Hell felt different. Lightning still flashed between black clouds, fires as tall as buildings still reached for the sky, disgusting abominations roamed around lakes of blood, but it all seemed… just less. Maybe even less hellish?
Most of the demons who died in the battle had been reborn in the meantime, proving my theory that th...
2025-07-25 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe air in our common room was thick with a strange mix of anticipation and the lingering scent of bacon from Knut’s sandwich. Over the last few days I’d helped Pa in the forge, delivering on the items ordered by the guard and guild, plus taking a few rotations at Sentinel Station with my party as the dedicated adventurers. It was unpaid wor...
2025-07-24 10:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe fuck I would, though. Go home I meant. The moment I relaxed just the tiniest bit, another problem came bashing its ugly head against the door. The tug of the souls whined into my head even before Morgefah’s entrails stopped drooping off my armor. A whole lot of them, too. Despite the previous experiences, this gush of psychic power almost ...
2025-07-23 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe air in the Adventurer’s Guild Hall was thick with the scent of old parchment, stale sweat, and the low-grade despair of bureaucracy in a crisis.
Harold Markwell sat in the common area, looking like a man being buried alive under stacks of casualty lists and requisitions. His eyes, webbed with red, didn’t even seem to register...
2025-07-22 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostI walked in slowly with Wolf behind me, and I could feel him shake. He was terrified, the poor thing. I couldn’t say I wasn’t a bit edgy either considering we were about to meet a god and quite possibly die.
Wet, glistening tentacles covered every inch of the dark, gloomy room. Snaking along the walls, meandering over the floors and ce...
2025-07-21 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAlarm bells rang out, and I could tell when it spread from First Steel to the still-in-construction fortress and outwards. It wasn’t the single sombre toll used for funerals, but the frantic overlapping peel of a full-scale alarm.
Sentinel Station was under attack.
“The dinner bell! No. The battle bell! Even better!” 2025-07-20 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
“Well, this is fucked,” I muttered under my breath.
I was still tense from the fight. The dark energies were swirling through my body and shedding a purple light over the laboratory. It only added to the madness of the place Wolf and I found ourselves in.
Massive glass tanks stood to either side of a large room filled with wrecke...
2025-07-19 11:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostA calm settled over me as soon as I stepped through the doors of the Steel & Scale. My party’s house was home, but in many ways, so was this. An old home, but one that would never cease to be so.
The heat of the forge felt most familiar, the rhythmic clanging of hammer on steel a song that pushed out the memories of combat, and the h...
2025-07-18 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m not allowed past this gate, sir,” Butlee said.
I cracked my neck. The few hours of sleep had done wonders to fix me up. My metallic buddy woke me up on time and led us to what he said was the research and development part of IGORF 12, whatever that meant. From what I’d gathered, that would lead us to Morgefah’s chamber, or a...
2025-07-17 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSausages, scrambled eggs, butter, bacon, ham, cheese, and a dozen other toppings were laid out on our dining room table, the wood cool beneath my arms. A breakfast fit for kings, or at least a party of adventurers. Ma and Pa had joined us, which was only fair, considering they had brought most of the food.
The meal and the company made the...
2025-07-16 10:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWolf scoffed and shook his head as we entered the eating area. The smell was fouler than an Ogre’s sock drawer, but we endured. The room was large and round like the previous arena but smaller. A long circling table sat in the middle above which a kind of orb hung suspended in the air and slowly turned, giving off a faint buzzing sound that ro...
2025-07-15 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Fifty percent strength?” I said, once again, barely able to believe it.
“I told you prioritising my breakthrough would be worth it,” Roq said smugly. “It was high time we unveiled my glory to this world, and let the Hive Mind tremble before my new, magnificent form!”
After I checked Roq...
2025-07-14 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostI put up my (Demon Skin) and clutched Traitor and Mercy hard, already expecting the worst when the second door hissed open. Another waft of decaying air blew through me and Wolf and out the corridor we came through. At first, there was only blackness and the sense of a great open space before me.
Then, a soft chime rang in the distance tha...
2025-07-13 11:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostI stared at Roq in his new form, shock passing through me as he spoke.
“What do you exactly remember, buddy?” I asked again.
He turned and held up one of his bladed arms, staring at it.
“I remember everything, Ash. Where I'm from. What the hive mind did to my family and my kin, to my world...”
He looked up at me a...
2025-07-12 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostArstemion’s mane fluttered in the hot, cinder-rich wind blowing over the mountain top. He spread his giant black wings as if stretching them and pointed at the gargantuan chain anchored to the mountain peak.
“This is your way in,” he said.
The iron chain was large enough to drive two carriages side by side up to Morgefah’s pr...
2025-07-11 11:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostHello,
So, because I had to stupid Riftside 2 from patreon (because it released in meanwhile, I'm adding both 1 and 2 for a week here for everyone to download, then it will only be available for the higher tiers. Adding book 3 in a day or two.
2025-07-10 12:26:47 +0000 UTC View PostMy Deeproot chimed like a fairy in heat. I only managed to glance at my ever-growing experience bar as I hacked through the bastard legions of the Dhozen Fires. Blood rained down from the sky as winged abominations circled the field of war. I couldn’t tell who was killing what, so I stuck my sword into the mouth of whoever opened theirs wide e...
2025-07-09 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostYou didn’t see flying duergar that often. They liked their feet firmly on the ground which was all the funnier when I watched Wolf send them tumbling through the halls of the auditorium.
The armor they wanted to stick to my unwilling deviltail, was a dark blue, heavy, spiked, and beautifully forged, but Wolf couldn’t have cared less. H...
2025-07-07 11:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAncient dwarven letters were chiseled into the obsidian rock of the Redmaw’s entrance. They read ‘Redmaw’ for some reason. Curious. It wasn’t like anyone could mistake the largest black mountain of the region that caused a cataclysmic shift in our history for something else.
Even more curious were the letters below written in the c...
2025-07-05 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe yellow southern forests gave way to the desolate plains of Vanderbeard’s Plateau. Dry winds whipped across the endless rocky flats forcing us to ride through most of it in silence. I could barely keep my eyes through the gale that swept up sharp sand and dust, then kept throwing it in our faces.
Tyfus was cussing and complaining thro...
2025-07-03 11:20:05 +0000 UTC View Post
So, I have started on a lot of admin work, from all the Patreon stuff, to work on website, keeping up with chapters of various series, and am thoroughly enjoying all the business of it all. I do have a torn muscle in my left upper arm, so i am in horrendous pain as I'm writing this, but screw it! I can rest when I'm dead, right?
What does ...
2025-07-01 20:15:02 +0000 UTC View Post“I never really heard myself breathe. I mean I did, we all do when we start panting or it becomes coarse from sickness or deep when you want it to be deep. But the regular, everyday breathing that you don’t really notice, you never really hear it. It’s strange isn’t it?”
“Strange? It’s fucking boring,” Tyfus muttered, scrat...
2025-06-10 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostI spent the rest of that day sitting on that cold temple floor and trying not to fall asleep. That proved especially difficult with a belly full of meat and weird fruit, but now that I knew it worked, I had to make an effort. Since I was sure that taking a bath would only make me even sleepier, I decided to skip it for now and stew in my own ste...
2025-06-07 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostTyfus sat down next to me breathing hard like a dog in heat. What little hair he had was messy and disturbingly clotted. He looked at me with tired, milky eyes, reaching out a hand towards my shoulder to steady himself,
“Frank,” he began.
I swiped his hand away and he hit the soft grass nose-first. The gnome got up and reached fo...
2025-06-04 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWe had found the passage that unfortunate brigand spoke of with relative ease. After half a day’s ride, just as he said, we came upon a small rock formation that looked like a gate or portal of sorts. It was covered in vines and mossy rocks and stood out against the rest of the landscape by how lush everything around it was.
The south wa...
2025-06-01 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Did you hear that?” I asked Tyfus.
The gnome didn’t even look up from his book. A soft warm wind rustled the golden leaves of the strange forest path we were riding through. I could see the muscles on Wolf’s neck tense. The deviltail seemed to have picked up on something.
“Tyfus, eyes off your book. There’s something out...
2025-05-29 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHezak prepared the mugs of moonshine and Garfor brought a bucket of blood that almost drove Opius insane. Luckily, Ragul was there to keep him in check, though even my perfectly mannered bartender was licking his lips in a disturbing way. They both removed themselves to the farthest corner, their red eyes glowing in the dim light.
The orcs...
2025-05-26 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe chuggadig’s head atop the entrance door of my club stared down on me with a judging sneer. Or at least that’s how it looked like from where I stood.
“One year,” I muttered with my cigar in my mouth.
I licked my teeth, trying to remember how many I had lost in the various Mok’feras I had taken part in. Seven? Eight?
<... 2025-05-23 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“Finally,” Tyfus said as I entered the Lusty Lion.
He was dressed in the purple and gold of Sankta Varathian nobles. His moustache and beard looked impeccably groomed and his receding hairline was drenched in expensive oils.
“Listen, Tyfus, I don’t need your sarcasm—”
“No sarcasm, Frank. I’m just glad to see you...
2025-05-20 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe thick white snot bubble in Korvan’s nose popped when I grabbed him by the arm. He slept while leaning against the wall of our club. He opened his eyes slowly, then sighed realizing it was his boss.
Me.
“Always vigilant,” I said, grabbing the doorhandle.
“Long day, boss.”
“Tell me about it,” I said ...
2025-05-11 11:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post