《The Stage》Chapter 2
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The group found their way through two more rooms before they decided it was time to leave. Xin Lumei grumbled, saying that Mystic Mansion was barely worth their money. Cai Shengwei nodded his head in agreement. As they continued to walk, he studied the surrounding area with a dim interest. The others were caught up in a deep conversation about whether or not they should play Dungeons and Dragons over the weekend when he something caught his eye.
He flipped his head around to see a pretty young woman smiling and waving them over. "Hey," he called as he tugged at Xiang Hai's blue-jean jacket. "There is a lady over there." His words made everyone pause and look over to where he was pointing. "Should we go see what she has in store for us?"
Xin Lumei glanced at her watch. "We still have some time left, but she may be one of the employees who guide the lost back outside. I say we follow." Everyone thought she had a valid point, so she brought them over to the woman. "Hi!"
The employee giggled. "Hello, children. Would you like to come with me?"
"Yes. We were on our way to finding the exit, but you saved us the trouble. I have to give you my thanks." She gave a dazzling smile which showed her perfect teeth. 'So beautiful,' Cai Shengwei thought as he stared at Xin Lumei's auburn colored hair which twisted into tight swirls. He came back to reality after a few moments and sprinted to catch up to the moving group.
It was strange, though. Cai Shengwei's gut was telling him to avoid the woman at all costs, but he didn't want to be the one to say anything and stayed quiet. The lady had introduced herself, telling the children that her name was Lu Fei.
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Cai Shengwei had to say that Lu Fei took the holiday very seriously. She wore ancient robes, the color of snow, which had large hand markings made of 'blood.' Her face also had some dried blood resting on its surface and small portions of her hair were matted up with the liquid as well.
"Nice costume and make-up. Where did you get everything? It's so realistic." He asked.
"Costume?" Lu Fei looked back at him in wonder. "Oh, yes. Yes, this is a costume, nothing more and nothing less. I made it myself, so you can't find it anywhere else in this world." He felt her words were a bit off, but he let it slide. Perhaps it was all a part of her character for the night. "Then, could I have your number so that you may make this costume for my size. I can pay fifty bucks for it."
"Interesting offer, little boy, but this granny here is not willing. After all," Lu Fei replied as she led the group into a hidden room. Xin Lumei and Xiang Hai followed without any hesitation, but the other two paused. They both had an ominous feeling of the place, not just because it was inside of a haunted house. The way Jane presented herself and the way the room was obscured when all the others were in a plain path. "What are you waiting for? The exit is over here." Lu Fei beckoned.
Despite her sweet voice, Cai Shengwei took a step back. This place wasn't right at all. He was able to see something the others couldn't. A scarlet mask on her face as plain as day and a wicked gleam hidden in her eyes. "No! Everyone, come back." He yelled.
Xin Lumei and Xiang Hai, however, acted as though they couldn't hear him. "Xin Lumei? Xiang Hai?" He called their names, but there was no response. In the corner of his eye, he saw Nalan Pong also within the room. "Nalan Pong!"
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Lu Fei laughed as she snapped her fingers. His three friends turned around to face him with anguish in their eyes. "Help me!" They screamed, causing Cai Shengwei's body to shake in fear.
"This has got to be a dream. A very, very bad dream. All I need to do..." He pinched himself, slapped himself, banged his head against the wall and purposely fell to the ground but nothing would wipe away his friend's pleas for help.
He wanted to get to them, to wake them up, but all of his attempts had failed. He stood huffing and puffing as he gave Lu Fei a hateful glare. "What have you done to them?" His voice was weak and trembling. It was as though he had given up all hope.
"I see you are finished with your futile attempts to save them," Lu Fei replied as she uncrossed her arms. "You would fit perfectly as a knight in shining armor, trying to save his beautiful princess from the vile dragon and phoenix. In fact, that may be what I will do first..."
She waved her hand and created some force which picked Cai Shengwei up. His heart was unwilling, but his body would not respond as he tried to resist. How in the world did she have this power? This was no Star Wars movie with Yoda saying, "May the force be with you." This was no fantasy world with magic. It was just plain old earth with guns technology. There was supposed to be no magic here!
Cai Shengwei's mind blacked out, just like the others as the young woman opened up a portal into her personal dimension. She set them up in the roles they were to play on her Stage and waited for them to wake up. She was highly anticipating what story they would bring her. After all, she only chooses the roles they play. As a personal rule of hers, she refuses to interfere with how the characters act.
As for the story she had just set up, she had played it a million times, but she never gets bored. The reason is because of the interesting results she had attained. One time, the knight in shining armor was the villain as he held a grudge against the girl. Some brought about massive wars which destroyed the entire planet while others came together and lived happily.
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The Legendary Mechanic
What do you do when you wake up and find yourself inside the very game that you love? What do you do when you realize you that you have not only become an NPC — you have even been thrown back in time to before the game even launched!What will happen when our protagonist’s two realities coincide?Han Xiao was a professional power leveler before his transmigration. Using his past life’s knowledge, Han Xiao sweeps through the universe as he prepares for the arrival of the players. This is definitely not your typical transmigration novel.
8 6215Paths of the Chosen (Rewritten, Revised, and Reinvigorated)
Daniel Stewart was chosen to alpha test a brand new Immersive VR game, "The Realms". What he doesn't know is that he has also been Chosen by one of the Powers of a far-off world, and is now a pawn in a game much bigger than any he thought he would ever participate in. Will he survive and thrive in this strange new world, or will he stumble and fall, shattered by the ambitions of another? Does he have what it takes to walk the Paths of the Chosen?---Inspired by the Chaos Seeds novels, TheDespaxas's The Gamer, and a wide variety of games and books, although the world, characters, and systems are my own. Expect high fantasy, magic, combat and intrigue, love and loss, grief and passion. This story is intended for adult audiences and contains explicit sexual content, profanity, and violence (including sexual violence, although not by the protagonist and not as a focus of the story). Chapters with such content will be clearly marked, and all explicit sexual content will be behind spoiler tags. I prefer my stories to have happy endings, and especially in these uncertain times, I feel that it is important to maintain hope. While this tale will reach some dark places, I promise to you that, when all is said and done, the villains will be justly punished and the heroes will prevail and prosper. Remember: it is darkest before dawn, but dawn always comes. Please note also that although this story does not have the [Harem] tag, it does have an extremely slow build into a polyamorous relationship. Additionally, starting with Champion (book two of the series), the [Multiple Lead Characters], [Female Lead], and [Non-Human Lead] tags would also apply to varying degrees.This is a complete, ground-up rewrite of the original Paths of the Chosen, following feedback from here and elsewhere. It is now written in the third-person limited omniscient perspective and in the past tense. In addition, while the major plot beats are unchanged, most of what comes between them has been reconsidered and rewritten, with pacing and characterization as a special focus.---Update schedule: 2 chapters per week (Monday and Thursday), not counting bonus chapters. Chapter length is roughly 2,500 words on average, +/- 1,000 words. Chapters with explicit content tend to be longer so that they are still worth reading for those who would prefer a fade to black. --- Cover art by Agri Karuniawan (@artofagri). View more of their work at https://www.deviantart.com/iamagri.
8 183The Dream Knight (LITRPG Portal Fantasy)
Edward was transported to a world inhabited by man-eating goblins. A goblin wizard summoned him and a hundred other random humans in order to sell their classes and eat them. Edward tries to use his rare and powerful Dream Knight class to survive, save as many people as he can, get stronger, and get vengeance. Will Edward escape from the goblins? Will he get strong enough to avenge those who the goblins have slaughtered like cattle? Find out by checking out Chapter 1, giving this fiction a follow if you enjoy it, and giving it an honest rating!
8 231Grimoire Knights
A world of magic, where the system seems to no longer be present. Follow along as Cara who has a cursed bloodline and is fed up with having the world, her peers and even her own bloodline get in her way. When attempting to go through the motions to return back to her regular life, she is soon thrown in over her head. The pillars of knowledge that her world operates on are fundamentally flawed.When performing a ritual to summon either an item of power or a familiar, she summons and binds...him...Part familiar, part mentor, a world's underlying system of knowledge is about to be upturned and the source, a small girl in a back water town. Knowledge is dangerous and dangerous people desperately desire dangerous knowledge.Follow Cara, her best friend Jessica and their familiars and some friends on some adventures that will surely get out of hand, and possibly how the underlying fabric of the system will shift for the universe(*) as a whole.----- Please note, I will be jumping between multiple different POVs to initially build the universe before I settle into something more stable. Thank you if you take the time to read my fever dreams of the past decade that I've finally decided to put down for everyone else to maybe enjoy or at least ensure I do not repeat the beginning as much in my dreams. *Cover is a mash up of a few pics, if there is an issue, I'll remove.
8 218The New Magnolia: Red Fungus, White Spore
The art for this cover was drawn by StarsColdNight whose account you can find on DeviantArt and BookCoversRealm for some great and splendid artwork at fair prices. Rillia flees from the Red Mountain Ant Colony and her country of Wassergras, hoping to find and explore the Primeval World, a legendary and untamed world she has only read about. However, after a surprise storm nearly drowns her, she is saved by Jason, a shrunken human with little memory of his past life. He is the first in a series of new allies she meets along with Melsil, the mushroom swordsman and Vesha the crawfish. A storm is brewing in Wassergras of political intrigue, prejudice and schemes within schemes that threaten to tear apart their world. Rillia must put her traveling plans on hold as she and her newly made friends work to defeat this threat—one that has been waging since the dawn of the world between the forces that created it.
8 186Gods Game
The Gods gathered together in a moment of clarity and created a world where people could battle, gain powers, and eventually enough power to kill them and take their place. After a millennium, they still have little success. Some of the combatants have died, others have given up and accepted their lives as they are, others turned their back on their original calling entirely, rebelled and have decided to wage war against this world and the reason they are there. So the gods keep scooping people up from the various worlds they've created in hopes of finding their death. They had gathered from six of the seven worlds they had available to them, now they have no choice but to gather combatants from the one world they swore they would leave alone: Earth. The world was dying and the people seemed hell bent on killing each other, rather than focusing on keeping their world alive so they could all live peacefully. Earth wasn't an ideal place to choose from, but the Gods had no choice. With new combatants gathered, each blessed with a gift from the Gods, they are set loose in the world of Taimin. The play ground for the replacement God candidates. However, this time, the combatants are unaware of their true purpose, so that maybe, they can accomplish the God's true goals. Another round of God creation has begun, but with secrets kept from them, and others hunting for their deaths, can they survive the first rounds, or will they perish because of the weaknesses they carry? NOTE: I do not own that cover, I googled fantasy wallpaper planets and I found that one. ^_^ Also, this story will slightly be fanfictiony as some weapons and elements may come videos, shows, and/or books.
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