I woke to darkness, and a low, droning song that rose and fell, rose and fell… a healer’s lullaby, sung in a pleasant smooth baritone. Something warm and wet rolled down my face, and I groaned, turning my head to the side. Something cold slid over my cheek. I reached up and felt damp cloth, and a cool, wrinkled hand.
"Sssst!" Masterhealer Masha hissed under he...
2020-08-17 17:57:22 +0000 UTC View Post[SEED#: NUMBERFETCH 00-001A-TypeNew[HeraldOfMT]: Hector Park.]
[… ]
[HeraldOfMT]: Thank you for your contribution to Learning Cycle 3944390-SZ: Anomalous Malware Activity Resulting from Corrupted Player Data and Data Fragments. In response to a serious attempt to modify, corrupt, or delete your personal files, patches and security updates are being applied to...
2020-08-17 17:56:39 +0000 UTC View Post
The self-styled Emperor of Archemi was a lot bigger than I remembered. Close to seven feet tall, dressed in silvered armor that reflected the desert sun with a radiant aura that made him seem even larger. His face was shielded by a greathelm that resembled an eagle’s beak, complete with piercing jeweled eyes. He looked like a paladin out of legend, someone to inspire awe an...
2020-08-17 17:55:35 +0000 UTC View PostThe girl stared at me for several moments, warring with herself. Finally, she bought her hands up and began to sign again. "My name... you can call me Whisper. What's your name?"
That was a very good question. I still didn't remember, so I signed the first word that came to mind. "Noodles."
Whisper blinked a couple of times. “… What?”
“M. T. Noodles,” I said, finger-...
2020-08-08 12:23:16 +0000 UTC View PostSpear of Destiny picks up exactly where Warsinger left off. Please forgive any clunky dialogue, my lack of formatting or any errors. I'm very interested in your first impressions: whether or not it looks to be a satisfying start to the next book.
I didn't have to turn my head to see my nemesis in all of his towering dickheaded glory. In fact, both of us could have stood back to b...
2020-07-19 05:53:03 +0000 UTC View PostAlmost there...
I've been working on these puppies for the last week. Check out that long list of layers! There's a reason these things take time :)
I've been working on Spear of Destiny and Brute Force, a new LitRPG series, at the same time. Yes, I am insane. But I'm enjoying this story so far.
There's been drafts of this published here before, but the story has evolved considerably from my first ideas of it. I'd be interested to know what you all think.
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I woke up with a mouthful of sand....
2020-07-02 17:33:41 +0000 UTC View PostHi everyone,
I wanted to give you an update on some changes that we’ll be seeing which may affect some of your pledges. Due to new laws passing in several countries and US states, Patreon will be required to start charging sales tax on some pledges starting July 1st.
Less than half of all patrons will be charged sales tax, and for most, the amount will...
2020-06-12 01:03:12 +0000 UTC View PostTell me what you think!
I woke up in Hell with a mouthful of sand.
"Pff! Pfffpt!" I flailed upright. Spat and coughed. My body felt three times too large, like a sausage stuffed into an over-tight skin. The sun beat down on my back. Sweat stung my eyes.
I was on a beach.
To my left, the ocean hissed and burbled. Humid...
2020-06-05 11:36:31 +0000 UTC View PostI have a lot of characters running around in my head between all my various projects. Angkor is the first Korean character I made, with Hector being a distant second. Ang is someone I might write science fiction novels about some day.
If you have read Strange Fruit or Zero Sum, or the short story Those Who Breathe Under the End, you'll have met Angkor in the context of one or...
2020-05-19 23:46:49 +0000 UTC View PostMore work on the system underpinning my next big LitRPG project, Brute Force. You're all the first to see this: not even my wife has read this yet!
==Basic Concepts==
- Post-Mortem Virtual Realities are commonplace as of the 2070s. They are officially called PMVRs, but are often referred to as EdenFRAMEs (named for the company who developed and still runs most bespoke PMVRs...
2020-05-18 14:29:00 +0000 UTC View PostThese are some of the system developmental notes I've been writing for my next LitRPG project (to be written simultaneously with Archemi) - Brute Force, a LitRPG trilogy set in a survival/arena type game.
One of the things I learned from writing Archemi is that your system has to be water-tight before you start writing.
==Combat==
...
2020-05-17 17:25:07 +0000 UTC View PostDo you want to have your voice to be in the Kingdom Come audiobook?
Well, here's something fun: we need people who can scream like angry cats.
And by that, I mean Soundbooth need YOU to record your best angry Meewfolk warcries.
Yes, really.
If you'd like to add your voice to one of the Archemi audiobooks and can make noises like an angry 7ft tall cat, your time has come!...
2020-05-15 14:21:53 +0000 UTC View PostHello, my lovelies - after much blood, sweat and tears, Warsinger is ready!
Here is the download link: https://BookHip.com/LASWDM
The service I'm using (Bookfunnel) will guide you on how to install the book on your device.
I noticed today that some of you have been my supporters for between 24 and 12 mont...
2020-05-04 06:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostSorry for the pause in updates - I had last-minute some editing to do in the second half of the book before it's uploaded for release :D
In good news, I will be making the entire 150,000 words available to all relevant tiers tomorrow. I'll also continue to serialize it here - but the edited ebook version is much cleaner and has some important balance and plot things added/refined in the ...
The stairs to the Undercity were the worst part of the trip. Suri was right - there were a couple of Fireblooded toughs waiting at the bottom for us. They asked for three silver Dinars, and Suri was able to use her street cred here to get it down to two. Then we were on our way, slogging along a muddy dirt path through a cramped, dark town that reminded me of a giant subway tunnel, complete wit...
2020-04-30 19:21:01 +0000 UTC View Post4 Days later: Dalim, Dakhdir
As we came in over Dalim, the City of Bridges, I finally understood what Suri had meant when she'd told me the nobility of Dalim never walked on the ground. The city was a geometric artwork from the air, an intricate flower of white marble and brilliantly colored tile blooming out of the desert, surrounded in three directions by a patchwork quilt of a...
2020-04-30 19:11:26 +0000 UTC View PostKaralti and I went to bed in my bathtub, nestling down into the soft sand. Neither of talked about what had happened earlier in the night. The stress of dealing with the assassin had wiped us both out, and even as we curled around one another, there was an awkward, unspoken tension. I was having to admit to myself that there was a reason I’d kept my virginity into my twenties, and it wasn’t...
2020-04-30 19:10:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe six of us gathered around Vash’s bed in a state of silent shock. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Rutha's testimony... the one in which she'd given incorrect information as to Baldr's next move. It was timed so perfectly that there was no way he hadn't intended for it to play out this way.
"Did Rutha lie to us?" Suri asked me, as astounded as everyone else.
“No....
2020-04-27 09:35:59 +0000 UTC View PostFuck text numerals.
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Twenty minutes later, I was recovering in the hospital on the bed beside Vash’s. Masha was gingerly palpitating the enlarged black void on my shoulder. The triangular patch of dead pixels had been an unchanging bit of weirdness since my first week in Archemi, the place where a piece of wood had glitched through my shoulder. Now it...
2020-04-27 09:34:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe plot thickens. Other things also thicken.
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Karalti was silent through the short flight, teleportation, and landing. I could sense she was eager to get Suri and Rin off her back – and me, for that matter. The dragon stamped and pawed as I got down, and once Rin and her turrets were on the ground, I felt Karalti’s mind press ...
2020-04-27 09:34:09 +0000 UTC View PostWho is best waifu?
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We let the carriage take us to the Night Market, but damned if we were going to stay in the cabin. Neither Suri or I were the kind of people who enjoyed watching the world go by from the window of a car. We abandoned the droshki at the Merchant District gate, then ran hand-in-hand throu...
2020-04-26 06:11:38 +0000 UTC View PostHector has a sense of humor, but at heart, he's a serious sort of person.
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There was, in fact, a great amount of Voivoding to do. So, for the first time in my twenty-seven years of life, I willingly sat at a writing desk and used it for its intended purpose: studying.
I went back ...
2020-04-26 06:10:04 +0000 UTC View PostSorry for the delay in updates - I've been editing! I realized I omitted a vital scene from Chapter 21... ugh. All of it will be integrated with the final book. Posting resumes as normal later today.
So here it is. Suri claiming her spawn point, and Cutthroat and Cocoa meet for the first time:
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“Hang on! We have to let Cutthro...
2020-04-25 12:20:55 +0000 UTC View Post
This is Suri's sheet as of the beginning of Warsinger. She has a very different character balance to Hector, focusing her points on a relatively small set of special combat abilities, and very little in the way of mobility. Beserkers focus on finishing combat quickly and decisively.
Level 2...
2020-04-21 20:26:12 +0000 UTC View PostI gathered the crew in Kalla Sahasi’s War Room, which was really just the ballroom but with a table. The castle’s actual war-room was missing its ceiling thanks to one of the Demon’s catapults, so we’d moved the castle’s dining table in here and had set it up for meetings. I’d taken screenshots of the fresco and set them to Suri and Rin, who were still looking off into space with ex...
2020-04-21 20:18:37 +0000 UTC View PostIn the vision, she had been nothing more than a sand-veiled silhouette striding through the desert, but the silhouette was unmistakable. She – it was somehow feminine – was rendered like a mechanical saint. She had a pair of curved golden swords crossed over her chest, and a great flaming halo that hung behind her narrow head. The Warsinger’s helmet was styled like a falling meteor, with ...
2020-04-21 20:17:45 +0000 UTC View PostIt took us a while to hack and blast our way through the doors. One of them lead to the ass-end of the Ful Algol. There were more dung beetle-like [Guardian Drones] here, frozen in the moment that their controller had died. Some of them were halfway through pushing clumps of shit cement into position, back legs resting up on their payloads. There was approximately a ton of balled up detritus in...
2020-04-20 22:10:01 +0000 UTC View PostKaralti let out a shriek of warning, fleeing in the other direction as the heap in the middle of the floor reared up into a vaguely humanoid shape: big chest, narrow waist, like a giant's torso crudely modeled out of couple tons of congealed shit, dirt, and algae. And then I remembered something - Phantasmal Rounds didn't affect Constructs.
"Oh you motherfucking-" I Jumped out of the way ...
2020-04-19 22:05:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I’d seen chihuahuas smaller than the fat, mangy, hissing [Stranged Rats] surging toward us. There were dozens of them, writhing over and around each other as they boiled toward the corpse Karalti had pulled down off the catwalk. Without thinking, I caught her hand and pulled her away just before the rats fell on it, ravenously stripping cloth and flesh. But as more and more...
2020-04-19 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post