CoCo_P

Giant Pinned Index Post!

Update! I've been locked out of my Patreon for a while now due to weirdness with the login information (I stopped posting for a little while due to family health issues/work issues and then lost access to the account through my own incompetence), but I am now back in. I apologize for the prolonged absence and the good news is that Somnus V is done, Swords of the West I is done, and I will be starting Somnus VI later this week.

Again, sorry for the delays and please enjoy the books.

Swords of the West - Index

Swords of the West is a progression fantasy novel that, unsurprisingly, focuses on sword martial artists.  I really like the worldbuilding for the setting, and if you're familiar with Xianxia or Wuxia parts of it will seem thematically similar, but my goal isn't for it to be the same 'golden core formation, time to slap the faces of young masters' that we've all read a hundred times before.

My focus in writing his is to try and make it a bit of a cultural study.  The main cha...

Predator - Chapter 28

The stairwell barely tingled as Bruce ascended to the first floor.  It was like receiving a static shock.  For a second, the hair on his arms stood on end, and then he was back in the maddening familiar tunnels of the maze.

A quick scan with Eyes of the Void revealed the area around him, and unsurprisingly, Bruce was in a completely unknown section of the Labyrinth.  He didn’t even know where the canyon was that he’d fallen down to start this entire mess.  Frankl...

Predator - Chapter 27

Bruce shook himself, ridding his body of the last hints of disorientation from ascending the staircase.  Finally, after what felt like weeks of struggle and flight, he was on the second floor.  There were still auras that marked traps, illusions, and accumulations of psychic energy, but all of them were muted.  After seeing the dangerous tapestries of light and power in the lower levels, the second floor was almost a disappointment.

Almost.

He reached down, rubbing ...

Predator - Chapter 26

Bruce swirled his drink.  Underneath him, his rope hammock creaked precariously.  He leaned forward slightly, careful not to upset the delicate balance as he tried to grab hold of the straw with only his lips.

It bounced off, turning to the side slightly and forcing Bruce to shift his weight dangerously in order to raise his back and bring the drink closer to his mouth.  Finally, despite a worrying amount of sway, he was successful, capturing the straw and taking a long s...

Predator - Chapter 25

They were everywhere, pouring in from side passages as they swarmed into the gaps in the air.  On his run toward the trap hallway, the mites had been like rivers and streams, complete with flow and currents as they rushed toward him.  Now, they were like an ocean surging toward Bruce.  A force as inexorable as the tide itself.

Bruce could feel the energy draining from his armor and shield with each impact from the mites.  Without having to focus on his hammer, the po...

Predator - Chapter 24

Bruce activated Eyes of the Void the second his foot touched the ground of the third floor.  Information poured in, and his eyes widened involuntarily.  A cold chill ran down his spine, dousing the sore muscles and frayed nerves from his ascent up the staircase with a bucket of ice water.

“Kassar?” He asked worriedly.  “Would you mind to tell me why Eyes of the Void seems to think that most of this floor is covered in huge blobs of monsters?  I thought these th...

Predator - Chapter 23

Auras glowed dimly up and down the labyrinth walls.  Bruce crouched next to a corner, perfectly still.  It had taken him a day or so of hunting to fully realize that he was a psychic construct that didn’t need to breathe.  Now, there was nothing to betray his presence as Bruce lay in wait.

The monster’s cart creaked as it pulled itself along the ground.  It wasn't loud, but the whine of metal on metal echoed through the otherwise silent hallway.  Bruce felt ...

Blog/Roadmap

Hello everyone!

I'm about to post a block of chapters, but I just wanted to let you know where things are/going.  I've spent a good chunk of the last month on editing Somnus 4 and Dream 3. Right now I'm working on The Great Predator (index post).  For people who have signed up recently, it's a science fantasy litrpg.  As of right now there are 28 chapters (I'm uploading 6 today).

Over th...

The Last Demon Lord

This is a short story (~25 pages) that I wrote for an anthology.  It'll have to come down when the anthology gets published (probably close to March/April) but I thought that I should post it in the meantime.  It's self contained (not part of any of my other worlds), so if that isn't your jam- no worries.

Anyway, cheers!

- - - - -

“Hold!” Angela barked over the ring of metal on scales.  Imps lay scattered on the castle floor, their bodies rotting and tur...

Dream 3 - Chapter 40 - Epilogue

Samazzar opened his eyes.  Scales covered the snow around him, and the now cool corpse of the drake behind him seemed smaller.  Much smaller.

He stood up, towering over the dead drake as well as the kobolds and saurians that were milling about.  Crone Tazzaera didn’t even stand as tall as his knee, and Barsa barely came up to the middle of his thigh.  There was something about his balance that was off, like it wasn’t really natural for him to be standing on his h...

Dream III - Chapter 3

- - - - -

Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 6, Wind (Noble) 4, Sound (Advanced) 2
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

- - - - -

Wind rushed and swirled down the hillside, touching every rock and blade of grass as it brushed past Samazzar.  He let out a breath, feeling the warmth cloud the air through his m...

Dream III - Chapter 2

- - - - -

Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 6, Wind (Noble) 4, Sound (Advanced) 2
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

- - - - -

Samazzar marched down the row of kobolds, doing his best to look like a chief while they did their best to look like soldiers.  There were about twenty of them.  Half with cr...

Dream 3 is in progress!

I've officially started on Dream 3, Magus of the North.  Given the popularity of previous indexes, I'm planning on continuing that here.

Chapter 1 - Reborn of Flame
Chapter 2 - Consolidation
Chapter 3 - Fire and Awe 

Dream III - Chapter 1

- - - - -

Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 5, Wind (Noble) 4, Sound (Advanced) 2
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

- - - - -

Flames roared around Samazzar, kissing his scales and brightening the brisk mountain night.  In his hands, a dull red stone sat silently, cool to the touch despite the inferno rag...

General Update

Hello friends, enemies, and those in between.

I've reached my personal goal of 200 pages in The Great Predator which means that I will be moving on to Dream of Wings and Flame 3, Magus of the North.

I'm currently working on outlining now so anyone at the $15 tier that wants to have a character worked in so they can die a grisly death, please post here or otherwise message me.

Hope you're having a good one and thanks for reading!

Chapter 22

“Okay,” Bruce said, hopping up and down as he tried to bleed off energy from his recent run.  “Fourth floor.  Can I finally try fighting and earning a little EXP now that I’m here?”

“Theoretically,” Kassar replied slowly.  “I wouldn’t recommend it.  Encounters on the third floor will yield less EXP, but they should also be a lot safer.  Here, if you are canny you should be able to win a fight so long as you limit the fight to one opponent.” 2023-06-14 16:33:12 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 21

Bruce paused for a moment, keeping track of the three smudges of brown on the very outside limits of Eyes of the Void that marked labyrinth snails.  He wasn’t sure whether it was the extra point of will or simply his additional familiarity with the layout and traps of the floor, but tracking down the staircase had only taken him three days of careful travel and rest.

He stepped into another illusion, ignoring the image of a battlefield covered in rotting and partially dismembered...

-Interlude- HUD Output

EXP: 7

Body-           Agility-          Will-

7                    7                   4

Gravity Hammer I             Scan
  ...

Chapter 20

He jumped through the ‘wall’ of the cage.  For a brief second, Bruce felt a rush of vertigo as he ‘fell,’ but the illusion was unable to maintain the sensation for long.  He landed in empty air above a roiling ocean and broke into a sprint toward one of the glowing boundaries of his current square.

Behind him, a strand of brown energy whipped through the air.  For a fraction of a second, he felt the wind of its passage on the back of his neck and the crack as the ...

Chapter 19

Bruce shook his head to clear it.  The skin on his back still tingled from a near miss by one of the balls of sentient lightning, but the floor was a bit easier to navigate once he knew what to look for.  A bit.

In front of him stood the staircase to the sixth floor.  It was only seven steps, a far cry from some of his previous climbs, but still, the memory of the pressure and struggle contained in each slab of not-stone made Bruce shiver.

He glanced back down the h...

Somnus IV - Chapter 38 - FINAL CHAPTER

A jolt of pain ran up Kat’s arm, drawing a hiss as she adjusted the sling.

“Are you sure you’re ready to jump back into business so quickly?”  Whippoorwill asked, her forehead furrowed as she leaned toward Kat.  “You were just shot a couple of days ago.  The doctors said that you shouldn’t exert yourself too much for the next week or so while we wait for the reverse engineered stallesp drugs to do their work.”

“I’m fine,” Kat replied tightly, shi...

Somnus IV - Chapter 37

Dorrik stood perfectly still, their scales covered in swirling patterns of ceremonial white paint and their breath coming in short, even puffs.  Sikka stood a couple paces away, her lower hands twisting and fretting together.  Right by her side was Kaleek.  At some point the desoph had found the chance to polish his armor.  It was perplexing how well the big otter had cleaned up.  Even his fur was slicked back until he looked like something vaguely approaching respect...

Somnus IV - Chapter 36

Kat opened her eyes to the adventurer’s hall.  The institution on the ninth floor wasn’t nearly as large as the others she had grown used to, really more of a small shopping center with three vendors, most of whose customers were lokkel.

“Katherine,” a familiar voice called out.  “It’s good to see you but you’re almost three hours early for the ceremony.”

She looked up, a smile blossoming on her face as Sikka, Dorrik’s rearer hurried over from where she...

Somnus IV - Chapter 35

Kat didn’t wait for the door to fully open, instead firing four flechette rounds at the metal in rapid succession.  The first two warped and dented the doors, warping them to the point that they scraped to a halt as the elevator’s motors tried to pull them open.

The second two shots slipped through the narrow gap between the ruined doors, spraying the inside of the elevator with hypersonic metal.  A scream of pain confirmed that at least one target was hit, but Kat wasn’...

Somnus IV - Chapter 34

“Are you seeing any movement from security, Chiffon?”  Kat asked urgently, left hand on the bleeding hole in her sternum as she rolled off of the dead samurai.

“I could barely see them move,” the Haupt guard babbled.

“Nothing at the moment,” Whippoorwill replied, her voice clipped, “but give me a second.  There aren’t any public alarms, but that doesn’t mean the Phantoms aren’t preparing a response team on a private circuit right now.”

“One ...

Somnus IV - Chapter 33

“Cutting engines, prepare for silent gliding."

The words appeared on Kat’s smart panel a half second before the steady roar of the airship’s engine disappeared, jolting the entire vessel.  Her harness creaked as the sudden movement rocked her back and forth, the clouds underneath her feat swaying drunkenly.

To Kat’s side, Whip sat in her harness, hands clutching tightly at the metal hand rests framing her body.  Three other pairs of infiltrators swung back and fo...

Somnus IV - Chapter 32

The heavy hiss of rain on stone drowned out the quiet conversation between Jaalin, Toorvu and Stekat.  Kat looked out of their cave at the barren, rocky landscape of the ninth floor.

There wasn’t much light, partially a factor of the thick, omnipresent, clouds that hung low in the sky, but also a result of the distant and dim pinprick of light that the Tower had replaced its usual fake sun with.  A short distance away was another cave with a town, more of a small encampment ...

Somnus IV - Chapter 31

Click Click Click.

Kat’s e-stylus pattered on the glass table, tapping out a quick steady beat.

“That’s not going to speed anything up,” Whippoorwill remarked.  “We will hear back when we hear back.”

Kat sighed, setting the pen down.  She foled her hands in her lap, making a conscious effort to stop her foot from tapping.

“Our informants are on almost every street corner in Racine,” Heather said soothingly.  “Unless the Phantoms are lit...

Somnus IV - Chapter 30

Kat waved her right arm back and forth, activating Water Jet and filling the air with mist that quickly caught the light.  Above them, the Tyrant Vine was coiled tightly around the staircase, unmoving but foreboding.

She took a quick breath, trying to ignore the harsh chemical smell of the mask pressed tightly against her face as she activated Scald.  The glittering mist exploded, evaporating and turning a bitterly hot cloud of fog.

“Go on Kaleek!” Dorrik yelled, set...