Showing results by narrator "Travis Baldree" in All Categories

Almost as exciting as the chance to have archeologist Brian Harris' dig sites modeled in an interactive virtual reality is the chance to alpha-test the newest Terramyr Online game for the company providing the tech. The arrangement is simple, test the game, play the main storyline, and report any glitches. In return, the game's main designer will render fully virtual models of the dig sites that will not only ensure Brian's successful graduation but set him up for life as he uncovers the secrets hidden within a trio of ancient Chilean volcanoes.

Literally, as Lazarus found out on his last job. Now, to keep from turning into a ghoul himself, he has no choice but to wait in Faerie while his friends work on a cure. Lucky for Laz, he's got friends in high places inside the Summer Court. Laz is barely settled in when he's caught up in an assassination plot against the Summer Princess, who just happens to be his ex-girlfriend. With the Summer Knight injured, who better to step in and take his place protecting the royal family than Lazarus himself?

Life is finally going right for Lazarus Kerrigan, necromancer and Pale Horseman. Business is booming, and no gods have tried to kill him for a whole month. But the past is catching up to him. There's a serial killer on the loose in New Orleans, one that targets children and leaves behind only bones. When the case develops eerie similarities to his sister's murder, Laz knows the police are in over their heads. They need help, and the dead aren't talking. Well, except for the ghost of a 200-year-old pirate, and Laz doesn't like what he has to say.

When regular high schooler Grady Hake is mistakenly taken by the Angel of Death, he thinks his life is over. Then, he wakes up on a prison shuttle bound for Van Diemann’s Planet, a penal colony run by brutal gangs of criminal cultivators. This is his life now, and if he wants to survive it, he’ll have to learn to harness his unique Death Spirit, make friends with alien outcasts, appease a band of hungry ghosts, and fight his way into one of the strongest gangs on the planet.

Summer skill camps provide opportunities for the elite to train with the best. And by longstanding tradition, for teens of the In-between to evaluate the compatibility of their peers. Glint Starmark's reputation as a matchmaker has been holding true for millennia. At 17, Mikoto Reaver is the youngest headman in Wardenclave's history. He's had very little time to adjust to his new role before their close-knit community opens its doors to children of pedigree, the specialists who will mentor them, an allotment of battlers, and a celebrity or two.

Max and his party start down a dark path with only an echo to remind them why they’re fighting. Finding their target in the game isn’t enough, they need to find them in real life. Perhaps for this very reason, they’re no longer harmless misfits: they’re the most infamous players in the game. They get invited to an auction that offers contract items to the highest bidder, a golden opportunity to prepare for the battles that loom in their future. Weapons aren’t the only thing they need. Down a party member, they need a new ally to fill the void in the team.

Winter is a time of reflection and cultivation for the Verdant Green Waters Sect. For Wu Ying, this peaceful interlude is interrupted by a new assignment that pits him against the mortal world’s conventions of class and privilege.

Governed by Whimsy: The Anthology is a collection of short stories set in Forthright's Amaranthine universe. Before the Emergence, the clans were nothing more than whispers and mysteries and legends and lore. But every so often - in out-of-the-way places or shockingly close to home - an unsuspecting person stumbled into a fateful encounter with someone who was decidedly other.

Tadra has known her entire life that she was meant for a great destiny. But she never expected it to happen like this: trapped in a strange new world, her magic broken and her voice silenced, unable to shift to anything other than a tiny shadow of her firebird's glory. Ansel's kiss releases Tadra from her glass prison...just in time to face the battle bearing down on both of them.

A great con artist can cheat anyone, even death itself. But eventually even they would run out of tricks. And death? Well, death is patient. It was a battle he couldn't, win but one he had to fight lest he risked falling into the darkness again. But he had nothing to aid him this time around. No allies nor friends. No skills. Not even a body. But what he does have are his wits. Will that be enough this time? Well, challenge accepted. Let the game begin!

These were the words Protector Chan’s master had left him. Now, the greedy eye of a king has landed on their sect once more. In the search to reach the Divine Peak, all too many will fall by the wayside, ground up in the bitter dust of desire. Between craving and enlightenment, between the heavens and earth, lies a single man making a choice over what, in the end, is most important in the search for immortality.

Gamer, barista, and black belt, Gwen never thought much about destiny until she followed a fairy—sorry, fable!—through a portal to fight dark forces in a warehouse in Michigan. Now she’s the fated magical key of a fae gryphon knight and she’s got to keep him from electrocuting himself with the toaster and figure out how to sync their power and save the world, all before the veil to faeryland grows thin at the end of the year...and it’s already past Halloween.

What do Gods and demons have in common? Perhaps nothing, perhaps a lot. A glimpse into a world where an immortal and a demon partake in a meal while plotting moves that will shake the Middle Kingdom and share gossip of other, more contentious issues.

Old sins cast long shadows even Death can't hide from. It's been a year since Lazarus went to Hell to free Emma's soul. With Loki gone, things are finally starting to settle down for the Pale Horseman. At least until a dangerous supernatural virus forces New Orleans to grind to a halt. With thousands of innocent people infected, Lazarus must find the source and shut it down before it becomes a global pandemic.

Heather’s life is not entirely normal. She dresses as a holiday elf for one job and a medieval peasant for the other. She has an Italian Greyhound that fits in her purse. But now there’s a beautiful, buck-naked man standing in her apartment explaining that he’s a unicorn who was trapped in a glass Christmas ornament. And things are just about to get a whole lot weirder.

Lord Taladain is dead, the result of an exotic scheme made possible by the Eye of Obscurance, an amulet so dangerous, simply knowing it exists can bring grave danger. What if the amulet fall into the wrong hands? With a neighboring wizardom in chaos, Wizard Lord Malvorian seeks to expand his power, capturing prayers meant for another wizard lord and strengthening his magic beyond anything ever recorded. The world will tremble should Malvorian's power rise to that of two gods.

Don't make deals with the paranormal. They're better at it than you, and they never play fair. Paranormal investigator and soul-without-a-body Vincent Graves did just that - a deal made in desperation. Now it's coming back to bite him in the middle of a case. He has 57 hours to investigate a string of deaths involving people who've made some devilish bargains. Too bad devils don't deal in good faith.

Running on the world's fastest quantum computer is a very special game: one where retirees leave their flesh-and-blood lives in search of endless adventure. Weapons, spells, gold, experience points.... These are the marks by which life is now measured. Ethan Crane wants none of it. In fact, he never wanted to retire at all, let alone play a game for all eternity. But now he's on a mission to find his wife - a wife he just discovered is still alive and inside the game. Nothing will stop him from reaching her. Not even himself.

Two queens. One rules by fear, her citizens laboring to fund the lavish lifestyle of the wizard class. The other believes in justice and compassion, earning her the love of her subjects...and the enmity of her wizard peers. Both will die.

Stranded on the coast of an uncharted land, Ryl will be tested as the world outside the Palisades proves darker than within. With little to no direction save the cryptic information from a mysterious stranger, Ryl must rely on his new-found skills and place his trust in his new companion. Together they forge onward into the barren wastes of the Outlands. As the sickness approaches, their time and hope fades. Surrounded by uncertainty, will they discover there is more to fear than just the unknown?