Epilogue: Elsewhere
(MetaTech Virtual Headquarters, Shadowmen Control Room)
Demi Turner frowned as one of the priority alerts began going off. “What happened, Sally? We didn’t have anything on the schedule, and none of the normal suspects have blown anything up, lately.”
Sally Navarro, one of her shift leads, moved to check the virtual command consoles. “Looks...
2025-05-31 20:46:24 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 136 – Moscow
Fabricator sighed as she slumped back against the side of the last segment of the massive wall she’d spent all day creating. When she’d heard about the situation in Moscow, she immediately started looking for a flight. Unfortunately, alien invasions cut off most commercial flights to the affected areas. Most businesses did not want to go sending their pilots, or...
2025-05-29 17:33:20 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 382 – Mountainheart
As suggested, they rested the night, and set out early the next morning. Or what passed for morning underground. Without external aides like the System interface telling the time, it would be impossible to tell the passage of time underground.
The steel gate blocking the way to the teleport circle was just as she’d seen it the other day. Cold and dark...
2025-05-26 16:48:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 30: Survivors
Berzerker’s attack roll (Kill Team 8): 13d6 = 4 Hits, 3 Miss
Kill Team 8’s Reaction: 7d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss (2 Net Hits)
Short, Narrow Burst: 10P, -5 AP
Kill Team 8’s Damage Resistance: 11d6 = 3 Hits, 2 Miss (7P Damage)
Kill Team 8: 14/10 Physical Monitor (Dying)
Shadowgirl’s attack roll (Kill Team 1): 12d6 = 5 Hits, 3 Miss
K...
2025-05-24 20:12:15 +0000 UTC View PostSo, last week's chapter continues to be hidden, because some idiot at Patreon thinks there's a 'Teen Safety' problem with it. Which is bullshit, since there was only talking. But here's this week's chapter. No teens in it at all.
Chapter 135 – Meeting
(Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park, Roosevelt Island, New York)
Murwi straightened her costume as she wai...
2025-05-22 19:51:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 381 – Reporting In
“Well, you have been busy,” Captain Dattae said, appreciatively, as Gracie and her crew walked into her office in Khav-Szarol, with their three new slaves in tow. The Dogik guard captain nodded once as she looked over the captured slaves. “And there’s a couple of special ones in this group, I see. That Righteous Defender has been wanted for a while. So...
2025-05-19 22:38:34 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 29: Expected
I tried healing Berzerker on the way back to shore, but augmentations screwed with healing magic in a bad way, so I was only able to get a couple points of healing on her. She’d have to heal up the rest of the damage the slow way, which would likely take a day or two of rest. Still, that was better than nothing.
“Ugh, Iceblade, I’m back online, and the...
2025-05-17 13:21:03 +0000 UTC View PostI got bored, and posted early.
Prologue – Trade Chat
(Adventurer’s Guild Official Forums, Miami Branch)
SunnyBunz, MightyMouse, ImAPally, DontYouWantMe, AsaAkiraIsBae, BestGirl, LatinHeat, Salty, Backpage, Craig34, l33tpally, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, RedFox, Kimiko, DonnyJuan, Crusader, BadCompany, HurricaneGal, Ambassador, Scholar, Righteous, Id10t, Satyr, DarkEncha...
2025-05-11 16:02:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 28: Dragon
Roaki’s Attack Roll (Iceblade): 11d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss
Iceblade’s Parry: 14d6 = 5 Hits, 5 Miss (No Net Hits)
Spirit of Water’s Attack Roll (Shadowgirl): 16d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Miss
Shadowgirl’s Reaction: 6d6 = 2 Hits, 3 Miss (4 Net Hits)
Elemental Attack (Cold): 12P, -half AP
Shadowgirl’s Damage Resistance: 9d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss (8P Damag...
2025-05-10 21:31:39 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 71 – Crossing the Border
Ksa Thalas Keep rose upon a hill, just out of bowshot from the Crystalrill’s western bank, but not so far that the siege weapons I could see upon the castle’s walls would have trouble reaching either the bridge or ford. Looking at it from a defensive standpoint, I had a feeling that the keep would be able to hold off any force so long as they had peo...
2025-05-09 13:21:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 133 – Tech Evaluation
“Well, Iceblade, let me just say that the Mechanics thank you for this intriguing opportunity,” Chen Jing smiled, once she and her team teleported onto one of the Gel-nak destroyers I’d left floating up in Earth orbit. Before the lizards in Moscow self-destructed, I’d contacted the Guild to see what it would take to convert one of these ships to my ...
2025-05-08 15:45:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 221 – “Unpleasantness”
Ambassador Kozhukov Tomas Makarovich was nervous. That much was easy to see. Well, not that I could blame him. After all, he was the Russian Ambassador to Ceres, and I had rather publicly executed his country’s leader just a week ago. To say that things were strained between Ceres and Russia would be a bit of an understatement.
Not that I had a...
2025-05-06 20:30:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 27: Execute
It was almost midnight. Lucky for us, it was cloudy tonight, which helped cover our approach. Babydoll had three flying drones up and in the air, but only one was armed. The other two were pretty much there for surveillance, and to extend our personal networks, giving us a bit more flexibility. In the boat, we were going slow, the electric engine barely making a sound ...
2025-05-03 12:04:18 +0000 UTC View PostPrologue – Captured
“Well, now. Look what we have here. A rat scurrying about in the Northern Reaches. Wearing the signs of one of those Eclanan gods.”
Thaldruck Coinjaw smiled wickedly at the human his squad had captured near Arrowvein, one of the towns that helped support the Steelstone Wall, a series of fortifications linked by a wall of steel layered over stone, carrying t...
2025-05-02 13:49:05 +0000 UTC View PostPrologue – Trade Chat
(Capes & Cowls Forum, General Chat)
Message of the Day: Remember, Capes & Cowls is ‘neutral ground’. Keep it civil, and if you try to track someone through our site, it will not end well for you.
Speedy, AngelEyes, Victory, HotStuff, Jester, Freedom, Aegis, Stars, Emerald, Snowflake, MagicGurl, RedHot, Scholar, CantSeeMe, Turbo, Emperor, Don...
2025-05-01 20:22:49 +0000 UTC View PostPrologue – Trade Chat
(North American System Information Exchange Forum, formerly Community Building and Civil Defense Chat)
abby_gail, bento, RainyDayze, GringottsGoblin, DoritoMan, D.VaLuvr69, Carion, RadicalEdward, FusionGal, NotACop, Scholar, RamblingWreck, Anonymous4, Anonymous6, RedShift, SevenNationArmy, DarkLord, BagOTrix, White_Queen, Faraday, BackpageGal, FullServiceMass...
2025-04-29 19:07:53 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 380 – Backstory Generator
Unfortunately, things weren’t so easy for the last of their three targets. They had found the patrol, but the patrol had found them at the same time. Instead of an ambush, where they could try and put the enemy at a disadvantage from the beginning, it became a brawl, as they literally ran into each other at a blind intersection.
Eight on six, th...
2025-04-28 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 26: Action Plan
A couple days, we got all the deliveries we were expecting. The parts for the boat were stacked in the warehouse, but there was nothing we could do about that. Installing them was several days of work, if not a couple weeks, and we couldn’t take that kind of time.
I’d gotten lucky, and on one of our ‘pleasure cruises’ through the Sound, we managed to ...
2025-04-26 14:00:20 +0000 UTC View PostEpilogue – Elsewhere
King Sewell Skysword frowned as he listened to the report. Naturally, when young Baroness Pureheart began her journey to Crystalshield, he’d had his sister and Spymistress, Princess Mariun send her agents to keep tabs on the girl. Not that he had any reason to suspect Pureheart of committing treason or anything of the sort. No, it was a more basic concern. The Bar...
2025-04-25 14:00:25 +0000 UTC View PostEpilogue – Elsewhere
(Imperial Palace, Gel-Nala)
Agzis, former High Priestess of the Kez Sisterhood, laughed. For twenty-five cycles, she had been under the thumb of that beastly Emperor. Forced to attend his needs, share his bed, bear his spawn. Her, and the rest of her sisters.
Throhi, Ancient Ones curse his name, and all his blood, had come to the Temple of the Old Gods o...
2025-04-24 14:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time this goes out, I'll be on my way to Rising Phoenix Games Convention in Boston. If you're in the area, come say hello. I have prepped chapters for while I'm gone, so don't worry about that.
Chapter 175 – Opportunity
I was waiting in my throne room when the delegation arrived. I had gone back and forth on how to present myself for this meeting. My formal armor as ...
2025-04-23 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostEpilogue – Elsewhere
President Taylor Harris groaned as the live broadcast went to a blow-by-blow replay, with full slow motion, his head in his hands. Because of course the Emperor of Ceres had made sure it was broadcast live, set to go out at noon, Ceres time, which just so happened to be the same as the Greenwich Mean Time. Seven in the morning here in DC, two in the afternoon in Mos...
2025-04-22 12:26:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 379 – Hunter Hunted
The trek back to Khav-Szarol was slower than the journey to the ambush site, but not noticeably so. With [Slave Brands] on all the captured runaways, they didn’t have to worry about them running away, so the only thing the Azure Flames needed to do was make sure they didn’t run into that patrol from Shatterchain on their way back. Thankfully, nothing of t...
2025-04-21 21:50:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 25: Retail Therapy
It was tempting to just go to the store the moment we turned in the rental and returned to our base, and just start ordering everything we could afford. After all, we were walking into a trap, so we might as well get everything we could to prepare, right? That was a trap, however. Before we started picking out goodies, we needed to make a plan, especially since ...
2025-04-19 11:54:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 70 – Speed Bump
Josce shook his head as he considered the report from Magehallow. The Brass Rats had been contracted by their frequent client (who definitely could not be proven to be Baron Longchaser) to capture Baroness Pureheart and slap a [Slave Collar] on her. He didn’t know why. Probably just offended the Baron, or something petty like that. Didn’t matter, the job paid...
2025-04-18 15:53:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 132 – Moscow
(Gel-Nak Command Center, Moscow, Russia)
Army Leader Yanzu, Third Class Noble of the Gel-Nak Empire, scowled as the sun rose over the frozen landscape of this wretched city on this pitiful backwater planet that had never known the perfect order of the Empire. It was the duty of the Empire to bring civilization to these savages, and prevent their wild genetics ...
2025-04-17 16:26:35 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 174 – Concept Test
“Your Majesty, it is good to see you again. I trust you remember the rules of the range from last time?”
I chuckled as Rikusōchō Suto Ichiro, the range master at the firing range I’d used to qualify on different weapons just two years ago. “Of course, Rikusōchō. You are, after all, the right hand of the kami on this range.” Then, I looked t...
2025-04-16 21:38:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 220 – Trial by Combat
“LADIES, GENTLEMEN, BOTH, AND NEITHER, NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT!”
The voice rang out through the speakers as the Mistress of Ceremonies for the Ceres Grand Arena waved from her box overlooking the sand below. The crowd was packed today, more than it had been in a while, at least for a Trial Day. Oh, the Sport Days usually h...
2025-04-15 19:37:18 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 378 – Ambush
They purchased a map of the floor from one of the local shops, and started to make plans. The question was in what order they would take attempt to take on the minibosses. There didn’t seem to be pre-set boss rooms for these minibosses, which meant that they would have to take time to search them out. That wasn’t a problem, really, but there was a question about...
2025-04-14 22:13:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 24: Meeting
Meeting in the middle of the Sound was a pain, generally, because navigation was not as easy as navigating in the sprawl. Oh, sure, you can just point the boat in a direction, and go until you hit the waypoint, but even after nightfall we weren’t the only boat on the water. Seattle had a port, after all, and it was a busy one. That meant we needed to get to the targe...
2025-04-12 20:59:49 +0000 UTC View Post