Vitaly S Alexius

The Armorer Ch 40

"I am not an Astral Phantom!" The drawing declared derisively. "I'm a depictomancy masterpiece!"

"You look like an Astral Phantom from where I am standing," I said.

"I don't swim around the Astral Ocean like some kind of grotesque many-limbed squid abomination feeding on souls of the dead!" Dawn shook her ruby mane, pantomiming an imaginary squid-creature with her hands.

I gig...

The Armorer Ch 39

What? Inaria… is the Earth? 

But the stars?! The purple stars above Lomb aren’t the Milky Way!

My brain started to slide sideways into a mire of confusion as I tried to process Lambert's words.

“It’s just a theory,” the inspector commented. “Don’t look so scared. You could have accidentally picked up the memory to read these words from the ...

The Armorer Ch 38

A week flew by like a dream. Life in Lomb was easy, mostly due to the fact that Lambert paid for everything I needed and refused to accept my monster cores.

I spent the mornings stretching and exercising Grogtilda’s muscles by running laps around the tower. The days were filled with exploring the town’s various small shops, chatting with Lomb residents and acquiring clothing and acces...

The Armorer Ch 37

"That's enough drama, Antoine," the inspector said sharply.

The artificer stopped looming over me, stepped back and tapped on a cufflink. The shop's interior lit up with spherical, colorful, mana-crystal filled, stained glass lanterns.

He smiled softly at me, as if he wasn't staring me down like a spook just a minute ago.

"What do you think I am, artificer?" I growled, going o...

The Armorer Ch 36

The inspector and I went to the pilot's room. Lambert carefully knocked on the door and then called out to Grogtilda asking her to wake. When she didn’t respond I opened the door and stepped inside.

"She's very tuckered. Recovery from being a victim of a Folding Seed is tough," I commented, as I put my hand on my sleeping human body, feeling a bit bad about the deception.

"We'll l...

The Armorer Ch 35

"Thanks, inspector. I… really needed that," I finally said, letting go of the old constable. "You are a good person."

"Our town has lots of good people," he nodded. "If you want to get away from Undertown, you can find a place here and pay the rent to a farmer with monster cores. You can use the pilot's room for now. You have more cores on you, right?"

"I have more," I nodded. "I ...

The Armorer Ch 34

Backpedal. Stop. If Lambert finds out you’ve been gone only three months and not four years, your entire story falls apart and he’ll think you’ve tricked him!

My thoughts turned into a rushing river of panic. I stopped at a fancy waiting area, right after the Inspector and I entered the bank.

“What’s wrong?” Lambert looked down at me.

“Inspector… Why i...

The Armorer Ch 33

Morning light woke me up, sunbeams splashing down on my face from a small, blue, stained glass window. The pilot's bedroom was small and austere just like the inspector's office, but there was a pretty damn cool Skyship poster on the wall to admire. A human figure clad in a long, steampunk-style leather coat and a wide-brimmed cap, stood in the middle of the poster facing away from the viewer a...

The Armorer Ch 32

"You're a Topaz addict," the constable uttered. His tone was bitter. "A debitor too?" He sighed, sniffing the air.

I sniffed the air too. For some reason, my body didn’t just smell like sweat and roadside dirt. There was a very distinctive smell of rotting eggs coming from me. Sulfur? Why was I smelling like god-damned sulfur?

"Yeah," I croaked. "So what?"

"Your tattoo smell...

The Armorer Ch 31

“How much of a problem are these… um… human gods in Illatius?” I asked.

“Not much. More of an annoyance to us if anything. Whenever the cults come out from their hidey-holes, they’re put down by the constabulary.” Eunice shrugged. “Only true believers, absolute devotees to an idea, can host the concept of a Still Forest manifestation. Most people are smart enough not to ma...

The Armorer Ch 30

It took me only a moment to recognize those yellow, angry eyes.

“Dad! Stop! Don’t hurt me!” I yelped in Tokimorimïtul as the gray, bone sword of a chimera hunter paused right before going right through my puffy, aching neck.

“What?” Acadius barked. “How is it that you know the language of our tribe, jumbari?”

“It’s me dad! I’m Juni! I’m in a human body!�...

The Armorer Ch 29

Getting to Saccy from my current position inside of a small ground hole proved to be a serious challenge. The trouble was that I sucked at Stilling specific parts of myself. I knew how to Still my lower body for example, but not a single leg. Also, when I Stilled my lower body, my upper body moved very slowly akin to a snail, as if I was half asleep.

Unstilling myself brought back the pai...

The Armorer Ch 28

Darkness. Mountains of bones. The Still Forest?!

“Back again, huh?” I thought, looking up.

There was no sky there, only more bones and murky darkness, an impossible, alien landscape without gravity or air that operated on its own laws.

I extended my threads out of my anti-phantom armor and inhaled, drawing power and life in, towards myself. I felt it once again......

The Armorer Ch 27

Saccy’s maw opened. I wasn’t even sure if I ordered it myself or if I had simply lost control of her as the Folding Seed’s big sister had come close to us. 

It was very hard to think… hard to focus. I was so tired, tired of living, tired of struggling, tired of existing. I felt… very thirsty.

I stepped forward, walking towards heaven.

Paradise awaited me. In onl...

The Armorer Ch 26

“What kind of a name do you think would work?” Alessi asked, tapping her mask-covered chin.

“Well, she’s going to be our forest-walker and also our storage bag,” I said. “Might as well make it something cute and bag-related.”

“Carri? Sumki…” Alessi mulled, creatively mixing English, Ukrainian and Tokimorimïtul languages. “Meshki… Sacci?”

“Heh, I li...

Armorer Ch 25

Something… someone...? pulled at the rope that was tied to my waist. Alessi. My sister. She too could enjoy this perfect, lovely seed. She too could… no, should come here and attain… love and acceptance.

A signal? I had to do something about responding back to the rope pulls? It was hard to think. My mind swam in bliss, floating on a soft cloud of pure, absolute love for my new life...

The Armorer Ch 24

Alessi glanced at the distant forest and then at the Molotov-style bottles on our belts. “Well… perhaps these won’t kill the Heart of the forest, but… maybe they could hurt her enough to free some of the misfortunate ones held prisoner by it.”

“If they’re still alive…” I mulled. “We could try to rescue…”

“They are not chimera anymore,” Alessi shook her he...

The Armorer Ch 23

Alessi glanced at the distant forest and then at the Molotov-style bottles on our belts. “Well… perhaps these won’t kill the Heart of the forest, but… maybe they could hurt it enough to free some of the misfortunate ones held prisoner by it.”

“If they’re still alive,” I mulled. “We could try to rescue…”

“They are not chimera anymore,” Alessi shook her head....

New light novel!

Public chapters of a new light novel concept that I'm writing and illustrating called "The Armorer and the Infinite Dungeon" can be found on:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54085/the-armorer-and-the-infinite-dungeon 

This patreon has been rearranged with new p...

ALL BOOK WALLPAPERS IN ONE PLACE!

Romantically Apocalyptic: https://sta.sh/21jafupdq92h

Armorer:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Xce5ZQdJ6cIVsELe49EaNzHCxiOgJS7A 

Enduring...