear these trees.”

The differences between the two local guides Kay had had the opportunity to follow recently couldn’t be overstated. Dev was an older, experienced, elven man who gave off an air of confidence. The young human woman leading Kay, Alice, and the combined team they’d brought along had refused to give her name, was barely old enough to have her first Class, and was visibly shaking with stress as she le...

Poll Results and Minor Delay

So! I was sick(ish) this weekend and spent the weekend mostly lying down. Saturday's chapters are going up right after this.

Additionally, the poll for which "Side Project" I start hasn't had any new votes in long enough that I feel like it's time to close it. To those who's favorite choice didn't win, please know that all of those ideas will get written by me, I just sadly can't work on all of them at once. But I'll get to them! I love all of the ideas I come up with, and the ...

A Thinking Poll (Attempt 2)

Note: Patreon defaults to one vote per person (Did not know that) and won't let me change it mid-way. This is just a repost with the correct settings so people can vote the way they want to.

This isn't invalidating or going against the poll that determined which series in the Shattered Five Saga (the overall group of sereis that Blood Shaper is part of) comes next, that was voted on and determined and I've already put some effort into the beginning of that series. This is separate from ...

Book 4 Chapter 40

Kay swung his halberd like a felling axe and beheaded the last boar monster he’d been fighting. He glanced around to see if anyone needed help and saw things were well in hand. Eleniah’s suggestion of just going out and leading parties to kill monsters and deal with problems ended up being the best idea for leveling his Leadership Skill quickly. As far as he could tell, it was going even better than she’d thought it would since he was mostly working with mixed teams of Sentinels and Blo...

Book 4 Chapter 39

“This is…” Eleniah gazed around the training area with pure amusement and a little added spice of amazement at the varied simulacra all performing different tasks, “So cool!” She eventually cheered before rushing off to thoroughly trounce one at chess. The specific one practicing chess moves was a copy of Meten, and since he didn’t have any Skills related to chess, the simulacra was only as good as Kay at the game. Which wasn’t very good. Even when they played the version he was...

Book 4 Chapter 38

Metal sheets, rocks, uncut gems and crystals, and other materials, raw and processed, clanked and rattled against each other as faceless red humanoids carefully held samples of various resources up to their eyeless faces and inspected them before dividing them up into different categories and sorting them. A number of different materials were tossed unceremoniously into bins and piles, creating a continuous discordant harmony of percussion. The simulacra weren’t featureless copies of Kay th...

Book 4 Chapter 37

Vivien Edrasco had gradually become less and less enthused with the campaign her father’s liege lord had dragged her along on, and she had started with zero enthusiasm. It had only been a few months since the momentous meeting that had finally given her husband the clue he needed to find his “missing” cousin Murunel, and Vivien was becoming as murderous as Azred had been before his motivation to be part of the campaign had skyrocketed.

Less than three months of planning marching r...

Book 4 Chapter 36

“Right.” Kay laid the stylized droplet onto the table with a quiet thud. The reddish-black object looked more like a paperweight than anything, shaped like an upside-down drop of blood with a flat base. It was almost a foot tall, with almost seven gallons of blood compressed into its form, that large quantity necessary to hold the magic Kay’s imprinted into it.

The small gathering of Blood Guard members, with Lauren at their head, stared down at it.

“What is it?” Tyuah, ...

Whoops

I didn't post anything on Saturday. I don't remember anything from Saturday at all, but I definitely didn't post like I should have, I'm doing two chapters for everyone today to catch us back up, just letting everyone know.

Book 4 Chapter 35

“This feels wrong,” Kay muttered as he stared at the bracelet he’d received as loot from the Many Trial Rooms dungeon. The bracelet had an enchantment that let it change its appearance to match the colors around it, and Kay was still working on transferring that magic using his Blood Melder Class. 

Eleniah glanced up from her papers, frowning. “Training your Skills-“

“I know.” Kay tossed the bracelet onto the table and threw his feet up next to it. “In my head...

Book 4 Chapter 34

“Fire in the hole!”

“’Fire in the hole!’”

Stepping over the clearly marked line behind the multitude of signs informing anyone who could read that this was the test firing range, that it was dangerous to be here, that no one should be here without authorization, and several more warnings, the first thing Kay heard was people shouting. It was a phrase Kay knew well, mostly from Mythbusters episodes, not from any real-life experience, and he immediately hardened a set of...

Book 4 Chapter 33

What had been a secret complex buried underground with a village built over it was now a growing industrial complex that had eaten the village and now had a new one off to the side. The original plan had been to keep everything involved with the development of firearms and the training programs to get people used to them completely secret. While guns wouldn’t completely change Torotia, thanks to magic existing, the surprise of a brand new weapon being brought into battle would still give th...

Book 4 Chapter 32

Took a nap forgot to post whoops

Also Patreon changed the posting layout again? Why do they keep doing this I liked the old version!

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Azred, [Threat From the Air], eldest of his generation among his family, esteemed warrior, and, most importantly, husband to the most amazing wife in all of existence, was a kind, magnanimous, generous, and overall good person according to anyone you could ask! Any and all would speak at length about his virtues, especially h...

Book 4 Chapter 31

“It’s mine!”

“No, it’s not!”

Eleniah and Kay quietly clashed, their forks dueling as they battled for the most decadent of prizes, the last bite of their dessert. The simple-looking cake was a moist, delicious treat sitting in a small pool of cream and topped with sweetpeel peels. It was very good, and there was only a little bit left.

“You took an extra bite of my main course after I already shared some!” Kay complained as he blocked the tines of her fork an...

Book 4 Chapter 30

As more time and effort went into developing the cliff face into valuable real estate, the higher-up portions of the space became more and more expensive. The actual top of the cliff face was still bare, with the exception of bunkers built around the edge to support the walls that were going up on the mesa itself, and the “high up” regions that were being used or developed into new buildings were only slightly over halfway up the cliff, but that was still hundreds of feet in the air. The ...

Book 4 Chapter 29

“Nothing?” Kay repeated.

“The last link in the chain led to an empty apartment,” Isla confirmed. She shifted deeper into the tiny chair on Kay’s desk. “Whoever our quarry actually was, and we can confirm that she wasn’t a traveling Bannerthrust merchant, she’s vanished.”

“So we don’t know who hired the duelist to work with the assassins?”

“No, I’ve got some idea of who did it; I’m just stuck with a good hypothesis because we didn’t get any sol...

Book 4 Chapter 28

Kay let the last two simulacra dive into the fight against the armored assassin before heading toward the mage. In a duel, getting help was a faux pas at best and an admission of loss at worst, but this wasn’t a duel anymore; it was a fight to the death against a team of assassins. Getting the glowing barrier down and letting Eleniah and his guards in to clean things up was the best use of his time. 

“Dammit!” The barrier mage thrust his hand forward, and a translucent pane o...

Book 4 Chapter 27

Kay tried not to sigh as he deflected another attack from Quenrev’s sword, once again pushing the blade upward and past him before throwing a few blows of his own out at his opponent. They were all deflected or dodged with varying levels of ease, and Kay started to get bored. The duel was developing into a pattern, with Quenrev making very similar attacks in a series and reacting to Kay’s counters in repetitive ways as well. It wasn’t hard to see what his opponent was doing, trying to h...

Book 4 Chapter 26

This is Thursday's chapter, and tomorrow's chapter is going up right after this b/c I'll be out of town

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The duelist was a tall man, and the added height from him standing on top of a fountain had him literally looming above Kay as he walked past the cordon of guards and stopped at the base. The man glanced down at Kay, dismissed him, then started to shout again.

“Can you not?” Kay called up to him, “You’ve already interrupted my day with your nonsense; let�...

Book 4 Chapter 25

The closest healer in the palace was quite close, and he was not happy with Kay when the full explanation of what had happened to Kay’s arm came out. Kay was quite happy when the healer shifted his lecture to Eleniah for allowing him to perform a dangerous experiment without a healer being on standby, but that happiness dies a quick and inglorious death when the lecture came back around on him for not immediately heading to the healer when his arm exploded. Explaining that his new species h...

Book 4 Chapter 24

“Sir, the Itarian representative is here.”

Edric Ravenhome turned away from the window in his office. “Who did they send?”

“High Crusader Vexler.”

Edric grimaced, “Damn, I was hoping we’d get Rian.” He shook his head and waved his secretary off. “So be it; bring them up, please.”

“I can inquire after High Crusader Hearthbreaker while I escort them if you’d like.”

“No, I’m sure Rian is fine; I was just hoping they’d send someone w...

Book 4 Chapter 23

“Ready?” Kay looked at Eleniah with a level gasp.

“Yeah, but start slow. This isn’t something to rush into.”

Slowly and carefully, Kay drew a dagger down his arm, letting a thin trickle of blood ease out of him. He moved the blood off to the side as it flowed out so they could see the cut better. “Alright, I’m going to try it.”

While suppressing his natural healing from his Bloody Regeneration Skill, he slowly released the stash of hydra blood he kept inside ...

Book 4 Chapter 22

At the end of the performance, where only half of the participants knew that there was a script, a troop of guards marched through the entrance doors to the throne room and began arresting the people Kay had separated from the rest of the group. Of the collection of fools and annoyances, only a small minority had actually committed true crimes. The woman from the Bannerthrust Empire, with the convoluted scheme involving her family, her two husbands’ families, and a skilled adventurer they�...

Teeny tiny announcement

Hey everybody, forgot to mention this, but my schedule and workload has improved enough that we're going back to two chapters a week. This time I'm in a lot better position personally and mental health wise to get this going sustainably, so we're doing it! Yay! Also, the first day that's happening is today, and it's happening now, so enjoy new chapters on Thursdays and Saturdays

Book 4 Chapter 21

Amanda, Prime Minister of Avalon, watched, outwardly dispassionate, as her lord lectured the assembled throng of wretched wastes of space that called themselves “nobles” and “successful merchants” and other such crock. If they actually were nobles or truly successful at anything, they wouldn’t be here getting torn a new one by Kay.

She hid a grin as she mentally used the expression Cindy had taught her. She quite enjoyed imagining Kay ripping new assholes into the fools.

Book 4 Chapter 20

The site that became Avalon City was originally a small camp set up by Kay and Eleniah in the valley where a majority of the traditional buildings of Avalon City now sat. At one end of that valley was a large lake that Avalon’s small inland fishing industry depended on. The lake and the mountain it sat next to formed one of the two natural walls of difficult terrain that hypothetically defended Avalon City from attackers. Any invasion force would have to climb over the mountain and then hea...

Book 4 Chapter 19

“Technically, nothing's gone wrong,” Lauren told him as they marched deeper into the palace. A squad of Blood Guard bodyguards were gathered around Kay, forming a small cordon around him as they headed toward Kay’s secure office. Deeper inside the complex.

Kay stuttered, stepping as he tried to stop, then was forced to keep walking by the guards right behind him. “… How is that true? Two assassination attempts and a brewing coup are things going wrong.” 

“The as...

Book 4 Chapter 18

The rest of their first run of the dungeon wasn’t anything to write home about. There were some puzzles, there were some monsters, and there were questionable aesthetic choices everywhere. Kay continued to get more loot of debatable usefulness, ignoring the fact that he could use it to practice one of his Skills, and Darten got a couple of pieces that he said were useful, so overall, it was a decent run. Kay didn’t badger Kyriel and Edgar, the two sentinels sent in to fill out Kay’s par...