![Wounds [Unedited Beta]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.royalroadcdn.com%2Fpublic%2Fcovers-large%2F164217-wounds-found-family-cozy-dark-survival.jpg%3Ftime%3D1777402561&w=640&q=75)
by ETG
"This is the fourth time you've considered killing me." Jake hunts. He eats. He sleeps. He moves. He does it again. He doesn't know how long he's been in the woods, but he knows why he's in the woods. He doesn't think about it. Finn can read a person inside out, manage a room like he was born to lead it. But his mind feeds him the past when he needs to stay focused on the present, shows him visions of failure, of his own inadequacy when he needs to project control, confidence. They meet in the dark forest on the outskirts of the city of Timmerfeld. They survive the night. And then keep surviving. Wounds is a long, character-focused, found-family story about broken people learning to be human again. It is set in a world where the things you know and love don't exist yet - magic is unstable and instinctive, dungeons are strange liminal spaces, demons are monsters transformed by want, and heroes... well, heroes aren't heroes. They're just people. This is the story of how people become heroes. Release Schedule: Updates every Friday. . . . . . <<< A Note for New Readers >>> This story is a love letter to the RR community, to the TL communities that came before it, and to the 10 years I've spend inside stories about dungeons, heroes and demon lords, and people being people. It's an ambitious story. It is also being written live, no edits, so make sure you've got a strong stomach cause it's going to be a thrilling ride >:D What that means for you is that things will change. I'll be working on chapter pacing, scene sequencing, tags, cover, blurb - even delete a chapter or two when its needed. My goal is to make sure I'm telling the best story I can, and learning how to do that takes time. Thank you to everyone who reviews, follows, and comments. I appreciate every one of you for being here as we build this world, one sentence at a time. - Grassy
No streak history
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#2308 of 7,628 · 2258 below #50
By genre
beats 56% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 15% of similar stories
Mid-pack, room on both levers
Traffic and conversion both sit mid-field for a story this size. Growth here compounds from consistency: steady cadence feeds traffic, and a sharper hook lifts what each view is worth.
At this conversion, the Psychological Rising Stars bar (≈2 new followers/day) costs about 958 views/day — the story currently gets ~17.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.