Iron Lung writes

FG: Chapter 72

“D-Dekius!”

Marcus stumbled his way through the thick ash cloud that had enveloped the ratman forces, hearing the sounds of sporadic combat echo and weave through the battlefield.

“C-cough complete madness!” Skeever shrieked beside him. “MEN! IF YOU ARE HAVING ...

*Important note for all Patreons*

This week is the last week of chapters before I go on summer vacation. I will be away for 3 weeks from 16th June to 7th July, during which time there will not be new chapters. 

Patreon billing will be paused so you will not be cha...

FG: Chapter 71

They often said that the moments of calm before battle was where fear struck most men’s hearts.

But personally, Marcus found that the sprinting towards the enemy was generally worse.

He urged his Spineripper on, nestled amongst the inner ranks of Skeever’s advancing ratguard, and ...

CC: Chapter 69

“…Tell me once again, Brother. Slowly.”

XJ-V blinked in amusement as he watched Feng play with his metal kitten. Looking at the boy these days reminded the metal man of how his friend had been when they first met.

They had come to sit upon the library of Gira in a fashion not t...

CC: Chapter 68

For the next five days straight, XJ-V remained locked in training with his Master.

Those Disciples who saw him emerge from the Dragonpyre Hearth whispered of how the Cog was possessed by a very new fire in these days. Many put it down to his determination to win the tournament – gawking a...

FG: Chapter 70

-Grindlefect perimeter, Sire Marcus Graham’s War Camp-

Marcus looked upon the army assembled in his name – a patchwork force compiled of creatures that could turn the stomach of a seasoned Green Baret.

Spinerippers, spearmen, swordbearers and ratguards all ...

CC: Chapter 67

'Self'

He awoke with a scream and a start, his Creator’s face still burned into his retinas even as he knew that same face couldn’t be here, in Ramor-Tai.

I am in Ramor-Tai, he told himself. I am in the present. I am XJ-V. I am a Cultivator. I am a Cog. I a...

FG: Chapter 69

When Marcus opened his tent flap and breathed in the smog of the Underkingdom, he wasted no time in getting right back into where the fighting would be thickest.

It would be better than trying to justify all this, and it would take his mind off of Skeever’s words which, like it or not, w...

CC: Chapter 66

XJ-V looked into the dying eyes of the bandit whose life he held in his hands.

And within the Dao, the XJ-V of the future looked back, feeling his metal gut churn with fear.

Such memories had been locked away for a reason. He knew that, now.

Even so, he could not bring himsel...

FG: Chapter 68

“Truth, eh?” Marcus smiled.

Skeever approached him cautiously, like a sick cow approaching its driver.

“You are once telling me to trust you, Sire,” he said, weapon suspiciously absent from his hip.

A sign of trust? Marcus thought. He’s never seen dead without Gatskeek...

FG: Chapter 67

“Those of you who still value your lives,” he said, in a voice that would reverberate through the ears of every Kobold child from that day forward. “Pledge yourself to my service. Open your minds to He-Who-Festers, and I will promise you fair treatment. You will have a place in our ranks wh...

CC: Chapter 65

Hensha became a place he would have been proud to call home.

That made things much harder for him, now. His Creator had told him he was almost ready for ‘extraction’, whatever that meant. His primary designation to cultivate took him far from this place, he knew. But although the machin...

FG: Chapter 66

Deep within the fortress he had earned through the sacrifice of a thousand lives, Boss Skegga was roused from his slumber by a thunderclap.

His eyes shot open to the ceiling of a chamber that was certainly not his – its drab grey brickwork was nothing like his golden temple appropriated t...

CC: Chapter 64

His first few days in Hensha were surprisingly…familiar.

Not that he’d ever seen any of the ashen-faced members of the wasteland before, but when he looked into their despairing eyes he felt a certain sense of empathy that he knew couldn’t have been born from his own experience.

FG: Chapter 65

-Two Weeks Later-

Another clap of thunder sounded in the deep. The ratman engineer’s cries of “Be bracing!” were barely audible against the bellows of the twelve-pounders belching their retort against the walls of Mudklip below.

The tiny Kobold village had been ...

CC: Chapter 63

He was staring into the clouds of the Dao, knowing he had to return. Feeling the pull of life on his back like a set of heavy, rusted chains fettering his soul.

But the will that was beyond his body pushed on, reached out to part the mists. He wouldn’t accept that his last memory ...

CC: Chapter 62

The mists of the Dao parted, and the world of snow melted away with it.

In its place, a chamber of chromium stretched out from XJ-V’s inert body, and her felt the distinct impression of something sharp being drilled into his head.

It took him a moment to understand that the implemen...

FG: Chapter 64

Deekius’ pale form shifted as the door to his chamber opened, and the two guards watching over him turned their spears on the intruder.

The groggy eyes of the ratman opened to nothing but the dank ceiling of the castle, and his ears perked up as they heard someone cut through the ...

CC: Chapter 61

[Anima Cores: 149]

Almost…there…almost…

“Oi, oi!” a little creature screamed in the night. “XJ-XJ! Wake up!”

XJ-V roused as though from a long, deep slumber, hearing a very different voice respond to the protests of the creature that was trying to wake him with its...

FG: Chapter 63

Marcus stared at Shrykul’s weary face, totally lost against the rat-monarch’s candor.

“I am making decision on this,” he said with a heavy wave of his hand. “Any Kobolds conscripted into army are to be no more than 500 Yips strong. The rest are to be kept behind, without weapons.�...

FG: Chapter 62

Marcus sat pensively in the war-council chamber of Castel Carfaxx, his quill tapping incessantly on his notebook as he waited for King Shrykul to attend the meeting.

It struck him as odd that the King would be late, but considering the multiple duties his position required (and those extra...

CC: Chapter 60

The face that stared into XJ-V’s eyes shone with the light of familiarity.

It was the face of an old man as grey as the walls of the laboratory he stood in, wisps of white hair clinging in small patches to his balding skull. Upon his wrinkled nose sat a pair of dark-rimmed spectacl...

FG: Chapter 61

As Marcus and his army marched wearily through the winding tunnels back to Fleapit, the echoes of their footsteps reverberated off the damp stone walls, creating an eerie symphony that seemed to celebrate their hard-fought victory. The flickering torches cast dancing shadows on the faces of the w...

CC: Chapter 59

[Anima Cores: 145]

Words that were used to define something beyond definition…words used to entrap something that was pure feeling alone. Raw. Untouched.

Entrapped…

The visions of the Dao granted him dark shapes that peeled away to reveal the husks ...

CC: Chapter 58

Ori’un took XJ-V to his quarters as instructed, laying him down and watching him with curious eyes.

The sensation of ruination that filled the Cog was palpable – he felt the phantom pains of his eviscerated limbs and torn innards surge through him. He felt the scars across his chest whe...

FG: Chapter 60

“You once asked me a question,” Marcus said, the flickering embers of his candlelights throwing his hunched shadow across the walls of his cramped chambers at the edge of Fort Spearclaw. “At the time, I don’t think it was something I’d ever really thought about.”

It was s...

FG: Chapter 59

Marcus stood beside Deekius on the battlements of Spearclaw, watching the dwarven milita’s mass exodus back to their homestead.

They had gone, surprisingly, without incident. Perhaps it was due to Marcus’s allowing them to watch their Commander’s execution. Perhaps it was because he h...

CC: Chapter 57

'Secret'

“Oh, but this should be good.”

The statement was one coughed with derision, charged with ancient anger. It could only have come from Master Longhua.

“Be out with it then, Planeswalker,” Yom-Dur said, only marginally more charitable than h...

FG: Chapter 58

Commander Corvaughn sat back, fury seeping from every pore of his pudgy features.

“In my world,” Marcus continued. “There are many men such as you. Men of honor. Most of them fight to the last man, their hands stained with the blood of their loyal soldiers who will leave grieving wido...

CC: Chapter 56

'Trial'

If it was possible for a machine-man to feel groggy, that is exactly how XJ-V would have described his awakening.

The lids of his eyes edged open as his internal servos whirred with life, and the flame billowing at the center of his chest kicked into high-gea...