When Leon walked into the throne room of the Sacred Golden Empire’s Imperial Palace, he did so much as he did about a month before: flanked on both sides first by Elise, Maia, and Valeria, and then by several Imperial guards. Unlike the last time he was here, however, the massive courtyard surr...
2022-05-30 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostAfter his exchange with the Thunderbird, Leon returned to his meditations and continued reveling in his command of black fire. For hours, he gave all responsible parents everywhere a headache by playing with fire, and when he finally left his meditation chamber, he still had a few black sparks da...
2022-05-27 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostLeon stared back at Anastasios for a long moment, shocked at the Lord Protector’s appearance. However, after several seconds, propriety kicked back in and he raised a hand in greeting, returning the Lord Protector’s casual acknowledgment.
For his part, Anastasios seemed amused more tha...
In case you missed it, I posted more revisions to the Knight Academy over the weekend! You can check them out here!
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The journey back to Evergold started off with grea...
It's been a long time since I last posted one o
2022-05-21 05:07:46 +0000 UTC View PostLeon sighed as he finally collapsed into a seat in his portable villa back in the expedition’s camp.
Following his meeting with the ninth-tier tree sprite and his gaining of a new ‘retainer’, he’d led the remnants of his expedition back to the camp where Cassandra and the rest of t...
The ninth-tier tree sprite looked much like Leon had last seen it: huge, powerful, but rather timid in what body language Leon could parse. However, perhaps as a sign of its growing trust, instead of bringing Leon inside of its tree where he assumed it was most powerful, it met with him out in th...
2022-05-18 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostLeon and his party blazed their way down the halls of the research facility, no longer interrupted by Apati. Leon had refused the man’s offer, but given his own feelings, and the informal alliance he had with the tree sprite accompanying him, that was the only offer he could give right then. Ne...
2022-05-16 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostLeon and the tree sprite had an alliance. He didn’t think too hard about it, but neither did he entirely trust the creature. He’d spent too long on the watch out for such beings back in the Forest of Black and White, and those old instincts, while almost forgotten, had shown themselves to sti...
2022-05-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOnce Apati was finished with his threats, the first thing Leon did was to project his magic senses and try to locate his people. If Apati had done anything with them already, then he was going to explode in anger.
Fortunately, he located them fairly quickly on the route to the research fac...
Despite Leon’s offer to talk, the tree sprites didn’t utter a word—hardly surprising, given none of them had mouths, but he was hoping for some kind of reaction anyway, or at least an attempt to communicate with him mentally. Instead, they just stared at him for a long moment before anythin...
2022-05-09 15:08:23 +0000 UTC View PostLeon stared at his party, bloodied and broken, as they bravely put up what looked to be a last stand.
And he was in the depths of the research facility, unable to do anything about it.
“These are your people?” Apati asked apprehensively.
“Yes,” Leon answered through c...
Valeria wasn’t quite sure how she ought to feel. Looking around, she took great comfort in the fact that, after their wanderings throughout… wherever they were, she and Cassandra had managed to find the rest of their people. Everyone save for Leon had been found and sprung from their...
2022-05-04 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostValeria stared in confusion at the sight around her. Just a moment before, she’d been walking through the forest with Leon and the others, and another moment, she was in a dark room with wooden, but organically-shaped walls all around her. What little light there was in the room came from a few...
2022-05-02 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“None of this is usable, I’m afraid,” Apati said as Leon stood up, the emerald the dead technician now inhabited in hand.
“Why not?” Leon asked as he glanced around at the small handful of control consoles scattered around the room. “They still have power, don’t they?”
<...
Leon’s anxiety for his people was immense, but his curiosity was powerful, too, and with the threat that the roots posed, he couldn’t help but take a moment to investigate them before trying to continue further into the research facility. He knelt down by the largest one left—all had been q...
2022-04-27 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostLeon’s blade appeared in his hand in a flash of light and lightning danced across his body.
The rest of his companions were gone, and he hadn’t even sensed it happening. Panic at the uncertainty of what had just happened flooded his mind for a moment before he mastered himself.
...
Leon remained vigilant as he and his people followed closely behind the Evergolden warriors. Their truth rings were active, dispelling all illusions before them, but they did nothing to help fend off mental attacks, and the high probability of being teleported away wasn’t something they could e...
2022-04-22 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon had a wide grin on his face as he made his way back to the camp. The entire demonstration that the manticore had put on had lasted for more than an hour, and with so many powerful eyes watching it, and Leon’s antimagic enchantments helping them to analyze the flow of magic around the creat...
2022-04-20 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Leon reached what he assumed was the site of a battle between plant giants and the wounded manticore, he immediately used his antimagic again. He didn’t need it to be in use for long, but he wanted to confirm what he was about to do.
As expected, the remains of the plant giants and ...
Leon stared out into the forest, his frustration great, as was his anger.
Three days had passed since they’d been attacked by the plant giants, and yet, nothing of real note had happened. They’d been attacked twice more by plant giants and wolves, respectively, and fought them off both ...
2022-04-15 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Leon bolted outside, his weapon drawn and armor donned, he found that the horn hadn’t been sounded for nothing: a dozen plant giants, each one twice as large as a stone giant, had surrounded the outer wall of their camp and were steadily advancing toward them.
Each one’s proportion...
2022-04-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon, hovering in the air, watched as his retinue spread out over the treetops. His entire party was with him, save for Elise and Talal, who’d both chosen to remain back at camp—not that he could blame them, given the dangers of the Prota Forest. However, Cassandra wasn’t of the same mind, ...
2022-04-11 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhatever had happened to Cassandra to so discombobulate her, it had faded entirely by the time she and Leon had returned to camp. Her anger at having to return, too, had faded, and when they reached the palace-tree, she surprised Leon with a relatively humble apology. She then went to get fully c...
2022-04-08 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostAs Leon flew over the forest, his caution never wavering, he asked Nestor and Xaphan both, [Were you two paying attention to that ambush?]
[No,] Nestor bluntly replied.
[I was,] Xaphan admitted, sounding like he was grinning madly. [That was quite a blunder on your part. Getting a lit...
2022-04-06 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon, shrouded in shadow, took off into the air. With the wind against his face, running through his feathers, and over his wings, he felt invincible. He was back in his element, soaring through the sky, master of all he surveyed.
He struggled a bit to focus, and after about several minute...
The camp Leon’s party made was nearly identical to the one they’d set up the night before—a relatively small palace-tree was flash-grown, and Leon set up the individual modules of his portable villa around it. The Evergolden earth mages then built a stone wall around the pieces of his villa...
2022-04-01 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIt was the day after they entered the Prota Forest, and the decision had been made to continue. As they expected, though, the second day proceeded about as eventfully as the first, with their party being attacked three times as they trudged through the forest. There didn’t seem to be any kind o...
2022-03-30 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostLeon rushed forward as Anshu groaned on the ground. The three members of Cassandra’s escort were not too far away, and as far as Leon could tell, they were alive, but severely injured.
However, their physical injuries wasn’t what Leon was most concerned with.
“Helen!” he sho...
Leon, needing a moment to calm himself down, landed in the center of the blackened crater he’d, in his rage, made. The rest of his retinue descended from the sky and landed around him, and Leon, ignoring Cassandra’s questioning, went straight to Elise.
The sight of a wind blade making ...