Cornman8700

MT 91 - Homecoming

MT 91 - Homecoming

Traveler’s Amulet

This is an evolving item.

Current Level: Crumb-Cruncher

Effects:

1) It’s Stylish

2) Soul-Sight

Make “Soul-Sight” your own to unlock this amulet’s next effect.

“It’s a pretty necklace,” said Xim, “but I don’t think it’s pretty enough for you to stare...

Updates and a reminder about levels

Greetings!

It occurred to me that there was a gap of time where folks coming to the Patreon from RR may not have seen my patch notes post discussing some of the changes that have been made to the way Delver levels work moving into Volume 2. I mentioned it in an a/n on RR after chapter 75 and before chapter 77, but if you arrived during the few weeks before the final chapter released on RR, but after I posted about it here on Patreon, then it may have been easy to miss. I'm copying the r...

MT 90 - Fix My Build

MT 90 - Fix My Build

Varrin trotted up to the scene, still lacing up his pants and looking over the damage.

“What happened?” he asked. His ice-blue eyes were puffy from sleep.

“I got my jaw punched through some buildings,” I said, following his gaze to the wrecked bakery and then to the smashed-up haberdashery. “Then, the guy left.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I!” I shouted. I took a breath and tried to calm down. Several on...

MT 89 - Don’t PvP in a Pocket Dimension Controlled by Your Opponent

MT 89 - Don’t PvP in a Pocket Dimension Controlled by Your Opponent

Tavio regained his stance after being pushed a few steps across the portal’s threshold, then threw Shog aside with another burst of radiant light. The pitch dark room within the Closet was illuminated in a photo flash of white, the sharp edges of the uneven metal floor glinting, but the cavernous ceiling remained cast in shadow. At the chamber’s edges, forms began to stir.

I cast Shortcut...

MT 88 - Don’t PvP with a PvE Spec

MT 88 - Don’t PvP with a PvE Spec

Past Arlo sometimes did future Arlo favors. In this instance, past Arlo had considered the idea that future Arlo would one day be caught with his chausses down, and had chosen a Speed evolution with that in mind. After all, this wasn’t the first time that another Delver decided to surprise me with an unexpected gift of violence.

My inventory screen opened and closed so fast that it was little more than a blue flash on the edge of my...

MT 87 - Tavio of Seqaria

MT 87 - Tavio of Seqaria

“There are many who are worried,” said Nuralie. “Between the avatars and Litta, there is much to be concerned about.”

“True,” I said. “What’s going on in Eschendur and whatever Orexis is brewing is serious. I don’t want to downplay that. But…” I took a moment to look around the tavern. So far, everything I’d said was either something I didn’t care about other people knowing, or the type of thing that could be written of...

MT 86 - The Why

MT 86 - The Why

[The concept of virtue–a dubious quality, if it exists at all–is invalidated by its wanton pursuit! You’ve sacrificed might in exchange for nothing but empty self-platitudes!]

[Uh, hey Grotto.]

[Perhaps we should call upon the gods to examine your karmic worth. I would wager that it has risen three entire points from this blunder. It is unfortunate that morality is weighed upon an infinite scale with no beginning or end.] 2024-02-22 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post

MT 85 - Keystone Evolution

MT 85 - Keystone Evolution

“But first!” I said, looking around the table. “Would any of you like to hear the evolution I picked for reaching Dimensional twenty?”

“No,” said Varrin. “Fortitude, let’s go.”

“Aw,” Etja said, frowning.

“Fine, ok.” I brought up the evolution options for my Fortitude skill and shared them with the party.

While stats had to be assigned within twenty-four hours, I could sit on an evolution choice for a...

MT 84 - Mandatory Tavern Scene

MT 84 - Mandatory Tavern Scene

“I don’t have to chant to cast Explosion!” I said to Etja through a mouthful of stew-soaked brown bread. It was warm and buttery and presently fulfilling all of my lifelong dreams and fantasies. “I started doing it half as a joke, and half because it was a great way to let every aberrant hound within a one mile radius know who just turned their pack leader into a blast crater.” I swallowed the bread and drained an ent...

MT 83 - Ded Mimicry

MT 83 - Ded Mimicry

Nuralie stepped out of the shadows, her bow venting golden mana into the air. While the weapon was normally jet black, intricate rune work revealed itself when the loson put it through its paces, which she just had.

“You were charging Hunger Shot that entire time?” I asked.

Nuralie stopped several feet away from us, wrinkling her nose at our sludge-covered bodies. She, in contrast, was spotless.

“Yes,” said Nuralie. Pause...

MT 82 - Tanking Mimicry

MT 82 - Tanking Mimicry

The ‘malformed and misshapen’ Mimic began to grow dozens of eyes over its body that spun and locked onto us, gummy and seeping thick fluid like they were infected. Limbs sprouted from its bulbous form with skinless muscle attached to yellowed bone. The ooze along its hands slimed up into the shape of various weapons: sword, shield, axe, spear, and claw. The weapons each had faces of their own, and lips stretched taut against bared teeth as the mout...

MT 81 - The One and Only Mimicry

MT 81 - The One and Only Mimicry

The hole was a little narrower than arm’s length. The rest of us flew, floated, or rode into the descent, but Varrin led the way by pressing his hands and feet into the tunnel walls and sliding. The edges were shaped organically, with irregular lumps and folds, but made of hard metal. Varrin’s gauntlets and sabatons sparked against it as he skated down at near-freefall speed.

The tunnel opened into the ceiling of a dark, two-hundred-...

MT 80 - Chatty Mimicry

MT 80 - Chatty Mimicry

If I had to play ‘Marry, Fuck, Kill’ with my active abilities, Oblivion Orb is the skill I’d marry. It was reliable, flexible, affordable, and it got the job done when things needed to get dead.

Shortcut is the skill I’d fuck.

I teleported out of the three-armed clutches of the mimic, appearing atop the burial slab of the room’s central corpse. My boot knocked his skull to the side, the gleaming ...

MT 79 - Royal Mimicry

MT 79 - Royal Mimicry

“You think the whole Delve is a mimic?” Varrin asked. His tone was genuine, without a hint of incredulity toward my theory. It said a lot about our experiences as a group that the idea could be floated without much pushback.

“Why doesn’t it swallow?” asked Nuralie. “If we’re inside already.”

“Or smoosh us?” said Xim. “Or send bigger mimics?”

“It may not be the whole Delve,” I conceded. “Maybe it’...

MT 78 - Mimic Mimicry

MT 78 - Mimic Mimicry

The world got dark and sharp real quick, and then it burned.

The mimic hadn’t been the corpse in front of me, but the cobweb-ridden chandelier above me. That it could imitate something with as much fine detail as cobwebs was of no surprise, especially after the craftsmanship with which it replicated the quillwork on illuminated manuscripts.

The mimic didn’t need to be down here in a forgotten Delve preying on ambitious Delvers, emergent m...

MT 77 - Cadaverous Mimicry

MT 77 - Cadaverous Mimicry

“It’s the corpse in the middle,” I whispered. “Gotta’ be.”

Our journey deeper into the Delve had gone mostly unimpeded. As was typical, our course took us down. The maze of rooms cluttered with art and relics eventually revealed an arched entryway to a wide stairwell. We descended, our nerves still frayed from the prior day’s endless hit-and-run assaults, and any slight movement, real or not, got a callout. There was more than on...

Patch Notes! Volume I

Hello, all

Here’s a bit of a preface, but if you want to skip it and just see an explanation of the changes, go ahead and skip down to the heading “Levels”.

Also, if you haven’t read Volume 1 (chapters 1-75) and for some reason are reading this, there are some spoilers.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, SRK and I are moving through volume I and making some tweaks here and there to make sure that everything governing the plot and world ...

MT 76 - Vicious Mimicry

MT 76 - Vicious Mimicry

“Grotto’s hiding something.”

Nuralie turned away from the ancient and disorganized art gallery she’d been watching intently, raising an eyeridge at my statement.

“Everyone hides things,” the loson said. Her expression was hard to read in the dim lighting, even with the enhanced eyesight my divine blessing gave me. Nuralie was the only person I had trouble seeing when the lights were low, and it had...

MTB1 - Epilogue

*** SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [ERROR: REDACTED]

ADDENDUM NOTE: “Two years after the events of The Cage” ***

Jakom stared at the floor, waiting for the screaming to subside and the crunching to cease. Holy as they may be, the offerings always invoked a wave of nausea and revulsion Jakom could never fully repress. Hearing it was bad, but seeing it much worse.

Jakom felt a hand...

MT 75 - Void Transaction

MT 75 - Void Transaction

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Varrin said as he stood before the dark pillar that was the Pocket Delve’s obelisk.

“Grotto wouldn’t stop bugging me about it,” I said, poking my head back out of the entrance to check on the void sphere. “He needed a passion project. The little guy had just lost his home.”

The dark jewel lay on the ground, showing no sign of the terrible power it was ready to release upon Hiward, save but for a few s...