Even in defeat, William Oh finds a way to achieve a more punishing victory.
- Jason Salazar
Two weeks went by in a maelstrom of punishment.
“I’m not sure I’m getting this,” Will said, using a brush and soapy water to scour dirt and bits of the arena wall out of his front before the priestesses closed it back up. “I’m not sure I’m gonna get this.”
I think my tolera...
2025-07-07 17:08:06 +0000 UTC View PostCharnesa wasn’t there when Will got back to the caravan, but some of her disciples of Holdna were present, and they patched him up nicely. Will spent the rest of the evening eating recovery gruel and going through his Dimensional storage, determined to organize it and make space for more than two Potions of Greater Healing.
Honestly, I could afford a few of the Supreme ones, Will thought, resolving to buy some when he hit Akul again.
Will’s Dimensional Storage had bec...
2025-07-04 18:52:56 +0000 UTC View Post‘Fighting William Oh’
- Idiom meaning ‘to struggle against the inevitable.’
Homefield Advantage
85 Charges remaining.
Rather than play the game where Will danced around and allowed his opponent to transmute the battlefield until he controlled the entire arena, Will changed it into a field of slippery ice.
I don’t think I’ll e...
2025-07-02 20:34:06 +0000 UTC View PostWill thought his entrance was pretty cool and intimidating, so he wasn’t expecting the entire gambling hall to erupt into raucous laughter.
“Look at the balls on this one!” someone cried through the din.
The laughter continued for a good five seconds until a massive granite slab of a man raised a single hand, and the seemingly uncontrollable gales of laughter cut off like someone had slammed a door on it.
“William Oh, I presume?” The fellow asked, voice gravelly. 2025-06-30 19:11:53 +0000 UTC View Post
‘Oh yeah, I tell all kinds of stories about him. it’s kinda my job. Will hired me outside the Tower about a year ago to be his hype man.’
‘Wow, that’s a sweet gig. Does he tell you what to say, or do you have a script, or a notebook, or…’
‘Nah, all of ‘em come to me right off the top of my head. Here’s one for you:
A group of highwayman ambushed William Oh and wound up giving him everything they owned.’
‘W...
2025-06-27 19:21:26 +0000 UTC View Post“What’s this?” Loth asked, squatting down in front of a merchant and eyeing a shallow bowl about the size of someone’s palm.
“Fae Saucer.” The trader said. The man was covered head to toe in scars and looked like he’d been through the Abyss multiple times in order to get where he was. The oddness of having even merchants look like hardened veterans would never get old to Will.
“You fill it with something decadent, like honey, cream, sugar, whisky, brownies, whateve...
2025-06-25 21:43:34 +0000 UTC View Post“Alright, kid, raise your right hand.” The grizzled Climber said. His face and hands bore the scars of decades of climbing. His hair was just starting to gray at the edges, and if his easy confidence was anything to go by, he probably had an Advanced Class, given that the 10th Floor was a mere bus ride away.
Will couldn’t imagine someone getting this close and giving up here.
How interesting that people who would be demigods outside the tower choose to be rank-and-file g...
2025-06-23 19:17:23 +0000 UTC View PostWill heard Jason’s footsteps, heartbeat and breathing approach. He was excited about something. He was also carrying something composed of dense miasma in his hand.
“Will, check this out!” Jason shouted as he jumped up on top of the rattling wagon
“Whatcha got?” Will asked, glancing over.
“There’s a Myth on this Floor, and I caught it!” Jason said, brandishing what looked like a tear-shaped opaline gemstone about the size of a coin. Will could easily picture ...
2025-06-20 19:08:44 +0000 UTC View Post“Hah. Hah,” The leader of the Hunt half-laughed, half-panted as he pointed his saber at Loth. He was looking pretty ragged after being battered around by traps for the last few minutes.
I wonder if that saber will be any good for my Build, Loth wondered idly as she absentmindedly maneuvered the fae closer to his demise.
Her insects were loving the environment, burrowing through the ground with lightning speed, dragging wires and blades through their tunnels to set up ...
2025-06-18 19:20:32 +0000 UTC View PostJason Salazar
Prophet of the End Level 36
72 Strength
144+22 Resistance
36+7 Kinesthetics
108+12 Acuity
180+17 Focus
Charges: 116/197
Primary Abilities: Hand of Fate, Withering repudiation**
...
2025-06-16 18:31:32 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor’s note: I modified the previous chapter. I agree that the fae’s ability to unilaterally assign Debt was a little too one-sided. I reworded it to focus on the hounds and the symmetry between the two groups. Minor change amounting to scratching out a sentence, tweaking one and and adding another elsewhere, but hopefully should meet ‘fae’ expectations better.
Travis Oilton
Master Decoy Level 36 2025-06-13 17:47:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Francisco loved The Hunt. He loved the speed, the wind in his hair, the thunderous sound of hoofbeats, the screams of Climbers, the feel of his mount imposing its will on the terrain, and the shiny black fur of the hunting dogs sprinting alongside them, nearly as big as the horses themselves.
He loved the fear of death when they clashed against the Climbers who didn’t run. The joy of vanquishing the brave…and the malicious pleasure of punishing the cowards for years.
It was be...
2025-06-11 17:58:27 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fae have a very short list of seven names that they won’t make deals with. Each and every Climber on that list has caused their people untold suffering and has been shunned for life and beyond.
William Oh’s name is on that list…seven times.
- Jason Salazar
Will poured the whisky out so that the tiny person didn’t drown or die from poisoning, uncorki...
2025-06-09 18:18:39 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam Oh made a hasty deal with an ancient, malicious fae waiting to prey on the unwary.
The fae was saddled with a second hand mortgage and turned to the bottle to escape collections.
- Jason Salazar
Amulet of the Homefield Advantage.
+1 Focus
+2 resistance
Active: 1 Charge. 2025-06-06 16:22:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Loth drew an oval lens shape with a flat back. Then using a straightedge, she cut horizontal lines all the way back to the center of the lens.
Then she meticulously re-drew each arc of the oval-shaped lens between the lines, laying nearly flush against the flat back of the lens, before erasing the original oval shape, leaving a strange sawtooth-looking pattern.
“This…is a Fresnel lens. It’s a stripped-down version of a spherical lens. It has a few distinct advantages, namely...
2025-06-05 03:05:00 +0000 UTC View PostWill reflexively unloaded every remaining weapon in his Phantom Hand. He didn’t have any weapons, but healing potion bottles were made of glass and when hardened by the manifestation ability, they were stronger than steel. Despite being blunt they could do a respectable amount of damage.
Will copied the glass vials and sent them cutting through the air at several hundred miles an hour, creating sharp cracking noises as he released them.
While he did, that he do...
2025-06-02 19:28:45 +0000 UTC View Post‘Humans find monsters satisfying on a deep…fundamental level. Do you know why?’
Jason shakes head
‘Because they have rules. Every good, satisfying monster needs to have strengths, weaknesses, and a proper method of combating them that trivializes an encounter. They represent a threat and a puzzle all at once.’
‘But why do rules make them satisfying?’ Jason asked.
‘Because monsters with rules have been baked into o...
2025-05-31 02:35:38 +0000 UTC View PostSeed of Inexorable Death
A Synthetic Sacrifice, it is the refined essence of the inescapable Sin Amalgam and three spirit butlers.
Adds Undeath, Dimensional, Lifesteal, and Inevitability Abilities to the aspirant’s class choices. Provides 2 Res, 1 Acu, 2 Foc/level. First of it’s kind.
Ooh, it’s such a good Nuker Sacrifice, Will thought, practically drooling. This one had S-tier...
2025-05-28 18:06:33 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so you know how Will got the ability to manifest items stored by Phantom Hand when he added the Wraith Vessel? I'm actually going somewhere with that.
I want a very specific set of upgrades to advance the Wraith Vessel upgrade to something REALLY OP.
#1 I want to upgrade the manifestation effect, giving him the Ability to manifest the Relics that are imprinted in Phantom Hand. That will give him the ability to double-equip or loan out the super-powerful Relics he's got sto...
Will broke into a sprint.
Under no circumstances did he want to fight a Raid Boss in an enclosed area.
Ancient papers were scattered into the air as Will flashed past them, a gale of wind following his passage and disturbing things that hadn’t felt a breeze in thousands of years.
Will mentally tracked his progress.
Left turn. Hallway – BANG! – the seamless door leading to the maintenance room below was torn off its hinges just behind Will.
Too ...
2025-05-26 19:04:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, Travis was back safe and un-possessed, much to everyone’s surprise. Of course, Travis didn’t actually sleep that night, so it made sense he was still alive. Upon being informed that falling asleep probably would’ve gotten him killed, the Master Decoy just shrugged and said he was already operating under the assumption that falling asleep on his own in a zombie-infested Floor was a bad idea.
Travis brought back a few souvenirs from his time alone. Mostly strange ...
2025-05-23 19:12:12 +0000 UTC View PostWill’s eye’s snapped open, coughing as the air hit a raw patch of throat.
“Was I screaming?” Will asked, peering up at Charnesa.
“It’s normal. Looks like there was another one.”
“Apparently.” Will mused, glancing down at his palm, which was dimpled where his fingernails had dug into his flesh. He felt like there was a bit of film on his hand, like he’d touched some greasy food and hadn’t used soap to cleanse it yet.
Did the night terror evapor...
2025-05-21 19:27:53 +0000 UTC View PostWilliam Oh once sneezed near a Climber Possessed by an evil spirit.
‘Bless you!’ the evil spirit said reflexively, not daring to be rude around William Oh, and in the process exorcised itself.
- Jason Salazar
The floor wrapped around Will’s heel and propelled him forward at full speed, straight towards the floor-to-ceiling window.
Will threw his axe ahead of him, guiding it with his Phantom Snakes.
C...
2025-05-19 18:04:12 +0000 UTC View Post“You think Travis is okay?” Anna asked as she stirred the massive pot of gruel. It was mostly salt, tough barley and bits of preserved meat from the wagon’s stores, and it smelled absolutely amazing.
They’d parked the caravan on top of one of the massive towers for the night. Will wasn’t sure if he could keep the snakes holding up the caravan on task while he was asleep.
“He’s probably still alive.” ...
2025-05-16 19:23:31 +0000 UTC View Post
So I've commissioned a cover for book 1, and i wanted to go with that dynamic -fighting a million people at once- vibe that the Conan covers did so well.
The artist then shot back with 'what is the character wearing'. and I drew a complete blank.
What I'm wondering is, since the joke of the entire story is that everything about him is exaggerated, should we have him dressed conan-esque with as many muscles defined as possible, because the cover represents a dramatized retelling ...
Foolish mortal. Whosoever places a single foot upon my realm of the dead shall be bound to it eternally!
- Lumesh
Then I won’t.
- William Oh
“Try not to let anyone die on this Floor.” Arkesh the Mind-conqueror said, the ancient Immortal Serpent walking beside Will as they led the caravan to the West. For once, both the St...
2025-05-14 21:05:58 +0000 UTC View Post**Caddock, level 65 High Paladin**
They were at a party teeming with sycophants, aiming to secure funding from the richest man in the world…and Orev was treating it like a bit.
“So I don’t know if you knew this, but I’ve been to the thirteenth Floor and back,” Orev Harti said, subtly flexing as he made his best attempt at flirting with Maybin Glasswind. “No big deal.”
I think that man has a learning disability, Caddock thought to himself.
<... 2025-05-12 17:27:25 +0000 UTC View PostWell…that was a lot of screaming. Will thought, staring into the sky as the wagon bounced and rattled underneath him.
Will had heard stories about mind-control when he was living in the orphanage. About Cleophas, an ancient hero with a Charm archetype, who reformed the minds of a population of ignorant savages, making them into upright citizens of his new Stronghold, creating a wonderful utopia.
The Stronghold no longer existed, but the descendants of those savages had ...
2025-05-09 16:54:10 +0000 UTC View PostAnna poked Will in the cheek, causing his eyes to snap open.
With three big blinks, he was awake and aware. The caravan had cut its way into the Wyrd Stronghold’s clearing, and about twenty feet inside the clearing was the welcome party.
Beyond them, a massive stone wall jutted out of the grass, an impressive hundred feet tall. The sort of thing you could sit and stare at…if one were so inclined.
Stifling a yawn, Will pushed himself out of Anna’s lap and hopped off the...
2025-05-07 20:00:34 +0000 UTC View PostEthereal Metallic Slime upgrade for Aspect of the Serpent:
Metal bones: adds passive resistance to physical and lightning damage. Scales with Resistance.
Do you wish to Sacrifice Ethereal Metallic Slime to Aspect of the Serpent?
No.
Will dropped the liquid metal cupped between his palms back into the pond of material. It seemed as though it didn’t synergize well with Aspect of the ...
2025-05-05 18:14:46 +0000 UTC View Post