Daniel Thompson
Stories
13
Chapters
4,688
Words
1.4 M
Comments
0
Reading
4 d, 20 h
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The donkeys can only gallop for so long before they start to tire out. Worse, some of the carts are damaged. One of them near the middle of the formation has a crooked wheel, and I think we’ve all been watching and waiting to see it fly off whenever the road gets even a little bit bumpier. We start to slow down after fifteen minutes of constant running, then when we climb a particularly tall hill, Esteban orders a halt and reins are pulled and cries go up and down the caravan as we stop. One of the…-
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Luciana narrowed her eyes at the creature before her. It was a bit of a mess, if she was going to be honest with herself. The idea was to have a creature fill a particular niche in her forces, a command creature who could also act as reconnaissance. She had also noticed a slight increase in the number of monsters born with innate Joy-based magics, and she had very few monster archetypes that used that kind of magic, at least not in the upper range of monster types. The creature floating before her used…
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I think it takes all of three seconds for things to go from pretty good to really not so great. The priest that Esteban was fighting and that Felix is now beating back half-turns to his friends. “I could use some help here!” he shouts. He flings his hand forward at the same time, creating a watery whip that Felix meets with a gust of giddy wind that bursts it apart long before it hits. “Then don’t run ahead on your own, you fool,” the priest further back says. He’s the necromancer, and that…
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“Hey, jump over, come on, abandon that one,” Teo says as he helps one of the Lions from one of the carts near the rear. We’re losing ground, insofar as we have ground to lose at all. The carts at the rear are being abandoned, the mercenaries all leaping forwards to join up on the middlemost carts. It means a tighter formation, fewer gaps for zombies to reach us through. We’re getting better at killing zombies, more and more of them falling to the ground around us and piling up so that the next…
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98 •
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The reaction along the caravan is nearly instantaneous. A few of the Big Hill guys scream, some others shout orders atop those, and suddenly the caravan grows much closer together as Ran pushes his cart alongside the cart just ahead of us. With all the carts packing in closer together under the snap of leather reins, the caravan becomes a much smaller target. “Spears and shields!” Teo shouts. “Spears and shields! Aim for the throats!” No one is giving me or my friends any orders, which.. Might…
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“Esme,” I said without looking up from my book. I was laying on a lounge chair in a corner of the library that had somehow become ‘our’ corner. I had a monster friend tucked up against my tummy, a fat, furry thing that radiated a soft warmth and that purred whenever I scratched it under the head. “Stop pacing so much, the floor can’t handle all the friction.” Emse stopped, then glanced down. “The floor is stone,” she said. “Yeah, and you’ve been pacing for nearly an hour,” I said.…
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98 •
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We decided to follow Felix’s plan. It might be a bit... cocky, but it’s not a terrible plan. We walk out of the barracks building, the three of us girls forming a rough triangle around Teo who has a big, obviously heavy, bundle over his shoulder. We’re not just leaving entirely without planning things though. We left that assassin in Inigo’s bed with the blankets pulled way up. I’m hoping that the assassin’s buddies don’t notice him being missing for a while, but that’s a lot to ask…
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I’m a bit worried about leaving Bianca on her own. Well, technically she’s with Esme, but Esme’s still snoring despite her face being wet from the water we splashed on her. I can tell she’s starting to wake up, but it’s going to be a minute. Bianca asks me to stay in the room for a minute while she dresses. While sliding into her skirts and blouse she says that it’s inappropriate for people of our station to see each other dressing, but under the circumstances she thinks that a bit of…
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I shift in my bed, then glare out of the window above me. The sun’s rising already, the sky is turning from black to a deep blue, with hints of a brighter light along the horizon. In a few minutes it will be bright enough outside to see and all the birds will be waking up. I really should try to sleep some more, but I can’t. Part of the reason is that I’m not that tired anymore. I did get a few good hours of sleep in. The other reason is that I’m sharing a bed with Esme. She’s clutching onto my…
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Valeria was twisting around in her bed when she noticed it. She blinked her eyes open, then said a word that was very rude and that might have earned her a disapproving eyebrow raise from her mom. At least it explained the headache she had last night. Or maybe it was morning? She couldn’t quite tell. It was dark out, at least. Sighing, she sat on the edge of her bed, then pressed a hand against her stomach. There was another sigh. Standing up, she fought off just a tiny bit of vertigo, then snapped a…
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