Bacon Macleod

B4 Chapter 493: Defending the Wall, pt. 2

It started with a long, drawn out howl. It was a piercing sound, cutting through some of the steel forged by the officers that dotted the walls.

Kaius drew his blade, feeling the roiling charge of his mana locked inside of Drakthar. He would need it soon. 

The wolf’s cry stretched long, hammering at the anticipation within him until Kaius could barely stand it for a ...

B4 Chapter 492: Defending the Wall, pt. 1

Backlit by the setting sun, Kaius stared out at the Frontier from Deadacre’s wall. It was soaked in soft amber, shadows lengthening by the minute as night fast approached.

He cared little for the tapestry of colours, and only slightly more for the constant nervous shuffling of the guards and militiamen that joined him in standing sentinel. He had eyes only for the horde that lurked only...

B4 Chapter 491: Intermission & Gains, Finale

Slumping in his chair, Kaius pulled up his notifications. He might have been exhausted from hours of constant combat, and he still felt a little frazzled from his direct brush with death, but that changed little.

There was an army outside of the city. As much as they had been told to rest, he and his team represented a significant portion of the city's strongest fighters. They needed to p...

B4 Chapter 490: Intermission & Gains, pt. 1

Soaked to the bone in the blood of beasts, Kaius trudged down the stairs of Deadacre’s wall. 

Arc’theros was leading the way, somehow even more drenched than the rest of them. The man was a living maul — his every movement had pulped the creatures that had the dire misfortune of being in his path.

Their escape had been swift after that — the Tyrant’s forces h...

B4 Chapter 489: Plight of the Living, Finale

A/N: Soz for the short delay, had to go trawling through documents to find all of my formatting for notifications lol

A teeming black cloud surged across the sky, racing towards the Pegleg. Kaius could have almost mistaken the flowing blob as a flock of starlings — if not for the fact that he could pick out the individual beasts. Birds, bats, and insects alike, they...

B4 Chapter 488: Plight of the Living, pt. 6

Surrounded by the dying cries of beasts, Kaius’s pillars started to flare. 

Every minute of their battle was more chaotic than the last. It was only by dint of their overwhelming strength, the speed of their flight, and the mindless aggression of their opponents that they survived. 

If they were a little weaker, a little slower, they would have been overrun in moments. I...

B4 Chapter 487: Plight of the Living, pt. 5

The beasts were tireless. Rabid in their fury, they ignored the slaughter that fell on them, uncaring of the twisted and broken forms of their fellows that were left littering the frontier.

Without a moment to rest, Kaius was in constant motion. No matter how much stronger he was, forcing the creatures back was an endless endeavour — one that stretched his teamwork and cooperation to th...

B4 Chapter 486: Plight of the Living, pt. 4

It only took twenty minutes before the cracks started to show. 

Kaius moved like a whirlwind, surrounded by a heaving carpet of fur, scale and carapace. His hand slipped from his hilt, the burning light of Stormlash surrounding his hand as thunder cracked through the Frontier. 

Three beasts fell smoking; and hundreds more were ready and waiting to take their place...

B4 Chapter 485: Plight of the living, pt. 3

The second Kaius had rejoined the front line, he was looking for his next target. 

Only a handful remained of the two dozen or so beasts that had been harassing the villagers. Two wolf-like creatures kept a loping gate as they sprinted through the long grass — circling wide in an attempt to strike at their unwatched flank.

It wouldn’t work, he and his team were simply too...

B4 Chapter 484: Plight of the Living, pt. 2

A/N: Minor schedule update: gonna push chapters back by 1 hour to 10:30am NZT in service of trying to sleep more.

Also soz for the late chapter, some mates from aus are staying for a few days and we were up late catching up

An arrow descended like the heavens themselves rebuked the beasts. Heralded by a thunderclap, Kaius watched it tear across the sky with an ashe...

Covers!

B1 and B2 covers fully done, woop woop! Just need to finalise my title for B3. I've been thinking about 'Crucible', since even with rewrites it will be a core defining feature of the book, but it also feels a little spoilery. 'Trials of Rebirth' works, but doesn't feel quite right. Give me your thoughts!

B4 Chapter 483: Plight of the Living, pt. 1

Afternoon sun streamed into the siege tower that had been erected near the eastern gate. Even with the pleasant warmth and the view of the frontier, it was hard to enjoy the peace when Kaius felt like an alchemist had set up shop in his bones. He had far too much energy, and nothing to do with it.

Afterall, there were only so many times he could run drills to get used to his prosthetic. H...

(Not a chapter) 2025 Retrospective

What a year! My first rotation around the sun as a full time writer, and it was a pretty good one! A few bumps along the road, but I think a few teething pains are to be expected.

First, my break. It was good, and very much needed. I spent time with friends and family, played a good bit of Arc Raiders and Barotrauma over the last week, and read roughly half of Lord of the Mysteries (like...

B4 Chapter 482: Delegation, pt. 4

A/N: I return, rested, rejuvinated, and ready to scratch my forehead as I desperately try to write more concisely! In honour of my constant failure at that, have a chapter that's 50% longer than I intended it to be!

I saw Mammal did a bit of a 'year in retrospective', so I might do one of my own over the next few hours.

With the two Silver mages meditating at the c...

B4 Chapter 481: Delegation, pt. 3

A/N: 3/3, more notes on immediate holiday schedule at the end of the chap

The frontier seemed endless from atop Deadacre’s western wall. While the land surrounding the city wasn’t perfectly flat, there were no great hills or mountains for days in any direction. Hard-packed, sun-baked dirt extended for half a league or so, and then there was just grass, broken only by ...

B4 Chapter 480: Delegation, pt. 2

A/N: 2/3

Ianmus gripped the letter in his hands, its edges crumpling.

It was a simple thing — rough-cut and crudely processed, with a tan tint that suggested it hadn’t been through a bleaching wash. An everyday, run-of-the-mill product like he might expect a simple innkeep to use for his ledger, yet the information it held struck far harder than its common herit...

B4 Chapter 479: Delegation, pt. 1 

A/N: 1/3 - I meant to post these like 12 hours ago. Games happened, then it was 4 am woops

Kaius sat at a restaurant table right at the edge of their outside seating. He’d had to shuffle it away a little further still to make room for Porkchop, but none of the staff had minded — nor the few other patrons that were still in the mood to eat out, given the circu...

B4 Chapter 478: Guild Announcements, Pt. 2

A/N: 3/3. Also, having a head cold over christmas in meltworthy weather sucks

“I need you up there with me,” Rieker said.

Kaius blinked. Rotten roots, the guildmaster really wasn’t one to mince words.

“You what?” Kaius replied, surprised.

Another runner had come for him and his team, meeting them at the dusty stables. Rieker had asked ...

B4 Chapter 477: Guild Announcements, pt. 1

A/N: 2/3

Stepping back onto the streets of Deadacre, Kaius was returned to a smog of tension and fear.

Thankfully, the veteran runewrights he had been asked to assist had corrected their estimations, and were in the middle of a full tune-up of the city’s defences. It had only taken a couple of hours. Two of them had a wealth of experience with the script it used,...

B4 Chapter 476: Runewrights, Finale

A/N: Posting three chapters for yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 1/3

Standing deep in the bowels of the governor’s manor, Kaius locked eyes with the grey-bearded runewrights. While he could have taken the outburst as rude, he wasn’t enough of a fool to do so — no matter how much the chamberlain, Fyfen, looked like he wanted to keel over in embarrassment.

Trade...

B4 Chapter 475: Runewrights, pt. 2

A/N: Second chapter of the day

The governor’s manor, it seemed, was far more than just what was visible above ground. While its foundations were built into a slight rise that gave the large stone building a view of the surrounding city, they descended far deeper than that.

This section of the governor’s compound seemed old. While the stone was the same aged ...

B4 Chapter 474: Runewrights, pt. 1

Kaius kept a brisk pace that was slower than he was used to. Every second step, his weight caused his prosthetic to slip into the soft loam of the governor’s garden.

“Are we close?” Kaius asked, keeping his left hand on Porkchop’s flank just in case he tripped.

“Yeah. The greenhouse she went to must be just on the other side of the manor grounds — five more minutes, tops...

Posts in a few hours

Have discovered that my current beta reader document of 90 chapters + comments hard crashes my laptop -- home pc supercomputer has allowed bad habits to pile up lmao. Gonna borrow my stepdads desktop to trim it to a non-crashing size and make some edits, but might take a couple hours

Double post tomorrow

Gotten a little caught up in holiday business so haven’t had a chance to hop on my laptop and edit a chapter today

Also Sydney is approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun and my brain is Swiss cheese

B4 Chapter 473: War Room, Finale

Kaius sat in the governor’s private garden, resting his back against a large tree. Porkchop was with him, and the sun was shining bright, filtering through the green leaves above to bless him with a gentle summer’s warmth.

The place was undeniably beautiful — a walled-in open stretch at the back of the manor, covered in a smattering of oaks, elms, and three dozen or more varieties o...

B4 Chapter 472: War Room, pt. 4

Surrounded by Deadacre’s leadership, Kaius tried to consider how they could ready the city’s defenders for the coming battle.

The city Delve was the obvious option, but it had problems. There was a limitation on how many could reasonably populate the biome it entered into. Plus, with how low-level it was, most would need to make several descents to reach a difficulty where they were g...

B4 Chapter 471: War Room, pt. 3

A/N: Bonus for the chapter I missed on the weekend

The governor's manor was an old thing, and centuries of history lurked in its high, vaulted beams. In some senses, it was as old as the city – though not in its current iteration. Apparently, it had once been a longhouse, back when Deadacre had been little more than a trading outpost on the road to Mystral.&nbs...

B4 Chapter 470: War Room, pt. 2

Ro paced at the head of the meeting room, like the frenetic pace of her footfalls could browbeat the very world into submission.

What had happened to Bronwyn and his team, and what had Ro so worried, poisoned every extra moment. It soured into a tangled knot of anticipation that left the soft suede of the seat he sat in feeling as rough as iron filings against his skin.

His impatien...

B4 Chapter 469: War Room, pt. 1

Damp bricks formed a low arch as mould, fungus and unknown slime spread, feasting on the detritus present in the sewer. Pitch black, he could only see with his Darkvision, the tunnel rendered in flat shades of grey that washed away all sense of depth.

Kaius scrunched his nose, balling his skirts in his hands as he stepped over a puddle of unknown sludge, and the motion was awkwar...

B4 Interlude 28: Bitter Return

The grasslands rushed past with an indistinct green smear. Every desperate pounding step was another stone's weight of exhaustion upon his back. His bones ached, his muscles burned. His lungs felt like he'd been inhaling glass dust.

Yet despite the sting of sweat in his eyes, and the throbbing of his blood like his arteries were about to burst, it all paled in comparison to the heartbreak...