Lillene

A young dungeon core forms next to a lovely village, full of lovely people who would likely understand its plight of not wanting to murder them all if only it had a mouth with which to speak. Instead, everything goes horribly, terribly wrong.

Its literally a crystal, it can't be having a panic attack, can it?

This is the story about a village, a dungeon, its desire to provide light and laughter and life. It tries to choose the talents and perks to bolster its life-mana alignment every time, to further its cause. So how is it that it wound up with an undead army and some insane boosts to death-aligned mana? How did everything go so wrong?

[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

"My mission is to save the human race and die in the process."

A one-shot I wrote a while back about what happens after we end our world.

Cover image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Now on Book Five!  Check the Volumes selector to make sure you start at the right place!

Book One: Paranoid Mage

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Callum had seen things all his life.  There are monsters and beasts living among people, but he learned very early not to admit such things, not if he didn’t want people to think him crazy.

It turns out that the supernatural is real, but at thirty Callum has no desire to be part of that secret.  Not that he has a choice when it turns out he is a mage, albeit one that hasn’t cast any spells in all his life.  There are requirements, duties, and education that the powers that be insist he be subject to.

To hell with that.

Book Two: Renegade Mage

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After escaping from the Guild of Arcane Regulation and the Bureau of Secret Enforcement, Callum has lost his greatest protection: his obscurity.  Now the powers that be know who he is, and hiding is harder than ever.  Nor is hiding a plan, just a reaction.

Now Callum is forced to decide how he wants to approach the supernatural world, and how he’s going to keep himself secure when the apparatus of government is arrayed against him.  Even if he wanted to live as a mage, that bridge has been thoroughly burned, and even if he wanted to live as a normal person, he is far too deep to close his eyes to what he’s seen.

He has to make his own terms.

Book Three: Heretic Mage

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Callum is at war with the Guild of Arcane Regulation, the organization that governs mages on Earth.  He’s spent most of his time lying low and hiding out, trying to understand what he can do and how he can remain free from their meddling.  What he’s learned is that he can’t.

It’s time to move from reaction to action, and take on GAR and its evils directly.

Book Four: Reclusive Mage

The Guild of Arcane Regulation has fractured, and new forces move on the board.  Callum cannot quite declare victory, for even a weakened GAR still forces him to hide from the world at large, yet he is no longer prepared to run. Instead he builds his own strengths to stand against those who wish to do him harm.

Change, once started, is hard to stop.  Callum’s actions have brought change to the world of the supernatural, but that can bring chaos and destruction even as he eliminates tyranny and corruption.  He has to move beyond being one man against the world, and stand in the world he’s made.

Book Five: Sovereign Mage

The portal to the Night Lands is closed, and vampires are barred from Earth, but at a high cost.  Not only does Callum have to deal with the fallout of the vampire race’s final spasms, but the political consequences of demonstrating his ability and willingness to attack portal worlds directly.  The forces that were moving to control a weakened GAR have come out into the open, and Callum has to deal with stakes much higher than his personal freedom.

It's time to join with his allies and move to open conflict.  Even the secret of supernatural presence on Earth is at play, and Archmage’s Council and the Seven Lesser Courts threaten the very concept of human sovereignty.  Everything comes down to removing the would-be tyrants, and so preserving the Earth as it should be.

Paranoid Mage is an urban fantasy but it goes rather sideways from the normal stuff fairly quickly. 

Chapters are Fridays, 5PM EST, with approximately 5,000 words per chapter.

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The all-consuming chaos coming to destroy your world?
Demon King winning?
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[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Life has always been a battle, but for some people that's especially true. Not everyone can take living another day for granted. And that was before the world started ending. Now that the [Trial] is here, and everything is going up in flames... well, life isn't getting easier. That's for certain.

Trapped in the [Trial], John is faced with a painful reality: If he wants to live, he has no choice but to climb. And if he wants to survive for the long term, he needs to keep on climbing. Even if that means heading directly into danger.

.......

Dungeon/Tower climbing premise with a progression LITRPG focus. Not extremely fast-paced. Not a Super-OP MC. Intended for those with (or those who can relate with) chronic health problems.

Originally being written in the hopes of completing Book 1 before November 14th (World Diabetes Day) but I missed that by a longshot so at this point maybe by World Diabetes day next year.

A sapient Dungeon Core appears in a world where a System god created Dungeon Cores in order to try to rid the world of evil.

The Core decides to do this using the power of dragons and karma!

And to help nice people whenever possible while at it.

I normally plan on releasing chapters every Monday, but as my examen’s period has started, I can’t guarantee when the next chapter will come. Probably end-of-May or early-June.

Rewrite in progress

Kestra, a [Combat Alchemist] and [Woods Wraith Hunter], is excited to finally receive her third class. But when she attempts to do so, she instead receives a tribulation from the God of Trials, loses her classes, and is informed by the voice of the world that she's been selected to transmigrate with only three days to go. She tries her damnedest to prepare, but even the Elements are different in this new realm. A relatively staid adjustment period is completely abandoned though as she finds that, most distressingly, hundreds of transmigrators have appeared recently with dozens enslaved by the local city lord. Fine! She may have lost her classes and the magic is funky, but she'll be damned if she doesn't have a few true-blue skills up her sleeves.

[synopsis re-write by luda305]

A light hearted romp where the protag transmigrator *isn't* from Earth. The main story takes place on more of a western xianxia world. 

Note: profanity tag is because of side characters, and sexual context tag is for some risqué elements before fade-to-black scene. 

Updated to add fanfic tag because when I picked up the latest Ten Realms I realized that series has had a lot more influence on the setting than I consciously realized. Don't expect military or industrial revolution in xianxia, though.

Not everyone gets a soul.  The rise of industry and mechanization has sent the world's population booming upward, striving relentlessly for the fixed handful of souls that level armies and steer the fate of nations.  The remnants of a crumbled empire fight in a grinding, bloody war against their ancient enemy.

Not everyone gets a soul, but Michael must - for he is the scion of a lord, and the soulless cannot hold such a title.  For five years he has tried to tempt one of the souls freed by its vessel's death.  Five years of pain and failure, earning only his father's contempt.  At last, one more opportunity to earn his soul has come.

But not everyone gets a soul quite like his.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

Cover art by Harry Rowland.

{Volume 1 Synopsis}:

It is an exciting time for the people of the Eurial continent.  The new [Mage] Class has allowed the powerful to begin uniting the fractured tribes and villages into kingdoms and civilization.  A century on, and the continent is quickly consolidating into competing states. 

Amelia, student and daughter of a humble [Hunter], just wants to learn [Fireball] and become a [Mage] in service to her [King].  She succeeds.  All is well as the months fly by, eagerly awaiting her Classing.  One day though, she receives a (unique) Trait: [Reincarnator].  And then, she dies. 

And so begin her many lives. 

{Volume 2 Synopsis}

Other tags: Serial Reincarnator, Experimental Storytelling*

*The "Experimental Storytelling" is that each life is approximately a chapter-length (even if a very long chapter).  That means things move very, very quickly (my Excel spreadsheet hates me) and, regretfully, we often spend very little time with the people, places and things in each life.  Some might call it an anthology. In Volume 1, each life is literally only a chapter.  In Volume 2, the word count is in the same range, but some lives are split into multiple chapters.

Comments suggesting fixes for grammar, misspellings, etc. appreciated.

Volume 1 (Lives 1-16) and Volume 2 (Lives 17-25) have been completed and released.  Volume 3 (not written yet) will be the final volume, concluding the story. Volume 3 is regretfully on indefinite hiatus due to a newborn and other life issues, but I've released a few spoiler chapters laying out my plan for it. 

Cover art for both Volumes courtesy of gej302.  Fiction cover art is my bad photography of a dark corner with candles. 

The Path of Ascension has moved to Kindle Unlimited (Chapters 5-41 removed). Here it is on Amazon and Audible.

The Path of Ascension book 2 has moved to Kindle Unlimited (Chapters 45-72 removed). Here it is on Amazon and Audible.

The Path of Ascension BOOK 3 has moved to Kindle Unlimited (Chapters 75-105 removed). Here it is on Amazon and Audible.  The rest of the story will continue here worry not but its a much cleaner version of the story you know there.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/6ukhCjayC5

***

The story follows Matt, a young man planning to delve the rifts responsible for the monsters that destroyed his city and killed his parents. His dreams are crushed when his Tier 1 Talent is rated as detrimental, and no guild or group will take him.

Working at a nearby inn, he meets a mysterious and powerful couple. They give him a chance to join The Path of Ascension, an empire wide race to ascend the Tiers and become living legends.

With their recommendation and a stolen skill, Matt begins his journey to the peak of power.

***

Chapters will now be MONDAY and FRIDAY AT 3:00pm EST.

This is a mix between LitRPG and Xianxia. It's like a car that looks like a LitRPG with dungeons and skills, but the interior and engine are all Xianxia. 

So no blue boxes and clicking +’s to get stronger.

***

What you won't see in this novel:

Bland protagonists.

Bland love interests that immediately fall in love with the MC.

Murder hobos who kill entire families and clans for looking the wrong way at somebody.

Pacifist MC’s who wouldn't kill a single person to save millions.

Cartoonish villains who are bad just to be bad.

***

What to expect:

A MC who acts rationally.

World building that has more depth than ‘strong people 'stronk'. There will be no rules only benefiting the strong and no rule changes as they see fit. 

An empire that actually cares for its citizens.

People who act and talk like real people.

A magic system and progression system that are logically and internally consistent.

Realistic fight scenes.

When a new dungeon is born, it wants nothing more than to have the most vicious monsters, the most cunning traps and the most shiny of loot. There is only one problem, but it's a rather big one; it finished its first floor years ago, but it still hasn't been visited by any adventurers! In order to find someone or something to explore its floors, or perhaps just to find someone to talk to, this dungeon will have to go way off script. But it soon discovers that going off script brings problems of its own, and that adventurers are not the only thing this world is missing.

A shortish story about a dungeon's journey of exploration and self-discovery in a devastated world. Cover made (poorly) with POV-Ray.

Prequel to An Unbound Soul

Published here, scribblehub and amazon.

Tibs survived by picking pockets; until he’s caught. 

Instead of losing a hand, he’s sent away and told he must now survive a dungeon.

How is a kid who knew nothing more than his street supposed to survive a dungeon that changes each time he goes in it?

Being sent into an ever-growing dungeon becomes his life, facing ever-changing threats to him and the people he tries so hard not to become attached to. He’d like to run away, but where the dungeon means he might die, the guards have made it clear trying to run will ensure he does. 

But his street taught Tibs to get back up after he’s beaten down. So he isn’t going to just give up. And maybe, just maybe, if he’s tough enough to take a chance on people, and on a deal for power he’s advised against taking, Tibs can not only survive, but beat those who seem to stack the odds against him.