Forging Day (Crucible of Change Book 1) (40 page)

Dark Elves

You May Be a Dark Elf If…

You are at least half as evil as your feline familiar.

Your minion has minions.

You dispatch your helpless enemy because he may be annoying later.

You can turn a career-ending political scandal into a twenty-point lead in the polls.

You make everything look good.

Family Values

How do you deal with challenges that can’t be solved with a well-timed exploding bluebird?

The world has settled down remarkably well in the wake of the Change that turned a full third of the Human population into Elves, Dwarves, Trolls and more. People are back at work, buses are on time, and—a good thing for Olivia Mitchell—the hospitals are learning how to care for Dark Elves. Olivia is even behaving like a responsible citizen, using her magic to help the authorities drive back the flesh-eating slime creatures and mutant coyotes emerging from the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

Killing slimes is easy. Unfortunately, the rest of her life is as chaotic as ever. Her relationships are up in the air. Her roommate’s parents have arrived, and are doing their level best to disrupt everyone’s lives. And on top of all that, she just might be expecting.

Who or what is behind the growing disruption at the arsenal? If Olivia doesn’t want to end up a sacrifice in a fiery ritual, she’d better figure it out.

Noelle usually has several irons in the fire at any given time. She likes to spend her time reading, writing, crafting, running two online shops to sell her crafts, and gaming. Life took a turn for the quirky in 2000 when she had her daughter, who turned out to have autism.

As a child, her ambition was to be the first woman President of the United States. When she got older and learned more about politics, she recovered from that particular insanity.

Her teens were spent on historical romances, science fiction, fantasy, and writing angsty poetry. In middle school, she had her first introduction to tabletop gaming in the form of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. As she explained to her dad, with all seriousness, it gave her the chance—as a terminally shy person—to try on different personalities and experiment with being a stronger person.

From the time her daughter was born until mid-2014, Noelle worked out of her home providing IT support for a small local software company. She’s finally working in an office again as an administrator, and rather likes it. It’s nice to spend the day around adults who are mostly grown-ups.

* * * *

Did you enjoy Forging Day? If so, please help us spread the word about

Noelle Alladania Meade and MuseItUp Publishing. It's as easy as:

•Recommend the book to your family and friends

•Post a review

•Tweet and Facebook about it

Thank you

To Mary Rose Dowling. Without you, there would be no Olivia. Gaming was always more fun with you. Better teach those angels how to roll a D20.

And to my beloved father, Carlis Meade. You never got to see my story finished, and it wouldn’t have been your thing, but you always supported me in everything I did. I love you and I miss you.

Skippy, for his amazingly funny list.

My old tabletop gaming group. We had good times.

MuseItUp Publishing

Where Muse authors entertain readers!

https://museituppublishing.com

Follow us on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/MuseItUp

and on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/MusePublishing

—
for exclusive excerpts of upcoming releases

—
contests

—
free and specials just for you

—
author interviews

—
and more!