Tsaimath

Chapter 1019

Floating above Queta, I could feel a strange, nervous energy emanating from the broken town below. There was something going on, I wasn’t quite certain what it was, but I had learned not to dismiss the warnings of my instincts outright. Given the number of Shattered I had seen in the broken buildings and hidden underground, it wasn’t all that hard to make a connection between them and the feeling, there weren’t any other foes around the area that the Shattered hadn’t destroyed after a...

Chapter 1018

Maybe the plan to dispose of repaired Shattered should also include Shattered we turned into Vampires. Trying to ascertain the mental state of the newly created Vampire proved to be an exercise in frustration and gave me an ever-growing headache. Part of the problem was that the thing had the memories of their human progenitor but also the memories of their existence as a Shattered, with instincts that matched neither, turning them into a wildly unpredictable and incredibly annoying being. On...

Chapter 1017

Lia and I were sitting in front of the last currently occupied cell, going over our plans one more time. The Shattered within was restless, still trying to bash its way through the solid walls, and I was planning to put it to sleep soon.

“Can you shackle the thing instead of putting it out? I believe that their mental state right before the transformation, the desire to, well, live even as their blood is taken from them plays a large part in the success of the ritual,” Lia asked, ma...

Chapter 1016

After the first Shattered exploded on us, procurement of additional Shattered started to become a priority. Luckily, my first venture into their town to capture one had given me enough information to let me go back there without too much trouble. Flying prevented them from detecting my presence on the ground, while my magic was enough to conceal me, even while I was using my cloak to fly. Additionally, I noticed that I could carry the weight of a Shattered if I put enough power into the levit...

Chapter 1015

“That thing is loud,” Luna complained, glancing towards the deeper parts of our shelter, towards the piece of rock I used as a door to contain the captured Shattered. And she was right, the thing was incredibly noisy, trying to bash its way through a wall even if the wall had been reinforced to the point that it would take a stupid amount of force to break. Even worse, the thing was stupid enough to try breaking through the back of the cell, where the wall was backed by metres of soil, de...

Chapter 1014

Attacking the one Shattered that had come to check out whatever disturbance had registered with them when I entered the town was a little like poking an anthill. From afar, the anthill is quiescent, just a mound of needles, earth and whatever material the critters had access to but the moment it is seriously disturbed? Suddenly, the entire thing boils over, countless ants crawling out, trying to defend their home from any attacker, no matter the cost to the individual.

In this case, the...

Chapter 1013

Even after spending two days trying to figure out the town, which I had dubbed Queta, as it was the only part of the town’s sign that remained legible, we still didn’t know a whole lot. Sure, we knew that the town was the source of the strange scent, we knew that there was an incredible number of Shattered existing within the town but why these Shattered were different from their counterparts, we didn’t know.

Remote observation, scrying and spying just wasn’t enough to get more ...

Chapter 1012

Blinking, I sat back up, massaging my temples in an attempt to get rid of the budding headache. Having one of my scrying constructs shattered was a recipe for one, though the effect could be mitigated somewhat if I controlled the construct with a conjured focus. Using one came with its own drawbacks, which is why I hadn’t done so tonight, leaving me with an aching head in addition to the mystery of what had happened. 

Closing my eyes, I brought those last few moments back before ...

Chapter 1011

Normally, a growl would be cause for alarm, potentially indicating that there was some sort of dangerous beast warning us off while ready to attack. But, when such a growl came from Silva, it indicated something else entirely, depending on the aggression in the growl, the volume of it and a dozen other factors. In this case, the growl was soft, almost cautious, but the fur on her neck was standing up straight and her tail sticking out, telling me that there was something weird going on, somet...

Chapter 1010

Travelling north was quite interesting. There was something about the mountains that increased the saturation of Astral Power, making all of us feel more alive but, at the same time, it also seemed to attract stronger monsters. Or maybe the animals naturally grew stronger within the higher saturation of Astral Power and were competing for that natural resource, I wasn’t sure. But it was a fascinating sensation to immerse myself in the flow of the Astral River up here, it was, without a doub...

Interlude: Survivors 604

Sometimes, Wu Chenhua, oftentimes simply known as Mrs Wu, mused there really was no point in getting up in the morning. Things generally went downhill after getting up and leaving the warm comfort of one's bed, or sleeping bag in her current situation. And really, why would it be so bad to stay in bed and ignore the harsh reality all around, at least for a day or five? Sure, food and drink would quickly become a problem, both incoming and outgoing, but it might be possible to find a solution ...

Chapter 1009

Maria, the newly created Shadow Vampire Monster was only a first attempt to make something interesting, an attempt I tentatively declared a success. I had no idea what had happened with the creature after we left the clearing, but given its raw power, its Darkness affinity and general potential, I was fairly positive it wouldn’t just die in some ditch. No, if it was anything like Lia had been initially, just without her intelligence, the creature would likely hunt in the forest for a bit, g...

Chapter 1008

A swift wave of my hand produced a block of Ice behind the newly created creature, allowing Lia to put her down without dropping her into the mud and muck beneath us. Given that this was no longer the same Maria we had welcomed onto this clearing, it felt appropriate, she was no longer the worthless and weak thing who had struggled to make it up the mountain, she had become something more.

Now, she only needed to prove to the world that she deserved to be something better by surviving, ...

Chapter 1007

I had to give it to Ms. Maria Perez, she was showing some grit and determination. When I first met her in New Dawn, I had thought she was fairly soft, looking for cheap power to get herself set up comfortably but when she managed to make the trek to the meeting area I had designated for her, despite the brutal thunderstorm that was raging across the mountains, she showed me that she was willing to make some effort. Or maybe she had simply started her trek too early and gotten lost, the jury w...

Chapter 1006

It was a strange sensation, seeing the world through a scrying construct no longer completely under my control. It wasn’t truly unpleasant, if anything it was somewhat reminiscent of my experiences in Lady Hecate’s realm, but that didn’t make it any less confining.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait all that long, maybe half an hour, it was difficult to tell the time while embodying a scrying construct, for something to happen. There had been a few things I had been expecting, mostl...

Chapter 1005

Finding Luna and the others was trivial. During the previous night, I had used a scrying construct to send them a message, little more than a simple confirmation of my ongoing well-being, allowing me to ascertain their position. Thanks to my cloak, I could easily overcome difficult terrain and make following my tracks just about impossible, so I didn’t have to worry too much in that regard. While I didn’t try to fly the entire way, running on the ground allowed me to move a great deal fas...

Chapter 1004

• AN: I'll have to admit that a big part of this chapter came from the energy a mother emits when the children are running around, screaming their heads off and the mother just wants some peace and quiet. 

The silence settling over the little tableau was a confused one. Well, Joshua looked like he was pretty much out of it, having a deity use you as a sockpuppet to speak into the mortal realm must be quite exhausting, but the five guys who had come t...

Interlude: Burning Sun

The question of how things could have gone so wrong in just a few short days was one that Lorgar pondered incessantly. He and his boys, as he liked to call the rest of his group in the privacy of his mind, regardless of the fact that he was the youngest by almost a decade, had been out, hunting monsters and trying to understand the insanity of this changed world a little better, letting their home, the recently established town of New Dawn, to the defended by the other Legacies. Nothing bad s...

Chapter 1003

The first sign of trouble was the sound of raised voices, a little too faint for me to make out individual words but loud enough to penetrate the sturdy stone walls of my house. At first, I didn’t think it would be of concern to me, people argued at times and often those arguments resulted in raised voices. Or in bloodshed, but it seemed that New Dawn managed to avoid that, at least for now. Eventually, that would change but I hoped it wouldn’t happen too soon, the Change had forced socie...

Chapter 1002

Working with Hauke to produce a grindstone was quite an interesting experience. While I had something of an idea of how a simple mill would look like, I had never really thought about how it all worked and fit together. Luckily, the locals had collected some books on the subject and we went from there. The initial, simple handmills I created were for personal use and mostly helped me to start working on the solidity of my stones.

Taking a simple rock and shaping it into a convex wheel w...

Chapter 1001

Maria might have been the first to approach me, but she was far from the only one. After she left, I didn’t have to wait all that long for the next soul to approach me, drawn by the lure that was my house. Or maybe the lure was power and the house was simply an easily visible representation of that power, either way, it worked out like honey to lure flies. Maybe it even worked a little too well, as people seemed to wear out the rocky path to my home, though, amusingly, they made sure that n...

Chapter 1000

With the somewhat disquieted young woman following after me, I walked into what I had designated as my living room, considering for just a moment how I wanted to play this. A part of me wanted nothing more but to channel the Grandmother for all I was worth, acting as a wise, but not necessarily benevolent, entity able to guide this young woman on whatever path she sought to tread. But, if I wanted to act that way, the props all around me didn’t quite fit that role, if anything, I had set th...

Chapter 999

Sitting within my newly created shelter, I considered if there were ways to make things more comfortable. After meditating to regenerate the Astral Power I had used to create the shelter, there were no pressing tasks at hand. Here, without knowing who might be nearby, I didn’t want to start any serious experimentation, putting me at a loss of what to do. Exploration would be a possibility but I had a feeling that I’d have visitors sooner rather than later, visitors I wanted to receive on ...

Chapter 998

Garry turned out to be amazingly accommodating, happily telling me all about their community. I wasn’t quite sure why that was, maybe he was just trying to fill the air with noise to keep himself from getting nervous, or he might be one of those people who babbled when they were feeling stressed, whatever the reason, I was happily listening to him talk and took note of what he was saying.

It turned out that, yes, there were more legacies around, at least eight of them, not that he adm...

Chapter 997

“You travelled Mundus, didn’t you?” the guy asked with a grin on his face, before shaking his head as the grin turned wry. He preempted my response by continuing, “But where are my manners, you may call me Joshua, formerly known as Kelrig,” he introduced himself. The way he formulated his introduction made me think that Joshua was his original and currently used first name. In contrast, Kelrig used to be his character-name.

“Well met, Joshua, you may call me Jade, formerly k...

Chapter 996

Finding the town of New Dawn, as the community was called, was only the first step that needed to be taken. Next, we were planning to figure out if the community was limited to the roughly five hundred, maybe five-hundred and fifty, people who were living in that bowl or if there were more around. For that, we checked for tracks and freshly trod paths, finding that the people hadn’t just settled that one bowl but that there were multiple farmsteads in the area, all built recently and connec...

Chapter 995

Following the five guys was unexpectedly amusing. Well, once I managed to make the construct look and behave as a bird would, drawing on memories originally shared with me by Lenore, the entire thing became amusing. Luckily, it only took me a few hours of concentrated work to get from a somewhat static construct that only moved because it was purely magical and directed by my magic as my frozen Shuttles would be to a fluidly moving construct that would pass muster, at least at a distance. Onc...

Interlude: Soaring Shadow

“Up and at them, boys,” a far too cheerful voice ruthlessly ripped four people from the blessed embrace of Hypnos, forcing them to face the reality of a new day. A new day and new challenges that came with it, in this case, the continuation of their climb into the mountains above their hometown, only that the mountains had changed far more than reasonably possible. But reason, logic and the apparent laws of nature had been thrown out months ago, exactly as the world had ended in fire, bur...

Chapter 994

It would be so much easier to decide what to do back on Mundus. There, I always had the idea that it was just a game in the back of my mind, that nothing I did to the world at large would have any real consequences. Sigmir, and my companions to a lesser degree, had turned into something real, something that often made me wonder if the difference between a biologically born lifeform and a synthetical was truly important, though now I knew those questions had been pretty pointless. Either way, ...

Chapter 993

After sharing the information I had gained with the others, we had to consider our next step. Our objective was fairly simple, find out where these people come from, get there and trade some supplies with the locals, hopefully getting enough food to sustain the continuation of our journey. Thanks to the dungeon and our previous explorations, we had quite a few things we could trade, from weapons to enchanted trinkets or even some of the alchemical concoctions made by Alex, all of these things...