Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

“I’m trying, but I don’t bloody know how!”

“Stay calm!” Rin said. “Stay calm, breathe, and focus on getting it to withdraw. The c-core is going to try and keep itself powered, but you have to override it!”

Karalti landed on the back of the Warsinger's neck, struggling against the updraft of oven-like heat that rose from the metal. I vaulted down, ignoring the heat damage, and ran over to drop down to the door - a hatch, now it was on all fours. I checked the party menu: Suri's HP was low and draining fast. The machine was exsanguinating her.

“You... bloody... prick of a...!” Suri's feed abruptly cut.

“Fucking hell! Stop it!” I banged on the hatch, but there was no opening it. It was sealed tight, flashing red at the touch of my hand. “Goddammit!”

“What's going on!?” Rin’s voice was high with fear.

“It's killing her, is what's going on!” I snarled back.

There was no message from Suri. Withering Rose gave one last sigh, shunting a cloud of heat out of its vents, and then fell completely still.

[Party Member Suri Ba’Hadir has died.]

“FUCK!” I smashed my fist into the door half a dozen times, then reeled away. Before anything else, I went into my HUD and urgently scanned for her location. She hadn't appeared yet: there was a short timer between respawns, and while it was almost certain she would reappear in Kalla Sahasi...

After a minute, a small white dot appeared in the South of Myszno. Relief flooded me in a wave, and I hastily opened up our P.M link. “Suri? You okay?”

“I’m bloody anemic, is what I am,” she grumbled. “Piece of shit machine. But I’m back at the castle.”

I rubbed my sweating face and slumped against the wall for a couple of minutes. It was intolerably hot. when I couldn't stand it any longer, I Jumped up to the edge of the gorget and pulled myself over, only to freeze as a large shadow passed overhead. I looked up, squinting against the setting sun, but couldn't see what had caused it.

“Yeah!” Karalti stretched her wings out and let out a bellow.

“Well... umm...” Rin waited a few seconds before piping up again. “We got the Warsinger? I've got no idea how we're going to get it back to Vlachia like this, but it works?”

“Yeah. We got the Warsinger.” I dashed the back of my hands over my eyes, trudging toward Karalti. “We got Suri, we got the Warsinger...”

Karalti’s eyes suddenly widened, as did mine as the heat haze resolved into the form of a tall, white-haired, chalk-skinned man in armor that was fit for an Emperor.

“And boy oh boy, did you save us all a heck of a lot of work,” Baldr Hyland drawled from behind me. “I’ll be taking things from here, Hector. But rest assured: The Ilian Empire would like to thank y’all kindly for your service.”

***

Will Hector be able to defeat his nemesis in their first show-down since Dragon Seed? Can he unlock the potential of the Dark Lancer Path, and take his abilities from middling to God-Tier in the quest to save Archemi?

Pre-order Spear of Destiny today and be the first to know!

The End.

Well, not quite: keep reading for Discord links, more LitRPG, and a note from the author!

Author Note

Whew – what a ride this book was. To be honest with you all, I really wasn’t sure about Warsinger. Come books, you go into knowing exactly what they’re about. While the goal of Warsinger was always the discovery and retrieval of Withering Rose, I had no sense of how the plot would play out. No matter how I planned, the twists and turns kept coming. I feel that I ended up with a very character-focused book… a book primarily focused on Suri’s growth (and Karalti’s?), more-so than Hector’s.

There is a very longstanding tradition of this kind of character story segues in JRPGs, which is what Archemi always returns to… the series was inspired by my love of older SNES and Playstation JRPGs, especially Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, and a lesser-known game called Terranigma. Hector’s choice of weapon (or his weapon’s choice of person, really) is homage to the protagonist of Terranigma, Ark.

The FF7 remake is really bringing this character-driven trait of JRPGs into relief, too. While I was writing Warsinger, I watched a playthrough of the remake and the original FF7 for comparison, and remembered that hours and hours of game time is focused on the various character backstories in games like these. Archemi may well continue that tradition.

I hope you enjoyed Warsinger – and are looking forward to Hector’s first showdown with Baldr since Dragon Seed. I have no doubt I’ll get some reviews questioning Hector’s weaknesses and his lack of mastery of Dark Lancer in this series, because it’s the end of Book 4 and he’s not running around Archemi like Kratos in the God of War series (yet). I’ve had a couple of queries from people asking me: “How is it possible for Hector to overcome a character as powerful as Ororgael? He’s an admin… how can he compete?”

The short answer? I can’t say. Even the short answer would be spoilers. I will say this, though: no god or dev is going to descend from the heavens and save Archemi’s ass, and neither will any of the admins (or their cheat items: stupid Nicolas) in this book. I wouldn’t do that to my fans.

Book 5 is all about Hector’s increasingly focused path to self-mastery – as the name Spear of Destiny suggests. There’s 7-to-8 books planned for the series, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the sprawling JRPG-ness of it all… there’s still a lot of character growth to come.

Thanks for being my fan, for taking the time to read my work and invest in it. I may not know your name, but be assured – if you’ve read all the way through and are here, you mean the world to me. Storytelling is both a joy and