Milc/C.J. Milnes

Chapter 8 - New Affinity unlocked

Having disposed of the bear's head a few days ago due to the increasingly unpleasant smell, I had been lacking in conversation but had made do.  I peed on the bear pelt in its hole and poked it with the end of my digging stick.  I had no idea if it was working or not.  The skin was soggy and pliant but I wasn’t sure how long it needed treating for, assuming this treatment would...

Chapter 7 - Spend Souls to make Souls

Waking up was a gradual process.  I’d spent most of the night hovering between true sleep and paranoid wakefulness.  Grumbling to myself about mattresses and duvets I started out by inspecting the deadfall traps.  The first five had all killed mice.  The mice were now very flat but I gathered them up anyway, heading towards the last trap with them swinging from my felt han...

Chapter 6 - Return on investment

Not only had some asshole installed Excel in my brain: the system seemed to like to work in decimals.  Only health and mana were out of the single digits on my starting status.  I mentally reached out and clicked on my health to spend a stat point.

Health: 76/100

Ok.  So I'd get ten points to health, and presumably mana, per point.  I wa...

The end of Carnival

Hi all,

There is some administrative stuff I want to cover in addition to wishing you all a happy new year:

228 is the end of Carnival. I leave it to you to fill in the blanks about the teams adventures from this point onwards. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! It has been almost a year since I typed out the first chapter (which now makes me cringe wh...

Chapter 5 - My last ten Souls

It turned out, to no one's surprise, that the bear meat tasted bad.  Once my pot of water had boiled for a few minutes I let it cool then drank my fill.  I’d peeled and chopped the potato-like tubers then cooked them in the remaining water with a couple of handfuls of berries while I held chunks of bear meat threaded onto a green stick over the hotter parts of the fire.  The be...

Which cover is better?

Thoughts?

Chapter 4 - Resentment and resignation.

I stayed still for a few minutes as I let the aches and pains wash over me.  The cuts across my back itched and the burns on my hand made the skin painful when I moved.  My eyes followed the wisps of smoke rising from the huge corpse of the partially burned bear as the heat finally dissipated.  I kept a watch on the treeline, fool me once shame on me.  As my pain had started...

Chapter 3 - Burning hair

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.  I’d spent so long hunting in the concrete jungle that I’d formed bad habits when it came to good old mother nature who remained, as ever, red in tooth and claw.  I silently cursed my lack of professionalism.

Fortunately old instincts and hard earned training kicked in faster than I could think.  The flaming stick stabbed forward towards the left...

Chapter 2 - Nekkid as the day I was born

Authors note:

Happy Christmas! 🎅

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I wasn’t sure if it was my suddenly heavy eyelids simply falling down or if blood loss was sending me into unconsciousness.  But there hadn’t been any blood on the others?  Either way as the world faded to black those fucking letters stayed floating in my vision. 2024-12-25 08:12:56 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 1 - Six Souls

As the glass scattered across the ground to my right hand side something seized me.  I couldn’t even move my eyes which were unfortunately locked on the impressive cleavage of the bitch with green eyes who had just materialised in front of me.  It felt as though unimaginable pressure was pressing down all around my body, like I was at the bottom of the ocean.

“If I let you g...

Prologue 2 - A good penguin

I stopped the car I'd rented under an alias with a freshly stolen card in the company car park and stepped out.  I was looking extremely waiter-ey.  I’m not sure if that can be used as an adjective but it’s how I felt.  Black trousers and jacket, white shirt and in keeping with the theme; a long black tie. Shiny black booties as well.  I’d fit right in at a John Wick f...

Prologue 1 - The particular problem

“Nope.  It’s a stupid way to do it,” I said flatly.  This lady was an unknown quantity and Jimmy should have known better.  The fact her plan was batshit insane and needlessly complicated was just the icing on the cake.  “Aside from anything else: it’s unprofessional.  You want this guy gone: no problem.  Why make it more difficult than it needs to be?&nb...

Update, announcement, future plans

Hi!

You may have noticed that the Carnival story is building towards it's finale. I had planned to stretch it out longer but I honestly felt that it was getting stale. I had also written myself into a corner with the system allowing for exponential growth so I'm working on the final section of the story. There is a ways to go yet but the final chapters should be released here in the ne...

Audiobook for Conscription (book one) is now live.

As thank you to you lovely people who support me on here I've got some codes to share! They are only for the US and UK I'm afraid so if you're lucky enough not to live in either of those countries... sorry but the codes won't work. Drop me a message on here or an email to chris@cjmilnes.com and I'll send you one!

I luc...

Chapter 2 - Thith ith not productith

Zeeg briefly assessed her options and decided to take the portal back to the Downs then head towards the keening she could now hear every couple of minutes.  She padded quickly along, the humans naturally giving her the space she deserved as she passed.

She walked through the portal and appeared back where she had been before her mission to acquire free treats.  As she emerged s...