In his head, Velik knew that swamps were difficult to navigate. Footing was treacherous, there was a lot of water, and the whole place was infested with various forms of bugs that wanted nothing in the world besides to try to eat him alive. They weren’t even monstrous insects, either, just regu...
2025-01-24 14:04:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe carriage ride was surprisingly comfortable, and the best part was that Aria decided she needed to take a nap, which meant Velik didn’t have to keep her entertained for the first few hours. He spent some of that time going over his fight with Giller in his head again, trying to pick apart he...
2025-01-23 13:36:52 +0000 UTC View Post“Good match,” Giller said a minute later after they’d both recovered. “Told you that you should have lost that mask though.”
Considering that he hadn’t even seen the blow that had scored her the last point, it was hard to argue with that logic. On the other hand, her stunt of de...
2025-01-22 13:06:31 +0000 UTC View PostVelik’s weapon gave him the advantage in range, and he was confident that he had a high enough physical stat to properly leverage that against Giller’s shorter sword. In truth, he was more worried about the relatively fragile weapons holding up under the strain of repeated impacts. They were ...
2025-01-21 14:01:32 +0000 UTC View PostHello! Here is the unofficial epub duwnload link for the first volume of Duskbound. This should look 99% what it'll be like when it goes live on Amazon, except with the original Royal Road cover still. Hopefully, all the typos have been caught and fixed at this point, but if you see some, please ...
2025-01-20 21:11:35 +0000 UTC View PostThey’d agreed that Jensen would do the majority of the talking. All Velik had to do was introduce himself, prove he was Gray the top gladiator, and confirm that he was signing on to Jensen’s expedition. In theory, his role was a minor one and he was hoping he’d only be there for a few minut...
2025-01-20 12:35:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe guild had a postal system it used to communicate between members who weren’t regularly in the guild hall at the same time. Everyone had a mailbox, even the irons. Velik was expecting a notice for an appointment to meet with Guild Master Nelspir again to arrive soon, so the first thing he di...
2025-01-17 14:40:00 +0000 UTC View PostVelik was a quarter mile from the coliseum, still solidly in Gold Town, when he sensed someone following him. Whoever it was, they were making no effort to hide their presence. Footsteps jogged down the street behind him, coming his direction, and at first, he suspected a member of the city watch...
2025-01-16 13:50:21 +0000 UTC View Post“Where’d you get it?” Velik asked Ned.
“You know I can’t tell you that. It’s a trade secret. Here, your winnings.”
“Fuck the gold!” Velik snarled. He smacked the bag hard enough to send it flying into the wall and leaned over the desk. “That monster. Where did it c...
2025-01-15 13:13:21 +0000 UTC View PostVelik honestly wasn’t sure how the coliseum smuggled monsters into the city, but he imagined it probably involved paying some corrupt official to look the other way. He was sure they had at least one [Beast Tamer] on their roster, probably more, and with a focus on pacifyi...
2025-01-14 14:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostVelik skipped the celebrations that night. Dozens of new bronze-ranked monster hunters gathered at a few of the more popular taverns and common rooms of various inns near the guild hall, including the one he was staying at. He hadn’t realized exactly what sort of place Melon and Peach was when ...
2025-01-13 13:52:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Is this really the trial you put golds through?” Velik asked.
“Every single one of them,” Nelspir told him.
“And… how often does someone just come in and pass this without working their way up through the guild?”
“Not that often,” the guild master admitted. 2025-01-10 13:04:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Now panicking at the lack of cooperation Velik was displaying, the attendant rushed ahead of him to disarm the defenses on the stairway, something Velik was absolutely sure the man wasn’t supposed to be doing. What if I’d been some sort of shape shifting monster or a body snatcher? You kn...
2025-01-09 13:59:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe guild hall was nothing like Velik had expected when he’d first arrived in Cravel. He’d expected it to look something like an enormous hunter’s lodge, big enough for a hundred people to stay in. In his head, he’d pictured a huge gathering hall with a massive fireplace on one end, troph...
2025-01-08 13:58:46 +0000 UTC View PostAnd so ends this series. It didn’t end up being as long as I planned, but I think I covered everything I wanted to get done. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for your patronage.
In regards to the future of Keiran, yes, I do plan to return to th...
2025-01-08 13:55:34 +0000 UTC View Post300 years later…
I appeared on the teleportation platform of Senica’s demesne, just as I’d done every decade on schedule for the last few centuries. In the early days, she’d been there to greet me, but she was far too busy now. It used to be that she at least sent someone t...
2025-01-08 13:52:22 +0000 UTC View PostIt wasn’t enough to just avoid the bull. That was easily done a few different ways. For one thing, Velik had a significantly higher physical and a class that focused on both power and agility, so it was trivial to just stay in front of the monster. He could literally outrun it as it chased him,...
2025-01-07 13:06:50 +0000 UTC View PostIt took me thirty years to reach this point, almost to the day since I’d defeated Ammun and dispersed his soul to the afterlife. There had been unexpected windfalls and setbacks, and I’d found some unlikely allies along the way. I’d hoarded enough mysteel to finance multiple kingdoms and se...
2025-01-07 13:03:20 +0000 UTC View PostThe split tailed bull stood ten feet tall at the shoulders and was wider than any three people standing abreast. It had horns like spears and hooves that could crush stone. The steel bars holding it back looked far too flimsy to keep such a monster confined, and Velik was sure if it had been give...
2025-01-06 14:43:46 +0000 UTC View Post“You know, you could have saved us a whole lot of work if you’d just… not knocked the damned tower down,” Querit told me.
“You’re not even doing the digging. Why are you whining about this?” I asked.
I’d found a use for Ammun’s legion of golems after all. There were ...
2025-01-06 14:41:32 +0000 UTC View Post“If you’re going after the rest of those champions, you should do it immediately,” Torwin said between bites of sausage. “I’ll delay my return home as long as possible, but I already sent messages ahead about the corruption. I can guarantee I’ll be receiving orders to report everythin...
2025-01-05 14:12:37 +0000 UTC View PostThe temporary camp was all but abandoned by the time Jensen made his way back there. He’d spent most of his night in Beldrit, helping refugees get settled in. It was somewhat ghoulish to slot people into the homes left behind by the victims of monsters in this town, but that was how it went. He...
2025-01-04 13:25:12 +0000 UTC View PostThey’d been running hard all night, and Sildra knew if she stopped to let herself think, she’d break down. So many people had died, or worse, been killed by Torwin. She’d recognized some of them, even if she didn’t know their names. And [Eye of the Moon] had condemne...
2025-01-04 13:24:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe spear wasn’t getting through that layer of bone, not at the angle Velik was working from. Maybe if he’d been fresh, it would have been a different story. But that wasn’t the case. His hands were trembling with fatigue and his breathing was ragged and labored. So, the bone wasn’t the t...
2025-01-03 13:13:27 +0000 UTC View PostSomething had occurred to Velik in the last few seconds, something that he wasn’t sure he was right about, but if he was, it was very, very important. Even with a full cavern to spread out through, and with literal miles and miles of flesh that composed its body, for some reason, all the faces ...
2025-01-03 13:12:48 +0000 UTC View PostI walked into the alchemy lab Querit was using two days later. He’d come out of the fight unscathed, though the combat frame I’d built had lost about a third of its functionality when he’d put down a pair of reanimated skeletons made from literal giants. Each of them had been close to thirt...
2025-01-03 13:10:29 +0000 UTC View PostIt wasn’t until the monster started moving that Velik truly appreciated how much bigger than him it was. It had to way a few thousand pounds, and its weird arm-leg hybrid things were each long enough that the trunk of its body was at eye level. Its movement was awkward to watch, like it couldn...
2025-01-02 14:00:45 +0000 UTC View PostMaybe someone like Torwin would have known what was going on. The man had decades of experience and he seemed pretty smart, so he’d probably seen all sorts of weird stuff throughout his career. No doubt he’d have three different stories about giant brain monsters and what that meant.
Ve...
2025-01-02 14:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe few dozen refugees streamed through the portal I’d set up to bring them to New Alkerist. Most of them were young mothers with small children, those who couldn’t fight or run on their own. My own family came through last, Nailu in the lead and Father bringing up the rear.
“—never...
2025-01-02 13:57:10 +0000 UTC View Post“First, my name is Andyla Felstbater,” the Order mage said. “I am one of the ranking archmages left in the Global Order of the Arcane, a Third Order archmage.”
That was better than Bakir’s Fifth Order, but I’d never determined exactly how they structured their cabal or what qual...
2025-01-01 13:16:10 +0000 UTC View Post