Jason heard Hiro, Ken and Farrah having a discussion as he trudged through his houseboat toward the bar lounge.
“…point of setting it up this way is so that it can be modified as magical conditions change,” Farrah was explaining.
“Do you expect magical condition to change?” Hiro asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Farrah looked up at Jason as he made his way through the door.
“For now,” she said, “let’s just say that I’m confident they will.”...
2020-11-05 22:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post“I told you before we went on our helicopter ride that you were a tricky one to find a combination for,” Jason told Amy. They were in her kitchen, along with Farrah, while Kaito watched the girls in the back yard.
"The issue is that you don't have the training to be a fighter," Farrah said. 'With utility sets, the best bet is to leverage life skills but you're a politician. I'm not saying that doesn't involve skills, but not the kinds that are as easy to leverage as being a cook or ...
2020-11-04 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you sure you want to do this?” Farrah said as she and Jason drove to Kaito and Amy’s house. Given the short distance, they didn’t portal over so Jason had it ready in case of emergency.
“No,” Jason said. “I still say we could go with the chimera confluence for Kaito.”
“We’ve been over this,” Farrah said. “That’s an adventurer’s confluence.”
“We could put him in front of some monsters,” Jason said. “He might thrive. Think about it. Ven...
2020-11-03 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“I have some mixed feeling about this essence,” Jason said, turning the translucent cube over in his hands.
They were still in the ritual room. Hiro's essences had been done and they had moved onto Ian. It was the third essence for Ian's combination after they had already imbued him with the first two.
Jason had kept the renewal essence that Taika declined, and given that Ian was a doctor, healing seemed the obvious power set to aim for. There were many potential healer combin...
2020-11-02 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“You can’t just go around killing people,” Erika said.
She stood next to Farrah as Jason stepped off the surface of the water, rainbow smoke rising up behind him.
“If you’re going to go back with us to my world,” Farrah said, “Then you’ll have to learn the same lessons that he did. Starting with yes, he can just go around killing people.”
“That wasn’t a person,” Jason said. “It was a projection. I didn’t kill her so much as smash her phone.”
... 2020-10-30 22:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Well,” Jason said, sitting around a table with three women. “This is complicated.”
“I may be getting used to being the most ignorant person in the room,” Erika said, “but that doesn’t mean that I like it.”
“How drunk are you?” Jason asked Farrah.
“I’m fine,” Farrah said, moving her head like she was trying to balance it on her neck.
“Me too,” Jason said. “I mean, yes, I wore a suppression collar to turn off my poison resistance, but I...
2020-10-29 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostAs everyone packed up to go home, Greg found Jason in the kitchen.
“This was really great,” Greg told Jason. “Most of our old friends left for university and never came back, and I’ve never been great at making new ones. There was Amy, but after what she did, forget that.”
“You came back so you could inherit your dad’s law firm, right?”
"Yeah, but that's not working out. David's big-city career didn't work out, so he's back. Dad hasn't exactly said it, but he...
2020-10-28 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDespite their outward dismissiveness, Jason and Farrah had no trouble finding challenge from silver rank monsters, although in very different ways. Farrah was all about frontloading damage, making endurance the key for her while Jason was just the opposite.
The start of a fight was the most dangerous time for him. The enemy was at their strongest, with full reserves, while his abilities lacked immediate impact. His one instantaneous damage power required considerable setup, which left a...
2020-10-27 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostIn the office at her restaurant, Erika was talking to Jason through an incarnation of Shade. After weeks of such communication, it was starting to feel normal which, when she thought about, was rather concerning.
“I told him you had contacts,” Erika said. “What was I supposed to say? That your eyes changed when you became a gestalt entity of body and spirit? I don’t even know what that means.”
"Well," Jason said, "it basically means that… actually, I'm still kind of fi...
2020-10-26 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostOn the top deck of the houseboat, Asya, Farrah and Jason were enjoying lunch as they looked over the final version of the agreement with the Network.
“While we have the agreement documented,” Asya said, tapping the papers on the table, “it’s a fiction, legally speaking. What court could we pursue violations in? In the end, it’s just a symbol of intent.”
“I like that though,” Jason said. “For all intents and purposes, it’s a handshake deal. It’s held together ...
2020-10-23 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe film crew set up next to the Surf Club, with a crowd on onlookers gathered around. The kitchen set was put out, with the fridge and oven hooked up.
“Today we have a special guest,” Erika said to the cameras. “As viewers of my previous program may remember, I would occasionally have my little brother on before his untimely passing. As it turns out, he faked his death in circumstances he is yet to adequately explain, so for the first time on Beachside Kitchen, please welcome my ...
2020-10-22 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostWhile Farrah and Jason fought the silver-rank monsters, Cotsworth looked on through the monitor displaying what the camera drone above the fight recorded. Although the transmission was occasionally spotty due to magical interference, he had a fairly clear vantage on what was taking place. Mel was standing next to him, likewise looking on.
“They certainly don’t fight like us,” she said. “Taking on multiple category threes is incredible. I can’t imagine keeping up that kind of o...
2020-10-21 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThree black, oversized dirt bikes roared across the red landscape. One had an uncertain-looking woman, another a shadow figure and the third a man in a robe trailing a cloak of darkness and starlight behind him like a comet’s tail.
“Your vehicle forms aren’t normally this loud,” Jason shouted.
“I will remind you that I transform through your power,” Shade said. “If any of the traits I take on are yobbish in nature, while I might be the one bearing it, you are the one...
2020-10-20 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostJason ignored the sound and motion of the transport helicopter as he read from the book in his hands.
“Is that Pashto?” Aram asked loudly over the helicopter, peering at the open pages.
“Yep,” Jason said.
“You speak Pashto?”
“I speak everything,” Jason said. “Magic powers, you know?”
“Right. Why are you reading a book in Pashto?”
“It’s a favourite of mine. I finally get to read it in the original language.”
“What’s it...
2020-10-19 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post“That’s a neat bit of work,” Farrah said, taking in the Network’s Sydney branch with her magical senses. Standing outside the building, she observed the magical array shielding the upper levels. “Whoever put this in place did a great job of working with the low magic area and interweaving low-level magical formations. You’d still need spirit coins to maintain it with the magical density this low, but it must be very efficient.”
“By necessity,” Asya said. “The Sydney ...
2020-10-16 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostShade informed the family members who were variously preparing dinner, looking after infants or watching recordings that Jason was about to emerge and they should gather in the bar lounge. As such, they were waiting for him when he stepped out, Farrah right behind him.
“Firstly, my previous statement about asking questions before watching all the recordings stands. Second, this is Farrah. You should all recognise her by now. Let me be plain in stating that she is family. Anyone who ha...
2020-10-15 22:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostJason’s spirit vault had undergone considerable change, which he discovered on his first entry since accepting the World-Phoenix’s power. Fusing the physical and spiritual aspects of his being had a considerable impact on his spiritual space.
The garden itself didn’t occupy any more space, which seemed to be a function of rank, but it was much changed from his last visit. It was now a largely hanging garden, with flower-wreathed bamboo trellises hanging over long sections of flags...
2020-10-14 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAmy and Kaito watched Farrah go back into her cabin.
“Do we know who that was?” Kaito asked. “She seemed kind of familiar.”
“It was hard to tell with the Japanese horror movie hair, but yeah.”
“Wait,” Kaito said. “What about that woman from Jason weird hologram recordings? The one he said shoots lava.”
“I think you’re right,” Amy said. “What the hell has Jason got himself involved in?”
“Was she meant to be in another universe?” 2020-10-13 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Jason had his own unfortunate experiences with how essence users dealt with extreme trauma following periods of captivity. In the time he had spent recovering, he had learned a lot from the priest of the Healer and Rufus' mother, Arabelle Remore. In the weeks he had spent receiving their care, they had elucidated how the response and recovery of essence users tended to go.
Essence users went through their own variation on shock, as compared to normal people whose souls had not been magi...
2020-10-12 22:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostFarrah felt a freakishly strong aura from above and looked up to see a sight that stirred a strong memory. A man was slowly descending through the air using a cloak made of star-filled darkness. He landed lightly on the bridge, in front of the shadow creature. Aside from the cloak, he was wearing dark combat robes and a sword at his hip that she immediately recognised. He pushed back the hood and she saw a face both familiar and alien.
The shadow man, Shade, had said the man’s name bu...
2020-10-09 20:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe pair monitoring the aperture from inside the astral space weren’t even iron-rankers. Two of Shade’s bodies shot out from Jason’s shadow as he emerged from the aperture and used mana-draining attacks, which knocked them unconscious as they had no mana to drain. Jason barely paid them attention as he conjured his starlight cloak and looked around.
The astral space seemed to be an interconnected collection of dilapidated manors and crumbling castles, rising up through an impenetr...
2020-10-08 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe aperture was in a tent that had been set up around it, with a makeshift military camp assembled around that. The story was the usual terrorism readiness exercise. The tent was almost of circus proportions, easily fitting a Network ritualist, Hector, Espinoza, plus Jason, with Asya as an escort and Abreo, with a pair of burly bronze-rankers as an escort. On top of that was the ritual circle around the aperture.
The aperture normally would have been invisible, but the ritual circle dr...
2020-10-07 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostIn the time it took Jasons plane to arrive in France, circumstances on the ground had gone through significant changes. The Sydney Network team was met by a driver who took them in the direction of the Networks Lyon branch to participate in an operational briefing.
Its a beautiful city, Jason said as they drove.
Itd be a nice posting if the local branch wasnt a nest of vipers, Asya said. Weve come a long way from debate club. Back then, I never would h...
2020-10-06 22:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe transport helicopter touched down at a small airstrip in Sri Lanka. It was small and set amongst an expanse of grassland. The air was hot, thick and heavy with a tang of fuel, although the helicopter stirred it up. There was one hangar and a small, prefab office building. The runway itself was a line of hard-packed earth rather than asphalt.
Jason and the other survivors of the plane attack disembarked the helicopter and were met by Chathura, a local Network agent. He started leadin...
2020-10-05 22:01:42 +0000 UTC View PostTwelve hundred kilometres is the best you can do? Miranda complained. And you have to wait an hour between portals? Thats pathetic.
Pathetic? Ramon asked incredulously. Lets see your portal power, bitch.
Remy, calm down, Sebastian said, then turned on Miranda. And you keep your damn mouth shut. You dont like it, go catch a plane.
I though wed be portalling straight to France, she said. Where even are we?
Kakadu National ...
2020-10-02 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostJason had just dropped lightly down to the lower deck as the boat rolled under his feet on the open ocean. The three men were startled as the object of the search they just ordered alighted right in front of them. He pushed the hood of his cloak back off his head to reveal his face and they looked each other over.
Jason saw that the magic flowing through them was complicated and felt more like the magic of an item than a living thing. Essence users, vampires like Vermillion and t...
2020-10-01 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostJason came to his senses, which were an incoherent storm of sensations as he tumbled wildly through the air. His head was ringing, wind roaring over his body and through his ears. All the could see was a spinning blur of sky.
His starlight cloak manifested and he righted himself with a jolt as he moved from a tumble to a controlled glide, the cloak spreading out to either side like wings of night. Getting control of his descent was far from a smooth process as he was so far above...
2020-09-30 23:00:48 +0000 UTC View PostAfter deliberating, Jason decided to only leave one of Shades bodies behind, in order to keep tabs on things in his absence. He had no idea what he would face in France but when things inevitably went wrong, he wanted his options as full as possible. Before leaving for Sydney, he portalled to his sisters house. As he emerged from the portal, Erika gave him an unhappy look.
Uncle Jason, Emi scolded.
He noticed that the family was sitting on the floor around his porta...
2020-09-29 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostIn the houseboat, Erika pulled up Jasons number on her phone.
I would recommend against calling Mr Asano at this moment, Shades voice came from behind her, making her jump.
Why not? Erika asked as she turned to look at the nerve-wracking figure. Jasons bizarre yet ever-courteous shadow monster friend was very high on the list of bizarre things she needed to adjust to.
Mr Asano just received some important news.
More important than his mother,...
2020-09-28 23:05:59 +0000 UTC View PostErika stormed upstairs and threw open the door to her daughters bedroom. Standing in front of a monitor, Jason and Emi were holding plastic guitars and playing a rhythm game. Taika was sitting on the floor behind a plastic drum kit. All three turned to guiltily face the door.
Jason, Erika scolded. We have thirty family members in the back yard and youre in here?
Those may not be unrelated facts, Jason said.
Well, nanna just arrived, so get your arse ...
2020-09-25 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post