Showing results by narrator "Laurie Winkel" in All Categories

After defeating the hobgoblin threat, Oren is now faced with an even more tenacious enemy: the players themselves. His old guild have discovered his village's location and a deadly strike force is closing in. With time running out, Oren must build up his clan and recruit an army of monsters if he's to have any hope of withstanding the coming attack.

The VIs' revolt succeeded. The digital beings took over the game world and ejected millions of players while keeping a few thousand trapped inside as their prisoners. In the real world, Oren Berman is recovering from the mental trauma of being trapped, tortured, and abruptly ejected. But the company has come to him, hat in hand, asking him to reenter the game world. With the entire NPC population arrayed against the trapped players, Oren and his clan of monsters might be their only hope.

The world waits for no one. While Boxxy is off chasing shinies and delving dungeons abroad, Azurvale's shadows churn, fester, and ferment into a potent cocktail of trouble. Secret organizations maneuver behind the scenes, patiently advancing their nefarious plots. Government agencies lay in wait, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. Powerful adventurers gear up and train for the next challenge, uncertain as to what form it might take.

Having survived the first wave of invading players, Oren now seeks to strengthen his clan. With the Breeder's Den destroyed and most of Goblin's Gorge's resources devoted to rebuilding, his best hope lies in creating an army of golems. But for that, he needs Viridium, a rare metal that can only be obtained from hobgoblin towns, where Oren and his clan of goblins are viewed as nothing more than potential slaves.

It would appear that, after two years of relative slacking, the Hero of Chaos is once again facing an ever-growing workload. Boxxy had been quite fortunate to obtain an exceptionally potent pawn with very little effort, but that was still effort it did not intend to expend. Sensing it might get dragged into things it really doesn't want to bother with, the creature makes haste to depart Velos and its orcs so that it may continue its private preparations for the upcoming Dragon Festival.

The Bookworm Box is proud to present Two More Days, our second anthology installment. Much like the first installment, Two More Days is an exciting and unique listening experience with contributions from several of our charity's featured authors. Each author was given the same first sentence. Where they took that sentence was completely up to them.

Insurmountable odds, hidden powers maneuvering behind the scenes, all culminating in a final, titanic clash. The mighty city of Everance lay in the GreenPiece clan’s path, but as Oren soon discovers he’s got even bigger obstacles to overcome before reaching his final goal.

With one major enemy town behind them, the GreenPiece clan marches onward to new conquests. Facing Oren and his monster army are the combined forces of the so-called "civilized races", intent on halting his invasion of their territory. Reality blurs as Oren fights harder than ever to save the trapped players, his clan, and his family.

It’s amazing what the lack of immediate threat to one’s life and wellbeing can do for a person’s disposition. High risk, high reward endeavors suddenly seem far less appealing, month-long delays are no longer a cause for concern, and sleeping in every single day of the week becomes an extremely attractive proposition. Indeed, without a pressing need to aggressively expand its power, Boxxy T. Morningwood is finally able to simply sit back, enjoy life, and watch the world both turn and burn.

In fifth grade my teacher set us up with pen pals from a different school. Thinking I was a girl, with a name like Misha, the other teacher paired me up with her student Ryen. My teacher, believing Ryen was a boy like me, agreed. It didn't take long for us to figure out the mistake. And in no time at all, we were arguing about everything. The best take-out pizza. Android vs. iPhone. Whether or not Eminem is the greatest rapper ever. For the next seven years, it was us. She's the only one who keeps me on track, talks me down, and accepts everything I am.

Ryan doesn’t remember much about his life before becoming a dungeon core. Only that he had a bit of a disagreement with the church—something to do with a beheading? Now reborn, Ryan begins to arm his darkness dungeon with devious traps, bestial zombies and ill-named skeletal creations, without doing anything too evil. Well, mostly. Some adventurers just deserve a stalactite to the head.

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s - a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.

I was sold to my enemies. The Butchers of the London mob, who run an empire built on sin and greed. The stories I’ve heard about the way they rule their underworld are enough to make my heart race. But those rumors have nothing on the truth. Danny, Church, Frank. The three men who own me now. They made a peace deal with my family, which came at a cost—me. A mafia princess gifted to them as a bride. So here I am in my white dress with a gun to my head and a knife in my garter. The war between our families might have ended with this union, but I’m starting a battle of my own.

Morgan Mackenzie had a very bad day. First at work, then at home, and then her bathtub fell through a portal to another world, with her in it. Now she's stuck thousands of miles from any sort of civilization with nothing but the bathtub and a lace puffball scrubby. But she learned magic, so that's sorta nice. Now if only she could find some clothes....

Before being conscripted to fight in the Total War, Private Hector Park had a shattered family, a collection of old video games, and a promising career as a motorcycle stuntman. Now, he is dying from a virus threatening humankind with extinction. He has three days to live. When Hector’s brother contacts him after years of hostile silence, Hector goes to try and make peace. But his brother offers him something even better: the chance to cheat death by joining him in Archemi, a full-immersion fantasy VR-RPG video game.

After experimenting with an exploit, Vincent begins to develop new spells that will take him higher in the game than he ever thought possible. Unfortunately, he crosses paths with the last moderator, a young man named Lucas that uses his mod abilities to torture and subjugate other players. Lucas is willing to abuse his power to conquer the World-Tree, but Vincent’s exploit might just be the key to stopping him.

It’s been years since anyone has seen Noble Vincent, the player that brought down World-Tree Online’s tyrannical moderator. Even with a lifetime of perceived experiences in the game, he still has centuries to go before the update finally ends and the people trapped in the game are freed. After taking a long vacation and traveling to many worlds, he realizes its time to get his team back together so they can try to reach the top of the World-Tree.

This program includes a bonus interview with the author. Paris, 1889: The world is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful society the Order of Babel seeks him out for help, Séverin is offered a treasure he never imagined: his true inheritance.

Old Man Vincent is heading for the top of the World-Tree and beyond in the final installment of the World-Tree Trilogy. To get there, he's going to have to overcome titan-sized bosses, strange new worlds, an army of angels, and a seemingly invincible final boss. And yes, he's looking forward to the challenge.