Milc/C.J. Milnes

Extending General tier to 21 chapters ahead of RR

I believe the title covers it all :)

Hope you enjoy the additional chapters!

Cheers

Chris

[B2] Chapter 3 - Level of control

“What is it?” Fay asked sleepily.  “I thought the dead were far behind us?”  I checked on Glimpse and found him circling along our backtrail keeping track of the gradually dispersing remains of the horde.

“They are but I can’t stop here, love.  I need to move back to Mondit as fast as possible and deal with the Ur-Viles.”  I pecked her on the cheek. ...

[B2] Chapter 2 - Draw up a list, check it twice

I woke up - no, this wasn’t reality.  Or even the surreal, possibly-a-coma-dream world of Urth I’d grown to accept as my new normal.  I was back in Aresk’s realm but this time I couldn’t move anything but my eyes.  It had changed, now instead of the giant statue before me I found five unique environments, each seemingly distinct and separate but blending into one at the c...

[B2} Chapter 1 - Stop moping around!

Level 70

Body:  C-   Mind:  C-  Souls: SS

That was a lot of Souls.  I suppressed the urge to giggle like Scrooge McDuck. I didn’t have a physical way to swim in the damn things anyway.  

Glimpse was keeping an eye on my troops as they galloped far ahead of me.  They were showing no si...

Chapter 63 - Holy moly

Having shouted myself hoarse rallying my cavalry to reform outside the Areskyn encampment I ran back and forth chivvying along the more bloodthirsty stragglers.  It took ten painful minutes as I watched the rest of the tribes disperse the face of what could only be described as a tide of undead.  The shambling masses had rushed the other tribes and the dead, both the reanimated varian...

Chapter 62 - Betrayal

I took off across the kilometre or so of grassland that separated me from my wife and my warriors in a sprint the likes of which would make Olympians weep in jealousy.  Each step threw me forward five metres, leaving deep prints in the soil and throwing divots of turf up behind me.

The first barrage of stones from our enemies had landed but the second wave bounced off broad discs of ...

Chapter 61 - Fine then. Fists!

Seen from above the festival site lacked something.  It was impressive in scope, don’t get me wrong but it just looked like a low hill surrounded by concentric rings of upright stones.  As we got closer and I saw it with my own eyes the scale of the construction stole my breath.

The barrow loomed in the distance, far more imposing from ground level than it had been when seen t...

Chapter 60 - What fresh madness is this?

AUTHORS NOTE:

I'm extending the General tier to 18 chapters ahead of RR :)

Thanks very much for your support!

Chris

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“You need to share the Souls, Mond,” Kril called over his shoulder as our chariot rattled towards what I hoped would become my first industria...

Chapter 59 - That’s pretty disgusting, bloke.

Vilis Humano slain x37.

One thousand eight hundred and fifty Souls gathered.

I was crouched down near the last and largest camp of the giants that had been following me.  I’d already killed the rest and was feeling pretty happy with the results.  These bastards didn’t trouble my code at all and they were even more pro...

Chapter 58 - No shortie could do this!

I ran north with bare feet.  The cold was uncomfortable, as were the occasional jagged stones, but it wasn’t painful and it didn’t do me any harm.  Whether it was my strength stat or my increased hit points, or perhaps some combination of the two, the force of my feet pounding into the semi frozen ground didn’t bother me at all.

I silently thanked Hakubin for my time hangi...

Chapter 57 - Barefoot King

“I cannot believe you aren’t wearing shoes!  The ground is still frozen for Aresk’s sake!”  Fay grumbled good naturedly as we walked from Mondit to the pass hand in hand.  I paused and stamped a foot, leaving an inch deep imprint in the frozen earth, and then raised it to show her my sole.

“Foot beats stone now!” I grinned.  “You wouldn’t believe how ha...

Chapter 56 - Levels and loot

“So what’s the final tally?” I asked Trikilo.  His savage grin looked sinister in the dancing firelight.  It had taken three days for us to round up the Kopregyn herds and bring their wagons to join our main camp.  Hundreds of warriors and women stared at me from the cleared area in the middle of the camp.  They were almost all nursing hangovers and practicing the old ...

Chapter 55 - War, huh.

Looking down from Glimpse’s perspective, at first glance this seemed like it would go very badly for us.  My sixty chariots held the central position flanked by fifty lancers at either end of our double line.  The mounted archers were formed into two groups on our flanks.  All told I had just over five hundred men in my “army”.

We had taken position on a small hill de...

Chapter 54 - The bright side

“And this is what they do?” I asked Kril in icy horror.  It had been two weeks since we sent the Koprigyn emissary packing and they had finally made their move.

“Koprigyn are savage bastards,” he muttered.  Our gathering party the bastards had attacked had been composed of a handful of men escorting women and kids who weren’t yet eligible for marriage or going on Koryo...

Chapter 53 - Damsels in distress

“Step forward,” I called from my chair.  Fay was sitting next to me on her own wearing a stern expression on her face that looked almost comical to me.  She was usually either joking, teasing or seductive in my experience.

Ten warriors moved out of the crowd and stood proudly across the firepit from me.  Chests puffed out and shoulders pushed back. The snow was falli...

Chapter 52 - Just as red as this one

Two weeks had passed in a happy blur.  The hides were cured and those that weren’t being immediately converted into simple saddles were packed onto wagons in anticipation of our move north to the iron ore.  We now had nightly patrols of warriors with packs of dogs, huge shaggy things that would terrify people from back home, to ensure our perimeter and constant sweeps by trios of ho...

Chapter 51 - That word again

We didn’t catch the name of the new Dreamer from Areskit as we bounced and shook our way past the horse archers who wheeled about to follow in our wake.  Glimpse had circled down and landed on Fay’s shoulder, receiving a fond pat on the head for his trouble.

“Hello crow.  Hurry home husband,” she whispered into the bird's ear before stopping her meeting with a handful of...

Release update

Hey all,

Welcome and thank you to the new subscribers, hope you enjoy the story!

I've just hit the main RS page on RR so I'm going to step up releases for this week and probably do another chapter dump at the weekend if my backlog allows.

You can expect one chappie a day till Friday then definitely one, maybe four on Saturday. It will depend if the muses (or my day job) are k...

Chapter 50 - Schrodinger's Wizard

“And you didn’t see him at all?” asked Jagapan, fixing me with his mismatched stare.  We were back in his tent and in addition to Kril and my Fangs we were joined by Sulk, his wife Kayla as well as Jagapan’s wife, Habene.

“It seems a remarkable coincidence,” said Kayla with a faint smile.

“I haven’t laid eyes on him since he left this tent yesterday!” barked K...

Chapter 49 - No one will know

Grell smirked at me in reply.  Crow's feet marred the otherwise smooth olive skin around his eyes and he held out his right hand.  A ball of orange fire appeared floating above it.  I feigned shock and stumbled backwards, deliberately knocking over my captains as I didn’t trust their acting skills at all.  Direct, brutal and honest were the traits of my adopted people, sub...

Chapter 48 - I’ve never met a wizard before

“Does this place smell bad to you?” I asked Kril as we walked into the town.  I nodded to the guards who gave me wary looks in reply.  Kril took a deep sniff and shook his head.

“Nah.  It always smells like this at the cull.”  We moved aside as a dead aurox was dragged past us by a pair of ponies.

“I don’t like it,” muttered Jandak.  He, Mune a...

Chapter 47 - Being brash

We travelled quickly to Jagarnit.  We stopped to make camp twice on the way and I spent the evenings giving instruction on unarmed and short blade fighting as well as giving lectures on what I could remember from Mongol and Turkish mounted archer strategies.  The concept of a feigned retreat was sneered at, at first they felt it was dishonourable and inglorious.  

It t...

Chapter 46 - “The power”

I awoke alone which surprised me into sitting bolt upright.  I scanned around my empty tent and reached out to Glimpse but he was currently devouring every scrap of meat he could find that had been dropped or cast aside at the party last night.  I sent him a warning not to get fat but all I got in reply was a mental raspberry.

I shrugged the furs off me and looked around for my ...

Chapter 45 - Aresk blesses this union

Kril accelerated our chariot ahead of the slowly moving wagons.  Two more of the rickety seeming vehicles sped up to pace us as we raced north towards Mondit.

“What’s the rush?” I asked as we bounced along, the wind blowing through my unruly hair and beard, sweeping them both back behind my head.

“Have you ever been married, boy?” Kril snapped over his shoulder.

Chapter 44- Split the herds

I resumed my usual place on the now red stained stone flags.  Another beast was led in and I put my wrist under its chin as usual, blade a centimetre from its throat.  

“For Aresk,” I whispered.  Then with a well practiced movement I drew the knife around the neck and upwards.  There was a spray of blood and a thud as the now decapitated aurox swung gently on ...

Chapter 43 - Glimpse

The animals were led in one at a time.  A pair of ropes had been slung across the stone slab and once the beast was in position it was hoisted off the ground slightly.  They must have drugged the animals, slipped something in their feed, because the aurox were extremely docile.  Once it was in position I slit the poor bastard's throat, we waited for the blood to drain and it to s...

Chapter 42 - God-marked

I explained what I wanted in terms of saddles and stirrups to my new crafters.  They caught on quickly but seemed to doubt my sanity.

“But why?  The horses won’t like it! You’ll never be able to control them,” said Gant, the male leatherworker.  His wife Cimal nodded firmly in agreement.

“They’ll get used to it.  Do you have what you need?” I asked....

Chapter 41 - Still thinking with the wrong spear!

Hakubin rode forwards with his mounted escort and stopped halfway between our warbands.  While he had the numbers I wasn’t worried about it coming to an actual fight.  We still had plenty of firewall stones on our cavalry to deal with the infantry.  The only issue would be having to defend the prisoners.  I’d taken to thinking of them as prisoners because “slaves” fe...

Chapter 40 - It speaks well of your character

“She’ll be safe?” I insisted the next morning.  Kril seemed exasperated with me: we were meant to be discussing the concept of stirrups.  He had a basic grasp of the idea but without an example and speaking to the smith all it meant to him was frustration.  My crude drawings of a proper saddle and stirrup setup made clear how useful they’d be and he was getting increasing...

Chapter 39 - Cowards words!

Myself, Mune, Jandak and Kril walked back to the camp while the rest of our group slumped on the back of the chariots for the final leg of the journey home.  I got the feeling I would have to buy a saddle and stirrup set from the shop in order to explain the concept properly but all of them were deeply intrigued by the idea.

“So you can land a solid blow with a spear and shoot arro...