When I finally woke up, I was sore.
Given my recent less-than-optimal sleeping conditions, that wasn’t too abnormal. Quickly, however, it became clear that this was no mere muscle stiffness.
As if to drive that understanding home, the first thing I noticed on opening my eyes was the blood.
Hell. What did we even fight that bleeds that much… The bu...
2024-07-04 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostThis should not prove overly difficult, yes? As Tess flew off into the distance, Verin took stock of their situation. While she would not deny feeling more at ease with Tess around, her absence did not overly worry Verin. If anything, with how little Tess had let her contribute to fighting in the past week, Verin was almost eager to flex her magic a bit.
True, undead weren’t he...
2024-07-01 12:02:40 +0000 UTC View PostThroughout the entire palace, not once had I let the others help with the fighting. While there’d been some cursory attempts on their parts to help out, I’d shut them down quickly, not willing to take any chances. It was, after all, partly my fault we’d ended up here for going along with their overly optimistic plans in the first place.
Given that I hadn’t let Cal or Verin fight t...
2024-06-27 12:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostI couldn’t, in full honesty, say that sinking through the sand ranked on my top ten worst experience list, though that wasn’t for lack of trying. I could only be thankful for the small number of levels I’d picked up in Breath Control last semester which kept me from immediately sucking in sand into my lungs.
As I sank deeper and deeper, I found myself filled with an unnatur...
2024-06-24 12:11:00 +0000 UTC View PostGiven that all of my experiences in the desert thus far had been fairly brief, there was something that I hadn’t fully appreciated up till now.
The desert was hot.
A simple fact on the surface, although the more I thought about it, the stranger it felt. It wasn’t as if there was a sun, after all. Still, whatever faux realism the dungeon had created seemed to include basic temper...
2024-06-20 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostOur grand excursion into the desert was agreed upon and set in stone, but rather than jump into it immediately, we decided to prepare a bit. And in this case, by “we,” I was strictly referring to Cal.
For all the rogue had spent her time wandering about, she still hadn’t fully explored the desert. Part of that was a matter of personal preference -- the forest was far more interestin...
2024-06-17 12:00:26 +0000 UTC View PostSand. I’d never been a particular fan of the stuff, and that was when I’d visited pleasant, summertime beaches. When it came to monster-infested deserts, my dislike of the gritty substance was only intensified.
Of all the four surrounding biomes, the desert was the one I’d least expected to visit. After Verin’s new level had warmed her up to the idea of having me help her and Cal ...
2024-06-13 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostIt was hard to say when the exact moment I woke up was, if only because my waking state wasn’t all that far off from being asleep. Much as I’d feared, the utter cessation of stimulus was enough to send me nearly back to square one, leaving me lying there on the cold cave floor. It was only by virtue of my next notification that I managed to fully rouse myself.
Soul Resista...
2024-06-10 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe day after my outing, Verin cornered me to float the idea of group monster fighting. With how easily I’d dealt with all the gryphons, she imagined if the other two accompanied me, it would be a steady source of experience for all of us.
While there was something calming about fighting alone, naturally, I agreed. Given that I didn’t need the help, all that Verin would really need to...
2024-06-06 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostUp until now, the only time I’d seen new class skills was when I’d grabbed the skills leading up to them. To that end, I’d expected maybe one new option for my recent purchase of Status Resistance, but that was it.
That was, however, not what I was seeing now. Sitting there on the fourth tier of my Arcane Augmenter room was a new option, joining the boots, the glov...
2024-06-03 11:57:15 +0000 UTC View PostHaving expected some level of pyrotechnics already, I wasn’t disappointed when cracks and fissures formed along the massive block, all of them emitting the same eerie purple glow I’d come to associate with mental mana. As the cracks spread with an accompanying frightening din, I couldn’t help but worry that I’d been given some sort of egg instead of a weapon. Thankfully, as the outer sh...
2024-05-30 11:44:51 +0000 UTC View PostBuilding a house, in the end, was not an overly difficult task. Or, at least it wasn’t depending on the type of house. Had I needed to adhere to local building codes and wire in electrical lines and figure out a plumbing system, things might have been a bit tougher. In fact, even had I been trying to make something particularly good looking, I might have had a real challenge on my hands.
<... 2024-05-27 12:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostAs time slipped by, the following days came and went. It would have been nice to say that I suddenly gained a great burst of energy, cheerfully chatting up the others. In truth, even the thought of holding any reasonable conversation exhausted me. Still, I made sure to spare Cal and Verin from the horrors of their own cooking, each day preparing whatever animal Cal managed to bring me to the be...
2024-05-23 12:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostAscendant
You have surpassed the limits of a standard, non-enhanced member of your race in every dimension. Your body and mind have been baptized in and reformed by mana. You are on a path scarce few ever tread: A path to something greater.
+500 Prestige
Gain Ability: Divine Synergy<...
2024-05-20 11:59:47 +0000 UTC View PostSensation crashed into me all at once, the unfamiliarity of it sending pulses of terror through my body. A glimpse of an unfamiliar man with unnatural reddish skin. Who was he? I squirmed away from his grip with a guttural, inhuman cry.
Two women, grabbing me. Catching me. They felt… comfortable? I knew their names, I thought. I mentally grasped for the knowledge only to come up b...
2024-05-16 11:56:32 +0000 UTC View PostThe room, or perhaps more aptly, holding cell, that Sett found himself in was nothing if not boring. Large, sure, but outside its ridiculous size and the spell circles etched into the granite floor, there was absolutely nothing of interest.
It thus was quite notable, then, when the space in front of him shifted, and a man appeared as if from nothing. Given the circumstances, the identity ...
2024-05-13 12:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostAN: By all rights, this should be today's basic tier chapter, but it seems to already be marked as available, so I unlocked chapter 4 instead. Did I unlock this on Thursday, or has this been unlocked for much longer? Unsure! Sending out an email for it in case it's been unlocked for a while and no one's read it yet. Looks like basic tier is now 6 chapters ahead instead of 5 (oops!). 2024-05-09 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
The underground tunnel was everything one could ask for when it came to spooky old wizards. In fact, even to call it a tunnel did it a disservice. Sleek unblemished granite covered floor, wall, and ceiling alike, broken only by the occasional imposing column interspersed with some blue mage lights that lit up at their approach. Slanted downwards and curved to the side, the corridor brought them...
2024-05-06 11:46:15 +0000 UTC View PostHi hello, all. We're back!
Can't say how lovely it is to be off of my hiatus, and a big thank you to everyone who's reading along after all this time.
Happy to say that tomorrow will be my last day of work which means Friday will be the first day that I'll be writing full-time. Woohoo! Sadly am pretty sick right now, but once I'm better, I will be celebrating harder than Tess did on...
2024-05-01 12:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostIn a strange and unforgiving land where few had ever tread before, the landscape shifted with every step. One moment, hard rock shot into the sky in the form of a cold and unforgiving mountain; the next, sand threatened to swallow any foolish enough to dare traverse it. Dark forests abutted flaming expanses of magma. Calm lakes sat undisturbed beside frozen tundras. And those were perhaps the m...
2024-05-01 12:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostHi all! Incredibly happy to say I'm still here and still writing, and apologies for going AWOL for two and a half months. Life has kept me a bit busier and more stressed in the past few months than I anticipated, mostly for good reasons, partly for bad. I'd hoped to come back on January 1st, but I hadn't managed to write even a little bit all of November and December, and I was feeling a little...
2024-03-17 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostHi hello, all! Book 3 is now complete! Woohoo!
I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading it even half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and getting to share it. When I set out to start the Sylum arc, I expected the entirety of books 2 and 3 to fit into a single book. Clearly, that didn’t happen, and ultimately, I’m pretty happy it didn’t. I’m looking forward to a change in scen...
2023-10-27 01:56:25 +0000 UTC View PostAN: And that's it! Book 3 is now done!
~~~~~~~~
“Hey. Heyyyyy.”
A bothersome and incessant voice did its best to cut through the fog of sleep which clung to Verin. When it failed to rouse her, a firm poke to the side soon followed. As obnoxious as it was, Verin did her best to ignore it, her pounding head demanding further rest.
“...
2023-10-27 01:08:26 +0000 UTC View PostAN: One more chapter after this until B3 is done!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“A rather dreadful turn of events, is it not?” Barb sat close to the fire, heating up a lentil stew to share among him and the others. The ingredients had been one of the few things he’d managed to buy from the trading post before the untimely damages from the war.
“Mm. Bad. Her eye...
2023-10-23 12:35:33 +0000 UTC View PostHow in the name of all that’s holy did this become such a spectacle?
Archmage Xander’Calis went through the exacting motions of preparing the ritual he’d be using to visit his master, laying down the spell circle directly into the earth beneath him. Even that much had taken some preparation, as he’d had to use earth magic to create a space that was flat and stable enough ...
2023-10-19 10:02:00 +0000 UTC View PostThree days passed in Emer’Thalis as Tess continued to lie in bed.
The war, as fiercely as it had raged, was no more. With the threat of death very literally looming above everyone in the form of the archmage, not even the most battle-hungry warrior had the guts to keep at it. When the orders to stand down and retreat were relayed, not a soul resisted.
So it was that when the ice o...
2023-10-16 23:51:58 +0000 UTC View PostHi hello, all.
Just a quick post about delays in writing. Doing my best to get these last ~3-4ish chapters of book three out with minimal delays, but work-work just picked up dramatically, so I'm struggling a bit! The callout over in the previous post for this month that "this is just a heads up ...
2023-10-10 16:26:47 +0000 UTC View PostHovering high in the air above Emer’Thalis, Archmage Xander’Callis had to admit that he was having a particularly frustrating day.
At first it had been the normal things. His research was going nowhere. The latest batch of theses out of the academy’s magic students was all drivel. He’d received several collaboration requests from multiple branches of the government, all which he h...
2023-10-07 02:30:58 +0000 UTC View PostRealizing that they were brandishing their weapons at their kingdom’s one and only princess, the king’s honor guard and the many soldiers surrounding him all started to lower their weapons, only stopping when their king shouted out an order to the contrary.
“Hold! My daughter would never adorn herself with such shady garb, nor does she have the Dexterity or skills to arrive here as ...
2023-10-02 13:35:51 +0000 UTC View PostNadja was feeling great. Great!
Each stretch of earth vanished beneath her feet as quickly as it arrived, her legs moving faster than they ever had before. Was this how people with higher stats felt all the time? She loved it! Nadja sincerely hoped there was a lot more of the wine to go around, because she could get used to this feeling.
And if her speed weren’t enough, her increa...
2023-09-28 14:04:45 +0000 UTC View Post