There were times at which I hated my inquisitive nature. After discovering that ominous glow in the crater deep within the Charland, my first impulse was to investigate and find out what the glow was and where it came from. To figure it out, to learn and maybe get a little more powerful in the process and it was a strong impulse, one that was only tempered by the realisation that we simply couldn’t charge in without proper planning. Anything else would result in a piss poor performance, one...
2024-02-05 17:00:16 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes, it was mindboggling just how much the world had changed. The system, strange monsters and general societal collapse, those were things I could somewhat comprehend and wrap my head around, even the magic I commanded was something I was learning more and more about each day. But then something came out of the left field and smacked me in the head, giving me a headache with the enormity of it while making me question if the world continued to make sense. Or functioned according to the...
2024-02-03 17:00:07 +0000 UTC
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After making one last attempt at overcoming the Fire Elemental that was nourished by the Fire Node, I decided to give up. Unless I had some sort of incredibly useful idea, I just didn’t have the power to overcome its regeneration, especially with the environmental effects of the Charland helping it.
My latest idea had been to conjure vast amounts of Water, store them around the node and flood the area, trying to drown it. Sadly, the idea was completely crushed by the Charla...
2024-02-02 17:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Creating a way to prevent oxygen from entering the warehouse holding the node and its fiery owner turned out harder than I initially imagined. The biggest problem was that I had no way of identifying oxygen magically, nor any idea how to refer to it within a runic formation. Hel, I had no idea how to imagine the physical structure, the closest I could get was remembering a model used during chemistry class, with two red balls connected by a pair of thin tubes, representing molecular oxygen. T...
2024-01-31 17:00:18 +0000 UTC
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Realising that the creature that had settled in the fire node was incredibly similar to the fiery guardian Sunna had set to protect the Soul Prison caused me to grind my teeth in cold fury. I wanted to tear the thing apart, to rip out its soul if I could and fill it with Ice and Darkness until it was nothing but a shadow of its former self, or maybe just a Shadow and nothing more. Without really thinking about it, I launched a barrage of Icicles through the door, though it took me only an ins...
2024-01-29 17:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Staying well away from the building, we moved so we could look into the now-open door. For once, Lia was taking the lead, with both Luna and myself ready to deploy magical protections at a moment's notice. There was a thin length of Hard Ice, with a few runes engraved, floating between Lia and the door, kept aloft by my Ice Magic and acting as the core of my defence. If things got suddenly hot, I could use Overflow and a burst of Ice Magic to turn the slim piece of Hard Ice into a sturdy wall...
2024-01-27 17:00:09 +0000 UTC
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It was a strange and deep irony that the first magical node I discovered on Terra was one of Fire, a location that poured out a constant, though not terribly potent, stream of Fire Astral Power. Why couldn’t it have been anything but Fire, I’d have much preferred Ice, Darkness, Water or Air, almost anything but Fire, really. The only thing worse would have been light, though the strongest and purest light would cast some deep shadows, giving me a fascinating contrast to investigate.
2024-01-26 17:00:29 +0000 UTC
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“What are the odds that this is a natural hole?” Kevin asked, his voice filled with amusement. The rest of the small group that had decided to leave the farm together could only nod in agreement, knowing just as well that the highly symmetrical hole that just happened to be nicely sized for the smaller members of their group wasn’t natural. For one, it was dug into simple earth, the dirt compressed to form sturdy walls, meaning there was no way for such a hole to form naturally, it simp...
2024-01-24 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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- AN: I've put a current sheet into the pinned post as I didn't go over every skill-up she received in this chapter.
The Charland, as I had begun to refer to the burned industrial park, was fascinating. A part of me, the rational part of my mind, was insisting it was completely impossible. Too large, too many enemies and far too much energy, all packed into a slice of reality that shouldn’t be able to contain it all. And yet, despite the misgivings of my ratio...
2024-01-22 17:00:18 +0000 UTC
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The more I learned about the burned industrial area, the more fascinated I became. After the Fireshell Tortoise died, we left the area to take shelter and during the day, with a nicely cool parasol made from Ice and Darkness, Luna, Silva and I explored the surrounding area a little more. Lia, in the meantime, had to stay in the shelter I dug, Alex staying with her as company and because the two of them wanted to experiment with the materials we had found.
Keeping our distance from the c...
2024-01-20 17:00:13 +0000 UTC
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For a few moments, I could only stare at the rapidly spinning shell, especially when it got too close to a pile of rubble and a leg shot out, sending it careening away with renewed power. In turn, the pile of rubble was completely demolished, with small rocks and debris shooting away as if shot by a gun, making me think it might actually be a viable method to attack. The tortoise itself had at least temporarily given up on actively attacking, instead, it had completely retreated into its shel...
2024-01-19 17:00:17 +0000 UTC
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Moving deeper into the industrial complex came with more enemy critters. Rats, some small birds and sizable insects were our primary enemies, all of them fairly easy to detect thanks to their obvious fire attributes. Some were burning outright, like the rats, while the birds had bright colours, their feathers vividly red or orange, making them look quite exotic and impressive. Certainly nice to look at. Less nice was their habit of launching those feathers as deadly projectiles, hot enough to...
2024-01-17 17:00:19 +0000 UTC
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Given that I felt it was likely for this area to be another dungeon, there was ultimately no other choice but to head in. The ever-growing trait for exploring new dungeons was precious, to say nothing of the EXP and loot we could find within. Every magical item I came across was valuable, even if it was one none of us would use. In that case, it gave me something to analyse, even if it potentially meant the destruction of the item, allowing me to learn more about permanent enchantments. While...
2024-01-15 17:00:15 +0000 UTC
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The industrial complex we had come across was massive. A part of my mind was rapidly parsing through my memories, trying to figure out what exactly this place used to be. Sadly, it was fairly difficult to estimate where we were, as the change had shifted things more than readily apparent, to the point that old maps were more suggestions than accurate representations of reality. Furthermore, even if I had a good idea of where we were, it would take a major coincidence to know what industry use...
2024-01-13 17:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Getting back down to the ground was a bit of a challenge. The Raven’s Shadow didn’t come with an instruction manual, so I had to make things up as I went, adapting the input of Astral Power in an effort to get the right output of lift. Floating up had been incredibly easy, nothing but applying a constant stream of Astral Power and getting back down was logically the same. Only hitting that sweet spot between cutting off enough lift to simply plummet and pushing in too much Astral Power an...
2024-01-12 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Flying. Ever since I had gained the ability to experience Lenore’s memories and feel the sensation of flight within them, I had been hooked. I had flown within my dreams, eventually, I had flown by hitching a ride in my Hallow and, near the end of my journey, I had been able to glide using a wing of Ice and repeated teleports. So far, I had never been able to truly fly under my own power and agency, even if the gliding had been quite close.
And now, that changed, now, with the Raven...
2024-01-10 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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After feeling the cool silky-smooth fabric a little longer, I wrapped the cloak around my shoulder, replacing my old one. A part of me considered whether I might be able to enchant the new piece as I had done with my old cloak but I doubted it would work. Just from feeling the cloak, I knew it was highly magical, though a quick Identify told me just how magical.
- Raven’s Shadow
- Rarity - Epic
- Base Protection- 3 a...
2024-01-08 17:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Nodding to myself, I ran through one last check. The ritual I had been thinking about for over a month now was as prepared as it could be and the only thing stopping me from actually going through with it was the risk to unique and priceless materials if things went wrong. Chances to get another Void Crystal were low while getting another feather from Lenore was almost impossible but if I didn’t use the resources I had, wouldn’t that be just as much of a waste? The ritual I had designed w...
2024-01-06 17:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Once again, we continued on our travels. Still moving further away from the town I once called home, still heading northwest following that siren’s song of a possible distant Nexus. I wasn’t quite confident of its location, it might be on a different continent and I’d have to cross the ocean but time would tell. Hopefully, the Nexus was simply across the continent, somewhere in northern Canada or Alaska or somewhere up north. Trying to estimate locations based on a vague directional vec...
2024-01-05 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Some people could be utter fools. It was a truism Wu Chunhua, also known as Mrs Wu, had learned to accept a long time ago. That there was nothing a sufficiently confident fool couldn’t make themselves believe if only it fit with their idea of how the world should work. It shouldn’t surprise her that it held true even after the world went mad, or maybe she should have expected that it especially held true in that situation.
Having young Samantha get annoyed by the foolishness going o...
2024-01-03 17:00:51 +0000 UTC
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Luckily, Lia turned out just fine after her experiment backfired on her. A little exhausted and complaining about a brutal headache, but compared to the vampire cat, she was in perfect condition. Sadly, neither of us really knew how we might be able to improve the process of creating new vampires, though we both had ideas. Ideas we planned to test at some point, but before we would go there, we decided that this city didn’t hold any further interest for us. Lia was done with her projects, L...
2024-01-01 17:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Studying the unconscious cat up close didn’t reveal anything new. It was still a mangy thing that desperately needed to be washed but other than that but other than that, it was nothing special. Feeling the thing with my Blood Magic, I could detect some damage, mostly from Lia’s capture of it, I could feel the remnants of my Mind Magic attack to knock it out, overshadowing possible subtler parts of its innate magic and realised that I wouldn’t be able to find out a lot more while it was...
2023-12-30 17:00:08 +0000 UTC
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The hissing and pacing of the caged cat continued for a little longer, it even tried scratching the bars of its cage, confirming my suspicion that Shadow Cats had some way to magically augment their physical attacks. The faint, dark energy around its claws didn’t do anything to the solid steel but it was a good datapoint to have if these things ever tried to come after us.
“Are you certain that this is a good subject to convert?” I asked, wondering if turning the aggressive and ho...
2023-12-29 17:00:12 +0000 UTC
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“Mother, I would like to ask you for help,” Lia’s request, right after the shrine's completion, was a bit of a surprise. While Luna and I had been busy building it, Lia had roamed around town with Alex and I had no idea what they had done. Some combat, that much I knew and Lia had asked me a few questions about magic during our downtime, but other than that, I simply did not know. So, the request for help was a curious one.
“Certainly my dear. What do you need?” I asked, wonde...
2023-12-27 17:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Douse the flame, children, this is the Pale Lady’s night. No fire shall burn tonight, nothing to disturb Her, nothing but memories and tales of magic. Tonight, we honour Her, as she watches over us from the dark, standing between us and the things out there. She is a denizen of the night, shunning the Sun so she can do Her grim duty.
Back, when the world was young, countless monsters were wandering through the night. Vicious and hungry, they hunted our ancestors, tearing apart anyone ...
2023-12-25 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Watching the locals walk through the completed shrine was fascinating. Luna, Kyle, Sarah and I were officially, whatever that meant if there was no real society, turning over the shrine to the people. They had seen a bit of my work from afar but as I had requested, nobody had ventured inside while I was working. Now, the shrine was completed and people were observing it for the first time, while I was observing them in turn. And it was fascinating. They were fascinating and fascinated in turn...
2023-12-23 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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There were few words I could use to describe the way Sarah and Kyle went about claiming the shrine of Hestia for their god. Few of those I could use were words I actually wanted to use, mostly because a primary emotion within me while watching was envy. I was extremely doubtful that the two clerics knew what they were doing, or rather, what effect their performance caused. The two of them were basically just performing an interpretive song and dance and somehow turning the dance into high-lev...
2023-12-22 17:00:16 +0000 UTC
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It was fascinating, how two places with such huge differences could end up feeling so similar. Part of it was undoubtedly the blessing of Hecate Luna had called upon but a far larger part came from some innate quality of the space. Some time during the creation, as I had dug the few rooms of the shrine and the ventilation shafts into the artificial mountain, my actions had left a metaphysical mark on the space I created. It wasn’t as chaotic as Wild Magic that came from overloading an area ...
2023-12-20 17:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Finding the right spot for the shrine turned out to be surprisingly simple. Luna and I wandered around the area for a bit, discussing what we both were looking for and contrasting it with what we knew about the two deities the shrine was supposed to serve. During that time, we decided that the shrine should be outside the previous town limits, the change demanded a new start of some sort, a move away from the ruins of civilisation and its decay. Otherwise, the blessing might become corrupted,...
2023-12-18 17:00:12 +0000 UTC
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My conversation with Luna continued for quite a while after the initial part about my previous actions. Mostly, I explained to her the importance of guest rights and why the Gods themself had decided to step into the matter before we ventured further afield. Still, magic remained the centre of our talks, as it was something that fascinated both of us, even if our viewpoints were somewhat different.
To me, magic was simply a tool and fascination, something always around us that I could w...
2023-12-16 17:00:10 +0000 UTC
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