Hey everyone!
I just wanted to let you all know about an Instanovelette (Instagram-based novelette) that I'm publishing one illustrated chapter at a time at @SideQuestersNovelette.
It's a somewhat violent, somewhat irreverent, fantasy adventure with frequent forays into slice-of-life featuring the partnership between a Knight and a Ranger as they decide to hang-up their career as protectors of the realm in The Flame Guard and dedicate themselves solely to taking on the low-paying and supposedly low-stress life of side questing.
The first five chapters are already available to read and new ones will be posted fortnightly on Thursdays.
Check out the first chapter below!
He shook his head to clear it from the fall as he rose, first to his hands and knees and then to his feet staggering directly into a wobbly run.
His eyes refused to focus but he ran towards the sound of metal clanging against bone in the distance and hoped that he wouldn't run head-long into a gnashing maw of teeth and agony and bloody, ragged death. He could hear the familiar sounds of battle as swords scraped ineffectively against chitinous scales woven tight by nature into a near-exoskeleton and teeth scraped ineffectively against steel plates woven tight by human hands into a near-exoskeleton and the two creatures grunted and huffed with the exertion of their potentially eternal struggle.
His eyes focused more, the complete blackness receding slightly, but the fall when the beast had thrown him off had been taken largely by his head and left him with little more than a tunnel-visioned blur. Still, it was more than enough to make out a fifteen-foot tall dragon and an armoured knight, even if as nothing but a large, grey blur and an annoyingly shiny silver one that glinted painfully in the sun against his suddenly sensitive eyes.
“I'm coming in blind!” He shouted at the knight as he reached his hand out towards the ground in expectation, expectation that was met when he felt his hand wrap around the handle of some tool or other that a small shrub had suddenly sprouted forth with.
“Lock ‘im down!” He continued as he yanked the handle firmly, hard enough to release the heavier end from within the mass of vines it was tangled in but not hard enough to do deadly damage to the plant itself.