Tsaimath

Chapter 527

Finding the camp the other had made was easy enough, their living presence, the subtle movement and flickering of their fire sticking out in the dead environment like a sore thumb. When we returned, Adra instantly noticed that something had changed with Rai, that his shadow was a little less pronounced and that a small part of himself was always within the boundary of Twilight. I had asked about it, and it seemed that he could now find shadow, even under the light of the Sun, that there was a...

DLM, Bk 6, Ch, 7

“You are suggesting additional dimensions?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the strings of information Galatea had sent to me. Calling the math she had assembled to demonstrate the concept ‘dense’ was akin to calling the Pacific a small puddle, it was horrifyingly complex, referencing and quoting research of dozens of physicists spanning multiple decades. Some of the names I recognised as greats of their times,their work groundbreaking and changing the way the world was seen, o...

DLM, Bk 6, Chapter 6

After my conversation about the future with Sophia, there were plans to make. The Greene’s and the organisation they were part of, the Colours, needed to go. There was simply no way around it, not if I wanted to ever have peace. Given that they were still hounding me, still abusing my name and piling hate on me, despite myself being absent for years. And that was while ignoring the whole question of revenge and, the possibly more important question of morality. Would I be willing to let the...

Chapter 526

Watching the specters, while keeping an eye on Rai, was fascinating. At first, I had thought their movements were random, purely the product of chance and malignant intent to feed or something along those lines, certainly not part of something greater. But the longer I watched, the more their movement became predictable and I got the feeling that it wasn’t just mindless creatures moving back and forth, that there was a certain pattern to it, a certain grace. Almost akin to a dance, only one...

Chapter 525

As yet another skeleton fell to the ground, scattering into its parts, I had to smile. This one had been destroyed by Rai, who had taken to the anti-magic aspects like a duck to water and was now happily slicing through the magic animating skeletons and had even managed to convince Olivia to help him with training, learning to cut through the simplest of her divine protections. That he had managed to convince her was, in my eyes, quite amazing as she wasn’t too fond of using her magic witho...

DLM, Bk 6, Chapter 5

“My long-term plans, you ask?” Sophia looked at me with a raised eyebrow, a slight suspicion obvious in her eyes.

“Yes, where do you see yourself in five years? In ten years, those kinds of plans.” reiterated my question, before adding, “You recently managed to gain your education-degree, which had been one of your goals. Now, what is next on the agenda for you, Miss Collins? Should I try to look for a catholic school-girl outfit, so you can play teacher to my uneducated self?...

Chapter 524

A wide smile stretched my lips, as I put the finishing touches on the latest addition of my arsenal. Making an item that wasn’t recognised as one under the definitions of the system had been a bit of a challenge, but careful control of my Astral Power and a piece-by-piece approach had made it possible.

My struggle had started soon after Olivia had cleared me for light activity, after the Skeleton Lord had tried to make me a half-elf by cutting off my lower half with its cursed weapon....

DLM, Bk 6, Ch 4

I had heard of looking for a needle in a haystack, but the task of finding the cause of resonance within the crystals was worse by an order of magnitude. Galatea and I had to find a connection, or at least a correlation, between something, possibly a flaw in the crystal-matrix of that set of power-crystals, a pattern within the current employed to guide their growth or maybe a minute imbalance in the composition of the growth-solution forming them, and then we had to form a model why that par...

DLM, Bk 6, Ch 3

“We have resonance.” Galatea reported, my own mind already delving into the sensor-readings, trying to make sense of what they were reporting. It was yet another experiment sparked by old observation, still trying to figure out just why, back in New Brunsburg, Voltic had been able to cause my power-storage crystals to explode on each attempt made. It had been something Galatea and I had tried to make sense of every-so-often, never making headway, partially due to the incredibly small samp...

Chapter 523

A painful twinge pulled my awareness back to my side, where Olivia was carefully healing me, or at least that was what I thought she was doing. The pain was contra-indicative of that, as Divine Healing was supposed to be painlessly perfect, a miracle of power that no mortal could ever mimic or something like that. Sadly, it looked like she had bugged Eleutheria once too often and was now on some sort of divine do-not-disturb list, because that healing seriously hurt.

“A little careful...

DLM, Bk 6, Ch 2

By the time Sophia had taken the long tunnel from our warehouse to the primary underground complex beneath the powerplant, I had managed to finish up everything with Nisha and see her off. After a quick check that everything was as it should be, that the robotic guards were ready and the hundreds of security-cameras were watching over all possible approaches, I made my own way down, using an elevator hidden in the walls next to my office.

Stepping out of the elevator, I had to smile at ...

Interlude: Highlightreel VI

A thin figure, clad in a dark robe, with a staff of twisted ebon-wood held aloft above its head stands, hands and staff shrouded in an aurora of green and purple energy, constantly circulating and twisting. With a hoarse cry, the figure brings down the staff, the energy unloading into the ground.

A skeletal arm shoots out of the dry, cragged ground, the bony fingers scrabbling around for a few moments, before finding purchase. Nearby, more arms come out of the ground, almost in a grotes...

Chapter 522

Just trying to breathe was a challenge and I didn’t even try to rise from my kneeling position, the pain in my side making sure I knew that to be a very bad idea. Lenore was nearby, half-sprawled on the ground, her feathers ruffled and I could vaguely feel her exhaustion over our connection.

Pushing past the headache, I realised that we had won, the skull still clutched in my hand was definitive proof of that.

“Love?!” Sigmir knelt next to me, one arm wrapping around me, car...

DLM, Bk 6, Chapter 1

“It’s impressive what you managed to accomplish in these two years.” Nisha told me, now that she finally had time to visit in person. I had to make sure my smile did not turn into a knowing smirk, as there was a lot more to the place than the eye could see. On the surface, the work Galatea and I had accomplished was impressive but nothing out of the ordinary, if enough money and labour were invested. But that was only on the surface, beneath the soil, buried deeply into the rocks and re...

DLM, Bk 6, Prologue

• AN: Well, as promised, we go into Don't Label me, Book 6 - Machina. The first, proper chapter will (hopefully) release tomorrow

Letting out a content sigh, I let myself relax into Sophia's embrace. If there was one place I could relax and be content, it was in her arms and I was enjoying that as much as possible, especially while the world around us was going to hell.

Because that was what it felt like, the two weeks since the Scourge had attacked a...

Chapter 521

“Lady Eleutheria, protect us!” Olivia’s soft prayer broke the silence that had gripped us, right after the massive undead had formed. It was both, mundane plea for help and magical incantation, causing a golden light to settle around us, bolstering our courage against this dangerous foe. And a dangerous foe it was, the aura spreading around it, absorbing some of the Power still gathered in the valley made that obvious, and even without it, the suit of dark, dull plate-armor and the mass...

Chapter 520

“Those are a LOT of undead.” I muttered, looking down into the valley Lenore had guided us to. The valley itself was unremarkable, sparse vegetation, many rocks and nothing that looked like thriving life. But then, given that there were countless figures, all with glowing, ghastly green flames in their eyes, a distinct lack of flesh and blood, all slowly shambling around in the valley, driven by some unknown desire or command, that lack of life became understandable.

I could hear Ad...

Chapter 519

There were many ways one might react to seeing Undead slowly shamble towards you. Showing fear or anger would be reasonable, a demonstration of grim resolve commendable. But bursting out in amused laughter, not even trying to hide the giggles that shook me, as I saw skeletons slowly move towards us, their eyes burn in unholy, green fire?

Most would call me insane, just for that reaction.

“Are you alright?” Olivia asked, while Sigmir just rolled her eyes, obviously knowing the ...

Holiday-Interlude: Ruins of a Broken World

• AN: Happy Holidays, everyone. I wish all of you the best of times, especially those who can't be with their loved ones, for whatever reason. 

Just as announced, there was a new function within my capsule. Ruins of a Broken World(Alpha) and for a period of twelve hours in the real world, or forty-eight hours of accelerated time, I, along with all the other beta-testers, would be allowed to get a sneak peak at the next product...

Chapter 518

As smoothly as we had changed into our Avatar-form, the process to release it was still jarring and more than a little confusing. Some memories of the last hour were clear, almost as if they were my own, especially the mental process of constructing my Throne, others were blurry and fading quickly, like a half-remembered dream. There was a cold sensation on my brow and I remembered creating the focus Lenore had suggested, even if we never had specified the shape, with ideas ranging from a pen...

Chapter 517

“Welcome back.” I greeted the others, after pushing myself out of my Hallow. “What did you find out?” I asked, after giving Sigmir a hug.

“We received a quest, but it’s a weird one.” she replied, while Olivia and Adra simply nodded in agreement. As she said so, a blue window popped up, sharing the quest with me and I, too, had to nod my agreement after reading it. The quest itself was rated at an easy difficulty and the rewards were practically non-existent, a pay-out of a...

Chapter 516

After we spent a week, each day praying to Eleutheria and running for hours and hours afterwards, the distance we had covered was somewhat mind-boggling. Hundreds of kilometers, passing by multiple cities, two of which the others had entered for a night and to get some shopping done and countless other travellers, especially after the second day, when we passed a cross-road of the Ancient Road, our east-west track crossing one that was leading north-south, though I doubted that the southern d...

DLM, Bk 5, Epilogue

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. The procedure regarding your wife was a success, as the physicians have likely told you already.” the soft, unconcerned voice could have ordered a cup of coffee, for all the excitement it betrayed.

“Think nothing of it. You saved my wife, the doctors left no doubt about that and my daughter told me what you procured for her.” the regal, if tired, man told his late night visitor. “But you didn’t ask for a meeting at two AM to di...

DLM, Bk 5, Chapter 35

“Mother, wake up!” Galatea’s voice pierced my mind, dragging a small part of it into a vague wakefulness. I was feeling as if I was thinking through thick, viscous liquid, my thoughts slow, unfocused and blurry.

“Mother, you need to see this!” she insisted, using the space we shared as a bridge to forcibly pull my mind into her domain, a domain of information and algorithms. For a few moments, my mind was too foggy to understand what I was looking at, the data-stream overwhelm...

Chapter 515

On my travels through Mundus, I had seen quite a diverse range of terrain, the frozen forests and tundras of the north, the windswept plains further south, the cragged, dusty mountains of the Turan Mountain Range and finally, the forested areas between the Turan and White-Mountains. All of them beautiful but at the same time realistic, only the creatures and some of the architecture giving away that it was a fantastical world. The closest to truly fantastical lands I had seen so far were the ...

DLM, Bk 5, Chapter 34

There was a lot of additional preparation to be done, setting up and calibrating the equipment, talking and consulting with the doctors who had provided care thus far and finally, preparing Mrs. Acharya for the procedure. Working with her doctors was an interesting experience, once Mrs. Acharya had given her consent to share the medical data. Normally, there would be some expectation of professional arrogance, the attitude that they, as the premier physicians of an entire nation, would have t...

Chapter 514

Eventually, we settled down and made camp, my mind still somewhat reeling from the sheer magnitude of Olivia’s spell. Jealousy and pity were warring within me, both directed at her, as I was jealous of the tremendous power she was wielding, the effect of her divinely granted spells simply something I could only envy.

But at the same time, I pitied her. The power she was wiedling, the beauty and impact of her spells, she didn’t truly understand just what she had. She was pressing the...

DLM, Bk 5, Chapter 33

The stand-off between Mr. Acharya and myself was finally solved by a simple suggestion from Nisha. Namely, that her Mother, who’s life was on the line, was allowed to decide if she wanted to trust a Powered her Daughter vouched for or if she wanted to hope for a miracle of some sort. The idea received approval from everyone, even if it was only grudgingly from Khukuri and I had the impression Mr Acharya had some reservations, too.

As a group, we headed towards the hospital, while the ...

Chapter 513

“So, are you now going to tell us how this will work?” I asked, looking at Olivia with a raised eyebrow. When Lenore and I had returned to their accommodations last night, Olivia had told everyone to be ready to leave before dawn, without specifying why. In the morning, she had guided the others out of town, with me still riding along in my Hallow, to a nearby meadow, as the pre-dawn light was slowly brightening the mountains in the distance.

“Dawn is the time of beginnings, so it...

Chapter 512

“So, did anything interesting happen while I was gone?” I asked Lenore, as I was looking out from my Hallow. The others were still in Narristo and judging by the surroundings my guess would be that they were replenishing our supplies. Lenore was sitting on the edge of a roof, looking down as they moved around a relatively busy market-square.

“Eh, just a little bit. It seems that Hafta visited the tavern we are staying in last night, got drunk and accused Adra of trying to steal Ph...