Shirtaloon

Chapter 231: Trading Safety Today For Death Tomorrow

The team had been aware going in that there were locations within the city that were more than just empty ruins. A number of trial-goers had reported such locations to the Magic Society and Emir’s people, who had undertaken a large-scale debrief of the iron rankers who survived the trials. In addition to monsters unlike those found elsewhere in the city, such locations held unusually valuable treasure.

Clive had been one of those who encountered such a place during the trials, w...

Chapter 230: Terms of the Pact

“Those vampiric monsters were a bit disappointing,” Jason said. “They didn’t seem so much vampiric as hung over. A bit peaky, bloodshot eyes. They didn’t even summon any bats.”

“They’re spider vampires,” Neil said. “Why would they summon bats?”

“Well they didn’t summon any spiders, either.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Belinda said. “Didn’t the spider kind of summon them?”

“That’s a good point,” Jason said.

The team had extr...

Chapter 229: Brave Little Tailor

Clive stood up from where he had been crouching to examine one of the empty web sacks. The clearing turned out to only be the beginning, with empty web sacks hanging from trees or fallen to the ground, extending well back into the jungle. Clive had gone over them all, carefully examining the interior of each one.

“Unless there are some other people here that we weren’t aware of,” Clive said, “I would say that all of our cultists were snatched up by the blood weaver. The web s...

Chapter 228: The Worst Possible Option

With a fully-fledged bronze ranker in their number, the team felt more secure as they made their way to the city’s interior. They progressed more swiftly than any of them had during the Reaper trials, for two main reasons. The first was confidence. Rather than scattered across the city and forced into makeshift teams, they had allies they knew and could rely on. Even a powerful ally like Valdis was no substitute for a true comrade when life and death were on the line.

The second...

Chapter 227: A Man Transformed

The team congratulated Jason as another of his abilities reached bronze rank during his evening meditation. As they were all perpetually using the party interface, they had shared the notification.

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• Ability [Blade of Doom] (Doom) has reached Iron 9 (100%).
• Ability [Blade of Doom] (Doom) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).
• Ability [Blade of Doom] (Doom) has gained a new effect.
2020-04-14 23:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 226: Greenhouse Flowers

As they anticipated, they reached all twelve towers without encountering the cultists.

“Shouldn’t the pillars be central to what they’re trying to achieve?” Jason asked as they team stood atop the final tower. “Whether it’s trying to sever the connection to the world, or do something with the giant golems inside them, the towers should be key, right?”

“Yes,” Clive said. “Between their absence here and whatever they’re doing to raise the magical density, I find my...

Chapter 225: Running Towards Something

Clive tossed out some glow stones that floated up into the darkness, illuminating the huge figure that occupied the interior of the tower.

“A giant statue?” Neil postulated.

“Not a statue,” Clive said. “There are articulation points on the ankles and knees. I can’t see clearly from down here, but likely all the other joints, as well. This is some kind of golem. A ridiculously enormous golem.

The air inside the tower was cold and clammy. Jason stepped forward and...

Chapter 224: Fate Can't Wait to Kill Us All

The astral space was an island city of ancient stone buildings, reclaimed by jungle. Broad boulevards were covered in vines, grass growing up between displaced pavers. Buildings that were three, four, even five storeys tall, ranging from nearly intact to little more than rubble strewn around the lush, verdant greenery. Strange, magical plants could be seen. Bulbous, purple growths, adhering to the sides of buildings. Huge, towering trees, incongruent with the jungle around them. They s...

Chapter 223: More Powerful Than We Anticipated

In their hidden lair in the ruins of the Vane Estate, the leader of the local Builder cult, Zato, was fuming. One of the cultists had used a stone-shaping power to construct rooms in the subterranean cavern, of which Zato’s personal quarters was the largest.

Timos, who had risen to his second-in-command, was waiting out the rage. He knew that while Zato seemed consumed in fury, once he had worked through his anger he would be ready to make more considered decisions. For the mome...

Chapter 222: I'm Very Big on Cowardice

As Emir’s team came closer to opening the portal, the decision was made to move the team to the site under the lake. Jason’s ongoing availability would be useful for the final push to open the portal and the team needed to be ready to go. They weren’t exactly sure when Emir’s researchers would finally succeed and the team had to be packed and waiting.

Even if they navigated the dangers and returned safely, it would be months before they saw family and friends again. There was...

Chapter 221: The World Needs People Like You

Jason and his team made preparations for their entry into the astral space, with some preparations being more important than others.

“I just can’t make that much crystal wash,” Jory said. “A lot of my workshop is tied up in making the lesser miracle potions, now.”

“We’ll be spending months in that place, hunting down these abominations,” Jason said. “There’s hundreds of them.”

“Your cloud house uses crystal wash more efficiently than just tipping it over y...

Chapter 220: Evil Detector

Jason sat on the roof of his houseboat, cross-legged, with the rest of his team sitting around him. They all had their eyes closed, concentrating on forcefully projecting their auras. His team all pushed against Jason, while he pushed back in turn.

Humphrey, Neil and Clive had the most training and experience with aura control and their projections were stable and consistent. Their auras didn’t fluctuate, revealing no weaknesses as they tackled Jason’s unyielding aura head on.<...

Chapter 219: Beholden to No One

One of the ways Jason had made positive use of his recovery time was to get himself back into a training pattern. Rufus, Gary and Farrah had worked to instil good habits during his initial training, but the eventful life of an adventurer inevitably led to him letting things slide.

Rufus, Gary and Jason’s team had often felt helpless at their inability to help Jason after his ordeal. They were forced to leave things in the hands of first Carlos and then Arabelle, who had the expe...

Chapter 218: Inherently Corrupting

The ordinary people left in the town weren’t inclined to come out after Jason’s display. From their perspective, the shadowy figure with the monstrous companions was demonstrably more dangerous than the bandits. Jason left, leaving the heroic-looking Humphrey and their local guide to come in and play rescuer.

There was a floating barge coming to take the townsfolk away. It moved slower than the skimmer they had arrived in and would be waiting in another town for word of the all...

Chapter 217: While They Watch Me Kill You

The town was little more than a cluster of stone and clay buildings along a single main street. It was not the better for its new residents, with unrepaired signs of essence abilities being thrown about. Walls were cracked with impact rings and scorched with the flash-burn signature of fire powers.

All seemed quiet, with no sign of Jason. There were bandits around the town, along with some miserable-looking unfortunates that the bandits were using as slaves. The bandits sat aroun...

Chapter 216: My Name is Jason Asano

Elizabeth Silva stirred when she felt something press down on her large, canopy bed. There was a young man in a dark suit sitting on the other side, cross-legged. She opened her mouth to call for her guards, before stopping herself. If they could have helped, they already would have. Her bronze rank aura senses couldn’t detect the man’s aura at all, which meant that he was dangerous.

“Hello, Miss Silva,” the man said. “I’m sorry to call on you so late.”

“What do you...

Chapter 215: Nothing Speaks Louder Than Power

The return of Jason’s familiars went a long way to helping him feel better. With his improved soul sense he could feel their comforting presence within him much more strongly than before, even retaining a sense of connection when they were out of his body. It didn’t match the connection of a bonded familiar, like Humphrey had with Stash, but it was enough to give him a confidence that he had been lacking for some time.

He had not yet returned to adventuring but he did start mak...

Chapter 214: Putting the Band Back Together

In the wake of Cole Silva’s arrest, his organisation fell into chaos as Silva’s cousins fought to seize control. At first it was restricted to carefully feeling out key people and quietly garnering loyalty. As days passed into weeks without a definitive leader rising up, it started causing trouble with street level operations and the conflict became bloodier.

In the midst of all this, Killian’s trail was finally found, but far too late. It was eventually discovered that he had...

Chapter 213: I Won't Let Them Turn Me Into That

Jason didn’t go straight back to adventuring, instead spending his time in training and recovery. His team spent their days participating in the hunt for Killian Laurent, whose possession and use of the star seed had made him a priority in the efforts to locate and fight against the cultists. He potentially had valuable information and unlike the suicide-prone cultists, he might be possible to capture.

At the same time, Silva had been locked up in the Adventure Society’s prison...

Chapter 212: Scars

Carlos worked with Clive, directing Clive to draw out a ritual circle on the rooftop.

“This is a damage echo ritual,” Carlos explained. “It will let me examine the history of physical damage to Mr Asano’s body.”

As Jason stood in the middle of the circle, a man-shaped image of light appeared above him, with red and blue lines running through it like veins. Carlos waved his hand, manipulating the image. The mark of Jason’s first scar appeared, bright and glaring across...

Chapter 211: Lingering Doubts

A group of people made their way along to the marina toward the houseboat. It was led by Danielle Geller, along with Rufus, his mother, Arabelle, plus Clive and Vincent Trenslow, the Adventure Society official with the grandiose moustache. With them was a gold rank priest from the church of the Healer, freshly portalled into the city.

“How is he?” Danielle asked. It had been a little more than a week since Jason had been returned home.

“He was asleep for four days,” Cli...

Chapter 210: What Doesn't Kill You

The rest of Jason’s team arrived in the three skimmers, with Clive driving one and a somewhat shaky Jory and Belinda driving the others, both for the first time. Everyone poured off the vehicles before they had even fully stopped, clamouring around Jason. He met their looks of concerns with easy confidence, assuring them that he was fine.

Clive had so many questions he didn’t actually manage to get any of them out. Humphrey gripped Jason on the shoulder, giving him a beaming sm...

Chapter 209: Hanging Around

“Where the hell are the bad guys?”

Still hanging from the ceiling, Jason remembered that his torture had come with torturers. They might have seemed inconsequential when he was facing off against the Builder but now that fight was over and he was still strung up like meat on a butcher’s hook.

Even if he wasn’t and if instead of the suppression collar he was wearing at least some underpants, both men were higher rank than him. At full strength, which he definitely wasn’...

Chapter 208: Defiance

The pain of the tiny objects digging into his flesh was something Jason could endure well enough. In the last six months he had endured enough suffering, mental and physical that he could take the peppering of wounds in stride, even as he dangled, helpless, from the ceiling. Below him, the magic circle shone with a silver light.

“The star seed implantation process is not a swift one,” Killian said. “First, the seed will carve itself throughout your body, suborning your flesh i...

Chapter 207: Search

Killian began the elaborate preparations to use the star seed. He started by conjuring up skeletal arms that he used to hammer a spike into the ceiling, which he then hung a pair of manacles from. He unlatched the chain from Jason’s suppression collar and then used the skeleton arms to force Jason’s wrists into the manacles. Jason didn’t bother to struggle, saving his strength.

Once Jason was hanging uncomfortably from the ceiling, Killian took a series of pouches from his bon...

Chapter 206: The Man Behind the Mouth

The room was almost entirely bare of features, a dark stone box with no windows. There was a heavy steel door, a recessed glow stone in the ceiling and a metal chain staked into the hard floor. The other end of the chain was affixed to a power suppression collar around the neck of a naked body. Jason was unconscious, laying on the hard stone.

On the other side of the door were Killian Laurent and the cloaked figure of Mr Sparrow. They were standing in another stone room, although...

Chapter 205: Disbanded

The criminal culture in Greenstone was in a state of extreme flux. The Builder cult purge had turned over every rock in Old City, exposing many criminal enterprises. That the cult had attached themselves to many such clandestine operations only made things worse. Old City’s criminal leadership thrived on being ignored by the Island, but now the powerful Island factions had placed their attention aggressively on Old City.

For the crime lords known as the big three, the purge had ...

Chapter 204: Elven Storage Solutions

The cloud house had taken the form of a large two-storey building of desert stone. Jason found Clive and Belinda out front, working on the scattered collection of parts that used to be the skimmer. After getting Jason’s cry for help over voice chat, Clive had used a quick and dirty ritual to overcharge the skimmer. It had brought them to village in the nick of time, but also taken a toll on the vehicle. While Jason recovered, he and Belinda had been trying to repair it using the rando...

Chapter 203: The Purpose of the Adventure Society

Jason returned to consciousness to find a small face looking down at him.

“GRANDPA!” she yelled at a brain-rattling volume. “He’s awake!”

“He’s also a little delicate,” Jason croaked as Hiram’s granddaughter skipped off to find her grandfather.

He brushed aside the system messages for the moment to push himself into a sitting position and look around. He was in one of the cottages in the village from the looks of it, but not Hiram’s. That had been the first ...

Chapter 202: Swat

Jason extended his shadow arm to the roof of Hiram’s house as his shadow cloak appeared around him. He reduced his weight and retracted the arm, pulling himself lightly onto the roof. He looked around the village and saw people scrambling to get their families and go. They knew what a monster manifestation meant and none of them had seen anything as large as the rainbow vortex now shining over the surface of the lake.

The rest of his team was out of voice communication range. Th...