That Monday night, Logan and Inga met in the undercroft lobby at the bottom of the Stairwell of True Seeing. Logan had brought the shield and dagger he’d won from the Threshing dungeon. That chipped dagger would have a hard time cutting butter, but it was better than nothing. The shield had much more promise.
After a long discussion, Logan had chosen Braincap for his Level-Two Proto-Spo...
2020-09-04 00:28:41 +0000 UTC View PostThe next two weeks went by in a flash. After that first Underground Feng Shui class, Logan had decided on two out of the three mushrooms he would cultivate. However, he was still on the fence about the second-level mushroom.
Like on Earth, the school gave the students weekends off. Logan wasn’t going to spend any time goofing off, however. Inga said he needed to master Boundles...
2020-09-01 22:15:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe feasting guests all moved as one, shooting up from their seats in a ravenous frenzy and lurching toward us, clawed fingers extended, mouths wide.
Ferraro dropped back, narrowly avoiding a woman in a tattered sequin-covered dress, and unloaded a round into her head at less than three feet. The eater’s face vanished in a spray of pink gore and teeth, but somehow the creature continued...
2020-08-29 18:50:14 +0000 UTC View PostAs they walked to the Golden Serpent Hall, Logan realized that he wouldn’t need breakfast because while he’d been busy refining his core, the chicken leg in his room was already busy filling his stomach. Hurray for Digestion! Neat trick alright. Logan idly wondered how hard it would be to get his own dead chicken. He’d start with an egg—it must have some primal energy to it. He got one ...
2020-08-27 23:11:49 +0000 UTC View Post
We followed Levi into the short connecting hallway, which was just as opulent as the antechamber had been. Ridiculously gaudy wall-mounted lamps of filigreed gold and silver lit the way with more spectral firelight. Nooks and crannies dotted the hall, each containing priceless artwork or otherworldly sculptures, often depicting creatures that had never walked the earth. Baroq...
2020-08-23 18:07:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Behold, from the Thieves Suit: the Lieutenant. He's a bruiser, an enforcer, a thug, and he's only to happy to let you know it.
"Someone had to get their hands dirty. Good thing dirty is what I do."
2020-08-21 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostLogan woke up with his Dungeon Core Grimoire vibrating on the nightstand. Despite the fact that it was a leather tomb, as thick as a phone book, the book brimmed with so much potent magical energy that it might as well have been an iPad. It was five a.m. and time to get up.
“I need sleep,” he said to the room. “I need to not suck,” he said to himself.
He had a little jug of ...
2020-08-20 13:17:06 +0000 UTC View Post
From the Inquisitors Suit, I give you: the Inquisitor Errant. He's a veteran of the war against darkness and depravity and though he might not be diplomatic, he is exactly the guy to call when a monster needs killing.
"Save your excuses. I'm here to fix what you've done."
2020-08-19 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
From the Monster Suit, I give you the Shambler! This is one of my favorites -- love the colors and the overall layout. The butterfly is a particularly nice touch!
"They speak for the trees. They stomp and rend for the tress, too."
2020-08-17 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWe stepped out of a shimmering gateway, a fold in space and time, and into a lavish antechamber that I hadn’t seen in years. This room still haunted my nightmares once every blue moon or so, though.
It was a circular space with white marble floors, inlaid with an enormous Celtic cross mosaic, crafted from shining gold lead and slabs of speckled greenstone. Fluted pillars surrounde...
2020-08-15 17:08:12 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone! Sorry for the pause in chapters and content. This last couple of weeks have been tough. My wife had to fly back to Colorado to help take care of her mom after an ankle replacement surgery. My mother-in-law is doing great, but that did leave me with the kiddos (six and four) for two weeks. Trying to balance being the only parent around while also cramming work in where and wh...
2020-08-15 17:03:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone! So I wanted to share some art with you all. There will be a BUNCH of it coming down the pipeline. DJ Bodden (Author of the Illusionist) and I thought it would be really cool to make a VGO Custom Card Deck. It'll have all the normal cards, so you can use it for any game, but it will also come with extra Veteran Cards and rules for Gentleman's War, which is a game featured in VGO, o...
2020-08-12 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
“Hyperbolic much?” I asked, rolling my eyes. It was always the fate of humanity with him.
“God’s honest truth,” he said, holding up his fingers like a boy scout. “If she carries through with her plan, it’ll change everything. She’s planning to clean house, Yancy. Gyre-Carlin, Queen of Winter, King Oberon and Queen Titania of Summer. Freyr the Green Man. ...
2020-08-09 17:41:40 +0000 UTC View Post
“I supposed Greg is right. I’ll concede that maybe, maybe, I had this coming.” James said gestured at his face. He was sitting in a leather club chair, an icepack pressed up against his bruised and battered mug. The rest of the room had been put to rights—the table hoisted off Sir Gal, the furniture straightened, the papers collected into an orderly stack. 2020-08-01 19:31:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Dinner was better for Logan, but only because the menu was leftover chicken legs. They were lukewarm and some pieces were about to turn. For a fungaloid, apparently, the extra tang was just what the doctor ordered. Logan traded his fresh pieces for Marko’s questionable ones and stuck a couple of chicken legs away in his satchel for later. True, some part of him felt more t...
2020-07-30 23:48:13 +0000 UTC View PostLogan and the Terrible Twelfth hit the Golden Serpent Hall for a quick lunch—some kind of succulent roast in a thick gravy sauce—and then made their way to the Akros Coliseum, which was the northeast practice field. A dirt running track, packed down from thousands of feet, surrounded a grassy field filled with a variety of odd implements. Some of them resembled obstacles Logan had seen on t...
2020-07-29 01:15:20 +0000 UTC View Post
“You dirty son of a bitch,” I growled, hands balling into fists, gaze fixed on the man at the far side of the room like a heat seeker locking onto target. Sharp dressed, with movie-star good looks and a 1920’s hairdo, James Sullivan looked for all the world like he’d just stepped off the set of the Great Gatsby. He wore a grin as wide as the Mississippi in rainy seaso...
2020-07-25 14:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostLogan and the rest of the incoming freshman class were given a single day of orientation. Inga, the bookworm moth woman, was overjoyed when they were given their DCG, or Dungeon Core Grimoire. It contained the following:
· A very encouraging letter from the Headmaster, S. Shadowcroft
· Their class schedule
· A map of the campus
· Their cohort and clan assign...
2020-07-23 22:13:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Professor Yullis Rockheart, the rector prime of the Shadowcroft Academy and the master of the Azure Dragon Clan, stood alone in the Golden Serpent Hall, but he wasn’t alone for long.
Shadowcroft came down the steps from the upper rooms of the castle. He limped along in his normal gait, one shoulder lowered, moving quickly. His green beard swayed and the flowers on his...
2020-07-22 21:57:40 +0000 UTC View Post
“And now, without further ado, let the games begin!” Across from us, a steel portcullis lurched up with a shriek, but instead of discharging more pitiful prisoners, a deafening bellow rang out. The ground vibrated and trembled as monsters exploded from a connecting ramp and onto the sands. “Hailing from the Dark Wood on the edge of the First Circle,” the announcer said, “welcome the H...
2020-07-18 07:23:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone. Wanted to share the first episode of a brand new VGO short story, called Portal Mage. And, as a thank you for supporting me, I'm making it available to Patrons at every level! This one is a collaboration with D.J. Bodden, author of the VGO EU series, the Illusionist. Unlike many of the other VGO stories out there, this one is unique in that it takes place well after the events of ...
2020-07-16 20:17:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone! Just thought I'd share this slick new piece of art that Shadow Alley is commissioning for the upcoming Snake's Path by Kenneth Arrant -- the follow up to A Snake's Life. Love the art, though the picture placement is too high, since the title treatment needs to go up top. I'll have to have the artist lower the image and raise the sky/wings to give space for the title without so muc...
2020-07-15 20:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Afternoon, more art exclusively for patreon.
From Wendigo Rising we have an artist's interpretation of the Blob zilla. This was the finale were Yancy fought Achak and they dueled metaphysically. Giant construct against giant construct.
Does anyone remember what form Yancy took?
Here we have a sort of 'before and after' design. I thought it would be Intresting to see differe...
Logan stepped into a gloomy, rocky cavern, filled with towering stalagmites and stalactites like the teeth of some monstrous creature. Flittering bugs, each the size of a quarter, buzzed lazily through the air, shedding witchy green light from glowing abdomens. The light bounced off the slick stone columns and rippled across shallow-looking pools of water dotting the ground i...
2020-07-15 00:08:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Logan found himself in a classic dungeon hallway with only one way to go. He padded forward slowly and silently on his fat gumby feet. He had to move slowly, of course, because his little mushroom frame simply wasn’t built for speed; it was obviously built for sitting around on rotten trees and germinating. He metaphorically grit his teeth—unfortunately he was mi...
2020-07-11 14:59:16 +0000 UTC View Post
The pain spun Logan Murray into a dark void. The second time in less than twenty-four hours he’d visited Abysstown. Population ouch. Well, no one ever said that dying and becoming a dungeon core would be easy.
This time, at least, the darkness was fleeting—there one minute, gone the next.
And this time, Logan didn’t wake up alone. Nor was he human. Not even ...
2020-07-09 13:11:04 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone! Wanted to give everyone a little update. So this past Fourth of July weekend, my wife and I held the second annual Shadow Alley Press Retreat about an hour away from our house in Kentucky. We hold the event for our authors and other publishing contractors (editors, project managers, directors etc) both to celebrate the year and to help everyone recharge. To be inspired for what we...
2020-07-08 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
There is no going back. There is only forward. The words echoed in his head like the clarion chime of a struck bell.
Wow. Now that was a hell of a gut punch.
Logan sat down. He swallowed hard and pressed his eyes shut. There was no going back. Others might get an afterlife, but he got a temporary body and a one-way ticket into a dungeon core academy.
<... 2020-07-07 19:23:20 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, here's chapter four of Shadowcroft. I've had a blast working on this book so far, but building out the magic and "game system"--though this is more cultivation than litRPG--is definitely one of my favorite parts of writing. That and the fight scenes. I'm a sucker for a good fight scene. This is one of those magic/system building chapters, though finding the right balance of giving...
2020-07-02 17:02:41 +0000 UTC View Post