TWILIGHT'S DAUGHTER: A Fantasy Horror excerpt

[GLKnight]

Figured I'd share a bit of what I've been working on, in regards to my more mainstream material. This is partly why it's been taking me longer to work on my more strictly muscle women related stuff.

SYNOPSIS: Three thousand years after the gods killed each other and threw the world into chaos in an event dubbed The Divine Madness, the world has somehow survived. Though not as it once had. Evils still plague the world. The lineages of the world march on. Magic is still abundant, some dare say more so than three millennia ago. And nothing is ever easy. In this setting, a party of five work to get by:

A human Shadow, able to turn a curse into a boon by sheer will.
A half demon Fire Shaman who claims his flail holds the heart of a dragon.
A member of the golem-like race called Synthets who seeks to make the world's greatest cannon.
A giant half elf, born from the union of an Elven queen and a dead god. One of the last demigods in existence, a thing that should not be.
A human mage of incredible talent who hides a terrible secret, husband of the demigod.

When the five are given a job to recover something from the hands of a vampire regent, what none of them expect is to stumble into a dark plot involving dead gods, horrific cults, terrible secrets and the one thing all souls both living and dead fear: the boundary to The Void, a swirling outer dimension of madness and corruption, beginning to tear. What is causing the walls of reality to fray and fall? And can the heroes do anything to stop the source of this unspeakable evil?

IN THIS EXCERPT: Hired to discover the source of a series of disappearances in a village, the human mage, Davrick, accidentally led a horde of The Unclean, a type of pestilent dead, to where they were staying in the middle of a torrential downpour. After an accident involving half demon Corvis' flail strking Davrick mid-casting of a Wave Of Decay that nearly struck their friend, Arnea the Synthet, the trio take a moment to relax. The problem is that they forget that moments are fleeting...

EXCERPT:

    “Well,” Arnea calmly began as her arms became aglow again and with a pushing motion, willed the mud to lift their hotheaded friend onto his feet again. “That seemed to work.”
    Davrick could only nod in agreement from where he lay. That last spell ate away the last stores of energy he had before exhaustion broke through the adrenaline from the start of this shitshow. He could barely feel the slowly subside, and with the echoing rumbles of a hungry chaos, ceased the storm’s attempt to drown the village.
    “I think,” Davrick panted between breaths, weakly lifting his arm and pointing to the sky. “A hot bath… Is in order!”
    Corvis stretched his arms with a groan, rolling his shoulders as his voice crescendo into a shout before shaking his head and letting his black and red hair dance like flames on the night’s wind. Arnea decided to use this lull wisely, dispatching the remaining dead she has trapped in the mud with a swift kick to their head, like a macabre game of soccer of which she was the only player.
    “Now,” Davrick called out, opening the rest of his hand. “Would someone kindly help me up? This mud is cold, and my legs are not willing after I won that footrace against my hungry competitors.”
    Being the closest to him, the Duatan shaman shrugged his shoulders with a smirk and grabbed his friend’s hand.
    “I got ya, brother. One, two, three…!”
    Both Corvis and Davrick grunted from exertion, the mage’s dead weight making it that much more difficult. But with each quick moment, progress was made in getting the heavy set man up.
    “We should report to the head of this village so he may-”
    The sound of yowling and hissing and screaming broke through their respite, and before they knew it, they were set upon again. This time from behind as the horde was on them, having split off to get around the entrance barrier. Corvis spat out a curse, unceremoniously dropping Davrick back on his ass as he cursed in kind, quickly spinning his censered flail and starting the fiery dance once more. Arnea immediately turned to face the horde, her sapphire arms glowing brightly as the filtered light danced off of her golden wire hair and emerald eyes. But that was when she noticed that, rapidly running down the road, a distinct figure cut across the landscape to the rescue.
    “Hold them, my friends!”
    All at once, the horde jerked to a stop, as if something had suddenly taken hold of them. Twisting and turning and fussing and fighting, they struggled. But no matter what they did, something had restrained each of them. Giving the person who had called out enough time to reach the three.
    Davrick lifted his head to look at who had arrived. Their rich, dark brown skin. Their frizzy hair tied back in a loose ponytail. The warm smile. The feminine figure. The dark browns and blues of a professional Shadow. Only one person he knew fit that description.
    “We could have used your help here earlier, Deerah!”
    Chuckling to herself, Deerah put her hands on her blades on her hips, taking a relaxed stance unphased by Davrick’s exhausted outburst.
    “Everything is well in hand,” Deerah replied. “So let’s pick you up and-”
    With a frenetic flurry of impulse, one of the revenants, reasonably tall and with the powerful build of a troll, sensed a lapse in the grip of whatever had taken hold of it. And before anyone knew it, the thing jumped at Davrick as if it was like an arrow aimed straight at the prone mystic, scrambling to escape. But when he felt the stone wall of the building against his back, Davrick knew he was facing death. So with nothing left, he closed his eyes and screamed as the creature leaped at him.
    The sudden sound of groaning wood, and the feeling of something heavy swinging past his face shocked him out of his panic. Opening his eyes, Davrick watched as his assailant soared away from them. Tumbling and spinning in the air, the broken beast rocketed out of the borders of the village before striking a gigantic tree over a kilometer away, the pieces of the body tumbling to the ground followed closely behind by the treetop itself. A spark of hope warmed his heart as he turned to look up at his savior. From where he lay, the sun framed her perfectly. Her dark hair soaked from the rain. The power she radiated holding the cart that served as their gate. The way her soaked clothes clung to her, hinting at the unnaturally large and powerful physique beneath them. The way she seemed to fill the sky with her presence, made taller still from where Davrick lay. Her bright amused smile that gave away her thirst for conflict, and the fire for battle glinting in her eyes.
    “Thea,” Davrick cheered. “Thank the gods!”
    Upon the calling of her name, the elven giant’s fury melted as she dropped the cart, nearly landing on Corvis despite easily dancing out of its way with “Watch it!” and a grumble, before holding Davrick tight, quickly lifting him off the ground like he were a sack of cloth.
    “By the stars,” she warmly cooed, a look of relief etched on her face. “You are alright! I heard your scream, and feared the worst, and I saw it in the air and I-”
    Davrick lovingly placed his hand on her chin and cheek, framing her pointed ear between his index and middle finger, causing her to reflexively nuzzle against his cold palm. A movement he knew always reassured her that things were alright.
    “It’s going to take a lot more than some reanimated corpse to kill me, it seems.”
    “I will make sure of that.”
    She gently slipped her fingers into his hair, and without hesitation, kissed her husband. Neither one resisted the other and gave themselves a moment of passion before Thea broke from it, and keeping her eyes closed, put her forehead against his with a smile.
    “Promise me,” she insisted, her eyes filled with tears as she opened them. “Promise me not to let yourself be in harm’s way like that again! I don’t want to lose you so needlessly.”
    He stared into her eyes, and lost himself to the glow of the blue rings within them, shimmering with some secret light that felt like home to him.
    “I promise,” he replied warmly. “I won’t put myself in harm’s way needlessly.”


________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


I do have commissioned art related to the story (four of the five heroes, as well as some antagonists and one monster, though everything past the heroes is a bit spoilery). So I can post that if people want.

[GLKnight]

You know what? I'm gonna post an excerpt from Chapter 03, as well. Another scene of Thea Leh Rühk, the 7 foot tall, muscular Elven Demigod Blood Singer (aka Berserker) that you guys might like. As well as a pic I commissioned of Thea, to give you guys a clearer picture of what she's like.

IN THIS EXCERPT: After the fiasco that was their last paid job, the party has made it back home to Mersail Laketown in order to get back to the Verrima Guild hall and get paid for three days of labor and one day of a shitshow that was the fallout from the local village after Thea and Corvis were revealed to be hiding who they really were. As they enter town, the party came across a parade of dour celebrants who gave both Davrick and Thea a very uncomfortable feeling. Once back at the guild, they are reporting what they went through when an incident happens in the hall.

EXCERPT:

    Suddenly, a woman’s voice broke through the reverie of the hall.
   “Let go of me!”
   Thea turned on her heels, noticing that Tadja, the new attendant for the tavern, was surrounded by five men.
   “Don’t be like that,” one of them told her. “We’re just wanting to spend a little time with you!”
   “Are they guild members?”, Thea asked, coldly.
   “No,” the old man told her.
   “Go easy on them,” Davrick told her. “Don’t harm them, but don’t hold back on putting them in their place.”
   An evil smile spread across Thea’s face.
   “You always know the right things to say to get me in the mood, my love...:”
   As Thea quietly walked over to them, Tadja kept trying to break free from the band of five that were accosting her.
   “You must be either a member invited or placing a work order to be in the Guild tavern,” she shouted, trying to push her way through. “So let me go and let me-”
   With a slap to her face to silence her, one of the men, a doughy, balding man forcefully grabbed her hair, pulling out a knife and holding it up to her face to make sure she could see it.
   “Here’s how it’s going to go,” he told her. “You’re going to join me and my friends, you understand?”
   Not really paying attention, the bastard was blissfully unaware as a large figure loomed behind him, drawing the attention of his compatriots and the woman he was holding hostage.
   “Now, stop your damn whining and keep my compan-eeEEEEE-”
   As the man’s words devolved into an incredible squeal of pain, the tavern all watched as Thea lifted the man high by his groin, squeezing his balls with enough force to make sure he would be feeling some degree of discomfort for a while. His legs dangled as he sat there in her hand, in far too much pain to even utter a sound.
   “Are you alright, Tadja?”
   “Y-yes,” she replied, caught off-guard with the ease that Thea seemed to lift the heavyset man. “I’ll be alright.”
   “Good,” Thea said, smiling. “Tell Marius that I would like two roasted boars prepared in honey and Drüshic spices and various root vegetables for dinner tonight after sundown. Oh! And tell Jovas that I would like my favorite cider on hand, too! Two… No, THREE! Three small casks!”
   Tadja nodded before running off, leaving Thea with the matter on hand.
   “Just you and me, now!”
   Walking confidently towards the entrance, she bounced the assailant to make him squeal and cry some more. Feeling him shifting back towards her, the Elven demigod quickly slammed him into the top of the doorframe, hitting his head hard into the wall to prevent him from pulling anything. Stopping for a moment, she gave the man she had captive a cocky grin.
   “Can you swim?”, she asked him before stepping outside.
   As soon as she stepped foot outside, a majority of the people in the hall hurried to watch the show as Thea walked into the middle of the street.
   “I'll k-kill you,” the man muttered, barely conscious.
   “You didn’t answer me,” Thea replied. “Can you swim?”
   The bastard looked at her, trying to figure out what she was implying. But then he began to panic when he noticed her eyes.
   “You’re a D-Divi-”
   With a massive windup, Thea’s arm whipped forward, sending the assailing bastard sailing through the air and over the lake. His high pitched scream was as loud as a Feryot Gull during mating season as he made good distance before landing in the middle of the lake near the boundary between fresh and saltwater three miles out.
   “If you’re his friend,” Thea called out. “I’d go rescue him! It’s almost time for the Dragon Sharks to start feeding, and your friend has a LOT of meat on his bones!”
   As the man’s party fled the tavern to rescue him, the whole Guild laughed at the spectacle they had just witnessed. They cheered and clapped as Thea walked back in, slapping her on the back or shoulder. As the crowd parted and went back to what they were doing, the barmaid she had just saved ran up to her.
   “Th-thank you,” she stammered, clearly nervous.
   “Not a problem,” Thea said, lifting Tadja’s chin with a smile.
   “Thea,” the old man called out, tossing her a bag of copper. “A bonus.”
   “What for?”, she asked, catching the bag without even looking.
   “Call it Security job pay.”

[BHIM-1965]

Welcome back GL Knight after a long time! 
How about some muscle mom and son stories!