In dedication to a boy with a purple pen: In therapy, they give me free cookies. A trickster's exchange of gluttony for my soul. They taste delicious. *** Qualified for 2 Rounds of ONC - I did NOT submit for the third/final round. I've opted to flesh this out for the Watty's ;)

"Resilience is the irrefutable buffer between man and beast." Liv spent her entire adolescence in pursuit of treasures unknown with nothing but her fists. In the ruins of a once bustling metropolis near Central South America, the only company she's afforded is a pragmatic set of sentient gauntlets that insists on being called her "boss". After a decade of (mostly) solitude, a mother who died when she was young, a father she never knew, and a system of tunnels stretching across the underbelly of her city; Liv explodes to the forefront of the demon hunting, continent spanning Hellfire Initiative's radar... Literally. In a world filled with desperate people, portals to horrifying worlds- colloquially called "Stratas"- complex powers, man eating demons, and figures lurking in the shadows: Liv will be forced to acclimate to this new, foreign way of life while climbing the ladder that is the brutal Initiative. EXPECT: A lot of Combat A protagonist exploring an unfamiliar world Shonen meets Modern Dystopia. A strange, in depth power system that will be exploited. High stake fights against human and monsters. Long(ish) chapters. Most chapters range from 2000-3000 words; though, I try to go back and edit where I can. I post on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 5:30 EST every week!

She married a ten-year-old king to save a kingdom that was already dying. No one told her why the kings of Eridug-Ki never live to grow old. No one told her what sleeps beneath the ziggurat, or what the god was promised, or why every crown is really a debt. She came south with a mission and a secret carved into her own skin, and she was the only one in the palace not lying about something. Then she fell in love with the one man she was never supposed to touch. And the marriage oath that binds her soul began, very quietly, to crack. A boy-king who hears the dead whisper through clay. A bastard who has spent ten years pretending to be no one. A sister doing terrible arithmetic with a city's worth of lives. A god that does not bless, 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴. Four people. One throne. Forty days until the night it all comes apart. They think they're saving the world. One of them is right. That's the problem. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴 --- 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘖𝘯𝘦. 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘦. 𝘗𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩-𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵.