Joroboros

[KoJ] Interlude 2: Ceph Part I

Ceph slammed the piece of junk onto the table.

She winced as the metal tube left a gouge in the hard wood, before twisting her body to shake off the flash of regret. This room was given to her; not only temporary, but for her to do with as she wished. If she wanted to blow a hole through the wall, that would be absolutely fine… but it meant she would need to get someone in to fix it. 2024-09-22 12:02:54 +0000 UTC View Post

[KoJ] Chapter 37: Revelation

Everything froze.

Dust stilled. The waves of earth halted in mid motion. Even boulders soaring through the air hung as if terrified to be the only thing moving. The world itself appeared stuck; frozen in time.

I’d seen it before, but never to this scale. Never did the existence of momentum and gravity disappear with the application of presence.

But the Titan’s pressure is ...

[KoJ] Chapter 36: Grima

Unhindered by the tall walls of stone that once surrounded me, wind screams through the air. It whips back and forth, unable to choose a direction, but never silent. Earthen tremors accompany each change. The ground rises and falls where before it lay still, waves along a sea of gravel.

The environment is difficult to fight against. Simply holding myself above the surface with Scia wrappe...

[YF] Chapter 232: Thralldom

I’ve never seen a race more hateful to outsiders than the heqet.

The Zadok Kingdom came close — while it was still around — in their discrimination against ursu. But they had a reason for that hate; the ursu had taken their nation out from under them. Though, as slaves — at the time — the ursu had justification for their rebellion.

I’m not about to consider who was right...

[KoJ] Chapter 35: Injustice

The earth at the bottom of the canyon laps at the walls like a river would its cavernous sides. Fluid. As with the churning rock below, it acts as much a liquid as it does solid. The worst facets of both.

The flow strikes with the strength of a physical presence — made worse by the presence of ranked stone boulders carried within — and yet it does not retain that strength to lift my b...

[YF] Chapter 231: Switching

As I make a snack of the heqet’s axe, I step forward and raise my voice.

“I’m already angry at how you treat your own. Attack me again, and you won’t get off so easily.”

Immediately, he attacks with his remaining axe.

Really, I should have expected it. Threats are pointless against these people; I really need to figure out a better way to calm them down without havin...

[KoJ] Chapter 34: Pensive

Scia blinks from my head and appears by the only section of skull with a thick coating of moss. Her mouth latches on to the strands before she presses her wings and legs against the wall and tugs, attempting to pull her meal free.

She fails.

Scia tugs and tugs, but the grass doesn’t want to let go of the hard bone it grows from. I slide up beside her, ready to swipe my tail agains...

[KoJ] Chapter 33: Astonished

The massive shards rising to the abyss no longer seem so inconsequential. Their once irregular placement through the landscape are now obvious. There is no randomness. Each pillar curves in the familiar form of a ribcage.

I’ve seen plenty of remains in my long life, so I’m confident they are the bones of a quadrupedal mammal. They may be similar in a general sense, but the sheer scale...

[YF] Chapter 230: Isle Village

“Are you certain this is what you want?” Steersman Sylvan says as we approach the sole section of land rising on the horizon. “It is a waste of time.”

His reluctance is encouragement to continue. If he has something to hide here, or doesn’t want me speaking to the locals, then it’s all the more reason to do so.

“Yes. I wish to speak with them.”

He gives me a du...

[KoJ] Chapter 32: Exasperation

The earth man now be stable beneath me, but the tremors constantly rising into my ventral scales are anything but subtle. It is safer here — at least there’s no immediate dangers — but it is hardly the comforting grip of my tunnels.

At my full size, I feel like there’s nothing alive could miss my presence, but taking on the smaller, less obvious would be a far greater mistake. Bet...

[KoJ] Chapter 31: Bewilderment

A Titan.

A Beyond-damned Titan is out there, and I can do nothing but cling to this shard in my coiled up ball around Scia. I cannot run. I cannot see. I cannot so much as move a muscle lest Scia become victim to the raging rapids of flowing stone.

The Titan’s roar washes over us with the full power of its presence. Unlike the last time which had only been a brief instant, this la...

[YF] Chapter 229: Recruitment

As our ship slides alongside another — our bulwark a metre taller than the neighbour ship — Sylvan leaps across the gap. Wasting no time, half the crew jump after him, while the rest are abandoned to struggle against the ship’s momentum with large sweeps of their oars.

Curious about what the steersman will say to convince the other heqet, I form a part of myself into a small falcon....

[KoJ] Chapter 30: Cecity

I found something for Scia to eat.

Really, I thought it would take longer than it did, but all it took was to look. A simple glance through a couple distortions and there it was; all the food she could ever need.

Unfortunately, it’s inside the shards.

Thick but shallow strands of moss grow within the holes of the porous shards. And not just any of the holes; only those that ...

[KoJ] Chapter 29: Appetency

Edit: Whoops, sorry. Forgot to unlock this for tier 1 on monday.

I find, as I fall, that my eyes fixate on the little bat on my snout. Not having distortions to hold myself is disquieting. More so without any form of ground beneath us. To avoid losing myself in a spiral of distress, I watch Scia.

She isn’t panicking, so I don’t either.

Her ears stand tall and stiff ...

[KoJ] Chapter 28: Reliance

There’s no bends crossing the void, so the simple path isn’t there. The next idea to come to mind is to gather speed and throw myself across… but that is a long distance to cross, and the crevasse falls deep into the earth. Far out of sight below. I don’t want to know what would happen should we fall.

Even building up my greatest speed and flinging myself from the highest point, I...

[KoJ] Chapter 27: Sanguine

Edit to tier 1 supporters: Sorry that this chap wasn't unlocked. (I suspect patreon failed to update) and i hadn't checked when you should have gotten this chap. If this happens again in the future, please don't be afraid to tell me.

It has been an incredibly long time since I was last here. My memories of the Other Side are clouded with fear and uncertainty. Back then, I may not h...

[YF] Chapter 228: Heqet

I land on the dark wood, careful not to ignite it. I’m already intimately familiar with how flammable these ships are; wouldn’t want to burn the only crew that seems reasonable.

As I ease Leal down beside me, the firestorm that obscured our landing disperses. With how violent the heqet have already proven to be, I wouldn’t put it past them firing upon their own to hit us.

Cons...

[KoJ] Chapter 26: Abandonment

I’m fleeing before I can even comprehend why.

That was a Titan. Nothing else could have that intense of a presence. Nothing else could send such an instinctive terror through my spine.

I whip through hole after rift, doing everything I can to move as far from the abyss as I can. I hate that I flee like a coward, but what can I do against a Titan? They are impossible exist...

[KoJ] Chapter 25: Fear

The pillar is the same as the one dug free from my favourite resting spot. From the energy flowing off it, to the way bends don’t affect it, this endless pillar is the same.

Is this why the abyss exists? Has the Titan come along here to tear the pillar from its stone encasing as it did with the one back in my home?

For a long time, I linger in the air simply watching the pillar. I...

[KoJ] Chapter 24: Retrospection

We find ourselves far from any border as we could reasonably reach. There are paths that lead through rifts and holes to those borders, but they are rare. With the infrequency, we’re likely at the midpoint between all; a place where all sorts of creatures converge. Why did Scia want to come here?

Despite how few rifts there are toward the edges of these warped tunnels, there are always ...

[KoJ] Chapter 23: Gratification

The way the hundred or so sciacylch gather together to bend a small section of wall into a dozen platforms which they can hang from is quite the sight. Not to mention all is hidden within folded space. The rock itself doesn’t bend or grow, it’s simply the space subsuming it that morphs to these little creature’s will. In a region that should only hold a single of their kind, they can make...

[KoJ] Chapter 22: Dominance

Never have I heard an ascalaphus screech before, but damn are they loud.

In my very few encounters, they’ve always been perfectly silent. I’d always thought it was an unnecessary effort, what with the twisting space making sound unreliable. But now that I know of the sciacylch and their incredible hearing, It makes much more sense that their direct predators remain silent.

Also ...

[YF] Chapter 227: PoV - Sylvan

Skipari Sylvan stared wide-eyed as another longship exploded in flames. The vessel joined the dozen other around his own that were nothing more than floating bonfires.

A round of cannons fired. Sylvan turned in time to watch an axe flung through the air race past the volley of cannonballs. The thrower, Jarl Shanarr herself, screamed a war-cry to the skies, shaking her second axe above her...

[KoJ] Chapter 21: Superiority

I rip through the air, smashing my tail against myself where the bends in space allow it. The simple action increasing my speed tenfold. It still won’t be enough. The Ascalaphus will reach the sciacylch long before I do now that the bat has stopped.

The damn owl’s eyes stare into mine as I rush forward, gloating of its victory. It doesn’t hesitate despite my presence. Ascalaphi neve...

[KoJ] Chapter 20: Affection

Pulped berry juice drips from the end of my tail over Scia’s slightly ajar mouth. The fruits are tiny even to my smallest size, but to the miniature bat, it should be a feast. Well, it would be if half of it didn’t dribble down the sides of her muzzle.

When she doesn’t immediately wake, doubts enter my mind. Was I wrong? It it not because she’s been starving and something else? Th...

[KoJ] Chapter 19: Dread

I slowly wrap my tail beneath Scia’s wings and pull her off my scales. She squeaks in surprise, but I don’t stop. I place her in the mist, protected from the heat. The moment I let go, she blinks back to my back, only to grip me harder.

I’m not about to abandon you. I simply need to search the magma without placing you in danger.

Despite my intentions, I have no way to share m...

[KoJ] Chapter 18: Aspiration

Well, I should have foreseen that.

After shattering the layer of ranked stone that supported me in the narrow upper chamber, I fell to the soil I now lie. The crater surrounding me may be considerable, but as expected, I came out unharmed. The fall was far, but I hardly gained enough momentum to so much as scratch my scales.

It helped that the soil here is so soft.

Before I ca...

[YF] Chapter 226: Experimental

I didn’t even need to participate, and half the destroyers are already burning. Well, not literally, but they are on their descent into the depths.

The heqet appear far more concerned with slaughter and pillaging than taking the devastating ships for themselves. Unlike the ursu, they seem wholly unconcerned with taking on the obviously superior technology that could wipe out so many of ...

[KoJ] Interlude 1: Glaus

Glaus and his team stepped through the dark, endless chamber behind their merminea guides. He couldn’t see anything beyond the outline of his tentacles as they moved step after step before him. None bar Telum fared any better, yet they dare not strike a light. They may be Beiths, but not even the strongest public force of the Mercenary order would bring a lantern down into these depths.

Chapter 225: The Warring Isles

With the constant rolling thunder thrumming through the air, it isn’t difficult to locate the battle.

As we soar toward the sound of war, I consider why exactly my first reaction is to approach, rather than avoid, the battlefield. It’s not as if I want to get involved in some war between the heqet, so really we should just continue on as we have been and find the first isle in the cha...