“Sorry, friend,” Elgava muttered as San and she pulled Genreve out of his brigandine. The armor was soaked in blood and the fabric was torn, but it was whole unlike Elgava’s own armor.
They piled the salvaged weapons in the center of their small encampment, along with anything else they could find. The wounded groaned as they writhed upon the muddy ground, the rest of the...
2021-01-23 21:37:58 +0000 UTC View PostAmelia Collins-Stone was a iron haired woman. She wore a dark blue pants suit that, although clean and pressed, was a bit threadbare and with some visible repairs. Her face was narrow and sunken, her cheekbones standing out in stark contrast. Maya knew the signs, it was the look of someone who had it rough and had been forced to skip more than one meal a day.
Her pace was calm ...
2021-01-23 02:11:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe creek narrowed and the terrain grew rockier. San breathed in the cold air and looked up at the towering peaks to the north. They weren’t anywhere close to those peaks, but the land had noticeably become more inclined in the last two days since they left the Exonaris Komai.
Tall pines dominated sides of the steep valleys they were entering, the land changing and growing co...
2021-01-21 16:52:06 +0000 UTC View PostMaya tossed the tablet across the room. It smashed against the far bulkhead and shattered into dozens of pieces. She sighed and the Cage absorbed the pieces, producing another one that she reached out and snagged from the air.
She looked back down at the tablet display and saw that the numbers hadn’t changed.
“We’re fucked,” Maya said. She looked around her empty ...
2021-01-18 20:41:51 +0000 UTC View Post"It’s a boy,” Endaha whispered. She lay in the barn, blankets wrapped around her and the new child. Cassa sat by her, staring wide eyed at the mewling bundle before her.
“The Exonaris komai grows,” Azios said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Break out the wine, it’s a fine day,” Pavano said, then winced as he shifted on his bad leg.
“Fine day?” Bostarion muttere...
2021-01-16 20:17:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Welcome to IENN, Integrated Earth News Network, I’m your host Vanida Niran. Breaking news: a new settlement has been added to the Sullivan Survival Society’s alliance of settlements, this time within the former nation of the Russian Federation. Sources say that Maya Sullivan is making a major military push to secure the city of Moscow from mana mutations. What do we know of the curre...
2021-01-15 17:50:37 +0000 UTC View Post“Sweet Senta, sweet Senta!” Elgava was crying as the buzzing filled the air.
San’s ears ached from the noise; he worked his jaw trying to ease the pressure that seemed to have changed. Elgava continued to mutter prayers and shiver. San pulled out the bottle and gave it to her.
“Drink,” he said.
She looked at him uncomprehendingly and sniffed the bottle, re...
2021-01-14 21:40:16 +0000 UTC View Post“An army that’s made up of fanatical cannibal death cultists?” Hanna asked.
“Yup.”
“And they’re coming right for the ship you’re basing this entire Cage out of?”
“Yup.”
“What happens if they capture the ship?”
“Well, they could probably figure out how to shut down the Cage, forcing it back into the RSH and killing everyone within it,” ...
2021-01-13 19:44:44 +0000 UTC View Post“This is barbaric,” San muttered.
“Does your land have better ways of ensuring military discipline?” Pavano asked. He too looked uncomfortable with what was going on.
“I’m not sure. I was never in the military, but we stopped using corporal punishment on soldiers or civilians,” San said as he watched two men be stripped of their coats and tunics. They were tied to a po...
2021-01-12 21:50:34 +0000 UTC View PostMaya twisted the bolt holding the mechanism in place. She could feel it grinding and crunching within her gauntlets. The suit’s hearing protection kicked in, reducing the screeching of metal into a low noise.
“Dang,” she huffed. “This thing was on tight.”
“I would have gladly done it,” Tender said, his voice coming through her comm. Currently the rogue AI was sitting i...
2021-01-11 18:50:44 +0000 UTC View PostThe entire household and San stood in the freezing front area of the farmhouse as the Baron’s Guards arrived. A messenger had arrived an hour before, announcing the Mage Lieutenant and the Guards, then asked for something hot to drink.
“They could conquer the Empire,” Azios said, amazement in his voice.
San had other opinions on the military force that arrived into the komai. ...
2021-01-09 03:22:28 +0000 UTC View Post“Cores away!” Maya shouted as she pressed a button. There was a soft thump that she could feel through the deck of the Cage as the first of many C5 mana cores were launched.
The view screen before her showed the tall cylindrical cores exiting the Cage, falling into the blackness of space, and a moment later a series of thrusters pushed the cores toward a waiting craft. A small modifie...
2021-01-08 03:55:52 +0000 UTC View PostSan woke with a half forgotten memory. It tickled his mind, that something, a figment that he could almost remember. It was on the tip of his tongue, like a word that he knew but couldn’t summon at the moment.
He could feel the ice cold and the soft voice whispering in his ears. He could feel the ice in his veins and the cold washing over him and the words. The words that spo...
2021-01-06 19:51:24 +0000 UTC View Post“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Maya said entering the tense room. She looked at everyone and then at the two with the weapons draw upon one another. “I’m sure we can measure dicks in a different way, like without shooting one another.”
“This is not a matter of measuring dicks,” one of the men said. Maya vaguely remembered him as a man from Indonesia, one of the small groups ...
2021-01-05 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“King me,” San said.
Azios scowled and flipped the wooden piece over to reveal a crudely drawn crown. He stared at the board between then and frowned at it.
“I’m losing,” he said.
“There’s no shame in that, Azios,” San replied. “It’s a new game you’re learning. You don’t need to be the best when you’re starting out, maybe after you’ve got...
2021-01-04 21:05:51 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a lot of shouting going on among the Chicago representatives. Maya noted the Mayor there in a well fitting suit, along with an older man, a bit of silver in his close cropped hair, but fit and wearing a simple military BDU. He stood with the Mayor and several other men who didn’t look military, but were well armed.
Facing off against them was a bigger old guy with a...
2021-01-04 02:44:35 +0000 UTC View Post“Fire in the Night,” San muttered. The fire flared a moment, causing Azios to look up at him. San smiled back. “Just a bit of precaution.”
Azios nodded, still holding Cassa and giving her some kimchi. She ate it eagerly.
Night began to fall and San sat before the fire, adding fuel and trying to keep the temperature at a constant level. The last thing he wanted was...
2021-01-02 20:40:16 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s not all fun and games,” Maya said to the gathered men and women. The viewscreen before them showed a land of horror, of madness, of sickening brutality that stunned the mind. “You here, you who have been chosen to work and learn, to level your abilities; this is what you’re fighting against.”
A small caption below the screen displayed the name of the city, Fai...
2021-01-02 01:58:41 +0000 UTC View PostThe End of 2020
It’s been an interesting year, folks. I began the foray into online novel writing with Interdimensional Garbage Merchant on the first of May, but it turned out I had to wait 24 hrs for RoyalRoad to gander at my first chapter. So I technically began on the second of May.
There had been ups and downs, there have been moments where I did not know what...
2020-12-31 20:49:16 +0000 UTC View Post“That’s not how you use a sword,” Azios said, his eyes wide and shocked by what San was doing.
San looked up from where he was working, the broadsword in his hand. He looked down at the log laying before him, a forty foot tree that Azios and he had fell. The one handed sword was being used to denude the tree of branches.
“It’s enchanted,” San said. “Self sharpens and w...
2020-12-31 20:35:02 +0000 UTC View Post“I mean will any one really care if I steal other SIL’s designs and schematics; then make them myself?” Maya asked Bell.
Bell looked at Maya, an expression of disapproval on his blue face. “Yes.”
“But what if I just use them for myself and not sell them? No harm, no foul, right?”
“No. It’s still wrong.”
“But what if it’s for a good cause, like sav...
2020-12-30 20:58:14 +0000 UTC View Post“You realize it will rip out your throat one day and kill everyone around you, right?” Pavano said as San carried Wolfram to a somewhat standing hut.
“She’s had the chance to do the several times,” San said. “So far, she’s not done much besides saving my ass. She warned us about the Nox scouts, she saved me from getting killed by the trappers.”
“Aye, may...
2020-12-29 21:13:31 +0000 UTC View PostIt was an invasion of alien creatures and robotic monstrosities. The survivors of Ko Sumai stood watching as a giant spider like creature marched down the main street of the settlement. It was a metallic purple color and upon it sat another being of metal.
Roci Sullivan tossed a handful of single credit discs to the crowds that watched the procession of machinery and tools and ant drones....
2020-12-29 00:32:38 +0000 UTC View PostNight had fallen and San carried a torch of Fire in the Night. Azios had fallen asleep; but the trail was simple to follow and it led to only one place. Exanarios Komai; settled after the Empire returned to take what they had once destroyed.
There was an abrupt transition between a wooded area and a wide open valley, the creek they had been following ran down the center, with a...
2020-12-28 04:49:27 +0000 UTC View Post“Mana Aura, y’all know what it is, right?” Maya asked.
“Yes,” Bell said.
“No,” everyone else chorused.
“It’s a thing that SIL have. Very important. Like that cloud of CO2 everyone has around their head from exhaling.”
“It’s nothing at all like that,” Bell said.
“It’s the way I see it.”
“You, by far, have the highest Mental st...
2020-12-24 05:31:40 +0000 UTC View Post“What do you mean you haven’t heard of imbar before, silly,” the girl at his side playfully slapped him on the shoulder, her hand lingering for a long moment.
San uncomfortably shifted. “I’ve heard of it, I’ve just never seen it,” he said.
Ellavano Alkava was Orbaris’ daughter. She had bright green eyes and dark hair, with olive skin and a narrow high cheekboned face...
2020-12-22 18:10:04 +0000 UTC View PostMaria Valdez eyed Maya Sullivan, the two woman sat across from one another in the generic boardroom Maya created. Maria leaned forward and lifted a white cup off the table. She brought it to her lips.
“This is horrible coffee,” she stated.
‘Blame the Astronauts,” Maya replied.
“Seriously, its god awful.” Yet, Maria continued to drink it.
“If we g...
2020-12-21 21:14:13 +0000 UTC View Post“How can you be this bad at riding a horse?” San asked as Pavano gloomily looked at him and clutched the saddle horn.
“I’m a lover, a poet, a singer, but a rider? There’s a reason I was walking, boy. You think I can’t afford a horse? A mule? I could afford hundreds, but I refuse to ride these unruly creatures.” Pavano had been upset when his leg had swollen up and...
2020-12-19 18:48:23 +0000 UTC View Post“Well, there are limitations to everything.” Maya sighed and tossed the tablet onto the table.
“It seemed your teleportation device worked remarkably well,” George said looking at his own tablet.
“Yeah, but it’s not Star Trek and we just can’t beam things everywhere. A few kilometers away from the device is fine, local sensors and scanners can gain enough detail to ens...
2020-12-18 22:52:44 +0000 UTC View Post“You didn’t say you were an Adventurer,” Sagaris said.
San glanced at the woman. “No one asked.”
She snorted and folded her arms. “We wouldn’t have treated you like shit when we first met,” she said.
“That so?”
“You’re dressed like one of the forest fuckers, you’re carrying odd gear, the sword is probably worth more than the fur all t...
2020-12-18 01:10:32 +0000 UTC View Post