Malcolm Tent

Wish upon the Stars chapter 154

We ended up back at the Academy the next day, specifically in the  dorms. We'd decided to ask Celine a bit about whatever F rank events  were going on around here. Chances were good she would know, given her  sources at the school and her position as a diplomat. Of course, some  questions were still unanswered, like how Carl would even get to F rank  in time if he was planning to enroll, but I was pretty sure there would  be ways to help pump someone's stats if y...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 249

June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 2:00 PM EDT

John  hissed in shock at Taylors words. "What? But I thought the Harrowing  track you through your gift? You only tapped into it for a second or two  there. How the hell did they track us down so quickly?" His voice was  shaking with unease, and it struck me as a profoundly bad sign that  people like John and Taylor were this worried about these things. I  ...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 153

We didn't commission new costumes. We went home. Immediately. If Zeke  felt the need to tell me Mr. Jack-tastic was in town now there had to  be a reason for it. I didn't believe for a second he'd just been  informing me because it was amusing. This had some relation to me, and I  wanted to know what it was before those absolute lunatics filled my car  with spray cheese or something. I still had nightmares about the day I  spent in Jerks territory.

Callie a...

Greed God chapter 110

February 13th 2016 Gemworld 6:00 PM EDT

It  was time. I'd been waiting for this for a while. This was going to be  an extremely important step in creating my new kingdom, not to mention a  proof of concept for some very interesting possibilities for my powers.  Granted, it was going to cost a shit ton of points to manage, but it  would be worth it. I laid out a few important items in front of me,  materials I would need to ...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 152

After breakfast the next morning (I made quiche) we headed for the  Academy to meet up with the others. We took the skyride back over,  though we left Cark at home with Cass since he wasn't a student. We'd  promised to hand him a cut of the sales from the hunt, despite him  actively attempting to turn it down. Cark had definitely done his part,  and it would be wrong not to cut him in for a portion.

Even  though he felt like we had done enough for him, I f...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 248

June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 1:00 PM EDT

We  stepped through the door and into a room covered wall to wall with  shelves. When you hear library you think neat and ordered row, dewey  decimal systems, cheap carpet and a unique library smell that's somehow  antispectic without actually smelling like cleaner. This place was  nothing like that. While there were books wall to wall, the shelves were  pa...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 151

We got home in short enough order, Jessie driving of course, and  headed inside to check in on Cass. When we arrived we found her sitting  in front of a huge screen, watching a replay of the stream from the  scavenger hunt. Since she hadn't been able to come with us, she hadn't  gotten to see everything that happened, but watching all of our  adventures during the stream, not to mention the adventures of the other  teams was obviously thrilling to her.

I ha...

Greed God chapter 109

February 13th 2016 Gemworld 4:00 PM EDT

It  took me literally days to finish converting all the bandits to Gemsworn  (I called the village to let them know I'd be away, Barbie had pouted).  Cherry had been right sadly, none of the Barons made it to F rank. They  had been too weak among G rankers for the small bump from the chalice  to get them to the next level, though it had actually had a larger  effect on them than on th...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 150

Tales of your exploits have begun to spread. You have  done a great deed and whispers of your power are disseminating in the  ether. You've received fifteen points of Vitality, twenty five points of  Focus, forty points of Perception, and thirty nine points of Might! My  eyes just about bugged out of my head as I read that, though they were  pretty quickly occupied by rolling up into my the back of my head as my  entire body started to b...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 247

June 3rd 2016 The Doormouse's Door Repository, The Nightside 12:00 PM EDT

Tommy  had been absolutely fascinated by the points gain when the clock ticked  over to noon. I was up to one hundred twenty thousand, and he was  somehow able to sense the shift in my ability. After talking to him more  I started to realize Tommy could sense A LOT of things that most people  couldn't. When I expressed my surprise he just grinned at me."Oh, I've  alwa...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 149

We spent the rest of the week recovering, keeping an eye out for  attackers and preparing for the points boom when the stream came out.  Everyone was excited. Grimmengap was looking at a probably rank up, and  while the rest of us (aside from possibly Cark if he got VERY lucky)  weren't even close to that point, we would all be seeing a huge bump in  strength from the endgame of this little adventure. The only real  question was exactly what we were going to end ...

Greed God chapter 108

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 7:00 PM EDT

"So  you're saying dragons are a big deal here?" I was sitting in Malcolm's  throne inside the fortress, with all the bandits staring at me raptly as  they crowded around me. I was still transformed, since they seemed to  be responding to my antlers and scales, but honestly the abrupt change  in attitude that came with my shift was kind of jarring. As I thought  over it again though, ...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 148

Being unconscious, while not enjoyable, was a pretty convenient way  to travel. I passed out in that hot stuffy cave and woke up again on the  top floor of the hatchery, mask off and costume stripped away so they  could treat my wounds. I looked down at my leg, which while wrapped  mostly seemed to be healing pretty quickly. I imagine Jessie had given  me what she could and hadn't had enough to knit my wounds together  completely.

I looked around for my clo...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 246

June 3rd 2016 Blaiston Street, The Nightside 11:00 AM EDT

We  got out of the carriage on a random street full of unremarkable  buildings. I was a bit confused as to what we were doing here, since  none of these places looked like a library. As the others climbed out I  turned to ask Taylor. "Where are we? Is the library nearby?" I was  anxious to find my cousin. Now that I knew she was in danger I was  worried we might show up too late. Des...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 147

At my word, Cark dropped the shield as soon as the stalactite hit the  ground, letting the huge cloud of ash and debris cover us as everyone  grabbed onto me, and I used Seek Hidden to find a safe place to hole up.  I had to shove a bit at the skill to make such a vague idea work, but I  was able to trigger it and I dragged everyone over to a space where  there was much less ash and no lava splashes cooling after being flung  free of the large pool the Heart was ...

Greed God chapter 107

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 6:00 PM EDT

I'd  honestly expected the big boss to be...bigger. Or more bosslike. Or  just more impressive in general because I honestly wasn't seeing it. The  guy was youngish, probably only a bit older than me, six feet at the  most, and kind of thin. His green hair was tousled in that kind of  careless way that makes it clear he spent at least an hour on it, though  I wasn't exactly sure how t...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 146

Walking into the chamber where the heart was waiting, I wasn't really  sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't what I found. The place  was a war zone. I saw the redheaded form that had to be Fisher  straddling a motorcycle, with his arms outstretched to either side.  Standing off to either end of the chains extending from them were a pair  of people. One of them was the stone woman from before, and the other  was a blue skinned man with a third eye on his ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 245

June 3rd 2016 Julian Advent's Manor, The Nightside 10:00 AM EDT

I  actually slept better than I expected in Julian's house. For some  reason I'd expected to be tormented by strange and disturbing nightmare  visions or something when I slept in the Nightside, but I felt pretty  refreshed. Granted I was feeling a bit weird because to my internal  clock it was ten in the morning but the window still showed that it was  the middle of the night,...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 145

We were all pretty exhausted after the fight. The Wavestriders had  been pretty tough, and this had been one of our first run ins with an  elite Ascendant force from the Academy. If anything we'd gotten lucky  because they weren't taking us seriously, but it had really shown us the  difference between our group and some of the tougher teams out here.  With all our advantages it was easy to consider ourselves the best of  the freshman class, but this fight had sho...

Greed God chapter 106

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 5:00 PM EDT

This  new hydra pouch was officially my favorite thing in the world. Not only  could it hold pretty much anything, it basically resized things as they  went in and out. I expected to have some trouble getting things in  there but I was able to just shove the pouch into the bottom of a pile  and fill the damn thing up. I was able to get everything into the pouch  and then slip it back ...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 144

Despite them being assholes we had Jessie patch them up first thing.  The last thing we wanted was their deaths on our conscience, and since  we triggered their beacons we didn't need to worry about them attacking  us. They were out, and they'd lost all their materials to us, which kind  of sucked for them admittedly, but it was great for us. Obviously they  didn't have the last thing we needed from our list, but they DID have a  bunch or really expensive shit we...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 244

June 3rd 2016 Julian Advent's Manor, The Nightside 12:00 AM EDT

I  felt my another five thousand points drop in, bringing me to one  hundred fifteen thousand, even as we finally arrived at Julian's manor.  As we pulled up outside I had to admit, it was pretty fucking nice.  Manor was a bit of an overstatement. It was definitely fancy and  Victorian, but it was more of a really big townhouse crammed into a row  of other buildings. Still, I w...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 143

Boreas and Raleigh came at us hard, leaving Astara once it become  clear that her wound wasn't going to get worse. There was no bleeding  because the tear in the flesh had been cauterized shut with poison fire,  which while excruciatingly painful, was actually helpful in terms of  keeping her alive. Can't bleed out if your wound is seared shut, and her  body was more than capable of fighting off the poison, though the  process of purging it would take a few minut...

Greed God chapter 105

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 4:00 PM EDT

We  circled around the side of the fortress before entering. I'd been  leaning towards the back, but Cherry had set me straight. "First rule of  being a thief is avoid any obvious entrances. People have this weird  certainty that they're safe as long as they protect the designated  points of entry to their house. The bias makes sneaking in through  alternate routes much easier. They'l...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 142

As described, The Wavestriders (which made zero sense as a name  because none of them had water powers) were a pretty intimidating group,  visually speaking. The leader, Boreas, WAS short, but the green haired  bearded man made up for it with some seriously wide shoulders. The  really huge dark skinned guy, Raleigh (presumably no relation to the  raiders) was holding a huge hammer in his heavy braceleted hands, as  we'd be warned he might, and the small and delic...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 243

June 2nd 2016 The Hawk's Wind Bar and Grill, The Nightside 11:00 PM EDT

The  man who strode up to sit down at our table was...impressive. He was  tall and imposing. His hair and eyes were both pitch black, and his  features were handsome in a serious and resolute way. He was wearing a  waistcoat and a vest, a blue silk cravat the only splash of color in a  sea of dark fabric, and there was an old fashioned opera cloak slung  across his shou...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 141

There were good and bad aspects of finding the location of the  Akkadian Fire Beads (I used Seek Hidden to confirm we had the right pool  just in case). The upside was now we knew where to look, not to mention  the Tinderlings weren't lurking around here guarding this place so we  had time to figure out how to retrieve the crystals. Unfortunately, that  played into the downside of this issue, the fact that they weren't  guarding the magma pool because we couldn't...

Greed God chapter 104

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 3:00 PM EDT

Cherry  and I, as suggested, decided to go alone to scope out the bandits.  Obviously I wasn't letting her travel without protection,  I had no way  of getting another hand of glory, or a pretty psycho deranged enough to  happily and effectively merge with it, so I decided to go with her. We  weren't going to be fighting anything we didn't know we could beat after  all, and Waylo...

Wish upon the Stars chapter 140

Despite my earlier words to Callie, once I found the right spot and  got ready to use Sucking Mud in the way I'd envisioned, I found myself  hesitating. Callie's fear at the idea of being buried alive might be  more extreme than I expected, but as I was preparing to actually  submerge myself in temporarily liquid earth it was hard to ignore the  horrible images in my head. Despite being stronger and faster and more  durable than we had been before, we WERE still ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 242

June 2nd 2016 The Nightside 10:00 PM EDT

We  headed out to the cobbled street with Taylor and John accompanying us. I  half expected us to get jumped by someone when we came out, but  standing in the gas lamps under the massive moon the street was  completely empty. Taylor looked both ways, obviously considering which  way to go, before giving up and putting his fingers to his mouth,  letting out a loud cabbie whistle like you see in old sh...