Somewhere in the decrepit existence that was Hillview, where people survived the barest way they could the best way they could, a girl thought too young for the task always allotted to her sat, knees tucked to her chest. She wore no clothes save the small torn sheets she hugged to herself and her...
2023-07-22 02:31:02 +0000 UTC View Post“What, in the hell, is that?” Chris asked.
The look on her face was just priceless and Zed couldn’t help the urge to look for trouble.
“This,” he said with a smug smirk, “is called a scraggle bone club. And I made it just for you.”
The club was a large piece of bon...
2023-07-22 02:29:44 +0000 UTC View PostFor the third time in the last five minutes Jason wondered where the hell Chris was and what exactly was keeping her busy. There was no way she didn’t know their entire plan hung on her. He spared the hole in the ground a quick look as Oliver slowed their opponent with a gravity spell. The spel...
2023-07-22 02:27:10 +0000 UTC View PostZed staggered back in fear at the sight of the beast. It wasn’t its size that dissuaded him. Its size did not deter him, neither did the fact that he knew it would take more than a few swings to crack through its skin. No. He staggered back from the sheer weight of its aura.
He’d felt R...
2023-07-22 02:25:49 +0000 UTC View PostZed turned and a scraggle was tossed into another one. Both scraggles collided with force and went flying into a tree. Free of them, he struggled with one currently pulling at his hair. His scalp burned as he pulled it free and he hoped it hadn’t come away with locks of his hair.
Tomahawk...
2023-07-22 02:24:45 +0000 UTC View Post“How long has it been now?” Zed asked, tucking a lock of auburn hair behind his ear.
“An hour,” Ash said. “Now stop being a baby.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re a category three.”
Zed was outside with the team walking through another length of desolate lands of ...
2023-07-22 02:23:30 +0000 UTC View PostJason stepped into Oliver’s house in the middle of the night. He would’ve preferred to be back at his place but he had news to give, and Ash had cooked pasta. So those were two reasons he was more than willing to be here rather than go home.
Oliver let him in with a suspicious grin Jaso...
2023-07-22 02:21:30 +0000 UTC View Post“No,” Festus said, face calm but voice impatient. “That’s how you do it when you want to sense aura. You reach out to the world, touch it, then act as a magnet and draw it to you, then you let it wash over you until it is all you can feel. Connecting with mana is different.”
Zed w...
2023-07-22 02:20:13 +0000 UTC View PostThere were multiple issues with the map Zed carried. For one, it was too big to be held comfortably in two hands. Another issue was its detail; there were no street signs or labels, merely squiggly lines of curves and turns. A third issue was more of a personal bias than an actual issue but since...
2023-07-22 02:18:12 +0000 UTC View PostZed found himself in the confusing task of jogging in the morning.
Ash had woken him at the crack of dawn from a sleep he really needed. She’d given him a tooth brush with a dash of toothpaste on it, and while he wondered just how much of the old world had made it into the world after the...
2023-07-22 02:16:51 +0000 UTC View Post“So the rumors were true,” Heimdall said. “The VHF thugs are looking for the surge as well.”
“Most likely,” Jason agreed.
“Although,” Zed chipped in, “we only saw a ground rats’ nest they’d cleared out. Very effectively, might I add.”
“And I see you’r...
2023-07-22 02:15:21 +0000 UTC View PostZed’s feet hit the ground with a thud he felt go through his body.
With Jason’s orb of light illuminating everything, he noted they were in a cavernous place. The walls were of brown dirt with ridges and a rough topography.
“What kind of monster are we looking for exactly?” Ze...
2023-07-22 02:14:04 +0000 UTC View PostJason’s face was squeezed in an annoyed scowl as he walked. Abed had been more than determined not to say anything about who’d cleared the monster hunt. In fact, the man had had the gall to joke about giving them another monster hunt. And while Jason had roughed him up a bit, the man had said...
2023-07-22 02:12:46 +0000 UTC View PostThe walk out of the forest was long but not without its fun. Unsurprisingly, the trees continued to vary in types and Zed and Oliver made a game out of it, guessing at how many trees they would have to pass before they found the same kind again. Oliver had wanted to make a wager out of it but non...
2023-07-22 02:07:37 +0000 UTC View PostZed put a little more effort in the posture for sensing aura. Oliver had already confirmed there was no point in sitting like a Buddhist monk, admitting to only trying to make him do it since he’d learned that way as well. Regardless, Zed opted for the position. He had been on the edge of somet...
2023-07-22 02:04:20 +0000 UTC View PostBroken bones and torn muscles kept Zed down for a while. The team remained in the forest during that time and Zed was beginning to worry that he was keeping them from their money. After all, Chris had only taken that contract for the pay. And while he’d love to believe some love for protecting ...
2023-07-22 02:03:08 +0000 UTC View PostZed watched a gaping chasm of pink flesh and no teeth open up at him, spread out on five sides like a star fish. Despite his growing urge to gag alongside the draining fear of death, he could admit it wasn’t as disgusting a sight as it should be. In fact, he had a feeling being eaten alive by a...
2023-07-22 01:57:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe fight had gone on too long. Ten minutes was not the length any fight should go on for. Zed believed every fight should be quick no matter how bloody or violent. Only wars went on for long.
In the ten minutes he’d been going against the Moscovian Sloth, he’d learned something gravely...
2023-07-22 01:45:46 +0000 UTC View Post“Now, the trick to it,” Oliver said, “is that there’s no trick at all.”
The team was camped somewhere in the forest, surrounded by trees and nature no matter how funny the smell. They were deep into the night and Oliver had extricated Zed from the rest of the group for their long ...
2023-07-22 01:39:51 +0000 UTC View Post“Now, the trick to it,” Oliver said, “is that there’s no trick at all.”
The team was camped somewhere in the forest, surrounded by trees and nature no matter how funny the smell. They were deep into the night and Oliver had extricated Zed from the rest of the group for their long ...
2023-07-22 01:32:54 +0000 UTC View PostTrue to his words, Jason didn’t sleep that night. If he did, Zed was not aware. He had been awake before Zed had laid on the hard ground and tucked his upper arms under his head and had been the one to wake him at the rise of dawn.
To Zed’s surprise, they scattered the fire before they ...
2023-07-22 01:31:35 +0000 UTC View PostZed waited patiently for a reaction. The look on Jason’s face said he took the information in strides. Oliver was as shocked as a cat finding out it had just been neutered. Skepticism was Chris’ middle name. And Ash, well, she looked like she’d just bitten into something nasty, not rotten b...
2023-07-22 01:30:33 +0000 UTC View PostZed swung down his tomahawk once more. The shrike was dead but his anger was barely satiated. The sharp end of the weapon bit into its flesh once more as it had done countless times with a squelch. He ripped the weapon free and spat to the side. His spittle came out bloodied.
“We’re goi...
2023-07-22 01:29:21 +0000 UTC View Post“Good morning!”
Oliver’s voice reverberated through the house even though he hadn’t even made it down the stairs. He hit the ground with an enthusiastic thud having leapt the last few steps. When he landed it was with a deep breath and a stretch.
“Who missed…” the rest o...
2023-07-22 01:27:53 +0000 UTC View PostSassan smacked the barrel of his gun hard, the sound it made as whatever had jammed came free, grating at his ears. The weapon had served him well in the ten years since he’d received it. Still, he couldn’t help but acknowledge it had grown too old and too worn, and still, he kept it. It was ...
2023-07-22 01:26:22 +0000 UTC View Post“When’s the next test?” Jason asked Greg.
“If I may,” Zed interrupted. “What’s this test about?”
“Every important job role has a test,” Oliver explained. “Just to be sure the person is qualified for the role.”
“And if, say, I want to be a farmer?” Zed...
2023-07-22 01:25:00 +0000 UTC View PostZed basked in the warm light of the sun. It was truly nothing special, but with all the blood washed away there was an appreciation for it. That, and the gentle touch of breeze on his skin came together to birth a gentle bliss.
When they’d left their subtle meeting with Heimdall, Jason ha...
2023-07-21 02:50:55 +0000 UTC View Post“How’d it go?” Heimdall asked.
Zed had followed Jason and the others into the building and they now stood inside a pristine house. It looked like the generic suburban home. A nice flight of stairs that led up the house. The living room on one side with a backdrop of the kitchen and a ...
2023-07-21 02:49:36 +0000 UTC View Post“Who’s idea was it to give people powers again?!”
Zed ducked behind the truck as the ground shook from another boom. Oliver was laughing beside him, standing freely in the open with Jason’s gun trained on the fight ahead of them.
Another boom shook the ground as Jason dodged a...
2023-07-21 02:48:25 +0000 UTC View Post“So tell us, Zed. What brings you to this part of the hell hole that is this world?”
They were seated back inside the house in the room the creature and Zed had been in last. None of them seemed very bothered by the gore of a chopped off limb and pools of blood. Zed had thought his vict...
2023-07-21 02:47:03 +0000 UTC View Post