Josephine

There ain't no rest for the wicked. And new mods don't grow on trees. But it seems enemies do. Gaining power in Artem is hard, but keeping it can be harder. With their budding new corporation and expanding gang territory attracting covetous eyes, the battle is just beginning for Oshbob and Unara. And while it's sometimes hard for an orc to accept, violence isn't always the answer. Oshbob and his band of loyal followers are going to have to be smart and play the game if they're to survive what's coming.

Randidly Ghosthound is not having a good week. In his chest, a mad woman's bitterness pushes his Soulskill closer to an incendiary implosion. Out in the wider world of Tellus, he was ambushed by a Wight Propagator and left in a holding chamber to await a miserable fate. He has been left in darkness, with an unknown fate hanging over him. But even drained of Mana and Stamina, Randidly has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Juniper Smith is finally starting to feel at home in this new world. Everywhere he looks are familiar pieces of the game worlds he used to make back on Earth. The last druid has died, and with her, a rare and precious magic is slowly seeping its way out of the world. The ritual to bring her back as an infant only requires a little messing around with devils and simply hacking the game system on his soul, which is practically routine, but to speed the process along will be another matter entirely.

Ruwen wants nothing more than to relax in the Third Secret and recover from the terrible damage to his core. Escaping the ambush in the Infernal Realm had come at a steep cost—one that means no Spirit use until he heals. Unfortunately, rest is one more thing that needs to wait, because the Bamboo Viper Master’s trial started days ago, and not participating results in the purging of his Step knowledge. Not something he wants to risk.

Juniper Smith was always a creator of worlds rather than the one who walked within them…until now. Somehow, the tables have turned in the most dramatic way possible. Juniper finds himself in a world filled with the wildest fantasies a mind could come up with, and his fingerprints are all over it.

Think you've had a bad day at work? Marcus definitely takes the cake. First, he had a horrible customer during his shift. Then he got fired by his boss. And after that, he got shot to death during a robbery. To top it all off, he awakened within the body of a weak and strange creature in a fantasy world full of deadly monsters. And that's just Monday!

Overwhelmed by a shift to a "normal" life, Nate is under pressure to make friends. Rejoining the immersive fantasy game Fair Quest seems like his best option. But the game has changed, and many players are taking what is going on more personally. Will the return of the Kingmaker winner send shock waves through the game, even as he's trying to avoid attention? Find out in The Rise of Chess.

Morgan Mackenzie had a very bad day. First at work, then at home, and then her bathtub fell through a portal to another world, with her in it. Now she's stuck thousands of miles from any sort of civilization with nothing but the bathtub and a lace puffball scrubby. But she learned magic, so that's sorta nice. Now if only she could find some clothes....

Noah didn’t expect much from entering the virtual reality world of Asgard’s Fall. Even the danger of the experimental full immersion technology didn’t put him off. It beat living in a nursing home, and it was supposed to let him feel young again...at least until modern medicine and his body gave out. But there was something wrong with Asgard’s Fall. Most of the time, the “gods” running the game didn’t act like AIs were supposed to. Some of the players took things too seriously, like they knew something about the game that Noah didn’t.

The city of Celum is not much like Liscor at all. While Erin is surrounded by familiar, human faces, she’s far from home and without her inn. At the same time, a certain ill-tempered Lyonette is squatting in Erin’s inn, and Goblins are on the move. The Goblin Lord’s threat reaches across the entire region, and the Redfang tribe has rallied against him with the Floodplains tribe, although their Chieftains do not agree on some crucial matters. This winter, there is only snow, Goblins, magic, and iambic pentameter.