Once upon a time, William Oh went to a party where dozens of young women of fine lineage were presented to him by their mothers.
William Oh didn’t take any of the young women as lovers, but their mothers were left blushing and weak in the knee.
- Jason Salazar
“So are we running or what?” Bess asked, flopping into her cot after a long day of being harasse...
2025-11-14 21:06:50 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam Oh once tried to give a fellow Climber some friendly advice. He showed the man a few of his techniques, to help the man learn his own Abilities better.
Unfortunately this had the opposite effect, because as soon as Will finished giving his demonstration, the man’s head exploded.
- Jason Salazar, level 50 Prophet of Ouro...
2025-11-12 17:07:23 +0000 UTC View Post“Welcome to my Stronghold, William Oh.” Zodiac said, spreading his arms. “I am Zodiac.”
He wasn’t…quite what Will was expecting.
Wow, Alicia’s dad is ancient.
Zodiac had pristine white robes, deep wrinkles, long hair and beard. His eyes were just regular pale blue, not glowing like his daughter. Maybe in the past he had been blonde, but the color had lon...
2025-11-10 21:08:39 +0000 UTC View Post“Another tank slayer!” A familiar voice cut through the chatter. Will and Brianna glanced at each other and then scanned the bustling surroundings.
“There.” Will said, pointing with his pastry before shoving the rest of it in his mouth.
Hunched over at his seat was a handsome blonde who made the table look like it was made for a child’s toy set.
In front of him were ...
2025-11-07 19:31:34 +0000 UTC View PostWill and Brianna walked alongside Carrie while she described the current situation.
The long and short of it was this: All the most profitable resource nodes and cities on the first ten Floors of the Tower were monopolized by Lords who had been around so long that they had formed a tight-knit group who supported each other and whose mere influence would wither the growth of any other Lord...
2025-11-05 20:23:32 +0000 UTC View PostOnce upon a time, William Oh went to a wedding and emerged the sole survivor.
- Alex Jaidayal, level 52 Crystal Farmer
The market was small and tired, especially compared to Akul and Bakton Keep. There was none of the energy of hawkers and elbow-nudging crunch of excited Climbers looking to buy their next Kit.
Inst...
2025-11-03 23:02:54 +0000 UTC View PostWill and Brianna landed on top of a building on one of the outer islands, where they simply stood and admired the network of light-bridges keeping the islands bound together.
“How do you suppose those bridges of light work?” Will mused.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Brianna replied with a shrug.
“Where the hell did you two come from!?” A voice caught their atten...
2025-10-31 19:37:54 +0000 UTC View PostThere exists on the 11th Floor an offshoot of Ouroboros so large that the rise and fall of nations comes as quickly and easily as breathing. This creature has passively witnessed the passing of Coils with nary a blink, the whole of human civilization a mere mote of dust in its eye.
One day, William Oh passed by with a date, and the snake gave a wink and a thumb’s up. 2025-10-29 18:02:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Author’s Note:
I retconned a few things in the last chapter. Most notably was the very end of the last chapter. I forgot the wedding was only a few days away, and it would be nearly 6 months before Will could see any progress on his Necromancer project, so I changed Heath’s bootcamp to be shorter, and the next on Will’s to do list to be ‘going to the wedding’ rather than ‘deal...
2025-10-27 17:41:23 +0000 UTC View Post“So that’s what I’m hoping you can do for me.” Will said.
“Why don’t you get your Tangled girlfriend to do it?” Heath asked.
“Long story short: Doesn’t look the part. ” Will replied.
“I mean, she could.” Heath said with an upside-down shrug. “She’s a shapeshifter, right?”
“Well, let me ask you this.” Will said, “would...
2025-10-24 19:18:22 +0000 UTC View Post“I need a way of controlling monster spawns to a reasonable degree and holding large swaths of land.” Will said. “If I can make it safe enough, I can get some farmers their Advanced classes and they can work miracles on the soil.”
That would allow them to produce a surplus and launch civilization further up the Tower.
Will didn’t want to spend the rest of his life...
2025-10-22 19:05:19 +0000 UTC View PostA few months went by, and the cactus syrup and pulque gradually began flowing again, and they were finally able to relax. The mood in the Stronghold turned completely around once they weren’t starving, and since most of the less invested Climbers had left for the lower Floors, they didn’t have to share as much as they might’ve.
Will had to finance a couple emergency trips down to bu...
2025-10-20 19:43:01 +0000 UTC View PostWill closed his eyes and mouth so he didn’t get foamed earth in them. who knew how bad it would be once it solidified?
The creature had no less than five independent mouths on the end of tentacle-like protrusions. From the brief glimpse of it’s body that Will had seen while it was breaching, the stomach was…
That way, Will thought, trusting his internal sense of direc...
2025-10-17 19:53:52 +0000 UTC View Post“They started it.” Bee said, hands held up in faux innocence as will observed the scorched-out building.
“They started the fire?” Will asked.
“Yeah, one of them slammed into the lamp and FWOOSH!”
“Why did he slam into the lamp?” Will asked, already knowing the answer.
“Dunno.” Bee shrugged, averting her eyes.
Will tousled her hair in th...
2025-10-15 19:22:47 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun was beating down as hard as it ever did on this Floor, easily warded off by Will’s Resistance as he stood out in the wilderness, accompanied by Ghoul and Brianna.
Here goes nothing.
Will slipped the fingerless glove over his left hand, the missing fingers nubs inside the glove itself.
“Here we go.” Will muttered, kneeling down and beginning the three-par...
2025-10-13 20:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post**Thaddeus Thompson, Level 43 Swift Hand Fighter**
“C’mon Tad, it’ll be fine.” Monroe said, casting nervous glances around the sewer directly below the Lord’s tower.
“Every morning, the Tangled has to un-split to eat breakfast so all of her copies are full, yeah?”
“I guess?” Tad said, not understanding where Monroe was going with that.
“This is godsdamned highway robbery is what it is! Do you have any idea how valuable this is even one floor up or down!?” Sammohan demanded, shaking a bag of sand in the merchant’s face.
“But you’re not one floor up or down.” The general store owner said, leaning on the bar separating the front from the back. “You’re on the tenth Floor, and unfortunately, we’re ...
2025-10-08 16:28:56 +0000 UTC View Post10th Floor, day 37
Our supplies continue to erode at a prodigious rate. We’ve finally narrowed the cause to a Raid Boss known as ‘Attrition’. Efforts to find this raid boss have proven to be fruitless, as it seems to leverage superior manueverability and senses to become impossible to catch.
Who knows? Maybe the creature is actually strong in battle too? We haven...
2025-10-06 19:10:27 +0000 UTC View PostYou get a bunch of men together, add beer and attempts to trap small animals, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a great weekend…or a trip to the hospital.
- unknown
William Oh has never successfully trapped a monster in his life. Every time he tries, they just walk up and die in front of him.
... 2025-10-03 17:43:26 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam Oh has a magic map that reveals your deepest fears, and he uses it to summon your worst nightmares into this reality.
Do I believe it? Nah, it’s just a story, man. Hyperbole.
Steak bug shells were everywhere, creating a black mound that collected up against the posts that formed the fence hemming the insects inside their muck-filled pens.
Will did a...
2025-10-01 16:12:28 +0000 UTC View PostWill took in the air of the jail. Solid stone with a hint of puke and regret, long since cleaned up, but the smell lingered.
“Hey buddy, how you doing?” Will asked, squatting down beside the jail cell, inspecting the Climber crawling bonelessly across the stone.
“Am fainne.” He groaned, struggling to raise his hand above his head and grab the bench.
“So it looks like...
2025-09-29 18:00:33 +0000 UTC View PostDear Honored Lord Ghoul,
Circumstances have prevented me from passing back through and giving my thanks personally for all the help you have given me, and so I thought I would make this the first letter I send as a Lord.
That’s right, Lord William Oh, master of a burned down Stronghold, a poisoned well, salted fields, and about twenty-two hundred starving civ...
2025-09-22 18:44:43 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so a few years are going to go by as Will untangles that particular clusterfuck.
I want to make sure i don't forget anything that might happen over the timeskip, because the world doesn't just pause. Shit happens.
This is where we come up with ideas for events that might've gone down/advancements made in Will's Stronghold/Class.
Here are thoughts i've bee...
As he spoke, Will finally used Phantom Hand for what felt like the first time in ages.
The hand supporting the bag of arrowheads high above their heads turned upside down, spilling hundreds of arrowheads out of the bag.
And now, we’re on a timer.
Will mentally marked each of Caddock’s men as the target of an arrowhead before turning his attention to the Pants of D...
2025-09-19 20:57:51 +0000 UTC View PostA sharp whistle pierced the battlefield as Loth blew through her talons.
“Your attention please!” She shouted, waving from atop a chunk of fallen rock.
Will could hear Jean’s voice shouting something on the other side of the rubble, and what sounded like the exact tone of Reggie’s armor being struck, coming from behind him.
“Restrain the kobold! No direct attacks!”...
2025-09-17 17:43:17 +0000 UTC View PostIvory Armistice
+ 15 Strength
+20 Resistance
+35 Focus
Active Ability: Armistice, 50 Charges, 5 charges per hour to maintain.
Wielder raises the white flag, and as long as those affected are not attacked, they may not attack,...
2025-09-15 19:08:08 +0000 UTC View PostCaddock rested his chin on his fist as the bad news kept flooding in like a broken sewer main.
No.
A tidal wave of shit.
“Captain Rutherford is refusing to take his men out on patrol. He says, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘my job isn’t to get my men slaughtered.’” His lieutenant said.
“What part of it was paraphrased?” Caddock asked.
“I took out the curs...
2025-09-12 18:42:42 +0000 UTC View PostMason heaved a sigh of relief as they dragged him away.
Never had anyone try to cut my head off like that before. The thought sent a shiver of dread down his spine.
“Why didn’t he see you?” He whispered as quietly as possible to avoid detection in this fort full of people with superhuman hearing.
“I can make myself any color I want.” Bee replied int...
2025-09-10 17:11:51 +0000 UTC View Post“Why didn’t he use his hand?” Caddock mused, thumbing his chin.
“Excuse me, sir?” His lieutenant asked.
“Why didn’t he use his Phantom Hand, one of the Abilities that he is most famous for…while fighting us?”
“I…don’t know?” The man was fine at relaying orders, but not so great at thinking.
“Did you know he can counterspell with it? According ...
2025-09-08 19:50:13 +0000 UTC View Post“There’s a group, heading through the valley in the middle, straight towards the southern fort.” Ria said, leaning on a stolen halberd. It was the weapon she was most comfortable with, and she only used shapeshifted claws if it was absolutely necessary.
It was an interesting ‘personality’ quirk that Loth had noticed about the most righteous of the three facets of Brianna’s per...
2025-09-05 18:06:19 +0000 UTC View Post