Ad Astra

Savage Awakening 27. Mount Saint Helens (II)

Three different classes with three different styles.

… and he liked them all. Tough!

He was more drawn to the first two. Wildfire Warden was pretty similar to what he was already doing, only moreso. He’d throw out his Chains like grappling hooks and sink them deep into the enemy's skin. Like whaling ships with harpoons—just hook that sucker in deep, drag them in, and end them. He liked the sound of it.

The second one, Infernal Mauler. This new Axe Form… it t...

Savage Awakening 26. Mount Saint Helens (I)

Zane had about four hundred hungry, ill, weak, leaderless, poorly clothed, desperate prisoners on his hands. And no clue what to do with them.

So he went to his tried-and-true trick whenever a complex interpersonal issue came up.

He sic’d Reina on it.

It took her three hours to sort the group out and make a plan. First she poured a chest full of essence stones into the Beacon, and brought out a massive feast. It was the first real meal the prisoners had eaten in days. It b...

Savage Awakening 25. Mad Dog (IV)

Zane was pretty sure he was fucked.

At least he’d torched the Mad Dogs pretty badly. His people were probably safe. There was hardly anyone left to go after them. He did his job.

Was this how he went out? Hobbling on one leg, wrecked by a rabid gang boss?

Eh. Was it so bad? He was never overly concerned with his own mortality. ‘It is not the length of life but the depth of it,’ and all that. He just wanted to go out swinging.

Strange, though. As he saw t...

Savage Awakening 24. Mad Dog (III)

The Chains fell slower than he'd thought. One dark line wiping downward. From a distance it looked like a guillotine descending on a chopping block. He'd expected some kind of sound—a drawn-out shriek, maybe? He heard nothing from where he stood. There were literal crickets chirping.

The Chains were coming closer, and he supposed they did seem a little faster. Maybe he'd miscalculated. Maybe it wouldn't be enough.

They landed.

Zane was blasted off his feet. His ears popped...

Savage Awakening 23. Mad Dog (II)

Derek's fist blazed red. With a shrill cry, he swung for Zane's face.

To Zane, it seemed to come in slow motion. He had enough time to take his Chain, wrap it around his fist, casually lean out of the way, pivot, and unleash a right hook straight through Derek's midsection.

To him, his fist barely felt any heavier. To Derek, it would have felt like about two school buses ramming into him at supersonic speeds.

Actually, to Derek, it would have felt like nothing. Because Derek...

Savage Awakening 22. Mad Dog (I)

The first thing Zane did when he got back was upgrade the Beacon.

The second thing was to have Reina ramp up the training. From now on, all unused essence stones went to the militia. He dedicated a chestful of stones to setting up stakes, walls, and ditches.

Whoever these Mad Dogs were, he was not taking chances.

A few days later, he got his first messages on the Beacon. When he checked, a notification popped up—

Hey, this is Tom. Great meeting you, man.

Savage Awakening 21. Others (II)

It could only mean one thing: there were other people here. And they were strong.

He turned to Reina. But before he could get out a word, he saw a darkness rising over her shoulder. He whirled around. It was rising all around them—the dead, withered corn stalks, crackling and snapping to life, kicking up plumes of dust.

Something was coming.

"Get back," said Zane, eyes narrowed.

Hurricane winds gushed over them, spun around them, howling louder and louder, so fast yo...

Savage Awakening 20. Others (I)

After, he introduced Reina to the rest, and the rest to Reina. Reina had been warehouse manager, and she had a natural skill for working with people—she was the kind of person people wanted to follow, wanted to listen to. Cale was the kind of person people wanted to like.

So he made them both co-leaders of his little settlement, and had them sort out who took what. It was decided Cale would deal with people management stuff. Sorting people into roles that best suited them, running the...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 115. Civil Wars (V)

Walking into Marcus's lab felt like entering a strange art museum. She could only guess what half of these instruments did. They were glass and curvy and bubbling, but she had never seen anything close to them in the textbooks at home. Ruyi and Claudia set up their own little workstations there and stuck to what they knew: the simple cauldron and rod. Claudia took to refining Ruyi's elixirs using the netherwort they'd gathered in the spring. Marcus said if they could start brewing big batches...

Twinned Destinies 114. Civil Wars (IV)

In the weeks that passed, Marcus asked nothing of her, so Ruyi did nothing. She sculpted with Aelia, played card games with Darius, and explored the palace. Her favorite part was the library—not the one in Marcus' study, but the big one that took up a whole floor and sank deep into the mountain. It was like a maze, with bookshelves as walls, lit by a warm yellow glow and filled with a pleasant, musty, old-timey smell.

Marcus said this palace had been the Lord of Demons' home for mille...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 113. Civil Wars (III)

A/N: last rough chapter, sorry

//

The dungeons were nothing like the ones in which she was held; they seemed like any other wing of the palace, only lower down with no windows. But they were still clean, and little jars and potted plants ran down the lengths of the hall, up to the holding cells.

As Ruyi neared, she heard the sound of sobbing. She tensed. The guard nodded to her. "One moment," he said, unlocking the thick steel door and striding in...

Twinned Destinies 112. Civil Wars (II)

She still wasn't sure how she felt about Marcus. On the one hand, he tried to kill Jin, and she hated him for it. She still did, but he didn't seem like an awful person. If he hadn't come, they would have all died, and he'd personally saved Darius too. So, she kind of loved him for it. It bothered her that she'd never been very good at feeling halfway about someone. She didn't really get it. As far as she was concerned, she either loved someone or hated them; she felt uncomfortable feeling bo...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 111. Civil Wars (I)

Silence held the battlefield. Marcus took in the men with somber eyes: the ragged lines of black and red, the bleeding clumps of Frigus, and sighed.

"That is enough," he said.

"Marcus!" screamed Octavius. He said it like a curse. His face was flushed, eyes bloodshot, and each word left a shower of spittle. "You would deny me this? Stab me in the back, and in the front too, eh? That woman broke a sacred oath."

Marcus gestured. “That woman?”

Drusila had been shattere...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 110. Demon Springs (XII)

To the right, stretching to the horizon, was a line of red and yellow, a wildfire held in place. To the left, storm clouds were rolling over their horizon, black, smoky, and unknowable.

Two demons came out in front. The first could only be Octavius. He was shorter than Ruyi expected, a tiny, mean-looking little man. The second came in demon form, a massive beast of a serpent, green-eyed and ink-scaled, so big his slithering, winding shadow reached almost to where they stood. It marked o...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 109. Demon Springs (XI)

They went out the same way they came in, so the path was uneventful. No new monsters waited for them. They hummed their marching songs, told ghost stories, and ; it was as though they had already left. Everyone knew the worst was over.

Ruyi spent most of the trek in her happy place: on Dow’s back. She tried a lot of positions, but her favorite was still face down with her head buried so deeply she couldn't see any light. There was something fun, exciting about feeling the movement thr...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 108. Demon Springs (X)

A/N:

after some thought I’ve decided to stick to a 6-7x/week schedule — I think 2x/day can be a little overwhelming for readers

will spend extra time brainstorming, backlogging, and visiting indie bookstores or something. Take care all

//

By the end of the second day, Ruyi wasn't sure how she'd ever been so nervous. Maybe Sabina was right. Her fears were never as big as she made them out to be. And maybe the tribe's mood was trickling into her own;...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 107. Demon Springs (IX)

A/N: hey all! quick update: 2x/day is a lot to read, so I’m probably going to do dailies and bank extra for a rainy day stash

mental heath wise doing a lot better! I’ve decided to take a year off postgrad and just write , meaning there’s a lot less pressure to job hunt

//

It was hard to tell how much the tunnels blew up the sounds. The slurping was so loud, the tunnel so dim, ribbed with lines of crystals, it was like she was walking through the intest...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 106. Demon Springs (VIII)

(2/2)

The warriors and scouts went first. A few lesser warriors stayed to guard the tribe; the bulk of them went on ahead. The light of the caverns cast an eerie bruised purple glow over the ground, constantly shifting, which Ruyi found quite spooky. It made her feel like she was deep underwater, staring at sunlight playing on the ocean floor.

But a few strides into this stairwell and she was starting to miss it. Livia held a lantern, but its glow didn’t reach back to where Ruyi...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 105. Demon Springs (VII)

Note: pls let me know if y’all notice any deficiencies in these chapters due to the transcription process! last chapter a few typo words slipped by me — will get better abt this.

getting a new mic + refining my transcription technology + process … this should get smoother as we go and I get more practice. thank you all for your patience!

goal is to set a 2 chapter/day pace

(1/2)

//

Next morning, before the sun rose, they started marching fo...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 104. Demon Spring (VI)

Ruyi let the sweet sound of their silence wash over her. She loved silences like this in crowds. She liked having everyone in a crowd looking at her regardless, but this was special. When folk talking over each other, you couldn’t always be sure what everyone felt. But here it was obvious.

“You broke your bottleneck?” said Sabina.

Ruyi nodded. She saw Aelia blinking at her, Fausta with her head tilted owlishly. Then Sabina thumped her chest. “Wonderful!”

She dashed...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 103. Demon Springs (V)

A/N: wrote 4400 words (lil over 2 long chapters) yesterday w/ dictation! I think they came out pretty well after editing. So today y’all get two chapters

(1/2)

One of the first things Ruyi learned at the Frigus Tribe was how to hurt people. She felt bad doing it, but hurting people here wasn't like hurting people there.

Sometimes she thought folk here liked being punched. Everybody here had a favorite scar and a story of how they got it. They'd be more off...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 102. Demon Spring (IV)

The sun beamed. The snow twinkled. Morning painted the skies ice blue and the cold crispness air made Sabina smile; each little breath shocked her awake. It was a lovely day—it was always a lovely day, but today particularly agreed with her.

Then there was Ruyi! Every time Sabina saw her, she wanted to ruffle her hair and pinch her cheeks. Sabina liked to tell her she was adorable; this seemed to upset her—Ruyi wanted to be thought of as formidable, not adorable. This only made her ...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 101. Demon Spring (III)

“It is said that ten thousand years ago, there were no Demon Springs. The mortal and immortal realms lay distant,” said Sabina. “But the Lord of Demons Ignatius was not satisfied. He sought the powers of gods and devils. So he gathered the tribes as one, and dug. For centuries he dug, making vast tunnels, seeking to touch the entrance of Hell. He would not live to see it done, but his son Ignatius II took up his mantle, and his son after him. For a thousand years they scavenged the dark...