《Charred Archive [very bad, don't read]》 Why are you here? Why are you here? You must have read the title. Did it not occur to you that titles reflect the work, or did you convince yourself that the title must be wrong? I am far below amateur. My work is almost worth less than the storage necessary to keep its ones and os. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Your time is more valuable than this. Even if you want to waste it, almost any other person would appreciate the extra interaction. I do not control you. I can¡¯t make you do anything. I know this and I still ask you to heed my warnings. BEGONE Ugh. Fine. Alright, alright. It seems you can¡¯t follow simple instructions. It is a surprise that you can operate any sort of electronic, but I digress. You won¡¯t leave, so I should somewhat explain what this glimpse into a broken mind is. I am not a writer, but that won¡¯t stop me. Samuel de Camplain founded Quebec because of the amount of hats I¡¯m throwing into so many rings. The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed because of how many of my fingers they found in pies. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. But despite this, I am not a renaissance man. At most, I¡¯m a Neolithic monkey. I have at least two stone ages¡¯ worth of information in my glass marble-like brain, in both size and smoothness. I produce a shocking amount of bad work, so sometimes I make a suitable pseudonym to publish the work under for others to laugh at. I can¡¯t recommend reading it, but you are the type to sit on a bench because a sign says ¡°wet paint,¡± so go ahead. You won¡¯t have fun, but I¡¯ll tell you to anyway. Dvalinns Dunes Dvalinn''s Dunes themed after a ruin in a desert, specifically the hot, sandy type. Dungeons often appear in places of great bloodshed, as tormented souls can consolidate and crystallize into dungeon cores, which is why the Dunes appeared along the main merchant road that connects Eigend and Angriff. The exact point that the Dunes appeared is what remains of a trade outpost controlled by Eigend. The outpost marked almost the exact middle of the merchant road on the only water source in miles, making its conversion to a military outpost when tensions grew between the countries a high priority. Not even a single person could traverse the deserts around the merchant road without large amounts of water, and supplying an army would be impossible without the oasis. The armies of Eigend stayed in the outpost for about three weeks before the tension waned, but this was just a ruse. Angriff had hired a small band of mercenaries to stir a sand dragon up at midnight and lead it to the outpost, which still held the majority of the military force of Eigend. When the sand dragon saw the outpost, it supposedly gained speed from the anger of puny humans building horrific structures on the pristine dunes. As you would expect, an unprepared army fighting an enraged sand dragon does not end with a dead dragon. Even with large protective walls around the perimeter directly created in fear of this situation, the fort was destroyed almost immediately. The sand dragon simply jumped forty feet into the air and landed on the ramparts, destroying anything that moved and only lightly maiming everything else. Soon after this incident, Angriff invaded Eigend and gained both a large sum of money and a new puppet prince on the throne. As the army of Eigend followed the merchant road back to their country, they stumbled upon Dvalinn¡¯s Dunes growing inside of the ruined outpost. The army¡¯s morale was already high, but the find of a young dungeon put it to an all time peak. They knew that if they could get to the core before it could protect itself, they could take it and sell it to some noble. A large group rushed into the dungeon, only to be ripped apart. The dungeon was of course young at that point, but the sand dragon had somehow already been contracted as its boss. Only three people made it out, but they told a story of a large open room covered in sand with sand stone walls tossed haphazardly around and small crystals attached to the roof acting like the moon and stars. That room was the entire dungeon, holding ambush predators at strategic spots, burrowing insects that could sense your steps if you went too fast, and blind sharks that glide over the sands, listening for sounds to alert them of the positions of enemies. In the center slept the sand dragon, with its wings curled at its sides, nostrils flaring inconsistently, and clear eyelids closed while the main ones stayed open. The core was being nestled like an egg beneath the dragon, where it was impossible to grab without waking the towering beast. The morale was still high enough that one of them thought it a good idea to fight the single monster who managed to destroy a large settlement, filled with an unknown amount of highly trained soldiers without sustaining any visible wounds. As soon as the idiot got close, the dragon burst to life, and with a sweep of its tail, took his head off. The high morale was suddenly replaced with fear, but low can go very quickly to none if you realize the dragon has ranked up from massacring Eigend¡¯s army, growing blades sharper than any scalpel on its tail, head, wings and such. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The dragon, despite not being able to fly, used its wings to whip up a sand storm, blocking all sight, leaving only the five survivors who ran at the first sign of trouble with any sort of sight. Of the five, only three survived as the smaller monsters on the floor hamstringing the others. This is the only time someone has reached the bottom floor of the Dunes, within the years that it has been operating. The dungeon just keeps growing, with each floor putting the previous one to shame, whether it be with asthedics, monsters, or just the heat from the fake sun on most layers multiplied by the long treks through unforgiving sands. Currently, the lowest floor achieved was twenty one, with the party who made it there found on floor nine, fainted from dehydration. The first floor of the dungeon is set at night, with small ruined buildings dotting the landscape. Quite a few painters come to this floor every year for inspiration as the monsters are generally weak enough that a few bodyguards can protect them. The second through fourth floor run with the ruin theming and slowly ramp up the size and frequency of the rubble. The fifth floor caps the ruin theme with an entire abandoned town. This floor has a boss of a desert wyrm, a long and large creature that can swim through the sand and attack suddenly, making the roads basically death traps. The houses are no better, filled with red skeletons with high levels. All of the skeletons are knights, mages, and archers. They have enough sense to place the mages and archers on top of buildings, with knights keeping anyone from reaching them. The ¡°Sun¡± above their heads does nothing to any of the enemies on this floor, even while able to burn skin with ease. The sixth through tenth floor are littered with small cacti and weeds. If you take a wrong step and land on a cactus, the needles can pierce hardened leather like paper and skin like air. The monsters are all hidden among these plants, usually based not on killing you, but tripping you into traps. The tenth floor boss is a large cactus with the ability to coordinate the smaller monsters on the floor to strangle and dismember any adventurer who got that far. The eleventh through fifteenth floor is a salt flat. The salt unfortunately dissolves if it is mined. The monsters are birds, dive bombing towards joints and vitals with long, razor sharp beaks. The only trap on these floors is a small oasis, with a large lake in the middle. The water tastes fine, but is actually imbued with high salt, quickly killing the unfortunate people who don¡¯t know of the trap. The boss is a large roadrunner, lighting yellow fires as it runs. Sixteen through twenty are all nighttime colored, with hyenas always circling nearby. The few people who have made it two this floor all report feeling tired even after resting, making it believed that there is a sleep spell placed on those floors. The boss is a hyena, making use of the darkness to attack from anywhere but where you suspect. It is assumed that twenty one through twenty five are all themed around color, with sands ranging vastly in color, but still holding a currently unknown enemy that killed the leader of the one team who made it there so quickly that it wasn¡¯t seen. Outside of the dungeon, the adventurer¡¯s guild bought Dvalinn¡¯s Dunes three months after it was found from Angriff. The current rank needed to enter the dungeon is A, but there has been talks to raise it to S. Cube He awoke standing in a room. No other word could be used to encapsulate it. It was as if it had taken every modifier that could be applied to it and flicked them on. The ceiling was tiled with bamboo support beams and steel rivets. The walls were stained with blood splotches that randomly cut off to make way for a bulkhead door made of rotted wood and colored glass. The rugged floor had a secondary rug made of stone with jeweled tassels. In the center of the room was a cube. No other word could be used to encapsulate it. All the modifiers were turned off. About two meters by two meters by two meters, unknown material, and a barely reflective white sheen. He felt compelled to walk towards it. He walked the few feet of distance and placed his hand onto the cube. His nerves sent signals to his brain that it couldn¡¯t quite decipher. It was solid, as his hand didn¡¯t go through it, but it didn¡¯t feel like anything. There was no temperature, nor any identifiable material to compare it to. It was just a piece of reality that no one had bothered to texture, leaving it neither rough nor smooth, neither soft nor hard. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. His brain tried to reflect on this, but it¡¯s attention snapped back to the other parts of this situation. Where was he? Who brought him here? Why!? Was he going to see his family again!?! Wait, did he have a family!?!? Who was -simulation terminated. Simulation Notes: Remind Sarah to send the right files next time, alright? This piece of shit guzzles electricity, and if I didn''t double check, this simulation could have eaten a lot of our budget. How to write Polearms Writing fight scenes must be hard, I wouldn¡¯t know but trust me anyway. One day I realized, ¡°Polearms, my favored weapons, must also be hard to write.¡± This has given me a bad idea: I must tell people how to write good, despite my own abilities! With this in mind, welcome to my Five Step Plan to Polearms! Step one: What counts as a polearm? To write about people fighting with weapons, you must first understand the weapons being used. A polearm is a pole with a dangerous bit at the end. The pole is most commonly wood, but metal will sometimes be used despite its weight. The material used for the head of the polearm is mostly dependent on the time period. If it¡¯s prehistoric, their spears will be wood, bone, or rock, but as soon as you get past the bronze age, use whatever metal you want to be the newest. Once you have the material or have stopped caring about that, you have to move onto shape. This is the most important step that everything else hinges on. The head shape of the polearm can be almost anything, but you have to determine its damage type. Option 1: Pierce. It¡¯s the simplest out of the four, simply a sharp part on a stick. Option B: Slash. This is where things get a bit harder to hash out. For one, ¡°polearm¡± is a big category, you know one when you see it. Unfortunately, when things get more complicated than ¡°sharp point on stick,¡± the exact lines start to blur. The difference between glaives and naginatas, guandaos, woldos, or sovnyas often just comes down to where they are from, so I¡¯m just calling most slashy polearms glaives. Type C: Bludgeon. What draws the line between hammers and polearms? ME! And I say if it has at least both a hammer and a spike, it''s a polearm. Choice 4: Hook. Look at you, being all fancy, placing a hook on your polearm. While Pierce and Slash are for flesh and Bludgeon is for armor, the Hook is used to catch and pull other people¡¯s weapons. This also lets you add a little bit of free worldbuilding: if someone has a hooked polearm, they aren''t there to just kill beasties. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Finalize your design at this point. Place all of your engravings and dot all your i¡¯s. There are a few finishing touches to think about. How sleek is the weapon? Does it have extra protrusions that could get caught on something? Do you want an extra little dagger on the bottom? Great! This is only really necessary if you want your audience to know how cool your OC is, but hey, who cares. Step two: Writing words Remember that choice from a few paragraphs ago? It''s important now! I feel sad when I see people say their spear has extra guards at the top, and their eight year old child warrior is able to instantly gauge the distance and use it to do an overhand slash. Please, just think about the weapons. If you choose pierce, you can stab, penetrate, puncture, impale, and skewer, but please don¡¯t try to hack. When you have to slash, don¡¯t try to clobber people. You don¡¯t need a polearm to do that, use a pole. Step three: Profit How you use this bad advice is not my problem, but if you do make money off of it, give me royalties. I deserve composition for the hour spent on this. Horned Rabbit On the great fields of grass that border the northern edge of the capital, there lives a large group of creatures that almost any person could take on. Their coats have become the coat of arms for many small groups. The monster that has basically become the symbol of low level adventures is the horned rabbit. Classification: The horned rabbit is a simple chimera, with the base of a rabbit and horns of a ram. The horned rabbit has been compared to the tale of the jackalope from the Hero''s original planet, Earth. The horned rabbit is generally around sixteen inches long, with a white hide covering most of its length. The life span usually is around 4 years, but in captivity it has been seen to grow to eight. Diet: The diet of horned rabbits includes the natural grasses and weeds, berries, the roots of the few trees still left in the area, and almost any other plant based food that they have the opportunity to eat. Horned rabbits are opportunistic to an extreme, sometimes going as far as stealing food from camping adventurers and merchants. Behaviour: The horned rabbits¡¯ hide is great camouflage, but only for winter. While a majority of other rabbits have the ability to change coat colors throughout the year, the horned rabbit opt for an easily cleanable coat. The purpose was specifically for the coats to be stained by grass that they constantly roll around in, turning them almost the same shade of green as the grass. They roll on the ground about twice a day all year long, just to keep up the coloring. The genius behind having an easily cleanable coat is that in winter, the rolling works with the opposite effect, removing the grass stains from the hide in time to hide in snow. Rabbits are very social, almost always staying in a colony, with the colony staying in a warren. Rabbit warrens are usually close to the surface, with many interconnected tunnels culminating in a main room for sleep and a deeper room for the young. Colonies will sometimes fight over land, usually sending out the largest rabbit in the colony to do glorious battle. The battle consists of two rabbits sprinting at each other, with the battle ending when a horn or head has been broken by the charges. Combat: Horned rabbits are not the brightest monsters. The only thing they will do is jump straight at the target, hoping to at least to stun them with their act of stupidity before running surprisingly quickly. The easiest way to dispatch a horned rabbit is to bait it into jumping before moving sideways. As the horned rabbit falls on the ground from the miss, you can calmly walk over and kill it. It has the same defence as a normal rabbit, so even a farmer with a little extra strength could fight it. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Resources: The horned rabbit may be named after its head, but its fur is the main reason it is hunted. The fur can be made into many clothes, and because of its anti-stain nature, means that normal people can quickly wash large amounts of clothes. The horns can be made into simple musical instruments or embellishments on pieces of art. The rabbits¡¯ meat is just rabbit, even if it is easier to transport to the masses in the capital. Danger rating: F-. Reward rating: F. Variants: Horned rabbit king, blue horned rabbit. The horned rabbit king is the strongest member of the species currently alive. The horned rabbit king can bring together a few colonies to work as one, and slightly increase the intelligence of its subordinates. It takes time for a horned rabbit king to be able to use its abilities to a useful degree, sometimes even a year. Young adventurers usually go out of their way to kill horned rabbit kings, as their fur is a shade of purple that grows deeper the longer it lives. Danger rating: F to E-. Reward rating: E+. The blue horned rabbit is a mutant that usually appears once every two to three years. This mutant has light blue fur, but also a different type of horn. The blue horned rabbit¡¯s horns look more like those of a gemsbok, going straight up. These differences lead to the colony that it is born into not recognizing the blue horned rabbit as part of the colony, so they will kick it out. Blue horned rabbits often die soon after being born, but they grow powerful quickly if they survive. Surviving blue horned rabbits are often the strongest in their species, but as the horned rabbits do not recognize it as one of them, it is impossible to have a blue horned rabbit king. The horns of the blue horned rabbits are deceptively sharp, on par with military grade spears, letting them pierce through wood and in some stories stone, making them desirable for low to mid level weapons. Danger rating: E- to D-. Reward rating: D-. Introductory Speech to the University of Mana Studies and Applications Ever since we sentient creatures gained the use of magic, there has been one prevailing question: what is mana? The easy answer is... bullshit. Mana makes no gods damn sense. Whatever rules govern this world just don¡¯t apply to mana, and there are four examples of why for generations we have made no progress on defining one of the most integral parts of our lives. Example one: water and ice. Mana comes in several forms. Depending who you ask, unaligned mana, the type most crystals you can buy hold, may be considered ¡°pure¡±, and any alignment is a signal of it becoming ¡°corrupted¡±, but the evidence to back up that claim is generally ¡°my dad said so¡±. Alignment in mana is important, but only to ritualists and fringe mages, because channeling mana through spells usually converts them into the correct type. This becomes a problem when you start seeing the effects of spells. The easiest example of what we mean comes from two spells, water bolt and ice bolt. The simplest forms of combat magic from the water and ice trees. Water bolt uses a small amount of the water in the air and some mana to create a projectile to fire at your enemies. Ice bolt does the same, but also has to freeze the water. Two super basic spells that have the same mana cost, but one manages to have a greater effect. It¡¯s dumb and I hate it. Example B: Mana¡¯s state. When researching mana, you hear a lot about the different states of mana. There is ambient mana in the air, mana crystals in monsters or just underground, and liquid mana. The problem comes from crystals. Crystals are less mana-dense than liquid mana, and take more space than the liquid form, similarly to the relation between ice and water, but ice floats. Crystals don¡¯t. Crystals are less mana dense but more actually dense.. Why? I don¡¯t fucking know. Hey, you, get me another bottle. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The third thing about mana that makes it impossible to understand is the magic of our sibling dimensions. Ignoring all of the hellscapes you can find using dimensional magic, there are a few dimensions that are close enough to our own that someone will end up wandering in from there. They are often only here for a short while, usually as a layover point between walks, but sometimes they may talk to us. Almost every single one gives us a different explanation for how magic works for them. Some don¡¯t have any spells to guide them, some don¡¯t have any idea what alignment is, and one said that all magic is borrowed power from gods. This is annoying, because they can cast their magic in the exact same way in our dimension, while not having the same limitations that we have. One, who had the exact same physiological properties as us, just ate a mana crystal. Just fucking popped it into his mouth and broke it with his teeth. Why are the limits we have universal but not multiversal? I want to eat a mana crystal without dying. He said it tasted like candy! I want that! What-[Speech ended due to violent vomiting] -Archmage Erico¡¯s drunk introductory speech to the University of Mana Studies and Applications new students Another abandoned project Here''s another abandoned project. This is a reoccurring theme. I was going for a sort of tape recorder/audio log thing, but I couldn''t get the ball rolling. T?????e?????s??????t????? ?????t??????e??????s????t??????.???? ?????O????n??????e????? ?????t???????w????o??? ????o?????n?????e??? ???t???w???o???.??? ???C???o???m???e??? ???o???n???,??? ??? y?o?u? ?p?i?e?c?e? ?of sh- ah, there we go. This is researcher Lunata Spis¡¯s audio log, detailing the seven zero five expedition to Penius¡¯s Garden, starting ten ten. It¡¯s about noon with clear skies, so I have a good amount of time to settle in. From outside the walls I can see a nice bell tower, which should make a clean hidey-hole. Here¡¯s hoping nothing interesting happens on the way. ¡ª Looks like I wasn¡¯t being original. The entire building is fortified, reinforced doors and spiked barriers. I had to climb up the side of the church and wiggle through a window. I couldn¡¯t open the door, even from the inside, so I wasted another hour taking my equipment one piece at a time up the wall. If I had to guess, it was the oh-oh team that put it all together. The wood¡¯s new, comparatively, and when the original villagers stayed here the divinity should have been enough protection. Twenty five years without worshipers would definitely let the aura fade. In any case, it¡¯s almost dusk. I need to get to the bell and get a good look at the city. ¡ª The view almost lets me forget why I¡¯m here, like I¡¯m just on vacation in a regular town for the end of winter. Over there, market square¡¯s already closed for the day, the lingering cold driving people indoors. The port is empty too, must be because the river is still frozen from the cold snap. Sure, no lantern keepers are patrolling, but that means this town is so safe none are needed. Bleh, the wind¡¯s chilly. But no, I¡¯m here for business. The last bit of sun is fading, so I need to look¡­ north to the main residential district. I can see the first one out for the night. Appears to be a roughly late thirties male with a beer belly and a wool kirtle. More intact than I was expecting, but the limp really gives it away. My first zombie sighting of roughly three thousand. Actually saying it out loud makes me suddenly reconsider all of this, but at least my death will help further human knowledge. If anyone can find these logs that is. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡ª I¡¯ve spent the last two days mapping out the church. Turns out there¡¯s a big underground storeroom at least three layers deep. It¡¯s a full bunker, with rows of bunk beds and preserved food. Actually, it¡¯s weird that the oh-ohs didn¡¯t report this, even though it¡¯s obvious they were here. Food is missing from a few shelves, and the staircase is blocked with beds like the upper part. I do not enjoy that bit at all. If they found catacombs or any tunnel system that scared them enough to block it all, I¡¯m not going down there. ¡ª It is fourteen slash ten. Guess that means I¡¯ve put it off long enough. Come on, you got this Lunata. The sun''s up, the streets are empty, it will be a breeze. Sure, a zombie might randomly decide to wake up now and see you and call down the entire herd to tear you apart piece by piece as you feel their teeth and claws ripping and I should just shut up now. That won¡¯t happen, because the daylight will keep them indoors, and you will not, not, not create enough of a ruckus for that to change. In and out. Just get to the town hall and walk around. Just gotta¡­ no, can¡¯t do it today. Tomorrow though, for sure. ¡ª I know I said today, but I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯ll do it tomorrow. Definitely. I really have to, uh, look at town hall at night. Yeah, I¡¯ll make sure no zombies are inside. Perfect. ¡ª Well, I am officially out of excuses. None even wandered close. It¡¯s even a pleasantly warm day. The road is nearly straight, meaning ambushes will be slightly easier to spot. Time to climb down. Sign language So I¡¯ve been helping someone with some world building and I¡¯ve come up with something I¡¯m actually kind of satisfied with. We started out just trying to come up for a reason that sign language would be a major part of a city¡¯s culture. Because the inhabitants are human, we decided a good chunk of people need to be at least somewhat deaf, such as someone who stands around large artillery without earmuffs, while taking orders from an officer who needs to convey a very large amount of information quickly across long distances. This means that in formal settings, you are expected to be making large hand gestures to emphasize your point, but formal settings aren¡¯t everything. The general populous view joining the military for at least a while a matter of pride, because most of the food and national defense comes from hunting the air leviathans (don¡¯t bother asking), so more people than just full time soldiers learn the sign language, but crowd streets and tight corridors make the large gestures hard, so they sign smaller and faster, to the point where they hold three conversations at the same time, one with the voice and one on each hand, which while obviously being a stretch for a real human to emulate, was simply to funny to pass up. I don''t know much about actual linguistics, let alone sign languages, so I cannot speak on that front. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Update and old story So turns out I have ADHD. Should have seen that one coming. I''ve been bouncing around projects for years, and now I''m medicated, so I''ll be focusing on projects that I care about more! So not this. I might actually just use this as a bit of a dev log, because I''m making a shit game, like everybody nowadays. Either way, here''s a three year old writing attempt that I """finished""" Wilhelm let out a battle cry, smashing his mace into the exposed leg of the undead brute. Bone cracked, but the leathery skin bolstered by reanimation left the zombie unfazed, hammering down two of five fists into his shielded left side. The kite shield folded. He stumbled backward, but before the beast could grapple him, Omah finished chanting and threw her hands forward. Stone tiles melted as they transmuted into bubbling quicksand that the zombie sunk several feet into. The lopsided creature kicked forward, sending sand into the air as it stepped out of the pit as though it never existed. Tossing the ruined shield aside, Wilhelm hopped back to avoid a trio of hands prepared to rip him limb from limb. He swung with two hands against the reaching fingers, destroying three and twisting a fourth a hundred twenty degrees backward. The limb was still dangerous as a club yet slightly less fatal without the ability to grasp. Omah shouted once more, an earthen bear trap clamping down on the brute¡¯s calf. The attack broke skin, allowing oozing pus''s slow escape. The monster reached down and grabbed its mangled leg, ripping it free from the trap by degloving everything below the knee. Vile tar-like magic visibly pooled atop the bones to let the five-armed abomination stand. Wilhelm smiled, knowing a wound like that would slowly drain power until the foul creature depleted its fuel and returned to being a corpse.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Unfortunately, the brute seemed to recognize this fact as well and was determined to take two others down with him. With speed unbefitting its stature, it lunged at Omah, forcing Wilhelm to tackle her out of the way. They slammed into the ground, knocking the wind out of Wilhelm as the zombie stomped. Omah¡¯s foot was crushed as she screamed in agony, causing waves of rocky spikes to thrust from the ground into both Wilhelm and the monster. With large pillars stabbed through its chest and arms, the beast struggled to bring its strength to bear, unable to smash through the rock. Wilhelm was not much better. A spike reached up through his abdomen with the bloody tip visible on the other side. Struggling through the pain, he pulls a healing potion from his belt and drinks. He would probably live. Even if it still stood, the beast¡¯s death warrant was sealed. Omah stared at the ceiling, crying from pain, but another healing potion slowly soothed her. At least the fight was over.