Ascend Online [publication order]

Diving into a revolutionary new video game, Marcus and his friends escape a stagnant society, entering into a world that defies their wildest imaginations. But from the moment that he logs in, Marcus finds himself separated from his friends and thrown into a remote village under attack by a horde of goblins. Forced into battle, Marcus rallies the beleaguered villagers and, with their help, manages to drive off the invading creatures. With the village in ruins and their supplies spoiled, the villagers turn to Marcus for help in rebuilding the village.

Fresh off their victory over Graves and his followers, Marcus and his friends have managed to enjoy a few weeks of relative calm and peace as they continue to build Aldford, preparing the town for a new wave of settlers coming from Eberia. But as the days wear on with no new arrivals in sight, they begin to fear the worse, eventually setting out to search for their promised reinforcements and soon realizing that they weren’t as alone on the frontier as they thought they were.

Lazarus Cain is a member of the Grim Shadows, one of the Thieves Guilds in the city of Eberia. Unfortunately, Lazarus is having a bad day. Waking up in a torture chamber, suffering from amnesia, he'd be pretty much screwed if not for the mysterious, magical sigil burned into his chest. Sometimes a really bad day should be shared with others, especially professional torturers.

Betrayed by those they'd taken in and narrowly avoiding a disaster of untold proportions, Lyrian and his friends are once again thrust into a fight for their very survival, this time against Carver and his band of murderous adventurers. But as their newfound war quickly reaches a stalemate, both sides find themselves scrambling for a way to break it, while viciously battling one another for every inch of ground that they can steal in the process.

Once more, and against all odds, Marcus and the rest of Virtus have managed to snatch victory from the jaws of total defeat, capturing not only Carver but also destroying the orc advance completely. Yet there is no peace in store for the exhausted victors, for not only must they pay the price for their desperate triumph, but they must also rise up once more to meet a new terror that has revealed itself.