“Your attacks are telegraphed,” Liam complained.
“No, they are not. You just have perpetual precognition.”
“That might be true, but still… You fight like a graceless bull, charging blindly half the time. You're impatient. You get frustrated too quickly. All these are little flaws that will someday come back to bite you in the ass.”
Rafe sighed. He was tired, exha...
2025-03-23 15:32:00 +0000 UTC View Post“There are a few rules to this little training session of ours,” Liam said, leveling Rafe such a serious look he knew there’d be no time for banter.
“Training session? I was under the impression we got six months?” Rafe still tried, smiling hopefully.
Liam only nodded, his countenance now morphing to grave.
“I hope Noid wasn't able to break you because he is not th...
2025-03-23 15:31:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Too late? What do you mean too late?”
“Well, take flesh wounds for example. If they are not treated early enough, things go wrong. If they are not disinfected they may become septic. If they are too deep they scar, although only if you have very low vitality. Like you did when your head was sheared in half. Well, let's just say your soul injury scarred, leaving a permanent mutation...
2025-03-23 15:30:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Ah-Riam Akh’Braiden was but a child, he became the first member of his family in generations to fail to bind a legacy weapon to his soul. He did not know why then. They did not why. They froze him out, threw him out of the running to take over Arrabion.
He was staying in his aunt's house when he had the dream. There he was, among the ranks of the common footsoldiers. He was old and...
2025-03-23 15:29:01 +0000 UTC View PostHe slammed back into his own body. It was akin to waking from a nightmare of falling off a cliff. Rafe yelped and threw his arms out to…what? Stop the fall, catch himself. As his breathing calmed, Rafe smiled sardonically.
“I believe this belongs to you,” a voice said from in front of him, startling him into jumping back.
“Waaa!” he yelped. “Where did you come from?! Don...
2025-03-23 15:28:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Am I going to die?” Rafe couldn't help but ask.
“What? Of course not. You're just a mental construct after all. We can probably bring you back to life.”
“I am going back to my body soon though, aren't I?”
“Maybe.”
“Noiiiidd,” Rafe growled, trying for menace
“Hey, don't take that tone with me, I am a god you know.”
“Then act l...
2025-03-23 15:27:01 +0000 UTC View PostThey found him there, bleeding and broken, a step away from death. Jonathan did not bar the girls from him. He would have in any other situation.
“I must look like shit, huh,” Rafe said with forced levity.
He tried to smile, but it only came off as a grimace. Maria grabbed at his guts, trying to force them back in.
“Bird! Bird! You must heal him, hurry!”
Jonathan...
2025-03-23 15:26:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Why are you grinning, idiot? Don't you know you are doomed?”
“I'm not grinning, you are,” Rafe fired back, rather maturely, he thought.
The queen tilted her head, her shadow throne visibly pulsating like a living thing.
“Try again,” she said in a low voice.
“Oh…” Rafe scratched the back of his head. “...I'm not an idiot, you are,” he said, his tone...
2025-03-23 15:25:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Mr Wilde,” an official-looking man at the front started, “you are expected in the arena. If you would be so kind as to unarm yourself—”
Rafe concluded the man was an idiot there and then. Despite his gold-encrusted armour, he believed the man would be no threat. Instead he let his aura senses go wild, trying to get a sense of what he was facing. He still ne...
2025-03-23 15:24:04 +0000 UTC View PostRafe had not seen Celene in a long time, at least on his end. It turned out something weird had happened, but he stopped questioning it the moment he had confirmation.
“How long's it been since I killed all those people that one night?” he asked Cynthia.
She frowned, and Celene did as well. He had called out her name, but then he'd said nothing else as he waited for the others t...
2025-03-23 15:23:01 +0000 UTC View PostRafe sat at a table with Su’Arian, watching the adventurers rouse their fellows and inform them of his instructions. He wouldn't leave these ruffians in Su’Arian’s tavern. He would at least make sure she didn't lose that.
“These people…these Wildes? They are why you have been hiding here all these months?”
He didn't know why she hadn't asked about the Ellans instead, but...
2025-03-23 15:22:00 +0000 UTC View PostRafe thought the guys he was fighting were dangerous if a little bit underwhelming compared to the experts he'd fought over his journey. Still, there were thousands of ways to win a fight and a million to lose one you thought you would win without any doubt. He would know. He couldn't remember the last time he'd won a fight against someone who was supposed to be at his level.
The tourname...
2025-03-23 15:21:00 +0000 UTC View PostNoid became more transparent with each passing moment. Still, he happily sacrificed his ability to test anyone for the next million years or so. What he had not expected was for the others to help power his trial as well. There was a belief among them, that maybe, just maybe, after thousands of years, the seventh Skyholm may yet walk the multiverse.
Noid did not share...
2025-03-23 15:20:01 +0000 UTC View PostThea's face started to morph into a slimy melting green thing. She had been packing her things when he saw her this time, looking to his room to ensure he was still asleep.
He imagined this was how they must have left. Like thieves in the night running from what he had assumed was their home. Now the scene was interspersed with about thirty others.
In one, his mother and aunt sat an...
2025-03-23 15:19:06 +0000 UTC View Post“How long did you last this time?” Noid asked Rafe.
“No more than five seconds,” he said, still pumping the bellows to stock the fires of the forge.
“You'll have to keep trying it out during your journey. You cannot depend on that skill, especially after you leave the trial. You do not have the resources to have a skill stay active indefinitely.”
... 2025-03-23 15:18:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt had all been real. This time when Rafe slept, he dreamt about it all. Not just his last few hours on earth, but his whole life, his family, his friends, and his old basketball team.
In his dreams, Rafael Kingsley thought about his two lives.
****
When he woke a second time, there was no banging in his head. The banging outside was still there though, and it was hot, and he ...
2025-03-23 15:17:01 +0000 UTC View PostGuy pushed his exhausted legs, feeling the energy drain from his body. He didn't care, he was fast, and he was going to kill Noid Ellan. Their swords clashed again, and again Noid was pushed back amid a rain of sparks. Only, the boy was just grinning.
“Are you almost done?” he asked again, cool as a frozen lake.
Guy growled. And even though he was feeling ex...
2025-03-23 15:16:00 +0000 UTC View PostCynthia cursed again as she tried to keep up with the man ahead of them. Jasmine and Rhea had followed them too. The guild master burst through the door to a high-class-looking inn, almost more than half the size of the hotels in the noble district, a famous hangout among high-level adventurers who wanted a taste of noble life.
The man scanned the wide dining hall, his eyes immediately se...
2025-03-23 15:15:01 +0000 UTC View PostOn a hill not even fifty kilometers away from Hossford city, Guy Wilde saw his closest friend, his brother, his rival, die to insurmountable odds. He went down swinging. There was a whole party of jade-rank adventurers, including the assassin who'd surprised Guy.
She was surprised herself when he didn't go down just from a knife to the throat. If Orlandir could still fight, then who the h...
2025-03-23 15:14:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe goblins did not want to give up. They got easier to pick off the further they got from their increasingly ashen nest though.
It was a running battle for some time, Guy making sure to keep to the rear in case any more special goblins showed up.
He dropped back when the other's speed had faltered for the hundredth or so time. He swung his sword almost mechanic...
2025-03-23 15:13:01 +0000 UTC View PostAn older, bitterer version of Noid stood and watched the world he'd created.
“So it's almost over, heh?” the thief asked from beside him.
“It has to end somehow. It's kind of hard, never having gotten this far before. Could that skill be this strong? What is the essence thinking? It's almost unpre—"
“Unprecedented? Not quite,” the enchantress chimed in.
“Wh...
2025-03-23 15:13:00 +0000 UTC View PostGuy hid amongst the highest trees and watched the most horrifying village he ever saw. They almost looked peaceful. Civilized, even. They had houses, the monsters.
He killed five hobgoblins, but that barely put a dent in their numbers. They had yet to even notice. As for goblin mages, that was a whole other ball game he was unwilling to tackle just yet. Well, he was unwilling to take them...
2025-03-23 15:12:00 +0000 UTC View PostEveryone openly glared at Guy the next few hours of travel, even their formerly neutral supervisor. When they took a lunch break, his cohorts approached him for a talk.
“You do realise we're doing poorly, don't you,” the half-elf spoke first.
“I can't decide whether to praise your daring or applaud your stupidity. You outed our blunder, then proceeded to disrespect our supervi...
2025-03-23 15:11:02 +0000 UTC View PostGuy hadn't had the easiest week thus far, and this whole situation wasn't helping. At least meeting the guild master - a master-level spear wielder - was a decent few hours.
The guild master was big and scarred. And he had a boisterous way about him. He was good people, in Guy's opinion. Jonathan introduced him as his old friend Kayle.
“I never got to congratulate you over becomin...
2025-03-23 15:10:01 +0000 UTC View PostGuy was courting Celene. In a village this small, everyone knew everything about everyone.
Guy - as he'd recently been named - couldn't court any of the other girls. It would be bad form for the other girls to touch Celene's man, as far as Guy understood it. Too bad Celene would never give him the time of day, or night. The other girls and women pretended they didn't notice if he made a p...
2025-03-23 15:07:01 +0000 UTC View PostRafe sat and watched a pink-haired girl on the big screen. His father was probably somewhere backstage. He hadn't seen them in months, and now he was finding out what they'd been up to. He slumped his shoulders.
First, his mother had gone, and now they too had left. She sounded good though. And maybe this would help his father get over his years-old heartbreak. He was relieved on his fath...
2025-03-23 15:06:03 +0000 UTC View PostHis fourth or so troop was much more experienced than all his others, and he stayed with them a lot longer. They were together longer than the two-month threshold all his former platoons couldn't quite reach.
They were very organised and had a rotating system where a group would start in the vanguard, rotate to the middle, then rotate to the rear.
The soldier was in the rear when it...
2025-03-23 15:05:00 +0000 UTC View PostHe'd lost consciousness from all the pain. What pain though? He couldn't remember. And why was it so loud, so stuffy, so constricting?
He opened his eyes, but the light was too bright. And somehow he was in the middle of a press of bodies. It was anything but comfortable.
And the smells. He was in a press of bodies, and that liquid that was pouring everywhere, it was red, it was fam...
2025-03-23 15:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostAs he watched these visions play out, he bled out, his brain eroded. His life force flickered.
He also healed, but death came faster than health. He had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing here, but he'd chosen.
It was his whole thing. Reliability. If his life were a path, Rafael Kingsley only really wanted to be competent. Competent enough to be wanted, to be needed, to not ...
2025-03-23 15:03:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe fourth Skyholm did not have magic. At least not in the traditional sense. To Rafe, he seemed positively divine. He was a warrior. A pure warrior and nothing more.
A warrior who could crash a small hill with an upward lunge and downward slash was rather overpowered though.
Still, the battle scene he saw resonated deeply with him. When slowed down to a crawl, the man...
2025-03-23 15:02:01 +0000 UTC View Post