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      The Empire The Flaming Steppes Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

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      Prologue I can still vividly remember the most disappointing day of my life. I was sixty, perhaps seventy years old. An accomplished wizard, a peerless researcher who had devoted his life to uncovering the darkest secrets of the arcane arts.Nothing was beyond my reach, no subject was too complex--or too dark--for me to unravel. The nations of the world and I had reached an agreement. They would leave me be, and in turn I would only teleport into their keeps and stashes of hidden lore every few years. Information, I believe, is to be shared. Mostly with me. I was... content. Happy. There’s nothing like the discovery of something new, of a new piece of the puzzle clicking in place to brighten my day. I had been running a series of experiments, my laboratory filled with the stench of chicken blood and offal, my gloved arms covered to the elbows in experimental refuse. A normal, productive evening. The memory is a bit hazy, actually. It’s been centuries, you see? I recall muttering something to an assistant, one of the many that apprenticed themselves to me on their own quests for knowledge. The arcane sciences, you see, are art and--as the name suggests--science.The most complex spell can be impacted by the slightest thing. Truly, most of these small variations can be ignored or smoothed over with an application of will and power, but that would mean... failing. It would be like a master painter hiding a mistake behind a fresh layer, as opposed to truly understanding why each stroke marked the canvas as it did. I had just pinpointed, with repeatable experiments, the reason why certain very illegal spells whose nature involves the soul and the extraction thereof would sometimes function poorly. As it turned out, the turning of the moons above did have an impact on the arcane, and I could prove it at last! I knew that I had once more found a way to slip my name into the history books. It almost led me to missing out on the ping, on the warning flashing through my consciousness.I had levelled up.Grinning, I turned and inspected my stats. My grin froze. The world, for a moment, felt cold with confusion and uncertainty. Level: MaxTwo words, right at the top of my own status screen. Nothing else. Just those two.I would like to say that everything hit me like a flash, that my rage against the world, against the system, and against the gods, started at that very moment, but that’s not quite true. Stepping back, I told my assistant to pick up after our experiments, and I returned to my chambers for a bit of wine and a moment to contemplate.Seeing something at the maximum level wasn’t impossible. I had certainly gotten some stats that high over the decades. Seeing their growth stop was irritating, but that was tempered by the knowledge that I had reached the pinnacle in that one area. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.By my level? The expression of how strong I was? If that had reached the maximum, then there was just no more growth to be had. No more point in experimenting to gain experience. No point in combating beasts to see how their magics worked, or of studying to grow ever more powerful.I can recall throwing a goblet of wine across the room. An uncharacteristic show of violence and frustration for me. I think it’s understandable. I had just then discovered that one of the pillars in my life had not so much crumbled, but been revealed to be meaningless.This was, of course, utterly unacceptable.In the years that followed, my research took a turn away from merely knowing the secrets of magic and of the universe. No, that wasn’t enough. Power alone wasn’t enough. Magic wasn’t enough. I needed more. A new cause, a new reason. First, immortality.Through means too dark to speak of. Nations burned, fearsome creatures that terrorized entire continents were rendered down into so many reagents. Heroes rose up to fight me, misguided and full of thoughtless zeal. They made good testbeds for my further learning. Once I became immortal, truly immortal, I set my sights higher.I could have become a lord of sorts. An emperor of the dead that I had turned into my unsleeping, ever loyal army, but I had no interest in mere rule. What would I learn from observing peasants squabble in the mud? What secrets could merchants sell me that were truly worthy of my time? Why abase myself to the machinations of nobles who chased after only small pitiful things like prestige, honour, and power, and who would rather take it from others than earn it for themselves?No. I aimed for the seat of the gods.The clergy mocked me before they fell. Holy magic was magic, and magic was my domain. The gods scoffed at my efforts, then cried as their celestial palaces met the earth at long last. And then...And then...I watched over the world. A thousand years old. More powerful than anything in the land. My level, still mockingly only at ‘Max’, calling upon others to underestimate me. I suppose I could have remade the world in my image. Turn it into a bastion of learning and enlightenment. But frankly, I was tired. At long last I decided that, for my own health, for my own self-interest, I would lay myself to sleep. Not to death, for that had been barred to me when I found Death and killed him. Not to timelessness, because who was I to allow mere time to dictate my actions? But to rest.I would sleep, and in some eons to come, when the universe at last reached its end, I would look upon the vast emptiness of the void itself, and demand answers.The glowing orbs that served as my eyes extinguished themselves. My loyal servants, crafted with my love and care, laid themselves down to rest. And I slept.And then some punk woke me up.

      Prologue Rem never liked being out and about in places with lots of humans. They were always so very noisy, and they didn’t move right.Humans were always in motion, twitching and walking and running and moving their arms around to do stuff. There was none of that silent contemplation, the slow calculated positioning that came before a strike.She didn’t like that. It made them so very annoying to deal with. Worse, when the humans saw her face, with her many-faceted eyes and finger-sized mandibles, they always had such loud reactions. They’d scream, and if she pinned them down to demand things they would tremble and kick.Her mother had said that humans were not for eating, and the word of the God Mother was absolute, the humans had nothing to worry about.Rem reached up and adjusted her hood. It hid her face, reducing the amount of screaming and running that would happen. It also made her peripheral vision terrible.She hated cities.Not only were they filled with humans, but they stank, and it was hard to hunt. You ate one noble’s favourite dog and all of a sudden life got really complicated for a while.Rem twitched her scythes, the many powerful muscles that held her arms back from snapping out tensing up.She didn’t have a choice in the matter though. Her Divine Mother had demanded that they find that Herald of...Rem brought her arm up and rubbed her elbow over an eye. She couldn’t remember. Something about science?He was a skeleton guy, and her mom wanted her and her sisters to find and kill him. Easy.So, she was in this stinking city because that’s where people went. And she’d find that skeleton guy before her sisters, and then she’d get to eat her sisters because they were so much slower than her.Her mandibles worked, keeping her acidic spit in check before it spilled down the front of her robes.Robes!That was another thing that was stupid about humans. They had to wear all these clothes things, and they imposed them on perfectly normal mantis girls like her. She didn’t want to wear any coverings. It wasn’t natural.Had she the right kind of face bits, Rem would have pouted.She came to a stop in the middle of the city square. It was a big place. Very square. With square buildings all around. A very functional name for a place. She liked that.What she didn’t like were all the hawkers screaming from behind kiosks and the carriages moving by, pulled by hardy horses that she wasn’t allowed to eat where people could see her.The air stank of manure and human sweat and... she opened her mandibles a bit wider and turned to the side. Something smelled different. It didn’t take much for her five eyes to settle on a cart set off to one side, right by the corner leading off to some road with a collection of shops selling human things.The cart had a fire on it, in a sort of stone device, and a young man was turning a spit on which a small, skinless bit of meat was skewered. The fat from the meat landed in the fire with a sizzle-hiss that sounded as good as it smelled. She noticed a bag next to him, filled with more meat.Rem skittered over to the man and the cart and the meat. The problem with cities--one of them--was that the hunting was awful. But they sometimes had food just set out like this.She stopped before the stall and paused.Humans had this thing where they traded small pieces of metal for food. She wasn’t stupid, she understood currency and all of that. She even took the little pouch of coins that her mother’s servants had offered her to help on her mission.The problem was that scythes were really not suited to fiddling inside of a pouch to pull out a single coin.No matter. If the meat selling person wanted his coins, he’d have to figure it out.She leaned forwards before the cart until the man turning the spit paused and looked at her. “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked. “We have some excellent beef here today. Fresh from the field.”Rem hissed and screeched at him that she was, in fact, very interested in his stock of meat. She even slid her hood back to better communicate.Of course, the stupid human didn’t speak the language of insects, and he fell back, gibbering stuff about how his emperor would save him. The stupid human.Rem shifted her mandibles in frustration and focused as hard as she could. She, of course, knew how to speak human. Not all the human tongues, because humans being humans they had to make things complicated and have more than one language, but she could manage with the local dialect at least.“Stupid,” she said, addressing the man. “I’m hungry. I want this meat.”The man picked himself off the ground and swallowed hard as she eyed him. “You’re one of those... ah, I mean... of course?”“Good. Good stupid,” she praised the human. She carefully slid one of her scythe-tipped arms out from under her robed and tapped the cart before her. “Now.”The man nodded quickly, pulled the meat off the spit, and stuck the whole thing onto a long piece of wood.Rem eyed the skewer, then her scythes.Scythes were great for many things. Cutting, stabbing, pinching things against the spines jutting out of her arm.They were not great at grabbing things. That was one area where humans had it better than her.Carefully, she aimed at the piece of meat in the man’s hand, then her arm shot out and stabbed through it, one of the little spines on the back of her arm holding it fast so that she could pull it to her widened mandibles.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.The human’s face went pale as he watched her other arm come up to hold the meat in place as she chewed it apart, her mandibles tearing pieces out and tossing them to her acid-covered palps. “Oh, Emperor,” the man whispered.When she was left with nothing but a piece of wood sizzling with her saliva, she tossed it down, then leaned over the cart. “How much?”“P-pardon?”“How much money was that?” she asked.“I...” he swallowed, then pointed to a sign.She looked at the scribbles on it, then back to the man. Did he expect her to know what any of that meant? “Tell me, stupid.”“It’s two copper pieces?” he tried.She had silver pieces in her pouch. Opening her robes a little more, she exposed her belt, which was a piece of leather strapped around her waist, then pointed to her money pouch with a sythe. “The money is here.”“It’s okay, totally okay,” the man said.“Take the money!” she hissed.She didn’t need anyone accusing her of being a thief. Again. It was too much trouble dealing with all those stupid cultivators. Sure, they tasted better, but they also put up more of a fight.“It’s fine?” he tried.She tilted her head down so that she was meeting each of his eyes with at least two of her own. “Take the money.”The map’s tongue darted out and licked his lips. Carefully, he reached out and brought his trembling hand over to her money pouch. He fumbled with the drawstring for a moment, then pulled out a silver coin.“I want change.”The man jumped a foot into the air, almost fumbled the coin, then clutched it close. “Of course!” he said.“And another meat.”“They’re not ready yet,” he said. He sounded like he was about to cry.She didn’t like it when humans cried. Especially the young ones. They always threw tantrums when they found her eating their dogs.If humans didn’t want her eating their dogs, they just had to find less delicious pets.“I don’t care,” Rem said. “Give me another meat. And no wood.”The man fumbled with his own change pouch, then placed some coins on the top of the cart next to a piece of fresh meat from his meat bag. “Th-there you go!”“Put it in the pouch, stupid,” she said as she grabbed the meat and started chewing through it. It was much better uncooked, but she did miss the warmth a little. Of course, actual fresh meat wouldn’t have that kind of problem.Once the shopkeeper... the cartkeeper, had put her change away, she thanked him by not eating him, then stalked off while picking at her mandibles with one of the spikes on her arm joint. She’d have to try eating at other stalls, to try our different sorts of meat. It wouldn’t beat hunting, but it would at least entertain her for a little while.She didn’t know how long she’d be in the city. Seven Hills, which was a stupid name for a city, was right on the border of the Flamming Steppes and the rest of the Empire. She wasn’t allowed in the rest of the Empire of course.People like her were always accused of being beasts and hunted by cultivators if they moved too far from the Steppes and the influence of her divine mother.This was the city nearest the border, so if that bony guy came here, he’d have to pass by this city.Most humans moved from city to city, and used roads to move around when they could. It was because they didn’t like hunting, which was always best far from the roads.Like a good ambush predator, she just had to find a place to stalk the bony man from, then she could chop his head off, and be rewarded for all of her efforts.Not that Rem particularly cared much for rewards and such. She was a simple kind of mantis.She was halfway to the edge of the city square when she noticed something that caught her eye. A splash of white in the sea of blandly dressed humans. Her eye twitched to the side to follow the motion.It was a person, a human, moving through the crowds with an elegant, almost dance-like gait. They wore a black dress, with white lacy and a head-dress atop their head.They movements weren’t the motions of a normal human though. They were too precise, to perfect. Even with the wide skirt they avoided so much as brushing anyone, all without slowing down their step.She thought she recognized them. Then it clicked. The person that was travelling with the bony person she had to kill.Her mandibles clicked together in joy and she lowered herself down before darting ahead.So lucky! Her prey came to her.Now all she had to do was find a place from which to catch this person in an ambush and she’d not only have another meal, she’d get a lead to the bony man.Being the patient hunter that she was, Rem didn’t merely rush towards the woman in the black dress. She instead moved to the edges of the square and climbed up the walls of a building until she lay herself flat atop the roof.From there, she could wait, saliva drooling out of her mouth as she watched the black-clad woman going from cart to cart and from shop to shop. She had a basket which she filled with all sorts of foods and cloth and other such things.Once, Rem thought she was seen, but that was unlikely, she was in the shade cast by a taller roof, and her robes were of a similar colour as the tiles on which she rested.She lay there, completely unmoving for some time.And then the woman slipped into an alley nearby.Rem’s mandibles twisted into a content grin.It was time to strike!***

      Chapter One - Rem’s Revenge Rem jumped across to the roof next to the one she was on, then she ran with only the faintest pitter-patter to the edge of the next roof.The homes here were mostly covered in thick tiles, the better to protect them from the ashfall in winter. They tended to be a little noisy when stepped on though, unless one knew exactly where to put one’s feet. Rem knew, because it was an ambush predator’s duty to know just where to step so as not to be heard.If the maid person was going to take the alleys, then in all likelihood they’d need to exit...Rem found the right place, and with one leg over the edge and her body bent forwards just-so, she waited around the corner. To any onlooker she would look like some sort of cloth-covered addition to the side of the building, maybe something hanging out to dry.It wasn’t the most stealthy position to be in, but the maid would only have an instant to catch her before Rem struck, she could afford to use less-than-ideal camouflage this one time.Footsteps came, clicking lightly on the cobbled ground, and Rem tensed.The maid appeared, face placid and bored under her little white bonnet, basket pressed up against a hip and filled with stuff.Rem hissed as she shot out, legs pushing her down, scythes swinging from the maid’s neck.The maid looked up, and their eyes locked for just a moment before the maid’s arm swung upwards so quickly that even with all five eyes locked on her, Rem couldn’t quite follow the motion.There was a mighty smack, and then Rem felt herself tumbling through the air.Fortunately, the world went dark before she landed.***Rem woke up in someone’s living room.That someone, and their family, were all gathered in the corners of the room, staring at her.She twitched. Her everything was in an incredible amount of pain. It took a moment for her to recall what had just happened, then she hissed.The humans scattered away with terrified screams while Rem worked herself out of the wreckage of a table. There were bits of roof all around her, busted and cracked from her landing. She felt a little busted and cracked herself.A bit of motion confirmed that everything was where it was meant to be. She hadn’t lost any limbs, at least. Still, everything hurt.“What was that!” Rem spat. That maid had been strong! No one told her the maid would be strong!The maid looked like a maid. Not someone strong. Strong humans wore gaudy robes, with gold and medallions and smelled like incense and sweat. The maid had smelled like soap! Soap wasn’t strong.Rem grumbled and tried to ignore the ache in her back. That’s where it hurt the most. Probably from landing on the roof.She shook her robes to free it from some of the dust that had landed on it, then skittered out of the house before guards could show up and start asking questions.Jumping up, she landed on the roofs again and looked around. The sun didn’t look like it had changed positions much, so it couldn’t have been a long time. The maid was probably still around the same area.Rem wouldn’t be fooled this time. Her last ambush was rushed, and she had made a noise on striking, a beginner's mistake. She could learn from that and do better next time. No one needed to know. No one would know after Rem ate all the witnesses.It was a perfect plan!She found the maid some time later, the woman was talking to another maid-like person carrying a broom and cleaning out the entrance to a large estate near the centre of the city.Rem avoided those places because they often had cultivators and they would get very angry if she distrubed their meditation or whatever. Making them angry didn’t bother her, but some of them were tough, and they were human so Rem wasn’t allowed to eat them unless no one could find out.Moving carefully, Rem predicted that the maid would continue down the same road. She circled around and much to her luck, found a beggar leaning against one wall not too far away and just around a bend in the road.It was a nice spot for an ambush.Rem hissed at the crippled man until he ran away, then shuffled under the stinking pile of rags he was using as bedding. From there, she peaked out one eye from under the covers and watched the road, scythes at the ready.The maid came around, shoes clicking and clacking on the cobbles, same as before.Rem moved her mandibles, acid building up in anticipation of eating the stupid maid once and for all.The maid came closer, and closer and closer...Rem struck, rags flying out of the way and scythed spreading wide to chop down into the maid’s tender tender flesh.She caught a close-up glimpse of the maid’s basket a moment before her face crunched and she blacked out again.***“Stupid!” Rem screamed as she woke up.The beggar, who had been sneaking up to her, screeched and ran off again.She was still in the same corner. She didn’t go flying this time, which was good, but now her face hurt as if someone had rammed a wicker basket against it really hard, like some sort of oversized fly swatter.Rem spread her arms and made herself big to show just how angry she was. “Stupid maid!”She shook herself, then jumped up to the nearest rooftop again.This time she found the maid inspecting fruit in a crowded little corner of the city. There were a few carts, with baskets and boring humans selling apples or whatever. Rem didn’t care. All she could see was the stupid maid smiling over some fruit and placing some in her stupid basket.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.Rem couldn’t just run up to her. She’d be spotted. She had to find a way to get close.There was a building nearby with a little garden in the back, and a line of clothes drying with a woman placing them there. She jumped over the fence and landed next to the woman who squeaked.“You,” Rem said. “I need to look different.”The woman looked around, confused for a moment, before locking eyes on Rem. “Pardon?”“I need to look different,” Rem said. “To get close to someone.”“To... get close to someone?” the human repeated.She was a very stupid human, Rem figured. “Yes. Here.” Rem sliced the cord off her money pouch and flicked it to the woman who caught it in both hands.“Oh, oh Emperor, that’s a lot of silver.”“Yes yes,” Rem said. It didn’t matter. “Give me your dress.”“Why do you need my dress?” the human asked.Rem didn’t want to have to explain things to the human. She waved her arms around, but that didn’t seem to help any because humans didn’t understand anything. “I have someone I need to get close to. I can’t like this because...” Rem looked for the right words for a moment. “Because these robes are ugly at hiding.”“Oh,” the woman said. “Is it someone important?”“No!”“Important to you?” she guessed.Rem nodded. “Yes, that’s right stupid human.”“Oh, oh my. I have some make-up too, if you want.”“What?”“Boys appreciate it when a girl puts some effort into her looks,” the girl said.Rem didn’t know what the stupid human was talking about. She just needed a disguise, that was all. Although... make up could maybe help. “Do it fast, stupid human!”***Rem felt strange. The human woman had gotten very excited about dressing Rem up in layers of cloth, which was fine, it hid Rem’s body a lot which was what she wanted. What was less fine was the veil over her face, and the reddish goop slapped onto her cheeks. Mantises didn’t blush.No one looked at her as she stepped through the crowd in her flower-pattern hanfu. The veil clung to the surface of her big eyes in a very annoying way. She looked forward to ripping it off so that she could better bite into the maid.She found her target just off to the side of the fruit carts. The maid was squatting over and rearranging things in her basket when Rem stepped up behind her and struck.The maid turned, reached out and caught Rem’s scythe with a smack.Rem grunted and pushed harder, but it was like getting caught in a stone. “Let go, stupid maid, so that I can kill you!”Rem raised her other scythe and brought it chopping down. She didn’t get dressed up just to miss her chance so soon.The maid caught Rem’s other scythe and then frowned. “You are very rude,” she said. “If Daddy hadn’t told me not to make a big fuss you would be dead by now.”“Stop talking and die already!” Rem said.“No,” the maid said.Rem tilted her head to the side. The voice... “You’re a boy maid!”“I’m a maid maid,” The maid said. Her ears went flat on her head.“You’re a cat!” Rem said. “Humans don’t have ears like that.” Cats were one of Rem’s favourite snacks, right after dogs. “I’m going to eat you! Then I’m going to kill you!”“No,” the maid said. “You’re too weak for anything like that. So please stop bothering me.”Rem struggled in the maid’s grasp, especially when the maid started to spin around in circles so quickly that Rem’s feet rose off the ground. “I’m going to eat you!” Rem screamed as she was flung over the nearest rooftop, her dress unravelling a moment before she crashed through another roof.***Rem decided that the best thing to do for the moment was take a moment to sit back and think.That was always a good option. Predators like her were meant to take down prey, and sometimes that prey could fight back. Thinking about things, coming up with clever ideas, those were good ways of not dying and ending the day with a stomach full of fresh prey meat.Not today though. Today she ended the day with a stomach empty of maid meat.Rem wiggled her scythes in frustration and hissed at the bright blue sky above, visible through the roughly Rem-shaped hole in the ceiling.She had to come up with better ideas.Asking for help was right out. Her sisters would just betray her.Ambushes hadn’t worked. But there were other sorts of ambushes to try.Maybe she could frame the maid? Eat some dogs and make it look like the maid did it?No, that was foolish.Rem shook her head and, with a shove to the side, pushed herself out of the pile of detritus that had cushioned her fall. She was in a warehouse filled with boxes of stuff that she didn’t really care to inspect. As good a place as any to take a moment to recoup.The maid would be leaving soon, no doubt, which meant that maybe she... he? Would be joining the bone person Rem was also supposed to kill.If the maid was that strong, how strong was the bone person?Rem didn’t like that line of thought. For now, she’d track the maid and find out where they were hiding, then she’d find another way to eat the maid. And the bone person too, maybe.Mostly it was the maid that angered Rem.“I’m going to find out how to eat you,” Rem promised with a hiss.Shifting around, she tossed off her dress, then started to look for a way out.***

      Chapter Two - Shelf-ish Shopping Seven Hills was a small community just on the edge of the territory known as the Flaming Steppes. It was, for all intents and purposes, a trading town.I found it vaguely amusing that some things have remained the same, even after all these years. The way humanity progressed, at least on the level of cities and towns, seemed to have stayed the same.This was, as far as I could tell, once merely a stopping point along the road. A place for travellers to pause and rest. Then soldiers garrisoned here, and they required more infrastructure and attention. And with that, the stop became a little village.Constant traffic, the steady flow of gold, and the need to supply everyone passing by, turned that village into a town, and now it was on the cusp of becoming a city.The same story, repeated once more.I suspect that if whatever resources coming from the north dried up, the city would soon crumble. It didn’t have the air of a place that was able to sustain itself.I ruminated upon all of this while sitting upon a rather comfortable seat at one of the busier intersections. Across from the little table I was sitting at sat the limpet, nose buried in an old tome I’d translated for her about the art of evocation, and between us, some light foods and some teas.Eating wasn’t something an old pile of bones like myself was keen on, but it helped to keep up pretenses. For the moment, anyone looking my way would see a rather well-dressed, but not too well-off merchant, possibly with his daughter or a young assistant.Nothing out of the ordinary in such a place.My goal, for the moment, was two-fold.One, I was seeking out any stories and tales about something I had heard of in passing. Notably a ‘Dread Knight’ or a ‘Dead Knight.’I had a few hypotheses about what that might be, but true discovery was more fulfilling than baseless speculation.Two, I was on the hunt for some of my phylacteries. Not all of them. Leaving some hidden was perfectly fine. Even hiding them from myself was wise. But if the new gods had turned some of my soul containers into tools to increase their own power, then I would have to kindly ask that they return them to me.I sensed that one of these, the items they called the Five Fonts, was in the Flaming Stepps even now.“Limpet,”The girl across from me raised a hand in a ‘one moment’ gesture, then finished the line she was reading. “Yes master?”“Now that we are effectively within the Flaming Stepps, I think it would be a good time to learn about the region, wouldn’t you say?”The limpet patted down her dress, then fished out a bookmark from within and carefully slid it between the pages of her book before closing it. “The Flaming Steps... I hear that there are actually parts of the steppes to the north that are constantly on fire. The ground is cracked and filled with boiling earth, but that’s mostly where the undead reside, so no one goes there. Other than that, the steppes are known as one of the most dangerous areas in the Empire.”“It’s considered dangerous after taking into account the undead and what seems to be the presence of some volcanic activity?” I asked.The limpet nodded. “The area is filled with beast-people. Dangerous ones that will try to eat travellers. The cultivators from this region, from the four sects here, are all considered kinda crazy. But they’re also really strong.”“I can imagine,” I said. “Constant practice does lead to increased strength.”The limpet made an agreeing sound as she took a sip from her tea. “I guess so. None of them wanted me though. They said I was too skinny and weak.”“I see. Is there a place here where the local gods gather?”The limpet tapped her chin. “I don’t know? Maybe?”“Not knowing is fine,” I said. Pulling a silver coin from my pocket, I placed it atop the table as I stood. “I do believe it’s time we do a little bit of investigating ourselves.”“Will Alex be able to find us?”“Alex will be fine, I’m certain.” I gestured deeper into the little city, and the limpet hopped to it, following along as I took a leisurely walk towards the markets.“So where are we going?” the limpet asked.“Most cities of this size will have a library, or at least a shop that sells books,” I said. I snapped my fingers and pointed to a likely suspect. A smaller storefront, not too gaudy and very discrete. The sign above the door read ‘The Word Playce.’ “Like that one.”“I’ve been to a lot of bookstores,” the limpet said. “I don’t think I ever found anything with information as good as the books you already have. I mean... they don’t have that much, but they’re, I guess laid out? In a way that’s easy to understand.”“There’s a certain gift to writing guides,” I said. “It’s important to present the information you want to teach someone, but it’s more important to lead that person towards that information in a way that they’ll understand.”“Um,” the limpet said. “I think I understood that?”I chuckled. “I could give you something like this,” I said as I tugged a book out from my breast pocket. It was a simple thing, old well-worn leather, with silver-gilded letters across its spine.”“What’s that?” the limpet asked.“One of my spellbooks,” I said. “Twenty-two variations on the Apocalypse spell, each able to exterminate all life and occasionally unlife on this fair planet.’“Um.”“The details are quite precisely laid out. Unfortunately, without instruction beyond the recipe, I doubt you could actually cast anything from this book. It’s filled with raw information, not guidance.” I slid my book away. We’d reached the front door of the shop and I opened it to allow the limpet in first.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.She bowed then scampered in.I followed.There was a certain feel to bookstores that I enjoyed on a purely emotional level. They tended to be quiet places, where knowledge, or at least the receptacle of knowledge, were cherished and loved.The shops from back in my day, that held scrolls and magical tomes, tended to give off that impression in the weave itself. I didn’t feel that now, but... I supposed it was a certain level of nostalgia that I felt.“Hello,” said the gentleman behind the counter at the far end of the room. “Welcome to my humble shop, great customer. How may I assist you?”“We’re looking for books,” I said.“I may have seen some,” the man said. “You seem like the sort of person that took one look at my shop and booked it over.”I grinned. “The building interested me. It’s not every day you see one with so many stories.”“Glad you came over then,” the man replied. “And with such good timing. Sometimes we have too many people over and become overbooked.”“Even with all this shelf space?”“Indeed. Lots of customers at times. It can be stressful. Perhaps I ought to treat my shelf.”I nodded. “Perhaps you should open a library instead? It would be better for your circulation.”“Master,” the limpet said. She sounded as though she was in some degree of pain. “Please stop.”“Oh hohoho!” I cackled. “I think I can stop. We were just prefacing our business. I hope I wasn’t being too forward?”“Nonsense,” the gentleman said. “It was a perfectly warm welcome, which is handy, this place has a few drafts.”“Master!” the limpet whined.I patted the limpet’s head. “Do forgive her, she doesn’t have a mind for humour. I was looking for books on the Flaming Stepps.”“All of my books are on the Flaming Stepps,” the man said. He seemed appropriately proud of that one.“Oh hoho! Indeed. Do you have anything on the local gods?”“Only some gossip and a few tomes,” he said.“I’m glad we’re on the same page. I’ll take both.”The limpet moved out from under my hand and shuffled to the corner, hands over her ears.The shopkeeper stood up and waved me over. “We do actually have a few books that touch on the subject of our local deities. None of them are strictly about them though.” He moved towards one shelf in particular and tugged a book off. “This is an accounts of a general in the army to subjugate the region. It’s a great historical text from the point of view of a very methodical cultivator. Not much in it about the general’s secrets about his power, but there are detailed retellings of meetings with some of the gods that inhabit the region.”“Interesting,” I said as I took the book. It was leather-bound and surprisingly thick. “I assume that’s not all it’s about?”“No. There are some tales about battles and troop movements. Some praise for officers and nobles that participated in the subjugation. It’s why the book was reprinted so often, a lot of noble clans can trace their ancestry back to the people mentioned here.”“Propaganda?” I asked,“Plenty, though not much on the subject of the gods.”I tucked the book under my arm. “Anything else?”“A few odds and ends,” he said as he moved to the front of the shop and opened a chest. There were stacks of scrolls within and he picked one from the lot. “This is a detailed map of the region. It should help. There are some locations marked on there that have the temples to some of the local deities. Some are a little more secluded, I’m afraid.”“I’m mostly looking for the more powerful ones,” I said.“Then you’ll probably want to visit the Ashen Forest. It’s a large temple just to the north. The sect there is relatively polite.”I thanked him, but was interrupted as the door to the shop opened and Alex stepped in. “Thank you,” I said as I fished out a couple of gold coins. “I’ll keep on perusing things for a while. Give me a moment?”The man nodded, eyes widening just a little as the book and scroll he’d given me both fit into my jacket’s too-small pocket. The widening increased as he inspected the coins. “Certainly, honourable customer.”Alex waited quite patiently until the shopkeeper moved back before joining me. “Hello Daddy,” he said.“Hello Alex. Did you find everything you needed?”“Not yet,” my butler admitted. “I found a place where we can stay, and a few of the supplies we’ll need. I came back sooner because I will need to start preparing lunch for the limpet, and I was ambushed three times.”“Oh? What do you plan on making?”“They have a sort of chicken here that’s very small and delicate. I think I’ll make a chicken kiev with some of the local herbs. They seem a little bitter, but they also have a sort of lemon that grows nearby that is very strong. I think the contrasting flavours will be nice.”I hummed in agreement as I scanned the books. “And the ambushes?”“Oh. I was attacked by some sort of mantis person.”“A... mantis person?” I asked. That was curious.“Yes. She was green, with long scythes for forelimbs. Fairly strong. I didn’t kill her, since Daddy told me to be subtle.”“I see. If she attacks you again, do capture her. It might be interesting to see something so strange.”Alex nodded. “Of course. Are we going to be staying here for long?”“A day or so,” I said. “We’re not in any hurry, are we?”

      The Travels of a Desperate Undead I woke up with a hunger. For a certain definition of hunger.When I first became a lich I lost many of my earthly desires. Notably, hunger and any sort of base need. For a time I was satisfied with this, but I found that, surprisingly, that lack of need for sustenance drove down my creativity by a noticeable margin.The solution, of course, was to poke at the problem with some magic. A minor compulsion, placed on myself, and delayed with a complex array of randomizers and timers. Such that, in the end, I would have sudden cravings for certain foods, or views, or activities. Nothing I couldn’t ignore, but it always amused me to fulfil these desires.“I,” I declared. “Am a little hungry.”The others in the room with me looked up.We were in the main control centre for the F.O.S.S.I.L. Head, buried deep within the gigantic construct. Seventeen was manning the helm, and the limpet was pouring over some manuscripts, preparing herself to learn some new magics. Mem was sitting off to the side, with large Alex-made mittens over her scythes so that she could pet the limpet’s dog, and Rem was knitting. Or trying to, at any rate.“I can help with that,” Alex said.“Hmm,” I said. “No, I’m thinking of something in particular. It is a vile and unhealthy food. Not something someone of your caliber should ever produce.”“Oh,” Alex said.I stood and made my way out the door. I didn’t require anyone, but Seventeen to follow, but they certainly did, only stopping when I arrived on the main deck under the noon-day sun.“What are you doing, Master?” the limpet asked.I hummed, then cast a few mage hands and had them start to carve symbols onto the deck. “I’m creating a portal. I know a place where we can get what I desire with relative ease.”“Oh, alright,” the limpet said. It saddened me just a little that even magic this complex wasn’t met with the same wonder as it would have inspired just a week ago. The limpet was beginning to expect me to just be able to do anything, which wasn’t always the case.“Mem’s never been portalled before,” Mem said.“It’s not as fascinating as you might think. I suppose all of you will wish to come along?” I asked.I refrained from sighing at all the curious nods I received. And the hiss from Rem that I summarily ignored.Kneeling down a little, I tapped my bony fingers onto the symbols I’d engraved and allowed a small amount of magic to pour into the runes. An eldritch glow suffused the deck, and the runes activated sub-runes, which in turn pushed magic, raw and wild, into constructs that began to push out into this world in the form of whirling pools of magic.“Pretty!” Mem declared.“Yes. Now, every stand in the centre,” I instructed. There was a circle in the middle, cleared of any interference, and obviously made for people to stand upon. The group, myself included, came to stand upon it. Then I just needed to adjust a few things, and we were almost ready to go. I merely had to trigger the spell arrays.“Mem wonders what this does,” Mem said.“That’s the aiming array,” I explained. “To go from our universe, to another one. The one we’re heading towards is called Arth.”“What’s ours called?” Mem asked.“I don’t believe our multiverse has a name,” I said.“That’s sad,” Mem said. “Mem names it the... Memtiverse. Now it has a name!”“That’s wonderful,” I said.“I don’t know if I want to live in this multiverse anymore,” the limpet muttered. “Um, should you be touching that?”My head whipped around to see the mantis poke her mitten-covered scythe into a rather fragile set of runes.“Please don’t touch--”The world warped.We crashed with all the grace of a pigeon who’d swallowed a fireball, onto a wooden deck.The first thing I did, of course, was observe the state of the magic around me. The portal spell was still active, still counting down, and still aiming us towards my intended destination. It had merely changed so that we would be dumped in areas of narrative importance along the way. Interesting.All I would need to do to tweak that was.“Uh, hi there!” said a youthful voice.I glanced around. My companions were coming to their feet and taking in their surroundings as well. We were upon another deck, though this one was made of wood. A large balloon, done in garish colours, was held up above us, and we seemed to be floating some hundred-odd necrometers above a large body of water.“We weren’t expecting guests, sorry! Do you guys need anything? Water, a snack?”“Uh,” the limpet said. She stood up and came face to... chin, with a bright-eyed young woman in a partially-armoured blue dress and with a rather dashing hat that failed to obscure the pair of ears sticking out of her head. “Master, is this where we’re supposed to be?”“Broccoli,” someone said. “I don’t know if they’re all that friendly.”A glance to the side revealed a young woman with wings for arms--a harpy?--next to a rather plain human girl and a small man with a pair of wings fluttering on his back.“Oh, come on, they just dropped out of nowhere. The least we can do is be polite. Look, they have a cute maid, and a couple of mantis people, and a nice skeleton guy, and this girl looks very nice too.”“Um,” the limpet said.“Thank you,” Alex replied. “I do believe we’ve arrived at the wrong destination. I do hope we aren’t imposing upon your hospitality.”The bunny-girl snorted. “Don’t be silly. My Beaver is open to anyone.”Alex and the limpet blinked at the same time. “How very hospitable of you,” Alex said. “I... yes, well. That’s... wonderful.”“Thanks!” the girl said. “So, what brings you aboard our ship?”I stood a little taller and dusted off my suit. “A small mishap with some teleportation magic. Nothing to worry yourself over.”“Oh, wow, that’s awesome! Well, not that you go off track, but that you can teleport. Will you be staying with us for long?” the bunny-girl asked.“Broccoli, they’re obviously... a little strange,” the harpy replied.“Awa, they, um, seem nice?”The Broccoli girl--was that truly her name? What sort of parent would name their child after a vegetable?--clapped her hands. “Wonderful! We can have a surprise sleepover, and we can talk, and we can learn all sorts of cool things about each other, and by the time morning comes around, we’ll be the best of friends.”I started pushing more magic into the portal construct.“Oh, and I love your maid outfit, and your mantis-butler outfit. You’ll have to tell me where you got those!”The magic took hold, and yanked us away.I sighed in relief.We landed in... a bedroom?A window against one wall... no, not a window. It was a screen of some sort--using some kind of technology to transport a live image of another location to the wall--which was displaying a scene of a cityscape. Huge buildings, towering high enough to touch the sky, with small vehicles darting around in the air.Large images flashed everywhere in the cityscape, calling for the watcher’s attention with scenes of violence and near-pornography that would have shocked the people of my home world.Within the room itself, a room lit by small magicless devices, was an occupied bed, some simple furniture of a style I was unfamiliar with, and a lot of discarded clothes strewn about the floor.“Interesting,” I said “A world where technology was embraced over magic.”“What in the fuck!” one of the bed’s occupants screamed. She--a young woman with a mechanical arm and severe burn scars over part of her body--raised her non-magical, metallic arm towards us, and a small opening appeared over it. “Myalis!”I noticed a small cat to the side. No, not a cat. The image of a cat superimposed upon another machine. It felt... very intelligent, a machine being controlled by an intelligence that was not in this room. An old one, at that, and powerful in its own way.“This is... irregular,” the cat-machine said.“No shit,” the girl in the bed said.Another girl raised her head. Dark-skinned, with wide eyes partially hidden behind the covers she held up to her face. “Cat, is that an antithesis?”“Uh,” the other girl said.“Mem says hi!” Mem said.“We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Alex said. “We’re having some technical difficulties with our portal magic. It shouldn’t be an issue for very long.”“Portal magic?” the cat-like creature asked. “Please, tell me more.”“Perhaps I could,” I said as I turned my magical senses away from the humans in the room. The two girls had some interesting technological implements stuck in and on them, but those were all superficial, and while interesting, they weren’t the goldmine of information that the other one had, even if it had a tendril connected to the metal-armed girl.“Are you attempting to bypass my firewalls?” it asked just as my scrying magic reached it. I observed an interesting system in place to make scrying more difficult. I analyzed it, catalogued the interesting parts for later, then moved on past it. “That was an interesting breech method.”I sensed a whole host of devices and scanners turning our way. Not merely in the room, but from near-orbit, from the local planet’s moon, and in dimensional space.“Bone Daddy looks busy,” Alex said.“Would someone please tell me what in the god damn is going on?” the metal-armed girl on the bed said.“Yeah, sorry,” the limpet said. “Mem poked a thing, now Master’s magic is working strangely. What’s that thing?”I spared a bit of attention from my magical poking and prodding to look over at what the limpet was pointing at.It was a device covered in long, sinuous tentacles, some of them excreting a sort of juice that glistened in the room’s artificial light. One of the girls, the one not connected to the artificial mind, blinked. “You mean Mister Tentacles?”Alex whipped around and placed his hands over the limpet and Mem’s eyes.”Perhaps it’s best you don’t observe that,” Alex said.“Mem wanted to touch it!”Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.“No,” Alex said.“What about me?” Rem asked, her scythes raising.“I don’t have sufficient hands,” Alex admitted.“Myalis! Some explanation please! Because I’m used to kittens interrupting my fun time, not... a fucking skeleton in a suit, a girl, two giant talking bugs and a fucking catboy maid!”“Ah,” I said as I felt a magical tug. “It seems the portal’s reactivating. It was interesting meeting you,” I replied.“Please contact us again,” the intelligence said. “We have questions.”I nodded, then felt the naval-tug of teleportation yanking us away.This time, we crashed into a sandy dune. Our footing, quite unstable, led to us tumbling down the side of the dune until we came to a stop at the bottom.“Master, I’m starting to dislike this,” the limpet said.Something metallic crunched. A two-part sound that was at once a menace and a warning. “I ain’t too keen on whatever this is either.”I stood and found that we were in a desert. Even a quick scry around the area revealed nothing, but endless sands in all directions. The only life here was small, and swift to scurry away at the approach of my magic.It wasn’t a magicless world, but it was near it.Nearby was a woman in a long leather coat with a metal device in her hands, a long tube with a small telescope above it. Behind her was another fellow, and elf of all things, and behind that...“What an interesting device,” I muttered. “Some sort of magical engine... simple pistons and rotors... very precise engineering. Though it seems to have weathered some rough times.”“Hello nice lady,” Mem said. “Can Mem hug your friend the big metal man?”“What in the name of all the gods are you?” the woman asked.Alex, ever valiant, stepped up to answer, and paused when the woman levelled her obvious weapon at him. “We had a little mishap with some portal magic. We should be out of your hair in a moment.”“Oh god, it’s hot here,” the limpet complained.I supposed it was a little on the warmer side. I flicked my hands to the side, casting an area cooling charm that lowered the temperature noticeably. The weapon swung my way. “What was that?”“Magic, obviously,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll be staying here for very long.”“Where are you from?” the elf asked. “An undead... I haven’t heard of the undead since... ever. You’re a legend, from before the great war.”A great war? Ah, that could explain the temperature. There was definitely something magical about the way this desert was formed.“So, Mem can’t hug the metal man?” Mem asked.“No you can’t, stupid.”The portal flickered, and once again we were moved.This time we were deposited in the front of a classroom. A nice enough room, with rows of chairs--currently filled--and a nice blackboard at the back. A place of learning! I had always enjoyed those.Mem looked around, spotted the students--mostly young women--and waved. “Mem says hi!” she said.“C-class three threat!” someone yelled.The young men and women all stood up and... started dancing?I was confused until powerful magics wrapped around them, like spiked chains, gripping onto their souls and minds and twisting. Then they loosened and the young folk were suddenly dressed in flamboyant outfits, often with weapons.“Quick!” one of them shouted.I sighed and cast a mass sleeping spell over the room.The portal flickered, and once again we were moved.This time we were deposited in the front of a classroom. A nice enough room, with rows of chairs--currently filled--and a nice blackboard at the back. A place of learning! I had always enjoyed those.Mem looked around, spotted the students--mostly young women--and waved. “Mem says hi!” she said.“C-class three threat!” someone yelled.The young men and women all stood up and... started dancing?I was confused until powerful magics wrapped around th--I shuddered. This had all happened before. Time manipulation magic? Was someone playing some silly games with the fabric of the universe here?I spotted the likely culprit, a redheaded young woman, surrounded by three others that I presumed were her friends. The little clocks and suchlike on her dress were a rather obvious giveaway.My hands moved, and I flung a sleeping spell at her. No point in killing someone merely trying to learn.The portal flickered, and once again we were moved.This time we were deposited in the front of a classroom. A nice enough room, with rows of chairs--currently filled--and a nice blackboard at the back. A place of learning! I had always enjoyed those...Had I the ability to, I would have frowned.“Mem says hi!” Mem said.“C-class three threat!” someone yelled.I knew where this was going. This time I snapped out a rapid series of spells, two of them hitting the little time manipulator and confusing her before knocking her out, the other spells washing across the room and setting the other students to sleep.“Did Mem do something?” Mem asked.“No, nothing of note,” I said.This time, when the portal grabbed at me, I made sure it moved us elsewhere.We appeared in a quaint little garden. Flowering bushes all around, a wrought-iron table nearby with fresh tea waiting upon it, and three girls sitting around it. The air was filled with birdsong and the happy buzz of lively bees.It was a magic-rich world, though that magic was under a tight leash.The young woman at the table, the two who were about the limpet’s own age, merely blinked at us for a moment before looking down at the third among them.I locked on her and froze.“Dreamer,” one of the girls asked with impeccable calm. “Did you summon these people here? You should have waited until after tea.”The one they called Dreamer looked at us.I felt a shiver running down my bones.This was no child.Certainly, there was a form at that table, a construct made to look like a child with curly hair and inquisitive eyes, all bundled up in a lacy dress and bare feet, but that was no child.I started pushing more magic into the portal spell. A lot more.“No,” the Dreamer said. She looked at us, then her tongue darted out between her lips.I felt it. The hunger.That. Was. No. Child.I pushed and poked at the portal, willing it to go faster.“We’re sorry for the interruption,” Alex said. The butler did not sense the horror, the all-consuming hunger, that he was speaking to. He did not see the tentacles crawling in the shadows, slipping in the nearby bushes, the mana-tentacles already reaching out with questing limbs to see what our portal was made of.He did not see the pretendtacles, there and not, the metatentacles, currently looking at you, the reader, with confusion and curiosity, or the myriad of other tentacle and tentacle-like abominations waiting to be unleashed.The portal started to activate.“Wait,” the Dreamer said.The portal shuddered to a halt.Magic wasn’t meant to do that.I gave her a skeletal grin. “Yes?” I asked while my magic whipped out and tried to fix the damage.“What’re you doing here?” she asked.I replied with honesty. “We were heading out to eat something, when our portal encountered a small issue. It should be bringing us to our destination soon. We truly are sorry for the inconvenience.”“Oh,” the Dreamer said. She looked at all of our heads. “No hats,” she muttered. “Abigail do you want them?”“Um, no?” the girl next to the Dreamer said.“Can I eat them?” she asked.My bones started to rattle.“Mem would rather not be eaten!” Mem volunteered.“I don’t think that would be very nice?” the Abigail girl said.The Dreamer shrugged. “Whatever then.”A space-and-timetacle grabbed and flung us away.We crashed into an alleyway.I took a moment to just rest there.The others, happily oblivious to just how close they’d come to being the snack of... some creature that I couldn’t yet describe, all bounced to their feet and glanced around. “This place stinks!” Rem said.I sighed and rose to my own feet just in time to hear Mem gasp.“Hello little children! Mem is Mem!”I looked to the side and found that we weren’t alone in the alley. There was a group of young women... why was it always young women?At their head was a girl with bear-ears atop her head. She was frowning at us, hands on hips and eyes narrowed. Behind her was a child in a leather coat with a large pair of spectacles on. She was attempting to... use some sort of Fear effect on me. Interesting, and easily dismissable.Behind them, and somehow connected to them via an interesting quirk of soul magic, was a plain, very nervous looking young woman, and all around her, three girls who were also the same girl.That was interesting. One soul split amongst three identical bodies. I’d never seen anything like that before.“Hello,” Alex said. “Forgive us, we are a little bit lost at the moment.”“Actually,” I said. “We’ve arrived where we’re meant to be.”The bear girl huffed. “Who are you people? You got any idea who we are?”“No, I don’t particularly care, either,” I said. A glance out the end of the alley revealed our final destination just across the street. La Maison de la Poutine. A shady little establishment that sold the thing I had been craving some minutes ago. I wasn’t so tempted now, but I was here already. “Come along, everyone, let’s get a snack for the road.”“Um,” the oldest girl in the group said. “I think, uh... yeah, okay, just... fine. Let’s go home girls, I don’t think we should mess with that group.”“Aww, but sis, I can take them!”“They are pretty suspicious,” the one casting Fear said.“Let’s tail them!” one of the triplets called.“Mem doesn’t mind making new friends!” Mem replied.The bear girl huffed and started walking after their group. “Never met a bug person before. So, are bugs disgusting evil capitalists?”“Mem’s never capitaled anything.”“Oh? Then you’ll love hearing about this thing. It’s called Communism, and it’s great.”***

     So, as you may have guessed from the title, Volume Two of Dead Tired is moving on to KU very soon!

     If you wanted a copy of it, you can pick up an epub on my patreon (for free) right over here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/95342163

     

     Feel free to share it around! 3 And thank you to everyone that's supported DT so far! It's been... way more successful than anything else I've written, by like, a mile!

     It's liiiiive!

     Link: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0DQQ99M4X?maas=&ref=

     Every self-respecting lich has a few hundred phylacteries at a minimum, and Harold wants to check in on a few thousand of his. Rumors reach him that the vicious Mantis Queen has one of them. Naturally, she's at the other end of the region. It's just a casual stroll across the deserted and inhospitable Flaming Steppes. Inhospitable for the living, that is!

     Fenfang Fang - the Limpet - is taking her job as Harold's very first warlock seriously. The ancient lich figures it's time for his protégé to learn the ins-and-outs of politics by ruling an entire city. Baby steps! Ruling the decrepit city of Yu Xiang looks easy enough. A mudhole at the ass-end of the Empire, ashen dirt that's nearly impossible to farm, waters filled with dangerous beasts, could it be any easier?

     Of course, rumors reach the Jade Throne that a horrible Lich has taken over the city, and an army of conscripts and lessor cultivators is formed to uproot the great evil.

     What fantastical sights will Harold see on his trip? Will Limpet be able to keep the city and her head from the army?

     And the biggest question of all - Will Rem finally get to eat Alex?

     Hi!

     Here's the link to the Volume Three Audiobook!

     

     Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Dead-Tired-III-Audiobook/B0F4F3BHJW