by Wytlock
The life and times of a young mercenary and her unusual companion, travelling through a nineteenth-century-inspired fantasy Europe shared uneasily by humans and demons, while its nations drift towards war.Four centuries have come and gone since the Day of Black Sun, when the heavens darkened and Hell opened upon the world. Humanity reeled, convalesced and, in time, consigned the catastrophe to history.Demons passed into the lives of men and became a familiar burden. Feared, exploited, tolerated and endured. Now the world’s greatest calamity is eclipsed by newer ambitions: progress pursued without restraint, nations hardening into powers, and a grand design threatening to lay humanity low as never before.And in the shadow of it all, a young soul wanders, seeking to restore a life she once had, guided by her demons — those within and without.────────── ᚾᛖᚹᛊ ──────────Three complete stories are available now: The Toll, Coal Brow and Canard.New chapters every Sunday.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:09 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:09 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 84% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 30% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
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 over the recent window.
