WarbyPicus

What Exactly I Have Been Up To, and What I have Been Teasing For A While

TL:DR- I wrote a new book. Not "am writing." It's written. Which means a very long overdue cleanup of the tiers. Weeaboo will lose it's specific tier in the future and will be available at a discounted rate.

So! Per the poll, other than Isekai'ed into a werewolf romance (which based on current research is essentially pornography with extra steps) the winner was classic xianxia cultivation novel. So I wrote one.

Yep. Whole thing. Well, all of Volume 1. Fifty chapt...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 74 SCRIPT THIS, NORMIE!

The ships sailing up the river made me smile. They probably shouldn’t have, I probably should be horrified or something, but honestly, they made me smile. Because the truth is that, no matter how sadistic, evil and monstrous a nation you are, the ocean does not care. You need to maintain your boat if you want it to float. Your aesthetically tattered sails aren’t doing a damn thing but flapping for vibes. Hell, just leaving the deck covered in blood and entrails will see half your crew in ...

Weeaboo Chapter 73- Tidying Up For Guests

I stood outside the building, looking up at that blue Verton sky. I can understand the sky being different shades of blue at different times of the day and at different times of the year. Winter Afternoon Blue is not the same as Summer Afternoon Blue because the sun is further away in the winter. Perfectly sensible. I just don’t know why the summer sky in New York looks so different from the summer sky in L.A. And I don’t know why the sky in Verton is such an incredible blue.

My tho...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 72 Derailment

I found a quiet spot to sit and let my feelings wash over me. Four choices was an insanely luxurious lineup by the standards of gacha game quests. It strongly implied that the different routes would be at most superficially different, all leading to the same events. Presumably there would be subtly different rewards depending on which route I picked. 

At a guess, there would be a scripted loss, then a desperate last ditch battle in the big battlefield outside Wastet. Or, even more ...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 71 Murder on the Verton Express

The young man was called Saccio and he was full of fire and idealism. Verton was a city on a hill, the shining light of the world. If it could free itself of foreign oppression, it would hoist a light for all of humanity. It could be the lighthouse of the world. Bringing light to all the dark places that humanity currently dwelled in.

I was a half inch from smacking him by the fifth sentence. It was a violent spray of metaphors about light guiding people. From there, he smoothly transit...

Today's Weeaboo Chap. will be delayed

Combo of travel and being sick. Ever have one of those things where you are lying down thinking "This is dumb, I should be up and doing," then you stand up and immediately remember why you were lying down in the first place? Like that. Expect it on Sunday. Hopefully I will have something to share with you all soon- lining up cover art. But I think it's pretty good!

Chapter 70- A Too Small Pie

Othai didn’t collapse to her knees in relief. She didn’t pound the earth or scream her triumph. I kind of wished she would. 

“Clean up the battlefield. Confirm there are no survivors. Usual reward for intel stands. Nobody get brave and jump into the water- We ain’t paying a death benefit if you die acting a fool.” Her voice was crisp, glancing over the mercenaries but keeping her eyes moving across the river. Towards Verton.

“A job well begun...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 69- Nice

You know what I didn’t ever need to see? Long pikes skewering floundering soldiers as they tried to escape from a river. The story of this game, over and over, was hunger. The image of fishermen with spears was inescapable. The helplessness of it… 

Well. If they had succeeded, the people here would be the helpless ones. My people would be the helpless ones, with myself just one of that mass. There is some trope about this- being kind to your enemies is being cruel to...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chapter 68- The Game Is Balanced… For Large Aquatic Mammals

I’ve never eaten a bitter almond, but the bad did smell ‘almond-y’ and there was a bitter, acrid tang to it and if I was mailing Truso a large sack full of what felt like powder…

“It's cyanide, isn’t it?”

“You haven’t even opened the letter, my Lord!” Othai protested.

“It’s encrypted.”

“How do you-”

I opened the letter. It was encrypted. I showed it to Othai. “Can you read that...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 67 The Road Is Lava

I had to figure the plan was compromised. Everybody seemed to know everything the second anyone said it, so I’d be crazy to think this would be any different. Gacha nonsense or not. I certainly wouldn’t trust my life to the dev’s laziness. It was time to implement my plan. And with a little luck, draw out the traitor. I had a feeling that catching the traitor was locked behind some kind of progression gate, but there was still hope.

Which is why I had made damn sure tha...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 66 Reliable Collaborators

[AUTHOR NOTE- short one today. For some reason, wrapping up this arc has been an absolute bear. It's past midnight. I'm heading for bed.]

Once we were boots down in Verton, I ran a quick check on my quest givers. Truso didn’t have any new jobs for me, but hinted strongly that I was close to building enough trust to hire his mounted scouts. Which is a bit like Amazon teasing you with free same day shipping if you just buy more stuff. Exactly like that, in fact. I was earning trust by h...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 65 Getting Over It

The hat was not particularly exquisite. It could be assembled by our hattiers not named Hatty. It was, to my profound satisfaction, a bucket hat. It conferred zero stat bonuses, but buffed my mood fishing by at least 15%. Maybe even 20%. I can’t see my stat sheet. I just know that a fisherman should wear a bucket hat, and that is the truth and the law. It didn’t have little fishing flies on the brim, but that’s probably too much for a freebie hat. You probably need to grind for a hat li...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 64 Better Living Through Worms

It’s not an exploit. Really. It’s not. If you think about it, I’m just doing what the whales do- using an established system to fully appreciate the game without the tedious necessity of grinding every last little thing. 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

“Here’s your worms. And we got the battlefield cleaned up, which took some very careful moving around all the acid and other junk. There are a bunch of places and bodie...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap 63- The Thirteenth Wave Solves A Problem

Any question I might have had about the monsters being driven by some compulsion was answered immediately. The fall to the bottom of the moat snapped already dissolving bones, shattered skulls, it sounded like the hideous things were vomiting out their own organs. All while neon yellow acid debased them into a heap of mush and gristle. I knew without looking that it was a hideous, sickening mess. And then it got worse.

“Tower Master… Don’t come out.” Othai’s voice w...

Weeaboo vol. 2 Chapter 62- The Thirteenth Wave Gets Smart

The monster’s vanguard were the Toads. I understood the logic. What harm is there in shoving the ranged units out first when their death is arguably more useful than their life? 

“Versai, Mrs. Hungry, stand by near the rear gate. You may need to deploy shortly.”

“Yes, Tower Master.”

“As you wish, my Lord.”

“Miyuki, prioritize herding scattered units together with your arrows. Set edges and narrow them.”...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 61 Never Been Sociable

I returned from Verton with mixed feelings. On the one hand, we were teeing up well. I was getting a handle on the systems the setting used, figured out how to make best use of Othai, even figured out some minor exploits. All good stuff. We knew betrayal was coming, and it was just a question of who, how and when, so we could take steps to manage it. We were gathering equipment, and even earning a bit.

One little mechanic, one teensy, tiny bit of information that I w...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 60 Field Test

Games have themes. It’s not always logical or even coherent, but they have themes. This, of course, is to help them sell stuff. What that theme is varies wildly. The Spirit of Rebellion in the Persona games, and the core mcguffin of the Fate series is the Grail, which can grant you a wish. How far would you go for a wish? 

I mean, if Saber is your servant, pretty freaking far, right? 

Or it could be something even more trite, like th...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 59 Respectful Negotiation With Rats

“What does “sic ‘im me- ghruk!”

Rikka was on top of Yellow Feather, popping out of the shadow of the hill and leaping on him like an outraged spider. She yanked one of his arms to the side, making him shoot far wide. The other arm drove her kunai up and into his lungs. Once. Twice. Three times. She was accelerating now. The look on her face was terrifying.

“Alive and able to answer questions, Rikka. You did really well. You did well. I am very happy w...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 58 Petty Plots

“How many dogs is “a whole bunch,” Rache?”

“Roundabout thirty.”

Presumably the dogs can scramble up the slope just fine, and obviously pack tactics are going to be highly effective in pinning down individual combatants. They probably aren’t counting on the dogs to kill anyone by themselves, but pinning them down will be plenty. That, and keeping Miyuki from shooting. Speaking of-

“Miyuki, priority target is the people with the...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 57- Environmental Storytelling and the Limits of Creativity

It simply wasn’t possible to exist here and not be reminded that the enemy were monsters. It seemed almost insultingly simple to say- that the people here should have expected monsters to act like monsters. But this was notionally the work of a human empire. I could see boot marks still stomped into the hard hearth. Technically speaking, monsters didn’t do this.

Perhaps the people of Wastet expected clemency for surrendering rather than fighting. Maybe they belie...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 56 The Road to an Empty Land

[[Author note- Putting a trigger warning for horror at this point is a bit absurd, but if you are feeling sensitive, I'd skip this chapter.]]

Black water crashed through the door but I was already on the roof, looking for a place to jump as the powerlines fell spitting and snarling in the water. I saw a car sliding past sideways, flipping and tumbling in the murky water. It reeked. Sulphur and sewage and something I didn’t recognize, all tumbling down the mountains and crushing...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 55 The Telephone Game

I shook off the emo thoughts. Mopey doesn't get things done. I took another look through the wall into the resort area. There were plenty of lower-star Awakened in there. You could spot the simpler costumes and repetitive movements. They weren’t the majority. To my quiet shock, most of the playing Awakened Souls were Six Stars. 

“Does the Star rating of the Awakened affect how much their stay costs?”

“No,” said Raven the Receptionist shaking he...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chapter 54- A Commitment to Fair Play

[[AUTHOR NOTE- Slowly, painfully, I'm back. I'm going to try to get things back on schedule.]]

“A valid target, just not one in range. So you deliberately miss. But how-” Othai wasn’t getting it. Mrs. Hungry was looking with deep interest at her hooks, but she wasn’t making a move either.

“Because there is a limit to how fast you can move normally, and a limit to how often a ranged unit can shoot, but the main limit on how fast you can swing your weapons seems...

Delays/random posting times to continue for another week

I am really sorry about this. The holidays were lovely, and I got a festive flu in the spirit of the season. That kind of thing where you feel fine, but you are tired all the time, then cough like you are trying to evacuate a chunk of lung and if you can't you will actually die. And sleep becomes more of an aspirational thing rather than something you actually do.

And now I'm going to fly to England in a couple of days, to attend an old friend's funeral. I'm sure everyone at the airpo...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 53 The Twelf, Twelvth, Twf… The Eleventh-Plus-One Wave Tries Getting Froggy

I tried to spot a toad on the battlefield. It looked toad colored. A sort of yellow/green with bits of brown mixed in. It didn’t start becoming bright yellow until it built up a bellyful of acid to spit. Don’t really know what else to say about it, other than it being a horrifying chimera that directly and irrefutably disproved the existence of a benevolent, interested God. 

“Were they generating an aura of frigid cold? Or was there a particular crackling of electr...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 52 Fishing for Very Legitimate Reasons

I was standing on a dock. The dock was floating on a big pond. I had a chair, a bucket filled with water, and a fishing rod. At the end of the dock was a little shack with more rods leaning up against it, as well as some nets, and an old man enjoying the sun. The pond smelled fresh. I don’t know how else to describe it- like water and green and cool and sweet had a distinct smell when combined.

Never been fishing. Played god knows how many fishing minigames, of course. Ther...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 51 Cashing Out

[This is the chapter that should have posted Friday. I'm still playing catch up, and joy of joys, I have a Holiday Cold to go with the Holiday Cheer. Hoping you all are well.]

I sat in the dirt, looking up at the sky for a while. Nice blue sky. Fluffy white clouds in aesthetically pleasing quantities and arrangements. Easy 7.5 or even an 8 out of ten as skies go. 

Should I feel bad for the raider? But so what if I did? He was still here to steal, burn, rape, starve...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 50- A Good First Effort

“We have you trapped like rats in a box. Surrender! Lay down your arms and you will be allowed to leave with your lives!” The raider bellowed. He was wearing a fancy hat. Guess we found the officer.

“We are Genuda Mercenaries. You know how this will go. Stop being a coward and fight.” Othai had her halberd firmly planted next to her. There was an air of indifference- which was just right for a mercenary. If the enemy decided to scram, so much the better. They could ge...

Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chap. 49 A Friendly Arrangement

[[Author's Note- Monday's chapter. Merry Christmas and/or the midwinter festival of your choice!]]

“We have a saying where I am from- “Nothing is as expensive as ‘Free.’” That being said, exchanging favors and making friends are two of my very favorite things.” 

That was a goddamn SSS Tier Six Star Ultra Gold Foil quality lie right there, but my gangster Anime watching was a lot more Yakuza than Gambino. I’d have to rely on Baccano here, and the bits ...

And we are straight into the chaos- expect delays through new years

Real talk- right now I have the available attention span of a squirrel with a severe meth solution in a small town in Appalachia after Wallmart did a BOGO on .22LR ammo and 45% off on baby's first varmant gun. Which is to say, none. I don't expect to miss any chapters, but I am very sure they will run late. Sorry for the inconvenience, but, well, The Season's Upon Us.