by Xander Boyce
Drew felt weird. He'd never had an officer saluting him first before. He returned the salute. "Of course, Ma'am, that's the coast guard's unofficial motto. You always have to go out, but you don't have to come back."
She shook her head, "I think we need you to stick around for a bit. I imagine there will be a good deal of fighting left to do before all is said and done, and we're all counting on you."
With a nod of his head, Drew accepted the rebuttal, "Of course, ma'am." Hoffecker smiled and turned away, immediately shouting orders to her people to keep everyone moving. He watched her leave and shook his head. The world that he had known before was clearly gone. The new world wasn't anywhere near as safe as the previous one, but it wasn't all bad.
Epilogue
Aboard the Tartarus in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way
The bridge was quiet, and dimly lit, just the way he preferred, his people quietly going about their tasks in whispered conversations. The bridge was calm, despite the battle being waged outside. Battle was hardly the correct term for it. A Tuatha ship had landed on some backwoods planet. Hopefully, it was young enough that his men could kill it and bring its xatherite back. Otherwise, he’d be forced to obliterate the planet. The other pantheons would complain if he did that, even if it was only in class five space, and then he would be forced to make an accounting.
One of the Eumenides appeared at his side. Turning to look at her, he raised an eyebrow.
“Pardon Lord, but we have detected a use of divine mana in the Sol system of the Orion-Cygnus arm,” she said with deference.
“Ares?” he asked, knowing that the Eumenides wouldn’t have brought this to his attention if it was.
“Negative, Lord. It was unattuned.” That caused both eyebrows to be raised, and he turned to give the Eumenides his full attention.
“Typed?” he asked.
“Yes, Lord, Retribution,” she answered, anticipating his next question.
“Assets in Sol?” He asked.
“None, it’s a class nine space, but only recently activated. The detection originated from the third slice.”
He pursed his lips and with a thought brought up the display for Sol. He frowned, “The third slice is only a few weeks old.”
“Affirmative sir, I queried HP-ONI, but all information about the third slice was listed as restricted to the Enclave of the Dragon.”
The man leaned back in his chair and considered the system before him. As he did, he mused aloud, “What has my brother been up to?” After a moment of consideration, he turned back to the view screen. “Command all troops to disengage and return to the fleet. Prepare the fleet to travel to the nearest sustainable system to Sol and have Tisephone meet me in my ready room. Alert me when all troops have departed and prepare for planetary dissolution.”
“As you wish, Lord Hades.”
Afterword
We hope you enjoyed Advent! Since reviews are the lifeblood of indie publishing, we’d love it if you could leave a positive review on Amazon! If you scroll through to the end of this book, not only will you be able to read bonus side stories set in the same universe as Advent, but you’ll easily be able to leave a review at the end as well. Otherwise, follow this link to be redirected to the Red Mage: Advent Amazon product page to leave your review: http://geni.us/Advent.
As always, thank you for your support! You are the reason we’re able to bring these stories to life.
Lastly, if you love GameLit, join this awesome community on Facebook!
About Xander Boyce
Xander is a USCG veteran and lifelong scifi/fantasy reader. Having begun creating worlds for his pen and paper roleplaying games more than a decade ago, he has always been fascinated by what can be done when people are pushed beyond normal boundaries. He was drawn to Science Fiction as a way to explore the human condition, and his debut book, Advent, is an extension of that desire.
Connect with Xander:
Facebook Page
Facebook Group
Patreon
Discord
About Mountaindale Press
Dakota and Danielle Krout, a husband and wife team, strive to create as well as publish excellent fantasy and science fiction novels. Self-publishing The Divine Dungeon: Dungeon Born in 2016 transformed their careers from Dakota’s military and programming background and Danielle’s Ph.D. in pharmacology to President and CEO, respectively, of a small press. Their goal is to share their success with other authors and provide captivating fiction to readers with the purpose of solidifying Mountaindale Press as the place ‘Where Fantasy Transforms Reality’.
Connect with Mountaindale Press:
Website
Facebook
Email
Newsletter
Street Team
Mountaindale Press Titles
GameLit and LitRPG
The Divine Dungeon: Dungeon Born
For eons, conquering dungeons has been the most efficient way to become a strong adventurer. Although, not everything is as straightforward as it seems. Several questions have always plagued the mind of those that enter these mythical places of power: Why are there so many monsters? Where does the amazing weaponry and heavy gold coins come from? Why does the very air fill with life-giving energies?
Cal has all of the answers to these age old questions, for a very simple reason. He is a Dungeon Heart, a soul forced against his will into a magical stone. After several lonely years, Cal was able to regain sentience, allowing him to form new memories while slowly growing a dungeon around himself. With help from a friend, Cal learned how to create monsters and traps, increasing his power and size quickly.
When a threat to his existence rears its head, Cal decides that he will do anything to stay alive and become stronger. Unfortunately for treasure-seekers, the fastest way for Cal to achieve his goal... is to eat anyone that enters his depths.
The Completionist Chronicles: Ritualist
The decision to start a new life is never an easy one, but for Joe the transition was far more literal. After making the decision to become a permanent addition to a game world, it doesn't take him long to learn that people with his abilities are actively hunted. In fact, if the wrong people gained knowledge of what he was capable of, assassins would appear in droves.
In his pursuit of power, Joe fights alongside his team, completes quests, and delves into the mysteries of his class, which he quickly discovers can only be practiced in secret. Ultimately, his goal is to complete every mission, master every ability, and learn all of the world's secrets. All he has to do is survive long enough to grasp greatness.
Pixel Dust: Party Hard
Before the online game Carpe Noctem hit the market, the average person wasted a third of their life sleeping. Now, instead of lying in bed dreaming about showing up late to class in their underwear, players step into a breathtaking world of fantasy and adventure. For most users, this is a dream come true. For players like MaxDamage24 and his sidekick Kirabell, it is about to become something else.
After being fired, one of Noctem’s creators sets into motion a plan to bring the system crashing down. To stop the collapse, Max and Kira will have to gather their most trusted friends and embark on a quest that will push them to their absolute limits. Together they’ll face creepy dungeons, impossible bosses, and their own nightmares, all while doing their best to stay alive. With a mission this big, none of them will be the same after. The real question is… how much will they be forced to change?
Only one thing is certain - if they want to survive, they’re gonna have to Party Hard.
A Touch of Power: Siphon
Jade has spent her life fighting boredom in the terminally ill ward. Surfing the net or reading, she always envied the ability of others to go out and experience the world. She knew her wish to live a normal life was far beyond her reach, but after waking up one morning without the sounds of her life support, she opens her eyes and finds herself with a weak but healthy body in a magical world.
As blue game-like system notifications fill her vision, she knows that she'll have to adapt quickly in order to survive… but this is all she ever dreamed of, so Jade is up to the challenge. She will soon realize that you need to be careful what you wish for.
This is Andara, where her true adventure finally begins.
Peaks of Power: Beginnings
There’s always somewhere to go, someone to defeat! At least that’s what Ryan believed until he ran out of challenges, adventures, and stories. Bored with his life as a casual player, he slipped easily into the lifestyle of a professional gamer.
After reaching the pinnacle of success, an email arrived from the mysterious Beta Academy. With his best friend and self-proclaimed bodyguard, Dimitri, he decides to take a chance and accept the strange offer contained within. Overconfident in his skills, Ryan thinks he’ll defeat this game as easily as every other, but that confidence is shaken and shattered within the first fifteen minutes. This wasn’t a standard game with haptic chairs or gloves; this was the real thing.
Ryan and Dimitri must learn the heights of the Peaks of Power… and what it will take to achieve their summit.
Fantasy
Coming soon!
The Black Knight Trilogy
Bonus Side Stories
Mission District, San Francisco, California
Shelly used her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her forehead. She had managed to climb up to the top of the building, but the bay breeze wasn’t quite strong enough to cool her down after the exertion. She paused as she activated mental scan, searching for a sign of her prey. She was dressed in the thick black leather armor she had stolen from one of the horde, and whatever it was made of, it somehow managed to stay clean despite the copious amount of green blood that had soaked it.
The scan extended outwards, slowing when it was more than fifty feet away from her. It took another two minutes for them to catch up to her; they were slowly walking up Florida street. She was crouched on the roof of three buildings that had been joined together decades ago, creating a strange amalgamation of rooftops that merged into a flat outer edge, a perfect place to lay an ambush. She stretched her limbs, getting ready for the attack.
From the stories, she would have assumed gnomes would be better at this hunting prey thing. After all, the ugly things were supposed to be part beast. She couldn’t see their shape, not with mental scan--which showed them as small orbs of mental energy, but she knew there were three of them. They were all that was left of the two-dozen strong patrol she had been slowly tearing chunks off for the past three hours. It had been a good chase throughout a large portion of the mission district as she used her skills and xatherite to take out the stragglers and the weak.
Army crawling to the edge of the roof so that she could look at them. These last three were the strongest. One stood about four and a half feet tall. His bright pink hair looked silly, but the strange wickedly curved khopesh blades it dual wielded were no laughing matter. The other two were a few inches shorter. The blue haired one carried a shield and short spear, while the one with green haired gripped a glaive in both hands, which he had almost killed her with earlier.
Shelly intended to save that one for last--his death was going to be slow. They finally got to the intersection of Florida and 20th St and stopped, looking around. The blue one had some sort of scent ability. He’d been the one tracking her most of the night, but he didn’t seem to understand how her trail had just disappeared. When the pink one started arguing with the blue one, she activated her drake jump xatherite. She spun through the air, reveling in the freedom of movement as she fell the three stories to the street below.
She landed on the blue haired one. Her foot braced against the nape of his neck and she could feel the snap of his spine as the skill transferred the force of her fall to her target. He smashed into the asphalt with an audible crunch, and she wasn’t sure how many bones he had just broken, but she knew from experience it was enough to take him out of the fight. She grinned at the other two, who were stunned by her sudden entrance. She flicked her wrist and the pink one sprouted a dagger four inches into his skull via his left eye. She hadn't even needed to activate a skill to kill him.
The green one screamed as he tried to swing the glaive at her. She stepped into the weapon’s arc, one arm raised to block the swing. The bone armor growing out of her forearm caught the pole of the weapon, pushing it even further off target. She flipped the grip on her other dagger and activating power thrust, stabbing it into his stomach. He was wearing armor, but the xatherite enhanced strike parted the leather like a hot knife in butter. She only stopped when the blade cracked against his vertebrae, severing the nerves and causing him to fall to the ground, the lower half of his body no longer connected to his brain.
His bigger than life anime eyes went even wider and blood came out of his mouth as he tried to open it. Shelly flipped off him, rolling away just in case he still had some fight in him. She came up in a combat pose and smiled down at the dying gnome. “Fucking gnome horde comes to my town? Kills my boyfriend and expects me to just take it in stride?”
She kicked the glaive away from him, even though his hands were more focused on trying to keep his innards inside him. She circled around to the side, then kicked his torso, driving the blade deeper inside him. She then activated blade call and all her weapons returned to their sheaths, sparkling clean. “Now I’d really like to just let you bleed out, but there’s a chance you have a xatherite behind those big fucking eyes. So, sadly, this is going to be faster than I’d like. She pushed her foot against his windpipe and slowly pressed down.
“You motherfuckers invaded the wrong goddamn town.” The dying gnome’s hands feebly tried to push Shelly’s leg away, but he was powerless. The celery crunch of his windpipe breaking was enough, and she turned away from him to look at the other two. “Oh look, your friend already gave me some. Guess that means you won’t have any on you and I can let you die slowly!” She touched the red crystal that had grown between the eyes of the pink haired gnome. The street, littered with green blood and viscera, glowed red briefly and she smiled as the notification blinked into reality in the corner of her vision. With a shrug, she left the gnome to slowly suffocate, then activated shadow of death and disappeared into the darkening gloom.
The fog was rolling in and she had plenty of hunting time left before the sun came up. She wouldn’t rest until she had killed every single one of the green horde.
I-70 West of Edwards, Colorado
Erik looked down the ridge to where he could see a town. It had been called Edwards a week ago, but there probably wasn't anyone still alive down there. Still, he had to check. His armor kept him warm as it took on a strangely reflective quality from the snow around him. It was still early April in Colorado, and this late in the day it was getting back down to the mid 40’s. He looked behind him at the nineteen people he had managed to convince to follow him.
All of them had been through a harrowing six day. He frowned. At this rate, he wouldn’t make Denver for months. Advent had started while he was overnighting in Gypsum just a few miles to the west of here along I-70, and he was grateful that God had given him the xatherite he needed to save as many people as he had, but he’d left far too many graves along the trail. He gestured everyone forward, his hand resting on the handle of his war hammer.
Cutting a far more imposing figure than the rest of the group, Erik was encased in his conjured armor. It resembled that of the old knight's templar but wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as their plate mail had been. He could barely feel its weight and it didn’t restrict his movement at all. It still did a fine job at stopping attacks though. The massive demon possessed bears, rabbits, elk, and wolves that had attacked the weary travelers had more than tested its worth.
Picking up the heavy war hammer, whose head glowed with an inner light, and throwing it over one shoulder, he began to walk down the road to Edwards. His people followed him. The three young children he had managed
to save that first day were riding his summoned charger. The xatherite he used to summon it was a godsent reward he had received after he killed the biggest bear he’d ever seen. He glanced back at the kids and waved, though they didn’t respond. He didn’t expect them to. He hadn’t been quite quick enough to save their parents from the wolves, and none of the three had said a word since.
The rest of the group was just as ragtag. Most of them were young, under 20, and all had lost someone they loved. The only one older than 25 was a former diner waitress who had taken to caring for the kids after he’d pulled her out of the burned remnants of her diner back in Eagle three days ago.
It was only a couple miles to Edwards, but they probably wouldn’t make it until midday tomorrow, so he’d have to have Ross dig them another cave to sleep in for the night. Realizing that light of faith’s cooldown was probably up, he activated that prayer, and yellow light surrounded all twenty of them. The shivering stopped immediately, and everyone picked up the pace, wanting to make as much distance as they could while the buff was in place.
They made it halfway down the hill before they heard the howling. It originated from further down the road, but Erik immediately swung his hammer up, “Defensive positions!” It was a well-practiced maneuver at this point. Ross dug a pit and they began putting all the unawakened children into it. Then he shifted the earth around them, creating a slope as steep as his powers would allow. Meanwhile Rose used her xatherite to create long forks along the top of the ridge, and Ross buried them until just their razor-sharp tines were visible.
