Mecanimus

Changerling part 106: Instincts

It took almost half a second for the shock to wear off, and Nestra to understand the implications. And then it was rage all the way down.

“You f-”

And then just as it happened, her anger was pulled back by a conflicting set of instincts warring in her mind. Terror smacked her. It was him. And he was S-class. Sereth could shatter ...

Changeling part 105: Layer upon layer

The carriage passed the gates just as the sun set, coloring the pale walls crimson in an illusion of warmth. Temperatures had brutally dropped and despite her B-class body, Nestra still felt a light chill, her yellow dress affording her no protection. Naila’s manor boasted an inner garden as an extraordinary show of wealth and influence this d...

Changeling Part 104: Your Princess is in this Sewer

Makihel had picked a utility access ladder opening some distance away from an aqueduct as the safest way to her safe room. It had been torn open and the lock was now lying in two pieces against the far wall so Nestra had the confirmation Grook had been there. She dropped down the shaft, then sprinted along a dark canal made of dark gray bricks a...

Changeling part 103: Palace

The graying warden visited them the day after, flanked by four of his associates. His coming had been heralded by a simple knock and nothing else. In fact, Nestra was surprised to see five wardens in full armor queuing through the door and into their merchant suite while downstairs, unpaused music and laughs gave the scene a jarringly comfortabl...

Changeling Collections 6 - 8: 58 to 95

For your reading convenience. Now with fewer typos.

Announcement: delay and 108

So I posted the beginning of my next story and the reception was very encouraging. I am most pleased. Sadly, it cooked my brain so I can't finish Changeling chappie this week, sorry. I needed a little more time for planning anyway.

I'll be creating a new tier just for 108, however I cannot promise regular updates. So keep that in mind. 2025-09-30 14:15:14 +0000 UTC View Post

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 13: The Road Ahead

There are no new corpses this time. My emotions are both reset from the weird detached hermit life and dulled by the nature of this place, so suddenly I feel more stuff but all of it is muted. I think it’s good that it’s muted. I think I’d be screaming my fucking lungs out otherwise.

Chronos waits patiently at the edge of his seat, h...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 12: Seedlings

I have to say the barracks here are much nicer than I anticipated. I suppose generational wealth builds up over the eons, so I do my best not to gawp like an idiot at all the fancy wall decorations on soft wood panels I spot on the way. Very neat and proper, I like it. The attendant rushes down the corridor without looking back and I realize I w...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 11: The Year of Judgment

We rush back to the port amidst a chaos of fast-talking coms, blaring alarms, and panicking ships. Sethri leaves with anxious officials while the rest of the crew piles in a dockside bar, stuck to the nearby screens where the apocalypse is unfolding. We don’t remove our suits.

There is an unspoken agreement between us. If the station is ...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 10: Outlook of the Year

Working for Derelict is exactly what I was hoping for and it’s probably one of the most tedious, repetitive lifestyles I’ve ever experienced. And yet I don’t hate it. When we’re dockside, I spend most of my time either training in the gym, polishing my Kei-Sah or trying to get my soul perception under control. I’m not making much progr...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 9: Enderlithian

I think I’m at the stage where I need to rebuild my life. Oh, I’m going to lose it again before the year is done but that’s not a reason not to create a temporary home. The couple drag me to a bank where I change credits against scrips used by the local bazaar, apparently a currency accepted by local food banks run by Benevolence. The dock...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 8: Respite

Floating in the vacuum of space is an odd feeling, but I think the peculiar nature of the light is what I will remember most. With the distances unblurred, everything is both unknowingly far off and weirdly neat. The greenish planet still waits below us, red dots showing the embers of a long war. The Three Thrones war if I remember correctly. En...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 7: Derelict Operations

I can’t keep the datasheet, or access to my accounts but I can fill and keep the chip, which has a max capacity of 500 credits. Unfortunately, I find out that the robbers’ chips don’t contain credits but ‘scrips’ from a marketplace I have no intention of finding, at least not in this loop. 

I still have an assassin on my ass...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 6: A Future in the Present

“Wow,” I say, a little annoyed. 

Well, I’m annoyed on an intellectual level. It’s hard to feel truly angry when lacking hormone receptors. I feel my soul failing to latch on the other two, or at all really. This place really doesn’t exist.

“I think I was killed in a bomb blast,” I declare.

“Wine?” Chronos...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 5: Mercy

If I’m given the choice between monastic life and getting killed, fine, I’ll convert. Torl lets me shadow him all day long which simplifies things. From his emotions, I can tell he’s a little embarrassed, but also weirdly protective which makes my battered heart warm up. The rest of the male refugee monks are more distant, more dismissive,...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 4: The Great Escape

“FUCK!”

“More tea? Another blend.”

“Yes please but let me just do something real quick,” I reply to Chronos. “Excuse me.”

I rush to the arcade cabinet. There is something I must buy. It’s not about the experience I just lived through. Died through. Doesn’t matter. It’s for the future. I am absolutely certa...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 3: Beat the Unbeatable

This is not my flat. I fling my cup and press my hand against the panel. This time, the strange energy I feel flows more freely. It takes only ten seconds or so to activate the panel. Rush right. Spook the posh bitch heading home with my pedestrian unawakened slippers. Find the lift. Coax energy into the button, which is faster. It dings open im...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 2: The Rules

“FUCK!”

Leather chair. Chronos. Morag. Hills. Void. Two bodies.

I died again.

“I’m going to be very rude,” I inform reality.

“Coffee?” the time god offers.

“Fuck you.”

My insult slides off them like a splattered bee off a sports car’s windshield. They wait.

“I assume you guys must b...

Eternal Game of the 108 Chapter 1: Out of Time

Prologue

This isn’t my house. I was just turning because the kettle was whistling for me an instant before, and now I’m… somewhere else? I turn left to right. I see a door. White walls. I turn and this still isn’t my damn house.

“What the fuck?”

A flat spreads out around me, clean and empty. The light is on. The w...

Changeling Part 102: Least Convoluted Heavenly Plot

Twilight had come to the capital, the hour when law-abiding heavenlies ran their last errands before heading home. This part of the city sat at the edge between the light of tiny, specialized shops and the darkness of near-legal activities. Those locksmiths didn’t ask questions, Nestra knew. This wasn’t the worst part of the city yet so the ...

Changeling Part 101: The Heavenly Court

Makihel collapsed against a tree, her fingers brushing the ruddy bark with shaky excitement. Nestra had carried them to a nearby world of temperate forest and fields of distant pink grass. A light breeze cooled them despite the warm rays of a summer sun, in stark contrast to the midnight vista they’d left behind not five minutes before. Makihe...

Changeling Part 100: Siblings

Nestra was sneaking in a portal world.

It was a disgrace. It was also a sign of maturity but mostly it was a disgrace. Nestra was infiltrating the place without killing the sentries with all their delicious, delicious power. But alas. Alas. Big picture and all that.

She couldn’t afford to get caught. She was still simply t...

Changeling Part 99: In the Jaws NOW WITH FILES

Nestra’s plan to meet Sereth met the anvil of Ashii’s culture. The Aszhii abyss didn’t have a postal service. It didn’t have the internet, or messengers. More importantly, it didn’t have any unified etiquette beyond ‘mind your own damn business’. As usual, Karamahel knew what to do in this situation as one of the resident heavenlie...

Changeling Part 98: Ruthless Manipulations

I’ve been baited, Nestra thought to herself. The claw approached at great speed so she twisted on herself, then landed feet first. Despite the pain in her right flank, she forced herself to charge back in. The feathered lizard squawked and ducked which was just as well because she wouldn’t have landed a blow and was getting her ass ...

Calamitous Announcement: Much Bob.

Good news, everyone. Several news, in fact.

1) The final book of the Calamitous Bob is out on the Zon. The series is now complete and mostly error free. Mostly. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJGT5Z7M

2) In Kazar is now out, voiced by the...

Changeling Part 97: Shaping

Nestra followed Moon Dancer through a gate that hadn’t existed an hour ago. She had wondered how they would let her pick her quarters when the covens were all situated in the same plaza but it seemed that the space had just mysteriously been made. She wasn’t sure how it worked and was unwilling to ask since the explanations hurt her Euclidia...

Announcement: break!

I will be taking one month off from that day on to spend time with my family and plan. I will stop Patreon payments for a month so you don't need to do anything. Cheers!

EDIT: I edited the date out I'm fucking stupid. The date is the 23rd.

Changeling Part 96: Diplomatic Work

Nestra explained her cunning plan to get kero nuts back to Helena in the hope it would help with her condition. This led to a round of questions, but before Nestra could answer, the massive tiger Aszhii asked for a delay while she called people. Nestra dubbed her ‘Tigress’ with her approval because her real name was ‘RAAAAWRURR’ and Nest...

Changeling Part 95: Abyssal Realm

The acceleration gave Nestra vertigo. The part of her brain that dealt with speed was completely out of its depth. She just knew that it dwarfed even her flight to Switzerland when her plane had breached the stratosphere. By how much, she didn’t know. Her only consolation was that if they were approaching the speed of light, then time dilation...

Changeling Part 94: Stranger

Nestra woke up to the sounds of distant battle. She stood up in a rush, only to overshoot and almost plant her forehead in a branch. Her panicked brain latched on the relaxed shape of Sereth sitting in lotus position over a lush carpet nestled under a magnificent tent not ten meters away from her improvised moss bed. A fire burnt, carrying a pec...