cathfach

Unborn Hero Epilogue 5: The obligatory NSFW chapter

... Is on scribblehub, because this is a polite patreon and we'll not be having any of that filth here.

Unborn Hero Epilogue 4: Another Wedding

Attaching the image to this reminded me I haven't mentioned the magical girl designs for a while. Obviously, the remaining three haven't happened.The artist involved got sick, and while I was hoping she'd be back in time for the story ending, it's a bit late for that now. :(

Rose winced as a maid behind her tugged ...

Unborn Hero Epilogue 3: Another Day

"And can you believe it, Rrillandral and Dreobeth are in a relationship!" sent Kellela as she walked down a street on the outskirts of the capital, employing [Telepathy] to talk to Mystery. Or perhaps at Mystery would be a better description, given that she didn't exactly expect a reply. That didn't stop her talking almost endlessly, th...

Unborn Hero Epilogue 2: Another Artefact

Hayedalf was focused intensely on a chain of mythril beads, carefully engraving runes into each, when a buzzer sounded on his desk. A simple timekeeping device he'd crafted to ensure he didn't become engrossed in his work to the expense of all else. But he was almost done with the chain; only a few more runes to engrave, which would take less th...

Unborn Hero Epilogue 1: Another Ball

Rrillandral Lehibeborn sat in an unpainted wooden carriage, the wood a healthy brown with just a tint of green. It wasn't formed of planks or boards, but rather appeared grown, a single piece without join or seam, as if a tree had simply decided that carriage-shaped was the look it wanted to aim for. Not a single nail held it together.

The...

Unborn Hero Chapter 85: Aftermath

This is the final regular chapter, but there are 6 more patreon-exclusive epilogue/bonus chapters still to come that will fill out the rest of September. (#5 is NSFW, so will appear on discord like the other NSFW bonus chapters.)

Edit: Fixed the separators. That's 2 chapters in a row ...

2023-09-08 04:24:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 84: The Final Cycle

In the capital city of Flinel, a certain [Travelling Merchant] was trying very hard not to rub his hands together with glee. After having an entire caravan—pretty much everything he owned—destroyed by a rather unpleasant lion-headed demon, he'd come very close to bankruptcy. Thankfully, the kingdom had paid out some amount of compensation, b...

Unborn Hero Chapter 83: Dings

For witnessing the manifestation and destruction of the demon lord, [Soul's Eye] advances to level 48.
For successfully engaging in telepathic communication with a demon, [Telepathy] advances to level 23. Sorry, but no huge leap in levels for that one. You should have tried talking to the demon lord after getting stuck.
<...

Unborn Hero Chapter 80: Pocket World

Hayedalf swore as a large gemstone forcefully shattered, showering the room in crystal shards. Once the clattering had stopped, he lowered the arm he had protectively raised in front of his face, saw what little remained of his previous week's work, and swore again.

The exploding gem had obliterated the detailed mana circuitry he'd spent d...

Unborn Hero Chapter 79: Incorrect Conclusions

Kellela finished her day at work, walking back home through the evening streets. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't quite sure where the time had gone. Normally, she wouldn't mind that; time seemed to draw out further the more boring the task, after all, so losing track of it during the day implied that she'd found something interesting ...

Unborn Hero Chapter 78: Vale of Dreams

Rrillandral leapt from tree to tree, none of her enemies able to pierce her [Stealth]. It was her best, highest level skill; her desire to maintain a youthful appearance heavily limited what she could learn, and most of her budget had been spent on its sub-skills. Alas, that meant that while her enemies couldn't see her, there were limits to wha...

Unborn Hero Chapter 77: Lost Memories

Rose sat on the dusty, frozen ground, cross-legged. It was cold, but it also wasn't real. She damn well wasn't going to let a dream give her frostbite.

"Okay. What do I know? That this isn't real. It's a dream of some sort. I know I am Rose, an adventurer, and I was travelling to Karn's Vigil with my parents to answer a c...

Unborn Hero Chapter 76: Wedding

Grace took a few deep, calming breaths as she stood outside the main doors of the temple. Or at least, she tried to. Her corset meant deep breaths were not currently a feasible option, so she settled for a few slow, shallow breaths instead, which just led to her feeling breathless, which in turn led to a burst of hyperventilation.

"Control...

Unborn Hero Chapter 75: Stolen Bonds

Rose peered up at the black sky, shivering in the cold, violet sunlight. "Drat, not again," she complained. "I don't even remember falling asleep!"

She looked around, spotting the same mountain range in the distance, still looking like a row of teeth. In retrospect, that was probably symbolic of something, this place being the metaphorical...

Unborn Hero Chapter 74: Demon Lord

Since time immemorial, the cycle had repeated itself. As any [Spell Forger] would attest, mana had a life of its own. It responded to conscious thought, picking up ideas and images, bringing imagination into reality. What, then, of the unconscious thoughts? The nightmares conjured by a sleeping mind? The overactive imagination of a chil...

Unborn Hero Chapter 73: Last Stand

Not sure what to make of the windows 11 narrator. Yes, it sounds more natural than windows 10 (assuming I'm willing to tolerate an american accent - the british versions are no better) and it seems to cope better with homonyms, but I'm not actually finding any typos with it... Somehow, I doubt I've suddenly gained the ability to write p...

2023-07-28 05:03:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 72: Upgrades

Last weekend, I finally replaced my ancient 8-year-old desktop. On the bright side, I now have a boot/application drive that's bigger than 256GB. On the downside, everything has changed! Why is libreoffice saving in utf8 now rather than ascii, with &xxx; entities for anything outside of the 7-bit range? (Which, I suppose, also makes...

2023-07-25 05:17:27 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 71: Running Interference

"I can't believe she chopped Rose's hands off," thought Mystery, as she watched Grace trying to repair the damage. "That's some serious badassery, but really not proper magical girl behaviour. Not that I know what proper magical girl behaviour should have been in that situation. Probably some spiel from Grace about how she would never l...

Unborn Hero Chapter 70: Fleeing

Dreobeth found himself significantly vexed. Much thought had gone into the design of the hero's prison. Certainly more than Xander had offered, who simply wanted to kill everyone except the pink one, then chain her up somewhere. The idiot hadn't even thought far enough ahead to plan how to feed her. Yes, his suggestion of imprisoning the [Hero] ...

Unbound Soul Side Story: Goddess

In the ruins of one world, a dungeon gave birth to another. The unlikely chain of events that led to that outcome could almost be described as a miracle, if not for the lack of divine intervention. Instead, the fail-safes and adaptability built into a gigantic computer combined with the emotions and will of a form of artificial life that should ...

Unborn Hero Chapter 62: Entry

Approaching the southern border of the demonic forest, a group of slimy blobs watched their escortees with interest. They had been ordered to gather whatever information they could, after all. Every empire, kingdom and republic on the planet wanted to get their hands on the magic with which the Flinellian [King] had earned a legendary achievemen...

Unbound Soul Side Story: Monsters

With the unwavering craftsman side story finished, today and next Monday will be occupied by Unbound Soul. (Next week's isn't a continuation of this one, though.) For July, I'm not intending anything in the Monday slot; I want to get An Unprepared Castaway world-building and plotting properly started, and start building up a backlog for...

2023-06-19 05:01:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Unborn Hero Chapter 61: Overwhelming Victory

A young (apparent) girl in blue spat out a stream of very unladylike swearwords as he dodged out of the way of a stream of fire. "Will someone shoot that bloody thing out of the sky!" he yelled.

"I think they're busy with the other one," replied another apparently young girl, glancing back towards the rear line where a second dragon was st...

Unborn Hero Chapter 60: Twig

Blessed of the Forest (Common)
Only a blessed few are permitted into the core of the Vale of Myllearn to view the forest's beating Heart. You may now count yourself amongst that number. The bridges between mana and vitality are made clearer to you.

"Again?" complained Mystery to herself. "If it's only the 'blessed few'...

Unwavering Craftsman: What if Damien turned around? (End)

"Shall we continue to Grungle?" asked Gaia, buoyed by the combined faith of humanity as the pair stepped back into the world below, where a panting Kari had finished raising the dead of Kakkerxat's formerly coastal city.

"No," answered Damien. "He won't interfere further than he has done. He is waiting for me, but I will never come. His vi...

Unborn Hero Chapter 59: Tempting Fate

In a room far outside of Flinel, a group of zycrians sat on granite slabs, arranged in a neat circle around a mushroom-shaped arrangement of limestone. Panels of marble made up walls, floor and ceiling, with open, glassless windows providing a view out onto the stone city below.

Or maybe 'stood' would be more accurate than 'sat'. It was ha...

Unborn Hero Chapter 58: Rehabilitation

Across miles of the border of the demonic forest, spanning the area around Karn's Vigil, ten-thousand members of the Flinellian army waited. They were accompanied by the adventurer volunteers, lined up behind a wide moat and abatis.

"I feel ridiculous," said Platus, trying for the hundredth time to push his petals down. Just like the previ...

Unwavering Craftsman What if Damien turned around? (Part 12)

Grace's guards were no happier about the flesh cave than Shigeo, but none let that stop them, and the group were soon racing towards Jurelli. Grace's group were back on their giant eagles—which had been rather happy at the flesh cave, at least until their tamer stopped them from trying to eat it—while Damien and Shigeo travelled by ...

Unborn Hero Chapter 57: Skit

"Uhh... No offence, but shouting out what you're about to do before you do it sounds like a terrible idea," pointed out Rose. "Even against dumb monsters, it would kill your reaction time, but giving intelligent demons a heads up on your plans would be suicidal."

The party of magical girls—which for some reason included half a d...

Unborn Hero Chapter 56: Motivation

Royal Corrupter (Epic)
There previously hasn't been an achievement for distressing people by forcibly dressing them up in outlandish outfits, else you would have earned it ages ago, but your latest effort was so completely misguided, so utterly lacking in judgement, that we couldn't help but invent one for you. We considered a va...