Showing results for "Life" in Action & Adventure

Leo wanted to make something out of himself—and build dams. However, the world doesn't want dams. And it mostly doesn't want civil engineers. It doesn't want men who do any sort of building or fighting or grand design, it seems. So, when Leo finds his current girlfriend and boss being threatened by a brutal loan shark and all three of them get dragged through a portal to another world, it doesn't take long for him to decide this is the place for him. Plus, everyone has magic, and who wouldn't want that?

In the Prime Kingdoms, the system dominates everything. It dictates one’s strength, skills, and power. It spawns dungeons and guides the actions of their monsters. But every system has its limits, and it’s about to push four oddball adventurers to theirs.

The usual result of a human taking a runaway semitruck head-on is a very sudden, very fast track to the pearly gates. But for one newly noncorporeal man, there's another option: become a dungeon. Feeling sorry for the desperate angel assigned to him, the man relents. Heck, if it doesn't work out, he can always chat with Saint Peter about it later. Next thing you know, he's a dungeon. Admittedly, a small run-down, somewhat unimpressive dungeon (more of a house, actually), but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Free from the Empire, Eryk flees with Maveith, following a thread of hope that Maveith's sister is alive. The journey is perilous, and success is not assured. To conceal their true objective, the pair become mercenary adventurers as they cross the continent.

Working as overnight tech support, James Lyle has long said he’d do anything to escape the boredom. But his commitment to excitement is tested when a slight coincidence one shift sends him to a different part of his office building . . . and he discovers a stairwell that contains not stairs but rather a landscape of seemingly infinite cubicles against a distant horizon. Unwilling (and unable) to stay away, James and a few of his trusted friends begin to explore this endless maze of supernatural business ennui.

For the first time in years, my staff, Ashmaker, is gathering dust. But Aerenvale has secrets of its own. Ancient machinery churns beneath the mud, and hidden tunnels hint that our quiet village was once something far older. When those buried powers begin to wake, I must protect my newfound farmstead…and the women who make it home.

Mikura Moriya expected a quiet and peaceful life in the forest when he inherited his great-grandfather’s house and enormous orchard. Someone had to keep the family business running, so he quit his job and decided to live off the land. But the house isn’t in any old forest...it’s deep in the Beastly Wilds, an area off-limits to most humans. For the Wilds are home to the Beastfolk—neither human nor animal, but something in between. It isn’t long before Mikura meets his new neighbors and makes a pact with a girl with chipmunk ears that will change his life forever.

Eizo is a middle-aged, overworked software engineer who loves cats. One night after working late, he saves an injured cat from a speeding truck. The cat survives, but Eizo does not... Luckily, that cat turns out to be a god-like being who offers him a second chance in another world! Eizo decides that he wants a slower life, one where he can live off the things he creates with his own hands. So, why not become a blacksmith? He does have one other stipulation: a cat companion for his quiet life.

With my house looking better than ever, the people of Willow Lane safe, and my many girlfriends sharing my home, things in the town of Emberfall seem like they can’t get much better–at least until my beautiful new neighbour moves in next door. In between getting to know my new neighbor and hanging out with my girlfriends, the local community still has plenty of needs to be served, from mischievous creatures causing havoc to magical anomalies that need dispelling.

On the secluded continent of Edenvale, possessing magic is a death sentence. Those who have it are labeled Cursed, and by order of the king, they are Cleansed—a horrific event utilizing a hot, hungry pyre and an iron collar. Enemy to the king, a group known as the Cursed rebels defend their lands from his reach, creating an ongoing bloodthirsty war. When Sage's brother is conscripted for the war, she is forced to trade in her cozy, peaceful cottage life and join the Cursed rebels to get him back.

He wished for an early retirement. He got a curse to break, and a maid who watches him sleep. With his seer powers fading, Gerald left the guild and bought a cottage in a far-off town. He didn’t expect to find a demon in a maid’s dress, bound to the house and eager to please. Now his days are spent fending off her dreadful cooking, keeping the wine out of reach, and admiring how her tail lifts her skirt at the washbasin. Meanwhile, he wonders why the local lord sold him a home with sultry baggage, and how to set her free from the walls that bind her.

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable and quiet life. His contentment is disturbed one day when the wizard, Gandalf, and the dwarves arrive to take him away on an adventure. Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step...

Now no longer that wide-eyed child, Gabe is fresh out of prison, a leather-clad biker answering Grandaddy’s peremptory summons to, of all places, a cowboy bar in Northern Arizona. He is about to find out just how different he is from “most people” - and to meet the stranger with whom he will be sealed: life and limb, blood and bone, conscripted to fight an unholy war unlike any other.

After going to hell and back, Alex Roth has gained knowledge about the Traveller, Thameland’s cycle, and the hidden priests that serve Uldar’s will. Anticipating his identity being discovered sooner or later, he plans to make himself so famous and indispensable to Generasi that the priests would not even have a prayer of dragging him into the war’s frontlines. With newfound power, he and his companions seek to prove themselves once more in the Games of Roal, all the while Alex expands his business empire, grows stronger and researches his foes.

Heinrich de Gramont's petition to the king to release Max Renard from his duty to serve at Westerly Fort has been signed. Max's debt to the crown has been paid. And now his "doting" uncle expects his wayward and petulant nephew to come to the capital at once so he can be wed to Viscountess Aurelie de Marbot. Max knows there's no getting out of a trip to the capital this time. Also, beyond personal affairs, he has a lot of questions both for his father's brother and a number of maternal relatives.

It seems like a lifetime ago that Thedeim was a mortal man. After a fatal accident, he was transported to a strange realm to begin again as a living low-level dungeon. But he didn't stay small for long. With a powerful will, he built his dungeon self into a force to be reckoned with, full of minions, creepy crawlies, and a hedge maze to die for. Except Thedeim isn't a place where delvers die. He's a different, friendlier kind of dungeon, which suits both him and his many allies just fine. But being a nice dungeon means taking on some not-so-nice entities.

In a realm where magical professions tend to align within family trees, Lyra Treble is an unusual ingredient. Everyone expected her to follow in her parents' footsteps and become a bard, but she's gained entrance to the Royal Academy of Magical Baking, the most exclusive, prestigious institution of its kind in all the land. The academy is everything Lyra dreamed of and more. She loves the rigorous curriculum, the strict but fair professors, and her new friends-turned-family. But with a limited number of slots open for next year, her culinary future isn't guaranteed.

Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

Tales from the Dead Man Inn is an anthology set in Alpha World. These collected stories cover well known and loved characters, as well as some lesser seen NPCs.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, collected for the first time in one volume. J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ‘dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told’. And for many years readers would need to be...