Aest Belequa | contemporary | Complete
Some men have demons inside them. Lou's stays in the mirror, stalking his wife. It's at the doctor's office. It's in the bathroom at their assisted living apartment. It even chases the car when they go shopping. It keeps getting closer. And as it does, he's having a harder and harder time remembering. Lou doesn't want to find out what'll happen if if reaches Abigail. He has to stop the demon. Content Warning: This story is about dementia. I'm trying not to pull punches. Edit: I'm incredibly honored to have won the June 2023 Community Magazine Contest. Thank you all for reading!
4.65 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-13 10:51
Doctor Zero | contemporary | Complete
The meaning of life is to protect the ego, because it makes the dopamine. Horm is worried that the future is happening too slow. He's afraid he might miss it. So he makes a plan to speed things up using dopamine - the brain chemical that drives motivation. It could work. Disclaimer - This book is weird.
9.13 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-20 14:29
"Your first death is always the hardest." Miguela was the third-born child of a well-off merchant family and knew from around the time she could speak that her life's path was already decided for her by her father. She was to become an Orator, as was Xandran tradition. However, Miguela had an affinity with the magikal arts and somehow found herself studying at the Academy. One fateful day, the government offers Miguela an opportunity to join a team tasked with the mission of gathering intelligence via scrying magik. The catch is that Miguela and her associates can only scry the deceased. Miguela finds the memories of the dead haunting but is adamant not to fail because the prospect of regaining control of her life and using her magik to help others gives her a purpose in life that she never had before. Of course, Miguela soon discovers her new job has an exorbitant cost. Will she be willing to pay when the bill comes due? Welcome to Five Kingdoms of Cordizal! What is the Five Kingdoms of Cordizal? I often get asked this type of question about my stories by friends, bloggers, and potential readers. The Five Kingdoms of Cordizal is a high-fantasy epic universe that is the setting for most of my stories. The foundation of the universe is its multicultural, multiracial setting with several sentient races attempting to carve their legacy and survive. The world is fully fleshed out and vibrant with a rich and mysterious history not based on Tolkien mythology. This brings me to magic. To me, magic is an essential part of the fantasy genre, so, of course, there is magic in the Five Kingdoms universe. However, one critical part of the Five Kingdoms universe is that magic is an abundant commodity that is a part of everyday life and not some plot device used to drive the story. In short, the Five Kingdoms universe is the setting of epic fantasy stories with deep characters and world-building. I try to tell as many different types of stories as possible in the universe, and hopefully, you can find something for you in it.
28.01 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-27 16:40
Blackbird0 | drama | Complete
To Zuko's great relief, his new family were not part of a cult. Instead they seemed to be rather normal people they were well-mannered, cultured, fire breathing people who were very assured of their own superiority, and had a family history of insanity. Zuko had never felt more at home. AU Zuko-is-Itachi.
13.92 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-20 16:00
HeWhoLooksSkyward | historical | On going
An automated probe has arrived at its destination. It's mission? To evaluate the possibility of colonization. ...but it is about to discover far more than it ever imagined.
0.89 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-27 16:04
B. A. Baker (Thedude3445) | satire | Complete
The most underrated character of Tower of Somnus finally gets his due: Hear Arnold Jacques's side of the events for the first time ever. Read a story about how the world's nicest guy tried to win over the world's hottest girl by buying a hundred thousand dollar video game from space.
9.48 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-11 17:18
drewhead118 | one_shot | Complete
Dr. Laura Brandie is ready to change the world. She's the lead researcher behind the KSE, a revolutionary cure for paralysis and neurodegenerative conditions. And now, by good fortune, she's found the perfect candidate for her first human trial: a man who suffers from locked-in syndrome. Brett Harmon's paralysis is total: he can't move his arms, legs, torso, neck, or face. To the outside world, he's little more than a statue that breathes... but Dr. Brandie's KSE might be the miracle that allows Brett to run again.
7.96 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-27 17:38
Aest Belequa | one_shot | Complete
The Highwayman leaves no survivors. He hasn't in over a century of terror on the Old King's Road. His reputation for ruthlessness and immortality is his greatest weapon. When a dying noble begs him to spare his daughter, the Highwayman is faced with a choice; he can protect his reputation, or he can do the right thing. One choice lets his myth live on forever. The other may mean the Highwayman's end. Edit: I'm incredibly honored to have won the January 2024 Community Magazine Contest. Thank you all for reading!
5.10 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-27 18:13
Blue Draggy | comedy | Complete
This is a coming-of age story of a kobold, set in a rather generic D&D universe. It is adult in that it certainly touches upon some sexuality, but it is far, far from anything that might be considered porn. It is ultimately a tragedy, but so is life. That doesn't mean it has to end badly, just that it has to end.
20.93 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-27 18:46
Freya Stone | contemporary | Complete
Remdia, a once peaceful country, sends an army towards the unprepared nation of Caledorn. This single action sets off a chain of events that will uproot the lives of everyone involved. A recent graduate suddenly finds himself in enemy territory, struggling to shield his birthplace from angered citizens. A news broadcaster must present a horrifying report while maintaining her perfected poise. A doctor steals an ambulance in an attempt to aid the injured. A student is evacuated from school, while a father tries desperately to escape a prison. Watch the war unfold through the eyes of those most impacted while the bloodshed increases. A relay of short stories where each chapter follows the perspective of one person through a difficult time.A massive shoutout to the brilliant cover artist as well, Snooki.
20.14 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 11:08
PJ_Lowry | historical | Complete
David Jones thought he was normal until he discovered that his family has been keeping a secret from him his entire life. He learned that his father's side of the family can and has been doing something that no one else can: travel through time.
29.71 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 11:26
Beeqs | historical | Complete
It is 1788 and King George III has succumbed to a deepening bout of madness. Doctor Francis Willis has been summoned from his asylum in Lincolnshire to treat the King only to find that it is no medical malady that tortures His Majesty, but rather twisted mythological Celtic magic. He leads the effort to lift the curse on the King and restore the realm to sane governance before the King is forever lost to madness and the realm descends into chaos.
29.72 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 11:37
Lady Siv | historical | Complete
All Griff ever wanted out of life was to be left alone in his library with his books. In order to keep his station in the library, he is forced to work with an upstart alchemist named Nicholas Flamel. When the experiment goes awry Griff and Nick must trek along the countryside to reach the Library of Alexandria. Dodging both African and European armies would be so much easier if Griff wasn't a two-story dragon."
19.28 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 11:44
Once upon a time, there lived an ordinary man. He lived among us, maybe some of you even knew him. And then he died. Explosive rounds shot to the chest aren't very good for your health. His body was buried, his brain preserved. Three centuries have passed. Our descendants discovered the old refrigerator with the brains of their ancestors, took our hero out of the ice, digitizing his persona, and implanting him into a videogame.Little did they know that they fulfilled the terms of a contract to their demise. Because Fillin doesn't intend to spend an eternity in this digital playground even if though there's no difference from the real world.But the only way he can return to reality is to become God in the game. And so our hero sets foot on the Path of the Gods, ignoring the facts that he is followed by a walking nightmare named FreakHead, that the skies mock his every step and that anyone who looks upon him sees the title "Bringer of Chaos."
7.96 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 11:52
Larkspur Wren | satire | Complete
[Participant in the Royal Road Community Magazine, January 2024] Legend tells of a vagrant herofearless in the truest sense of the wordfor whom no opponent was too strong and no odds too steep. He travelled the Four Seas, quashing evil and uplifting downtrodden folk everywhere he went. But when his latest quest puts the Fearless Bladesman on a collision course with the one thing he fears in the world, he's forced to confront his own mortalityand the measure of a life truly lived.
4.82 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:11
24 hours. 10 bidders. 1 winner. A Princess from Earth is invited to an auction on a distant planetoid only to learn that she's the item on sale. Her foes include: a Chinese space pirate, a Russian duelist, a Japanese high-tech samurai, a Venusian mafiosi, two expert French poisoners, a floating Swiss banker, a German Baron with more ties to her family than she can imagine, and a British gentleman who also happens to be a pterodactyl. Her arsenal consists of: vague memories from classes she mostly slept through, a pile of gadgets for which she's never read the user manual, excellent table manners, and a ferret who's loyal to a fault. This will not be easy. Hey, so since the novel was published by WordFire press, I can't leave the whole thing online. You can get the whole thing here though. There's even an audiobook. If you read it on RR, a short Amazon review will be really appreciated. It helps a lot! Also, my second novel is here in full. It's a litRPG about a dwarf paladin who really, really wants to get a domain of her own...
25.19 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:17
Cynical Stranger | satire | Complete
Herold just bought the house he worked so hard for just to get a heart attack and die. But it was not the end of him. He lived again, waking up as a poor homeless man in a fantasy world. After going through the 5 stages of grief he found that the man he was in the body of now was a sort of father figure to the many homeless orphan children of the town. Soon enough he found a new purpose. One that might prove to be much more meaningful than his new house or the money he spent on it. Be the best parent he can be and help the orphans fulfill their true potential.
1.23 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:18
cathfach | one_shot | Complete
All living things have needs that must be met if they desire their life to continue. Such needs range from the universal requirement for sustenance, to the more specific, such as the requirement of all higher life to sleep, or even the esoteric, such as the requirement of a pain demon to inflict suffering. The ability to exploit those needs is what separates, to pick a random example, a successful summoner from the shrivelled (but very happy) corpse that had, a few minutes earlier, conjured up a succubus with no plan of how to control her. The Cruithia Kingdom is well known by its neighbours (or at least, by the subset of them that aren't carbonised silhouettes) for exploiting such needs to bring a shining example of the world's apex predator under their control. For the past hundred years, anyone daring to encroach on the kingdom's territory has found themselves faced, very briefly, by a dragon. But perhaps 'control' isn't quite the right word, and it's that very dragon that the kingdom's betrayed crown princess is going to need to convince to aid her if she ever wants her position back. A creature of selfishness and pride, evil by any human standard, and yet occasionally steerable by those who know the correct levers. Not that convincing the dragon to help her take back her kingdom is her primary concern. That accolade goes to the need to convince the dragon not to eat her. Again. This is a short story (8 chapters/17k words) about a betrayed princess and an evil dragon. Neither has a particularly great time. Published here and scribble hub. If you see this anywhere else, it's stolen.
9.82 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:24
A side story for The Heart Grows, in which romance and intimacy within the dungeon is explored. The main story is to be considered required reading to follow this. When Ludmiller gets outplayed by a dungeon and becomes one of its minions, she thinks the man she loved is lost to her forever. Now living as a kobold within the dungeon, she tries to reconcile her feelingsand she's not alone. Others living within the dark chambers underground find emotional holes in their lives. This is a short side story for The Heart Grows starting around chapter 25 and ending around chapter 60. All my works come with a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. This means you are free to download, publish, and even make derivative works of my writing so long as you include this license, attribution, and don't sell the works. Keep it free!
5.59 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:25
Francesca is a combat maid and she has one simple job - ensure that the carefree and idyllic life of the young lady of the Albergoni family is not disturbed. Many would seek to harm the young lady, so Francesca must ensure that all of the dirt of the world is discreetly cleaned without her noticing.On a day like any other, the young lady sets off to play with her friend at the park, and as usual, Francesca expects to have a busy time. The cleaning work of a maid never ends after all.
4.35 Ten thousand words | Updated at 2024-03-29 15:26
