Fiction
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 5
The mask was heavier than it looked. Tovik turned it over in his hands, feeling the obsidian glass flex faintly at his touch, an impossible pliability, like it breathed with him. Its surface shimmered faintly beneath the temple’s flickering glyphlight, catching motes of golden dust in its curves. The DuMonte crest etched in gold was no longer dormant. It glowed as if lit from within, pulsing gently with every beat of his heart, as though answering some ancient rhythm.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 190
Lisa Conway went to church. She didn’t know if it was some icy memory from years past that pushed her. She had remained secular in every way in her businesses and other dealings. She wondered if it was out of some duty to deities beyond the grasp of reality.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
The Tributary
The Tributary Sai Marie Johnson Chapter One 1994 Tara scoffed slightly. There was nothing more annoying than being lassoed with her younger sibling and cousins on the first day of Summer break. She rolled her eyes upon realizing that she wasn't going to enjoy the day reading to her leisure and somehow had to come to terms with how to entertain the brats under her direction.
By Sai Marie Johnson7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 189
With a width of ten feet and a height of nine feet, the wall with the cascading water and koi fish in her home seemed to provide Loreen’s sense of stability and ease of mind. She breathed. After her meeting with her mother, she needed to find solace in her place of work. She looked at the koi and heard the burbling of the water.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 4
The air beyond the gate was thick, not with dust, but with memory. It pressed against them in invisible waves, each step drawing deeper into a space where time folded and meaning unraveled. The corridor curved downward into the earth, its stone walls alive with ever-shifting glyphs. Elira watched them shift as she passed, each sigil reacting to her presence, some flaring briefly, others dimming like ancient spirits holding their breath, whispering old songs in a language of light.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 188. Top Story - July 2025.
Those moments where she could see her daughter gave her great satisfaction. Loreen Breen neé Brampton and her mother Lucy sat at the Mercier Hotel. Miss Brampton had lived her seventy six years of life in relative comfort. She possessed high cheekbones that looked taut and knocked off years. Through dying her hair, even more years fell away. She wore a navy blue blouse and a white skirt. Loreen donned a raspberry pant suit and a matching pill hat that looked like a dollop of white cream.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 3
The descent began at dusk, when the last light touched the horizon like a burnt wick. The mine entrance gaped like an ancient mouth, framed by rusted rails and reinforced with skeletal supports etched in a hybrid of old sigils and modern stabilizing glyphs. The surrounding earth seemed to lean inward, as if trying to reclaim the wound. The stone glimmered faintly, not with ore, but with veins of dormant light, pulsing softly to the rhythm Elira now recognized: not natural tremor, but echo-song. A buried harmony that tugged at magic, memory, and marrow alike.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 2
The next morning broke with a sky the color of old slate. Clouds churned above Hollowspire like a wounded beast trapped beneath the heavens, restless and clawing. The town sat under that bruised sky like a secret buried too shallow, its edges rimmed in blackened shale and the mine yawning open like a throat carved into the earth. Its scaffolds groaned under their own weight, reinforced with etched sigils that shimmered faintly in the shifting light. No workers moved among them. No carts rolled over the gravel paths. The mine was not abandoned, but it had long stopped belonging to the living.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 1
The road to Hollowspire twisted like a spine cracked too many times. Fog clung low over the dirt path, thick as breath on glass, curling between ancient trees that stretched like skeletal limbs toward a grey, overcast sky. Each step forward felt like trespass. The woods had long forgotten how to welcome strangers.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 185
Jury selection called for “Entrepreneur Paul” Atkinson to appear in court. He laughed. This presented one of the few times he actually wore a suit. A ten- thousand-dollar suit at that. Once he read through the letter, he had in mind both his timing and effort in applying his business acumen.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
