Lloyd mumbled as he watched Albert disappear from sensor range and approach the Pillar. Something had disturbed the sensors, before it too disappeared into the alien structure.
“There it is. The third party. SpaceOps just arrived.”
“That’s not good.” Samantha said.
“Wh—” Replied Lloyd, startled. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I have my ways.” She said with a smirk.
“You had him make you a wand. Damn you.”
Samantha cocked her he...
2023-07-06 15:44:05 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert began to perform the sequence of mental procedures necessary to successfully teleport. He went through them all with incredible speed, quicker than he had ever managed to, or even thought possible. However…
[Teleportation denied.]
The shield was back online. The clouds reformed instantly, and right as the thunderstorm resumed spewing down torrential rain and lightning, the roar of the dragon shook the valley with more power and hatred than ever before. Th...
2023-07-05 12:40:51 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert watched it all unfold in slow-motion. The dragon roared, and its breath attack was unleashed upon the BSA camp. The military was shooting everything they had at it, but the breath simply obliterated anything in its path. It was made of countless sharp stones, held together by brown swirling energies that crackled like lightning.
One single attack was going to completely lay waste to the camp, and with all probability it would end up killing everyone in it.
Albert couldn’t...
2023-07-05 12:40:33 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s a stupid plan. It might work.” Lloyd said. “Do it.”
Albert laughed. He took out the rocket launcher, both it and its explosive missiles having been upgraded as much as possible with [Magical Item Creation].
“Wish me luck.” He said, and teleported.
He appeared right behind the newly set up military camp, landing in a small puddle of freezing mud. He wasn’t spotted thanks to the rain, but still he didn’t waste any time and readied his weapon, took aim t...
2023-07-03 13:42:52 +0000 UTC View PostSamantha and Lloyd Cromwell both sat in the control room, watching the live video feed coming from a series of cameras embedded in Albert’s combat gear. He had been given every possible tool they could think of, basically everything short of nuclear weaponry was available to him in his inventory.
All of it diligently upgraded to be as effective as possible, leveraging technology and magic both to give him the edge over anything he might encounter. Yet, none of the two people in the ro...
2023-07-02 12:20:43 +0000 UTC View PostAfter seeing that there had been no naturally occurring daily quest for more than a day, Albert literally tried blackmailing the system into giving him one. The system did not budge. Which meant that, with no daily quest, the only things he could tackle were old dusty quests he had been procrastinating for ages. Of them, the viable ones were either the development of lightning magic, or of a skill to rewind time.
Body was there too, the quest asking him to absorb an absurd amou...
2023-06-30 14:03:39 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert arrived at the Lair before noon. He found his mother working on the computers in the newly retrofitted Control Room, connecting a multitude of devices and rearranging the many things in there with the help of the sentient building. As soon as she spotted him coming through the door to check up on what she was doing, however, she rose to her feet from beneath a desk and squared him up, hands on her hips.
“Albert? Where were you? You didn’t return my calls. Did you sleep at the...
2023-06-29 22:48:31 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert decided to walk his way back to the Lair instead of teleporting. A lot happened and he needed some alone time to unwind, to come to grips with all the new changes and, honestly, to regain a sense of connection with reality itself.
There was also another reason, actually. The forest. It was already a beautiful, peaceful sight before. A place where he could find peace and rest his senses, enveloped by nice scents and the call of birds. Now? Now it was completely transformed. It was...
2023-06-28 18:21:02 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert felt the cold, wooden arms of the last surviving dryad wrap around his body from behind like a deadly embrace. He barely had time to realize the predicament he was in before the dryad began to crush him in a death grip, and Albert felt his internal organs shift and his bones strain under the increasing force and pressure.
Pain flared. But, at least until the trauma of the close call with death was fresh, pain was good.
Bullet Time was activated in a hurry, giving Albert a m...
2023-06-26 23:34:39 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert saw reality recede back from him, the world growing distant as if he was driving backwards into a long, dark tunnel. He felt tired. He wanted to sleep.
No.
Not like this.
He was supposed to learn from his mistakes.
Fuck it.
He grit his teeth, letting go of his numbing skill. Pain returned to his body like liquid fire.
The pain was so strong, it was like a bolt of lightning to his brain. Clarity, even if just for a moment, returned.
The healing ...
2023-06-24 16:48:30 +0000 UTC View PostElvenhome village and the Lair were located at the two opposite ends of a narrow valley between tall impassable mountains. The valley itself hosted a variety of ecosystems. There was a conifer forest of tall, imposing trees and sparse underbrush, permeated with the smell of sap and pine needles. There was a river, flowing rapidly with its clear, blue waters.
There were plains and green rolling hills. Prairies of blooming flowers of sweet scents. Patches of strange trees, sometimes tall ...
2023-06-23 15:44:17 +0000 UTC View PostSamantha Cromwell was, until recently, a woman of two opposites.
On the work side of things, she was ruthless and merciless. She never stopped at anything in order to achieve her goals, no matter how deep down the path of evil the depravation of her acts brought her. She was willing to make any conceivable ethical compromise, down to becoming a literal monster, if the cause she was doing it for deserved it.
On the other side, the family side, she was a loving mother. She doted on ...
2023-06-22 11:01:28 +0000 UTC View PostAlbert paced around the Lair, nursing what must have been the worst and most persistent headache he had ever had. If this was what happened after only one use of an unstable skill, he didn’t even want to begin thinking about what would happen when he inevitably would have to use more of them. Be it either to make more wands or because a fight would break out where he needed to use his new powers to survive and/or because otherwise it would all go to hell. He knew he would have to, ...
2023-06-20 16:41:33 +0000 UTC View PostThe car ride seemed to stretch on forever. The bland, flat fields devoid of any natural life after the strange freezes of the last few weeks were brown and barren. The road was bumpy and the asphalt uneven, not yet fixed by the slow machine of bureaucracy in charge of maintaining the roads.
“You need to, Albert. And I sincerely hope that you learned your lesson.” Lloyd said.
He was talking about erasing Marc’s memory of magic, and all that happened after Albert showed it to ...
2023-06-18 14:39:14 +0000 UTC View PostNobody knew of the existence of the biolab.
“You sure it’s safe?” Albert asked.
“Yep.” The Lair replied through the phone, in a similar way to how it used to communicate with Samantha when it was still the Quadrangle.
“Okay then, just wake me up if you need me. Analysis Mode.”
The biolab was a cramped room, much different than what Albert expected when he crossed the threshold of the reinforced double doors leading into the hidden area. It did not appear ...
2023-06-15 20:24:47 +0000 UTC View PostThe heavy slab of concrete began to move after a loud hiss signaled that the mechanisms inside had awakened. Lloyd Cromwell took a step back from the keypad and stared at the moving door with a surprised look on his face, unwilling to accept the fact even as it happened.
“Unreal.” He grumbled. “They didn’t even change the secret passwords.”
“I mean…” Albert chimed in. “Perhaps they don’t even know there are secret passwords.”
“Well, they’ll know aft...
2023-06-14 16:00:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe day Albert dreaded finally arrived.
“What should we watch?” He asked, fiddling with the hard drive plugged into his television.
Marc was sitting on the sofa, staring into nothingness. Albert had been warned about his friend’s… condition, as Marc’s roommate put it. As such, he tried his best to ignore it and be as lively and cheerful as possible. For the both of them.
“How about the new Dungeons and Dragons movie? I’ve heard it’s nice.” He said....
2023-06-13 17:05:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe fundamentals of the new skill the system wanted Albert to learn, Dodge, were all about being fluid like water. About emptying the mind and letting the unconscious take over, trusting one’s instincts.
“I know that you think you are all set now.” The version of the Albert who always spoke in the videos said. “You can take any damage you want, and you won’t even feel it! Then you just heal back to full with the quick healing skill you have. Let me shatter your dreams: you are...
2023-06-12 12:10:28 +0000 UTC View PostThird chapter of the pre-weekend burst of three!
***
Since he had time to waste before having to return home, Albert decided to move on to the other item in his agenda. Considering that he didn’t need to study the teleportation device anymore, he was free to use his daily charge of [Analysis Mode] on the healing skill to bring its level up a bit. His mother seemed to need it, for some reason, but regardless of what she needed it for, Albert had to admit that having a high-level ...
2023-06-08 20:23:18 +0000 UTC View PostThere was an office on the 92nd floor of one of the tallest buildings in Temalas City. And inside that office was a large man, built like a tank yet wearing a blue suit and tie, standing by the window and sipping a glass of bourbon. His guilty pleasure. He needed the booze. He didn’t usually drink at work, but today was a special day because standing across from him was a woman, taller than even he, glaring down at him from behind her thin, rectangular glasses.
She went to stand next ...
2023-06-08 20:22:46 +0000 UTC View PostQuest: Coreful Setup Complete!
· The Quadrangle core is now in your possession, but after it was removed from its cradle it fell into a dormant state. It will need additional materials in order to be awakened from its dormant state.
· Retrieve 1kg of Plutonium-239
· Reward: Dodge skill video.
“Later.” Albert said, delaying the appearance of the incoming skill video.
He would have never guessed, al...
2023-06-08 20:22:07 +0000 UTC View PostNew Quest: Leviathan Diversion II
· Acquire AM-III glass.
· Reward: Minor ring of protection upgrade.
“It’s a very particular kind of glass made of carbon.” Albert’s mother said, after he told her about the quest. “Very strong. Should be something like ten times as hard as steel. I will ask Transit if they have it, or if they can acquire it for us after we get the plutonium.”
“Alright.”
“Te...
2023-06-07 20:27:08 +0000 UTC View PostThank you to all new patrons ^^
Quest: Leviathan Diversion I Complete!
· Acquire 25 kilograms of pure elemental iron.
· Step 1/?? for the construction of the Time Severed Containment Field to house the Eggs.
· Reward: Skill autolearn: Earth Shard.
New Skill: Earth Shard I
· I: Summon...
2023-06-06 16:19:45 +0000 UTC View PostThere were memories, tucked away in a remote corner of Samantha Cromwell’s mind. Memories of a childhood she could not remember, and of which she always thought little. Save for the vague recollection of having had a loving father, a missing mother, and some sparse friends, she always thought her childhood had been normal enough, like so many other children who had to grow up in not so normal homes, and who managed to carve out a life of normalcy for themselves.
Most of these memories...
2023-06-05 20:35:31 +0000 UTC View PostSamantha Cromwell sat on one of the tall kitchen chairs, perched on it like an angry vulture, slowly sipping a glass of whiskey. She was not one to drink, and the first sip of alcohol in several months didn’t feel nearly as good as she had hoped it would.
Who was she kidding? She hated whiskey, and she was only drinking it because she had seen her father do it back in the day.
She wondered whether men even liked drinking spirits or if they did it just to get some alcohol in thei...
2023-06-04 15:49:42 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes there are habits, customs that people follow, thinking them as absolute rules that cannot be broken, bent or negotiated. Ignoring that, in most cases, what are thought to be ironclad rules are simply assumptions one makes about their situation. It’s a bad habit, so to speak, of the brain trying to save on computational power, unable to understand the difference between correlation, causation and imposition.
Usually a person goes on with their life unaware of the problem. The...
2023-06-03 12:22:08 +0000 UTC View PostDungeons are a strange place. Are they natural phenomena, born out of mana, or are they put there by higher powers? Are the cores sentient? The Quadrangle surely looks like it is, but nowadays AI has shown us that it doesn’t matter whether it looks like something is sentient or sapient or at least generally intelligent, the truth is that you never know.
For instance, is the dungeon Albert was exploring sentient? Who knows? One would need to see what’s it like to be a dungeon core, a...
2023-06-02 14:46:43 +0000 UTC View PostDarkness cleared, and vision slowly returned. There was a magical density to the air, on this side of the portal, that was missing in the real world. Its taste was, just like on the other side, similar and yet different from the magic the surrounded Tryte. If Albert had to guess, this was an astral event of some sort, but it was not connected to whatever dimension the Lithoids inhabited.
What this meant in the grand scheme of things remained to be seen.
[You have entered t...
2023-06-01 13:25:41 +0000 UTC View PostFlight Oceanic 416 was several hours away from its destination of Singapore. And, it appeared for a good moment that it was destined to never arrive there. Not in one piece. Vibrations shook the cabin and the passenger space, as screams and yells of terror were drowned in the noise. The metal of the plane buckled and bent, almost to the breaking point. Albert could do nothing but watch it all unfold in slow-motion.
He was a moment away from teleporting back home to safety. The magic bui...
2023-05-31 11:44:20 +0000 UTC View PostPeople walked about. They moved like a herd of chaotic animals, going here and there, occupying whatever spaces they were allowed to and queueing up in interminable, long lines whenever a new gate opened. Albert had never been to an airport before, but he didn’t find it confusing. He thought he would. But he didn’t.
Not as much as he would have if he had been there without the various magical tools at his disposal, tools which not only served an actual purpose in helping him around ...
2023-05-29 20:35:12 +0000 UTC View Post