Will you perish in the frozen lands of monsters, magic, and terror?
Escape to the Hel Tundra! The Immersive world of Fantasy Author
R.T. Stalba-Smith.
Kora and Rhud, two relic and monster hunters roaming the Hel Tundra in search of their destiny…
In this exclusive reader experience you’ll receive more than you bargained for---staying alive comes at a cost! A sacrifice.
But in return, this click-your-own adventure is yours.
(Along with the opening chapters artifact.)
Be warned hunter!!! — This sequence is not for the faint of heart (nor weary of time). Stealing away from the grim realities of our land to a much darker world has its costs...
Click the link below to SIGN UP to the Newsletter of R.T. Stalba-Smith.
No, stop. Go back up!
Seriously. Go back up!
Fine... but you'll regret it.
Dammit, go back up!
The sign-up form glitches and disappears.
Or at least, you thought it was a form...
You had to enter information about yourself.
Your contact information? A name? Something about—
You squint and tap your screen in frustration.
A glass mirror shimmers in front of you. Ripples wash out and smooth to nothing.
"What the hell..." you utter. You're looking at yourself, except you're not really—
The ripples begin again. Your body pulls towards them. Calls sound and you realize you’re in a stonewall hallway.
You don’t even remember arriving here. Or how you found this place.
But here you are.
In front of this shimmering glass.
A yell echoes down the hallway.
Something tugs at your mind dully.
Escape…
Imprisonment…
A quest…
More words float up on the glass.
“Do you wish to escape?”
More yells join the first. Their words gnashing at the echoes like rabid wolves. Their calls wash over you and your skin prickles. Goose flesh rises and stiffens. The hallway is freezing.
“Do you want to escape?”
Without answering, the words shimmer and change.
“How badly?”
A light bursts into the hallway and an angry guard spots you. “Stop!”
In the light of his flame you see all the other glass veils. Rows upon rows of them lining the hallway.
All with gilded frames.
All with names above them.
All broken save yours.
“Well?”
You look upon the name above your frame. Hel Tundra.
More guards spill into the hallway.
“You’re not the first soul to step through here… nor will you be the last… What is your decision?”
More guards arrive in the hall. Closing in. Weapons brandished. Unintelligible anger ringing the silence. Their anger turns into sense as they realize what you’re in front of.
“Hey, don’t—”
The shimmering glass flashes and you hold your hands up to the light. The glass pulls you in as the guards arrive.
Fire and frost burn through you. Cold heat fills your lungs. You’re flailing in a black void until a single light sparks.
It burns bright.
Brighter.
Brighter.
Your eyes sting.
“How much for a soul?”
The light flares and blinds you.
But not before a great set of jaws are seen.
…
Nothing happens.
Time passes.
You’re not breathing. You’re not dead either. Your heart keeps no beat. You open your eyes.
You need to decide.
Before you is the great set of jaws. It holds a shimmering veil. Hel is inscribed in the jaws of enormous bone. Twice the height of you. Teeth longer than your forearm.
Two blurred figures stand on either side of the bone monstrosity.
“How much for a soul?” they speak.
“But a name,” one says.
“And a place in time,” the other responds.
The jaws shimmer and words appear.
“Beware though, to enter the Hel Tundra is a fate only the most courageous can survive. It is a relentless landscape of horror and terror, fear and violence, strength and hope, awaits you…”
