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Major Stories

A Chimerical Hope

Story of three bugs with grand dreams caught in grander schemes.

Duskroot is destroyed. A minor stronghold, its enemies were cunning and coordinated and its allies didn't lift a hand. As vultures at a corpse, mercenaries hunt for survivors.

Awelah escaped Duskroot. She lost everything. Vengeance drives her, but can she kill a angel beyond death?

Ooliri's mission is to aid the refugees. He has to prove he belongs in a family of medical geniuses. But healing isn't enough — can he bring the dead back to life?

Makuja seeks safety among the refugees. Death and servitude leaves her gaze empty. It's easy to be a follower, but is there a purpose worth living for?

First, the three need answers. A grand scheme is unfolding, and Duskroot was only the first step.

First Chapter · Full Text · RoyalRoad

Hostile Takeover

Story of two robots trying their best (to kill each other)

For Serial Designation J, it's lonely being only effective disassembly drone in her sector of Copper-9.

N was already a walking synergistic liability, but V couldn't be more obviously stressed and maladaptively coping if she tried. When a botched disassembly leaves V a nightmare-riddled wreck, the squad's effectiveness hits its lowest point. With disassemblers like these, you'd swear the worker drones show more initiative!

Meanwhile, Uzi Doorman is a cool, independent worker drone. After Doll abandoned her, she doesn't need anyone else — all she needs is to finish her railgun and blow the murder drones anyway. Of course, if her plan goes wrong she'll be helpless at their mercy. Dead, in other words.

After all, J is a loyal drone. Locate, shutdown, disassemble. A simple directive she'd never hesitate to carry out. Right?

First Chapter · Full Text · ArchiveOfOurOwn

Aurora Moonrise

Story of comets and a girl who wants to fight them

It is the nature of comets to dazzle and destroy. These eldritch spirit from beyond the stars will joyfully grind kingdoms to dust. They're exactly what the knights of noble blood exist to fight, what the daughters of the moon exist to destroy.

Aurora knows she is different, and nobody will say why. It's enough to make her want to fight someone. And Aurora fights — people, animals, spirits, it doesn't matter. She doesn't want to hurt them, but it's thrilling. She'll just have to become a knight. If there's anything Aurora won't feel bad fighting, it's a comet.

And when she's a comet-slaying hero, then someone will tell who her mother was.

Full text

Kaon Rising

Story of a young dragon proving himself.

In a backwater dimension of the worldskein, the dragon orphan Malthec la Kaon is raised ignorant of his past, yet weighed down by it. Dragons are meant to be mighty and free, yet he is one in a school full of them, weak and overshadowed. Each dragon has a unique magical Breath, and Kaon's is seemingly useless. Reviled and overlooked, Kaon must prove the elders were mistaken to neglect him. Or were they?

First Chapter · Full Text

Endless Stars

Story of an exiled dragon looking for friends.

Stars are all Kinri has. Exiled from the noble heights of the sky, the dragoness scrapes by in the backwater crags of the land of glass and secrets. It’s a chance to make friends and live a simple life away from her family⁠ ⁠—⁠ that’s all she wants. She’s different now, and she’ll prove it. But can she even convince herself?

Meanwhile, in the long shadow of her legendary alchemist grandfather, Hinte struggles to find something to call her own. Out in the depths of the town’s volcanic lake, she sifts for mysterious stones, and it seems she’s found it⁠ ⁠—⁠ but her new sense of purpose doesn’t escape those around her.

United by circumstance, the pair struggle to find common ground. When Kinri finally convinces Hinte to bring her along on a sifting expedition, she’s curious then baffled as the mysteries pile up, and her new companion remains tight-lipped and distant. Is this just sifting, or something more?

First Chapter · Full Text · Royalroad

Eifre Quest

A reader-driven web serial.

You are a heartlands mantis nymph training to learn black and bloody magic. That’s the hope, and it’d let you escape this dinky farm-town plonked at edge of the heartlands, where the Ambrosia Woods breathes down its thorax. You’re stuck out here unless — until — your talents get noticed.

One day, alone, you hear a scream from the depths of those cursed woods. It’s a mantid’s scream, and heartlands mantids don’t live in the ambrosia.

First Chapter · Full Text

And the Darkling Reefs Abide

Story of a murderous jellyfish.

Beneath a never-setting sun, jellyfish live in worshipful subservice to the feathered gods that created them. They guide with grand benevolence — except for one treacherous god, cast out of their ranks to protect jellykind.

With nothing to live for, the jellyfish Ruwene takes the first order he's given. He swore upon a dark altar that he will kill the high priestess of the sun god, lord of the pantheon. His knows his story won't have a happy conclusion — but better to have a conclusion.

First Chapter · Full Text

Upcoming Stories

Thy Wretched Mask

Story of a monster in human skin

Everyone wants to peel off their skin and scream into the night. You're just supposed to keep a handle on that.

Beca's trying. Now on the run, she'll just have to get it right in a new town. She's got nothing to her name save a pet raven, but a little pickpocketing will change that. Maybe a bulgary or two. As long as she doesn't tear someone apart in broad daylight, she could keep things controlled.

It's a lonely life, but friendship is only temptation. She should just keep to herself. So why does she listen when the woman from the shadows talks? They're making an offer that could lift her off the streets for good.

The catch? She has to kill someone. Again. That's definitely too much temptation.

Coming Soon

Running Out of Skin & Time

Story of a dead, dreaming girl neither dead nor dreaming

Tomorrow, a lord will be flayed alive. Once his flesh, freely given, is woven into a vast frame, enchanted scars will turn him into a living portal, a gift that could turn a blightstricken town into a bustling trade nexus.

Apnoe has woken up beside the same dead girl three nights in a row. The lord's flaying is tomorrow — same as it was for the last three nights. She's the only one who's noticed. Assassins lurk in the flaying festival's crowds, and when they strike the lord dead, the whole town watches their dreams crumble, and then Apnoe wakes again as if from a dream. She knew this quite well; on the first night, she had killed him.

Scarred flesh grants magic. How deep a wound did it take to make every living soul in the city relive the same day? It wasn't Apnoe's, and she doesn't know why only she remembers, but then again, most scars treat her differently. After all, she's dead half the time.

Apnoe would kill to end this nightmare — but it seems the only way out is saving a man who'll die tomorrow anyway.

Coming Soon

Short and Abandoned Work