Stormblade C8: E-Rankers (1)
8 - E-Rankers (1)
The bulletin hit my phone two days later. I got messages like it all the time, but most were requests for a single role, or for a high-ranked portal than I ...
2025-06-16 13:02:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Chris Huisjen posts
Stormblade C7: Stormsteel
7 - Stormsteel
Ten minutes in the shower to clean off the crusty, stinking, dry sweat that covered me. An hour to move the couch I’d accidentally crushed down ten flights o...
2025-06-16 13:01:15 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C6: The First Step
6 - The First Step
I’d been wrong.
Jessie was sobbing. But they weren’t tears of joy. Sometime in the last four days—or the last two hours, she’d gone ...
2025-06-16 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C5: You Deserve This
“… In other news, A and S-Rank delvers from the Coyote Guild report no changes in the ongoing portal break deep within Carlsbad Caverns. The Coyote and Iron Falcon Guilds continue their watch o...
2025-06-15 20:30:49 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C4: A Rock and a Hard Place
Jeff gritted his teeth as tree branches sheared off on his shield’s edge and rained down on his helmet. The shock from the Misbegotten Ogre’s roar had worn off, but the blow forced him onto one...
2025-06-14 21:54:13 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C3: D-Rank Magic
It took Jeff a minute to explain all the agreements that he’d made to get a full team together. He and the rest of his usuals had agreed to forfeit their chance at the core, but it’d be up for ...
2025-06-13 00:11:57 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C2: You're No Fighter
We were trapped.
Jeff and the archers pulled themselves together quickly. They started searching, just in case we’d gotten pushed away from it by the goblin swarm. But I knew what was happe...
2025-06-10 22:12:17 +0000 UTC View PostStormblade C1: Extremely Hazardous
Hello patrons,
I've got something new cooking, tentatively titled Stormblade (though that may change as I figure out my marketing). Right now, I imagine it'll hit Royal Road sometime in the n...
2025-06-09 13:21:48 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Series Epilogue
It's bittersweet to say goodbye.
But this was always how things were going to end, and that's the Truth.
I hope you'll stick with me, or alternatively, give my R...
2025-06-06 12:50:46 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter 38
Alice is the smartest person I know.
Sora’s a genius.
And I’m willing to destroy the world if it means we can win.
The equation goes like this: if X is the number of different...
2025-06-02 13:37:45 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Seven
I’ve only survived a double disconnect in Knights of the Apocalypse ranked play one time.
I was playing Sunburst. The only person who didn’t disconnect was on Cobra Kyra. And, for some re...
2025-05-30 13:03:26 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Six
My final merge started at 11:48 AM on the West End High soccer field, in the middle of my big sister’s valedictorian speech.
It’s going to end a little over a month later, one way or anot...
2025-05-26 13:31:06 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System Chapter Thirty-Five
Before she was into architecture, Sora wanted to be a marine biologist.
On my trip to Ucluelet, I bought her this plastic orca, about as long as my arm. She loved that stupid killer whale, ev...
2025-05-23 13:08:05 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Four
Sidney fought with all his might.
But the system—not the Halcyon System, but the vague echo of it that he’d brought to life for only a handful of seconds—pushed every computer and micro...
2025-05-19 13:54:48 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Three
Mrs. Lightsen insisted that we read The Canterbury Tales.
That it was a ‘great classic,’ and that we’d ‘get a lot of understanding of both the medieval and timeless human experiences...
2025-05-16 13:06:38 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-Two
I hate putting together teams.
It’s too much like group work.
And, being completely honest, while I want everyone to be happy and get along, I’m not good at making that hap...
2025-05-12 13:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty-One
Candyland. Monopoly—the junior version. Checkers. Chutes and Ladders.
We used to play a lot of games. I don’t remember the specifics, but it’d just be Alice, Mom, Dad, and me. Sometimes...
2025-05-09 13:05:26 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Thirty
James had been expecting it for almost half an hour.
So when it finally happened, he wasn’t surprised.
He’d come to terms with it almost instantly. The data was pretty clear; he kne...
2025-05-05 13:19:32 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Nine
I know now that it couldn’t have been okay.
But it took a long time—and literally reliving it—to realize that truth.
To get there, I had to struggle for a decade with wha...
2025-05-02 12:54:27 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Eight
James’s route was less than ideal for everyone except James.
He hadn’t wanted to send Claire and her sister on a wild goose chase through a pile of realities. It wouldn’t h...
2025-04-28 13:08:35 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter 27
The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round, all through the town.
The ride from Ten Mile Point to Albert Head was only like fifteen miles. It shouldn’t have taken over an hour. But it d...
2025-04-25 13:20:37 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Six
We never traveled much as a family.
When I was little, we did—a little bit. It wasn’t affordable then, but Mom insisted on getting back to eastern Canada. She was from Ontario, so we visi...
2025-04-21 13:17:25 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Five
No plan survives contact with the rest of a group project.
That’s the Truth.
Capital T.
I hated group projects in school. Even when Sora and I worked together, there was alw...
2025-04-18 12:54:46 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Four
Victoria, British Columbia - June 22, 2043, 3:40 PM
- - - - -
Watching Claire murder her way through packs of anomalous whatever-they-were wasn’t exactly exciting. 2025-04-14 13:09:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Halcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Three
SHOCKS Olympia Administrative Wing, Washington, USA - June 22, 2043, 6:13 AM
- - - - -
It’s not as easy as simply syncing Sidney and the JAMES Unit.
For one thi...
2025-04-11 13:31:23 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-Two
Almost every Knight in Knights of the Apocalypse Three uses a weapon. Swords, spears, axes, guns, bows, or more exotic stuff. Stuff I only see in really bad movies.
But a couple of them don...
2025-04-07 13:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHalcyon System 3 Chapter Twenty-One
Thank you all for your patience. It's been a good month, overall. I'm not quite 'on pace' for 2/week posting, but since I have a pretty decent backlog now, I think we can make it work until the...
2025-04-03 13:25:54 +0000 UTC View PostVoltsmith B1 C69: Two Paths You Can Go By
“They’re a bunch of Mages,” Calvin said. Power swelled around us as Voril prepared to teleport us to three different places at the same time—even at her power level, magic like that took ti...
2025-03-21 12:54:59 +0000 UTC View PostVoltsmith B1 C68: Your Stairway Lies on the Whispering Wind
My vision—my senses—all returned in a rush. When they did, I was no longer in the boss’s room in the Seared Wilds Tower. I stared at the fading afterimage of the words I’d been reading, hop...
2025-03-20 12:53:20 +0000 UTC View PostVoltsmith B1 C67: Can You Hear the Wind Blow?
The Tower Guardian didn’t dash into battle. She obviously could; her body looked strong and fast, even with all the armor. But she didn’t. She simply walked toward me, staff glowing so brightly...
2025-03-19 13:12:06 +0000 UTC View Post