Hineni exhales, watching his breath leave his body as he stands down in the ice-cellar. The damp vapors loosely drift towards the ceiling, the disturbed frozen constructs around himself crackling from the weight and the heat of his body.
“— Go away,” says Eilig from inside of her doll-house, before he has the chance to say a word.
Hineni rolls his eyes, walking towards the small home. “Is there ever going to be a day when it’s ‘oh, hi! I missed yo...
2022-07-28 16:29:43 +0000 UTC
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I just wanted to put this out there for you to see. It isn't going to be ready for a while yet. First I have a lot of Weaponsmith and Sunflower to write haha =)
2022-07-27 19:11:48 +0000 UTC
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Weaponsmith chapter is tomorrow, sorry! I have a crushing deadline to deal with at the moment. Take this instead for today please. It is part 1 of chapter 1 of a new story to come out ‘in the future’. The real chapter 1 will be longer, but this is what I have at the moment. =)
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I used to want to be a poet as a child, but people always made fun of me — So after I got older, I decided to be...
2022-07-27 19:08:12 +0000 UTC
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If you read chapter 39 on Patreon, then please read the latest release of it on Royalroad, as I added two brand new sections with Red and with Isaiah =)
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54046/final-core-a-holy-dungeon-core-litrpg/chapter/956617/chapter-39-a-sense-of-community
__________________________________________...
2022-07-26 17:58:23 +0000 UTC
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“Closing the guild would be a real dick move, honestly,” says Sockel. “After we went through the trouble to shut the frogs down and become the only one left in the neighborhood.” She rubs her bloodshot eyes and grabs her glass, taking a drink.
Hineni nods, continuing to cut his food. “That’s why we’re not closing the guild down. We’re just going to make it somebody else’s problem.”
“M-Moving is really exciting, isn’t it?” asks Seltsa...
2022-07-25 18:27:25 +0000 UTC
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Hineni lets his hand rest on the walls of the house.
As far as he can recall, he had spent his early years here.
Then, after the incident and his currently missing memories of childhood, it is the place that he had returned to. These walls sheltered him, protected him. But they also hid him away from the world.
This is the home his mother, the woman who had tried to sacrifice him as a baby to the owl-god, but had a change of heart, brought hi...
2022-07-24 19:39:09 +0000 UTC
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Great news! FINAL CORE is getting an audiobook adaptation! I'll keep you up to date =)
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My hands are bound, but my spirit remains free.
As I was born into this world, a piece of it, like a seed that was to grow into a tall tree; so do I leave it, felled.
I do not regret the choices that I have made to bring me here.
2022-07-23 19:50:12 +0000 UTC
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You don’t know what you’ve done.
I’m not going to lose my faith. I’m not going to stop believing in what I have left to believe in. You won’t change my mind, no matter what happens. I know what I saw. I know what I felt and heard and sensed.
— It was real.
He was real.
He was… he was real… I know it. I was there… I was… I wa...
2022-07-21 19:46:21 +0000 UTC
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THE CHAPTER STARTS FURTHER BELOW
If you don't have access to the tier 2 poll for ability choices, these are the abilities we were able to choose our one newest ability from this time, after the Perchta fight. =)
- [Holy] -
Grand Icon – When the name of Isaiah is uttered outside of the dungeon’s territory, the tower will passively receive experience points. The further away this happens, the larger the gain of experie...
2022-07-20 19:06:20 +0000 UTC
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Hineni looks over the map of the nation that he has spread out over the workbench in the forge.
Ever since the guild had gotten so busy, finding a quiet spot at one of the booths in the restaurant has quite literally become impossible, sadly. Thankfully, the forge is still a possible option of retreat.
His eyes scan the map.
There are five notable cities here. One in the west, by the mountains. One in the east, by the coast. One in the south,...
2022-07-20 16:21:52 +0000 UTC
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I am a sunflower.
Night has drawn to a close all around us and my friend, haggard and scraggly like a hunted animal that has been on the run for days, scours the area.
She is hungry.
In her years of healthy growth without me, Burch has become competent as a scavenger.
Just as she had become competent as a hunter, under my tutelage in our last adventure towards paradise.
— And this, despite the fact that sun...
2022-07-19 19:32:17 +0000 UTC
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Times come and go as the work on the house continues. Days pass. Then weeks.
Hineni stands downstairs in the restaurant, admiring the fully renovated and rebuilt structure. There isn’t a single indication left that there had ever been an attack and, in fact, the house looks better than ever. He thinks it looks great now.
— But not everyone agrees.
Hineni lifts his gaze, looking at the owl that is perched in the rafters, hissing and clicki...
2022-07-18 19:36:04 +0000 UTC
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There is a silence in the air.
No fires rage and no voices scream. No boots trod along the sooty streets and roads. No doors creak and windows slam shut.
It is over.
Hineni sits on the leg of an overturned, ripped out booth and looks around the destroyed restaurant. The place is torn apart entirely. The fastened tables are pulled free from the ground. The front-desk is broken apart and stuck halfway into the ceiling. The ledgers and paperwork...
2022-07-16 20:18:01 +0000 UTC
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The demon-king’s dungeon was the first and only dungeon to ever explicitly seek the destruction of the peoples of the world.
Most dungeons are content to just live their lives until disturbed, like a hive of bees.
But the DARK-dungeon was a different beast. It wasn’t just a dungeon, it was a lair, a den of brooding evil in which the greatest threat our forefathers had faced was spawned and then, eventually, des...
2022-07-15 19:46:28 +0000 UTC
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“No, listen. Hear me out,” asks the blue-haired boy. He rubs his lip with the back of his thumb. “What if we just… bricked it shut?” He asks, staring at the dungeon-gate.
The elf, standing next to him, sighs and shakes her head. “The dungeon? You’re asking me what would happen if we bricked off the dungeon-gate? The whole thing?”
“Mhm,” replies the human boy, nodding.
2022-07-14 18:27:02 +0000 UTC
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Hineni jumps over the front-counter, heading into the library. Someone yelps in surprise on the other side.
“- Seltsam!” he barks. “Get Eilig and run upstairs. We’re being attacked.”
“…Huh? What?” asks the librarian, still dazed from just waking up. “- By the frogs?”
“Worse.” Hineneni narrows his eyes, turning back to look out into the restaurant. The glass of his favorite window shatters, as someone blasts it in with ...
2022-07-13 19:48:26 +0000 UTC
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“Crystals of thin ice slowly fall from the darkness above my head.
However, I do not understand how they could do so, as I know that up there is nothing but solid rock for a good kilometer up, at least.
My campfire wavers in the wind present here in the frozen wastes. Yet this airy presence has no business being down here either. Where is the wind coming from? We’re underground. It just doesn’t make any sense...
2022-07-12 20:02:31 +0000 UTC
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There’s something missing.
Hineni doesn’t really know what it is, but… there’s just… something missing.
“What’s up?” asks Rhine, watching him shuffle around the house.
Hineni looks around himself and then looks back towards Rhine. He was just walking past his door in the upstairs corridor. “Nothing,” replies Hineni, looking back forward. “Just trying to find something.”
“Oh.” Rhine stares at him fo...
2022-07-11 19:57:55 +0000 UTC
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Darkness.
Of the many elemental attributes present in the world, darkness is by far the most controversial.
The core elemental attribute behind all magic is the attribute ‘Arcane’. Arcane is pure, unadulterated magic, untouched by any element or spice.
Below that, it diverges into several fundamental core elements. For example -
Holy : Air : Fire : Nature : Ice : Water : Dark
These are simply some of the ...
2022-07-09 20:08:54 +0000 UTC
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Hineni stands in the library, flipping through pages in a book.
It is the middle of the night once more and he couldn’t sleep, his pestering thoughts nagging at the back of his mind.
He flips a page, looking at the grotesque illustrations of some distorted monster. Then, he flips over to the next one. Then the next one.
Each image shown in the book is some horrible, gangrenous monster. They are creatures, said to roam in the deep forests of...
2022-07-09 18:29:50 +0000 UTC
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Recipe: Brew of the Witch’s Moon
- 120 mL of moonwater
- One whole shamrock
- One leaf of basil
- Six drops of blackwater
- Stir into a bowl
- Ground lower half in mortar. Do not detach from the rest of the body.
- Add in to the mixture
2022-07-07 19:53:33 +0000 UTC
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Hineni wanders down through the restaurant, a small watering can in his hands as he wanders past all of the many plants that adorn the windowsills and tables, watering them. It feels somewhat ironic to do, as just outside, rain is striking against the glass. It’s shortly before they’re opening for the day and he’s just helping to get everything ready now.
“What’s with the weather these days?” asks Hineni, shaking his head. “It feels like we get rain at least onc...
2022-07-06 20:00:09 +0000 UTC
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How many bodies do you think are down there?
How many dead men, women and children do you think are laying in that hole? Their carcasses being dragged off into the shadows by clawed hands?
People with dreams and hopes. People who’ve spent their lives feeling joy and pain and love and fear and every emotion available to the palette of the living — And now, they’re gone.
Now, they lay down in that hole.
How many do you think ...
2022-07-05 19:29:59 +0000 UTC
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“F-” Hineni clenches his mouth shut, catching himself before he lets out the swear. “Sorry.”
The books on the other side of the bookshelf move around as someone plays with them. “It’s okay…” says Seltsam.
Hineni’s eyes wander back down towards the old plan of the neighborhood she had dug up in a book on the city. It was written not long before the traumatic events of his childhood, so if the orphanage existed, in all likelihood, it would be ...
2022-07-04 19:14:59 +0000 UTC
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Dusty particulate floats through the air as Hinnei stands upstairs by himself in the attic, looking around the old room.
He had spent his childhood here, sometimes just hiding away from the busy, loud world below and then other times just because it was where his family was. This space has always been comfortable and safe. The sensation of secure coziness is only aided by the ceilings that are lower than he remembers them being, as well as the walls, which are closer in than ...
2022-07-04 18:15:51 +0000 UTC
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The worm crawls in the apple.
Burch looks downward, staring at the half-eaten, red fruit in her hands.
She has mischievously stolen it from the thick, fat boughs of a healthy tree we have passed.
— I am glad to see that my friend still has her sharp eye for the act of the harvest.
However, the thing she has taken, the apple, which was one of many that now accompany me in the rucksack, has a worm inside of it.
...
2022-07-03 19:22:59 +0000 UTC
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Dungeons often differ in their approaches to dungeon-design.
Some suffer from the classic problem of choosing form over function. Others suffer the opposite weakness; the focus on pure, cold-blooded efficiency over a little sense of artistry.
Form-focused dungeons tend to be lower leveled than their pragmatic counterparts, the function-focused dungeons. Yet there are more of them alive in our world.
This might appear counterintuitive at first, ...
2022-07-02 19:53:56 +0000 UTC
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Rhine stares at him. “…Why are you upside down?” he asks.
Hineni crosses his arms, looking down at the boy. He’s standing upside down on the ceiling, his boots firmly attached to the rafters above the restaurant. “Don’t worry about it,” replies Hineni.
“Are you sure?” asks Rhine. He rubs his lip with the back of his thumb. “I feel like this is something I should be worrying about.” Rhine turns his head to look at Sockel, who is sitting b...
2022-07-02 17:04:12 +0000 UTC
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The life shattering star cries out hallow;
Shaking deep the time-stained bones of the weary dead;
As carves out the light a way towards tomorrow;
As from the heavens, it shines — just above my head;
And as it flies, not grazing past my gaze, but rather straight towards it;
I grip my fists and hold them tight, as I turn quickly about, so as my enemy to face;
The thing that from on high, now fa...
2022-06-30 18:59:08 +0000 UTC
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Sockel grabs his hand at the wrist. “No magic,” says the elf.
Hineni blinks, looking her way. “What?”
“No magic,” she repeats, shaking her head and pushing his arm back down. “Kill it without your freaky spells.”
“They’re not freaky,” replies Hineni. “It’s just ash-magic.”
“’Just’,” says Sockel, rolling her eyes. “You hear that, Rhine?” she asks, looking towards the boy, who is down in ...
2022-06-29 19:15:25 +0000 UTC
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