《CATastrophe》8 - Something's Fishy Here...
Advertisement
Holly POV
"What?" muttered Dave with a confused expression.
"I said, there is someone in the back-room." I whisphered "I heard it when I was looking for food."
"Huh?" Chow said, as he turned his head around to look back, at the room.
I immediately put my paws on Chow's head and turned him to face us.
"What was that for?!" Chow cried out. "I was just gonna look!"
"Are you stupid? Actually, nevermind you definitely are." I muttered annoyed. "You almost blew our cover. If you had looked, then they would have been suspicious of us, and we would lose our advantage of knowing that they are there."
Dumb, scatter-brained chihuahua.
"Then what are we supposed to do?" asked an angered Chow.
"Well I have a plan and you guys, are going to set it in motion." I claimed proudly.
"Hm... then what is it?" asked Dave lazily.
"Well, we pretend that we are using this place as a temporary shelter, and then we fake-sleep. They will likely become impatient, and either attack us or escape. I say the more likely decision is that they will attack. Once they try to hit us, we will attack them to catch them off guard." I smiled as I said this "After that we will win."
"Can't we just run away?" Dave said "There is not really any point in beating them."
Slow-witted, foolish, cowardly, dunce of a human. Where is your pride? Humans go on and on, about how they are brave and courageous, But most of the time they just want to run away. I made this plan because it's fun, and the fact that 'they' might have information on the fish group.
"No Dave. We are going with this plan. In the meantime, let's continue on our search for resources." I smiled sarcastically "Okay, Dave?"
Advertisement
"Yes!" exclaimed Chow happily.
Dave also nodded, although angered and annoyed.
Switch to Dave's POV...
I can already feel what Holly was thinking.
Her eyes and that sarcatic tone of voice, said it all.
She was probably thinking about me, and how much of a 'dunce of a human' I am, and how that running away is cowardly.
What does she know? I run because I need to run. We don't know what's in that back-room. Dealing with them might be easy for her, but she is a lot taller, stronger, and faster than me. Chow might be find too, but what about me? This is a plan that is risky for me and me alone! Do you really expect me to agree?
I agreed.
I fucking agreed.
Fuck. What was I thinking?!
If I did not agree, it would be more than just petty insults.
I knew. I knew in the back of my mind, that right now, Holly is stronger both physically and mentally, than me. Right now, I am probably just a play-thing to her, just something she keeps around, to appease her boredom.
I must escape from Holly.
If something endangers her life, I am willing to bet that she will abandon me, and Chow, without any hesitation.
After I get enough power to survive, I am going to escape from Holly and her shenanigans.
Right now though, I need to follow her.
So, here I am, stealing food from the convenience store, while the world is going nuts.
I picked a large bag up, and then started to pack up food and water.
It was almost night-time, and the sun was starting to set. It was very beautiful, with the red and pink sky spewing beautiful hues, and green clouds covering the falling sun.
Advertisement
Although, there was blood splattered everywhere, and you could occasionally see messy people, and mutant animals, it was gorgeous.
What am I saying? Right now a lot of people are dying! But here I am sitting here like a useless good-for-nothing bastard, while others are fighting for their lives!
I packed harder now. The feelings of sadness, soon turned into anger.
It's all those animal's fault! After their mutations, they are basically equal to us humans. So why do they kill us? We did nothing to them, except for feeding them, sheltering them, and giving them a good life! Why would they kill their benefactors?!
I started to get even angrier.
Why?
WHY?
I slammed the bag to the ground with all my strength. Chow looked at me weirdly, while Holly seemed like she did not even care.
My collegues are dead. My few friends are likely dead. Half of the people I know are probably dead.
So why am I alive?
My internal monologue was interupted when Holly said "Let's stay here for the night. It has supplies, and it;s better than sleeping outside."
This was the start of the plan.
Calm down. Calm down Dave. Take deep breaths in, and then let it all out.
I regained my calm, as I breathed deeply.
"Sure!" I said in a friendly fake voice "I agree with you! This place seems like a great place to get some rest."
We set up some temporary beds and soon got ready to sleep.
"Don't forget our plan." Holly said quietly.
You are the cause of my misery.
I nodded, while Chow was already in his bed sleeping, with loud earth-shaking snores.
Holly looked annoyed at this, and kicked Chow.
Chow didn't even budge, and just kept snoring.
"Alright, let's go to sleep."
We started to pretend to sleep, well at least me and Holly did, as we waited for our enemies.
Out of the blue, we heard a distinct sound, of a door opening.
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial6 Chapters
Highschool Necromancer
Lucius is not your average highschool student. He can see the dead. Which is great for helping him cheat in exams. But things take a nose dive after the death of his uncle. What was suppose to be a simple desposing of the body quickly becomes more complicated. The issue is not helped when he finds out that one of his classmates seems to have died from mysterious causes. What is a teenage necromancer suppose to do in this situation?
8 81 - In Serial14 Chapters
Solitary Will
“One leaf, one world… One grass, one heaven…” A woman with an incomplete soul. A borrowed life. A force to break. A deadly gamble. A strong will to defy fate and forge bravely towards immortality.
8 119 - In Serial11 Chapters
Forbidden Passions
There are many forms of love that are taboo, forbidden, and even illegal. Yet even with deterrents in place, people cannot help but defy society and follow their hearts. To them, their love is hard to deny, even if rejected by everyone else.
8 188 - In Serial39 Chapters
Irondad and Spiderson 3
Three books strong! This is amazing you guys! I couldn't be happier to be doing this with you guys! And who knows... maybe even a fourth...? We'll just have to wait and see...Requests are open, and Irondad and Spider son waiting for you! Enjoy!Art originally made by nururuateka!
8 309 - In Serial28 Chapters
Broken- A Larry Stylinson AU
"He's a delicate thing. Like a rose. He's gorgeous but he has his thorns. Fresh as dew. I just want to bundle him up in warmth and keep him happy, always."Cover credits to @harryonmen on Twitter© larryslittlest 2015. All rights reserved
8 232

