《Cousin Miguel》Part 1
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"Derek!", Stiles yelled while slapping Derek in the face "Damn it, wake up!". He just balled his hand to a fist and moved it in the direction of Derek's jaw when suddenly a hand grabbed his arm. "Thank god!", he exhaled when he saw Derek's eyes open. "How long was I out? ", Derek asked. "I don't know", Stiles answered truthfully. "Where's Cora?" "I don't know" "Where is Scott" "I-I don't know, okay? He left with Deucalion! I couldn't make him stay. I am good for nothing. I couldn't save Scott, I couldn't save my dad and now Mrs. McCall is gone, too", Stiles eyes started to fill with tears. Derek slowly sat up. "It's all my fault, Derek. If I only had been in the classroom earlier..." "She would have killed you", Derek said. "At least one less problem for you I guess", Stiles mumbled. "Hey, don't talk like that", Derek said and lifted Stiles' face so he looked him in the eyes. Tears were running down his cheeks. "None of this is your fault you hear me?" Stiles looked to the ground, trying to avoid Derek's eyes. "None of it!", Derek repeated. Stiles nodded slowly, not truly convinced. "Remember when I killed Boyd and you told me the same?" "You didn't kill him, you were forced to do it", Stiles chimed in. "And you didn't kill anyone, you just weren't fast enough. But we still have time left. We can save him, you hear me? We will save him! I couldn't save Boyd but I will do everything I can to safe the Sheriff". "It wasn't your fault", Stiles told him again and looked him in the eyes. Derek remembered the first time he told him this.
(Flashback to when Boyd died)
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Derek felt a hand on his shoulder. Stiles' hand. He tried to breath but he wasn't able to. He heard Cora cry while she hung over the dead body of Boyd. Boyd, whom he had just killed. He felt as if he was about to faint. He just wanted to die. To kill someone of his own pack, was something he never wanted to do. They were his family. The only people who at least wanted to be with him. He let his head drop as tears found their way out of his eyes and down his face to the ground. Little circles formed on the water as the tears fell down. Lydia and Isaac came closer and tried to get Cora away from the body. Lydia took Cora in her arm and left the appartment. Isaac lifted the body, nodded in Stiles direction and left after them. "This is all my fault. I killed Boyd", Derek mumbled. "You didn't ", Stiles said although he wasn't there when it had happened. "You don't even know that", Derek said. "As much as you may hate to admit it, but I know you, Derek Hale, and I am 99.9 percent sure you would never kill your own pack, your family." Derek lifted his face to look at Stiles. "I didn't wanted to do it. Kali just threw him on my my claws and I...", he let out a shaky breath "I killed him". Stiles knelt to the ground right in front of Derek, kneeling in the water. "He may have died through your claws, but you didn't kill him, Derek! If I had a knife in my hand and you walked straight into it, it wouldn't be my fault either", Stiles explained and Derek nodded. "You're right. I still feel horrible", Derek said. "I would be concerned if you didn't. I mean part of your family just died right in front of you" "That's not really helping" "Uh....yeah ... sorry" Stiles stood up and pulled Derek with him. "Just remember it was not your fault. You can feel sad all you want, but don't feel guilty about it", he said and wiped a tear off of Derek's cheek. "Thank you", Derek whispered before leaving the apartment with him to search for the others.
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(End flashback)
"Look you can be sad all you want but you don't have to feel guilty", Derek said to Stiles. "Wow you actually listened to me and now you take my own advice against me", Stiles looked both, impressed and pissed. "It was actually a good piece of advice", Derek said. "What can I say, everyone should just listen to me and do whatever I say", he explained and smiled a little. Derek rolled his eyes. "There is good old Stiles again", he said and a hint of a smile was found on his face. "So where is everyone else?", Derek asked. "I think they left to go to Deaton. Cora wasn't well, well basically she didn't breathe at one point...", Stiles explained. "SHE DIDN'T WHAT?" "Woah calm down, I got her back to breathing, she was okay as they left". "You what?" "I ventilated her. She breathed as I left". Derek looked at him, eyes wide. "What? Should I let her die ?" "No, I...thank you". "You're welcome. So now we may save my dad. We got to find the others and then find out where this place is..." "We will. Okay now let's go", Derek stood up hesitantly. His powers weren't really good right now, his legs could barely hold him. Stiles looked at him as if he wanted to ask if he was fine. "I am alright, we are gonna save your dad now". With that they went into the parking lot of the hospital. Just as they were about to get into Stiles' Jeep Derek heard something. "What is it?", Stiles whispered. "It's Scott", Derek said just as Scott came out of the shadows. "Scott, I thought you went off with Deucalion to join his pack?" "Are you kidding? I have the best pack already, also I was just trying to find out his plan. But..." "But what?", Derek and Stiles said in unison. "Well let's say I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is Ms. Blake, Deucalion and Kali all killed each other in a rather short battle, so they are no problem anymore", Scott told them. "So what is the bad news then?", Derek asked but before Scott could say anything Stiles spoke up. "There is no one to tell us now where our parents are", he concluded and Scott nodded sadly, confirming his best friends worst nightmare.
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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Sam's life on Earth was dull and uninteresting, until something finally happened, he died. Now he has no life at all, as well as the misfortune of being ferried across the river to his destiny, by Death himself. Unsatisfied with his previous lot, and fearful of the fate that awaits him, Sam unknowingly bribes Death for another shot at living. But this new life is not like his old. Falling from the river, Sam lands in the realm of Vaelen. A world governed by the construct, a divine system that grants supernatural powers along with terrifying dangers to use them on. Gaining powers from the construct that are influenced by his brush with Death, Sam needs to find a way to both keep on living and ensure its not at the cost of his immortal soul.
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ATTENTION: Since I am currently not happy with the story so far, I have put it on hold for now and will restructure the story as well as adding more characters and story arcs. Most of the already written content will stay the same except for small detail changes. They will only be reorganised into the new content that will be added later. Thank you for understanding! Two run-away best friends who only had each other turned to crime to survive in a harsh and brutal world. In the middle of winter, a promise of treasure of an ancient civilization grabbed their attention, triggering a chain of events that would change their lives forever, and possibly end the world. Main characters: - Kiera Bloodcrest. A commoner young adult human who ran away from her abusive home. - Elynn Dorlana. A young adult princess, banished from elven lands to prove her worth once again among humans with notorious hatred for their kind. This story tackles sensitive subjects such as racism (against a fictional race), parental abuse and extreme violence. Read at your own discretion.
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Set in the city of Valeris, the Starlight Assassin is a fantasy adventure following a young man and his adventures with strange occurrences and people in the city. Dark things lurk around every corner; not everyone is strong enough to survive unscathed. Edit: Short Permanent hiatus. Author's note: Traumatizing content tag exists for creative freedom in future chapters and because I don't know exactly what content is traumatizing. Blood and swearing will be present. No sexual content whatsoever. I really have no idea how to sum up everything properly, and even if I could, I feel I would rather have you dive in without any expectations.
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In a world of swords and magic, two vengeful individuals form an unlikely alliance to achieve their ultimate goals. *** Ophiuchus has fallen. The clan lost its honor and status when the seventh-generation leader was executed for treason. Shu Yue, the scion of a declining, once-powerful clan, conceals her true identity in pursuit of power and revenge. Armed with her clan's secret martial art, a sharp wit, and a faithful fox-human servant, the ambitious heiress seeks to regain their former glory, even if it means making herself an enemy of the entire empire. An old rivalry resurfaces, and the battle for honor and glory begins. Another player emerges, a spirit beast named Liwei, whose presence changes the whole game. Whether he's a predator, prey, or companion, Shu Yue has yet to determine. One after another, players appear on the board, each with their own agenda to pursue.
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Year 1972
It was like any other day, people out riding their bikes, fishing and just having a great time. But that all changes when there was a gas leak that caused certain people to grow into massive giants. Join Riley a five year old girl who goes on an adventure of her life time to find her father. Well Riley find her father? Read to find out.
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