“You’re like an uncut gem… The potential to shine brightly is there, but it needs some work before it’s ready to show itself,” Moxy explained as they ate breakfast. Asher hadn’t been surprised when Loratta had given him a small room and requested he start living within her strange bunker, but the morning visit from the battle-obsessed warrior with two bowls of porridge had been unexpected.
If it had been Loratta, he probably would have tried to come up with some sort of excu...
2025-05-27 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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As pleasant as the meriders were, Vin was eager to get on the road again after spending only a single day with them. The spider-folk were just so… happy. To the point where it was exhausting to chat with them for any extended period of time.
Part of Vin wanted to chase after Alka and make sure she was okay when she failed to return by nightfall, but he knew deep down if he should be worried about anything, it was the monsters she was no doubt having the time of her life hunti...
2025-05-27 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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“Rosh!” Asher cried, ignoring Loratta and rushing over to his friend. Grabbing his limp wrist, he quickly checked for a pulse. After a few seconds, he let out a sigh of relief as he finally felt the man’s heartbeat. It was weak, but still there. Ignoring the fact that he was standing in the center of her compound and completely unable to harm her, Asher turned to glare at the monster in human guise sitting on her throne, smiling warmly at the two of them. “Why do this to him? I’m th...
2025-05-26 16:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Once they’d finished chatting with Neurol and tucked away his letter, Vin and Shia spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about the web and chatting with the locals. They tried to speak with the other new merider, whose upper torso looked like that of some sort of scaled lizard, but the man refused to meet with them. Clearly something had happened, because the moment Vin tried to ask a question through his doorway about the fragment he’d come from, the merider’s smile grew strained a...
2025-05-25 16:15:00 +0000 UTC
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Oh man I am screwed.
Asher stared at the warrior’s unblemished leg, the limb not showing so much as a scratch for all his efforts. Despite all his skills, after going a few rounds with Moxy, he didn’t think he had what it took to strike her a lethal blow. And if whittling her down wasn’t an option, then this had officially just turned into a fight he stood no chance of winning. He was already all but dead on his feet after being forced to slip into the astral rea...
2025-05-23 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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It turned out, Kark hadn’t been kidding with that last comment about Neurol being an artist. After giving directions to Alka as to where she could find the monsters and dropping Scule and Reginald off with Bourges, a rather spindly looking merider with colorful dots all along his spider abdomen, Kark brought Shia and Vin over to Neurol’s nest.
Unlike Kark’s own bachelor nest that barely had a speck of color, the inside of Neurol’s looked like someone had chucked a rainbow in a b...
2025-05-23 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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It only took Francis a few minutes to find what he was looking for, and the battle-scarred guard quickly returned with a burly woman in tow.
[Warrior] - 3/3
The new woman looked almost like a female version of Rulfar, standing at least half a head taller than Asher and wearing a loose assortment of furs and pelts that easily showed off her own muscles. Nodding at Rulfar, she tossed the man an orb of shards before fixing her stare on Asher.
“You’re the ru...
2025-05-22 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The room went silent, save for the harsh coughing as Scule choked on the water he’d been drinking from the far-too large cup in front of him up until that revelation. Vin stared at the chipper merider in shock, wondering if he’d heard correctly.
“So… You weren’t always half spider?”
“Not at all, I used to be human just like you!” Kark laughed, shaking his head. “My, that was quite some time ago. It’s crazy how time flies!”
“You don’t mind being a me...
2025-05-22 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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It seemed Kark had intercepted them a short ways from the actual village, because it was only a few more minutes of trailing along behind the happily humming merider before they stumbled upon the village proper.
Though it would have been more appropriate to say they stumbled under the village proper.
Vin and his companions looked up with slack jaws, staring at the white globes of thread secured on a massive web overhead. There were dozens of meriders crawling along the we...
2025-05-21 16:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“What?” Asher exclaimed, forgetting all about his fake voice. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“Exactly what I said,” the tavernkeep shrugged, finally pulling back a bit. “You want more information, you gotta pay for it.”
Gritting his teeth, Asher slapped another handful of shards down, ignoring the side eyes he was beginning to get from some of the more sober patrons sitting at the bar. Chuckling, the tavernkeep absorbed the new batch of shards, giving him anoth...
2025-05-21 16:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Vin stared at the runic spiderweb that had just spoken to them, wondering what the correct move was here. With Whispering Wind under his own belt, he was no stranger to speaking at a distance via magic. But somehow he got the distinct vibe that they weren’t just being listened to, but being watched as well.
“Uh, hello?” Vin tried, waving stupidly at the talking web. “Sorry for cutting through so many of your webs. I hope we didn’t mess anything up.”
...
2025-05-20 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“’What are classes?’” Wilna repeated, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. The cracks in her face seemed to shift slightly to make such a feat possible. “Do you mean in a philosophical sense, or are you looking for a detailed list of all the classes we have on record?”
Asher looked at the librarian sitting across from him in one of the library’s private rooms and shook his head. After his own failed experiments, rather than dive headfirst into more research, he’d decide...
2025-05-20 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The next few days fell into a familiar pattern. During the day, Asher would spend his time in the library, pushing his Incorporate and Comprehend skills to the limit as he conducted research about this world and did his best to shore up any of the obvious holes in his knowledge. While he read all about this new world and improved the skills tied to his Knowledge element, Rosh worked his magic in the lesser-traveled portions of the city, searching out the locations of dangerous gang members ti...
2025-05-19 16:00:14 +0000 UTC
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“Why spiders? We already did spiders!” Vin lamented, staring at the practical wall of webbing stretching around the treeline. Their group had pulled up short on the edge of Alka’s fragment, but hadn’t dared step across just yet. The next fragment was so densely covered in webs that in order for any of them to move across the border, they’d have to cut their way through a wall of webbing.
Well, Scule was small enough that he could probably slip through, but he wasn’t exactly ...
2025-05-19 16:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Hissing in pain, Asher sheathed his blackened dagger and cradled his still smoking arm. Despite his Complete Resilience and the fact that his arm was only in the fire for a split second thanks to Distortion, he’d still suffered what looked like horrific third-degree burns all along his right arm.
Astral Dip - Lvl 9
Complete Resilience - lvl 10
New Class Available!
You’re damn right you’d better level after sh...
2025-05-18 14:28:01 +0000 UTC
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“So, find everything you were looking for?” Rosh asked, blowing on his stew before popping a spoonful of it into his mouth, all but moaning at the rich flavors.
“I think so… That and more if I’m being honest,” Asher admitted, helping himself to his own dinner. To his surprise, the near scalding heat of the stew didn’t actually bother him.
Wow, no more burning the roof of my mouth from my own bad decisions? Complete Resilience is the best!
“No surpris...
2025-05-18 14:27:15 +0000 UTC
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The library was just as impressive on the inside, and Asher couldn’t help but stare at the massive shelves of books lining the walls. Each stack ran from the ground all the way to the ceiling, and people were using everything from massive ladders to various skills to sift through the stacks.
While he was distracted watching someone hovering near the top of the central room on what looked like a tiny cloud, a soft voice sounded in front of him.
“Welcome to the Library of ...
2025-05-18 14:26:01 +0000 UTC
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Asher walked calmly down the road toward Whikoga, his new hireling by his side. Honestly, he hadn’t understood just how rough Rosh’s situation must have been until the man jumped at the offer of a job, even after everything that had just happened. He was clearly strapped for shards, and when Asher promised him he wouldn’t be made to do anything illegal or told to attack anyone he practically cried tears of joy.
They made a quick pit stop to return the horse to the stranded leather...
2025-05-18 14:25:01 +0000 UTC
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“Please don’t kill me! I didn’t want to help him but I didn’t have a choice!” The man screamed, scrambling backwards until his back was pressed against the invisible wall. Holding his hands up placatingly, he began begging. “I’ll do whatever you want! Do you need shards? I can get you shards!”
“Just calm down a second,” Asher said, hissing at the fresh throb of pain from his punctured kidney. “Rosh, was it? Other than your taste in friends, you don’t seem like su...
2025-05-18 14:24:02 +0000 UTC
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The three men clearly had experience working together, because as soon as they realized the sharpener’s surprise attack had failed they sprung into action.
The boxer immediately darted toward Asher, activating some sort of skill as his body blurred forward, his speed greatly enhanced as the distance between them all but vanished. Asher tried to stop the man with a Distortion enhanced stab before he could get too close, but was forced to abandon the attack when he spotted the new...
2025-05-18 14:23:02 +0000 UTC
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The next few days flew by almost as fast as Asher did as he made his way toward Whikoga. Without having to continuously stop and dodge trees like he’d been forced to do in the forest, running on an actual road allowed him to use Distortion to craft longer and longer tunnels of shortened space, effectively launching himself forward like a human missile. He didn’t exactly have any measurements, but after his latest level ups, it felt like he was able to travel nearly twenty feet in a single...
2025-05-18 14:22:01 +0000 UTC
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“Sam, there was a big fire last night!” Brian exclaimed, barely touching his breakfast as he bounced up and down in his chair, excited to be the one to break the news to his sister. Almost immediately after he’d woken up, one of Brian’s friends had swung by the cabin to let him know the news. Apparently it was all anyone was talking about.
Asher supposed it made sense that the head merchant's wagon burning down and taking the caravan leader with it was probably one of the more e...
2025-05-18 14:21:00 +0000 UTC
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Asher yawned, squinting at the early morning sunlight streaming in through the cabin window. Evidently it didn’t matter which side of the bed he ended up sleeping on, the vengeance of the sun’s first rays was impossible to be avoided.
“Finally up then?”
Turning onto his side, Asher took in Samantha’s slender form lying in bed beside him. Covered in nothing more than a thin sheet, the hunter looked like a renaissance sculpture brought to life as she returned his gaze, her...
2025-05-18 14:20:01 +0000 UTC
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Asher stared at the dead merchant lying at his feet, surprised that he didn’t really feel much of anything if he were being honest. He’d just killed a man in cold blood, yet he didn’t feel so much as a hint of nausea. If anything, he was almost happy to have rid the world of such a deplorable man.
Just like when he’d witnessed Mr. Sonth die, a small violet orb made from thousands of tiny shards drifted out of the merchant’s corpse and began hovering over the body. To ...
2025-05-18 14:19:01 +0000 UTC
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Trellis leaned back in his chair, happily sighing as he went over the profit reports the various merchants making up his caravan had given him. It was common practice for merchants within a caravan to pay a percentage of their profits to the caravan leader in exchange for using their connections and protection, and Trellis had enough connections that he was able to charge even more than most.
Despite its small size, stopping in the village of Horntho always turned a profit. Due to its p...
2025-05-18 14:18:02 +0000 UTC
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Only the passive benefit of Comprehend allowed Asher to react in time to save his life, and with a startled curse he slipped into the astral realm while the panther’s claws of pure ice were still a hair's breadth away from his neck. Rather than take his head off with a single slash, the awakened beast flew straight through him, remaining utterly silent throughout its entire attack. Asher turned just in time to watch the beast land and spin about, its eyes flickering every which way to deter...
2025-05-18 14:17:01 +0000 UTC
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Sprinting through the forest, it took all of Asher’s concentration to keep his breakfast down as the world bent and bled around him. He’d gotten better at using Distortion for movement over the past few days, but he’d never tried using it like this before. There was a big difference between using his skill to shift a few feet and narrowly avoid an enemy’s attack versus using it to cover miles of rough terrain at breakneck speeds. Using his skill this way required him to continuously d...
2025-05-18 14:16:01 +0000 UTC
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God damn it Samantha, Asher thought, weaving his way through the hundreds of villagers as he tried to find the green and blue striped tent Elaina had told him about. Not only was it located in the center of the throng of people, but it apparently belonged to the man who was both the caravan’s hide salesman and the overall caravan leader.
Finally spotting the tent, Asher made his way through the crowd. The village had quite a number of people who made a living hunting in the n...
2025-05-18 14:15:01 +0000 UTC
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Despite his desire to unlock the rest of his skills, Asher ended up joining Samantha on her hunts in the forest over the next few days. Now that he knew he’d be leaving the village and the two of them as soon as he’d sold his tusks, he decided he wanted to spend a bit more time getting to know the hunter.
The fact that he found fighting the heavy boars as more of a boring chore than anything exciting might have also played a part in that decision.
Samantha had been more than w...
2025-05-18 14:14:02 +0000 UTC
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“Sam!” Brian shouted, running over and giving the bear a big hug. “Asher used one of his skills on me! It’s sooo cool!”
“Oh did he now?” The bear asked, removing its head and revealing the missing hunter wrapped within the thick bearskin. Raising her eyebrow toward Asher, she patted the top of Brian’s head, smiling at her brother. “You can tell me all about it later. Do you mind grabbing some fresh water so I can start on dinner?”
Eagerly nodding, Brian grabbed...
2025-05-18 14:13:01 +0000 UTC
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