While my mind was briefly occupied with the answer Lady Hecate had given me, the odd, monotone world in which we had talked dissolved, leaving me with a lot more questions and far too few actual answers for my taste. I had no real idea what had happened, just that I had briefly spoken to a Goddes...
2023-08-05 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter two months of hiding in the community centre, wandering across the fields around town was a strange experience. The paths hadn’t changed all that much, sure, there were far more cracks in the asphalt than before and the vegetation around the roads was trying to reclaim what humans had pav...
2023-08-04 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, the information pouring into my mind was too much. My eyes were picking up details that couldn’t be, getting lost in the strange eddies of magic swirling around the Being before me, my ears tried to parse the ephemeral sounds filling the air and my nose and tongue were utterly ove...
2023-08-02 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostPushing myself up from the crouching position I had been in, I looked across the ritual circle I had laid out one more time. Drawing it had been exhausting, quite a few of the details were fiddly, while others were supposed to be placed in such a way that I had to carefully move across the previo...
2023-07-31 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the long, exhausting shopping trip with my girls, we set up a new lair and settled into a somewhat weird routine. I was mostly playing the stay-at-home-mum, making sure that Sabrina had what she needed and gave her some lessons. Helping my daughter with her words and numbers was another thi...
2023-07-30 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostMoving through the night with Sabrina by my side was an interesting experience. We had travelled with diurnal people before but never with any who I cared enough about to light the way for them. For my munchkin, I was happily making an exception to our normally stealthy modus operandi and used my...
2023-07-29 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post“Will I get a new name, too? So I can be your daughter?” Sabrina’s words stumped me for a moment. Did she need a new name? A part of me wanted to deny, even if only to keep the people who knew her as Sabrina from coming after me. It was one thing to change the name of Chantalle, she was old...
2023-07-28 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostGrinning to myself, I reached into my newly christened Magic Bag, pulling out one of the many artfully decorated rocks I had stored within. The bag wasn’t yet acknowledged by the system as a magical item, but it allowed me to put things in that were larger than the bag, as long as I could hold ...
2023-07-26 16:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostIt was a little odd, reaching into an empty bag was such an ordinary thing to do, and yet, it was also the first step to trying something rather extraordinary. Once my hand was touching the bottom of the bag, I closed my eyes, blocking out everything but the sensations coming from that hand, pull...
2023-07-24 16:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, Sabrina, Lia and I were watching the survivors that had occupied the community centre start their trip to the farm. A part of me wanted to laugh at the awkwardness of it all but I managed to stop myself. It would have been unkind. A few of these people had barely left the buildi...
2023-07-23 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostWhile discussing magic with Kenji and teaching him a few more tricks, I was once more reminded just how insightful and intelligent Sabrina really was. We were discussing tricks to improve his archery using Wind Magic, with me giving him a few ideas based on the way I had seen Adra use her magic a...
2023-07-22 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostTraining Sabrina was made a little more difficult, thanks to the inability of Lia and me to be out in the sun. If not for the dense clouds covering the sky the days after meeting her, things might have turned out a lot differently than they had but luckily, a few kilometres of thick, watery fog h...
2023-07-21 16:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostFor two days, Alex, Lia and I had stayed with the people in the community centre, teaching them about the system, the world after the change and this new reality we found ourselves in. In the meantime, I had written a short letter to mark, entrusting it to Silva so she could deliver it. I would h...
2023-07-19 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostGuard duty was important. Guard duty meant making sure none of the nasties that occasionally wandered the fields near Apple Gate Farm, a slight misnomer for a place housing hundreds of people, broke in and decided to turn some of those people into a late-night snack. Thus guard duty was necessary...
2023-07-17 16:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostMaybe Chris had to be seriously smacked in the face to accept reality as it was. Talking to him, trying to get him to accept that he would need to step up and, literally, fight for his family didn’t seem to work. He seemed to listen to my explanations, before moving past them, trying to get mor...
2023-07-16 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post“Good morning, Mum,” my musings were interrupted by a soft voice, one that came from my lap. For a moment, the voice threw me for a loop, the words just too alien for me to process. Or rather, that last word, that was far too alien for me, alien enough to stun me for a moment. I had managed t...
2023-07-15 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostMy hand was idly stroking Sabrina’s head, while my mind was going a mile a minute, considering the best options for me, for Sabrina but also for Chris and Jenn. I didn’t really want to abandon either of them, but if Chris wasn’t willing to step up, there was little I could do. Training Jenn...
2023-07-14 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Sabrina, Silva and I walked back into the primary area of the community centre, I had to keep my face controlled so I wouldn’t break into laughter. The few people still awake looked at us, though now mainly at Sabrina, with an expression of confusion, likely wondering why the girl was sudd...
2023-07-12 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostAmbition, such a curious concept. Talking to Chris, knowing what he had achieved in life before the change had happened, remembering how he had taken a few of his friends, one of whom had been me to form the core of what would eventually become a world-famous eSports team, I could only wonder whe...
2023-07-10 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, I was rather flabbergasted at hearing my old name. Sure, it was still mine and I still responded to it, but I hadn’t been called Samantha for quite some time. Mrs Wu was the only one who knew to use it but she rarely did, mainly using Jade, though she occasionally slipped up. Gett...
2023-07-09 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostMoving alongside Silva, it didn’t take us long to find what she had sniffed out. There were quite a few Undead, led by a single Shattered, scattered around a large building, similar to the YMCA the other group of survivors had occupied all those weeks ago. Only, the Undead didn’t appear to be...
2023-07-08 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post“They’re still out there,” a quiet voice whispered in the night, after taking a quick glance through a dirty, cracked window. Outside, he had seen a group of maybe twenty of the shambling bodies, led by one with eyes of blue fire, a Shattered as they were called.
They were out there a...
2023-07-07 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostStep after step, I walked deeper into the temple. Inside, it wasn’t just silent, it felt like it was more, something beyond the absence of sound as if the world itself had stopped. The only disruption of that perfect stillness came from me, from the slow breaths I exhaled to the sounds of my fe...
2023-07-06 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHunting down something suitable for Lia to snack on had taken quite a bit longer than I originally had thought. We had ventured into the fields around the city, checking out a different part of the area instead of heading back towards the farm, but the fields there were just as deserted as the re...
2023-07-05 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostSlowly pushing my Astral Power into a ring I was enchanting, I felt the small ripples and flares as my magic tried to make contact, to complete the cycle. Minute changes allowed me to track where I needed to push a little harder, and where I needed to force the issue to make it so the enchantment...
2023-07-03 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostGetting used to the changes in my body was a weird experience. My instincts, the intuition and senses that were governing my body, were sharper than they had ever been, allowing me to move in a precise and determined fashion, only that my mind wasn’t quite up to the task. If I simply moved, wit...
2023-07-02 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe sounds of rushing footsteps caught up to me before I managed to do more than get to my knees. Instead of continuing to struggle, I looked only to see a flabbergasted Lia, staring at me in utter confusion.
“Mother?!” she asked, her eyes flickering around the room as if she was lookin...
2023-07-01 16:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostLetting my eyes flicker down, I started to take in the notifications I had received for crossing the first Divide.
It was finally time. I had reached the big five-oh, had gained my free points from the Dragon Touched Trait but had yet to spend the points I had received from levelling up, having collected five of them since level forty. Now, I could either push my Intelligence up to thirty-five, my ...
2023-06-28 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostReaching level fifty came with a whimper, not with a bang. Day after day, we were hunting Withered, always vigilant to make sure their reactions didn’t change, even as we were pushing things, experimenting with ways to increase the damage we could deal to them.
If it wasn’t hunting indi...
2023-06-26 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post