The outlaw Jesse Jane was finally caught, and faces the gallows. With one night to live, she spends it weaving tales to the man who caught her, drawing him in for one last gambit....

Earth, ancestral planet of humanity, forgotten for thousands of years. Finally, one fanatic researcher found clues pointing at the position of this mystical planet. Prof. Dr. Delphi, protected by twelve experienced elites, boarded one spaceship to recreate the history of this forgotten planet. What ...

The Leyline Scriptorium is a haunting sanctuary where the restless souls of the departed are contracted by the librarian to write their stories to release the burdens of their unfinished lives. Kastimir Blackwood, the librarian, tends to this ethereal library, a place where the past lingers and the ...

Official page for the [Royal Road Community Magazine] Contest. This page includes the first chapters of all entries submitted before January 10th, 2025.  Check out the first chapter for more details....

Short fairy tales about small adventures in which the main characters are animals. The central theme of all stories is friendship....

Arun Leon is an unremarkable man by societal standards, yet his life is a battleground of inner demons and family bonds. This story explores the complexities of human morality, the redemptive power of family, and the silent impact one man can have despite his flaws. Disclaimer:  This is a work of pu...

For centuries, the colony ship has drifted silently through space, its systems dormant and its once-thriving mission forgotten. When a surge of sunlight reawakens its aging circuits, the ship’s AI finds itself alone, with no crew to guide it—only frozen embryos and a directive to establish a new hom...

Have you ever thought that someone was better off dead? Ruthlow isn’t a saint. Like everyone else, the occasional murderous thought crosses his mind. But he doesn’t think he will ever stoop to that level, until he finds his godchild in danger. Vea is the godchild he treasures deeply, but Ruthlow soo...

A starship with a legendary name races to the rescue....

On the isolated island of Spltnix, a black smoke rolls across the land, transforming animals into monstrous killing machines. Donte, a young man living in solitude on his grandfather’s farm, finds his quiet life shattered as the smoke consumes the island. With only his sickly pet cat, Scratch, for c...

In a world where the divine forces of the Alabaster fight to maintain order against demonic incursions, Calyth Avesar, a stoic and battle-hardened cleric devoted to the Virtue of Temperance, struggles to atone for a failure that haunts him. Now, with his young apprentice, Kaida, by his side, he seek...

Welcome to Gaps in the Veil, a place where windows to other worlds open for brief periods of time before closing tight once again. These windows allow us to view small glimpses into these other worlds. These glimpses may be small, inconsequential moments or brief, yet terrifying struggles between li...

In the first publicly released short story from the Guardians of Diabolus universe, we follow Sunamar Pendragon, a young adventurer, a seemingly harmless young man in need of money. Embarking on a journey alongside Aleiana Starsong, an elven ranger who he meets in an adventurers' guild in the wester...

A man wakes up in a modified fMRI scanner. They feel strange. Has the experiment worked?...

Daisy Bell, the first true Artificial Intelligence in a world of magic and technology, wakes up for the very first time, meeting both her father and aunt shortly after....

This is a self-help story. I have a buddy that is going through a funk right now, and I wanted to voice some of my insight of how to clear the funk out. I know that the information is simple, but I also know that it is frequently the simple answer that can help the most. In these turbulent times we ...