Do you want the regular drip of chapters, or do you want a bulk post?
There's two... maaaaaybe three chapters until the end of book 2 and we start the epilogue, and there's some giga-cliffs ahead. I'm talkin' mount doom level cliffage.
So, do you want to endure the pain and have regular releases, or do you want a bulk release when I get to the end?
2023-03-31 07:23:52 +0000 UTC View PostThis will be it for BoD this week. I know I said I'd go for three, but with everything happening, I won't get the time. Sorry!
Probably two... maybe three chapters to go until we reach the epilogue.
Cold air rasped in Tyron’s lungs as he forced himself further up the mountain. Covered by his shield-bearing skeletons, each step was a danger as arrows continued to shoot through the air, coming close to piercing him on several occasions.
If L...
2023-03-31 03:23:53 +0000 UTC View PostGetting close to the finale!
He’d miscalculated, he realised almost immediately. He shouldn’t have looked down on the Mage so much. He should have feared the swordswoman, his natural enemy, so much more.
As the defender breathed his last, the mage, shaken and white-faced, unleashed a blast of magick, not to save himself from the surrounding skeletons, but at those attacking his ally. A raw magick spell, unrefined and inefficient, it didn’t damage the undead ...
2023-03-29 10:51:17 +0000 UTC View PostFor those who are interested, the lad is coping extremely well. Got a bit of mobility back in his hands and fingers, though it still hurts. Having a parent home full time has turned out to be quite the blessing!
He's getting his fill of youtube and I've got him playing Heroes of Might and Magic III. Have to educate the youth on the classics.
"MORE POWER, DAMMIT!”
“We don’t have any more! We don’t have the power!”
“It’s so...
2023-03-28 07:17:18 +0000 UTC View Post“How are the demon traps holding?”
“Barely!”
“Then reinforce them, dammit!”
“I can’t just poke them with an antennae and then they become stronger. I need time to design, materials to build with, ants to do the building. Those are huge construction projects, we can’t just ‘reinforce’ them!”
“Right, sorry.”
Sloan rubbed her antennae against her carapace, trying to calm herself down. The carver, Carpentant, also soothed hersel...
2023-03-28 05:03:09 +0000 UTC View Post[Wait, so you were contacted by the big cheese himself to become one of his lackeys? And this was like… five-hundred years ago?]
[That is… correct. It was… difficult… to refuse, but I did not wish to surrender my obsession. Arconidem would not have allowed me to pursue knowledge freely.]
[I imagine he was super impressed.]
[Quite the opposite.]
[I know… it’s… never mind. So there’s only three Heralds right now, since you refused to be the fou...
2023-03-28 01:27:01 +0000 UTC View PostIf you weren't aware, I got sick over the weekend and lost a lot of writing time. I had intended to start working on Chrysalis yesterday, but my youngest went ahead and broke both arms! Truly an impressive display of coordination, similar to that of his old man who also broke both of his arms when a youth.
As you can imagine, that's been the priority and it's starting to look like I won't get to Chrysalis at all this week.
I'm very, very ...
2023-03-25 07:32:30 +0000 UTC View PostThis is it for BoD this week. Will try for three next week!
As many as thirty rift-kin rampaged down the mountain, right on the heel-bones of Tyron’s skeleton, directly into the faces of the slayers. Tyron had just enough time to see the expressions on their faces before he slipped away behind the trees.
Laurel, Rufus, and the archer he’d let go. So she’d come back for his head after all. Once again, Tyron could only lament what his mercy had bought him. He ...
2023-03-23 09:26:13 +0000 UTC View PostSo sorry this is late! I ended up delaying my work on BoD last week to think about how these next few chapters would play out, then ended up getting sick, which I've only recovered from today.
I'll have another out today, which still leaves you one behind, but I won't be able to catch that up this week. I'll aim for three next week to get you back to where you need to be.
Many apologies!
Exhausted in mi...
2023-03-23 01:33:45 +0000 UTC View PostI mean… you want me to leave messages for EVERY caste now? Give me a break. What do I even have to say?! Really, this is my fault. The moment I did the first, every member of the council was going to come after me, asking me to leave a nugget of wisdom for their followers.
Listen well, hatchling, Don’t let your siblings hassle you into things you don’t want to do.
I mean, it’s hard for me to say no to Bella and Ellie. The Core Shapers are near and dea...
2023-03-18 04:50:56 +0000 UTC View PostWell, chatting to the golgari proved to be less painful than I had expected. I’d half expected them to start pouring through my options one by one, looking for optimal combos, or have me put together complex Skill schemes that would take a hundred years to train up into a set of fusions.
Thankfully, they restrained themselves. As nice as it would be to have that sort of thing in my back pocket, I just don’t have time to sit back and train. At this point in my family’s development,...
2023-03-17 03:13:17 +0000 UTC View PostGranin felt as if he had a headache coming on. Scratch that, he felt like a boulder split straight down the middle. Shock after shock had come from that gigantic ant until he felt as if the ground were shaking under his feet. It was even more aggravating that Anthony had no idea what he had become. To the people of the Cult, an Ancient was a god. A peerless being of almost fathomless power. The strongest creatures on Pangera, each and every one of them could destroy cities, or deva...
2023-03-17 02:23:12 +0000 UTC View PostSorry to leave you the cliff for so long! Another three chapters coming this week.
The variety of ways a monster can develop themselves is essentially infinite. The number of known Skill fusion is always growing as more and more variations are explored. Of course, there are standard options, things that have long been known and recognised as strong, but those who are willing to explore and delve for new combinations are often rewarded.
In terms of mut...
2023-03-16 04:04:13 +0000 UTC View PostIt takes a few minutes for Granin to come back to himself. Torrina and Corun fuss over him as he lies on the ground in a catatonic state, only to break out of it with boisterous laughter.
Which goes on for way too long, by the way. I’m about to nope out of the situation and creep out of the room when he suddenly sits up and returns to his chair, still chortling away.
Judging by the looks on his students’ faces they haven’t seen him laugh this much, probably ev...
2023-03-16 02:30:48 +0000 UTC View PostClosing in on the end of the book. :S
“Uhhh, Dove?”
“Yes?”
“There is a giant monster that looks like it wants to trample my guts into the ground standing in front of the rift.”
“Yeah, they do that. Both of those. They stand around the rift, and trample your guts into the ground.”
“You’ve seen this thing before?” Tyron hissed.
“What? No, of course not. I’ve never seen any monsters from this particular rift before. B...
2023-03-15 09:58:55 +0000 UTC View PostTyron grit his teeth as he fought off another wave of exhaustion. His eyes felt raw, as if scrubbed with sand, and every part of him ached. In particular, his fingers had suffered the most. Every joint pained him as he flexed his hands, a stabbing sensation that emanated outward from within. Rubbing at the digits almost made it worse, as there was no way for him to reach inside his flesh to fix what was wrong.
It had taken him ten hours of constant work, but his skeletal forc...
2023-03-12 06:05:34 +0000 UTC View PostMy time amongst the Colony taught me one lesson more than any other, and it was an important one to learn. I always considered the pompous attitude of the Cults to be underserved. After failing to produce an Ancient for thousands of years, what right did we have to be arrogant? None at all. Yet so many of my fellows believed the accumulated knowledge of the cults to be complete.
Complete? We had barely scratched the surface of what was possible! Hubris blinded to...
2023-03-11 10:26:44 +0000 UTC View PostEdit: fixed a few things up.
How deep does the Dungeon really go? It’s possible that only the Ancients truly know. Certainly no human, golgari, ka’armodo, brathian or any other old race has plumbed the greatest depths and returned.
Of course, it’s possible an empire or organisation has managed to find their way down and has kept it a secret for all these years, but this researcher doubts it.
Instead, we can apply ourselves to exam...
2023-03-11 05:19:45 +0000 UTC View PostSkeletal archers pulled back on their ghostly strings and loosed, sending arrows forged of bone whistling through the air to shatter against the trees.
As low on resources as he was, he couldn’t afford a dragged out fight… unless.
He had one, maybe two Arcane Crystals left in his pack. If he could get to the cave, he would be able to replenish at least a little of his magick. As it stood, he was in a precarious position. Marshals weren’t just a job title, they wer...
2023-03-10 10:11:38 +0000 UTC View PostI know I don’t always devote the most thought to my mutations, but I think I’d remember letting humans contribute Will through the Vestibule. Yeah, I’m sure I would remember that! And yet, here sits a little bubble of Enid, here within the Nave.
What the heck is going on here? Spiritually, I approach and poke at the bubble, but try as I might, it doesn’t disappear. Instead, it stubbornly sits there, existing, no matter how much I try to logic the darn thing from existence.
As always, the list is excessively long. Like, does anyone want half of these options? Actually, most of them seem pretty good… but far too niche! The Altar has a greater effect empowering fire abilities. The Altar has a greater effect empowering ice abilities. The Altar has a greater effect empowering physical abilities….
On and on it goes.
I quickly identify the basic upgrades before I start flicking about to see if I can find something that might take my fancy. I...
2023-03-07 06:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostAfter brooding and swatting at demons who manage to draw close to me for a few hours, I call my three associates back and we start to make our way home.
It doesn’t look like that big brute is going to be coming back anytime soon, so it’s probably a good chance to regroup and refresh. Tiny, Crinis and Invidia each look worn out and battered in some way. Tiny has scratches and wounds all over the place, his fur matted with ichor, and I can tell he’s exhausted, despite the grin of sa...
2023-03-07 01:55:25 +0000 UTC View PostProtectant, Guardiant, Shieldant, Defendant, Armourant and the others stood silently as the Eldest collected itself and settled to watch the three guardian’s fight. The purple sphere of mana had extended once again, crushing any weak monsters into the ground before they even had a chance to attack.
They felt… useless.
“Have you ever seen anything like that?” Guardiant asked, her pheromones unusually hushed. “I can’t even imagine being able to tip the balance...
2023-03-05 12:21:40 +0000 UTC View PostTyron huddled in his cave and tried not to feel too miserable. He was helping people, he reminded himself. Good people, who had fought and bled for their homes. People who had shown him a little kindness and appreciation, something that he’d sorely needed.
“You feel like shit, don’t you?” Dove asked him.
“It’s fine, “ the Necromancer replied shortly.
“Not all sunshine and roses, is it?” Dove mocked him. “When I was a Slayer, I got paid handsomely for my e...
2023-03-05 07:46:54 +0000 UTC View PostTwo gravity bombs should prove even more devastating than one, at least that’s my assumption. It wasn’t easy forming two of them at the same time, and I didn’t have enough gas in the Altar to empower them properly, but I’m hoping it’s enough to get the job done!
Under the withering fire pouring from the demon’s mouth, the two bombs lose strength the further they travel.
Spiralling around each other, my spells rocket toward the demon. The air around them howl...
2023-03-03 12:17:54 +0000 UTC View PostMy sub-brains are still struggling to put the finishing touches on the gravitational mana gland. It’s fiendishly complex, so I’m surprised. More practice is required, and I’ve been too lazy to do it.
Curse you, past Anthony! Curse your lazy carapace!
Having fully mutated would also be helpful for this. The Altar and Nave aren’t fully mutated, and who knows what insane effects they might have available at +35.
I’ve been too overconfident, dammit! This mas...
2023-03-02 07:57:12 +0000 UTC View PostFor a brief moment, I’m completely stunned. I’ve gotten so used to the Gravity Bomb being infallible that I expected even a half baked effort to do some serious damage.
Even after this big moron somehow burned the power out of it, I still thought he’d lose an arm or something. I might have been overly reliant on my trump card….
That’s fine. I can still hit him with a bigger one. Or use my new mastery and summon a Gravity Well to squish this pest flat!...
2023-02-28 10:01:36 +0000 UTC View PostMade a few changes to the last chapter which I will add in an edit. Few mistakes, which a lot of people pointed out, and I didn't even add in the Anathema selection.... That's fixed now! :D
“Damn it,” Tyron cursed.
“I think a more potent choice of language is appropriate in these circumstances. Elevating to ‘fuck’ is a basic step, but more colourful words can be employed to magnify the effect. Fucking-puke-filled-shitbags is a personal favourite.”
<... 2023-02-28 06:15:20 +0000 UTC View PostI think the schedule for the time being is going to be.
Chrysalis Mon-Friday.
BoD Tues & Wed.
I do want to get more BoD written, but I really want to build up a few reserve chapters to keep things smooth.
Advant told me I should “Preserve my thoughts for future generations of the family,” so… I guess this is me… doing that? To be honest, she’s been hassling me to do this for age...
2023-02-27 07:57:46 +0000 UTC View Post“I fucking knew it!” Tyron crowed.
“Wai - wha?” Dove spluttered awake, the light blooming in his hollow sockets. He saw Tyon examining five skeletons in front of him, face alight with glee.
“Weren’t you going to do the status ritual? And wake me up when you were ready to do it?”
“What? Oh, you’re awake. Dove, I finally figured it out!”
“Figured what out?”
The once-Summoner was a little confused. He didn’t exactly feel groggy or dazed aft...
2023-02-25 10:30:43 +0000 UTC View Post