Shirtaloon

Chapter 856: Party to Betrayal

The Builder cultists were in a building in the brightheart city. It was a single-room construction with neither doors nor windows. It looked to be made of large stone bricks, with a few crystals in the ceiling shedding warm light. The cultists were variably looking lost, confused, despairing and angry. A few looked oddly hopeful. Some were lying on the floor looking ill, and all looked human. There was no sign of the body-horror metalwork that was the signature of the cult.

What metal c...

Chapter 855: A Power That Nothing and No One Should Have

“Raythe called the Cosmic Throne the ultimate authority,” Velius said, “and with good reason. It’s a power that no one and nothing should have. The potential for damage is like no threat the cosmos could ever face.”

“Reaching transcendence requires ambition,” Raythe said. “That ambition comes in many forms and, whether selfish or altruistic, it takes a powerful drive to surpass mortality. Those with both the ambition to seek such a thing and the capability to achieve it ...

Chapter 854: Unique in the Entire Cosmos

Jason’s trinity of astral throne, astral gate and soul forge were now complete. From the moment the soul forge had settled into place, the process of becoming an astral king had begun. The first step, it turned out, was the annihilation of his now-vestigial body. He was holding off the process with willpower, but that would only work for so long. Before his body collapsed entirely, there were arrangements and farewells to be made.

Even though his body worsened with each passing moment...

Chapter 853: Time Travel is the Worst

Jason and Lorenn took a shadow portal into a massive domed room. Panes of crystal levitated around in the air, each showing different images of the city outside. In the middle of the room was what looked like a padded marble armchair on a circular platform.

“It’ll take some trial and error,” Jason said, “but that chair will let you control the city.”

“Control how?” Lorenn asked.

“The growth chambers and the more functional ones, those are as they seem. You ca...

Going a bit wrong

Obviously, the wrong version of chapter 852 went out, with some beta reader notes left in. The proper version of the chapter will be up soon.

Chapter 852: Steve, Lord of Undeath

Jason had gone through a change since Danielle had last seen him in Greenstone, yet many of the hallmarks were the same. He was noticeably taller, although still short by adventurer standards. His features had the usual smoothing out that came with rank, although his chin was still prominent under the neatly cropped beard. The wavy hair was still the same, black and glossy to the point of reflecting the dim light shining from the tunnel.

The big difference was in his eyes. They were the...

Chapter 851: You Know It's Trouble

Two tunnels linked the realm of the brighthearts with the surface of Pallimustus. Both had been cut off by the transformation zone, and both were now open again. One tunnel had been dug by the messengers for their first attempt to turn the natural array into a soul forge, triggering the subsequent disasters.

The messengers had been monitoring the tunnel, no longer impacted by the power of the natural array that had corrupted them into mindless berserkers. When the transformation zone va...

Chapter 850: Heroes Cheat All the Time

A massive shaft led from the surface of Pallimustus to what had once been the home of the brighthearts. The Adventure Society expedition had fought their way down through elemental messengers and monsters adapted to the extreme depths. Months after the transformation zone had been put in place, the dangers of the shaft had been tamed, for a certain definition of tame. The messengers were gone and most of the monsters had learned to avoid the place. Those that remained, though, were not someth...

Chapter 849: The Work of Higher Beings

The tree was quarter again the height of Everest, clouds hiding most of it. The battle that had been waged around it was over, leaving little indication that it had even taken place. The roots of the tree, being impervious to damage, were untouched by the conflict. The earth they were buried in was a different story; countless destructive powers had churned it up and scorched it to black dust. At a glance, though, it looked like ordinary black dirt.

The thousands of messenger-shaped ano...

Quick update on card shipping

I've been hounding my publisher about the issues with international shipping and they've finally got back and said there's nothing they can do. I am extremely sorry about the costs involved.

I am hoping to take more of a direct hand in merchandise this year, hopefully with some interesting offerings and some personal control over things like shipping. These plans are extremely nascent at this point, but I will hopefully have more to share as 2024 progresses, hopefully along wit...

Updates on collector cards and month pause

TL;DR:

• Shipping costs are being looked at but I can make no promises at this stage.
• If you were charged for December before the pause, that will roll over into January.

There have been a lot of very understandable questions about the shipping fees for the collector cards. The international rates are extremely rough and I've asked Podium, who run the store, to explore other options. I can make zero promises at this stage but they have told me t...

Collector cards and locking Patreon

The collector cards are now available for preorder.

I will be locking the Patreon in the next few hours, after which no one will be charged for a month. I look forward to helping you fix all the ways payments screw up in January.

Chapter bundles

Collector card purchase preorder

TL;DR:

• Collector card winners have been notified.
• A single print run for the cards will have orders in December and delivery in March.
• Preorder for purchasing cards starts Friday and ends December 31st.

The collector card contest has concluded and emails have gone out notifying the winners. For those who would like to get your hands on them but didn't get lucky, they will be available for purchase.

I told my publisher that peopl...

Chapter 848: Everything I Need

Jason was in his office in the mountain lair. His eyes were closed, his elbows were propped on his desk and his chin was resting on his hands. Scattered across the massive desk in front of him were copious notes he’d written, planning out the reintegration of the transformation zone. He felt Miriam’s approach and heard the ostentatious double doors swing open.

“Well?” she asked from the doorway.

Jason let out a frustrated breath before raising his head and opening his eyes...

Podcast with myself & Heath

Heath and I made a bonus appearance together on the CritRPG podcast in celebration of 10 books.

Also, the next chapter will be the last of the year, after which the Patreon will be locked for a month. Existing patrons will still have access, but they won't be charged.

Chapter 847: Different Enough

Jason floated up to the invisibility sphere and drifted inside where Miriam and Ramona were waiting.

“It’s done,” he said.

“Just like that?” Miriam asked.

“Just like that.”

“I couldn’t hear what you talked about. You used your aura like a privacy screen.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t want me deciding that I didn’t like how it was going and staging a sneak attack.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Jason said, “but people can ma...

Book 10 Preorder & December Break

Just a few quick reminders:

• Book 10 is up for preorder now, for a release next week on the 28th of Novermber.
• Chapters won't be releasing over December so the Patreon will not be charged.
• The last chapter of the year will be November 29th or 30th, depending on timezone.
• Chapters will resume on the 1st or second of January, timezone dependent.

Chapter 846: A Cocktail of Ignorance, Arrogance and Ambition

Jason was sitting in a cloud chair on a field of scorched earth and giant roots. The air was filled with the stench of death; the rot of bodies and the worse smell of rainbow smoke. The battle had gone on long enough that the first to be killed were starting to break down. Jason looked across at his counterpart: a wooden clone of himself sitting on a wooden root.

“I want to be upfront,” Jason said. “Much of what I’m going to be talking about is consolidating transformation zones...

Chapter 845: When Violence Is Easy And Words Are Hard

Once Jason had extracted Amos Pensinata from his attempted suicide-by-messenger, the next stages of the battle were unsurprising. The gold-rankers escaped into Jason’s soul realm safely. Jason, Miriam and a few others remained hidden in Ramona’s invisibility shield.

Gary was the only one left in the open but was largely unassailable. Elemental messengers moved to intervene in the fight with Gary’s wooden doppelganger but failed miserably. Some fired off powers that did nothing whi...

Chapter 844: The Only Way It Can Win

The gold-rankers were trapped inside the growing mound of elemental messenger bodies. Whether the messengers were living or dead was irrelevant; so long as there were enough of them, the adventurers and their allies couldn’t fight their way out. For all the power wielded by the adventurers, the messengers piled on faster than they could dig their way out.

The chance to escape came from Amos Pensinata and a well-timed use of the weather machine. The result was a Cthulhu death star hove...

Chapter 843: A Better Adventurer

The root avatar had not gone down easily but Gary had kept it largely contained. Once it was dead, the adventurers started destroying more crystals and the elemental messengers became even more dangerous. Clive was sent away when the expectations for another special enemy grew.

Clive and Onslow were amongst the last silver-rankers to evacuate, with only Jason staying longer. Clive had convinced Miriam to let them stay and continue to serve as a rest and recovery station. Miriam kept Ons...

Chapter 842: Beware of Chicken

The first wave of elemental messengers were wiped out by the powerful but barely controlled lightning storm created by the weather machine. The clouds it had erupted from quickly dispersed, ending the artificial twilight as sunlight shone directly onto the battlefield. Fresh clouds started converging on the tree in a massive spiral but it would take time before the weather machine was ready to act again.

The crystals embedded in the tree proved resilient against attack, but team Moon’...

HWFWM Collector Card Giveaway

My audiobook publisher, Podium, has created some collector cards of the main characters and they will be giving some away to celebrate the upcoming 10th book in the series. Follow the link to enter.

Heath was on a podcast. He sounds better than me.

Heath appeared on CritRPG, the litRPG podcast this week. He said 'um' significantly fewer times than I did in my appearance. Heath and I will be appearing together in the near future, with a Q&A section. If you want to suggest questions for the Q&A, there is a dedicated channel for it on the discord.

Q&A channel: https://discord.com/channels/614969767937441805/11736609717...

Chapter 841: Don’t Throw Our Dead Friend’s Stuff Out of a Tortoise

The final unclaimed territory of the transformation zone was the smallest of them all at roughly eight kilometres across. It was situated in the middle of the zone and was close to perfectly round. Unlike the permeable shadow boundaries of the other territories, the one containing the tree was pitch black and impenetrable, at least at ground level. At higher altitudes it became opaque and eventually entirely transparent, allowing the tree inside to be visible from across the zone.

The p...

Book 10 release cleanup

Assistaloon here.

Due to the release of Book 10 I will be removing chapters 699 - 790 on Wednesday of this week (Nov 14 - 15 depending on your time zone).

Chapter 840: Assuming We Win

Jason couldn’t hear Rufus, but the anger in his body language was easy to read. Jason watched Rufus and Gary from the observation room in his mountain fortress, set behind one of the eyes in the head-shaped edifice. His friends were in the town, standing in front of the ice cream store. If not for his silver-rank perception, he wouldn’t be able to see them clearly at this distance.

Although he couldn’t hear them, there was no doubt in Jason’s mind about what Rufus was yelling. I...

Chapter 839: Guaranteed to Become Enemies

Jason had a measure of connection to his claimed territory, although it was not as strong as that to his spirit domains. As the territory expanded to continental size, it took increasing amounts of concentration and effort to get a sense of what was happening in distant reaches. Standing in the control room of the lightning mesa, his eyes were closed as he extended his senses to a distant location. Neil, Nik and Belinda were observing and waiting.

“When we were being sold on the adven...

Chapter 838: The Price

Jason looked from Gary, across the table from him, to Farrah and Rufus on either side. He could feel the tremulation in their auras at being so close to the divine power coursing through Gary. The demigod couldn't contain the power as well as Jason could his own in his soul realm. The power didn't belong to him and his body was an imperfect vessel anyway. The power was slowly but surely eating him from the inside out.

Neither Rufus nor Farrah showed any discomfort on their faces. They w...