In those beautiful days come to pass after the happenings in the central-city, after the strange and finally horrible year that befell the heart of the world comes to an end, something new has found its way to the presence of the hearts and minds of those who remain.
While it’s impossible to say for certain, rumors have it that a shift has occurred in the survivors of the event. A shift born not only out of a crushing, desperate fear for survival for themselves and for thei...
2022-03-23 11:10:09 +0000 UTC
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The spring of a year ago had brought with it such an energetic, vibrant, flourishing breath of life into her spirit, which had not known such a sensation for a time as long as she could have remembered during those frightening, but oddly exciting days. That verdant season was followed by the hazy, lethargic summer, which had tampered her new excitable, childish energies with a dampening, sweltering heat, fostering inside of herself a desire to live comfortably; not only by herself, but with t...
2022-03-22 20:16:54 +0000 UTC
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Everything shakes, rumbling and quaking as a gloopy, fetid, wet mass presses itself out from beneath the crust of the world. Thick, viscous black ooze shoots out between the cracks in the paved streets, spraying out through the breaking foundations of the houses like pus from a deeply infected wound, held under pressure.
Fresh flies up a few feet more into the air, looking around at the sinking city around herself, bathed in the light of the witches’ moon. It looks like Per...
2022-03-21 16:53:59 +0000 UTC
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Fresh hovers in the air, looking around at the chaos. People are screaming and running through the streets, flooding towards the castle. Somewhere, nearby, but out of sight, a baby is vehemently crying and not being quieted.
She turns her gaze, looking towards the walls of the city. The eastern flank is essentially entirely untouched, barring the brickwork knocked loose by the battle being fought outside of the city by the hero and presumably the red-wizard. Fresh doesn’t k...
2022-03-20 19:16:00 +0000 UTC
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The familiar sound of metal being bent into shape echoes around the tower, floating together with the fumes of the fires, as the wavy heat of the furnace carries it all up towards the ceiling in a rising draft.
It has taken a while, but they’re starting to finally use the charcoal not just for heating, but for forging as well.
Hineni stops his work for a moment, looking over towards Rhine. The boy is lugging wood around, refilling the charcoal-kiln, after h...
2022-03-19 19:23:11 +0000 UTC
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It’s a shame, really.
Fresh pushes a brick over with her boot, turning around to watch a group of mounted soldiers rushing past the destroyed marketplace, on their way to fortify the walls of the city.
She sighs, turning back to look at the mess.
“I’ll handle the sweeping if you do the dusting,” says Basil.
Fresh laughs, but it’s kind of a pained, saddened laugh. She looks around at the rubble that they’re standin...
2022-03-19 15:33:22 +0000 UTC
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“Ah~” Fresh clutches her hands together next to her face, looking at the world around herself. A color comes to surround them. Just on time. Just as expected.
A chilling hue, indistinct of the color of the hero, who has stopped moving, indistinct of the color of the wizard, who stands there at his side, ready for a fight that Fresh still hasn’t brought to them, makes its way towards them all.
As for the fight, well, see, the thing is, the fight is comin...
2022-03-18 19:05:38 +0000 UTC
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“What are you doing?!” yells Fresh at the snake-like man.
Patala shrugs, lifting his arms and stepping out back through the broken seam that’s ripping through the shield. “Oh, you know,” replies the man coyly. “Just getting some fresh air.” He laughs.
This is bad.
…Sort of.
Sure, the shield was going to fall anyway. But that was going to be tomorrow or maybe even the day after. They needed that time to prepare...
2022-03-17 17:32:40 +0000 UTC
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Hineni smiles, lowering his head in a moment of familiar comfort to smell her hair, which smells distinctly of owl. Obscura lifts her gaze, looking at him with wide, curious, yellow eyes. “Sorry,” says Hineni as they move to the right again. “I was just being weird.”
The owl-god blinks, tilting her head at a sharp angle to examine him carefully. A moment later she stands up tall, sniffing the base of his neck, apparently satisfied with whatever result she finds, as th...
2022-03-16 20:06:57 +0000 UTC
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The mechanical hand swings back and forth, an audible ticking noise filling the basement. Fresh smiles, closing her eyes and listening to the nostalgically familiar sound.
“Well, that’s annoying,” says Jubilee dryly.
“Hmm…” Basil leans over, looking at it. “It reminds me a lot of the stuff back in the west, like the clocks and all of that.”
“That’s because it is a clock!” beams Fresh, holding her hands out to the little ...
2022-03-16 17:10:23 +0000 UTC
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Edited the last chapter, added some lines, cleaned up a lot of stuff.
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“Seriously, you smell,” says Jubilee. “Go take a bath.”
Fresh lifts her arm, smelling herself. “Sorry,” she apologizes. “The underworld was kinda grody.”
“Grody?” asks Basil, confused.
“Ah, uh… it was gross,” says Fresh. “It was all spooky and weird...
2022-03-15 19:25:27 +0000 UTC
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“Hello?” calls Fresh, looking around the settlement.
Stone houses surround her on all sides, built tightly together to form what looks like an outdoor complex of sorts. It is a place of many doorways, but none of them are closed. Rather, every opening is simply carved into the stone and obscured with either what surmounts to a hanging drape of beads or some loose fabric that sways in the odd wind present here. Fat bodied mushrooms grow out of the cracks in the long-untouc...
2022-03-14 10:48:28 +0000 UTC
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Fresh flies across the landscape, leaning down against the front of the broomstick and holding on as she shoots through the colorless night, guided by the glow of the lantern.
She looks down at her hands, which fearfully clutch the shaft of the broomstick. The color has faded from them, just like it has from her sleeves, from the forest beneath herself, the trees of which are now all wrong. The straight, healthy pines that usually surround the city are now odd, crooked things...
2022-03-13 12:38:12 +0000 UTC
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A sweltering heat washes over the man’s face as he stands there, gazing down at the red-hot glowing metal held beneath himself. Hineni turns the thing over, examining it. His eyes scan the piece, searching for something wrong with it.
There, on the far right, there’s something out of place. A segment of the metal there has a sort of a wave to it, but it ought to be straight and smooth.
Lifting the hammer, Hineni continues his work.
“Whe...
2022-03-12 18:46:25 +0000 UTC
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The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
There is something different about this magic, about this spell, about this crystal. There’s something else in the air, as her hands hover above the crystal-ball, the eyes of her friends on her.
“Is this wise?” asks Basil, playing with the bracelet on her arm. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
Jubilee nods, crossing their arms. “This is a terrible idea,” they agree. “But w...
2022-03-12 07:43:57 +0000 UTC
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There are many things that people look for during their lives. Some of these things are of greater meaning and some of these are of lesser. Sometimes it’s something simple, a lost item, a lost person, a lost feeling or a spirit of what might have once been a time that has now passed, despite the many hands of howling men, clawing after those lost days in silent desperation, only for them never to return -
Fresh hums as she works, lifting her gaze to the body-double of herse...
2022-03-11 16:49:40 +0000 UTC
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Soft moonlight shines in through the tall windows of the room, encasing them all.
Fresh lets out an excited noise, gasping. “Jubilee! Jubilee!” she exclaims, pressing her ear against the elf’s stomach.
Jubilee rolls their eyes. “Will you get away from her?” they bark, grabbing her arm and yanking her back a step. “Gods… you have the survival instincts of a slime.” Shamrock turns his head. “Fuck off, Shamrock,” says Jubilee. “I don’t wa...
2022-03-10 07:42:47 +0000 UTC
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Hineni sighs, keeping his eyes closed as his body moves from side to side.
He already knows that he’s dreaming again. That his mind is some place where it ought not to be.
The man stops, or at least tries to. But he finds it hard to do. It’s as if his body were simply following a well-practiced series of motions that he had been following for so long, that stopping and standing still seems a stranger thing to do than to just keep dancing.
2022-03-09 19:52:19 +0000 UTC
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The four of them walk up the street, rising around the bend of the giant tree as they head along the crooked path towards the castle, which sits upon the roots of the world-tree. Fresh lets her hand run along the wood of the giant thing as they walk alongside it. She stares up towards the crown, which hangs monumentally high above their heads.
It’s dying, huh?
The girl frowns, lowering her gaze as they keep on walking. Somehow, this is… sad. Well, obvious...
2022-03-09 07:20:58 +0000 UTC
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Fresh sighs in relief, a sting running through her warm body as she lets her shoulders droop and relax.
“I said hold still!” fusses Basil, taking an unusually sharp tone with her.
Fresh stiffens up, not daring to move an inch anymore, until the priestess is done. “Sorry, Basil,” apologizes Fresh, feeling Basil digging around in the bleeding wound on her shoulder, in an attempt to dig out all of the splinters still stuck in there. It hurts, of course. ...
2022-03-08 15:03:56 +0000 UTC
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The strange girl lets out an excited yelp, hardly able to contain herself.
“Ah~!” she cries in excitement. “I can’t wait!” she says, humming to herself as she walks around the room. The pitter-patter of stubby legs, together with the rustling of foliage fills the space.
Fresh groans, coming back to wakefulness. She feels deeply nauseous and the world still seems to be spinning, despite the fact that she’s laying on the floor. She lifts her gaze, l...
2022-03-07 09:23:32 +0000 UTC
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They sit there in silence, the sound of Basil’s teacup breaking the quiet of the room as she, holding her palm over its top, slowly wobbles it around on its base as she thinks.
“Reincarnation,” says Basil finally. “The core tenet of the faith is that none of this,” she looks around herself. “None of this is a one-time thing.”
“You mean like…” Fresh scratches her cheek. “Like we’ve already had this conversation before?”
...
2022-03-06 18:47:16 +0000 UTC
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The bellows hiss as Rhine presses the weight of his entire body down onto them, wanting to push some air into the furnace.
“Boy, put some muscle into it,” says Hineni, watching him from the other side of the forge, the hammer still in his hand. “We need to speed up.” The man looks around the room. Despite his best effort to keep up with the repairs, Sockel is just too good at accepting business. He’s considering asking her to stop accepting new repairs, but he’s h...
2022-03-05 19:02:37 +0000 UTC
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“- And that’s what you gotta do,” says Fresh, patting the spriggan on the head.
“Pakew?”
She nods. “Yeah. For sure,” she says. “Just apologize.” Fresh rubs her arm, looking out of the window. “Sometimes friends come and go, you know?” she asks, thinking about the fairy, Veli. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. It’s just…” Fresh shrugs. “It’s just that sometimes you’re at a place in life where you don’t fit ...
2022-03-05 12:38:21 +0000 UTC
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Unusual poll today, friends. Dungeon Item Shop is getting closer and closer towards the end of the story with every passing day. Once it's finished, I will have capacities to do other things. As such, I want to get a feeling for the vibe in the room.
Would you prefer that I use the extra headspace to pad the update schedule for Weaponsmith or POW, or should I focus on entirely new material?
2022-03-05 10:11:53 +0000 UTC
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Fresh stands there, downstairs in the store, her hand resting on the empty shelf that needs to be restocked. This was the shelf for vitamins.
She turns her head to the side, staring at Basil’s section, which is still full of medicine, despite the price-tags having been struck through several times and reduced to be more affordable. It isn’t even about making a profit anymore. Fresh is sure that Basil is just trying to find a way to express a kindness for the people of the...
2022-03-04 12:29:57 +0000 UTC
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Fresh sits down by the front door, leaning backwards, her palms resting on the stoop as her eyes wander up towards the world-tree, towards the bubble above and around the city.
It is early in the morning and they’re already open for business, but nobody is coming today by the looks of it. The point has just about been reached, where the general population has been forced to tighten their belts yet another notch, down to their showing ribs. Occasionally, someone will come in...
2022-03-03 09:19:53 +0000 UTC
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Hineni stares at the darkness and the darkness returns the favor, peering his way through the glowing silhouettes of two large, yellow eyes that stare from the distance.
The man looks around himself, gazing down the many roads of the bustling city, before his eyes wander back towards the dark alley in front of himself.
Obscura is gone.
He sighs, shaking his head. A man can’t even leave the house in peace these days. Not that he ever actuall...
2022-03-02 19:23:01 +0000 UTC
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“You still don’t get it, do you?” asks the voice.
Fresh floats there, upside down, her arms crossed as she glares at the entity, which has once again summoned her to it in her deepest dreams. She furrows her brow. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t get it,” replies Fresh. “I’m trying to get a good night’s sleep. We’re opening the store early tomorrow morning, you know?”
The water all around her churns and swirls, her body drifting aro...
2022-03-02 14:02:51 +0000 UTC
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“This is a terrible idea,” says Basil.
“Yeah,” agrees Fresh, her hands hovering above the crystal-ball. “But I really wanna find out too, Basil,” she notes.
The priestess frowns, playing with the red string on her hand. “Some things are better left untested, you know?”
Fresh shakes her head. “What kind of life is that though?” she asks, focusing on the crystal-ball. “What happens if I die and then I get sad because I did...
2022-03-01 19:19:19 +0000 UTC
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