![Gracious Sternham's Big Secret [Arc Complete][Cozy, SoL, Short Story]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.royalroadcdn.com%2Fpublic%2Fcovers-large%2F171879-gracious-sternhams-big-secret.jpg%3Ftime%3D1780601400&w=640&q=75)
by Barasadian
Royal Road Community Magazine Contest:"The Person You Pretend to Be"--- Bad cover art done by me (using clipart) --- Blurb: Hi, I'm Gracious Sternham. I'm a Shopkeeper, a husband, a father, and more recently... a Nightblade. That last one is just for me. I haven't told anyone, and I doubt I ever will. I'm not going to do it forever and I certainly didn't set out to be an adventurer. I enjoyed my quiet life. But when Mary, my beloved wife, got sick and I didn't have the coin to get her healed up right as rain... I had to do something. Only... the something turned out to be a magical wardrobe that takes me to a place where I get quests, earn loot, and level up my randomly bequeathed class. I didn't mean to pick it... it just happened. But it doesn't matter! I'm earning coin and keeping Mary above ground and out running around with the kids. They'll never know what I did to get it.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 4 Oct 2026, 11:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 4 Oct 2026, 11:38 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 91% of similar stories
not enough data yet
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 10–19 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.