Plum Parrot

M70

Morgan rifled through the bookcase, trying to figure out if any of the volumes were worth anything. They were in a room that must have been one of the officer or instructor quarters. They’d had to fight a shimmering, luminescent man wearing ghostly pajamas and wielding a longsword with deadly skill. They’d been able to take him easily enough, two on one, but he’d definitely known how to f...

O18

The first few days of academy classes went by in a blur for Olivia. Her favorite part of the day was during the morning when she and her cohort would find a quiet place in the first-year library to study runes. The library, even the limited section for first-year students, was a magnificent place with an ambiance of gravity that made Olivia feel special just for sitting in it. The bookcases wer...

M69

Drillmaster Groll stepped forward, his heavy foot clanking against the cobbles in the courtyard. Morgan took a good look at his armor - the way it encased him from neck to toes in heavy-looking blue-gray plates. Even his joints had little articulated plates on them. Morgan knew there was a name for those armor pieces, but he didn’t know it. Groll, like his students, emitted a silver-blue lumi...

M68

Morgan looked at the heavy wooden gates and the human-sized gap that had opened between them. He wanted to continue, to see what he could find and learn in this strange place, but he found himself preoccupied with the idea that Issa had almost died just a few minutes ago. He looked at her, and some of his consternation must have been written on his face because she frowned at him and said, “W...

O17

Time went by very quickly in their Core development class, and it seemed like mere moments had passed after Sange spoke to her when Adaida was shaking Olivia’s shoulder, letting her know it was time to move on. Olivia stood and stretched. She’d been trying to feel differently attuned currents of Energy around her, and she’d felt like she was just sensing a tickling feeling of something di...

M67

The sisters were high in the sky, shedding their pale luminescence over the open cobbled roadway leading to the imposing gates. Morgan and Issa had come down the road to wait for the mysterious guardian that was supposed to make its appearance at midnight every ten days. Yan had acted as if the time had never been stuck while the two adventurers had gone through their challenges and insisted th...

O16

The sandwiches were good; Olivia couldn’t argue with that - the bread had been fresh, and the meat and vegetables slathered in a rich sauce had filled her belly nicely. While they ate, the cohort continued talking about relative age, and Olivia, for the first time, was introduced to how the System calculated days and minutes. After learning about the System’s twenty-hour day with seventy-fi...

O15

Happy Saturday, Patrons!

Olivia did her best to tune out the chatter in the enchantment lab while she began to study the runes in her text. Many of the other students were doing the same, quietly reading through their list of runes, but many others were babbling in outraged tones about the “absurd” way their instructor had kicked off the class. “Are you just goin...

M66

Tal-dak and Shinra were Morgan and Issa’s second opponents to leave behind a chest. While Issa studied the chest, Morgan looked around at the much more sparsely populated cluster of tents. Most of the remaining challengers were sitting or standing near their tents, talking or eating, but none of them gave any attention to the victors. He also noticed that the shadows seemed longer, and he loo...

M65

The chest the two Bogoli sisters had in their camp didn’t look like a System generated treasure chest. At least, not one that Morgan had seen before. It was long and shallow, more like a toolbox than a chest, crafted from a shiny dark wood with bronze metal corner plates. No runes were apparent on the chest, and Issa spent a long time staring at it from all angles. Finally, she felt comfortab...

O14

Olivia dreamt of dark pits and mutilated corpses; she dreamt of writhing tentacles and terrible crunching bones. Often she was running through endless winding tunnels, something close behind her, and above her terror was a terrible sadness because underneath the wails of her pursuers were the sobs and pleading cries of her tortured friends. She woke, panting, and drenched in sweat, a deep, pain...

M64

Morgan sat across the fire from Issa, watching her meditate. She’d gained a level and gotten a new skill called Hexing Shriek. When he asked her what it did, she had said that enemies she affected with it would feel more demoralized and suffer from reduced Energy and stamina recovery. He’d noticed that it seemed to take a while for her eyes to return to their usual bright yellow after the b...

O13

Olivia looked up from her bowl of hot cereal and asked her cohort, “How often will I get to visit home?” The collective chewing and crunching around the table slowed down, and then Rald swallowed loudly and answered her.

“Well, you’re free on weekends. We have a week at midsummer and a week at midwinter, and, at the end of the year, you have a month free until the next session sta...

M63

When the blue lights began to fade, allowing Morgan to see his surroundings, he found that he and Issa were standing on a stone platform on a hillside overlooking the high valley where the Citadel sat. There were some tremendous differences between what he saw in the valley now versus what had been there when he and Issa rode their roladii in earlier. The orange hillsides were decked in the sam...

O12

Olivia watched the door click closed behind Yunsha, and then she turned back to the group of people at the far end of the room. She slowly started walking toward them, doing her best to plaster a smile on her face. She was about halfway down the hallway when a small figure charged toward her from the couch. Olivia could see that it wasn’t a child but rather another person of Yunsha’s race. ...

O11

After Gan-dak showed her off to his friend Tilia, a willowy, winged Ghelli woman, he announced that she could let her concentration drop and that Olivia had passed his exams. “I’m done? So I’m in?”

“Oh yes, you’re in, more than in; I’m going to recommend you receive a full scholarship with no service indenture.”

“Service indenture?”

“Yes, many students ar...

M62

The ancient road leading up the side of the box canyon had been easy for Morgan and Issa to find. When they’d ridden through the scraggy orange hills for a few miles, they started to make out the stony sides of the northern edge of the canyon. Following ridgelines from there had been easy, and soon they’d broken through some scrub into a humid valley filled with twisted little trees with fr...

O10

"I'll be waiting here, Olivia. Just relax and follow the instructions of your evaluator." Yunsha smiled warmly, her blue-stained lips parting to reveal very human-like teeth.

"Yes, Olivia, my name is Mrs. Poyle, and you can follow me. I'll take you to your evaluator." She gestured to the door on her left and began walking. Olivia pushed down her anxiety and followed. She'd always been goo...

M61

Morgan and Issa rode over to the circled wagons. The Cadwalli started to clamber out from behind their cover and gather in a group, watching the two of them approach. As Morgan and Issa neared, an older Cadwalli woman wearing a beaded leather skirt and vest strode forward, waving her hand. "Welcome, heroes! Welcome!" Her voice was a high tenor and carried over the ground like a trumpet. Morgan ...

M60

Morgan and Issa were noticed almost immediately by the Shadeni riders. Several of the riders peeled off from around the wagons and came toward them. Morgan remained calm, making sure that he didn't go too fast or make threatening movements; he wanted to give this situation a chance to resolve without him having to kill a bunch of people or die. He definitely didn't want to die. He glanced at Is...

O9

Nearly as soon as her vision faded to black, a pinpoint of light appeared in Olivia's view that slowly widened to reveal a new scene. Momentary vertigo assaulted her as her body tried to make sense of the sudden change of perspective. She was no longer standing in a comfortable tavern looking into the faces of her friends. Rather, she was standing on a marble dais overlooking a smooth, stone ar...

M59

Morgan and Issa sat on one of the new stone benches that circled the hilltop where the Colony Stone rose out of the ground. Actually, it was a Town Stone now. Arthur had explained that the colony had reached a milestone with buildings that had allowed him to expend some System credits to upgrade the stone. Morgan wasn’t sure of all the benefits that entailed, but he was glad that the settleme...

Part 2 starts today!

Dear Patrons,

Thanks for sticking with me! Today is the first chapter of part 2 of the story. I have been working on three different arcs, one with Morgan and Issa, one with Olivia and one with Bronwyn. I'm only going to be posting Morgan's and Olivia's arcs for now, because I've found that people get irritated with too many POV changes, too frequently. As I get more and more Bronwyn chap...

M58

It's the last day of the month, and I only have 2 chapters left in this arc. I am going to post them today so that those of you who don't want to renew your Patreon can see how this arc wraps up. That said, Tuesday's and Wednesday's posts are going up right now, so the next post will be on Thursday.

Cheers,

-Plum Parrot

Morgan watched as B...

M57

It's the last day of the month, and I only have 2 chapters left in this arc. I am going to post them today so that those of you who don't want to renew your Patreon can see how this arc wraps up. That said, Tuesday's and Wednesday's posts are going up right now, so the next post will be on Thursday.

Cheers,

-Plum Parrot

Morgan didn’t int...

M56

Morgan walked out of the council meeting with a burgeoning headache. He couldn’t believe that one guy could cause so much dissension. Every single topic had to be explained three times, and every single time, Reggie acted like he still didn’t understand or agree with what was going on. He didn’t like the way roads were being planned. He didn’t like the way the militia was being operated...

B23

Happy Saturday :)

Bronwyn woke up with the System alert about voting in her face. She groaned, swiping it away, and rolled out of her bed. She went in the bathroom and washed her face, used the toilet, and then got dressed in a set of clean clothes, strapping her spiked armor on over them. After pulling on her boots, she went into the hallway and knocked on Olivia’s ...

M55

“I saw some of my kinfolk camping over near the east wall. I’m going to go and say hello, if you don’t mind, Morgan.” Issa gestured vaguely to the east, and Morgan nodded.

“All right. I’ll catch up with you in a few hours at the tower?”

“That sounds good.” She smiled, stood on her tiptoes, and Morgan got the hint, leaning down to kiss her. Before he could say any m...

O8 + M

“This is absurd!” Arthur Ballard fumed, slamming his fist on the table. “The day after a foreign army lays siege to our community, we are going to hold an election?”

“Look, I only did what you all asked me to do,” Bronwyn said, her voice carefully flat but a dangerous spark in her eyes. Olivia thought about interjecting, but she wanted to hear more of what everyone else was th...

M54

All in all, Morgan was in an excellent mood. He’d slept well, things were going great with Issa, and despite his encounter with the snake’s acid, he’d managed to conquer it. As he walked through the grass toward the colony’s central hub, he even caught himself whistling a little tune. Morgan wore his nice white shirt tucked into his sturdy tailored pants, the sun was warm on his face, a...