The rest of the day was uneventful. Several boar leapt from the bushes to find themselves skewered on either Cass’s spear or Alyx’s sword. If there were other monsters out there, they avoided the women.
Eventually, night fell. Cass Set Camp as had become second nature. With little...
2024-04-17 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“And you’re sure this is safe?” Cass asked, looking at the return portal. As she had guessed, the octagonal, stone platform in the Safe Zone was the portal out of the Deep.
However, she found herself less than thrilled at the prospect of using it.
Alyx glared at Cass...
2024-04-15 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“I don’t think there is anything for us here,” Alyx said after another minute of searching through the shelves of the hidden room.
Cass nodded in agreement. It was disappointingly void of clues to get her home.
“Did you get the (gem?) from the Lord when you killed it?”...
2024-04-13 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCass and Alyx backtracked to the hidden room once Alyx was done eating. Neither had spent much time looking around previously, both badly injured and more focused on putting one foot in front of the other than looting ancient books. Ancient books did seem to be all there was though. Maybe if Salo...
2024-04-10 22:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostIt must have been an hour later when Alyx finally opened her eyes.
She put a hand to her head and cursed loudly. Cass didn’t need the translation skill for that one, she recognized an expletive when she heard it. Blinking blearily, Alyx said, “That was worse (...). How long out wa...
2024-04-08 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey, you still alive?” Alyx said, nudging Cass with a foot.
Cass grunted. She didn’t know how long she’d been lying there. Long enough for the minor cuts to scab over and for the general head trauma to have coalesced into a pounding headache.
“Eat this,” the s...
2024-04-06 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostExperience poured into her. Just as she’d imagined, it was rich and powerful, but not quite enough to level up. She took a deep breath.
The world around her stabilized. The madness settled.
Pain reasserted itself.
Absolutely every inch of her body hurt. Cass lay on the f...
2024-04-03 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCass took a step back from the pool to sprint back to the passage they’d entered from. This was a lost cause. They needed to escape.
But two sentences echoed up from her memories.
Error: Target “Lord of the Deep” has not previously been Identified, unable to targe...
2024-04-01 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCass blinked and read the notification in front of her again.
Demonic Possession Broken.
Everything snapped back into place, the world suddenly sharp. She lay in a pool of water, the surface less than a foot above her face. Blood swirled ar...
2024-03-30 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostCass spun on the noise. Across the room, a pair of doors thudded shut. Before them stood a gangly, humanoid figure.
It was wreathed in a cloak of purple light. It hung from its body like a heavy fabric yet was translucent and iridescent. Its head was crowned in a spiked halo of the st...
2024-03-27 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostCass waited only as long as it took to recover her Focus to get back to making air pockets. As soon as it was full again she stood.
But pain laced up her leg as she put her weight on it.
She staggered but caught herself with her staff and the lip of the fountain.
Aly...
2024-03-25 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCreating the air pockets was far easier than Cass had expected, but far less interesting than she’d hoped. It was also just far more time-consuming.
She had made four of the ten to fifteen that Salos had estimated Alyx would need before she started running low on Focus. It was time ...
2024-03-23 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThings went easier from there. Trap detection didn’t automatically flag traps, but while she was using it, she could feel it tugging at her attention when there was a trap nearby. She successfully activated four additional traps before stepping near them with its help and even gained another le...
2024-03-20 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostCass let the conversation die. It didn’t matter what she wanted if she couldn’t get Alyx through the underwater section anyway. She had the vague sketch of a plan but needed to think through the details a little longer before she suggested it to Salos.
That was fine. She had some time s...
2024-03-18 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostCass leaned back against her pillar, the fire was nice, but there was more she could do to help with the recovery process.
It was time for tea.
She shaped a pot from the stone around her and filled it with more water, all with Elemental Manipulation, then set it in the fire amid the b...
2024-03-16 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAlyx stumbled as she spoke. Cass scurried to her side, slipping her shoulder under the other woman’s arm and catching her before she fell.
“Woah! You okay?” Cass asked, not waiting for Salos to help with translating. It wasn’t a sentence that needed an exact translation, the concern...
2024-03-13 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe memory of the trapped person was like cold water to her system. There wasn’t time for congratulating herself. She needed to free them.
She scooted up beside them. They were wrapped tightly in thick strands of spider silk. Cass put a hand on the silk’s surface experimentally. It was ...
2024-03-11 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe spider stalked through the chamber, slow and deliberate, the hairs on its legs standing on end, searching for her with every skill and stat at its disposal.
Cass padded around it, paying extra attention to the signals from Dodge and Stealth as she moved from the shadow of one pillar to ...
2024-03-09 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostCass slunk around it, keeping to the shelter of the pillars, only braving the open spaces between when she was sure that it was looking in another direction.
You should move on, Salos said. You can’t beat it like this.
Cass scowled, slinking up to a pillar flanking...
2024-03-06 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostShe paused. It couldn’t be another person? Could it?
She hadn’t seen another person in all the time she’d been here. Salos was the closest she’d gotten. And while he was a person, he was also only in her head.
That might be another real, physical person.
And they were we...
2024-03-04 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCass was back on her feet and tapping her way down the corridor a short while later. It was slow but effective. She found another two spike traps and another blade trap in this hallway alone. Her path crossed four more chambers, most much smaller than the room she’d first encountered the living...
2024-03-02 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe upside was the Temple was essentially backward, which meant the path to the Lord’s chambers was maybe a quarter as long as it would have been had she challenged it at another time of year. The downside was everything was more dangerous for it.
The traps were plentiful and deadly. The ...
2024-02-28 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostLevel Up!
+ 1 Dex
+ 1 End
+ 1 Ala
+ 1 Wll
+ 4 Free Points
Dodge had increased to level 5.
Soul Guard has increased to...
2024-02-26 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostUnable to continue onward, she turned around and followed the right-hand path. They were able to follow it for a solid ten minutes before it widened into another room.
“Either I missed all the traps, or there were no traps,” Cass said.
I think there were no traps.
...
2024-02-24 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe remainder of the way to the Temple of the Deep was uneventful. Cass never shook the feeling something else was following them, but if there was something there it never showed itself.
There were a couple more patrols of cockroaches. Cass slunk around them with Stealth. Salos was silent ...
2024-02-21 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostTitan Roach Lookout (lvl 9)
Titan Roach Hunter (lvl 10)
Titan Roach Hunter (lvl 9)
Titan Roach Hunter (lvl 9)
Titan Roach Hunter (lvl 11)
Titan Roach Hunter (lvl 9)<...
2024-02-19 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostDecision made and unable to find any other useful mushrooms, Cass ventured out of the Safe Zone.
She could feel the exact moment she exited the system-designated safety. The sourceless warmth in her core evaporated, like walking from a heated house into a blizzard outside. The hairs on her ...
2024-02-17 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post“Is it safe to bring you near the demon hunters?” Cass asked.
Probably not. Not if you tell them about me. Or if they figure out I am with you. Salos sighed. But I also have no other ideas.
“Well, what about if we fixed your thing first?” Cass asked.
...
2024-02-14 23:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“So, what now?” Cass asked, flopping back into the moss.
You should kill the Lord of the Deep.
Cass scowled. “You said that earlier. Why is that so important to you?”
It would be the easiest way to leave the Deep, for one. The rewards it would provide would ...
2024-02-12 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostCass stood with a stretch. She’d expected to be stiff from two days of inactivity, but she felt better than she had in days.
“I’m not stiff?” she muttered more to herself than to Salos.
No, I expect not, he replied anyway.
“Why?” She smiled...
2024-02-10 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post