Malika bent backward, the arrow aimed at her throat missing by a hair’s breadth, and then she unleashed the graceful second form, punches that the Nine Paths described as ‘strike like a thousand vipers’. Unfortunately, they seemed to be blind and half-asleep vipers today – the gray-skinned Wight evaded all but two hits, dodging with uncanny speed before suddenly vanishing...
2025-12-22 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostCalen’s body trembled, a bone-deep, chilling shudder that gripped him from the shoulders and sank all the way into his boots. Yet, it was impossible to look away from the ghastly apparition that floated up from deep within the dense smoke. Transfixed, he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the apparition, but it was not the waves of tangible power radiating from with...
2025-12-21 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIt took nearly all the remaining daylight to drive the endless hordes of undead back past the Ciradyl trees beyond the battlements. When Ali had informed Lyeneru and Vivian that the Avatar of Annihilation had respawned deep within the core of the Well of Corruption dungeon, the Guildmaster had switched to sustainable patrols and defense rotations for the guild, giving up on any...
2025-12-20 15:02:15 +0000 UTC View Post“Why are they here?” Ali asked, not truly expecting a ready answer. For certain, the undead were not known to explain themselves. Battle raged in the streets below, but Mato, Sabri, and Havok were all slowly advancing toward the breach in the wall, while deadly spells and arrows rained down in a deafening assault that had long left her ears ringing.
“It was only a m...
2025-12-19 15:00:23 +0000 UTC View PostSeyah leveled her spear and charged. Her bare feet blurred as she shot across the smoldering carpet in the center of the guild hall, her ancestors’ footwork pushing her Spear Rush to incredible speed. She lurched to a sudden jarring stop, her arms absorbing the impact, burying her spear up to her grip through a decrepit zombie elf’s chest. Black ichor sprayed across Bronwyn’...
2025-12-18 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostAli screamed, “There are undead attacking Myrin’s Keep!” She could feel them approaching the town through the trees to the south, like ants crawling up her skin. Their foul unwholesomeness was like a rotten stench that hit her squarely in the mana.
“How many? Levels?” Lyeneru asked, her voice sharp with sudden urgency.
“I… don’t know. Lots, I can fee...
2025-12-17 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post“Ali, can you slow down?” Calen said. “I got less than a third of that.” It was late, and they sat in a crowded private meeting room with the guild’s best strategists, all exhausted after a frustrating day. There had been no lack of ideas, but none of them had shown any real potential, and after the first hour of discussion, they’d begun circling the same patterns, goi...
2025-12-16 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostAli hovered above the raid group, the sounds of sober, quiet conversation drifting upward as they finalized their preparations. But her eyes – and the senses of all her minions – were fixed on the Avatar of Annihilation floating serenely above the dense magical energy pouring out of the rune construct below it.
It was a named Theuronic Crystal, just as Calen had said,...
2025-12-15 15:00:23 +0000 UTC View PostAwareness came for her as it often did, suddenly, and without warning. Ali’s eyes flicked open to see the plain canvas of her little tent stretching out overhead. It was the same tent her friends had bought for her the first day she joined the Adventurers Guild, but her sight was not limited by something so plain and simple as enchanted canvas; Mato’s enormous Sanctuary aur...
2025-12-14 15:00:46 +0000 UTC View PostI hope Thuli has a little time for us, Mato thought as he made his way across town toward the muffled clanging of anvils and the sooty stench of forge fires with his two smaller companions. The whole guild had the day off, according to Vivian, and most of them had fled the building, rushing to visit their favorite crafters or the auction house to scour it for upgrades.
... 2025-12-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostNaia squashed herself through the veil, emerging on the other side into the spirit realm echo of Ali-friend’s Grand Library Arcana.
The sounds of the people studying vanished as the uncanny silence of this realm pressed down upon her. She quivered momentarily, feeling blinded and vulnerable, but she managed to avoid turning into a rock as she always did when she was scared....
2025-12-12 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostWith only three Galdrone Tetrad clones remaining, Ali found it far easier to draw the disruptions with her ice mages. And so, she did: every time she could, she dismantled shields, exposing the clones to the full damage output from all the archers and mages with multishot skills. While most of that damage and the area spells and attacks were directed skyward to cull the swarms ...
2025-12-11 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAli sat perched high up on a creaking branch broader than her entire body as the Malevolent Lirasian Oak slowly lumbered closer and closer to the melee brawl. From her clear vantage point, she studied the magic of the domain and the shifting elementals relentlessly, using every perception skill at her disposal, not simply content to rely on their plan – after all, who knew wh...
2025-12-10 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAli landed hard on the black marble floor in the center of the crowded locus, earning a painful bruise on her rump and surrounded by a claustrophobic crush of much larger adventurers crammed into the receiving room of the Novaspark Academy. The loud buzz of frustrated conversation, punctuated by the slowly fading groans and cries of the injured and wounded clamoring for attenti...
2025-12-09 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAli hovered beside her friends right at the threshold between her domain and the dark twisted corruption that lay beyond. The tangled barbed wire of the dungeon rage tore through her mind unceasingly, and yet she found herself able to bear the agony surprisingly easily.
Not quite as bad as Domain Withdrawal, she observed with a wry inner sarcasm. Perhaps prac...
2025-12-08 15:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe barrier dome flickered with power as mana coursed through it. Runes flared in response to distant fighting, and Ali would only have been able to guess what was happening at the other battle locations if she hadn’t bolstered each of the raid groups with a couple of her minions to help synchronize everything.
“Aiden and Teagan’s bosses are down,” Calen announced...
2025-12-07 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIt was hard to believe this place had once been the pride and home of the Wood Elves. Even the ground slowly drifting by below, illuminated by the radiance of his ethereal light-magic wings, was infested with corrupted mana, twisting and writhing in the strange realm-crossing sight he had earned for his class evolution. Whatever it was, this evil ran deeper than the mundane; dark,...
2025-12-06 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe droning hum and the flickering of power faded as the semi-crystalline Calhedron exploded, shards clinking together as they bounced off the ground and each other.
Ali frowned as the magic flowing through her wings took her on a slow descent toward the remains of the elemental boss. Her eyes scanned the remains of the battlefield, taking in the carnage and damage that w...
2025-12-05 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostMalika ducked, dodging rapidly, but the storm of purple bolts flying toward her was annoyingly persistent, even adjusting their trajectories to chase her down. Just like the Arcane Bolt skill Ali had begun with, only this time, the hail of bolts came from a veritable cloud of spawned elementals wheeling overhead. With her reduction to magical damage taken, the bolts themselves in...
2025-12-04 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe towering pillar of arcanite crystal pulsed powerfully as it drew in the dark tendrils of corrupted mana that poured forth from the remnants of the Well of Souls in continuous waves. The energy within the pillar crackled violently, causing the hair on Ali’s arms to prickle as if she were somehow standing beside a bottled-up lightning bolt that had mysteriously failed to da...
2025-12-03 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe vast purple barriers up ahead shimmered as their magical formations activated. Despite the mental impact of the inconceivable weight of the dungeon break bearing down upon her, Ali’s mind held steady, and her skills automatically analyzed it.
Why are they opening?
As the wave of banshees and ghosts shimmered through the barriers, the purple domes flic...
2025-12-02 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostAli circled downward, feeling the air and void mana flowing across her great, black draconic wings. Her powerfully muscled back easily held her aloft upon the fickle and chilly air currents as she lazily circled Lyeneru, Calen, and Coria as they descended toward the blackened and dying ground below. For a moment, her goals, the mission, and her worries all vanished in the pure ...
2025-12-01 15:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostLooks like I’m done here, she thought. Ali had a group wanting to visit the shrine this afternoon, but she had a lot of her own shrine work she needed to accomplish before then, so she teleported right into the grove, bringing her guard minions with her.
She reached out a hand and touched her shrine, the cold dark stone offering a sense of stability in her othe...
2025-11-30 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post“You made it,” Devan said, helping him up from the icy floor of the tunnel. “Fix your invisibility; it dropped.”
“The other two got out safely,” he told her, quickly reactivating Eclipse and restoring his invisibility. Without his ability to see the remains of their teleportation spells, there would have been no way to know Hadlis and B...
2025-11-29 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostFinding herself, surprisingly, with a little free time on her hands, Ali gathered her minion escort and headed for the Abyssal Realm armed with a plan, a few fresh imprints, and a half dozen brilliant ideas just begging for a proving ground. She had awoken to the sight of four fat frost dragons laid out neatly beside her shrine: a gift from the nocturnal efforts of her favorite...
2025-11-28 15:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostSeth stepped confidently into the center of the runic circle, and his body was yanked away far more firmly than he was expecting. Perhaps it was a sense of the great distance it took him, or maybe that was just in his mind. After all, he knew roughly where it would dump him out after his last conversation with Ali. The Fangs of the Frost Wyrm.
He shivered, drawing hi...
2025-11-27 15:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAli sat quietly amid the hubbub, her legs dangling from the edge of her floating disk of golden magic and her hands resting in her lap. Her friends were nearby, listening intently to the Guildmaster as she addressed the crowd that had gathered. Her friends had been true to their word, barely leaving her alone since they had returned to Myrin’s Keep, but other than the one eld...
2025-11-26 15:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostAli felt the weight of their unholy mana the moment they set foot in her domain. The sudden glacial chill of ice, and the decrepit malevolence of undeath; the stench of unwholesomeness, a foul odor and the sharp, visceral tang of fear that permeated even the mana that rolled off them like a miasma. Her domain groaned under the strain of keeping her plants from just withering an...
2025-11-25 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostAcross the breadth of Myrin’s Keep, Ali heard and felt the sounds and activities of a town coming alive, a bustle that rose with the dawn. It was also a function of her ability to see mana, a potent combination of her pervasive domain perception, and the sights, sounds, and scents that clamored for her attention through the distributed senses of the minions she had spread sur...
2025-11-24 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostHave I seen a Dracolich? Yes, once, deep in the bowels of the Elorthian Labyrinth before it was destroyed.
What did I do?
I ran, you fool, and you should too, if you ever find yourself facing one. An evil dragon that has ascended to become a Lich is not something mortals should ever face.
- Lyeneru Silverleaf, lecture to Pathfinder initiates.