Hey folks,

  If you've made it through three chapters with Marcus, I figure I owe you an introduction.

  I'm Rick. I've been reading litrpg since 2017 when someone handed me Dungeon Born and said "trust me." Fell hard for the genre. The Primal Hunter, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Defiance of the Fall, He Who Fights With Monsters.. I've read them all, most of them twice. There's something about watching characters grow through systems and seeing internal change reflected in external progression that just does it for me.

  Beyond the Fold has been my project for the past year. I write around my day job, mostly early mornings and weekends, and I wanted a real backlog before I started posting anywhere. I've seen too many stories die at chapter 12. I didn't want to do that to any readers, didn't want to do it to Marcus.

  So I wrote and have kept writing.

  Right now I have 22 chapters done. I know where "Book 1" ends and I've got the major beats mapped out. Marcus's story has an arc, a destination. This isn't me making it up as I go and hoping it lands somewhere interesting. (Okay, some scenes are me making it up as I go. But the structure is there.)

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  You might see Beyond the Fold on another platform called chapterchronicles.com. A friend of mine built it, he's a developer who wanted to create a space for serialized fiction, and he needed authors willing to be guinea pigs while he figured out the kinks. I said yes because he asked nicely and because I needed a reason to actually hit publish instead of endlessly tinkering with chapter 4.

  That's where I've been posting while I built up the nerve to bring the story here.

  So I'll be posting regularly on both platforms. Chapters will release generally weekly. If you want to read ahead and support the work, early access chapters live on Chapter Chronicles for fun. Everything comes here eventually.

  What else?

  Beyond the Fold is character-driven. Marcus is underleveled, obsessive, and will be morally gray. He's not a chosen one. He's a guy who lost his wife and can't let go, chasing her across a world that's falling apart. If you want to watch someone claw for every level, make questionable decisions, and maybe... just maybe find what he's looking for, stick around.

  Thanks for reading.

  - Rick