The four suns above the Bright City and the cracked desert beyond illuminated a stunning sight. Dwarves and Phoexians were floating in the air, untethered from natural gravity. It wasn’t only these Denizens, either. Everything not bolted down gently made its way up. The pebbles and roc...
2025-06-10 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe pattern glowed with an intensity the previous patterns hadn’t possessed. If Xavier’s vision had been weaker, he would have needed to shield his eyes from the sight. The glow was brighter than the four blaring suns above the world he stood upon.
The glow had reached the far corners o...
2025-06-09 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostXavier gazed upon the massive pattern of runes he’d drawn over the battlements of the Bright City of Aethisa. The pattern was contained within his time dilation field, the dwarves along the wall as frozen as the Phoexian flights above.
The pattern contained thousands of different runes. F...
2025-06-05 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAre you sure that will work? The Lost Bone of a Dead God sounded dubious about Xavier’s idea.
The hot stone beneath him continued to bake the young dragonkin as he sat cross-legged on Aethisa’s battlements. The four suns blared down, but they did not add their heat. The...
2025-06-04 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostHovering above the Bright City of Aethisa, Xavier gazed upward into the sky, shaking his head, in awe at what he’d just done.
Using the Untethered gravity spell he’d learnt with Recursive Analysis, he had sent a large section of the Bright City’s battlements into orbit, killing every ...
2025-06-03 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHovering above the Bright City of Aethisa, wings flapping lazily, Xavier watched the ballistae bolt as it shot toward him. Phoexians scattered after the force field powered by the massive subterranean crystal had pushed them high into the air.
The bolt moved slow enough for him to perceive ...
2025-06-02 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostXavier hovered in the air on the hundred-and-twenty-first floor of the Tower of Champions. Below him lay a cracked desert. Behind lay the Bright City of Aethisa, its walls burning as it was being attacked by the Phoenix Empire. And above, four suns blazed in the sky.
He was inside a time di...
2025-05-29 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostXavier appeared on the hundred-and-twenty-first floor of the Tower of Champions.
The sun blared down at him. He shaded his eyes, blinking. No, four suns blared down at him. The air was wavy with heat. The ground beneath him felt brittle and hot.
He lowered his hand, narrowed ...
2025-05-28 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostXavier widened his eyes slightly, staring at the hologram that hovered above the stone in the middle of the table.
He hadn’t seen a hologram for some time. Not since he’d first entered the tower during their introductory session where he’d met Howard, Justin, and Siobhan.
He lea...
2025-05-27 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe tavern was silent.
The fire didn’t crackle in the hearth. The other Champions didn’t chatter, laugh, or clink mugs. The barkeep stood, frozen, midway through cleaning a mug. Five Denizens sat around a table, inside a time dilation field, the only ones moving.
Dominical frowned...
2025-05-26 19:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostXavier cleared floor after floor of the tower, once more becoming an efficient powerhouse. He froze time and killed thousands-strong armies in a fraction of a second. He battled dragons over ancient forests, protecting a race of elves from utter annihilation. He soared over a city larger than any...
2025-05-22 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostXavier stood at the foot of the massive mountain that stretched high into the heavens of this cold, cold world. A tower loomed at one of the tallest peaks. He couldn’t help but wonder what might be up there.
He was on the Thirty-First Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar, having been sent to...
2025-05-21 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostXavier’s fingers curled into fists as the unfolding ended.
The Spirit of Time stared at him curiously. You are angry. Why?
I failed.
The Spirit of Time had a confused look about her.
This isn’t even your universe—how could you think ...
2025-05-21 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostA grin flitted onto Xavier’s face as he soared above the snowy terrain, ascending the sides of the massive mountain toward the high peaks where he’d spotted the tower.
He vividly remembered the last time he flew above a snowy mountain—it was back on the hundredth floor, when he’d be...
2025-05-20 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostPerspective: Xavier, Version 1.1—Alternate Timeline Above Earth, Eightieth Floor of the Tower of Champions.
To use his Portal spell effectively, Xavier had to be able to have an “intimate” knowledge of the place he wished his portal to appear.
Usually, that mean...
2025-05-20 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostSix months had passed since the last time he’d summoned the Spirit of Time.
Well, technically, for him, it had been much, much longer.
The world was bled of colour as time stopped—though there wasn’t much colour to bleed up here, in the vacuum of space. The other versio...
2025-05-19 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThousands of Monstrosities lay dead around him and Yarien’s party. Their bodies were covered in black blood. The entire Thirtieth Descent looked like the set of some nightmarish horror movie.
Xavier didn’t intend to remain with the group for all the 1,000 clears of the Thirtieth Descent...
2025-05-19 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostXavier blinked at their question.
Yarien had asked him whether his Time Alteration spell could be used through a portal. Xavier had opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly, for he realised he… Didn’t know.
“I’ve never tried that. I’ve opened portals inside of a time dilati...
2025-05-15 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostOther Xavier: [I’m still alive.]
The other version of him looked like absolute crap, and that was putting it lightly. But the wounds the Soul Amalgamation had inflicted on him were finally starting to heal.
Xavier: [You sound surprised.]
Other Xavier: [Ho...
2025-05-15 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostXavier was beginning to grow fond of the party he’d encountered.
They moved through the different descents of the Hell Moon Thazamar with an efficiency he’d never experienced before.
At first, Xavier had been humbled by their power—admittedly, he still was humbled by the power. ...
2025-05-14 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostXavier blinked.
The Soul Amalgamation had just spoken in his mind. That was not something he’d expected. It spoke to him in the same way spirits he summoned from the Otherworld spoke to him.
He supposed that made some sense, considering what this thing was—a soul...
2025-05-14 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostSometime ago…
The entity was fiercely intelligent, yet scarcely aware of itself. Emotions had not been relevant to its evolution, and so it had never had any need for them.
It had knowledge of emotions. It knew what they were, even if it had little way of understand...
2025-05-13 19:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostXavier wasn’t sure if what he wanted to do would even work—he wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to try.
But he had to do something drastic if coming up here was going to be worth it. If it was going to mean something.
Xavier: [I’m about to try something. I do...
2025-05-13 19:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostXavier was glad a fight didn’t end up happening with the party he’d encountered at the entrance to the Hell Moon Thazamar, and not only because their sponsor, Jhanku, was one of the most powerful Denizens in the entire universe.
These people were insanely powerful.
“Your turn, Y...
2025-05-12 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostFloating beside another version of himself in the vacuum of space above Earth, the blue and green planet looming large behind him, Xavier looked at the pointy-eared, horned man outside the time dilation field.
Other Xavier: [That is the entity. In a sense. It is a Soul Amalgama...
2025-05-12 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostXavier intended to maintain an illusion of being a swordsman, just one that could control time. He didn’t bother hiding his wings. He wouldn’t be the only dragonkin in the universe capable of time manipulation, he was sure of that.
And who would be looking for him out here? Pretending t...
2025-05-08 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostXavier floated in the middle of space, inside his time dilation field. Not far from him, another version of himself was slowly turning around after realising where he was.
Outside of the time dilation field were two entities. One looked to be a powerful Denizen—the Denizen the other versi...
2025-05-08 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostXavier blinked, staring back at Empress Larona. “What do you mean, what am I?”
The woman had just experienced a premonition. She had looked into the future and seen something that frightened her. Something he’d done. The heavy breathing she’d been doing came to an end as sh...
2025-05-07 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe Old One stood on the observation deck of his starship as it slowly moved through the different sectors of the Greater Universe.
The Old One didn’t marvel at what he’d seen, for he had seen much in the time that he’d been alive. Still, he couldn’t help but stare out of the clear ...
2025-05-07 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostXavier couldn’t answer all the questions that were swirling in his head after discovering those runes in the stairwell and casting Otherworldly Communion.
So he returned to the Thirtieth Descent, carving his time dilation field down the stairwell.
Still, the questions had stayed wit...
2025-05-06 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post