The words shot adrenaline through me like a spike in the heart. I couldn’t feel the pain from the impact and had no idea how bad my injuries were.
All that mattered was keeping whoever it was from getting my satchel.
Just as that t...
2022-04-19 23:25:22 +0000 UTC
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Couple points of order. Taking Monday off, as there's a holiday and I've been feeling a little under the weather recently. Normal posting will resume on Tuesday. I've already batch uploaded the chapters for this weekend in case you missed those.&n...
2022-04-15 21:53:58 +0000 UTC
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Sara and I spent the next few minutes sharing information before the rest of her people arrived. Many of them were from the same region, so they were able to get a head start on gathering the Illuminating Lux, with several fragments landing fairl...
2022-04-15 21:40:57 +0000 UTC
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That was unfortunate.
Tyler—and his “Adventurer’s Guild” were the closest thing I’d found to a decent organization. Every other group at the open forum was either disorganized, naive, overly opportunistic, or all three. I didn’...
2022-04-15 21:39:28 +0000 UTC
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The address was just a few miles off the historic district. Five minutes away from me, if that. I toyed with the idea of simply leaving it. There wasn’t a lot of Lux in that direction, and even if there was, this wasn’t an interac...
2022-04-15 21:37:20 +0000 UTC
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Once flat road now dipped downward at an almost 90-degree angle. I barely caught myself in time, wedging a foot into a newly opened fissure and grabbing onto the edge of a curb with my freehand. The <Illuminating Lux>
2022-04-14 20:59:10 +0000 UTC
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The Overseer stared at the camera. With his mask in place, it was impossible to know for sure, but displeasure seemed to radiate off him at the mere mention of my class. Eventually, he waved a hand. “More on that later. This event w...
2022-04-13 21:54:24 +0000 UTC
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It took barely more than a glance to realize what they were all staring at. The sun was gone, what should have been a clear blue late-afternoon now appeared to be evening—only the stratosphere was dyed mud red, instead of dark blue. Talia had s...
2022-04-12 21:48:43 +0000 UTC
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That’s the problem with loneliness, isn’t it?
It’s always miserable in the beginning. Then days stretch into weeks, into months, into years. You learn little tricks to cope. Stay busy. Distance yourself from anyone that mi...
2022-04-12 00:04:34 +0000 UTC
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“Wait!” Gray-hair called out to someone behind me.
I looked back, just in time to watch Sae disappear back through the entrance to the trial. I clenched my fist in frustration for just a moment, then released it. How long ha...
2022-04-08 23:58:50 +0000 UTC
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Floodlights blinded me. My eyes barely adjusted before I heard Jinny scream. There were twelve figures waiting outside the trial for us, all arranged in a half circle. On the left and right edges were a bow and crossbow User respectively. Buzzcut...
2022-04-08 23:56:46 +0000 UTC
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We’d paused at the elevator, leaving the disgusting and decidedly eerie boss chamber behind. No one wanted to wait to level up. Probably for the best, just in case anything happened on our way out.
Unable to help myself, I’d pulled up ...
2022-04-08 23:52:01 +0000 UTC
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Nick’s sword carved clear through the Matriarch’s neck. The blow decapitated her and split her carapace open, revealing the brightly colored guts that spilled out into the water in a sickening series of plops. A rank smell released into the c...
2022-04-07 22:51:44 +0000 UTC
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I returned to the spider, noting the locations of various gas traps and pitfalls at the entrance. They were subtle and flush with the chitin wall, but not perfect. For the gas traps, there was a small metal cylinder that caught light, giving it t...
2022-04-05 23:11:46 +0000 UTC
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<Harrowing Anticipation: Just as a common spider senses movement through vibrations in their web, you may tap into the weaves of mana that bind together the many realities and sub-realities of Flauros. This ability wi...
2022-04-04 23:15:53 +0000 UTC
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My blood ran cold. There had never been any mention of penalties for friendly fire, but since we entered the Trial as a team, the system might have certain limiters in place to prevent team killing. The fact that it was now directly referencing t...
2022-04-02 23:19:59 +0000 UTC
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Jinny crumbled. She breathed out shakily, then back in, her eyes glassy and moist. For a moment, the decorative robes and bulbous wand faded away and all I saw was the scared person beneath it all. Only, unlike me, she wasn’t scared of the syst...
2022-04-02 23:18:22 +0000 UTC
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I’ve said before that predicting someone’s behavior is easy. That you start by assuming the worst, and raise your expectations slightly until you have something more realistic. That of all the base instincts and baser desires, selfishness is ...
2022-03-30 21:55:13 +0000 UTC
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<Born Nihilist> calculated something in the back of my head for me. Judging from the number of footsteps, there were either three arachnids at best, or twelve bipeds at worst. For the first time in my life, I was hoping for...
2022-03-30 21:53:35 +0000 UTC
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This was bad fucking news. You didn’t need extensive game knowledge to piece together that splitting the party seldom went well. Granted, this particular section of the Trial was designed for it, so the chances of us running into an encounter de...
2022-03-29 21:50:24 +0000 UTC
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Other than the two-to-three hundred selve sprinkled around the circular portion like set dressing, there was far more in a handful of wooden boxes. The total came to around six-thousand, a surprisingly decent haul for so early in the trial.
<...
2022-03-28 12:40:10 +0000 UTC
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Three violet shards of crystal flew by my head. All three of them thwipped into the Swordsman’s torso, while a gout of flame emitting from Jinny’s hand held the other at bay. I had to smile at the sheer devastation of it. Another ...
2022-03-28 12:38:24 +0000 UTC
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Imagine, for a moment, waking deep underwater. The salt stings your eyes. Your lungs burn, little bubbles of oxygen tickling your nose as they slowly trickle out. You struggle, try to fight your way to the surface, as the burning grows more prono...
2022-03-28 12:37:00 +0000 UTC
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The screeching feedback was almost enough to send the rage bubbling beneath <Born Nihilist> soaring to the surface. I ducked my head, grimacing, trying desperately to stay focused and keep my place behind Nick.
I rea...
2022-03-28 12:35:55 +0000 UTC
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It took some convincing. I tried to be patient, reminding myself that the others had never experienced a dungeon. In the end, everyone agreed to leave the more obvious door alone.
But that still left us with two options. One set of holes c...
2022-03-28 12:34:36 +0000 UTC
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The interior was entirely different from what the door implied. It wasn’t grand and palace like, or strangely modern, as the adaptive dungeon had been. The walls were a washed out gray, incrementally textured in a pattern that seeme...
2022-03-28 12:32:44 +0000 UTC
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Nick held his sword out to Sae. Her hands glowed, and a creeping layer of slick green covered his blade.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Talia warned, holding completely still. Her voice was guttural, but somehow, distinctly feminin...
2022-03-28 12:31:29 +0000 UTC
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The darkness was cloying. I wasn’t certain if it was an aspect of my new armor, or if it was really just that dark. Even the flashlights, big and heavy enough to double as a vicious club, barely gave us enough illumination to see more ...
2022-03-28 12:30:30 +0000 UTC
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AN: Pushing pretty hard to get the backlog up to 20. Built up around four extra that I haven't posted yet. Going deep in the writers room for the weekend, so no chapter tomorrow, but if all goes well, you folks at the Violet tier should be gettin...
2022-03-26 01:33:52 +0000 UTC
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<Due to a unique feat interaction, you may assimilate class-specific feats from an established identity on Level Up. Assimilated feats may not make up more than 25% of an Ordinator’s build. Any assimilated feat will work with reduced...
2022-03-24 18:07:24 +0000 UTC
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