Tsaimath

Chapter 449

The Travellers had made their camp maybe six kilometers from the arachnid-area, so after a short flight, Lenore and I were able to get there. What we saw made both of us pause in confusion, as Lenore circled above the area. For some reason, things had changed in the few days we had been away, the excellent concealment gone. Or rather, partially gone.

In one of the smaller valleys, clearly visible to the naked eye, were numerous spider-webs woven into strange, interconnected structures. ...

Chapter 448

AN: Early Chapter, thanks to me mucking up the scheduling. 

The night, and day after, were a lot more interesting than that first day. What annoyed me was that the first truly interesting thing happened when I had been logged out, editing a video-clip, taking a shower and getting some food. I had assumed that after the Travellers went to bed, with one of their number keeping watch, nothing interesting would happen, but as they say, to assume means to make an ass out of you...

Chapter 447

As expected, Sigmir hadn’t been too happy when I told her that Lenore and I would have to check something out two days later. Even that was a bit of a concession on my part, estimated from the place I had seen the Traveller-group the day before and assumed that we travelled at our fastest pace, not the leisurely speed we had used whenever not in a hurry.

Still, after we had taken the night to enjoy the others' presence and I had explained that I had discovered something interesting th...

Chapter 446

Despite my wishes, night didn’t immediately start to fall once Lenore and I reunited with the others. There had to be some magic spell for that, maybe if I played a song on an Ocarina, but until I managed to get there, I would have to wait for Mundus to shade us from the sun. So, deprived of the opportunity to start my night with Sigmir as soon as we met, I joined them in walking down the ancient, imperial road, listening to their tales of Ladrin.

As Olivia had mentioned before, the t...

Chapter 445

It took Lenore and me a little longer than expected to make our way back towards Ladrin, as Lenore wasn’t quite willing to push as hard as possible again. Apparently, the feeling of soreness wasn’t too pleasant. Instead, I took over some of the time, practising my ninja-run skills as I leapt through the trees near the road, while she supported me with her magic. It was an interesting experience and there was a slightly immature part of me that wanted to extend my arms out backwards as I r...

Chapter 444

The weave of magic that covered the hillside before us was a work of art, there were no two ways about it. It made me want to go back to Neyto, simply to sit there for a year or five, slowly and carefully unravelling what the Grandmother had crafted, just to see how her work looked. Back then, I had been too weak to even begin comprehending what she had done and had been blinded by the sheer power of her work. Maybe now, I would be able to actually see what she had done, as I could here.

Chapter 443

A strange feeling of loss started to well up within me, when I woke up, driving away the comfort I had felt during my dreams. She was far from me again, after I had been so close to her in my dreams. The memories of my dreams were a little vague, blurry, but I could remember sitting with Sigmir at a table made of Ice, drinking tea, as we were talking about our day.

Was it my imagination that had created the story Sigmir had told me about Ladrin and its bath-houses? If I closed my eyes, ...

Chapter 442

Following the process I had used the last time, when I visited the edge of Space in the Astral, I let myself flow up one of the streams of power. In many ways, nothing much had changed since that last time. I had an easier time navigating and was able to get a glimpse of the deeper layers of the Astral, but I was still far from able to traverse the river at will. If that was even possible. So far, it felt more like an infinite onion, with each layer I was able to perceive and slowly comprehen...

Chapter 441

Finding something interesting in the mountains proved to be difficult. Sure, Lenore and I managed to spot a couple monsters that might be powerful enough to put up a fight, one or two that would require the whole party to work together, but just finding them from the air didn’t mean we actually could actually fight them.

When we finally found a monster that was accessible enough, a massive, slate-coloured bear that was living in a valley, Lenore and I decided to try our hand at fighti...

Chapter 440

It was almost as good as flying. But only almost.

After spending the night in a tree to sleep, Lenore was still sore from pushing herself a little too far when the next morning came, while I was physically fine, with only a bit of magical exhaustion. With that in mind, we decided to see what would happen if we did things the other way around, with Lenore waiting within her Hallow, while I was moving my body, using my own BLood Magic, with Lenore’s Wind Magic as support.

Would it...

Chapter 439

As expected, Sigmir was conflicted when I suggested she should head into town with the others. She could easily understand why I didn’t want to head into town, having seen my troubles with civilization from the start and I could see that she was curious about cities, having heard some of her father’s tales, about adventures in distant places.

She brought up the obvious suggestion, that I could hide within my Hallow, while she carried Lenore on her shoulder, so that I could be with t...

Chapter 438

Once again, Lenore and I were flying above the others, scouting the way forward. Not that there was a lot to see, we had spotted a pack of wolves earlier but they had been more interested in getting as far away from Lenore’s shadow as possible, running like frightened hares. Not that I blamed them, according to Lenore’s estimation, they were around level twenty, barely even a bump on the road for us. If that were the predators of this region, there would be no worthwhile combat, not unles...

Chapter 437

For most of the morning, we moved relatively slowly, keeping a pace at which we could comfortably talk. Most of the talking was done by Olivia, who systematically described the two possible routes we could take and what she knew about them.

It was quite entertaining to listen, especially since she happily shared tales of her travels some of them saucy enough to count as a magic spell, to summon blush or maybe conjure embarrassment, or something along those lines, but they were superbly ...

Chapter 436

My muscles still sore and tired from the training Mrs. Wu had put me through, I slipped back into the capsule, letting out a sigh of relief at the relaxation. If nothing else, the soft, cushiony memory-foam inlay of the capsule was incredibly comfortable, good enough to be marketed even without the electric parts, as some sort of futuristic bed. Possibly with a side-market for vampires.

Chuckling to myself, I closed my eyes, my mind going through the latest movement-sequence Mrs. Wu had...

Chapter 435

The question which route to take bothered me, just a little. That it was only a little was mostly due to a lack of information, it was hard to consider which route more suitable if the only information we had was that one went through the mountains, while the other circled around them. Most likely, the circumvention would be the longer distance while going across them, we’d be facing more difficult terrain. There were certainly a lot more questions to consider, especially regarding potentia...

Chapter 434

The next three days were spent in an attempt to level my long-neglected Athletics-skill. Well, not really, but it might have been the idea behind our hurried flight, given that there was nothing we were actually fleeing from. But to keep the deception alive, Adra set a pace that pushed me beyond my limit, to the point that I would have to either cheat using Blood Magic or cheat by hiding within my Hallow, sharing the burden with Lenore.

Given that both solutions had their own merits, on...

Chapter 433

By the time I was logged into Road to Purgatory again, the mundian night had passed and the others had already broken camp and returned to the road. A quick check from inside my Hallow made it obvious that they had pushed themselves hard. While Sigmir looked relatively well, likely thanks to her high endurance and vitality, the others all showed signs of exhaustion. Given that I had a reasonable grasp on the physical specs of Adra and Rai, even Olivia to a lesser degree, I was a little shocke...

Chapter 432

Lenore’s flight-speed was markedly lower than normal. While most of the burden of the spell we had woven was born by me, she had contributed enough to exhaust herself, though not to the same level I had, leaving me with a throbbing headache, lethargy and a general unwillingness to move, speak or even think. Casting spells, even if I somehow had the Astral Power, would be an impossible task, even pushing myself into my Hallow had been a daunting, if necessary, effort.

“Was it worth i...

Interlude: Weather, go home...

Official Road to Purgatory-Beta Forum

• -Merig, confirmed Beta-Account-

Weather, go home…

… You are drunk.

Guys, I need to ask, do you think there is a bug in the Road to Purgatory-weather engine or did the weather just get strangely drunk?

I mean, it’s late summer, early fall, a balmy twenty degrees celsius and suddenly, BAM, we get a friggin’ blizzard? Lasting just about a minute before the cold vanishes, lea...

Chapter 431

Awareness could be a terrible thing. While I thought the others hadn’t noticed just yet, the lack of quest progress made it almost certain that the people we had just killed hadn’t been the bandits we were looking for. Which begged the question, who had they been?

And why had they been hiding in the underbrush, only showing themselves when we approached? If they were bandits, just not the ones we were looking for, all was well, but if they were not, things might turn troublesome. 2021-05-24 16:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 430

With dense mist shrouding our position, the initial ambush was broken, those precious first few seconds in which the ambushing force could unload on the ambushed, without fear of reprisal. The moments that it took to gather your bearings and wrap your head around what was happening, while your foes were already attacking, passed in silence. Of course, the mist meant that Sigmir, Rai and Olivia had little idea what was going on, other than Adra’s warning, and even Adra could only work with w...

Chapter 429

Few things were more annoying than competent enemies, especially if their area of expertise was evasion and obfuscation. After Adra had somehow managed to follow whatever mark the scouts had left on the hard ground, certainly nothing that I could detect, we ended up in another grove of trees, with the trail stopping near one of the larger trees. That stopping-point brought a wide and predatory grin to Adra’s face, while she started to chant the words of another spell, quietly infusing the w...

Chapter 428

The next day found us bright and early, after we had spent another night in the grove Sigmir and I had camped in. We had made some plans the night before, mostly that we wouldn’t invest too much time in the search for the local bandits, while also learning more about the areas further to the west.

Western Aretia was, just like the rest of the continent, a bit of a mess, politically. There were a lot of city-states, similar to Neamov, with smaller towns and villages filling up the vari...

Chapter 427

By the time Adra and Rai caught up to us, overall three days after our original exit from Neamov, Sigmir and I had thoroughly lost track of the score between us. Both of us had tried, and often succeeded, to come up with ways to catch or evade the other, while also breaking the tricks we had previously used. It was a game of cat and mouse that both of us thoroughly enjoyed, especially those short moments of playful gloating that we engaged in, whenever a round was won.

The training had ...

Chapter 426

Somehow, this was not the way I had originally wanted to exhaust myself with Sigmir.

With a sigh, I pushed myself off the ground, looking at Sigmir, who looked down on my wiped-out form with a look between amusement and apology. Given that she had just used her shield to remind me why jumping in combat was generally a stupid idea, by swatting me out of the air, I could understand both sentiments but at the end of the day, I had asked her to help me train.

Earlier, when I had watch...

Chapter 425

By the time the banging in my head had stopped and we made our way to the small grove, the person who had hid out within was long gone. But while the person was gone, some tracks of their presence remained, giving Sigmir and me some clues to their status. The most obvious hint was their original position, a comfortable, well-concealed space beneath a dense shrub, making it almost impossible to detect their presence unless one was almost on top of them. Even a flying observer, like Lenore, had...

Chapter 424

By the time I logged back into the game, a few hours had passed and what greeted me, perceiving the world around Lenore, was a road surrounded by fields. The only one nearby was Sigmir, carrying Lenore on her shoulder.

“Welcome back.” Lenore told me, once my mind was fully aware.

“Thanks, it’s good to be back. You’ve left the city?” I asked, my senses greatly limited while in my Hallow. Looking out, into the distance, worked only through Lenore’s eyes, even if I was ...

Chapter 423

After breakfast, we headed out as a group, planning to go to the Adventurer's Guild, both to pick up possible quests in the direction we were travelling, maybe something we could turn in when arriving at another branch, and get some information on local traders. At the end of the day, the local Guilds were the first stop for most adventurers coming to town, making it a prime location for merchants and a valuable contact at the same time. While it might not be the most profitable to sell to th...

Interlude - Crawling

-Tarrin's gaming vlog -

Today: [Road to Purgatory] - Crawling

“Can anyone explain just what is going on here?” a wolfman asks, his head swiveling around to look at his companions while he is slumped against a rocky wall. The light around him is dim, shed by just a few crystals in the wall in addition to a greenish glow coming from the staff of one of his friends. None of them answer for a moment, before the one with the glowing staff responds.

“That, out there...

Chapter 422

Thanks to the power of magic, Adra and Rai looked quite well by the time Sigmir knocked on the door, washed up and ready to head down to breakfast. She was rather amused when I opened the door for her, especially when I narrated the scene I had witnessed earlier. Adra, on the other hand, was less amused, even if I could sense that she normally would be, if it wasn’t at her expense.

Taking the time, while Rai was in the bathroom, I decided to finally get to the bottom of the situation ...