“That was hard,” Gary said. “Normally the boss anomalies are huge monstrosities, but this thing…”
He looked down at the odd, seemingly innocuous creature. It was round and purple with stubby arms and legs, like a child in a grape costume. It had a purple top hat and a face that wa...
2023-11-03 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThunder and lightning assaulted the ground like an army of angry angels. Rain hammered down, turning black dirt into sludge. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, mud and, for the silver-rankers clearing the rubble, tongue-coating stone dust. The amount of rubble was enormous, having once be...
2023-11-01 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostLightning struck so fast that the last peal of thunder was still rumbling when the next one set the sky to shuddering. Adventurers took shelter under the forest of iron towers jutting from the blasted landscape. Most were silver-rankers, but a small number of golds worked to shield the others fro...
2023-10-30 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m sorry,” Jali Corrik Fen said as she walked alongside Jason in the mountain fortress. The corridors of black stone and red metal were high and wide enough to drive a freight truck through them. It was more than sufficient for the messenger to walk beside Jason without shrinking herself ...
2023-10-27 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostBoris was human-sized and without his wings, but Jason couldn’t help but notice the messenger was still a lot taller. They were still on the beach, Jason in a floral shirt and tan shorts. Boris was wearing what Jason could only describe as a blouse with only two buttons at the bottom done up. L...
2023-10-25 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason and Boris were at the beach in Jason’s replica town, sitting in cheap folding chairs. Boris had put away his wings and shrunk himself down to human size, as he typically did around humans. His long blond hair was teased by the ocean wind, leaving it dancing around his square-jawed feature...
2023-10-23 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostTL;DR:
Podcast Part 2
Part two of the podcast I was on last week has gone up. The...
Jason walked across the wide grassy meadow where his companions had confronted the avatar. Humphrey followed as they headed for the forest surrounding the area, moving around holes left by giant feet. The sky darkened, day turning to night by the time they reached the trees ringing the space. Jas...
2023-10-20 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe avatar was gone. Pieces of it had been wrenched away, one by one, and consumed by white fire. The final destruction of the avatar marked the final excision of the god of Undeath's power and Jason's soul realm immediately grew more stable. White flames kicked up into an inferno that was harmle...
2023-10-18 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostTL;DR:
The avatar of Undeath in Jason’s soul realm wasn’t the melting, beleaguered mess the real thing had been when fighting Gary. It stood as tall as a fifteen-storey building, in the fullness of its might. Skinless, red-purple flesh; wounds that showed not weakness but power, purple light shining...
2023-10-16 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe contingent making their way through Jason’s soul realm had two groups. One was Jason’s companions, led by Nik and one of Shade’s bodies. The other was Boris and his group of messengers. At the advice of Shade and Nik, both groups moved swiftly but not at a breakneck pace. With the world...
2023-10-13 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason’s world was breaking. Trees were rotting and falling over. Buildings crumbled as whole sections fell away, leaving them unable to support their own weight. The ground was turning to purple-black sludge. Ghostly white flames resisted the encroachment but it was a losing battle. The fire wa...
2023-10-11 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostClan Asano had two domains. One was in Saint-Etienne, France, covering most of the city. The other was close to Nitra, Slovakia, on formerly agricultural land. Both contained astral spaces rich in magic, producing far more magical manifestations than on Earth. This meant essences, awakening stone...
2023-10-09 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason plunged from his cloud palace head first. His cloak trailed behind him, a black scar against the clear blue sky. His cloak was not a graceful tool of flight, but he had learned from the messengers how to compensate. They flew using the magic of their wings, enhanced by their ability to use ...
2023-10-06 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason floated in the scorching desert air, standing on a small cloud platform. In his hand was his cloud flask, spewing out fog that was adding to the half-complete sky fortress forming in the air. It was all thin lines and sharp angles, more decorative than practical. As sections were completed,...
2023-10-04 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe battlefield was oddly stalled out. Undeath’s army was a spent force, the priests dead or fleeing while the remnant undead were mopped up by the adventurers and their allies. Few of the enemy messengers with their pallid, corpse-like skin remained. Most had been killed by the butterflies tha...
2023-10-02 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe next new chapter goes out to silver-rank+ patrons in about five minutes from this post going live. This is just to remind you that I'm running the show without my assistant for the next two weeks, so expect things to be a little sloppy. Rougher proof reading, wobbly links, posts going a bit w...
2023-10-02 21:55:00 +0000 UTC View PostEdit: Just to update everyone, I added both tags. I was already leaning in that direction but I wanted some outside perspective before pulling the trigger. The general consensus seems to agree, making it an easy decision. Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussi...
2023-09-29 06:19:24 +0000 UTC View PostThe two divine combatants were the unquestionable focus of the battlefield. Looming as tall as houses, they flung powers back and forth. Gary wielded hammers and conjured chains, all wreathed in golden fire. He called up his foundry golem summon, far larger than normal and filled with metal melte...
2023-08-30 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostMy airport taxi will get here in about three and a half hours. I'm about to freeze payments, shut down my computer and do the last bit of packing. The new silver-rank chapter is scheduled for release and the bronze/iron ones should be available already.
I hope you all have a great month, a...
In the dimension-warped M.C. Escher castle Garth had trapped them in, Jason watched Garth move across a bridge that was, from his perspective, upside down. The undead glared at him with the burning light inside the eyes of his skull sockets, but could do nothing more. Although they could look at ...
2023-08-28 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as the bony hand landed on Jason’s shoulder, the world around him swirled into incomprehensible nonsense, like a stick of dynamite going off in a drum of paint. Jason was both familiar and inured to dimensional displacement, so was already moving when the world reformed an instant later...
2023-08-25 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostGarth had a dangerous power. It didn't come from his stolen hearts but was inherent to his nature as a zemravore. He could kill his aura, eliminating it entirely. This made him utterly invisible to aura senses, even those of a diamond-ranker. There simply was no aura to sense. This left him expos...
2023-08-23 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIn the battle that took place in the underground city of the brighthearts, the priests of Undeath had largely held back. They had what amounted to an infinite supply of the unliving to throw them at the enemy until the enemy crumbled. This was not the case when the two cloud vehicles came barrell...
2023-08-21 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostTwo cloud vehicles shot through an unclaimed territory, hovering a few metres over the ground. The territory was an icy expanse, but far from a barren waste. In the distance, castles made of ice sparkled in the sun. Plant life was abundant, in shades of white blue and grey over the traditional br...
2023-08-18 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostGarth and Jameela were standing atop a hill of red desert rock. Their vast forces spread out on the plateau they were overlooking.
“So, the messengers want this soul forge, whatever that is,” Garth said.
“According to the Magic Society researchers, yes,” Jameela said. “And i...
2023-08-16 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe shimmering dome of aura was impenetrable to magical senses, even those of a gold-rank messenger like Fiola Min Kath. She was sitting in one of the trees, having shaped a throne in the branches with her plant manipulation powers. It was an uncommon power amongst messengers, but that rarity did...
2023-08-14 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostMahk Den Kahla was an unhappy messenger. Ever since meeting Boris Ket Lundi, things had been spiralling out of control. Boris was dominant force, his arguments for Mahk handing over his territory compelling. And Mahk was not the last to be swayed, with other messengers they encountered having fal...
2023-08-11 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason was walking down a wide forest path with the unnamed rabbit by his side. Sunlight passed through the thin canopy, leaving their way well-lit, yet also private and secluded.
“Names are important,” Jason said. “I have a familiar. His name is Colin and people love him.”
“...
2023-08-09 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post