We walked a bit more, entering a sprawling metro station. It was big, taking up a large space with a balcony looking down onto the foyer. It'd been buried with time long ago, left to rot down here in the Underground.
It would’ve been quite something back in the day. Now though? Now it was...
2025-01-27 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostWith the assistance of Dev, I managed to get back up and out of the hole without plummeting into the depths. By the time I latched onto the other Squire’s hand and he pulled me out, the Knight and her two Squire’s had arrived.
“I see you found the way down.” Persha idly commented as...
2025-01-24 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostTwo weeks. That’s how long it took me to figure out what all was going on with my body. It was a slow and tedious process, especially considering my state as a pseudo-prisoner. I wasn’t literally a prisoner, but my ‘Flaw’ kept me locked up with the Reality Anchor.
At first, I...
2025-01-23 23:26:59 +0000 UTC View PostWe were escorted to the back of the restaurant. Down a hall sat a private room with Blood Scythe guards standing out front. These weren’t like the rest though. They looked trained, chromed, and armed with SMGs and shotguns.
The room they guarded was a private booth hidden away from the re...
2025-01-22 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe robed man approached. He was an elder, with short-cropped silver hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. “You are?”
“Shiro. Shiro Tsukuyomi.” I held out a hand to the man. I was slightly annoyed that Echdina had so casually marked me down with my real name. “I’m here for an exchan...
2025-01-20 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe cams weren’t as helpful as I hoped they would be. I mean, they were helpful, but not too helpful. We watched a couple hours' worth of footage, finding more than enough evidence something had gone down.
We started with our first victim, carefully pouring over the video fo...
2025-01-17 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Gah!” I sprung awake, gasping for air as I felt the cold pangs of death radiating throughout my body. My brain felt as if it was a maelstrom tearing at the edges of my skull with brutal intent.
My hands shot up, blocking out a blinding light as my memory came back to me in one scramble...
2025-01-16 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostWe checked a few more apartments and found many of them to be the same. Not everyone had food out, but based on other clues in their apartments, we suspected a similar chain of events. There were similar circumstances at least.
For one, Lewis was an outlier in that he had a relationship. As...
2025-01-15 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostAN: 4/4
Also, I probably should have put this beforehand, but here's a content warning for Sensitive Content for the rest of the book.
-- -- --
Moll and Clyde entered the fight with a bang. Clyde, the ever-cheerful man, lunged towards the beast. His power activated as his form melted ...
AN: 3/4
-- -- --
We stepped into the building, Moll leading the way as she burned through the meat webbing all over the place. The lobby was extremely simple. There were no motifs or artistic reliefs along the walls like I’d seen in Slarin Republic architecture. Only a simple wooden...
2025-01-14 21:48:52 +0000 UTC View PostAN: 2/4
-- -- --
The place was a ghost town. At least, that was the conclusion I came to. Signs of life were there, but they were old as though the inhabitants hadn’t been back in a long time.
But something else had. Trails of sticky red webbing that reeked of rotting meat lined ...
2025-01-14 21:20:24 +0000 UTC View PostAN: 1/4
-- -- --
I don’t know how long we walked, but the path we took was confusing. And that's saying something considering I commonly ran packages down into the Undercity. The paths down there were something else.
Clyde must’ve had a great memory to know the path so...
2025-01-14 21:01:40 +0000 UTC View Post“So good cop bad cop?” I asked Dev. Getting our roles down now was probably a good idea so I’d know how to act in upcoming situations. And it seemed as if he was already leaning towards good cop bad cop.
Dev shrugged as we walked down the hallway. “I guess. I can make a killer 2025-01-13 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The first stop was Trashcan Terisa. No way I wanted to pilfer a place potentially full of plants and their cultists without some kind of fire. Sure, a mundane fire might not be all that effective, but could be a distraction at least.
Trashcan Terisa ended up being a person, not an actual sh...
2025-01-10 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostDev and I met up just outside of Lang Tower in Old Town. It was a true arcology, built to be a city within a building. It was similar in shape and design to Talus Tower in that it was a fully self-sustaining location. The rest of the city could go to shit and yet the arcology would still be fine....
2025-01-08 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as I entered the Blue Crusade, I could feel the tension in the air. Everyone was hustling and bustling, moving around and trying to get whatever they were working on done. It was also quiet. Too quiet. I was used to the Crusade’s constant chatter, so actually having all the Crusaders qu...
2025-01-06 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostFirearms. It had some crazy choices for Perks. Dexterity was practically a time-slowing effect, and that’d been a level four Perk. Granted, it was likely a mistake that it was so lowly placed. After all this time, I’d long realized that the Perks, Skills, and Traits of the interface weren’t...
2025-01-03 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Zuku! It’s about time. Been trying to reach you for weeksh!” The ever-cold voice of Inquisitor Ligh came across the line.
”Inquisitor… about that…” What do I even say? How can I ward off an inquiry into a month-long absence? This is seriously too much to worry about. I didn...
2025-01-01 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostThis is a collaboration I did with RavensDagger and Plum Parrot. It's just something short and, hopefully, sweet for New Year's. Juliet and Angel are from Plum Parrot's Cyber Dreams, and Cat and Lucy are from RavensDagger's Stray Cat Strut.
As a side note, this is the first collab...
2024-12-31 18:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostI collapsed onto my small bed, a stroke of pure satisfaction running through me as I felt the soft mattress. I’d spent way too long letting the water brush over my skin, even going as far as to ignore the interface popping up in my vision until now. All for this moment of relaxation. Of being s...
2024-12-30 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post”I see…” Captain Roger frowned as he stared at a blown-up hologram of the Laurus Theatre. “Nothing we can do about the radiation. None of us are built to deal with it… I’ll call Athena. She might have other plans.”
Right, Athena. The overall boss. Kick it down the line, notice...
2024-12-27 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostOr Happy Holidays if you don’s celebrate Christmas. Thank you all for a wonderful year so far!
No chapter today, unfortunately. I was planning a Christmas Special, but I didn’t quite get done with it. Felt rushed reading back through.
A couple other authors and I have a collab i...
2024-12-25 21:46:17 +0000 UTC View PostI found what I was looking for without too much searching. It was rather simple to find once I was free to look. A bookshelf on the back wall didn’t match the pattern the rest of the Back Archives abided by, which threw me off when I first saw it. Then add in the fact that touching one of the b...
2024-12-23 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostI stared down at my drone early the next morning. What I wanted to do to bypass the whole ultrasonic sensor thing was fairly simple. The sensor only knew something was wrong when the ultrasonic waves bounced back off something.
If I simply removed the ultrasonic sound waves, it’d li...
2024-12-20 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostI flicked on my Blinder just before entering the building. I also ran through a final check of all my sensors, ensuring everything was running smoothly. So far. at least, nothing had broken.
”Zuku?” Hampton called, seemingly staring right through me. “Where are you?”
I waved a...
2024-12-18 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View Post“So what do you think?” I asked Captain Roger. I’d already explained the situation to him.
“Hmm…” Captain Roger’s voice cut out for a few moments. “What did you say the odds are of this working out?”
“High. At least seventy-five percent sure that everything will ru...
2024-12-16 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View Post”What happened here?” Renold asked as poked at a mound of wooden snakes. The pile shifted, falling into a disgusting mess of dead serpents.
“Oh, uh- there was a creepy monster down that way.” I pointed down the hall towards the offices. “It's been taken care of.”
Renold ch...
2024-12-13 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, I infiltrated back into the offices. On the way back in, I noticed quite a few bots kneeled over. Sabotaging the charging ports has already had a strong effect. Once I found the building's schematic and got the rest of the charging ports, the bots wouldn’t even be an issue. 2024-12-11 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I watched the terminal to pass the time. The more I watched the weird script pass by, the more I started to realize a pattern. The script abruptly changed for a moment, flashing to read 'HELP ME!' before going back to the other weird one as if it had just been a fluke.
Before I could ...
2024-12-09 23:04:00 +0000 UTC View PostHalfway to the stage, an indicator on my wrist started blinking red. I looked down just in time to catch a list of warnings from my Blinder. Overheating sat as the topmost warning. A shutdown was imminent. About fifteen minutes seemed to be the life span of the Blinder.
I sped up my movemen...
2024-12-06 23:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post