Behold! A sample chapter from the newest Kell Inkston book, Xtreme Manly Man Force of Intense Badassery: Book One: The Fountain of Testosterone, releasing on March 28th.
Enjoy!
Somewhere in the shifting depths of Subspace Sector Gamma-Extra-Seven-Two-Four (GX724) walk two figures, certain that they’re on their way to complete a simple job, and nothing more.
They’re heading toward a large, oppressively sharp ziggurat of some sort, shaped like a giant fist punching the sky in its stupid, astral face. They halt a minute’s walk from it, and feel the strange, sandpaper-like breeze brush their faces.
“Ya’ think that’s the place?” the large figure on the left asks, with a truly neck-crushingly masculine voice, the figure on the right. His tone sounds like a bonfire cooking some skulls. The lean man on the right pulls out a map and looks at it for just a moment.
“That must be it,” he says with a voice of slightly lesser manliness levels. “There aren’t any other fist-shaped temples for… well, at least a hundred klicks from here,” he adds, rubbing his chin stubble.
The large, armored warrior gives a slow, stoic nod. “Good,” the large man says as he stretches his neck about. “So, ya’ ready, then?” he adds.
Some call him “Ultra Death Graveman Death Death Death,” (but for the sake of briefness, he’ll be referred to as “UDGD”). He is a stoutly-built man of coal-black skin, wide features, and intense, slate eyes. His hair is short and practical, a unified trim appearance in line with his black plate armor, that is, with the exception of a helmet. He is certain wearing a helmet is for pussy babies. Instead, he wears face-paint in the style of a star-white skull, staring forth with manly indignance.
“Yeah… you feeling good about it?” asks the figure on the right, known mostly by his own Subspace moniker of “Super Manly Heart Tearer Outer,” (or “HTO” for short). He’s a young man with a witty, decent look about him. His kept blond hair is held in a short ponytail, and he owns a charismatic, handsome face. He’s outfitted in a light, thin plate suit, silver with blue accents, also without a helmet. He holds a solid rapier in his right hand accommodated by a left-hand buckler.
Appearances can be deceiving, and the two will learn this lesson many times in the coming months.
UDGD takes a quick look at his gigantic, strange axe. It looks as though a child had drawn on it with crayons on top of the manly, blackened steel. After a moment of inspection in his gauntleted hands, he sheathes it with a nod.
“Yeah, let’s fuck ‘em up,” UDGD says with an unnecessarily angry scowl. The two ascend the stairs of the giant temple, ready to complete their quest with gritted, manly skill. At the top of the ziggurat, the path of our two figures is blocked by a huge beastman, its voided stare gazing into their souls.
“Halt, humans, or as I like to call your kind, bitches. This is a sacred Temple of Face Punching, under the holy cause of Crushism. Only initiates with our order, The Great Society of Face Punching, may pass,” the large beast says with deep snarl and abdomen flex as he plucks out three hanging separate syringes of some hideous amphetamine from his arm.
UDGD scowls as he draws his axe.
“I think you’re gonna’ let us pass,” UDGD says, clenching his teeth with intense, disgruntled strength. The intention of the visitors made clear, the beast enters a frontal stance, readying to tear off their heads and drink their blood after punching every inch of their bodies to oblivion.
HTO copies his teammate and draws his glinting rapier as he notes the beast’s growl, warning of the oncoming, skeleton-crushingly-brutal fight.
“I hate humans. They’re all a bunch of retarded faggots that can’t even–”
“Beasts poop on the floor,” is all UDGD needed to inject with.
ENGAGE!
In a fury, the beast lunges forward with a snap of his teeth at UDGD, who thrusts his hand at the creature’s neck. UDGD swings his large axe with a single move, lopping off the beast’s super muscular left leg and opening a gaping wound. Xtreme amounts of blood spray from the crimson void, painting the armor of the two mercenaries with its hot sanguine caress. The beast howls in manly pain as it punches UDGD in the face with its muscular beast fist – but UDGD doesn’t give one shit about it. As the two engage in a radical exchange of fists to the face, HTO delivers a precise thrust to the beast’s chest, which was more than likely the one thing in the fight that really brought any closure. Gallons of blood spurt forth all around the entrance of the temple as the beast flails its fists at UDGD. A few more impalements by HTO, and the beast falls to the ground, spewing insane amounts of bloody awesomeness and painting the stairs of the temple as it screams at the top of its stupid beast lungs. Because the beast had been doing large amounts of drugs, his blood was corrupted by the power of being a loser (winners don’t use drugs) and it lit on fire like gasoline after only seconds of being exposed to the light of the Subspace sky above.
With an enraged yell, UDGD, draws back his axe, to which he has bestowed the name “The Tomb Lord,” and throws it down on his foe with all he has, which is quite a lot. The axe makes brutal contact with the beast’s neck, and blood covers both of the human warriors as the sinews are departed and the head goes flying off down the stairs before exploding and going to Beastman Hell where, unfortunately for this guy, there aren’t any drugs.
VICTORY!
With a sweet guitar riff provided by the Subspace Orchestra in the background, UDGD spits on the mutilated form of the beast’s decapitated, burning corpse before wiping the blood off his face.
“Bitch,” UDGD notes smoothly as the two enter into the large temple. HTO sighs, secretly not being very fond of blood – and thus not manly. The two pass through a torch-lit hallway, smelling unmistakably of raw body parts, blood, peepee, and more cool/gross stuff, when HTO, being the more perceptive of the two, hears what sounds like voices ahead.
“Wait a sec’… I think I hear… chanting,” HTO says in a tone that is not quite as manly as UDGD would prefer him to have – it sounds a bit too observant, but not in the cool manly way – more of a “hey everyone let’s be careful about this thing I just noticed.”
“Yeah? So what?” UDGD responds with an arched brow.
“Oh, well, I just thought that you’d like to know, because it sounds like there’s buncha’ beasts singing it,” HTO explains with a reasonable tone, a sort most normal people would find perfectly acceptable.
“Yeah, thanks,” UDGD says icily, his thankless gaze staring forward even more. HTO shrugs as the two press forward into the drearily-lit halls of the sanctuary. The two spy over a few band posters, most of them replete with aloof-looking nerds wearing glasses and looking generally aloof as to the state of their society.
“Moon Boys?” HTO recites, reading off one of the titles quizzically.
UDGD sighs. “Proto-rustic Prog rock. These dudes are seriously so fuckin’ lame.”
HTO gasps. “Dude, Progressive Rock isn’t that ba–”
The skull-faced Axeman fires off a warring glance to the young man, who just clears his throat.
“Yeah, uh, fuck those nerds, hah!” the fencer corrects with a rigid grin.
Now that they’re further along, UDGD can hear the many voices emanating from their destination up ahead, and that’s enough to distract him from his partner’s slip. Everyone knows Nightcore is one of the worst genres of all time, and that anyone who enjoys it is most certainly not a man. The two companions come upon an illuminated corner that leads into a bright place located at the end of the hall.
“That must be where they’re keeping ‘em,” HTO says.
The two quiet their footsteps as they reach the end of the hallway, and UDGD peeks around the corner with the profile of a shadow.
In the slight curve of his vision, the manly Axeman can see a large pedestal surrounded by flames and several dancing and chanting beast folk high on gigameth, who in turn are surrounded by several mutilated corpses on fire. Atop the pedestal and securely tied with ropes sit a dozen children and a young lady, all bound and gagged. This display looks reasonably manly, but not manly enough to beat UDGD and HTO.
“Looks like they’re preparin’ for th’face punchin’ sacrifice,” UDGD whispers as he looks over the beast men and their weaponry.
“What?! What’s that?” HTO asks with a tone so un-masculine, UDGD would swear it sounds like the voice of a sissy. UDGD sighs, showing his displeasure at HTO’s lack of manliness while still maintaining his cool composure.
“It means they’re about to punch those people in the face to death, eat their guts, and then set them on fire,” UDGD, the axe warrior of death, explains to his conventionally handsome accomplice.
“Oh, yeah of course. So how will we attack?” HTO says, shooting an “O.K.” signal to UDGD.
“How else? We tell ‘em we’re here, and then kill ‘em. Ya’ ready?”
HTO’s gaze is immediately frozen.
“W-wait, but we have the element of surprise. Why would w–”
UDGD scoffs. “Because we’re not children?” he says with an ingratiating tone before turning to the worship room.
HTO clears his throat in horror, unsure whether or not he should try to stop him. “U-uh, I’m not sure if that would wo–”
“HEY, YOU!” UDGD yells at the large group of beast men as he dashes into the main chamber of the temple. HTO cringes, seeing the small army of beasts turn their heads at the two of them. UDGD pulls a great breath into his lungs – it’s showtime.
“Ahn intalopaaah,” the leader of the beast-men and the high priest of the Face-Punching Cult hisses at the sight of the two mercenaries.
“I’M GOING TO TEAR OUT YOUR SPINES, PISS ON YOU, CHOP YOU IN PIECES, AND THEN KILL YOU!” UDGD yells in his most erection-crushing of voices, I mean, unless you think the threat of oncoming violence to be hot or something – I’m not judging here.
The dozens of blood-starved enemies form around UDGD and HTO as they draw their jagged, rusty weapons, each stained with the sanguine crust of numberless victims. The high priest of the Face-Punching Cult remains unmoved from the center of the pedestal where he is about to punch the schoolteacher and the children in their faces, to death.
“Kiiiiiiill them!” The sniveling priest says with a deep, crimson-colored scowl.
ENGAGE!
The beast men dash to chop up UDGD and HTO, but boy are they in for it.
UDGD, with his large axe poised to strike, throws a swing across the audience of beasts. Considering the beast men do not wear armor, his strike promptly cleaves through three of them, sending their organs splattering into their friends like wild, colorful confetti-filled tubes that smell unmistakably like a fish market at the end of the day. The rest waste no time in thrusting forward with their weapons, pushing UDGD back as he prepares his next swing.
HTO meets swords with the beast-folk, parrying any foolish strike they make toward him. The two slash and gouge through the large group of beasts for several seconds, HTO skillfully evades and blocks every strike with poise and grace, and UDGD takes the blows as they come – he feels that is the purpose of armor, to take hits and still be carelessly manly – shields are just way past gay, in his humble opinion.
The demoralized beast men begin stancing defensively, allowing UDGD to break straight through their guards and chop them into a gory, crimson salad of weakness and failure. The high priest, dressed in robes of crimson and black, sees that the two are winning the bout between themselves and his minions, roughly halfway through the entire cult. The priest decides the sacrifice must happen immediately. The priest turns to the struggling group of children plus one lady and raises his fists to begin the painful, manly sacrifice.
“WAKE UP!” UDGD yells from behind, his white teeth gritted like the ivory cliffs overlooking the Eversea. The priest turns his head just in time to see UDGD, flying in the air toward him, axe poised to strike.
The beastman screams in horror, and that was that: as far as the Graveman is concerned, men do not show fear.
UDGD swings down with such inhuman strength, a bunch of sweet guitars wail madly as he splits through the high priest with a single, decisive strike. The high priest wails in agony the second before his body explodes, blood drenching UDGD, getting deep, and I mean deep into his eyes, and also the captives, and the altar, and pretty much everywhere else.
The surviving beast men are so distraught and intimidated by UDGD’s display of manliness that they all drop their weaponry and surrender, most of them also intimidated to the point of pissing themselves, not unlike a gaggle of computer science majors when they see a man exert his body for more than two seconds.
VICTORY!
UDGD basks in the immense pride of leaping ten feet in the air and then splitting someone in half in front of dozens of enemies and proceeds to untie the children and woman by pulling the ropes apart with his stupid levels of strength. HTO nods with approval that the fight is over and proceeds to wipe the large splotches of blood off his face, armor, sword, and shield.
“Oh, thank you so much, sir! Children! Thank the nice men for saving us!” the nice lady says with a wipe of the brow, the same one that she is altogether too grateful to find still outside of her face just the way she likes it.
“Thank you, scary guys!” the overjoyed children all exclaim on the command of their schoolteacher. UDGD puts away his axe and crosses his arms in a cool, uncaring way.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, looking off to the subdued beast men. HTO smirks from below as the children flood UDGD with compliments on his greatness, and how so many of them want to be as cool and badass as him when they grow up. “Shut up, kids. It’s all in a day’s work,” UDGD adds as he shoos them off down the hall and out into freedom. The children and teacher rush away past the surrendered beast men.
The kids seem to have taken the brutal slaughter of dozens of creatures fairly well, as they are all laughing and making up jokes as they leave. HTO sighs as he wonders about children raised in Subspace: violence is so normal for them that something this traumatic is barely scarring for them, it seems.
The children and teacher march off to return home, and UDGD turns his head to HTO and the remaining beast-folk. The beast men freeze up once they notice UDGD’s angry, super manly glare, promising an awesome, disemboweling death to any who defy his will.
“ALRIGHT, BITCH-SISSIES, THIS IS A SHAKEDOWN. LINE UP YOUR STUFF!” UDGD commands, pointing at a certain place near the shrine. The beast men immediately spring to work, not wanting to displease their incredibly strong and apparently limitlessly angry visitor. UDGD leaps down next to the growing pile of loot and joins HTO, who has just finished cleaning his shiny suit of armor. The beast people scramble around for anything of value they can find, and then all halt near the pile, hoping that the murderer of their leader is happy with what they’ve brought.
A low silence, accommodated only by the crackling of the aforementioned burning corpses, holds the atmosphere by its neck.
UDGD crosses his arms with an initially-disapproving stare. Most of the treasure they have looks non-manly, and just plain weird. There are piles and piles of useless baubles, bronze and cheap-metal items, and a single copy of the first book in the Oscar La’Coss book series, a novel which he has no interest in reading because the main character, he’s heard, isn’t a man. A matter of fact, so little of it looks good to loot and sell at a local vendor that UDGD feels he may just tear out the hearts of the beast men, make a chair out of their furry corpses, and then just sell that instead. He is just about to yell in their faces and kill them all, except he spots something in the pile that catches his eye.
Unassuming and covered in some random shit waits a tightly-packed scroll, drawn in by some hemp cord. It looks quite old, and UDGD thinks old things are, as a general rule, pretty alright. It might be worth looking into.
“And what would this be?” UDGD asks with a glare. The beast men shuffle about nervously until one that knows what it is looks at the object UDGD is pointing at.
“Tis a map… sir,” the limp-wristed gerbil-man responds, his head hanging low out of fear and respect, but mostly fear.
“A map t’what?” he asks the beastman as he extends his gauntlet to take it. The beastman humbly creeps forward and places the ornately inked scroll in his hand.
“To a great treasure spoken of by our ancestors, in a place that even they had forgotten. Tis said to be a fountain that produces unlimited amounts of the purest of manly fluids–”
“Gross,” the Graveman injects with a scowl.
“N-nay sir, I speak for true,” the beastman squeaks with conciliatory horror. “It is the purest and deepest of–”
UDGD reaches up to his axe handle, his look of suspicion dissolving into condemnation.
The gerbil man clears his throat as the crowd stirs nervously. “N-nay sir, you misunderstand. I speak of testosterone, the essence of manliness,” the beast corrects, instantly reversing UDGD’s stance on the subject. The two warriors are taken aback slightly. HTO is taken aback much more of course, because he is not nearly as manly as UDGD, who only displays his surprise with an even more-morbid scowl. While he does his best not to show it, UDGD is actually quite excited about the idea of gaining unlimited manly power.
“I’ll be keepin’ this,” he says as he looks over the map. It’s tough to decipher – the geography looks absolutely nothing like what he is familiar with.
“Tis contained in another Subspace realm, sir. Only the most experienced of orienteers could find it.”
“Yeah, great,” UDGD says, putting the map in one of his in-armor compartments, sliding out to reveal an open hatch. He turns to leave, taking a few paces before looking back at the beast-folk to say one last thing:
“Yeah, and stop punching people in the face, that’s my job,” he says, causing a sweet industrial “Da dun, da duuuuun” accompaniment from the unseen Subspace Orchestra: which knows well how to accommodate cool moments with fitting music.
The beasts all fall to their knees in reverence – they know well that only a serious badass can make the invisible orchestra that persists through all of Subspace play music with that level of awesomeness – this guy must be at least “sick nasty,” if not an all-out “badass.”
Xtreme Manly Man Force of Intense Badassery: Book One: The Fountain of Testosterone, will be available March 28th at all fine online booksellers. Preorder your copy and keep your guts from getting punched out!
Coffee... WRITING!... COFFEE!! 