When a message appears in his line of sight, blocking out absolutely everything else, he nearly freaks out. The message warns that the world has been in a variant Natural Laws beta test for millennia and that it's about to revert to the norms.Deciding that even if he is insane, it's not going to hurt anything to try to prepare, he settles in to do so. Despite the atrocious lack of skill the System has with the English language, he manages to work his way through enough help files to get a clue of what's coming. After sharing his discovery with a few friends, they all start to prepare together.Once the change begins, the small group races to create a Safe Zone, an area where monsters will not spawn and where they can gather other survivors in an attempt to rescue as much of the town as possible. Along the way they discover that the new System can award classes that resemble those of the games the group has played, as well as magic for those capable of grasping it.With monsters spawning throughout the town, everyday animals being mutated into dangerous creatures, and a System that desperately needs English language lessons, they'll do their best to save as many of the local residents as they can.This story is approximately 155,000 words long and DRM free.

    When he finds out that he is a wizard, he tries to apply scientific principles to his study of magic, with sometimes surprising results.

    Ivan has an interface, a spear, and basic weapon skills. All he has to do to return to Earth is complete a simple quest and reach the second level. But experience points are only awarded for kills in this game, and the clock is ticking. Whoever doesn’t score within 24 hours will remain in the location forever.The game takes places in the ruins of a massive city, where the undead lurk in the central districts and the outskirts are raided by the descendants of past owners. The undead are strong, while the goblins rarely move around alone and aren’t worth much XP. The most valuable prey under these conditions are formal allies, i.e. the other players. If a player is capable of killing a fellow human, of course. Even if they aren’t planning to go against their own nature by murdering innocents, who said that they will have a choice? It’s kill or be killed!Those who complete the quest will be returned to Earth, where they can rest and prepare for the next attempt. Beyond the local objective is also a global one. In the center of the city stands a temple to a fallen god, and until one of the players captures the Altar, the mission will be repeated again and again. But when all you’re holding is a spear, your allies can’t be trusted, and resurrection is nearly impossible, this isn’t much more than a delayed death sentence…For the first seven players, who become the Earth Gods, this mission is a chance to rapidly gain power and take charge of a united Pantheon. A chance to escape death and protect our world from invasion. Although there is only one altar and the Gods make others do their work. Ivan must make a choice and decide whose pawn he will become. Or should he take a risk, refuse their patronage and keep his options open?

    The more he investigates this new world the more he realizes that it may just be able to offer him a lot more than the one he's been living in.However, there are forces at work beyond anything that Will has ever come across before and the local Goddess seems to have taken a liking to him. Will may soon find himself getting an offer he cannot afford to refuse.

    . . and I have killed it. It's a bloody business overthrowing a king...Field Marshal Tamas' coup against his king sent corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brought bread to the starving. But it also provoked war with the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics, and the greedy to scramble for money and power by Tamas's supposed allies: the Church, workers unions, and mercenary forces.Stretched to his limit, Tamas is relying heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be his estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty is being tested by blackmail.But when gods are involved...Now, as attacks batter them from within and without, the credulous are whispering about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods waking to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing. But they should...In a rich, distinctive world that mixes magic with technology, who could stand against mages that control gunpowder and bullets?

    For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

    The nobles are plotting another coup, the merchants are demanding political representation and a say in government, and the peasants are on the verge of outright revolt. Even the king is dangerously unstable as he grapples with the problems facing his kingdom. Everyone is preparing for war. It will not be long before all hell breaks loose. And when a deadly secret from the past resurfaces at the worst possible moment, Princess Alassa, one of Emily's closest friends, finds herself having to make a choice that will put her at the center of the storm and determine the future of the kingdom ... ... Or see everything she loves destroyed in the fires of civil war. Book 14.5 in the Schooled in Magic series.

    The only thing preventing utter annihilation is Edmund—a stuttering librarian who knows a secret, a secret that every thief, assassin, and king would kill to have. Fleeing from relentless peril, Edmund wages a solitary battle against an ancient evil. But how can one man succeed when so many before him have failed? (Dark Fantasy)

    Surrounded by spies and traitors, Maric must find a way to not only survive but achieve his ultimate destiny: Ferelden’s freedom and the return of his line to the stolen throne.

    Everyone else got a nice little message that showed up their vision. Everyone else woke up when the gods decided to make their decision known. Only Charles gets cursed by the gods, and only Charles gets a visit from one as well.The Game of the Gods has begun and the monsters of old are returning to our world, and all it took was the death of half the world's population and counting.

    For generations the rule of Marhavad’s kings has been absolute. But now the line of succession is divided, and whispers of revolution are heard in even the royal palace.Keshan Adaru, an outspoken man of unearthly charms, welcomes these changes. All his life he has foreseen an uprising that will shatter the castes and end the tyranny of the old laws. His visions have driven him but now, at the brink of their fulfillment, he finds himself obsessed with Prince Jandu Paran– a man whose entire family must be destroyed if the kingdom is to be freed.Tarek Amia would gladly see Jandu Paran brought low. Born the son of a charioteer, Tarek has no love for the royal princes who have slighted and insulted him all his life. Only Keshan’s philosophies have elevated him from the brutal ranks of common soldiers. Tarek owes Keshan his devotion, but he is a pragmatic man and when he discovers Keshan’s reckless affair he realizes that Keshan may have to be sacrificed for the sake of his own revolution.Young Prince Jandu Paran has never concerned himself with court intrigue. His life has been dedicated to the lordly art of archery and mastering the immense powers of the shartas. Handsome and arrogant, he is sure that no man can surpass him and yet Keshan Adaru’s mere touch brings Jandu to his knees. But his desire for Keshan is more than forbidden; it threatens to destroy Jandu’s pride, position and family. In the midst of this turmoil, an unspeakable event forces Jandu to redefine the meaning of honor and loyalty.And now, as armies arise to war, each man must decide where his allegiance lies and what he will sacrifice in his heart and on the battlefield.

    For hundreds of years the demons have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human herd that shelters behind magical wards—symbols of power whose origins are lost in myth and whose protection is terrifyingly fragile. It was not always this way. Once, men and women battled the corelings on equal terms, but those days are gone. Night by night the demons grow stronger, while human numbers dwindle under their relentless assault. Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors of vicious demon attacks will dare the impossible, stepping beyond the crumbling safety of the wards to risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. Together, they will stand against the night.

    Molly, her powerful and enigmatic lover, her fey granddaughter, and her young apprentice, soon discover that something terrible prowls the woods. As the group travels from refuge to refuge, it becomes apparent that the mysterious evil force must be faced and defeated - or else they will surely die. An intoxicating and spirited blend of fantasy, mythology, and history, Something Red features the most fascinating of characters including shapeshifters, Irish battle queens, Norman knights, Templars, pilgrims, Saracens, a Lithuanian noblewoman, warrior monks, strong - even dangerous - women, and ten murderous mastiffs, as well as an epic snowstorm that an early reader described as "one of the coldest scenes since Snow Falling on Cedars."

    At least, most of them. If life has taught the jaded sellsword, Aaron Envelar, anything, it’s that hope is for fools and causes are a sure remedy for breathing. But when his latest job leads him to the corpse of a prince and a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the entire realm, Aaron is forced to choose sides in a war he doesn’t want, between forces he doesn’t understand. Thrust into a world of mythical assassins, a madman with a superhuman strength, and a nagging ball of light with a superiority complex who claims to be the embodiment of compassion, Aaron takes on his hardest job yet—staying alive.

    Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.