The Demon Lord has fallen. The Hero has his victory, at the expense of everything he fought to save. Bereft of purpose, he begins a journey through the uncharted ocean beyond his archipelago on a pilgrimage to the mythological Spine of the World. M I N I Mis an experimental short story where each section is divided in two. It can be read sequentially - consuming each section holistically - or chronologically - reading the first part of each section until the story's end and then reading the second part of each section in reverse.
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Cages
Stuart, a capuchin monkey, longs for the jungle. The iron bars of his cage sap his sanity day by day. The other animals around him have already slipped away, caught in their own misattributed hopes. But, when escape becomes possible, does the jungle grow closer or farther away? In this story inspired by the horrors of the primate pet trade, Stuart searches for solace amongst the madness.
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Arrows
Asher lives a normal, happy life with his father and younger brother, Adrian. Adrian has always been very weak and often gets sick. However, Asher is determined to help his brother have the best life he can provide him with. Asher, who is slowly recovering from the loss of his mother and learning to enjoy life through music, is one day suddenly bombarded by voices in his head- voices that he does not know. These voices, which are said to be the voices that even Hell could not contain, tell him that he has two options: either live with their torment forever or help them to cause chaos and destruction in return for assistance only they can offer.
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Don't Cultivate
A man who accomplished his promise, who also failed. A man who forgot his purpose, who also remembered. A man who sowed, who also reaped. This is the story about the tragedy caused by the flow of Time.
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Flame of the Immortals
The Dark Elveshave lived in the caves since before humanity walked the lands. The fire that kindles their long lives has been cursed, and soon they will know death. A human child apprenticed to these Fae has the ability and opportunity to stop this calamity. To purge the flame of immortals of its curse if he can survive long enough not to get eaten by the creature who cursed it. However, the struggle to live like the quest for immortality demands cruel payments. An original dark fantasy short story. Character centred and introspective.
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Respawn Condition: Trash Mob
[Every time I die, I respawn as a trash-mob at the very bottom of the dungeon. It's a rather troublesome existence, but honestly, I think I've managed to adapt, guy.] A lost soul is trapped at the bottom of what may be the world's deepest and darkest dungeon, constantly being reborn into the bodies of new monsters over and over again after every time it is forced to fight and die against the human incursion into the underbelly of the world, which is led by the unbeatable hero-party' who has never lost a single fight. However, unlike all of its other monster brethren, who suffer the same fate, this unnamed soul alone seems to remember each and every lost life and also each death in excruciating, painful detail. After an eternity of this cycle of violent reincarnation, something changes. The soul discovers a secret passage that it has never seen or heard of before in all of its hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. Making a desperate bid to fight against the crushing weight of continual death, it pushes out through this new way, climbing up to a higher floor of the dungeon for the first time, fostering hopes of an escape from this torture as it navigates the dungeon from the bottom up, using trickery, guile, and the capabilities of many wildly different bodies and repeating timelines to outsmart the dominating hero-party and the dungeon itself, which seems all too unwilling to let this trapped soul escape from its belly, deep in the underworld. What is the secret of the dungeon and the forced cycle of reincarnation? Will the soul be able to break free from this arduous, slow grind that is existence, or will it be crushed into madness from the pressure finally beginning to break its fragile mind? Find out in this ultra slow burning, litRPG inspired fantasy novel by renowned dark fantasy author D.M. Rhodes!