Monster Punk Horizon: A Monster Hunting GameLit Adventure Read online

  Monster Punk Horizon

  Book One

  by

  H.P. Holo

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  Cover Art by Jackson Tjota

  Cover Design by H.P. Holo

  eBook Design by H.P. Holo

  Copyright © 2021 by Holo Writing LLC

  Kindle Edition.

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  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Also by H.P. Holo

  The Wizard’s Way (with Jacob Holo)

  The Monster Punk Horizon series

  Monster Punk Horizon

  Isekai Skies

  Excess (with Jacob Holo)

  Dedication

  To Jacob, for sticking with me even though I cart on all our monster hunts.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: The Hunters of the Monstrous Continent

  Chapter 2: The Pirates of the Dazzling Skies

  Chapter 3: The Boss

  Chapter 4: The Society for the Exploration of the Monstrous Continent

  Chapter 5: Khatoyants

  Chapter 6: Harly

  Chapter 7: Save Point

  Chapter 8: Investigation

  Chapter 9: Party Hard

  Chapter 10: A Buttload of Buttlords

  Chapter 11: Potato Pals

  Chapter 12: Plan Meets Monster

  Chapter 13: Plan B

  Chapter 14: Monster Punk Horizon

  About the Author

  Looking for More GameLit?

  Excerpt from Monster Punk Horizon #2: Isekai Skies

  Chapter 1: The Hunters of the Monstrous Continent

  * * *

  “Hey, which of these poses shows off my greatsword gems the best?” Jaz asked.

  To all surrounding eyes, the young woman stood on a rough, weathered table in the middle of the canteen. To hers, though, that table was a spotlight-flooded stage, and she cycled through a variety of postures for maximum show. First, an intrepid chest thrust out to all challengers; next a sassy over-the-shoulder wink and hair flip; then an adorable clasp of the hands better suited to a mainland pop star; and finally a deliriously sultry stretch across the crowded tabletop that rivaled the surrounding rainforest for sheer steam.

  Of course, in her red monsterskin hot pants and other … “armor,” it wasn’t as if she needed any help in that department.

  A riotous cheer rose from all those seated at her table, except for Pix.

  Jaz’s hunting partner was a pointy-eared human with a practical red pixie cut, armored in practical pieces of plate mail and leather with lots of practical pouches and pockets, and a practical scowl that was having none of this nonsense but was also too used to it to complain.

  Instead she just rolled her eyes.

  “It’s a greatsword, Jaz. It shows itself off.”

  “Oh?” Jaz replied. “Think I should keep it simple, then?”

  She hopped to her feet in the middle of the table, reached for the hefty hilt protruding over her shoulder, and with a bold “BEHOLD!” flung the greatsword forward for all to see.

  Truly, it was a masterpiece.

  Its shining monsterbone blade stretched nearly as tall as she did, gleaming white in the morning suns like a newly polished pearl and sparkling with the reflection of the Dazzling Skies above. A blunt section on one side near the hilt gleamed with Onyxaur hide, bone, and horns—she liked to use as much of the monster as she could, after all—inset with a constellation of gleaming gems.

  The table squealed at the exquisite shine of the display. If diamonds were a girl’s best friend, Monstrous Diamonds were skydamn marriage material, and Jaz had a harem.

  Of course, the gems served a purpose other than fashion (though that was a definite plus). One cluster strengthened the blade so she could go longer without stopping to maintain it; another lightened it so she could wield it faster; another gave the blade a chance to cut deeper, despite the previous set of gems; and one gem made her more likely to attract bugs, which was not a strategic part of the build she was going for, but that particular gem had a gorgeous fire, especially for a bug gem, and she wasn’t about to waste it.

  The final gem, though, stood out from the others. This was partly because the sword’s forte had been completely re-embellished to accommodate it, but mainly because it was the most colossal Stellaric Opal any of them had ever seen. Its domed cabochon cut showed off an entire spectrum of color that undulated in the light as if by its own independent consciousness. Maybe it was conscious. After all, there were already weirder things in this world.

  Pix rolled her eyes again.

  “I can’t believe you got one of the rarest gems on the continent and you’re using it to beat on monsters.”

  “Excuse you, I don’t beat on monsters unless they present an immediate and active threat to the ecosystem or Skull Harbor,” Jaz retorted. “Besides, it allows me to do every sort of mysteric damage. That would take a whole sword of slots the traditional way.”

  “But mysteric damage isn’t the point of a greatsword.”

  “Don’t care. It’s shiny. And it’s not like it interferes with my ability to whale on things.”

  The rest of the table nodded in agreement, and for once Pix had to agree with them.

  Pix and Jaz’s companions made for a motley bunch. The first of their friends was a seven-foot-tall humanoid cat with cobalt blue fur, a punk leather jacket and sunglasses, and an opalescent plume of spiked hair. The second was a broad and dark man blessed with a head of luscious vines and well-tended branches, such that he was likely at least partially tree. The third was a little dragon pig that no one was going to eat because “Aww, look at his cute lil’ wings and horns and snoot!”—and also because they’d tried once, but he burp-snorted a plume of fire and it was so adorable even his most ruthless assailants collapsed in squeals of incapacitated bliss.

  They weren’t even the most motley crew in the canteen.

  “I gotta say, though,” the Cat Punk began, “That’s the most regal sword I’ve ever seen, but it kinda clashes with your face.”

  “You mean it can’t live up to the majesty of all this?” Jaz said, and flipped her hair again for maximum effect.

  Of course, the hair flip was much less dramatic than likely intended. All but the last few inches of her black hair had been pressed down under the edge of a long-necked dragon head with long ears and long, stuffed horns that looked like it had been drawn by a five-year-old, then sewn together by someone who had only just figured out what a stitch was. A little tongue poked out of its X-stitched mouth in an eternal raspberry and did nothing to diminish the absolute silliness of the mask, even as it swayed majestically in its simulated wind. It had been stuffed in such a way that it wobbled precariously on her head, as if under the influence of a blustery wind or underwater current.

  “She means you look like a windsock,” Pix replied.

  “I’ll have you know this is an important icon of my family heritage a
nd also makes a very good lure for bird monsters,” Jaz retorted.

  “Never mind that,” the Tree Man laughed, then continued with a mischievous grin: “How did someone like you even end up with a Stellaric Opal?”

  Jaz replied with a voice that suggested narrowed eyes behind her mask:

  “What do you mean ‘someone like me,’ Tree?”

  “I mean someone who hasn’t even hired a Khatoyant and who’s just barely hunted her first Ignifex. Stellaric Opals are only found in the chests of titan-scale monsters, and I know you didn’t take one of those down without a whole band of helpers.”

  “Okay, real talk?” Jaz raised her greatsword as if to shield the rest of the canteen from a secret. “I found it.”

  “You found a Stellaric Opal just lying in the jungle?”

  “No, I found the whole monster, already dead. Completely un-looted. Judging by the foot in its mouth, I’d say someone took it on and it choked on ‘em after it ate ‘em. Unfortunate situation all around, but I wasn’t about to dishonor their sacrifice by letting it go to waste.”

  “You didn’t think to check who it was?” Pix exclaimed. “If anyone deserves that opal, it’s the hunter’s next of kin!”

  “Of course I did, but they were already decomposing, and no one’s filed a missing hunter report, so whoever it was, no one’s missing ‘em.”

  “Probably another Chosen One, then,” the Cat Punk shrugged.

  “That’s savage, Ha’ti,” Pix glared.

  “She’s not wrong, though,” Tree replied. “Every time a Chosen One falls from the sky, it just makes more trouble for us.”

  “I didn’t mind this one so much,” Jaz replied, admiring her opal.

  “Yeah, but every time a Chosen One goes into the jungle, they think their Chosenness gives them the ability to control monsters we can’t even touch, and then we end up saving the Harbor from a stampede or some other nonsense.”

  “To be fair, we do get a lot of good meat out of those days,” Jaz chimed.

  Dragon Pig burp-snorted a plume of fire and then started on the bacon on Tree’s plate.

  “That’s savage, Dragon Pig,” Pix glared, but couldn’t hold the glare long, because even eating the flesh of his own kind, he was the most adorable cannibal to ever set foot on the Monstrous Continent.

  “Pix is right, though,” Tree nodded. “A hunter has passed to the skies beyond, and even Chosen Ones deserve a bit of tribute.” He thumped on the table, and the four of them raised their flagons. “To ... that guy. We don’t know who you were, but you died in the jaws of a legend, and there is no more honorable way for a hunter to go.”

  “Except fighting the legend,” Jaz chimed.

  “We don’t speak of such things at memorials!” Tree exclaimed. He thumped the table again, and all four drained their flagons with gusto and crashed them back to the tabletop.

  Ha’ti stared over her dark glasses as Jaz pulled the base of her dragon neck back down over her mouth, and then she glanced to Pix as if she’d been waiting for something.

  “So … you’re not going to comment on your partner’s using her own head for a lure?”

  Pix sighed as she stacked their empty plates together.

  “It brings another saying to mind: ‘It’s not a dumb idea if it works.’ Plus she’s so hard-headed it’d take a Nutpidge to crack her skull.”

  “A Great Nutpidge!” Tree corrected.

  “A Titan Nutpidge!” Jaz boasted.

  “A Legendary Nutpidge!” a Khatoyant shouted from a nearby table.

  “A Luminescent Nutpidge!” another cat person shouted from another table, and so on across the canteen, for there were as many types of Nutpidge as there were hunters in all the Harbor, and none of them were equal to the famous hardness of Jaz’s head.

  It continued all the way through Stellaric Nutpidge until a new guy tromped in on the end of the conversation and whined, “We’re eating Nutpidge again?”

  “You want something other than Nutpidge, you hunt it down and bring it to me yourself, you crouton,” snarled the old cat lady in front of the roaring kitchen fire.

  But because the snarl came from the only voice in the harbor that was sweeter than sugar cookies, the only face that was more beloved than Dragon Pig’s, and the only set of secret muscle that had ever successfully wrestled Tree to the ground, the rest of the canteen howled at the newcomer. He cowered in apology until the Khatoyant patted his hand with an articulated paw to let him know all was forgiven.

  Not that he would have disagreed with any Khatoyant. Three feet tall, bipedal, and catlike in every other way, Khatoyants could bring most hunters to their knees, squealing at a well-timed flash of their huge, sparkling eyes. They hadn’t yet met another race they couldn’t wrap around their little paws—other cat races like Ha’ti’s included—and that singular trait formed the backbone of their entire civilization.

  The cook was no exception, except perhaps in that beneath her cozy cloak, she’d somehow transcended the limits of standard Khatoyant size, measuring five feet in any direction with a personality to match.

  “Delicious as always, Darla,” Pix said as she returned their plates to the cook’s workspace.

  The fluffy cat lady took them with a sweet grin and effortless grip and replied:

  “Well, it could always be someone’s last meal here, so I figure I’d send them off with a good one. It’d be pleasant if you come back again, though.”

  She sent them off with a cheery wave as if she hadn’t just said she expected them to die, but then they were used to that. Today’s tribute alone showed that she wasn’t wrong, and the Chosen One was hardly the first hunter to meet his match—and maker—on this unconquered continent.

  It had been named the Monstrous Continent all those centuries ago for a reason, and by this point the only people here were the ones who enjoyed the challenge of living in a wild and untamed land, where monstrous beasts roamed free amidst equally monstrous beauties.

  The alternative was to return to the mainland—the Wondrous Continent—which was a bit of a misnomer considering that it was fully settled with few great creatures to instill wonder and, admittedly, occasional terror. After all, what was life without that occasional burst of mortal adrenaline?

  Hella boring, so the hunters said.

  * * *

  “So what’s in your logbook today?” Tree asked once they’d slid down the zipline to Harbor Center.

  The center was the only truly flat expanse of this area. Skull Harbor was built upon a massive colonnade of columnar joints—enormous, polygonal stone pillars that suggested a lava flow of apocalyptic scale at some point in the distant past. In modern times, though, facing the Dazzling Seas, it made for a convenient natural fortress, impregnable except for a few geographically weak spaces and the efforts of the most determined monsters.

  Travel in the harbor would have been exhausting, but an elaborate system of bridges, ziplines, and chain lifts connected all the geological platforms and their associated stations—Darla’s canteen, the blacksmith, the bonesmith, the armorer, the lapidary, and the various other shops that made up Monster Market. It all culminated in the crowning jewel at the top of the columnar rise—not literally a jewel, but rather a line of massive sun-bleached skulls, the products of old, legendary hunts. A small team of Khatoyants scurried in and out of their braincases, cleaning and maintaining them for when the Harbor would call upon their services, their faces deadly serious.

  For the Skull Organ was serious business, and every hunter hoped to hear it.

  Pix unhooked her grappler and jumped off the line with a practiced grace, then pulled her logbook from her hip-pack. It was a well-worn thing with plenty of bookmarks, tabs, and folded-down pages, all bound in the toughest leather she’d been able to find at the harbor market. It wouldn’t survive the jungle otherwise, and without it she wouldn’t
survive the jungle.

  Officially known as the Hunter’s Handbook, it contained detailed information on the monsters the hunters had encountered thus far, from their habits and territory to their weaknesses, in the likely event they became aggressive. It was an indispensable piece of equipment for even the most experienced hunters.

  “There haven’t been any good postings lately, so I thought we’d catch up on basic surveys,” she said, flicking through her notes pages. “Bit of gathering. See if anything’s crystallizing. We could always mine more gems to sell to the mainland.”

  “Speaking of which, the Harlequin Mantis was looking a bit gemmy last time I was out,” Jaz chimed. “We could give her a chiticure before she starts rampaging it off.”

  “A chiticure?” Ha’ti asked.

  “Like a manicure or pedicure, but for chitin.”

  “I don’t accept that as an actual word,” Pix said.

  “If the Queen of the Jungle Bugs likes it, it’s a real word.”

  “She’s not the Queen of the Jungle Bugs. You made that up, too.”

  “You try telling her that, ‘cause I’m not gonna.”

  Pix rolled her eyes again. “What about you?” she asked Tree.

  “Gotta give my wyvern another bath,” Tree said. “I’m still cleaning slime out of his feathers from last week’s salvage. I only just got his wings clean.”

  “Now that you mention it, I think I’m going to get an actual mani-pedi—” Ha’ti began.

  She was interrupted by the sky itself, which split open with a thunderous crack.

  Chapter 2: The Pirates of the Dazzling Skies