Showing results by author "Alexander Wales" in All Categories

Juniper Smith was always a creator of worlds rather than the one who walked within them…until now. Somehow, the tables have turned in the most dramatic way possible. Juniper finds himself in a world filled with the wildest fantasies a mind could come up with, and his fingerprints are all over it.

This is a tale that used to be about dungeons... But these days it's more about learning how to properly dress a rabbit for a stew or trying to figure out if your new eight-stringed lute can actually replace a whole orchestra.

This used to be about dungeons...but these days it's more about sharing a pot of tea, or teaching someone the proper way to make a sandwich, or deciding whether your mysterious egg needs more sunlight. Yes, you still venture into dungeons—two in one day, if you're feeling ambitious—and there are still monsters to fight and treasures to find. But when you come out, what matters isn't the treasures you've gathered, it's whether everyone's coming to temple day or if you can all find something fancy enough to wear to the opera.

Juniper Smith always dreamed of attending a magic college. Now he's enrolled at the Athenaeum of Sound and Silence, where students learn to bend velocity and freeze motion itself. There's just one catch: he's there as a government operative, hunting threats that lurk in the shadows between lectures.

Juniper Smith thought he'd found a safe haven on the Isle of Poran, building a new nation with his companions. But when a carelessly mentioned name threatens to unleash a deadly infohazard, he realizes that even the most innocent words from Earth can kill on Aerb. A quick trip to warn the scholars at the Athenaeum of Speculation and Scrutiny should be simple enough. Instead, Juniper discovers that Uther Penndraig left far more than just his legacy behind, and events quickly spiral out of control as the Chosen One's past extends its tendrils into the future.

Juniper Smith is trapped in a prison that seems to be of his own design. Everywhere he looks are bits and pieces of the game worlds he used to make back on Earth. Now, he finds himself on the run from the law and helping out criminals, looking for magical solutions to centuries-old magical spirits trapped in bottles. Can he trust an elf that's been locked away since the bad old days of the Second Empire? Danger lurks around every corner, and trust is hard to come by, even within the party that grows more like family with every passing day.

This is a tale that used to be about dungeons... Now it's mostly about walking in the woods with a friend, looking for mushrooms to put in your soup. Maybe haggling with the squash seller, or taking care of a neglected garden, or even just putting some jam on a good shortbread biscuit. And yes, sometimes you still go down into the dungeons with your friends, and kill monsters there, disarm traps, avoid spiked pits etcetera, etcetera. But when you come out now, it's not really about the gold and loot.

Juniper Smith is finally starting to feel at home in this new world. Everywhere he looks are familiar pieces of the game worlds he used to make back on Earth. The last druid has died, and with her, a rare and precious magic is slowly seeping its way out of the world. The ritual to bring her back as an infant only requires a little messing around with devils and simply hacking the game system on his soul, which is practically routine, but to speed the process along will be another matter entirely.

A portal opened, and Perry's curiosity got the better of him. Once. Twice. Three times did Perry step through a portal, each to a new and strange world. He stepped through into a world of advanced technology, power armor and micro reactors. He stepped through into a world of knights and kings, orcs and goblins, where old wizards handed out magical swords. He stepped through into a world of hidden vampires and rainy streets, where the clocktower tolled the hour as ships sailed by.