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After being killed, a somewhat intellectually and empathically disadvantaged young mage wakes up just in time for the start of semester exams. He has been marked with the brand of time — cursed to return upon every death until a coming calamity is prevented. If only he could listen to his survival instinct long enough to find out that a calamity was even coming.

Born and raised in rural Alabama, Billy Creekmore was destined to be a psychic. His mother, a Choctaw woman schooled in her tribe's ancient mysticism, understands the permeable barrier between life and death — and taught the power to Billy, who now helps the dead rest in peace. Wayne Falconer, son of a fervent tent evangelist, uses his own unique powers to cure the sick, on his way to becoming one of the most celebrated miracle workers in the country. Billy and Wayne share more than a gift — they share a dream and a common enemy. Their separate journeys are mystery walks leading toward a crossroad where ancient evil has taken shape, and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance.

Once, the sun shone brightly on Azlant — until the Whitemoon came to steal mankind's light and condemn it to eternal darkness. Valdemar Verney is a sorcerer with a dream: to find a new world for his people to settle, one where the sky isn't a ceiling made of stone. But in the underground empire of Azlant, dissent is never tolerated. Brought before one of the undead Dark Lords, Valdemar is offered a choice he cannot refuse. Meanwhile, swordswoman Marianne Reynard is given a mission: to investigate a dead cult with a few mysteries left to unravel. Both are looking for the truth, though they might regret finding it — for many cultists, monsters, and cosmic horrors stand in their way.

The dragons are dead. Their colossal forms, once the lifeblood of an empire, now rot in the wastelands of a cursed continent. The people they empowered have been driven to madness by their absence, and a creeping decay smothers the land. Magus Montgomery Maldrak, driven by a desperate need to save his daughter lost on the decaying continent of Draya Calyrex, crafts a solution that skirts the edge of life and death: puppet-automatons animated by necromantic sorcery. Through their lifeless eyes, he will walk the ruins of a dead empire, searching for the truth behind the plague, the madness, and the dragons' fall. Some truths, however, are meant to stay buried.

Allison is a normal girl who enjoys spending time with her friends and just generally enjoying college life. So when she wakes up in a strange underground complex full of candles, weird creatures, and no memory of how she ended up there, it's safe to say she's a little out of her element. She has no survival skills, no ability to fight, and no clue what the weird words and numbers floating around in her head are supposed to mean. It seems like a hopeless situation until she finds an unlikely ally — another version of herself, with different knowledge, skills, and personality. Together, they might have a chance of making it out alive. The catch: they still share the same body.

In a distant future, Alexander wakes to find his past is a fog and his consciousness inhabits a robot body. Faced with fragmented memory and an uncertain future, he scrapes by running a repair shop while trying to piece together the mystery of his transformation. As Alexander forges ahead stitching together his identity, unexpected companions join his journey—among them a precocious girl whose presence sparks forgotten emotions. But in the shadows lurk those drawn by his technological prowess, casting a growing threat over everything he is trying to build.

Hong Fei was once a promising soldier. Now his cultivation is crippled, and he limps toward his last hope: a quiet position in the household of Duke Yu, an old family ally living in exile. All he seeks is a place to fade into obscurity with dignity. But fate has other plans. Two mysterious cards fall into his possession — one summons a giant badger spirit beast, the other heals what everyone said couldn't be healed. When he finally reaches the Yu household, he finds not refuge but a family under siege: the duke is dying, the duchess hides her own illness, and rival nobles circle like wolves. Hong Fei wanted to disappear. Instead, he must become the shield between a falling house and those who would devour it — while behind the political schemes and assassination attempts, someone is stealing fate itself.

Choosing a college when your family is struggling can be difficult, but it isn't supposed to be world-ending. Then a meteor falls, and Matt's home city is locked down by a mysterious dome. Corporations race to monopolize new untapped resources, and people are suddenly developing powers via a system with borderline sinister intentions. In the chaos, Matt sticks to what he knows: stay out of the spotlight, grind, and survive. But he'll be dragged into the dark whether he likes it or not — where the price of failure is death, and the prize for winning is beyond his wildest dreams.

Nolan Garrett is Cerberus — a government assassin for the Nyzarian Empire, equipped with cutting-edge weapons and an AI-run cybernetic suit that compensates for his paralyzed legs. From the streets of New Avalon to deep-space black sites, he is the fist in the shadows and the dagger at the heart of his empire's enemies. Each mission draws him deeper into webs of corruption, cartel violence, rogue artificial intelligences, and conspiracies reaching the highest levels of Imperial government. Armed with his AI partner Taia and backed by fellow elite Silverguards, Nolan fights to protect the innocent while surviving a world determined to destroy him.

When Garrett comes to after a close brush with death, he's in a new world — missing an arm and paralyzed from the waist down. The brutal gang lord whose floor he's crashing on wants him gone, and only a plucky young woman and his own wits stand between him and a cold death in the streets. Armed with a system that grants experience for exploring this new world, Garrett is determined to survive by any means necessary — even if it means becoming a villain. But the city is far from what it seems. Terrifying creatures lurk around every corner, immune to conventional weapons, and a strange lucid Dream world keeps bleeding into reality. When it does, Garrett realizes the hostile gangs around him are the least of his worries.

The world is in the midst of a golden age. Humanity has been largely united under a single government for two centuries, scarcity has been all but eliminated, and the human lifespan has been extended far beyond what was once possible. Yet cracks have begun to form in this utopia — progress in science has outpaced social values, leading to conflict as the new generation struggles with perpetual disenfranchisement under their all-but-unaging elders. A class of gifted young arcanists are invited to attend a conclave held by the enigmatic Order of the Universal Panacea, an ancient organization devoted to pursuing the secret of true immortality. Several participants, including Utsushikome of Fusai — a prodigy of Thanatomancy whose grandfather was once a member — have ulterior motives for attending. Unbeknownst to them, there is a curse on the Order. An uninvited guest may already lurk among them — one that is not human. A whodunnit-style murder mystery with a focus on psychological drama and personal horror.

Jay has grown up in a world where dungeons, monsters, and leveling systems are a cultural norm. At twenty, he awakens a Skill that allows him to steal the abilities of monsters — where others are locked into a fixed skill set, he grows stronger after every battle. Follow Jay's journey as he learns more about his unique situation in a world that has grown blind to the real dangers of modern-day dungeon diving.

A puzzling encounter leaves Dimitry a beggar with a strange emblem on his wrist. Around him, people suffer as ruthless organizations, opportunistic nobles, and an overly pious church vie for power in a medieval land under constant siege by stone monstrosities rampaging from the coasts. Can a kindhearted surgeon aid this ailing world with modern knowledge, resourcefulness, and magic? Or will rival powers crush him first? The story starts brutally grim and transitions into technology uplift with a focus on science, magitech, and town building.

Rare classes and powerful skills are helpful. Too bad the system doesn't seem built to handle them — what even are all these errors? A team of outcasts and adventurers must rely on their trust in each other — and the bane of all stories, healthy communication — just to survive, let alone understand what the system is doing. They're quickly realizing that not all is as it seems, and the system is doing something to people, to monsters, and maybe even to the gods themselves. Their goal isn't just to survive; it's to make things better.

Sixteen-year-old Thenio Iterune has a simple plan: work hard, do well in school, become a qualified wizard, and make his parents proud. Unfortunately, his magic power is increasingly difficult to control, leading to accidents that threaten his spot at the Kafron Royal Academy of Magic. When he discovers the source — an extremely rare and unstable magic affinity — the stakes rise from expulsion to survival. Enter Iggy, a tiny black dragon with a remarkable nose for magic, and his genius enchanter partner Ariom, who take an interest in keeping the chronically explosive boy alive. That's before demons get added to the mix.

When Alice Verianna went to sleep, she was just another teenager from the Denver suburbs. She woke up in a magical alternate dimension inhabited by monsters and governed by a mysterious System — where people resemble RPG characters and everyone has access to their own status screens. Grappling with the System isn't Alice's only challenge. An underground organization called the Society of Starry Eyes has taken a particular interest in other dimensions. If they find out about Alice, they will stop at nothing to extract the secrets of her world by force. Now Alice must pursue her scientific endeavors, learn to harness the magic around her, and uncover the Society's ultimate intentions — and how she ended up here — before it's too late.

Reborn into a world shaped by ashen storms, brutal blizzards, and sword-wielding sorcerers, Arilyn must forge his own path. Magic is abundant, spread far and wide by the realm-spanning Grand Spell — and even in the frail body of a newborn, Arilyn earns attributes, points, and power through stubborn hard work. Yet not everything is as bright as it seems. Legends walk the land, and the Blight Lords are hell-bent on resurrecting the Old God. None of this should have mattered to someone living on the fringe of the empire — until strange rumblings rise from the heart of the Candor Mountains.

When horror-obsessed Riley Lawrence and his college friends arrive in the small town of Carousel for its Centennial Celebration, they walk into what turns out to be an inescapable horror-movie set. Each of them is assigned an archetype—Scholar, Athlete, Eye Candy, Final Girl—and the curtain rises. Assigned the Film Buff archetype, Riley learns he can exploit the Oblivious Bystander trope to survive attacks. To escape Carousel, the group must leverage their assigned tropes and uncover what is trapping them—before the rounds run out and escape slips further out of reach.

Christopher Snow lives in the city of Moonlight Bay, California, with his hyper-intelligent dog Orson and a handful of close friends. He has XP — xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare genetic affliction forcing him to avoid light at all costs. His parents died under mysterious circumstances, and now shadowy figures are stalking him to stop him from finding out how — even if it means threatening the people he loves.

A rough draft of a dark secondary-world fantasy. The revised version contains major expansions and outright changes to multiple plot elements; this version is preserved for posterity only.