I guess we had a plan, anyway. It wasn’t one I was thrilled with, as it put Kara immediately in harm’s way. She was the one putting herself at risk, though. Same as I was. I hoped she’d be okay, but there wasn’t a lot else I could do to ensure that.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. I reached out with my mind toward the undead I controlled. Hope was still dashing around the ...
2025-01-16 16:55:53 +0000 UTC View PostWhat do you do, when a horde of hundreds of zombies comes rushing down the mall concourse toward you?
Well, in my case, I ordered my undead T.rex to shoot a Fireball at ‘em.
The flames blasted forward like a rocket. There was a lot of glass between the Target and the rest of the mall, but the doors were open, so it wasn’t going to stop the zombies anyway. The fireball fou...
2025-01-16 02:22:23 +0000 UTC View PostAn hour later, Kara and I were scouting the mall, scoping the place out to find the best way inside. It turned out this was going to be a tougher nut to crack than we’d first thought. At night, it looked like all the armies of hell were pouring out of the place, but now that the sun was up, it looked like any other abandoned post-apocalyptic structure.
Our first stop had been to ...
2025-01-14 22:32:17 +0000 UTC View PostI woke as the first rays of dawn hit my eyelids after what had been a very fitful night’s sleep. Kara and I crashed in one of the watchtower parapets. Sue stood guard at the bottom of the ladder, ensuring we weren’t disturbed by any of the ratkin. They didn’t want to go anywhere near her, and I couldn’t blame them.
My other undead had stood watch through the long night, kee...
2025-01-14 01:32:08 +0000 UTC View PostSue bounded down the hill toward the advancing army of zombies and spat out a quick Fireball on the way. The spell exploded right in front of the horde, sending clods of dirt flying in all directions and stalling their advance for a critical few seconds. Confused, leaderless, and without any real direction, the undead surged ahead anyway, trying to make their way through the mess the imp...
2025-01-11 01:42:19 +0000 UTC View PostAs the drum-beat picked up, I glanced at the horizon, where the fading sun was just beginning to slip below the horizon. On the one hand, I loved being proved right. It always felt nice to know you’d made the right call, and entering the mall at night would have been flat-out stupid. If it hadn’t been obvious that whatever power lived over there was more active at night before, it su...
2025-01-10 01:59:29 +0000 UTC View PostIt took me more than a few minutes to get across the concept of a ‘map’ to the rat-guy. When I first showed it to him, he had no idea what he was looking at. For him, it was a picture with squiggly lines. I needed a better way of showing what I was talking about, so I put the map away.
Then I drew my own version of it in the dirt, explaining each object as I added it. “That...
2025-01-08 22:48:51 +0000 UTC View PostWe hadn’t even been there for a couple of hours, and already the fort was under attack? That wasn’t a great sign. I’d been hedging about whether I ought to use the control stone here or somewhere else. With this latest news, I was leaning hard toward somewhere else.
The rats had been fighting the goblins. They must have noticed when the goblins pulled up stakes and left town....
2025-01-07 22:36:56 +0000 UTC View PostWe reached the old goblin fort in the late afternoon, before dusk. I went in first, riding Sue, because I figured if anything nasty had taken up residence while I was away, we’d be able to deal with it together without too much trouble.
Sue let out a massive roar as we stepped in through the gap she’d torn when we attacked, but there was nothing inside. No waiting horde of gobl...
2025-01-07 00:51:18 +0000 UTC View Post(Author Note: Whoops! Okay, there's one more chapter for the first book. I figured we couldn't wrap the book without showing one last look at Gideon's situation; and since we were saying hello to him, maybe it would be a good idea to peek inside Turner's head, too... Enjoy! The story continues...!)
Carver stood over his map table. He was rather proud of the thing. It had ...
2025-01-04 02:44:21 +0000 UTC View Post(A little Author's Note here! This chapter represents the end of what will be book one of this series. Don't worry! I'm continuing with the story, and the beginning of book two will arrive tomorrow as Chapter 67. The release pace isn't going to change anytime soon. But we've reached the end of the early stages of this tale. Selena has had time to come to grips with the changed world, an...
2025-01-02 17:23:30 +0000 UTC View PostKara woke me a little before noon with—gasp!—a cup of hot coffee. It was instant, but that was fine, as far as I was concerned.
“How?” I asked, taking the steaming cup from her hands. “I mean, thank you! But how?”
“Break room at the library annex had a coffee station. We scooped everything—mugs, sugar, a bag of actual grounds, plus some of this crappy instant ...
2025-01-02 02:24:41 +0000 UTC View PostAll I could do was plant my shield in front of my face and hope for the best as the fireball shot toward me. This was going to hurt, no matter what I did.
My undead had other plans, though. Two of the skeleton warriors in my front row saw the spell and took their ‘guard’ orders literally. They stepped in front of the blast, raising their shields and quickly locking them togethe...
2025-01-01 03:38:25 +0000 UTC View Post(Managed to get a bonus chapter ready for you today. Enjoy!)
I heard the arrows whistling past my head and raised my shield to stop them. One thudded into the aluminum, glancing off. Another smacked into a zombie goblin standing just in front of me. The zombie staggered but didn’t go down. Then another arrow arced in under the shield and sliced into my calf. It stuck th...
2024-12-31 01:01:56 +0000 UTC View PostWe stopped by the greenhouse before setting out. That’s where they’d buried Kat and the other casualties from the goblin attacks—just outside the greenhouse, on the lawn, was a row of five simple mounds with wooden markers. Alfred explained they’d picked the spot because the greenhouse tools were right there, which made it easier. A few of their braver people had slipped back int...
2024-12-30 22:28:16 +0000 UTC View PostDon’t ask me how the skeletal remains of a sixty-something million year old dinosaur was able to roar. I haven’t the foggiest idea. The only answer I can give is ‘magic,’ and I doubt that makes the whole thing any more comfortable. Might as well try explaining how it was walking around, while we’re at it.
In that moment, though, I wasn’t thinking about any of those thin...
2024-12-30 01:04:19 +0000 UTC View PostWe found Alfred and his people at the next building over. After leaving the greenhouse, we continued deeper into the campus. Everything was dark; without lights, without even moonlight, it was difficult for me to find my way around. I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of life, figuring wherever they were they might have torches or candles lit, at least. But there was nothing. We had to r...
2024-12-28 19:24:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe goblins were so busy with their own fight, they didn’t even see the threat until we were right on top of them. As my skeletons marched forward, moving in two columns of tight ranks between the stranded cars, one of the green-skinned creatures finally became aware of our advance. I was watching for it, saw the moment where the goblin recognized our threat, and turned to alert its fe...
2024-12-28 00:01:29 +0000 UTC View PostI woke to a gentle vibration at my wrist, plus a pinging sound. My eyes snapped open, and I was fully alert in moments; but it was just my watch. I’d set the alarm for seven in the evening. Enough time to get some solid rest, but early enough so we’d be able to leave with the setting sun.
My pack was undisturbed next to my cot, Hope standing guard. Kara was still asleep on the ...
2024-12-27 02:03:10 +0000 UTC View PostJust wanted to shoot a quick thanks and hello to everyone! Hope you're all enjoying the story so far - there's SO much more of this coming!
Today is a holiday for just about everyone, and whether you have a religious event today or not, I hope each of you had time to spend with friends and family, and filled your day with warmth, love, and hope.
Thank you so much for your support! 2024-12-26 01:47:47 +0000 UTC View Post
My undead army was in pretty good shape. Thanks to my crystals, I could Animate sixteen tiers worth of undead, and Control another sixteen. I wasn’t maxed out, but I was fairly close.
For Controlled undead, I still had Hope at tier two, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at tier one, and six remaining tier one skeletons I’d captured from various graveyards.
My Animated ones wer...
2024-12-26 01:45:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe smithy they’d set up was a bit off the beaten path. Farnsworth took me out toward the airfield. We didn’t leave the fenced in area of the base proper, but we were a lot closer to the wall they’d set up facing the runways. One of the larger hangars had been repurposed as their armory and smithy.
“See, most of the usable metal we have is from the planes,” Farnsworth exp...
2024-12-25 01:58:31 +0000 UTC View PostAs Maura poked around in the big cabinet behind her, opening drawers and peering into them, I looked over the stones I had as spares, wondering which I could afford to give away. I had quite a few of them, but a lot of them were things I wanted to keep, because I thought they might be useful later on.
For example, I had a hunch that Health to Mana, coupled with Drain Life, would be...
2024-12-23 21:37:09 +0000 UTC View PostGideon rode back toward his castle, an army at his back. He’d never felt so strong, so in control. He wished more than anything that his wife was still here to see this, because if she were still alive, he had no doubt he could keep her safe. His daughter, too.
He’d done it. Reached tier six, with his Animate Dead spell. It had taken clearing two additional cemeteries, but the ...
2024-12-20 22:57:47 +0000 UTC View PostAt that point the meeting was pretty much done. Colonel Turner dismissed me, saying he and his people would work on a plan to get to Alfred and his people. I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t going to happen, though. They were too wrapped up in their local war with the avians. Getting past them in any sort of timely manner wasn’t going to be simple, and it wasn’t their focus.
<... 2024-12-20 02:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostWhere Turner’s office had been small, without much flair or extravagance, this room was anything but. It looked like the sort of hidden military command post you saw on movies: a huge screen, blank, of course, and buckets of equally useless computer terminals took up most of the space. I supposed those would all eventually end up tossed out in the trash, or maybe melted d...
2024-12-19 04:14:15 +0000 UTC View PostColonel Turner glanced at Farnsworth, then directly at me, sizing me up. There was something positively magnetic about the man. I felt drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain. If he’d been running for president, I couldn’t imagine anyone voting against him. I didn’t think I’d ever met someone with so much raw presence.
“This must be Miss Serrano,” Turne...
2024-12-18 23:09:14 +0000 UTC View PostI glanced at the uniformed party, and I had to admit, I was impressed. Their top guy was tier five, a man who was maybe in his early forties and looked to be in charge. His rank had a whole pile of chevrons on it, and while I didn’t know enough to recognize what rank that was, I knew enough to know he was enlisted, not an officer, and pretty high up.
The rest of the group was a m...
2024-12-17 22:54:54 +0000 UTC View PostWe were both up shortly after dawn the next morning, which I supposed was becoming the new normal. Now that there were no more alarm clocks, something had to wake us up, and there were a shortage of roosters in downtown Burlington. The sun seemed to be doing the job just fine, though.
“Where are we going from here?” Kara asked over breakfast.
I broke out my map and spread...
2024-12-16 22:33:23 +0000 UTC View PostA short while later, we were walking away from the mess we’d left behind. We were a little singed and smelled of smoke, but Kara’s antics had recovered all of the trapped skeletons, so it was probably worth it.
“You’re nuts, you know that?” I said.
Kara chuckled. “Nah, I figured we were good. Look, the webs burned, just like we thought, and the trees...
2024-12-16 01:32:00 +0000 UTC View Post