In case you're wondering why this chapter is titled "Siblings 2" despite there not being a "Siblings 1", that's because I titled the B2 Prologue "The Siblings" for the RR release, but there is no chapter title here. Anyways, thanks for reading, and enjoy.
“Oi, Pretty Boy!”
Nick groaned and sat up in his cell. He felt like he had only just fallen asleep, and now Jack was there to give him shit.
Maybe I should just kill him.
If he did it quiet...
2024-12-17 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Elise’s immediate instincts were to run, but she had nowhere to go. The room had only one exit, and the other changeling was standing in front of it. That left her with fighting, but being a full changeling, and one with an apparent specialty, it was a fight Elise would no doubt lose. That left talking her way out of it as her only option. She calmed herself a bit, and as she did, she realized that Mindy’s smile actually appeared genuine, so perhaps there wasn’t actually any danger afte...
2024-12-13 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“What are you talking about?” asked Elise, trying to sound casual.
She used {Charm} and {Suggest} as well, hoping to make her confusion seem more believable, but it was futile. Penelope’s hand was already on her sword hilt again, and Otto looked incredibly unimpressed by her feigned ignorance.
“No point in trying to hide it,” he said. “I’ve known since shortly after you arrived in the city. A knight returned from a monster-infested forest carrying a rabbit with white...
2024-12-10 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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I made a couple minor edits to the previous chapter, such as actually adding in the numbers for her {Fey Bargaining} level-up, as well as adding a quick level up to {Inspect} at the end when she checked the shop owner. In case you're wondering where the other levels came from, she's been slowly increasing the level of {Inspect} just by casually using it around, since it's now uncapped. An in case you didn't realize it was capped, I believe that was added in the dev edits. Basically, skill...
2024-12-06 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Getting back to the Shimmering Lotus was no easy task. The streets were busier than they were during the day, with what seemed like hundreds of people wandering around, half-drunk and incredibly loud. It got to the point that Elise gave up on trying to cross the streets on the ground. She was reluctant to fly too, especially since her glowing wings would draw all kinds of attention at night. That left her with her final option of chaining {Leap} and {Dart} together to hop from roof to roof.&n...
2024-12-03 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Happy Thanksgiving! This isn't really a thematically appropriate chapter, but oh well. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.
“Put the knife down,” said Penelope.
“You first,” said the Boss. “I don’t want any more bloodshed. I surrender, but I want a guarantee that you’re not gonna kill me.”
“Let her go and I’ll spare your life,” said Penelope.
“Swear an oath.”
“I swear that I will spare your life if you surrender now and let that wom...
2024-11-29 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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“Y-Yuri?” asked Annie.
“Yes,” said Elise. “Who is he?”
“He’s a bad man,” said Marco.
“How bad?”
“He’s the worst! He killed Annie’s daddy!”
Elise frowned as Annie lowered her head. On the other side of the bed, Penelope’s knuckles were white as she yanked on the straps of her breastplate.
“While I was out, I overheard that he’s going to be there at the Shimmering Lotus tonight.”
“You can’t go!” exclaimed Anni...
2024-11-26 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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This chapter title may be changed in the near future. Not sure yet. Gotta see how the next couple chapters shake out.
It didn’t take long to find the Shimmering Lotus. It was only a street away, and it stood out like a sore thumb to a hammer. It wasn’t huge, or extravagant, or noisy or anything like that. It didn’t need to be. It was just the only building on its street with a fresh coat of paint and a roof that didn’t seem to be in danger of caving in.
However, w...
2024-11-22 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Penelope set Elise down, then drew her sword and marched toward the open door. Elise thought to herself that she would have chosen a stealthier approach, but in full plate mail, there was no way that Penelope was sneaking up on anyone. Elise hopped behind, though she maintained a few steps’ distance. She didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of whatever might happen in the room, and if whoever was there managed to get past Penelope, then Elise would be there to attempt to stop them. ...
2024-11-19 00:00:10 +0000 UTC
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“W-wait, I’m not an enemy!” said Elise.
“Prove it!” said Penelope. “Who are you? Why are you here? How do you know what happened here? Or were you lying about that too?”
“I- I-” stammered Elise. “I can explain everything! Please put the sword away.”
“Not until you start talking.”
Penelope stepped forward and Elise took another panicked step back. She had no idea what to do. Half of her just wanted to cut her losses and turn tail and run....
2024-11-15 00:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The man was standing in a small clearing with his sword drawn and his back to a tree as a pack of wolves stalked back and forth just outside of his range. As she watched, one of the wolves lunged in toward him, only to veer away from the path of his blade as he swung down to intercept it. Elise had no idea who the man was, but he was the first human other than the Grays she had seen in the forest, and he clearly needed help.
As she flew toward him, another wolf dove in, and backed...
2024-11-12 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to Book 2. We have 2 word chapter titles now! I hope you enjoy.
Dwarven funerals are joyous occasions. They are full of drinking, laughter, good food, good company, and most importantly, more drinking. It’s considered an offense to the dead if the guests wake up the day after and remember what happened. Greta’s was no different.
After she passed, a mortician used a preservation skill on her body, and she was kept in a stone coffin until it was time for the fun...
2024-11-08 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to Book 2! Thanks for reading! This prologue goes over what happened to the Grays after the warg attack. There is a Sophie PoV after the Nick PoV. On Thursday, we'll be back to Elise with the first chapter of B2. I hope you enjoy!
Nick
The day of Greta's passing
After three months of living hell, Nick was about to snap. He hadn’t even had time to process the (probable) deaths of his parents before he was quite literally thrust int...
2024-11-05 00:00:07 +0000 UTC
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This is the official end of Book 1. Book 2 starts on Tuesday
The forest of Greenwood was changing, and Walter loved it. Everything was stronger now, and much tastier. None of it tasted as good as that one rabbit smelled, but it was much tastier than the boring animals that spawned there before.
Right now, he was chowing down on some kind of teleporting deer. It had been an exciting hunt, but in the end, it couldn’t escape Walter. He was the king of the forest. Nothing g...
2024-11-01 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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It's a bit short, but there wasn't really anything left to say
While the relations between the dwarves and the drow had not been repaired, a week of peace was enough that the urge to kill each other on sight had lessened a fair amount. This meant that they were able to successfully deliver a message to Elise while she was with the drow. It took longer than it probably should have, but after a quick game of telephone, Elise finally got the message from one of the scouts. Then, s...
2024-10-29 00:00:09 +0000 UTC
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This is the second to last chapter in Book 1. Before I took it to the dev editor, it actually would have ended a couple chapters ago, but the dev editor felt it was rushed and that I skipped too much stuff, so I rewrote the ending and added a couple chapters. I learned my lesson the first time. No more skipping over important stuff. Anyway, I did a bit of setup for B2 back during the Ostra chapters, and this chapter does a bit more. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
“No,...
2024-10-25 00:00:07 +0000 UTC
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There was no place in the city large enough to host a feast for all its residents, so instead, the feast was split into different sections, each one taking one of the major streets leading to the castle. There was no longer any room to drive a cart, because there were thousands of tables and chairs all arranged in neat patterns in the streets. Elise was amazed that they had managed to accomplish such a feat in so little time. She had seen no evidence that any such thing was being prepared whe...
2024-10-22 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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In Chapter 48, I forgot that I was supposed to give Elise a nature spell at her evolution, so I edited that in. I also made a mistake and uploaded the wrong version of the chapter that had another incorrect skill. Her new skills for evolving are now {Lesser Transformation}, {Tongues}, and {Vicious Bloom}.
It turned out that Naomi was not the person to ask about clothes. She...
2024-10-18 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Values should now be fixed
Some values may be slightly off. I'll go through and verify them all in a few hours
2024-10-15 00:00:08 +0000 UTC
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When I wrote this chapter, I thought "I'll go back and create the character sheets for each form later." It is now later and I have completely forgotten. I'll try to get those out in a couple hours.
When Elise was a human on Earth, she was not what she would have considered attractive. Braces had fixed her buck teeth, and bushy hair hid her overlarge ears, but the rest of her face was still too plain to turn any heads.
Her current form was anything but plain.
...
2024-10-15 00:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Major edits are complete. A few line edits still need to be made to later chapters, but the bulk of it is done.
Reflection
So, I made a bunch of dev edits. I have a bullet point summary of all of them below, but I highly recommend you go back and read through yourselves (At least the section from 14-25). There are over 20k words of new content, and much of it will be important down the line.
These edits are the biggest and most important ones that this story needed, ...
2024-10-11 07:07:41 +0000 UTC
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Patch Notes:
Matched inner monologue and narration to new content in previous edits
Altered Elise's mental recovery from Greta's words to better align with edits. Her motivation for helping the dwarves is much clearer now.
Altered final conversation in light of previous edits
Elise spent the rest of the day in her room doing nothing. She didn’t cry– she didn’t know the Drow well enough to cry...
2024-10-11 06:44:32 +0000 UTC
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Patch Notes:
Largely rewritten, though the sequence of events is almost identical
Conversation with drow removed from beginning (because it was moved to the previous chapter
More guards on the wagon
The vigilantes have names now. The main one has a past with Snorri, the one driving the wagon
Snorri is less cowardly
The plan goes wrong in a differen...
2024-10-11 06:44:23 +0000 UTC
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Patch notes:
Completely rewritten. Please read the whole chapter
Council debate is more rational. Less yelling, more legitimate points
No wasting time on debating what to do with Elise. All business about what to do about the drow prophecy
Introduced option of the dwarves marching on the drow in response to learning of the prophecy
Introduce more conflict on which choice ...
2024-10-11 06:44:11 +0000 UTC
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Edits are complete. It's really late right now though, and I'm tired and don't trust myself to have not messed them up. I'll give them another quick look to make sure there are no glaring issues, and post the rest of them tonight. They'll be up on RR tomorrow, if you want a better reading experience.
Elise rocketed back toward the Mother Tree, and picked the first alcove she found that was out of the way before stopping to work out her Evolution.
System, can you show ...
2024-10-11 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Patch notes:
Elise's thoughts on the alarm altered to fit new situation
Drow break-in moved to castle, instead of city outskirts
Explain Elise's reasoning for agreeing to the fake imprisonment better (not forced. She was curious)
Altered conversation with Marie and Claudia to reflect their goals for breaking into the castle. Also made Elise more intelligent about her interrogation
Patch Notes:
General alterations to align with new content
Elise tells Hallbjorn she's planning to leave, and it is clear that Hallbjorn is willing to assist her if needed
Jonas and Baldur's lines slightly altered to match new characterization
“They went well,” said Elise. “It’s nice being out of the castle.”
“Have you been sleeping well?” asked Hallbjorn. “Any nightmares.”<...
2024-10-09 08:02:44 +0000 UTC
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Not quite all the edits are coming tonight. Rewriting the Council meeting is taking longer than I thought it would, and I had some school stuff to deal with. I'm more than halfway done with it, and then, the rest of the edits should be simple. I'll be posting Departure and Interrogation though, as the editing for those is done (I think).
Quick summary of changes:
Edits are coming along, but I'm not sure if I'll have time to upload them tonight. I should finish them no problem, but then I have to upload them, and then I have to make the rest of the edits to existing chapters, such as renumbering, and I have to replicate those edits both here and on RR, so that will take time. I'll try to get it done tonight, but if not then, it will be done tomorrow at the absolute latest. In the meantime, enjoy the new chapter. Thanks for reading.
Elise...
2024-10-08 00:00:05 +0000 UTC
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This is the last of the new chapters. After this one, there is a brief timeskip (not 3 months), and it picks back up at what used to be chapter 15. Obviously though, the old chapter 15, which is now chapter 20, needed some serious work to line up with the new content. I've already finished editing up through Interrogation, but I want to finish whatever changes I'm going to make to Council, Escape, and Farewell before I post those.
Edits on chapters after those ones should b...
2024-10-06 23:03:29 +0000 UTC
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