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Dream 17

It took a day.

A full day of laying almost perfectly still, trying to suppress his nervous fidgeting in the silence of his tunnel.  Hour after hour passed, the gentle burble of the lava bath his only companion as Sam quietly munched on woody milklight gill to pass the time.

At some point, he fell asleep, muzzle tucked into the crook of a scaly arm and tail curled tight around his tiny form.

He dreamt of flying.  Massive wings stretched taut and blotting out the blu...

Somnus III - Chapter 19

The next hour or so was more of the same.  Kat sniped the frog monsters with Overpressure while Dorrik slowed their advance with Ego Shards.  Meanwhile, Kaleek enthusiastically ripped apart anything that came close enough to threaten them with their dewclaws.

She lost track of how many of the frog creatures they killed.  Once their team perfected their routine, the fights became so easy that she found herself sleepwalking through fights.  So long as they mad...

Somnus III - Chapter 18

“Remember to chew the meat thoroughly,” Dorrik lectured, handing a fist-sized hunk of well seasoned steak to Kat.  “You’ll need to hold the juices in the back of your throat for as long as possible so the enchantment can go to work.”

“This still seems like it's a lot less efficient than a potion or an enchanted necklace,” Kat replied, accepting the meat dubiously.

“Unfortunately,” Dorrik responded dryly, “Kaleek was put in charge of sourcing consumables fo...

Somnus III - Chapter 17

“I just feel like we’re wasting time right now,” Kat opined, slouching against a stone column next to Kaleek.  “The entire galaxy is descending into flaming chaos around us, and here we are shopping.”

Kaleek didn’t even open his eyes, instead flicking his whiskers as he leaned against the pillar.  Around them, the huge stone hall bustled with dozens of different alien races as they talked with each and haggled.

Twenty paces away, a huge ball of white fur with...

Somnus III - Chapter 16

Kat flicked her eyes to the side, sending the e-mail.   She settled back into her chair, trying to focus on the pressure of the wood against her back in a vain attempt to relax. A single bead of sweat formed between her shoulders and traced a trail down her back.

She flinched. Head whipping around as a pair of girls walked into her peripheral vision, chatting with each other while holding lunch trays.  They continued their inane conversation as they took a booth a couple ...

Somnus III - Chapter 15

Kat grunted, pulling her knife from the crumpled dent in the Guillotine Tortoise’s hide.  She wiped the blade on her thigh armor while grimacing at its hulking corpse.  Dark green blood seeped from the razor sharp chunks of shell lodged in its flesh.

Some ten or so paces to the left, Kaleek hacked away at the dead monster’s neck with wild abandon, a manic grin on his face.  She flinched as Dorrik placed a heavy claw on her shoulder.

“Are you alright Miss Kat?�...

Chapter 14

“What are we looking at?”  Kat asked, shifting slightly as she crouched behind a dumpster.  Dawn was only a couple of hours away and she’d been wearing her infiltration suit all night.  The same properties that prevented her from leaving behind DNA evidence meant that the watertight outfit literally didn’t breathe.  In short, she smelled like a lockerroom that had been left to bake in the sun after a long day of exercise.

“At least four independent networks...

Dream - 16

Samazzar’s tail swished violently back and forth in the dark, a smile splitting his scaly muzzle.  In the distance, the tunnel gleamed golden-red in his magical vision as heat poured off rock walls.  Sam couldn’t tell the source for certain, but the massive churning pillar of warmth, sinking deep into the ground likely had something to do with it.

When he pushed his new magical senses to their limit, the glowing cylinder whispered to him.  Of immense pressure in much ...

Somnus III - Chapter 13

Kat slipped the datastick into her pouch and sheathed her knife.  “Deal. I have a safe house in Chiwaukee where we can stash you until I can buy you a new identity.  I have contacts in GroCorp that would be more than happy to trade a stack of credit chips and some new paperwork for the intel rattling around in your head.”

“Great,” Otto winced.  “I don’t suppose you have a bandage or something?  As much as I would love to hash out our little agreement, I�...

Somnus III - Chapter 12

“Are you sure about this?”  Kat asked, glancing worriedly at the submachine gun clutched in Whip’s hands.  The gun was on the smaller side, but in Whippoorwill’s awkward grip it looked giant and out of place.

“For the twentieth time,” the other woman replied with a roll of her eyes, “yes.  All I have to do is lurk around the outside of the building, plugged into this guy’s network while you do the real work.  If he runs, I try to shoot him.  If s...

Dream - 15

Samazzar scuttled forward, doing his best to avoid thinking about his empty stomach.  He’d finished the last of his rat jerky yesterday, and already his still growing body was screaming for more protein.

Hungrily he glanced at the milklight mushrooms as he passed through the grove.  Their gills fluttered in the windless night of the cavern, beckoning to him as Sam salivated quietly.

There would be time for that later.  For the moment, his attention was on the lake...

Somnus III - Chapter 11

Kat ducked under a stream of acid, not even bothering to watch it splatter against one of the fake wooden pillars that were strewn about the dungeon.  As far as she could tell, the wood cylinders were designed to resemble trees in order to give the rooms a ‘forest’ feel, but in practice, they mostly served as densely packed obstructions.

Kaleek hissed, the liquid splashed next to him and spraying his coat.  As agile as the big warrior was, the ‘trees’ prevented him fro...

Somnus III - Chapter 10

Kat knocked on the metal reinforced door, smiling at a security camera as it paused its normal sweep of the hallway to swivel and observe her.   A second later the door clicked as its lock released itself.  She pushed it open, having to strain for a second against its ancient hinges and heavy weight.

“Close the door behind you,” Whippoorwill called out from the other room.  “I’m in the living room, plugged in.”

Kat rolled her eyes, slipping off her sh...

Dream - 14

Bad air puffed out of Samazzar’s muzzle as he clambered down the cave wall, a worried frown on his muzzle.  The floor of the chamber was covered in scratch marks and the dull red-orange glow from the swarm of cave rats that had stripped it bare last night.

With the millipede encounter still fresh in his mind, Sam had made sure to follow air currents in the dark cavern and find a small and barely accessible crevice up amongst the stalactites and bats. The climb was a bit of a hass...

Somnus III - Chapter 9

Kat stumbled on the indoor track as her smartpanel chirped at her, indicating a phone call from an unknown number.  She jogged past a man and a woman in the middle of their morning cardio in the college gymnasium before grabbing her towel from where she had left it next to her school clothes and accepted the call.

“Miss Debs,” Belle Donnst’s voice froze Kat, her hand halfway to her sweaty forehead with the towel.  “It’s good to see that you’re keeping in shape.”<...

A Dream of Wings and Flame Index

DREAM 1 IS MOVING TO KINDLE

I have to take Dream's chapters down for the kindle release next Wednesday (10/11/22) so this is your 24 hour notice that chapters from Dream 1 will be coming down.  You have until Friday Morning (10/7).  If you need to talk to me about chapters you missed etc please message me here or on discord.  I've been incredibly busy with work but with any luck that will be slowing down a bit in the coming days.

2021-05-03 06:09:34 +0000 UTC View Post

Dream - 13

The breath burned in Samazzar’s lungs.  He fought the urge to struggle against the claw holding him beneath the water’s surface.  He knew from experience that Crone Tazzaera would keep him under for a set amount of time, and struggling would only burn up the reserves of good air in his lungs.

That was why he was under the water after all.  Tazzaera was trying to isolate him from the good air of the creche so that he could focus on the gas in his own lungs.

His p...

Dream - 12

Takkla, Dussok and Samazzar’s saved merits were more than enough for them to rent their own modest cavern about halfway between Center Cave and their former creche.  With a little help from Dussok’s increased strength, the three of them built a trio of small huts around a fire pit so that they could have a little privacy from each other.

Each day they worked on their own projects.  Sam spent his time back in the creche reading through Crone Tazzaera’s texts and taking oc...

Dream - 11

Samazzar returned to the creche in a fog.  Dussok walked next to him, a large claw on his shoulder gently steering him back on track every time he missed a turn on his way back.

The words from their guide flowed past him as Sam stumbled back.  There was some sort of speech congratulating them on becoming adults.  The speaker singled out the eight to ten hatchlings that had awakened their bloodlines by name to congratulate them.  After that the guard leading them back...

Dream - 10

“Stand in line and wait your turn,” the kobold that spoke practically glistened in the firelight.

Her delicate red scales, free of any dirt or blemish, glowed like rubies.  Sam’s eyes grew wide as they traveled over her body.  Her tail was covered in stylish ribbons, laced up and down its sinuous length and ending in delicate bells that tinkled gently as she moved.

He gulped as her tail swished, the bells jingling slightly.  In front of him, Dussok stiffened. ...

Dream - 9

The water burbled in the polished stone bowl hanging over the fire.  Samazzar kept both his normal and magical gaze trained upon it as the bubbles hit the surface and released small puffs of steam.

Dussok and Takkla both sat next to him, their legs folded underneath them and their eyes glazed with the vacant look of the focusing trance.  Sam smiled slightly as he felt the steady metronome beat of Takkla’s tail tapping on the stone next to him.

Tazzaera walked over to t...

Dream - 8

“I killed someone,” Takkla stared at her claws like she expected to see blood on them.  “I just remember thinking that he was going to hurt Dussok, and everything went red.  The next thing I knew, there was a leg in front of me and I bit down.”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Samazzar crooned soothingly as he rubbed her back with his claw.  “You injured someone to stop him from hurting a friend.  That didn’t kill him.  What killed him was the punishm...

Dream - 7

“Come on Takkla,” Sam grunted under the weight of the millipede’s corpse.  The sharp ridges of its chitin biting into his scales as he plodded across the dark stone of the cavern.

Now that the adrenaline had faded from Sam’s system, the massive insect pressing down on his bony shoulders terrified him.  Its oval torso was slightly bigger around than Dussok’s chest, large enough that Sam struggled to grip either edge of its shell with his skinny claws.

Silently h...

Dream - 6

The millipede clattered to the cavern floor, the sound of its chitinous bulk slamming into stone echoing throughout the otherwise silent cave.  It reared back, a dozen or so of its armored segments raising off of the ground, its body curling back into an S as it prepared to strike.

For a brief second, Samazzar was frozen, a mouse staring down a swooping owl.

The millipede’s mandibles spread wide, each the size of his arm and sharper than any knife Sam had ever seen.  A...

Dream - 5

“It’s really dark down here Sam,” Takkla whispered, stumbling as she reached out for him.  He winced as her claws scraped noisily against the rocks of the lower tunnels.

“I still do not see how you plan on accomplishing anything without a torch little dragon,”  Dussok blinked uncertainly as he peered into the darkness.  “I understand your concerns regarding the smell of smoke, but it will hardly matter if we fall down some endless crevice first.”

“Cr...

Dream - 4

“Crone Tazzaera!” Sam’s voice echoed through the creche cave as his clawed feet clicked rapidly against the stone floor.

He burst into the creche cave, a toothy smile painted across his muzzle.  A dozen or so of his brothers and sisters were running back and forth, playing tag.  Dussok, the biggest of his siblings, yipped pitifully as he tried to catch the smaller and fleeter hatchlings.  Despite his best efforts, each swipe of his claw or tail saw the other pups du...

Dream - 3

The sound of claws on stone click clattered through the dark cavern, pausing only to be replaced by deep sniff.  Samazzar blinked his yellow eyes as the scents of the cave flooded into him.  Minerals, Fungus, wet fur, and the acrid sulfur bite of fear.

A smile spread across his toothy maw.  Fear was good.  It meant that his traps had caught something.

None of the other kobolds bothered to hunt this deep.  The rats in the deep caves were plumper.  Juic...

Dream - 2

“Feel it on your scales Sam,” the Crone’s voice seemed to surround him as Samazzar stared into the roaring inferno that had been the cave’s simple fire pit.

“Everything has some heat,” her words were almost swallowed up by the roar of the flames.  “You, the rest of your litter, the rats that scurry in the deeper caverns.  All life creates its own heat to live.  Even the rocks you are sitting on absorb the warmth of the fire and the sun, only to slowly releas...

Dream - 1

“Crone Tazzaera, I collected the twigs and firemoss you wanted!” Samazzar called out cheerfully as he trotted into his creche’s cave, arms heavily laden with the dry green lichen.

It had taken him hours to collect the substance from nearby caves.  He scaled sheer rock faces and wedged himself into the tight crevices where the plant grew, all while the rest of his siblings played tag or lounged, tail to muzzle, in the meager winter sun.

By the time Samazzar ambled into h...

Dream - 0

“Come hatchlings,” Crone Tazzaera’s rheumy voice crackled, silencing the cave full of rambunctious youngsters.  Their play fights wrapped up, leaving a pair of doglike kobold pups, their scales still tiny and soft from their recent hatching, snapping at each other over a piece of meat.

“Now,” she hissed, eliciting a stream of startled yips as she cracked her cane against the hard stone of the cavern floor.  Quietly she hobbled over to the cave’s campfire, the clack...