Fire has always been paradoxical to humanity, both a boon and a curse. The sign of hearth and home. Prometheus stole it from the gods, and paid in blood, in liver, and with his immortal soul, for the gift. Raised in signal and salvation, it's a beacon one moment and a pyre the next.
It crowned Ilium in smoke and ash, reducing Troy to ruin. Such has always been its nature. The power to harm.
And here in the Crucible, only the warmth had been felt, just a campfire to punctuate a burgeoning partnership. The destruction hadn't—yet.
So when Nel and Remi entered a scar of burnt jungle, a raw rend in the vegetation, the ground whispered of what once burned. Embers still waited, yearning for someone’s boots to sift the ash and call them back to life. For now, the scar had fresh fuel for the Crucible’s fire, and it would burn.
Remi and Nel were unaware of all of this as they trudged through the powdery ash, which puffed in clouds as they walked. They were oblivious to the gentle breath of the jungle that surrounded them, with its lungs ready to set the world alight.
He looked down at his boots. “I’m glad these are black. If they’d been brown, Beau would lose his mind right about now.”
“Who?” Nel said, with a look of fake confusion on her face. It was enough to convince Remi, but she cut his gullibility off. “Divaaaaaa! I know. I was just messing with you.”
“You know, we really need to talk about how much spying you did on me while I was in my tutorial.”
Nel’s smile was even more obviously fake. “I can’t imagine what you could be talking about.”
He could only shake his head as they continued along the ash-strewn pathway. The sides of the chasm rose thirty feet above them, sheer and blackened. But as they were walking along the ravine, its floor sloped up, and the walls gradually decreased. The trench slowly evened out into a wider corridor of ash. The path itself was littered with brittle cinders that snapped underfoot, the chewed remnants of the jungle that fire had consumed.
“So you know,” Nel said, “we’re coming up on a trash mob.”
Nel dropped her attention to her floating laptop, that hovered a static distance off the ground, gliding as she moved. She tapped a quick pattern, her fingers halting with a faint nod to herself. The head bob was small, but enough for Remi to see it. She had something planned; he could feel it.
“How—? Nevermind.” He knew she wouldn’t answer him anyway. Of course, she knew what was coming. Nel always seemed to be one step ahead, several steps ahead of Remi, if he was being honest. He didn’t like it, this inversion of their old dynamic. He knew it was just his own shit: the nagging fear that he should be further along by now. Her competence actually made him proud; he just wished he didn’t feel so far behind.
Remi stuffed his insecurities down, and pivoted to a question she would answer: “What are we looking for?”
Nel typed a few more things on her laptop. When had she summoned that, Remi thought. One second her hands were empty, and the next, that thing was there. She didn’t have to dig in her bag for her Codex; it simply appeared, opening to spin lines of code whenever and wherever she needed it. He sighed. He didn’t want to be a scriptbreaker, but an insta-codex would be nice.
Nel’s creature tag illuminated purple in the center of his HUD.
[IDENTIFIED: ASHEN SWARM // Variant: Ember-Fly (Clustered)]
Threat Level: Low (Individual) / Moderate (Clustered)
Behaviour: Drawn to movement. Ignite on impact. Cluster stability linked to Alpha Ember.
System Note: Separation of the leader reduces swarm cohesion by 85%.
Remi looked around them but saw nothing except in the distance a single burnt tree. A charred finger thrust skyward, beckoning them onward.
“Subtle,” he said.
“You know it,” was her response. “The Crucible has not shown a penchant for subtlety up to this point. Why start now?”
Remi nodded. “Truth. I’m guessing they'll fly up when we get closer."
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“They have a proximity warning set at about five feet, but don’t worry, I locked them down. I trapped the lead ember in a loop, so they're just hanging out in a ball behind the tree.”
True to her word, as they got within about ten feet of the smoldering trunk, Remi could see a ball of flies. They looked to be about the size of a horsefly, so a bit chonky compared to the ones that snuck into his house in the early spring, and they sported tiny red wings. The normal translucent membranous tissue had been replaced by tiny flames that flickered instead of beat like regular wings. The central fly was bright orange-red, even larger than its companions. It flew in a lazy circle, causing the other fifty flies to cluster around it in a tight orb. Grouped as they were, it really looked like a burning ember nestled under black ash.
Remi looked at the floating trash mob. “This hardly seems fair,” he said, looking towards Nel.
“It really isn’t supposed to be. I froze them so you can practice fighting a bit more.”
Remi’s cheeks flushed. “I've fought before.” He tried not to sound defensive, but sadly it was not totally effective. He really disliked feeling less competent than someone younger than him. It was stupid, he knew. Like the first time Bea beat him at Tetris. He was proud of her, of course, but also deep down a bit pissed off. No adult enjoys losing the position at the top. All of this is what he felt now. He was impressed with Nel’s competence, but he also bristled that he just couldn’t seem to match her aptitude in this place.
Nel’s face shifted, a softening to kindness that melted Remi’s embarrassment. “I know. I was thinking more that you need to set up your summoning rune for your meter stick, and practice calling and dismissing it in a low combat situation.”
That made sense to Remi. He recalled his earlier thought. He might never get an insta-codex, but he could now summon a stick of whacking.
As he reached into his bag to get what he needed, he noticed Nel was already sitting. A wash of nerves rippled through him. It wasn’t the danger, or the thought of doing something new; surprisingly, it was the thought of looking incompetent in front of her.
She, however, didn’t seem concerned with him at all, having settled herself cross-legged on the ground, her laptop now on her lap, still typing. Somehow she'd created a holographic blanket on which she now rested. It was blue, with a thicker neon outline, and it seemed to prevent the ashes from getting on her clothes.
Remi joined her as he extracted his meter stick, setting it between them as he sat. He got out his ink kit. His body just moved as if it were programmed to know what to do. He extracted a feather from the kit and used the penknife to shave it into a quill. He uncorked the bottle with his left hand while storing the knife and inked the tip. All without really thinking about anything. That’s cool.
He set the quill against the glossy wood of the meter stick. The first line not only bled across the grain, but deep into it. The oak drank the drops of liquid, shifting from ebony to a blazing thread of red light. Each stroke lingered, glowing faintly as it flared and sank into the surface, to absorb Remi’s script.
The glyph began as a circle, set just above the one already there. A steady sweep that trembled only slightly with his breath. As he completed its circumference, he bisected the ring with an inverted V as a slash. The mark was one he used often—a caret mark used in proofreading to show the insertion of text. The whole design pulsed and left a black version of the rune burned into the stick.
[GLYPH INSCRIBED: WEAPON CHANNELING]
Effect: This weapon may now be summoned by creating the rune in the air. It will appear three seconds after rune completion.
Duration: Until the end of combat, or you dismiss it.
As Remi packed up his supplies, his meter stick included, he probed a bit. “Hey Nel.”
She looked up as she waved away her laptop. “Yep.”
“You’re way better at this than I am,” he said. She didn’t react. “How many fights have you had?”
That got a slight pull at the corner of her mouth in response. “Lots.”
“Could you define lots for me? Is that five or ten?”
The corner of her mouth finished the climb. “Hundreds, Remi.”
“That’s what I figured,” he said as he got to his feet. “I guess now is as good a time as any to catch up.”
She nodded. As she stood, the holographic blanket blinked and was gone. “Well, you’d better summon that thing.”
Remi returned the nod and reproduced the rune in the air. A circle bisected by the caret symbol. As he finished the rune, the air tore open along the V. It was not a clean cut, but a slow unzipping from where the caret began; the line widened, flaring red at the edges like a piece of paper catching fire. The sides curled like burnt parchment. For three long seconds, the tear deepened, the hiss of fire and torn paper mingled until the gap rippled and expelled the meter stick.
It would have been great to say that he plucked the weapon as it fell through the gap in space to rest in his hand. Dragged through reality to sit in his palm as if it had always been there. But he couldn't. Remi’s meter stick dropped to the ground as he scrambled to grab it. He missed, and as it struck the ground, it disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“Shit!”
Nel tried to stifle her laughter. “Nice! Glad to see you're as graceful as ever.”
After several more attempts, Remi felt like he had the timing right. He held his hand steady as the air tore again, edges flaring red, the universe’s parchment curling. This time, instead of tumbling through his hand, he reached into the tear itself.
The stick came free, appearing like a sword drawn from a sheath, heat radiating along its grain. It had settled into his grip with a faint hum, finally feeling like it belonged there; the runes on its length faded slowly.
With his free hand, Remi cast MANA LASH. He thought of the ember at the center of the buzzing ball and yanked it towards himself. The baseball of fireflies rocketed towards him. He tapped the tip of the stick like a batter at home plate, and then smashed it through the swarm as it came within reach.
The baseball of fireflies convulsed as the Ember was ripped forward, the whole cluster jerked like a marionette before exploding in spiralling sparks that spun in every direction. A miniature firework in the ravine.
“Careful—you don’t want to burn the entire island down. I’m pretty sure there is no naval officer coming to rescue us if you do.”
The comment gave Remi pause. Just a moment before he was feeling rather pleased with himself. He dismissed the stick and looked at Nel. “Did you just make a Lord of the Flies reference?”
“Sure. It felt appropriate,” she said.
“But you didn’t read the book.” He continued to look directly at her. Remi flailed in an attempt to understand. “We read that after you left.”
“I know, but I found it on your syllabus. I sort of hacked your Google Classroom.”
Remi was still confused. “How?”
“Seriously, you call that a password? You’re a teacher, Remi.”
His raised finger caused her to stop. “What else?”
“What else did I read?”
Remi just stared at her.
Now it was Nel’s turn to look embarrassed. “All of them.”
Remi’s face was incredulous. “Everything.”
Nel dropped her eyes, and for the first time, she looked like the girl he used to know. It appeared like a cursor blink; suddenly there, she was the girl he knew, and then it wasn’t. A barely perceptible flash of the girl, but too quickly replaced by the woman. As she looked back up, playful wickedness in her eyes. “Even the poems.”
Remi’s smile was genuine. He should have known. “You’re such an overachiever.”
“You love it,” she said. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The smirk was answer enough.
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Hordes of Tartarus [Isekai / LitRPG]
LitRPG Isekai Progression Mythos Action
Vincent washes up on an Ancient Greek island under attack after a drunk selfie gone wrong. To survive, he must fight mythical creatures, level up fast, and upgrade the hamlet’s defenses before the next wave of horrors is unleashed upon the islanders.
But holding the line isn’t enough. Vincent must also complete quests, clear dungeons, and learn new skills if he wants to stand a chance against the escalating threats.
Beyond the island, the Titans have escaped Tartarus and wage war against the Gods who once enchained them. Gates to the Underworld rupture across the lands, unleashing horrors meant to wipe out humankind. And rumors say the Gods are losing.
Can Vincent, through increasingly brutal foes, unpredictable bosses, and precarious bonds with the islanders, emerge victorious against the Hordes of Tartarus?
What to Expect
Quests Kingdom Building Mythic Beasts Epic Worldbuilding
- Weak-to-Strong progression with skills, loot, and leveling
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- Worldbuilding depth with Gods, Titans, and consistent action-driven adventure