It takes all of five minutes to get Gisela and Dora to see things our way. Considering that they don’t have anywhere to go, the Preservation definitely won’t want to work with them, and another–possibly worse–leg of the apocalypse is about to start, they didn’t really have a choice. Doesn’t mean I didn’t try my damndest to make sure they didn’t feel pressured into anything; these people aren’t our enemies. They just made a really weird decision to leave the party all that ti...
2025-11-29 02:28:00 +0000 UTC
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Overgrown buildings and weed-pushed stones greet me at the end of my relocation. I glance around at the previously-floating platform that now sits motionless in its hold in search of Jumble and the other four. My awareness feels them instantly–inside of the house that used to belong to… Matt, I think his name is? He might still own it for all I know, but this place looks like it hasn’t been cared for for years.
Yet it’s only been abandoned for months at most. Something happened ...
2025-11-27 05:53:05 +0000 UTC
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I really hope I’m wrong. But I have a horrible feeling that I’m closer to right on the continuum of gut feelings. While Fleur freaks out about her new travelling tattoo I pull out my Class Card and send a quick message to everyone–everyone who can leave the city and fight–with a warning. To still be on edge, but for something far worse now.
All I need is to find a shred of proof. And we might have a way to do that right here in the city.
“Shelby? Is it bad?<...
2025-11-25 03:35:14 +0000 UTC
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All-too familiar stone walls take the place of the lake. Quest appears a moment later right on my heels, its brow furrowed in deep thought. I motion for it to go ahead to wherever it has to go, and it nods once before disappearing into the wall. Before I even have to call for her, Fleur’s brooch starts to glow.
“Did you find them?”
I grimace. “Yeah. It didn’t end how you’re hoping, though.”
Salt seeps in through the cracks in the floor, basking the hal...
2025-11-24 02:33:38 +0000 UTC
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The panic in Pearl’s voice spurs me to action. I dive off my shield and summon another to land on, then roll over my shoulder and come up in a crouch just in time to feel the water erupt where we were just standing. A massive ten-foot wide column of water slams into it, breaking against my spell with enough force to shear it clean away in heartbeats. Something like tendrils reform the instant my shield dies, crushing around the last particles of my spell with deadly power.
Not a singl...
2025-11-22 04:40:03 +0000 UTC
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The empty obelisk shines in the sun like a gemstone splinter in the Earth. I instinctively reach for Fleur’s brooch, but she seems to… shy away from my touch. As if she doesn’t want to admit that this place exists. I respect her desire for exclusion and shift my attention back to Quest.
“How’d Fleur find this place?” I ask as Pearl squishes out onto my shoulder. “And, correct me if I’m wrong, but this insinuates that the krarig salt wasn’t a one-time thing.”
Qu...
2025-11-20 12:16:01 +0000 UTC
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It takes about a week to find the exact spot in the desert where the twins disappeared a while back. Takes even longer to pinpoint the floating island that they’d technically been standing on at the time, and since I don’t know if the system sends people back based on geographical coordinates or the spot their feet were touching, we have to survey both.
That involves dealing with a certain party-hosting rich asshole. One that’s suddenly without Preservation bodyguards tha...
2025-11-18 12:28:08 +0000 UTC
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The walls of my room back at the resort flicker into view before any speakers get too close. I crack my neck and grimace at all the errant thoughts swarming about like a cloud of gnats, like for example; who the hell was that doll actually? If she didn’t know what happened to Taylor, then who does? Why did the Preservation choose now of all moments to send in the cavalry?
I shake my head and sigh as Pearl seeps out of my ear and forms on my shoulder. Slosh joins her for a second, then...
2025-11-17 12:45:55 +0000 UTC
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This time, I hold back the snarl. Slosh zips up through the catwalk and into the flask, then uses my body for cover to fly the entire thing into my back pocket. My awareness screams as someone blinks into existence at the end of the fencing meant to keep people out, and with them comes a ton of caution tape and security guards. Taylor frowns and turns, but it doesn’t look like the psychic’s trying to make him think that stuff’s been there all along.
Two quick knocks draw what litt...
2025-11-15 11:42:28 +0000 UTC
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“The front door was open.”
The words flow easily, but hit Taylor like a ton of bricks. The kid’s frown grows so deep that he could hold playing cards between the furrows on his brow, and right as he opens his mouth to say something, he decides against it and turns to look at the doors. He tilts his head so far to the side that my awareness can feel his neck popping.
“That shouldn’t be open,” he states the obvious and turns back to me. “Why is it open? Where’s all t...
2025-11-13 12:42:08 +0000 UTC
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An empty chamber rests at the end of the hall, working on auxiliary power from some batteries in the corners. I kneel, confused, at the edge of the hatch and stare down into the space. Why the hell isn’t there a reactor core in there? It doesn’t look like a hasty grab job, but it also doesn’t look completely clean; a few connecting wires hang limply from the ceiling and half of the ports in the ground haven’t been closed.
“It’s gone?” Pearl asks, voicing the confusion I fe...
2025-11-10 12:46:40 +0000 UTC
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It’s the kid that came up to meet Call and me when we first got here. And he’s… well… not quite dead yet, but whoever left him here fully expected him to be dead by the time anyone found him. I brush his short bangs away from his face and study his body with my awareness for any other signs of a struggle. Aside from the obvious wounds, he’s perfectly fine.
Like someone snuck up behind him and took him out in one clean slash.
“Where’s the armor?” Pearl asks. “I re...
2025-11-09 12:49:44 +0000 UTC
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Crowds of people litter the streets. Most of them don’t have a speck of dust on them, but all of them have the slight uncertainty of a life freshly upturned. I apologize meekly and tread carefully so as not to step on any tiny toes while I squeeze through the crowd, making my way up and out of the main area and onto the strip leading to the hangar. My awareness ensures I take in the entirety of the scene without the need to turn.
There are so many of them. People of all ages, still we...
2025-11-07 12:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The teleport back to the Preservation isn’t anywhere near as off-putting as the first. Call nods as I appear in the room, then steps to the side so Lament can appear. I shake my head.
“Not right away. First we need to fully purify you.”
“Gotcha,” Call says and spreads his arms, stepping free from his armor. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I crack a purification in my hand and direct the mist to wash over him. He breathes it in readily, coughs at the saltiness, and w...
2025-11-05 11:41:49 +0000 UTC
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Lament shudders at the weight of my coins pressed to her shoulders. She stares deep into my eyes in an attempt to see if I’m testing her somehow. Whatever she sees scares the hell out of her. Good.
“The world or the Preservation. Pick.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard of a choice,” Gil says. “I know what I’d pick.”
A grimace splits Lament’s face. “Easy for you to say; you don’t work for the Preservation. You don’t know the good they do for everyone.”
<...
2025-11-03 11:48:16 +0000 UTC
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I can’t see Lament’s face through her mask, but my imagination does a good job of filling in the blanks between the excited little noises and energized motions. Quest sends a quick message to my Class Card that I don’t respond to, and instead, bring Lament all the way to somewhere safe-ish. She oohs and aahs at the ‘immaculate paindne architecture’, whatever the hell that means, until we come to somewhere that stops her dead in her tracks.
“Is that a system shop?” she asks...
2025-11-02 12:07:49 +0000 UTC
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I shove the relocation coin at Lament’s chest. She raises a hand and screams, but only the first moment sneaks out. The city steals the signal before she can trade places with the coin in my hand and forcibly changes the endpoint to the same place as the reactor heart. I roll my shoulder and grimace as the bathroom door opens.
“Was that really such a good idea?” Call asks warily.
“I could ask you the same damn thing,” I mutter and step out of his suit. “We could’ve s...
2025-10-31 11:45:55 +0000 UTC
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Grim understanding hits me before anything can play out. Lizzie did something. But that shield wasn’t her magic; if it was, there’d be residual stuff all over her. Someone else did that to her. So I can’t even be sure if she was responsible for the mech getting apocalypse-touched. Nobody else will see it that way, though. Especially not Speak.
“Lizzie’s down there,” I say to Call.
He snaps his teeth shut. “Lizzie? Why? She was just supposed to do a routine check on t...
2025-10-30 07:31:18 +0000 UTC
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I stand transfixed staring up at that mass of uncomfortable power as people and metal crash around me. Some poor sap skids across the catwalk and screams all the way down to a heavy thump at the bottom of the hangar. Somebody dives down to get them, carried by magic that swirls around them in a chilly whirl to keep them airborne. Screams and slams echo through the hangar one by one by one until they overlap so constantly that I can’t discern one from tha other.
Still, that name hovers...
2025-10-28 13:00:35 +0000 UTC
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Sounds hit me first. Not in a simple way, but in a much more visceral kind of horrible warning; physical sounds that batter at my body like a flurry of blows brought on by possibility itself. Each one brings with it the creak of metal, the brain-rattling hum of something being uncovered that should never be, and the crash of spells faltering uselessly against these monsters.
I reach up and scratch the side of my head. Call’s voice gibbers in my ear in a constant verbal stream of nervo...
2025-10-27 11:35:10 +0000 UTC
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“Go! Go! GO!”
Call screams in my ear with every single hurried step I take towards the hangar. Pearl groans and covers her ears after the dozenth-or-so exclamation that’s somehow getting louder by the scream, and I wish that I could too. There’s a mania in his voice–desperation and panic combined into one–that sounds a little too dangerous for my liking.
It’s the voice of someone about to do something radical. Someone that’s supposed to be staying put in that room ...
2025-10-24 11:13:09 +0000 UTC
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I blow past the plexiglass-hidden desk worker and nearly throw the door off the hinges in an attempt to leave as fast as possible. Nobody makes any comments on it, even though Call complains every step of the way. He doesn’t understand why I’m annoyed. Hell, I barely understand why I’m annoyed.
But he wasn’t damn subtle. They’re planning something for Saturday. Something I’m going to get roped into no matter what I do.
“Saturday. Spill,” I demand. “If it’ll int...
2025-10-22 11:15:58 +0000 UTC
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“Hey, did you see the flyover? Crazy, huh?”
I smile behind Call’s mask and nod at the person behind a pane of plexiglass. Whatever it is muddles and shifts my view of them into a formless blob, and their voice is so garbled that I can’t make out a single identifiable tone in it. Somehow my awareness feels the magic inside of them but absolutely nothing else. I can’t understand how that works.
Call chuckles normally. “I can’t believe they do that over the city. What h...
2025-10-21 12:31:43 +0000 UTC
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The amount of eyes that stare as I walk down a simple path is unnerving. It’s only a few dozen, but the people they’re attached to are a very strange bunch. Some have a healthy glow and a little extra weight to their faces. Others look so gaunt that I can’t imagine they’ve been eating more than one sparse meal a day. Worse of it all are the families where the looks aren’t equal.
Some parents are so much worse off than their kids. Some kids are worse off than their parents. All...
2025-10-18 11:00:54 +0000 UTC
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It’s utterly unbelievable that we’ve been caught so fast. So unbelievable, in fact, that I refuse to accept that it’s the only truth. Call’s shitting his pants at the prospect of being caught, though, so I have to make sure he doesn’t do anything drastic. No matter what he said about working undercover.
“It’s a… nice place…” I trail off casually and walk towards the available rooms. “But why are there so many cameras here?”
Call’s spit catches in his thro...
2025-10-15 11:24:33 +0000 UTC
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It doesn’t take more than five minutes to spot the first ‘ragged edge’, as Call called it. The road that winds down from the risen hangar is lined with signs, warnings, and simple chain link fences that buzz with magical promise. More than enough to deter someone from getting close, yet not quite enough to seriously hurt anyone that touches them.
Except for the dials. Simple little things hidden in the thin layer of perfectly green grass that whir and click so quietly that I would...
2025-10-14 11:02:18 +0000 UTC
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The robot’s somehow bigger on the inside than the outside. Not much of a surprise considering what I’ve seen so far, but from how Pearl condemns every little engineering choice, it’s supposed to be much bigger. Much, much bigger. And it’s not supposed to look like an office meeting room with a few closed-doors control rooms off to the sides.
Another armored figure looks over at us as we get close. A mess of wires descends from the ceiling to wrap them tight, connect to their arm...
2025-10-12 11:41:24 +0000 UTC
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The ruins of my old home stretch for miles and miles. Not a day’s work has been done on them since I left, but the caution tape and countless military-lite barricades at all the entrances says something important’s still here. I crack the knuckles on my right hand as I stare down at my Class Card, waiting for the message to come in from someone I owe a favor to. And vice-versa.
“Two days? That’s all we could manage?” Jumble grumbles from where she picks at the rubble of my old...
2025-10-10 11:34:24 +0000 UTC
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The doors to a sort of familiar meeting room hiss open and a motley crew of suddenly very tired people stumble inside, myself included. Someone turned the AC up to eleven, which is more than welcome after being stuck outside in the sun for close to two hours. I take a deep breath of sterile, HVAC compliant air and fall ass-first into my designated chair.
Jumble and the Quest watch with a slight uncertainty as Fleur makes herself comfortable against one of the walls–where someone insta...
2025-10-08 11:51:46 +0000 UTC
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I gently reach up to push Jumble’s hand down with a stern smile. She hums deep in her throat and drops the idea of killing all the people on the beach–which I really hope was, at least a little, some kind of weird attempt at a joke.
“I’m not allowed to, so you certainly aren’t allowed to,” Fleur seriously answers Jumble’s question. “Though when they get rude to me, it is quite hard to keep some level of anger in check. But a simple smack or slap from any of ...
2025-10-07 09:44:41 +0000 UTC
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