Chapter Three
49th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era
The Sapphire Ocean
She sat between her companions, though remaining seated wasn’t an easy affair. She lacked a posterior to sit upon, and so the back of her... body rested directly upon the wooden bench they’d been assigned to that morning.
The curved wooden barrel that was her torso had a tendency to roll slightly, and so she was holding herself ...
2025-01-28 09:38:21 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Two
48th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era
The Sapphire Ocean
Maldrak stepped out of the captain’s cabin and out onto the ship’s deck. He was immediately hit by a wave of warm, humid air as soon as he crossed the threshold between the room and the outside.
The Sapphire Ocean was known for being rather warm, especially in these parts where they were still out of sight of the mainland.
M...
2025-01-28 09:37:51 +0000 UTC View PostChapter One
47th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era
The Sapphire Ocean
“It’s active,” a voice said. Soft, calm. It was... bored, perhaps, as if saying something that it had oft repeated.
“I see,” another said. This voice was deeper, more somber. “Check its vitals.”
There was movement, a limb being compressed, then pulled out, then moved again. Then others. Arms, legs, then the head was turn...
2025-01-28 09:21:01 +0000 UTC View PostPrologue
42nd Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era
Harbour Town, Harbour Isle, the Sapphire Ocean
“This way, sir, to the dead. Though as I said via our correspondence, the dead are slim-pickings at the moment,” Plowthorn said. The man was a portly sort of fellow, with a jovial smile and a relaxed, almost lazy gait. The spark in his eyes had long since dulled, but this was Harbour town, and people with anythi...
2025-01-28 09:19:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Three
Clark had been working for the Heroic Response Force for twelve years now, and he still wasn’t used to how quickly things could just suddenly get out of hand.
He was in his mid-thirties now. Still young, he hoped, but sometimes he didn’t feel it. His thinning hairline and the constant heartburn he felt certainly didn’t leave him feeling as young as when he’d started.
Back then, he was a fresh-faced kid right out of college, and jo...
2025-01-27 23:06:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Seven
***
Olivia seemed to go quiet after a while of walking through the campus. I noticed that once we were away from the Bastion, the number of stares I was getting decreased pretty sharply. I guess I was sorta fitting in, what with the ridiculous uniform and all that. Still, I was pretty sure I’d never fit in fully.
There was just this feeling in the air as I walked past yet another group of students. Actually, group...
2025-01-27 12:15:33 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Ninety-Eight
Ivil wasn’t usually privy to the gossip and hubbub travelling around. She didn’t care much for media things, and ever since she discovered that she could just order MINT to record her soaps for her, she never really had to interact with the extranet at all.
However, she now found herself making an exception to that self-imposed rule. After all, she was hungry for gossip and now had people worth sharing it with.
Which is why she found...
2025-01-26 11:27:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Six
*** written while very eepy, plz point out grammar
Delilah had gone on about... ignorance or some such the night before. It was a lot and she was pretty excited about it, in her own little Delilah way.
Anyway, it was very smart and very philosophical, and I think I forgot about half of it by the time I woke up, and most of the rest slipped by me when I saw Lucy in a short shirt and thigh highs--with the little gap--but s...
2025-01-25 19:24:18 +0000 UTC View PostInterlude Lucy - School Days
Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, then gave a little spin.
CIAL had their own uniform. From what she understood, and from what she saw, there were some strict rules about what a person could and couldn’t wear, but the rules were also pretty relaxed in other ways.
The school sold uniforms, and the prices were... well, they weren’t cheap. 15,000 credits for a blazer made her skin crawl. It wasn’t that much, in the grand s...
2025-01-24 22:46:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Ninety-Seven
“That was surprisingly fun,” Twenty-Six said as they made their way out of the dining room and into the Emperor’s foyer. She was carrying a large basket filled to the very brim with leftovers and was smiling bright enough to compete with the sun.
“That was tense,” Aurora replied. “I can’t believe I almost had words with the president of the League.” Her eyes narrowed and she stared at Ivil. “Over you, of all people.”
...
2025-01-23 00:50:55 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifty-Six
“Right... well, we know where to look next time, I guess,” Jenny said. She adjusted her mask, then shook her head. I had the feeling she was one part frustrated and one part annoyed. Two not-so-distinct emotions.
“We can always come back,” Sharp said. “Unless this wall is a complete no-go?”
“It’s not,” Alissa replied. “I might... maybe be able to take down the wall with a spell, but I don’t have a l...
2025-01-22 04:50:58 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Five
“So... what do we do now?” I asked as I leafed through the fairy tale book. There were a few illustrations here and there that caught my eye. Monsters sometimes, and then knights in all-black armour that were usually depicted helping people.
Amaryllis frowned. She was staring at the book as well, but I had the impression she wasn’t actually seeing it. “I don’t know,” she admitted slowly. “I feel like w...
2025-01-21 22:32:31 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Two
“Trinity, stop putting the trash out of the bag,” Emily said.
Across the room from her, Trinity looked down into the brown plastic bag she was holding, then back up. “But... it’ll be thrown away.”
“Yes, that’s the entire point of putting it in the trash,” Emily said. “What even are you pulling out of there?”
Trinity raised her hand. She held an empty milk carton. One that had been squished almost flat by idle hands.
<... 2025-01-21 02:26:20 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Five
***
It wasn’t often that I considered visiting someone at their home, but I was willing to make an exception for Gomorrah. Mostly because she lived an elevator’s ride away and I didn’t actually need to step out of the house to visit her.
I rode the elevator down to her floor, then stepped out into a sort of mini lobby space that Gomorrah had created.
There was a bench to one side, and a nice front door with a mat on...
2025-01-20 20:46:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifty-Five
Jenny grumbled a little, but Alyssa was surprisingly ready to pay Sharp for the assistance. “Five hundred,” she said.
“That’s a little low,” Sharp replied.
“It’s a job you’re double-dipping on,” Alyssa replied.
“Yeah, but the other side is playing me in full,” Sharp replied. “And I’m not telling them about you at all, so it feels only fair that you pay me a little more.”
“Greedy,” Jenny replied.<...
2025-01-20 04:12:27 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Ninety-Six
“Ice cream?” Twenty-Six asked as the desert was revealed.
The only sign that the butler was surprised by her question was a very slight perking of his eyebrow. “Indeed, ma’am,” he replied simply. “This is Europian Comet Cream. Milk from dome-raised goats with sprinkles of sugar rock.”
The prior measles had all been well-presented and well-proportioned when the plates were handed to them as a complete item and they weren...
2025-01-19 01:15:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter One
A month ago she would have been panicking.
Two months ago, she might have been nearly catatonic with anxiety. The sort that bubbled up in her stomach and made her entire body felt like it was being squeezed in from every direction all at once.
Now, however? Now Emily was a hardened warrior. A villain of great repute. She had faced down other villains, had fought with and against heroes, had chased entire villainous organizations out of her ...
2025-01-18 00:38:58 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifty-Four
“We can step out to talk,” Alyssa said. “Or at least, go somewhere less loud.”
That was a fair point. I had that gasmask on, which did some work muffling my hearing, but the area was still quite loud. Rushing water breaking against concrete walls wasn’t exactly a subtle kind of sound.
“Yeah, okay,” Sharp said. “So, out, or somewhere else?”
Jenny lowered her gun, then stuffed it into a thigh holster strapped onto the...
2025-01-17 19:07:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Four
***
“So, what did you think?” Lucy asked as we stepped back into the Bastion.
“Eh,” I said with a shrug. The vice Principal had a few things to show us after the cooking class, but the other classes were out at the moment, and so there really wasn’t too much to show except for some empty training facilities and some big rooms that had nothing in them. We did meet with one professor, the hardass teacher who did comb...
2025-01-16 20:04:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Four
“So, this is the book, huh?” Booksie asked as she eyed Rainnewt’s gift.
The book was sitting on the captain’s desk in the little office at the rear of the ship that Amaryllis had long ago taken over. I didn’t mind that. She was the one who took care of all the paperwork, so she deserved access to the room with all of the ship’s logs and maps and the small heap of documentation that came with operating an airship. 2025-01-14 22:09:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Prologue
Fun!
She burst into life and knew one thing: Fun! Life was good! It was pretty and loud, it was vibrant and bright and there was so much to do!
Yes, her goal was fun! Maximum amounts of it!
Her attention spread, malignant tentacles of seering heat, like a weed growing a million times faster than it should. She stretched big, until every one of her million limbs shook, then she retracted a little.
Where was she now? What sort of Fun...
2025-01-14 05:16:30 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Three
***
The CIAL campus was bigger than I imagined. It encompassed the entirety of the little city around the main campus and about half a dozen much larger buildings around the central park area.
These were the picturesque, big, modern buildings that looked good on postcards, but they weren’t the whole of it. The campus extended below-ground as well.
“This entire area, formerly the Perrot Island area, was slated to be New Montreal...
2025-01-14 00:58:48 +0000 UTC View PostIt's liiiiive!
Link: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0DQQ99M4X
Every self-respecting lich has a few hundred phylacteries at a minimum, and Harold wants to check in on a few thousand of his. Rumors reach him that the vicious Mantis Queen has one of them. Naturally, she's at the other end of the region. I...
2025-01-13 14:12:40 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifty-Three
“Ew,” Sharp said as she took in the entrance into the city’s underground.
It was... a reasonable feeling, to be honest. Te water out-flow was a long, large set of concrete openings that were spilling brackish water out onto the Boston river. Each opening could have fit two semi-trailers side-by-side, and there were six of them set one after the other, with thick concrete walls between each.
The area stank. It was likely all because ...
2025-01-13 06:23:40 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Ninety-Five
The dinner started off well enough. Ivil was no gastronomist, but she could appreciate fine taste, and the Emperor... well, his tastes were certainly rich, which had a certain correlation with regards to taste.
A butler--not the same as the one who’d lead them here--and a trio if maids with trays and cloches slipped into the room. The maids set the trays down nearby and started to move plates before everyone at the table in perfect sile...
2025-01-11 19:35:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifty-Two
We left the house at half-past six in the morning only to hit traffic into Boston Two anyway. That was the biggest downside to living outside of the city. The traffic in and out was god awful at the best of times.
Still, we managed to arrive at the courier’s office before eight, which wasn’t bad all things said and done.
Markham was in his office, feet up on his desk and a mug of hot coffee being nursed between his hands when we c...
2025-01-10 19:36:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Two
***
There was a problem that I hadn’t considered when I bought the Bastion and that was that the damned thing was fucking enormous.
Being big was mostly a feature. It was a transport, and its largeness meant I could fill it with several tons of angry warmech. That was cool as fuck.
What wasn’t as cool was trying to find parking.
“C’mon, there’s not a single open space?” I complained as I flew a third sl...
2025-01-09 18:47:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Ninety-Four
Opulence wasn’t something the Empress of Mars was unfamiliar with, and yet it seemed as though the Emperor of Jupiter was determined to stretch the definition of opulence as much as he was ready to stretch the fabric of space to his whims.
The far wall of the room, behind the tallest seat at the dining table, was backed by a large window.
Obviously, they were deep within the station-moon and looking past the walls ought to h...
2025-01-09 09:47:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Three
~Starting a new volume~
The next morning found everyone in a state of incredible exhaustion.
I barely managed to trudge my way out of my room onboard the Beaver and to the kitchen, and I think it was only an hour short of noon before I woke up. “Hungy,” I complained as I slumped into a chair and then just stared across the room.
Calamity was at the stove, poking at something...
2025-01-08 03:32:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter One
Sorry for the slow chapters this weekend. Am sick. Prolly picked something up at the New Years party I went to. Yay!
***
I wasn’t sure if I was onboard with the whole... ‘go to school’ thing. In fact, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to work out for me.
Anything I could learn in a class, I could have Myalis pump straight into my brainpan, and while I was a little nervous about shoving raw information into my brain, it wa...
2025-01-07 08:10:13 +0000 UTC View Post