eligos

Monarch - Whitefall XIII

Despite all efforts to still my reaction, something in my face answered for me.

Melody immediately backpedaled, physically and literally. “Not like that! It’s just—at the center of so much gossip mystery, you’ll have a long line of ladies looking to make an introduction. Some of which you likely wish to avoid offending. Were we to secure a temporary engagement, it would lighten that burden of suitors somewhat. Not completely, but…”

Melody trailed off and p...

Double-Blind CH190

Kid Rock’s muffled, highly processed voice screamed pseudo-rap into my ear. Which led me to the next inevitable question.

What fucking year was it?

With Kinsley’s door, there was a sense of movement. Moving from one room to the next. It didn’t matter that the rooms were far apart, because you still felt that transition, that forward momentum carrying you from point A to point B.

Traveling through the portal on the other hand, was disorienting, verging on disturbing. ...

Double-Blind CH189

Sybil—the woman I previously referred to as Seer—saw us off. The exits were towards the top of the silo in a large cubic room that was littered with narrow stairways that led to various ovals lining the walls, framed by stone. The oval openings contained what looked like a whirlpool of glowing liquid, all draining towards the center from the edges.

There were hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand.

I hung back and studied the scene. Most of the oval portals were slate...

Double-Blind CH188

AN: Got caught up with a difficult chapter, should be a 3-4 chapters of DB in addition to this by Friday. 

In an odd reverse, Nick white-boarded the op while I mostly sat and listened. Not that the plan was perfect, exactly, but we had a familiar cadence when we brainstormed to solve a problem. So, barring any massive oversights, I held my silence while the others threw bristling glares full of barely disguised hostility.

I wasn’t particularly worried. Zero-team lived up ...

Monarch - Whitefall XII

In the stories, they always colored the end of battles and conflict with orange rays of a magmatic sunset. Even the most narrow victory invokes this, no matter how heavy the toil or many the fallen.

Reality, however, is far less glamorous. Dirt and grime gets everywhere, taking any moment of respite or distraction to advance its invasion, coating armor, weapons, and equipment. Soldiers tire. Those who surrender are more often treated to the heel of a boot than seldom antiquated custom...

Monarch - Whitefall XI

Dirt, grass, and plant matter showered the camp. The sparse cries of alarm turned to a dull roar as more and more drephin poured from the tents like angry bees, searching for the source of the chaos. Above, the “berserker pixie” continued her siege, collapsing tents and detonating water supplies, realistically zipping side to side, dodging the projectiles that assailed her.

For an untested idea, the distraction worked far better than I could have hoped. They were too bu...

Double-Blind CH187

Aaron showed me around and told me a little about the history. Apparently, the entire compound was a retired missile silo. After it was decommissioned, it was privately sold, and was in the middle of being converted into some tech bro’s apocalypse hideaway when the dome permanently halted construction.

That was annoying. The government didn’t make a habit of announcing the locations of missile silos, even decommissioned ones. Outside research wouldn't help me. I needed ...

Double-Blind CH186

Sunny loomed over Aaron by at least half a foot, doing the most accurate impression of foaming at the mouth I’d ever seen. Despite the intensity, Aaron seemed unaffected, almost bland, hands shoved in his pockets, even as Sunny bore down on him.

“It’s too fucking soon to move on the tower.” Sunny said.

“I’m aware of your opinion on the matter. And if we’re bitching about expediency, care to explain the User you just railroaded through the process? The same User tha...

Double-Blind CH185

I woke up on the floor. Something soft cushioned my head. Before I collected myself, a scathing pain shot down my forearm. I pulled back the gauntlet far enough to see the source—a forking cascade of Lichtenberg figures on the underside of my wrist to my palm contoured by light distended flesh, red around the edges.

Great. Fucker marked me.

A gloved hand reached out, tracing the pattern. Seer cleared her throat, and when it didn’t seem to work, cleared it again. �...

Monarch - Whitefall X

My father was a sight to behold. And almost entirely unrecognizable. He was unarmored, his expensive tabard tattered and torn, but otherwise unwounded. There was mud smeared across his face and neck, giving him the appearance of a wild man.

I stopped struggling and held my breath.

There was a rustle, barely perceptible. And another. If I wasn’t holding completely still, I would have missed them. A jagged dagger came into view. Its surface was dull, as if the metal t...

Double-Blind CH184

Around us, the funeral ground to a halt. My mother’s cries stopped. The line of never-ending people froze in place, along with everyone else.
Hastur repositioned himself, taking a place beside me. “I’ve been doing some research recently. You can learn a lot about a culture from their fables, and knowing the full picture is kind of my thing.”

“Uhuh.”

I reached out for Azure, Talia. When that failed, Audrey.

None of them responded. I was on my own....

Double-Blind CH183

The roar of traffic beneath the overpass overtook everything else. I blinked several times, the ferocity of the summer sun oddly intense. Beside me, the super-heated asphalt of the recently repaved road let off the slightly sour stench of tar. The straps of my always-too-heavy backpack dug into my shoulders.

What was I… doing?

Right. I was walking home from the school library. I’d stayed behind for a few hours to get some studying in after class and given...

Double-Blind CH182

1.  Keep the affairs of the Order of Parcae shielded and secret from outsiders.

2.  Answer official queries from Order authority figures truthfully and completely.

3.  Limit equipment purchases to the order’s vendors and tradesmen.

4.  Report all active system-assigned quests to a member of the Court or equivalent authority within twelve hours.

5.  Disclose any outside extracurricular activities involving one or more members of t...

Double-Blind CH181

Several strategies came to mind, each quickly abandoned. I’d never dealt with someone as explosively unstable as Sunny before. Judging from the unkempt hair, the blood-soaked state of his shirt, and the way he was looking at me, I was seriously reconsidering if ingratiating myself to Sunny was even worth it. And I couldn’t lean on Azure here—from the hints my summon dropped, he needed as much mana as possible for the geas.

“You’ve looked better,” I said.

“Okay.” ...

Double-Blind CH180

In yet another quirk of inconsistency, the <Allfather’s Mask> stayed stubbornly permeable even as I attempted to tie the blindfold around the back of my head. This resulted in a thin strap of cloth fastened around the mask itself, hiding whatever was directly in front of me and little else—the view both above and below the blindfold was expansive.

Seeing how Nick had applied the blindfold himself, and his squad didn’t seem to notice, I had to as...

Monarch - Whitefall IX

I snapped back into my body.

Disappointment washed over me. The presence of the black beast could only mean one thing. I’d failed. And if the persistent throbbing pain that permeated through my skin and muscle, all the way to my very bones, meant the attempt to teleport through the barrier had damaged my soul, I was in a considerably worse place than where I started.

Only—this wasn’t where I started.

There was a canopy of trees above me.

Eckor was still standin...

Monarch - Whitefall VIII

I approached the forest, trying to keep the direction the woman fled in my mind. My thoughts wandered as I jogged towards the clearing. Demons were immune to the flame. Its only real practical use was to seal them after they were felled. The creatures of the sanctum lived in a mana-rich environment and maintained some resistance to magic.

My time in the enclave and subsequently, the sanctum, had skewed my perspective on the demon flame. It was a harrowing weapon. Effective, but harrow...

Double-Blind CH179

I couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening. I’d fixated so purely on this moment, on every possible, painstaking step I’d might have to take to get to this point and permutation of it that having it happen so quickly and easily felt strange.

And even though I thought I’d considered every possibility, this wasn’t one of them.

I was standing in the center of what was once a large gymnasium, the kind you see in wealthy private schools or anywhere with a ser...

Double-Blind CH178

“This looks more like a bachelor’s pad than a prison.” Kinsley complained. She lugged a bag of freeze-dried food behind her, readjusting her grip. “And seriously? You’re letting him keep his pet?”

I took it from her and placed it next to the litter box and a small basket of cat toys, ignoring shiva as she clawed at the bag, then surveyed the room. There were a handful of chairs, along with a console connected to a small wide-screen tv, and a long twin bed in the...

Double-Blind CH177

Buzzcut entered his home with all the grimness and gravitas of a man marching to his own execution. He struggled with the bag of cleaning supplies under one arm and closed the door behind him.

With an audible sigh, he hung his keys on the steel hook beside the door, then stopped.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Stayed rooted to the spot behind the plasterboard and cocked his head as if he was listening for something.

I’d told Azure to pay special attention to the entrywa...