Ravensdagger_Love_Crafted

Love Crafted

Annotation

To Enter Five Peaks Magical Academy you must have a familiar. Abigail hoped for a bird, maybe an owl like her best friend's, or a cuddly cat or loyal hound. She would have been happy with a particularly smart toad, even.

Instead she got you.

Cover art by: Zoufii

Love Crafted

Prologue

Chapter One

Omake One

Omake Two

Chapter Forty-Six

Interlude One

Omake Three

Afterward

Spreading the Tentacular Glory — Now With 100% More Auditory Hallucinations!

Moving to KU!

Love Crafted

Prologue

There was a brilliance to Fivepeaks at dawn, an interplay of light and fading shadow that was, as far as Abigail was aware, unique to the city.The royal palace had its great clock, the dials lit from behind by a thousand glass tubes filled with Aether. It was the first thing to catch the sun’s light as it slipped over the horizon, like a beacon announcing that morning had arrived and it was time to start moving or else start plotting excuses for why one was tardy to work.Then, as the sun rose, the lamp men would move across the city, the vanguard of the working class, each one shutting off the street lights with a touch to their circles. They always started near the Parliament building on the second peak and worked their way down, lights flicking off like twinkling stars just ahead of the wash of morning sunlight.Across Fivepeaks, on one of the tallest hills, the Academy would open its gates and the twin braziers on either side of the school would burst to life. They were bright beams of eldritch light that turned the mundane stone building into something ethereal, something that was beyond the normal sort of magic everyone and their mother used every day. Statues would come to life, paintings would begin to move, and the school prepared to receive a thousand inquisitive minds.As the sun finally crested the horizon for good and lit up the fields that were once forests, the other mounts would awaken. The Conclave of the Inquisition remained dark, the entire complex hidden from the light by a towering mound of stone, but the Merchant’s Hill, where Abigail worked from sunrise to sunset, didn’t shy from the light. Red lamps sputtered out with sparks of wasted Aether and neon lights fizzed to life with a press of a thumb and a bit of focus.There was a strange sort of quiet in the early morning hours. The streets outside were busy with the hubbub of morning crowds and the grinding of rune carts across the cobbles, but those noises were distant, easily forgotten save for the occasional rattle of glass jars when a cart rushed by.The city was lively, magic circles flashing to life and leaving the air smelling of ozone and lightning, the Familiars of a thousand mages rushing ahead of their masters to the Academy on the hill, and gossiping shopkeeps walking in tight knit groups to their stores.All that energy and life was locked behind a thick wooden door.Two girls stood around a circle painted onto the floor, lit only by lamp light. “It stinks,” Abigail said, her nose scrunching up as she inspected her handiwork.Her friend shrugged one shoulder, an unladylike gesture that would have been inappropriate in any other circumstance. “It’ll work,” she said. “I don’t think you made any mistakes.”“Yeah,” Abigail said as she traced the circle with a discerning eye one more time. Each reagent was in its place. The sulphur in a non-reactive glass dish, the alum flower in a neat pile, the lime and lunar caustic in their positions. There were other ingredients of course, more than she had ever seen in a single circle before.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.Then, in the middle of it all, on a slightly raised pedestal, was a smaller circle, connected to the first by lines of salt and magnesia. That’s where the more esoteric ingredients rested. Five points, each with a smaller circle. One had a drop of her blood, another the hair of a virgin maiden (easy to obtain, that), then a dollop of aged ent sap. There was a bit of gold in the form of a medallion she had found and which she hoped wouldn’t be lost in the casting, and finally a single unicorn cock, freshly butchered.“Are you sure?” she asked again, eyes looking up from the intricate spell and to her friend. “Daphne, I’ve never cast anything this strong before,” she whined.Her friend smiled, just a twitch of the lips and a folding in the corner of her eyes. “Don’t worry Abi, I’m here for you. And I’m sure it’ll be fine. The spell’s a bit old, but it’s usable, if non-standard.”“That’s not helping,” Abigail said. She shifted on the spot a little, weight going from side to side as she hesitated even more. It was, of course, too late to back out. The ingredients were laid out already, some would be lost if she tried to store them now.Daphne stepped closer and wrapped Abigail in a tight hug, only having to bend down a little to do it. “It’ll be fine. There’s always a bit of leeway with these things. My summoning went super well. You love Archie. Do this right and you’ll have an Archie of your own, then it’ll be super easy to get into the Academy.”“Archie was summoned with a proper circle,” Abigail said. “And you had supervision.”Dahne snorted, an indelicate gesture that had her nose scrunching up. “I’m supervising you.”“By a professional,” Abigail shot back.“Ouch. Abi, you’re being mean,” Daphne said. She let go of the hug to poke Abigail in the ribs. “Now push some Aether into that thing and let’s watch the sparks fly.”Abigail nodded, took a deep breath, and hesitated just a little more.Then, when she heard Daphne sighing from her place near the wall, she fell onto her knees next to the circle, reached in, and pushed her bare hand onto the cold ground. Eyes closing, she pushed with all of her will. Her hopes, her dreams, all depended on that one moment.And then she summoned you.

You float in the Void. In the Darkness where Light doesn’t dwell and where only the things that are In Between lie.Meaning is a concept that is as transient here as spring gales. Causality is optional. Willpower dictates the flow of the space between spaces.There is a tug, a pull, a calling from across what Mortals and Organics would only understand as a great, unfathomable distance.It awakens you.

Chapter One

You are vast, larger than any mere mortal could hope to conceive of, and yet the one calling you, your summoner, wants you to squeeze into a form so small as to be insignificant. The little mortal asks for the impossible with a sort of blind faith that, at its base, amuses you.A twist, a turn, and mass, insofar as you have mass, is compressed. Space is transitory, it does as you wish. With a scream, physics reels from your irreverence to its laws. It batters at what you are doing but that is as easy to ignore as a faint stench.Between one blink and the next you are an entity of the void no longer.

* * *

The ceiling has wooden beams, some of them marred by smoke stains and soot. You know this, because you are on your back on the floor, which affords you an excellent view.You wrinkle your nose at the smell of burning sulfur and something sickly sweet, then you wrinkle your nose again just because you can. You have a nose now. This is rather novel.Of course, that’s all perfectly normal. You are a being made flesh now. You have bits that are squishy over hard parts. It’s all quite disgusting and probably unsanitary. It’s no wonder that mortals are so mortal. One small impact is all it would take to rend this sack of meat you are calling home apart.There’s a noise. You know this because you have ears.You wiggle your limbs and, after a moment of not really moving, decide that your patience for mortal flesh limbs has already reached its end. You reach into the space between spaces for more of yourself and pull a fraction of a fraction of your essence into the mortal coil. There’s a tearing sound, and a splash.Warmth runs across your back and you see inky black blood pooling out around you.That’s probably bad. But at least now you are no longer limited to a mere four limbs. Your new limbs sprout out of your back like the wings of an Angel. Though unlike those weaklings your wings are black, and wiggly, and a little bit slimy with your blood. They are also boneless and featherless.They’re tentacles.Tentacle wings.Angels don’t have anything on you.Now equipped properly, you let yourself go limp as your tentacles spear into the floor and raise you up to your feet.There are two meaty fleshbags in the room. They are small, with delicate little bones covered in mostly beige flesh. One has long brown fur atop her head and the other black. Perhaps the fur means somethings. You will have to look into it and make sure any fur you have tells the mortals that you are not to be trifled with.One of the girls steps forwards, the shorter of the two and the one you suspect is your summoner. She opens the hole in her face and noises come out.You blink at the strange, guttural sounds. This is a problem. But of course, you have a simple solution. You just need to tear the knowledge out of your summoner’s head. Everything these mortals know is stored in the meaty organ in their head. A terribly inefficient way of going about things but they’re primitive mortals, so what can one expect?Bringing one of your tentacles back, you prepare yourself to spear through your summoner’s skull to get to the juicy brain matter within when you pause. Would going through the skull break the summoner?Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.Best to merely apply pressure atop the summoner’s head and extract the knowledge of their meat flapping language that way. It is not nearly as efficient, but it will work.You step forward, then the world shifts and you brand new nose twinges as it meets the floor with a meaty smack.Curse physics! It is attempting to foil your amusement by dragging your squishy meat body to the ground.Walking cannot be difficult if the mortals are doing it, but the only two you see are standing still and not assisting you by presenting the art of waking in an easy to digest fashion. Very well, you don’t need their assistance anyway. Your tentacles bring you back to your feet.Raising one arm up, you reach for your summoner’s head.You feel the muscles on your face drawing your brows together as you reach harder. Perhaps you cannot touch your summoner’s head because you are not standing at your full height? That must be it, you decide.You stand to your full height....You stand to your full height.You blink your fleshy meat eyes, then look down.The ground is very near. You look back up. Your summoner is taller than you are. A whole two heads taller.This is a problem.But all problems have solutions. And the best solutions always involve tentacles. You wrap your fleshy tentacles around the beams of the ceiling, then push off the ground with others until you are suspended in the middle of the room. Your summoner cowers away from your form which is unacceptable. You wrap a tentacle around her waist in a fleshy cuddle of muscle and drag her close.You are now taller than your summoner, the perfect height to reach out and...Hand meets head. Tendrils that are only partially in this realm and in this time scour through your summoner’s mind, skipping past boring things until the parts that dictate speech and the knowledge of how to move the flaps on your face to communicate are found.Ah, you were supposed to use your tongue. That is what the small, inefficient tentacle in your face is for.Disappointing.You clear your throat as you remove your hand from your summoner’s head then gently and reluctantly lower her back to the ground. The moment she’s out of your grasp, you feel a lack, as it you had accidentally bumped into a black hole and lost a bit of yourself.You will have to see if wrapping your summoner in even more tentacles will fix the issue, but that is a problem (which can, again, be fixed with a liberal application of tentacle) for another time. You are nothing if not a paragon of self-control.“Hello,” you say.“Ah,” the girl says in return. Truly, your summoner is lacking in many things. It would be best if you kept her safe, cocooned in a whole pile of your flesh— you shake your meat head and refocus. She is about to continue. “Hi there,” she says. “My name’s Abigail.”A name.Yes. You will need one of those. And then you’ll need to discover why this mortal called upon you.

Omake One

You wake up and smack your lips a few times, then turn over so that you can go back to napping. You don’t know what time it is yet, or what woke you from naptime, but whatever it is can wait.A quick check of the room before you fall back asleep reveals something that wasn’t there before.There’s a box, and it's floating before you in mid-air.You look down to make sure Abigail is still napping next to you, and yes, there she is all bundled up against your side as is right and proper.The box is still there when you look up, just a thin blue rectangle dangling in the air.Well, whatever, you were napping. You try to go back to sleep, but there’s a noise like a tiny bell being rung that wakes you up. You stare at the box. It jiggles in time with another ring of the bell.

Congratulations!Through Good Luck and Hard Work you have gained the Skill: Sleeping!​

You wonder what the box is on about. You are Dreamer. You’re the best at sleeping. You can’t say that you invented sleeping, that’s Uncle Hypno’s boast, though you think Uncle Azathoth might have been first, but still, you perfected the art of the nap.The box has made you suffer enough. A pair of tentacles reach out to grab it. You are going to take the box and gently put it away. And if it does not listen, then you'll have no choice but to resort to eating.Your tentacles pass right through.Now that’s annoying. You shift a little, and the box shifts with you.Ah, so it’s tied to your eyesight. Which means the box is in your eyes.You find a nice barb-tipped tentacle and you pull your eyes out. They are nice and squishy, like grapes but more wet. Once you’re done eating your eyes, you... well, you don’t really need to close your eyes to sleep now, do you? Bonus!Then you notice that the box is still there, floating in your sight even though you have no eyes.

Congratulations!By persevering through immense pain your Endurance skill has risen by +1.Endurance is now 10^802 (+1)​

What is this silliness? You huff as you grow new eyes, then use them to glare at the box. It thinks it can fool you? Hah! You’ll show it.You start trying to grab it with different sorts of tentacles. Physical, physical-adjacent, imaginary, unimaginative, bureaucratic, and even Ancient tentacles do nothing, but you notice the box wiggling a little when you bring in reality-warping tentacles.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.Your smile is feral.

A New Quest!The World is in Peril! Only You and your Plucky Summoner Can Save it!​

Cute, it thinks it can distract you. You grab the box and pinch it with a pair of handy tentacles. Only they’re not handy, because hands aren’t nearly as good as tentacles at the best of times.

Inventory​

(10 Item Slots per Page)

Quantity

Item

1^984x

Pretty Dresses

1x

Poisoned Salad of Yummyness (Lethal)

1x

Abigail's Purse

17x

Shades of Purple

2x

Chthonian

1x

Beginner's Alchemy Kit

1x

Abigail's Snack

2x

Pillows

1x

Soul-Powered Entropy Reversal Device

1x

Hole

First Previous

Next Last​

You wrestle with the box a bit, then open your mouth and start bringing it closer. The box, probably realizing what you’re about to do, starts panicking.

A New Quest!DO NOT EAT THE BOX!​

Your teeth chomp down with great satisfaction on the box and you chew away at it. It tastes a bit like glass and lightning and the sad loneliness of people who live in their mom’s basement. Not the best snack, but a snack’s a snack.“Drea-mer?” Abigail mumbles next to you.You put all of your extra tentacles away. “Go back to sleep, it’s still nap time,” you tell her before wigging about to find the optimal sleeping position next to Abigail. You slip back into your dreams with hardly a whisper.

Omake Two

Dreamer died.Or, well, something happened that kinda sorta led her to dying a teeny tiny bit. Like, she was dead, but only a small percentage of her. Not a full number percentage either. One of those fake imaginary numbers. She was most of 0% dead.Math had also died. No one mourned its loss.She woke up, as she was wont to do on occasion, and found herself in a small room. A very small room with, in its centre, a dias upon which sat a floating ball of crystal that spun and hovered and pulsed with unknowable intent.“What?” she asked aloud. Her voice echoed strangely across the cavern.Fortunately for her, a helpful text box appeared before her nose to assist her.Dungeon MenuCurrent mana: 20/20. Regen: 1 per day.Current Condition: 100/100ConstructionMinionsTrapsQuestsShe blinked. Or would have blinked, but she didn’t have eyes, or, she noted as she looked down, a body. This was neither new nor novel and didn’t warrant any panic beyond a passing note that she’d need to make a new body before engaging in cuddles again.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.Dreamer decided that this place was neat and all, but there weren’t any Abigails around and so she was going to leave.Then her non-face smacked against an invisible barrier near the exit.No matter what she tried she couldn’t leave, and every time she did try a new message popped up.Dungeon Core Cannot Exit Dungeon.Shrugging, she extruded some tentacles outside, intent on yanking herself from there.The tentacles started to melt.Dungeon Cannot Build Beyond DungeonNow she was getting somewhat annoyed. Still, if the tentacles lasted a few seconds outside of the small room, then maybe...

* * *

“Abigail,” Daphne said. “What is that?”The ‘that’ in this case was the huge lump of stone and rock that towered behind Abigail like a terribly misplaced piece of the landscape. If the landscape was vomiting a constant tide of melting tentacles.Abigail sighed. “I have no idea,” she said. “But it’s Dreamer’s fault.”

Chapter Forty-Six

There was a big argument. You didn’t like it, not one bit, but in the end you won so that’s all that matters.The girls are all gathered in Daphne’s house sipping at tea that Edmund delivered while you get ready for your big adventure. An adventure that you’re going to do alone, because Abigail is fragile and so are your other friends.You, of course, aren’t sitting at the table and having tea. No, instead you’re standing across from a very worried Abigail and are trying very hard to pretend that her big wet eyes aren’t doing things to your tummy. It’s not fair that she can look at you like that.“You can’t come,” you tell her again. “You’re too squishy.”“I know that, but you might get hurt,” she says.This is not the first time she brings this up and it’s not the first time she’s wrong about it. “The big mean people can’t hurt me. I’m unhurtable. But they could hurt you and that would make me very...” you pause, then realize that you have found the perfect counter. “That would hurt me. Yes. I can be hurt if you’re hurt, but they can’t hurt me unless they’re hurting you.” Perfect!“Abigail,” Daphne says as she places her teacup down without so much as a click. “I actually agree with Dreamer. Strange as she might be, she is still more than capable of taking care of herself. If she runs into any trouble or fails to return before nightfall, then we can act on our own. I think Edmund has some old friends who could help mount a rescue. Still, we ought to at least give her a chance.”You nod. Daphne is being very smart.Then Abigail turns her wet eyes on Daphne and her confidence crumbles. “U-unless, well, maybe we could go,” Daphne says.You huff. This is taking too long. “Fine. I’ll stay here and go.”“Oh?” Charlotte asks. She has been looking around ever since she entered Daphne’s house but now she’s focused on you. “You can split yourself?”“Oh no,” Abigail whispers in horror. You can understand her fear. That would mean having to split her hugs between you and another you, which is only half as many hugs.You shake your head. “No. I just need to leave some of me here and let this part of me go.” To demonstrate you tentacle a hole though the universe and have one of your wigglier tentacles poke out of it in the air behind you. “See, now you’ll know that my big body is safe.”“Your big body?” Charlotte asks.You don’t have a lot of time to explain, but it would be rude not to. “This body,” you say as you gesture to yourself. “Is my small body. My big body is where I am. This is like a puppet body for hugs and cuddles.” Which now that you mention it means Abigail never hugged your big body. It would take many, many hundreds of years for her to hug all of it. You need to hurry up and make her less mortal.“So, as long as your main body is intact, you can just make a new puppet body?” Charlotte asks.“Yes!” you say.She shrugs and turns to Abigail. “I say let her try. Though she really ought to wear a disguise.”There’s some more arguing after that, but it’s about what kind of clothes you should wear and then a long explanation about why your pretty dress, while very pretty (everyone agrees) isn’t the best for being sneaky and is recognizable on account of being your pretty dress.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.In the end, the sun is well on its way towards the horizon when you step out of Daphne’s mansion wearing an all black outfit covered in holes for your tentacles and a lot of black cloth wrapped around your face. Charlotte declares that you look like an adorable ninja.You don’t know what that means, but if it’s adorable then it probably does look like you. You are a thing that should be adored.Walking all the way to the Inquisition’s headquarters would take too long, so when you’re finally outside you make a big tentacle come out of the ground, wrap your small body around its tip, then fling yourself across the city. Like throwing a rock only it’s you instead.You cheer as you fly past a bunch of houses and, thanks to your super fast reflexes, snap a pigeon out of the air as an in-flight snack.You crash into the roof of an apartment building two blocks away from the Inquisition, roll a lot to bleed off your speed, then fall off the edge and crash at the bottom of an alleyway. But you didn’t lose your snack and you can fix all the broken bones so it’s okay.Getting up, you dust off your ninja outfit, rub some feathers off your face, then stick your head out of the alley.There aren’t a lot of mortals around at this hours, so hardly anyone notices as you run across the streets towards the big castle and slip through some alleyways and up some walls with your tentacles.In no time at all you’re standing before the Conclave of the Inquisition. The front of the building is large and flat and made of dark stones with little alcoves where statues of people with silly hats holding beakers and rulers and scales are all staring down towards the big doors at the front.You find a shadowy place next to a newspaper stand across the street, then you grab some more shadows from a few other places and bring them closer so that you’re even harder to see.This is where you’ll do all your work.Reaching out, you send a billion little tentacles that are just on the other side of everything questing within the Conclave to map out every tunnel and passage and room. Some tentacles hit things that shouldn’t be and get zapped or eaten, but they’re small and don’t matter.You find Pou-tine right where the important man’s memories said they would be. It’s deep, deep under the building, in a room built with hundreds of circles in the ground and a bunch of obelisks that might be made of bones around. Pou-tine is stuck in the centre with all sorts of equipment being aimed at them.Nodding, you grab your body with another tentacle and move yourself over to where Pou-tine is.The room smells like rubbing-alcohol and grease. It’s barely lit by a few yellow-ish magic circles on the walls next to rows of metal desks just like in school.Pou-tine shifts a little, a fri-eye turning in your direction.“Hello, Pou-tine,” you say. “I’m here to free you.”

Interlude One

Byzantine.It was a word that Merwin Fuller had first heard during his stay at the Akademie der Magie in the north. He had had to look it up, to discover what it meant after first hearing its use.To think that one day he would use it to describe his own work. Truly, he was no longer the starry-eyed fool that he had once been, filled with innocence and curiosity.Now he knew that innocence was merely a form of ignorance, and that curiosity was the path to an untimely and gruesome death.Something strange was happening in the Five Peak’s Conclave of the Inquisition, and as one of the Chief Inspector Generals it was his duty to get to the bottom of it. The office he was loaned was a spartan little room, a desk at the far end, some shelves and lockers for personal artefacts and a few chairs which were occupied by a fidgeting Administrator and a stoic Paladin.“I do not suspect that I must explain why I am here?” he said. His accent had always been thick, no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of it, still, it gave a harsh edge to his words that made softer men weep.Administrator Silva squirmed in her seat and Paladin Uther was as straight as any man in his position, though the scuffs and scrapes in his uniform certainly suggested that he was not at his best. Few combatants were as proud or fierce or implacable as the Paladins of the Inquisition, and that price showed in their neatness.“This incident, this absolute mess, is not, as far as I can tell, the fault of the local Inquisitors,” he said.The Administrator almost sank in her seat before remembering herself. “Yes sir, thank you sir.”“Nonetheless we will be going through a full inspection and evaluation, a subject has escaped our grasp, one of the most dangerous seen since the Inquisition started its work. More, I believe it might have been freed by another subject. Paladin, your report, it was complete but I want your opinion.”Paladin Uther nodded once. “The Seventh Night Guard Rotation, group two, were on the scene first. They are some of the only ones that had more than a fleeting glance of the second subject. The anomaly appeared to be a young humanoid with erroneous appendages. Tentacles, essentially. We classify her as a biological modifier, an anomalous mover and perhaps a shifter.”“Dangerous,” Fuller said. “Administrator, I require the file on Anomalous Subject One-Oh-Four-Two.”Administrator Silva nodded so quickly her shako almost flew off her head. She pulled up a briefcase and slipped her thumb into a hole at its top. A few pulses of will rang through the room as she pushed a specific pattern into the case’s locking device, undoing the many locks keeping the documents within safe.The case was opened with a pneumatic hiss and the Administrator pulled out a file which she passed to him. “I, Administrator Silva attest that Chief Inspector General Fuller has the Classification required to view this document.”“Witnessed,” Paladin Uther intoned.There was a large red three on the front of the file. He pressed a thumb to the number and pushed his will into it. It revealed the circle hidden within the folder and he deactivated the security countermeasure with a few twists of his will.Everyone in the room had classification at or above level three. Though he suspected he was the only member of the Inquisition at Five Peaks other than the Site Director with Class one.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.He laid the small pile of sheets within the document before him and began reading them.

Anomalous Subject-1042

Rapid Response Threat Rating:

AS-1042 is capable of generating large amounts of non-anomalous liquid material. This material complicated capture and movement of AS-1042. AS-1042’s size and dimensions make it difficult to move and capture.ADDENDUM: As of Incident 1042B Subject AS-1042’s original body has changed to resemble that of a young human male with unknown properties. Exercise extreme caution around AS-1042. For additional information see document: Incident AS-1042B, AS-1042 Secondary appearance.

Subject Description:

Subject AS-1042 appears to be a large mass of gelatinous liquids filled with long strands of an unknown material. Within the liquid mass are white masses that move in non-anomalous ways but who are confined to within the liquid ‘body’ of AS-1042.AS-1042 has a distinct, pungent odour similar to that of rotting vegetable matter.At time of containment (See: Incident AS-1042A Capture Report), AS-1042 seemed to be trying to avoid human contact and attempting to hide behind large objects within its environs.

Containment Procedures:

AS-1042 is to be contained within a Class 4D circle with additional security precautions for waste disposal (Liquid Waste Management circles of Class 3I have been effective thus far). Subject behaviour is non-hostile to humans. Ongoing experiments have yet to discover any eating habits. Subject seems to shy away from any direct contact or attention.

Addendum:

As of Incident AS-1042B Subject AS-1024 has fled with the assistance of another Anomalous Subject (Potentially AS-1032. See Classified Files AS-1032D). Subject’s appearance has changed to that of a human male of ages 10-13. Subject’s new body was created using the severed limbs of a team of Inquisitorial personnel.These limbs have since been replaced with anomalous matter in the form of ‘combat tentacles.’ Further experimentation is required. See: Incident AS-1042C.

“Do you have the report for Incident AS dash One-Oh-Four-Two B?” Fuller asked as he deposited the report. Administrator Silva nodded and began extracting the appropriate document from her case. “This situation is a mess. We have not one but two Anomalous Subjects loose in a city of this size. Subjects with human appearances.” He shook his head. “Paladin Uther, do what you must to find these subjects. We cannot let them harm the populace, or worse, end up in the hands of some cult of degenerates. We need to put an end to this mess and as soon as possible. For the greater good of humanity.”“For humanity,” the two Inquisitors intoned.Fuller nodded. He could only just imagine the amount of paperwork this mess would lead to.

Omake Three

“I think you’ll have lots of fun here,” Charlotte said as she led him by the hand. Pou-tine, because that’s what they had been calling him even though that wasn’t his name, looked up to the taller mortal and tried to think of what to do.On the one fry, he could turn around and run away. But then That Which Lies Eternally Dreaming would chase him. And she never stopped until it was time for a nap. He would be unable to rest for fear that she would consume him in his own dreams.So he had no choice but to play along, to be the Tasty Prey which Runs Through the Void. He had done many things over the eons to avoid being the Prey, but they did not always succeed. Following a mortal who held him by the hand was a first for him.His clothes chaffed all over and his squishy mortal body was small and frail and he didn’t like it, but Dreamer had made it well because the few mortals that saw him, especially the female ones, all stopped and patted and pinched his cheeks.They made him nervous.“This is where we’ll be staying,” Charlotte said as she gestured to a large stone building.He nodded and followed her in and past a dozing mortal who was probably meant to be guarding the entrance way. They climbed into a steel box that wiggled and for a moment he thought he was caged once more to be eaten, but then the box rose and its wall opened up.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.“And this,” Charlotte said, “Is the dormitory!”There were girls here. Lots of girls.“Hey Charlotte, who’s that?” One of them said.Another giggled and he averted his gaze when he saw that she was only wearing a nightshirt. That was very bad. Mortals only got undressed when they were going to eat someone in the worst ways. He had overheard as much.“Did you find yourself a boyfriend?” another girl asked.One of them came very close and bent over double so that she was at the same height as him. “Ara ara~ aren’t you a cute boy. Are you Charlotte’s little brother?”“I am not in any way biologically linked to Charlotte,” he explained.“Oh, aren’t you just the cutest thing,” she said. Her smile grew, showing more teeth. “I could just gobble you up.”Pou-tine tried to run.He failed.“He’s just like my little brother!”“I never had a little sibling.”“It’s my turn to hold him!”“Poor thing, you’re so skinny. Do you want something to eat?”Charlotte stood there and smiled, smiled in a way that showed how evil she was underneath all of her kindness. Then, when the Evil Ones That Smile suggested that they ought to ‘make him over’ she stepped in and rescued him.Pou-tine didn’t see what Dreamer saw with these mortals. They were all mad.

Afterward

Hello!You might be wondering, ‘what’s this? An update?!’ and you’d be entirely wrong!Sorta?Today, Love Crafted’s final version has finally hit the literal and virtual shelves! This isn’t the Love Crafted you know... well, okay, it is, but it’s got much better grammar, about 60 chapters less, and a few thousand words more (things were crazy for a bit!)Basically, this is my best shake at turning Love Crafted into a proper novel! The audiobook version (thanks Podium!) should be coming out... in a long while from now, but for now I present to you... Love Crafted!

LINK​

A couple of small notes:

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I haven’t received my own copy of the paperback, for all I know every other word is upside-down. I doubt it, because the incredible Sammax helped me and he’s awesome, but still.

The link is to Amazon USA, if you’re outside the US, don’t forget to shift to the nearest Amazon or else you’ll pay way too much for shipping and such!

And... that’s it.It’s kinda making me giddy that this story came so far. It was quite the adventure for me, certainly some of the most fun I had writing last year. Hell, I think I wrote the first dozen chapters in a hospital room on my phone. It was nice to make people laugh, and I hope that it keeps on bringing smiles for a while yet.Anyway! If you enjoy it, please leave a review, I read every one, and they mean a lot to me.I guess this is the end of a journey.On to the next one!(And yeah, I’ll definitely be doing another quest in 2021!)Keep warm; stay cool,RavensDagger

Spreading the Tentacular Glory — Now With 100% More Auditory Hallucinations!

Hello everyone!

This will likely be the last post on Love Crafted on Royal Road, which... is kind of sad, I guess.

But, for some less-sad news, the Love Crafted audiobook has just released!

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Narrated by the incredible Caitlin Kelly, it's Love Crafted, but 1^984​ times louder than before!

Audible Link

I really do hope you enjoy it! And maybe one day we'll have a good excuse to revist some tentacle-based fun!

Keep warm; stay cool,

RavensDagger

Moving to KU!

Hi!

So, Love Crafted will be moving to Kindle Unlimited. I think, now that it's been... wow, three years since Love Crafted was completed, I think everyone that wanted to read the story has read it already!

There's a link to my patreon just below where you can download the Epub for Love Crafted, entirely for free. There's also a link to the audiobook, which is... less free, but still a lot of fun!

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I have a lot of fond memories with this story, and I'm hoping new readers on a new platform will also come to like it!

Keep warm, stay cool,

RavensDagger