Kevin McLaughlin

Chapter 103 - Oh, Rats

(Hi! Sorry this one didn't go up yesterday. It was late in the evening when I finished it, and I clicked to have it appear at a later time by accident instead of releasing right away. Got it for you now, though! I've begun work on another bonus chapter which will go up for you tomorrow. Until then, enjoy! --Kevin)

Carver stalked through deserted city streets, hea...

Chapter 102 - Four Clan War Leader

As soon as the two control stones touched, they melded together, their material flowing and interlocking until they’d solidified into a single object. In shape, it looked about the same as the first one I’d acquired. The stone was a small carving of a medieval tower, like a rook chess piece. It was mostly black, shot through with sparkles of clear crystal and small veins of golden ye...

Chapter 101 - The Harder They Fall

A tier two ant tried to get in my way, but a quick blow with my sword sliced it in half. I glanced behind me. Sue and the rest of my undead were keeping the remaining ants occupied. Sue had a way of taking up a lot of space in the room, what with the roars, the Fireballs, and the sheer damned size of the dino.

I turned back toward the queen, who rushed toward me, hoping to catch me...

Chapter 100 - Battle of the Cavern

I had my forces retreat a few feet, falling back a bit into the passage. There, my juggernauts formed a solid wall of bone, barring the ants’ way. By holding them back just inside the tunnel, the ants could only come at us so many at a time.

That didn’t mean the defense was easy, though. The came at us along the walls and ceiling as well as the floor. The juggernauts weren’t ...

Chapter 99 - Not the Scared Girl

Before I launched the attack I spent a few more minutes Animating additional troops. If I wanted to make absolutely sure we finished the job, that meant having all the troops necessary to make it happen. I already had six juggernauts and four fire skeletons, but that was only thirty points.

With Animate Dead now at tier seven, I had sixty-four points to play with! Tha...

Chapter 98 - Tier Seven

(Usually only hit five chapters a week, but I had time to write an extra one over the weekend, so I thought you'd appreciate a bonus chapter! Enjoy! - Kevin)

We made much better time heading back to the cemetery than we had on road back to the base. I’d had to keep Sue at a steady but slower than maximum pace, in order to make sure we didn’t jos...

Chapter 97 - Evil Men

Carver slipped from shadow to shadow, silently moving through the darkened city streets. His scouts had investigated the situation at the waterfront extensively over the past few days, but as diligent as they’d been, they had their limits. The so-called pirates infesting the waterfront might dress in an outlandish style, and the entire premise of their group struck him as ludicrous. Bu...

Which Domains??

Which Domains are you rooting for? :) Since Selena doesn't have one, yet anyway, we'll leave that out. But which of the Domains are you hoping to see succeed?

Chapter 96 - Critical Condition

The road back to the base was a long one, and I was worried, it being night, that we’d get attacked every step of the way. Thankfully, most nocturnal monsters must have taken one look at a pissed-off T.rex skeleton steaming along at top speed and just decided to go elsewhere for dinner, because we weren’t stopped even once. There was a brief moment when I saw a flight of avians wingi...

Chapter 95 - Full Ripley

The room had dozens of entrances, and in the dim glow given off by the eggs, I saw twitching antennae sticking out from all of them. Hope gave a soft growl of warning. I looked back—behind us were more ants, lining the walls and floor of the passage we’d just come through.

All of those little waves of ants, they’d been to slow us down enough so that once we reached this place...

Chapter 94 - Kingdom of the Ants

To set the tone, I had Sue send a Fireball down the dark passage ahead. It flew a good ten meters before it hit a wall, bursting into a gout of flame and setting several nearby ants alight. The ants burned merrily, which was a good thing, since my NightVision expert was taking a cat nap.

Those flames gave me enough light to see by, though, which was awesome because there were a LOT...

Chapter 93 - Fractured Future

I took to the air in a flash, darting skyward so I could get a better view of whatever the hell was happening over there. I’d only gone like twenty meters away from Sue and Kara, figuring they were both fine. Then they’d just vanished from sight.

Now that I was airborne, I could see why.

Where Sue had been standing was now a massive sinkhole. The dinosaur’s mass had tor...

Chapter 92 - How Strong I’d Grown

Maybe it was my shocking burst into the air, or maybe they’d just noticed us anyway by that time, but Kara was spot on. It looked like every undead in the area was making tracks toward us as fast as they could shamble. Ready or not, it was go time!

“You still tied in?” I shouted up to Kara.

“Yup.”

“Good.”

I sent mental commands to Sue, ...

Chapter 91 - Training Session

As we got closer, I realized that this was not actually going to be anywhere near as much fun as I’d expected. Nope, not this time. Because the first thing I spotted as we approached the cemetery wasn’t rows of skeletons waiting for me to blast them with Fireballs, but rather…a bunch of ants, taking apart a house?

“What the hell am I looking at?” Kara asked, aghast.

Chapter 90 - Multiple Dilemmas

Turner sighed, and then to my relief, he nodded.

“I agree. My problem is that the horde isn’t my only problem.” He gestured to a pair of red marks closer to the lake. One was a little northwest of the university. Was that a cemetery? The other was down on the lake shore itself, right at the Burlington harbor. “Those are also Domains. One of them is another necromancer, like...

Chapter 89 - Steel Golems

The journey to the Guard base was, thankfully, quick and passed without further incident. The avians watched us from a distance, but they never came anywhere near to spell range. They were curious, not aggressive. I could deal with that.

I wondered if I was burning some of the goodwill I might have earned from handing back their child by going straight to Turner’s growing fortres...

Chapter 88 - Demonstrating Trust

The question of the day seemed to be ‘should I be more furious with the mom for being stupid, or myself for stopping to help?’ Yeah, okay—there were kids who probably didn’t know better involved. And none of the kids had crystals, so they were all still basic humans. The avians would cut them to shreds without help.

Even so, oh my god, people were stupid.

The...

Chapter 87 - Peeps

I dropped a Drain Life on the avian trying to kidnap the kid. I was surprised—it didn’t just drop, which was new. Most monsters just went down with one hit from that spell these days. This one was tougher than the average, it seemed.

“Kara, try to nail some of the other ones flying around,” I shouted as I waited for the spell to reset. “Watch out for the car windows, thou...

Chapter 86 - Bullies

Nobody else felt it, of course. I was the only one who had a control stone, so I was the only one who sensed when one of them was activated. But Kara and Patches both noticed when I froze, then shifted my attention to look south.

“Selena, what's wrong?” Kara asked.

“It's another control stone. One of them was just activated, and I'm almost certain it came from the mall....

Chapter 85 - If Not You, Who?

I had Sue approach the fort with caution. When we left the place, it was surrounded by enemies. There was no telling what the current state was. The horde had likely withdrawn, but I didn’t know that for certain. They might still be there. They could have laid traps for us. Something else nasty might have moved in. There was no telling what we were going to find, so we slowed way down ...

Chapter 84 - Licking Our Wounds

I let Sue just run for a good distance, leaving the enemy far behind. Kara and I remained silent during the flight. I couldn’t think of anything useful to say, and I suppose neither could she.

We’d gotten our asses kicked.

Worse, we’d jeopardized the ratkin who’d come to us for help. I mean, yeah—intellectually I knew they’d asked us to attack the ma...

Chapter 83 - It’s Coming

I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of my lungs. Something snapped in my chest, sharp pain stabbing along my right side. I gasped, barely able to suck in air. Stars flashed in front of my vision, and I blinked, trying to get them to go away.

It hurt! I couldn’t recall ever hurting so badly. The pain was intense and kept coming at me, so strong that I could...

Chapter 82 - We’re Under Attack!

It wasn’t just a few of the things, either. This was a sea of zombies. An ocean of undead. I hadn’t seen this many of the things in one place since watching “World War Z.”

We clearly hadn’t been wrong when we guessed there might be as many as a thousand zombies lurking in the mall, because there were so many hundreds of them working their way through the forest that i...

Chapter 81 - Three Domains

We swung back through the mall’s parking lot again before taking off for the evening. Didn’t spend a lot of time there. Just enough to give me some more fodder for Animate Dead. It had been a while since I first found out the spell could create tier two skeleton mages, and I hadn’t taken the time to try doing that.

After seeing them in action against Sue and I, I was a conver...

Chapter 80 - The First Domain

Carver felt like he’d studied the control stone long enough. It was time to take action. He picked the thing up, hefting it in his hand.

Once he did this, he’d be linked with the land in a way he still didn’t wholly understand. He would become its ruler and owner in a magical sense. The sort of land ownership humanity practiced before the Event was a pale imitation of this so...

Chapter 79 - A Lot Of Stones

It took longe than I’d thought to collect all the crystals outside the mall. Dead zombies were strewn over a space the size of several football fields, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked. But it was already mid-afternoon before we were done. One we’d gathered them all, we withdrew to the grassy area inside one of the on-ramps to the highway. Neither of us could relax while ...

Chapter 78 - Writing On The Mall

Whatever was controlling the zombies had flipped the game on me. I’d had their army out chasing me across the parking lot, and although the going was slow, it was also steady. Sue and I managed to take down dozens of the enemy troops, even after they tried to pin us between two forces.

But now they were all withdrawing. Whatever mind was in charge, it had decided it was losing to...

Chapter 77 - Loot Run

Kara slipped into the mall through one of the regular doors, flashing a grin at the skeleton dog following close behind her. Leave it to Selena to send a guardian angel to watch over her! It was a nice thought, although she hoped the dog would be okay. Kara was confident that she could get out of this place in one piece, even if things went badly. But Selena really cared about that dog, ...