Seersucker

Penitent Ch 25: Every Man's Fantasy

Michael crouched down in a bush doing his best to ignore a thorny branch digging into his side. He knew that Davi and Pyotr were on the other side, dealing with similar discomforts as they waited. This was far from the hardest part, but it was the most annoying. Every other element of what they did was at least active, had some momentum, but waiting for the action, that was tough.

After what felt like forever, Ollie emerged from the cove...

Penitent Ch 24: Cause Chaos

Their eyes adjusted and they saw in front of them a young man sitting with a bright smile, perfectly coiffed brown hair, and soft gray eyes. He was sitting in a chair behind a crude wooden table, but sat up and offered his hand.

“I’m Lance, I’ll be in charge of you for the exercise.”

Michael, in the lead, grasped it firmly and shook it, his old office life training kicking in easily.

“Michael,” he said as Lance re...

Penitent Ch 23: Exercise Exercise Exercise

Michael as well as the rest of the irregulars, spent the rest of the week preparing for the upcoming exercise. There was additional instruction about how to ‘kill’ your opponents that basically amounted to wailing on them until they agreed they were down or harming them until they could no longer move. After that they’d surrender whatever colored rag represented their team. A number of soldiers would be walking in the midst of the exerci...

Penitent Ch 22: Punishment

After a few more weeks, Michael was looking at himself in the mirror. He took a moment to divine himself, and when he saw no changes and was unable to reveal anything new, he cleared it and instead looked at his face. His blonde hair was long, nearing shoulder length, and fell in waves on either side of his head. His eyes were piercing blue, and he had a strong jaw and fine features. He was as tall at that moment as he’d ever been in his old...

Penitent Ch 21: Pubescence

The next two weeks went about the same. Michael continued his diviner training, and gained more stamina both as a healer and also in general, his muscles, heart, and lungs recovering from exercise and exertion more quickly, meaning they strengthened faster. He maintained his top spot in physical conditioning, though he ceded his leadership in shield twice to Han who had an equal talent for it, but a smaller frame that made him less able to tak...

Penitent Ch 20: Ranking and Rest

At the end of the week, their first rankings went up. Michael had attained first in shield and overall conditioning. He thought his performance on the hill the other day was the reason for the conditioning award, but the shield was a very welcome surprise. His other rankings were middling, with his sword being the only thing of note sitting at fifth, but he was last in nothing. Ollie and the other mages obviously crushed in the m...

Penitent Ch 19: Sparring

Michael caught up with the rest of the group as they were being paired off. They were starting with sword and shield, which was his favorite pairing, and because he and Pyotr were the last two to arrive, they were paired together. They took some time to put on their lightweight boiled leather training armor that smelled of all the sweaty bodies that had worn them before and took their places in one of the small circles made of stones.

Py...

Penitent Ch 18: Grit

The next morning started similarly to the previous ones. The lights in the barracks went off, and everyone got up and got into their uniforms. Kline came in, and inspected everyone’s uniforms. If he found anything out of place, he would have them do some number of pushups, or squats. Michael had forgotten to close his collar and so had to start his day with twenty push ups. They weren’t too bad, his new body was in good shape. Then they we...

Penitent Ch 17: Incentive

The next few weeks everyone was moving more and more toward some kind of specialization with only a few exceptions. Ollie continued his mage training, with occasional help from everyone else when he needed to learn how to implement his spell during active combat. Marcus was always gone for large chunks of time, only to come back smelling of gunpowder. Pyotr and Davi did not gain any more specializations, but they excelled in combat training, e...

Penitent Ch 16: Old Dog, New Tricks

They arrived in the infirmary with their guard in tow. Meera did not shorten her strides or slow her pace as they walked so Michael had to effect a kind of half-walk, half-run in order to keep up with her. She was tall for a woman, though the people of Stent had so far seemed to tend toward the tall side in general.

Inside were the usual rows of beds, a few with the curtains drawn, and at the far end was the alchemy lab Michael visited e...

Penitent Ch 15: Divine

“Touched by divinity,” said Kline standing from where he’d been kneeling by Ollie. “And a healer at that.”

Ollie stood back up too, blinking and wiping some blood away on his sleeve. “Thanks mate, didn’t know you could do that.” He looked at Michael staring at his hand and flexing it. “Guessing you didn’t either?”

Michael shook a bit as the heat in his hand faded. He didn’t want to lose it.

“What?”...

Penitent Ch 14: Helping Hand

Kline pointed at Davi who’d had his hand raised for nearly five minutes. It had taken quite some time to earn another free hour of questions after what had happened with Xiu, but Kline had finally allowed another one that morning.

“Why don’t you have lots of guns?” he asked. 

That was a very good question, thought Michael. They had access to people from other worlds, and their society didn’t seem exactl...

Penitent Ch 13: New Flows

A month passed without anything else significant happening, and things fell back into routine. Wake up, treatment, magic, language, lunch, military norms, or quartermaster duties in Michael’s case, bushcraft, combat. As they started to gain greater mastery of the magic, language, and norms, more time was devoted to combat. This coincided with their physical growth from small, into large children. It made sense. There was less they needed to ...

Penitent Ch 12: Brand

There was one hour to sleep, which few of them in the barracks actually managed. After that they shuffled silently to receive their shots for growth, with Ollie receiving what looked to be a half or even one-third of the same dose as everyone else. After that they went to eat breakfast. There was no hour of questions, which was what Michael had expected.

Michael found it difficult to eat, images of children's bodies and the scream of the...

Penitent Ch 11: Reasonable

Michael snapped awake as the lights to the barracks came on. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around, seeing everyone else doing the same.

“What’s going on?” he asked Davi who was already pushing himself out of his bunk and onto the floor.

“I don’t know,” he replied, cursing a bit in Portuguese as he shielded his eyes from the light.

The barrack doors slammed open and more than a dozen soldiers marched...

Penitent Ch 10: Collateral Duties

One day Ollie was taken out of the barracks and not returned to the rest of the group until breakfast where he sat shaking his head and cursing under his breath as he bit into a biscuit.

“What happened?” asked Michael.

“I’m a mage. Or, I’m going to be anyway. This body’s parents both had high, but not mage level magical ability, and it’s manifested as high potential that I now have to deal with.”

“What’s d...

Penitent Ch 9: Routine

The next several weeks followed the same formula. They would wake up, dress, be inspected, get punished if they messed up, walk to the alchemist to receive the next injection, breakfast, magic, language, then lunch, Stent Military norms, bushcraft, and finally combat. As their bodies grew, the combat and physical training began to gain more intensity, though the focus remained on form rather than force. After almost a month of that, he was nea...

Penitent Ch 8: Q&A

Dinner was uneventful, but when they arrived back at their bunks, there were large packs on each bed as well as storage trunks at the foot of each bunk. They were told that they’d be wearing uniforms from this point on and they would be expected to take care of them. Each one was the same gray color as the other recruit’s uniforms and Michael could tell that they were well used, and probably too big for all of them. His assumption was that...

Penitent Ch 7: Magic

They were all in a classroom standing on stools at metal tables in a semicircle facing Kline and a man wearing the same uniform, but with a brown leather shoulder on his uniform rather than a black one. He was a bit younger than Kline, with a full head of blonde hair that was whiting at the temples and a gaunt face.

Kline took a deep breath. “I’m sure you all have a number of questions before you get started. I’m going to answer a ...

Penitent Ch 6: Dawn

They did bring them dinner, and showed them the facilities which proved that they had at least some form of running water, and assigned them to bunks. There was a heavy emphasis on making sure the bunks were neat, with the hint of severe punishment if they didn’t. The majority of the evening was spent talking to the others that could speak English about what all they had encountered and learned while being there. Some of the other groups pus...

New Story

As some of you may have noticed, I just posted the first five chapters of my new story, "Penitent" for all members to read. I'll be posting these same chaps early next week on RR, but thought you should all have a preview. I'll be uploading another 30 either today or tomorrow to have behind the new Penitents tier for anyone interested.

I hope you like it! And if you don't, I don't take it too personally. I know people follow stories, not...

Penitent Ch 5: Warm Welcome

Michael watched the man leave and turned back around to see that a few of the other lifetakers had approached him. One of them, a short blonde kid with a flat nose, stepped closest.

“Ni hao,” he said with a nod.

Michael shook his head. “I don’t speak any Chinese,” he said in English. The words felt very strange in his mouth, and were difficult to form. He hadn’t tried to speak a word in English since he’d arrived.

Penitent Ch 4: New Skies

The start of the trip to the Stent Military Academy was uneventful. The woman who’d been put in charge of him had little interest in dealing with him beyond making sure that he stayed alive until they reached their destination. She didn’t have much time for the other recruits either, though he noticed a distinct change in her tone and manner depending on which of them she was talking to. He wasn’t moved from the small bassinet he’d bee...

Penitent Ch 3: Learning, Guessing, Growing

Michael awoke in the very early morning, the fiery pain in his limbs having subsided enough at some point to allow him to fall asleep. He had a taste of some kind in his mouth which indicated to him that he’d been fed at some point in his sleep and he assumed he’d been cleaned as well. It was an indignity, but one that he’d been very familiar with during his stay in hospice care before he’d passed. He realized very quickly that his vis...

Penitent Ch 2: Drafted

Michael was left in a small crib with only the blanket he’d been swaddled in before he’d been taken on his first night. He couldn’t see anything in the room, having only the vaguest idea of the shapes that surrounded him, or when something was light or dark. He couldn’t turn his head, nor could move his limbs beyond weak flailing that pushed lamely against the blanket that covered him. He screamed and cried until he eventually fell asl...

Penitent Ch 1: Old is New

Michael was barely conscious. He had the vaguest awareness of a rhythmic beeping from his bedside, the fuzzy outline of a few people surrounding him, and the smell of lemon scented cleaner. The only thing that was crystal clear to him, was the feeling of Sara’s hand in his. He knew every crease in that hand. The scar on her palm from grabbing an overheated teapot, the painted nails just long enough to peek over her fingertips, and the many w...

Downtown Druid has Ended

Just a reminder, this patreon charges at the first of the month. If you'd like to give me a final 5 bucks I'd appreciate it, but if you don't please end your sub so I don't have to do any refunds. They're very tedious on this platform.

I'm going to be removing the 'Street Rats' tier either today or tomorrow to prevent new subs at that level.

Also, if you want to discuss the ending or tell me that it sucks and you hate me, ...

Book 3 Ch 62: A Binding, A Sacrifice, A Vow

There were no witnesses dreaming this time, just an empty street, two figures, a pile of ashes, and the sound of wailing. A man wearing a dark blue cloak dug his hands into the pile of ashes in front of him, raising them high and letting them gently slip through his fingers, a gentle wind carrying them through the narrow alleyways and darkened streets, he was frowning for the first time in a long time. Next to him, a green woman with blood red...

Discord is now available

Good morning,

I made a discord for discussing Druid as well as all of my other stories. Eventually it'll be limited to paying patrons, but since I'm making it toward the end of Druid's run I though I'd leave an open link to all patrons, free or not, for 7 days

Book 3 Ch 61: I Am This City

It was late morning when Gavain reached the edge of the city. Dantes first saw him through the eyes of a pigeon circling just outside the main gate. He looked different from the last time he’d had seen him. He still had a spear at his back and wore the segmented armor he’d seen before, but now his face that had been blemished by a single scar was now covered in them. His hair that had been thick and lustrous was now thin and graying. His c...