The ruins of Elyra were spread out across kilometers, along broken rocks that floated on separate islands. Vex saw cracks in the ground beneath led to a pure nothingness; Derivan identified that nothingness as the Void, and so they collectively chose to avoid falling.
Not that they weren't ...
2023-03-13 12:47:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe ominous red door loomed in front of them. Vex had chosen to deem it the ORB, for "ominous red boundary". No one had really taken on the name yet, but they hadn't disputed him on it, either, so he was confident they'd pick up on it eventually.
"About time we go through," Misa said, eyein...
2023-03-10 11:45:29 +0000 UTC View PostFiguring out what to do next was rather more complicated than it should have been, Vex thought.
Jakka and his children could not be allowed to go free, that was a given. The rebels would have to capture and house them — far easier said than done, although Helix was insistent that they wou...
2023-03-08 11:49:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe nice thing about <A World Without a System> was really the time dilation aspect of it. It gave Derivan so much time compared to the people that were on Obreve proper — time for him to use Shift, open up a portal, recharge, and then use Shift again. In that am...
2023-03-06 13:50:11 +0000 UTC View Post"You didn't file form E27," Larok replied promptly. Helix gave him a dumbstruck look, and Larok waved him off. "That makes you liable to a seizure of assets."
"And you thought you'd take it yourself, and enlist Ashion to steal from me?" the old orc asked. His voice was pompous, as if he did...
2023-03-03 10:18:55 +0000 UTC View Post"Vex better be grateful for this," Helix muttered.
He didn't mean it, of course. At this point, he was fighting for far more than just his brother. It had taken him time to see that Vex had been right all along, but he'd figured it out eventually.
He owed it to his team the most; Laro...
2023-03-01 10:14:51 +0000 UTC View PostDerivan's next steps were what he had already planned to do, system power or no. It seemed only right.
He couldn't spend forever in the Void, of course. His friends were waiting for him, and even with Stability being his new Sign, there was only so much it could do in the face of the Void; ...
2023-02-27 14:26:16 +0000 UTC View PostDerivan moved through the Void, his mind still racing. The ant was two or three steps ahead of him. He'd asked it for its name, and it had produced an impossible-to-replicate series of clicks, then sighed.
You may call me Juniper, the ant said. It's what a lot of th...
2023-02-24 15:29:15 +0000 UTC View PostDerivan stared at the inky darkness in front of him.
It was familiar, actually. Derivan recognized now that he'd encountered such pure darkness before — when they'd recklessly crashed into the dungeon in Misa's bonus room as it was experiencing a dungeon break. It was where they'd first e...
2023-02-22 14:38:10 +0000 UTC View PostTo say that the hall erupted into chaos would be a bit of an understatement.
It wasn't that anyone attacked — far from it. No one seemed remotely interested in attacking Vex, for all that their immediate reaction had been to raise their weapons. Half the priests were whispering amongst th...
2023-02-20 14:29:15 +0000 UTC View Post"What... are they?" Vex tried to keep his curiosity and excitement at bay; something about this still felt... off. For one of them, at least; closer inspection showed that one of the three root-tangled books had slightly rotten leaves, and a weaker core. It was... strange, and it made him hesitat...
2023-02-17 15:27:42 +0000 UTC View Post"Why... is this slope... so steep," Vex wheezed. He didn't know how long he'd been climbing. It hadn't mattered for the first hour or so — it had been tiring, but he was used to being tired! He traveled with three people, one of whom could cure his own exhaustion, another who was a phy...
2023-02-15 14:19:54 +0000 UTC View PostMisa's awareness of her prime self faded. Something about the buzzing in the air drew her attention to this path — it wasn't that she didn't recognize she was still safe and sound in the middle of the Roads, but the more she went down this path, the more she found she couldn't split her focus.<...
2023-02-13 13:03:48 +0000 UTC View PostFive.
She was probably Five. The fifth and last simulated iteration, judging by the strange impulse she had to choose the rightmost tunnel. There was every chance she wasn't, of course, and so she proceeded into the path with all due caution; there was no reason to risk herself unn...
2023-02-10 13:57:00 +0000 UTC View Post"Alright, now I just gotta choose a path..."
Misa stared at the five split paths in front of her. Each path seemed almost entirely identical, and even the small differences they did have were entirely cosmetic. It wasn't like a scuff on the dirt of the tunnel was likely to be relevant, and ...
2023-02-08 12:38:25 +0000 UTC View PostTime splintered.
In front of Sev stood an older man — mid-forties or mid-fifties, perhaps. He wore the flowing robes of a priest of the God of the Sun — with the full title capitalized in his head, even, because he couldn't not. Power poured out of him in waves.
"...
2023-02-06 13:17:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe process of forging a connection was more complicated than Onyx had implied. Without Derivan around to use Patch to see exactly what the system was doing, Sev had to rely on his divine sense.
And trying to look through his divine sense was a little like a feeling Sev had long fo...
2023-02-03 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostSev hadn't said it while the others were there with him, but he was worried.
It was strange that he was the only one the Roads hadn't changed for. Misa had been given a choice. Vex's road led up, whatever that meant. Derivan's path ended in nothing, but presumably there was somethi...
2023-02-01 15:36:48 +0000 UTC View Post"We're going to be at the Roads soon," Belle said. "Are you sure you want to leave?"
"Sure?" Misa snorted. "No. But we have to."
She didn't look Belle in the eyes. They'd all been traveling together for the past few days — Clyde had taken time off specifically for this, tho...
2023-01-30 14:34:25 +0000 UTC View PostVelykos stood in front of the body, staring silently. The golden thread within him hummed, working full force to keep him from falling apart.
The body was wrong, but he didn't know why.
"This the man that adopted ya?" Harold asked quietly.
"I believe so," Velykos answer...
2023-01-27 13:55:43 +0000 UTC View PostVelykos stared.
It was rare, really, that he experienced anything he found difficult to explain. He had been alive for a long, long time, and had experienced almost everything that could be experienced.
The chill he felt now, though? That was new to him.
The fact that n...
2023-01-25 16:11:44 +0000 UTC View PostThe ending to that Festival was probably the quickest there had ever been. Not because there was no wonder or celebration to be had — but because the celebration that was left was for themselves, for all the things they had wanted to make permanent but could not. The glyphs of Change a...
2023-01-23 16:55:01 +0000 UTC View Post"Two new glyphs!" Clyde's voice was incredulous. He hissed out the words as if speaking softly would somehow protect them from the enormous crowd of people just outside his inn. It was essentially just very powerful inn magic that kept all of them out, though he'd refused to explain what...
2023-01-20 16:28:32 +0000 UTC View PostKindness, Sev reflected, could be painful.
Aneryn hadn't wanted to die alone. It was a small thing for Sev to be there for him in those last moments, and yet those last moments had been more than enough to make him care that much more. Aneryn would have been a friend, he was sure.
May...
2023-01-18 15:29:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe sky above Mundane was a sight to remember.
It wasn't just the fireworks, the streaks of magic that flew up into the air and shaped themselves into beautiful works of art. It wasn't the stray sparks from the many duels happening all over the town, with elements crashing across the sky. I...
2023-01-16 14:35:36 +0000 UTC View PostSev didn't answer for a while. He watched the stars spin above them, felt the anxiety rise and fall; eventually, it left him, and he let out a slow breath.
The emotion wasn't his own. Not exactly. He didn't know where it had come from, but Derivan's words had struck a chord within him, call...
2023-01-13 16:34:54 +0000 UTC View PostIt was remarkable, the degree to which the town of Mundane changed.
For one day and one day only, the shadows didn't have to worry about keeping the town as plain and simple as possible; they could decorate and rearrange as much as they wished, and they seemed to take the opportunity to rea...
2023-01-11 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostClyde's inn was nice and comfortable, but the Horizon cafe had become a second haunt for them in the past few weeks. There was something about the aroma and ambience of the place that kept it wonderfully comforting, and that comfort was something they needed, after the training.
They didn't...
2023-01-09 16:51:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe ground squelched under Xothok's feet, and he barely suppressed the disgusted grimace that crawled through his frame. He was distantly aware that everything here was a product of his mind, or so Kothos claimed, but it didn't make any of this feel any less real.
Stepping...
2023-01-06 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostMercy was something that could only be afforded by the powerful.
That was the lesson Xothok had taken away from the fight between his team and the four adventurers that had utterly overwhelmed them. Derivan, Vex, Misa, Sev — the names were practically burned into his head. They could have...
2023-01-04 15:45:34 +0000 UTC View Post