Tsaimath

Interlude - This is Wild!

• AN: After looking at the pacing of the last chapters, I decided to make a bit of a change, as I'm not to happy with it. So, for today, everyone gets the same Interlude and I'll rewrite some of the future content, to hopefully make it flow better. Enjoy. 

-Tarrin's gaming vlog -

Today: [Road to Purgatory] - This is Wild… Magic!

On screen, a wolfman is slowly walking through a narrow valley, a bow in his hand, a quiver on his hip and a larg...

Chapter 421

Come morning, I was rather glad that I had used my blood magic the night before, otherwise I was quite sure my head would try to kill me. Just  thinking of the amount of wine I had drunk, as tasty as it had been, made me stumble a little as I made my way to the bathroom. Checking on Sigmir told me that she seemed to be mostly fine, if rather dehydrated and would likely be in a bit of pain, once she woke up. For now, she seemed to be stuck in a deep sleep, prompting me to crawl back into ...

Chapter 420

Once Sigmir and I had thoroughly stress-tested the bed, and washed off the result of our vigorous… testing, it was time to move downstairs, for the promised feast. Now that I was no longer engaged in the testing-process, I realised that the room was filled with the familiar magic of Lenore. It took me a second to get an idea what she had done, prompting me to thank her, as soon as the connection between us was fully open again.

“I thought you wouldn’t want everyone to hear your du...

Chapter 419

The rooms Olivia led us to were just as good, or maybe even a little better, than the main-room downstairs had made me expect them. While a little narrow, they were light and gave a feeling of openness thanks to high ceilings and large windows. In addition to that, the rooms were immaculately clean, both by sight and smell.

Pleased with the room, I turned to Adra, curious about her hostility towards the Satyr earlier. But it was a conversation I wanted in the privacy of our group, witho...

Chapter 418

For a moment, I exchanged looks with the others, not sure if I wanted to enter the inn, even on recommendation from Olivia. Curiously, only Adra seemed to be bothered by the sign, making me wonder if the other two had looked closely enough or were simply following along. After the two of us exchanged a shrug, we followed Rai into the inn, as he had simply gone ahead.

“This might be interesting.” I muttered, mostly to Sigmir, as I went in, with Sigmir following behind me. My mind had...

Chapter 417

As we were covering the last stretch on our way to Neamov, Olivia went over the rules of the city once more. While she had touched on some of their customs before, now she wanted to make sure we really knew what we were getting into. The biggest, other than the obvious laws about assault, arson, property-damage, theft and so on, was that unless one party was a registered merchant with the required permits, any commerce was a big no-no. That was how the city financed itself, taxation on goods ...

Chapter 416

Neamov was impressive, there were no two ways about it. In a certain way, it was the most fantastic of the cities I had visited thus far. While it lacked the mystical element of the crystal-forest surrounding Neyto and the sea-shell ambience of Yugan, the Naga-Town Sigmir and I had visited a long time ago, it had something else that made it stick out.

Scale.

Size on a scale that made even Kolyug, with its sizable walls, look like a village, especially when seen from the air. Lenor...

Chapter 415

• AN: Part of this chapter may or may not be based on actual events.

I let out a long, drawn-out yawn as I climbed out of the capsule. On Mundus, I had slept for about three hours before moving into my Hallow, using the fact that Lenore could move with the others to get a few things done outside the game. That was a mechanic I felt should be easier accessible, a way to keep a party together while one of them had to log out. Otherwise, most people would be almost unabl...

Chapter 414

It was already late in the night, just after midnight, when Sigmir and I returned to the area where we had made camp earlier in the night. Ylva, who had stayed behind with the others, raised her head as we approached and I noticed that she was sharing guard-duty with Olivia. Over the last week, that had become something of a habit, to have Olivia take a guard-shift but, as there was that lingering bit of distrust in my mind, I had quietly asked Lenore and Ylva to share the shift with her, jus...

Chapter 413

Once again, talking to the Grandmother left me with a profound feeling of satisfaction, even if my body and mind were completely exhausted, the last of my energy used to return to my body. But I had learned some things, especially regarding Divine Magic. Unsurprisingly, the Grandmother had more insights into the way divine spellcasters used their powers, compared to myself. She was even willing to share some of them, especially regarding the insight an average cleric had into their spells, wh...

Chapter 412

“I see, you made progress.” the Grandmother greeted me, a kind smile on her face, looking very much like the kindly Grandmother she was named after. Not the elder power that I thought her to be. 

Smiling back, or at least trying to, I nodded. The shell of Astral Power I had constructed to communicate was more sophisticated than the stick-figure I had used the last time. Compared to last time, I had added more details, even incorporated Blood-Astral-Power into the shell, in a wa...

Chapter 411

“Somehow, it’s almost like coming home.” I chuckled, making my way down the hill, towards the ancient, imperial road. Travelling through the rough terrain of the mountains, with unpredictable, suddenly changing weather, unstable footing and overall sparse vegetation had been more of a challenge and a lot more of a hassle than I had thought, when we had been leaving the Bright Hollow Orcs. To say nothing of the predators roaming the mountains, many of them thinking that a group of humano...

Chapter 410

Part of me wondered if I qualified as an intellectual masochist, or however one wanted to label someone who enjoyed smashing their head against a metaphorical wall, to the point that they did so repeatedly. In the three days since meeting Olivia, I had tried, again and again, to wrap my head around the way she cast her spells, only to fail, again and again. And it wasn’t just that I was failing, failure, by itself, could be a step on the march of progress, just as I had repeatedly failed wh...

Chapter 409

Talking to the raven, whose name I didn’t even want to try to pronounce, as my mind conceptualised it as ‘the sound of the south-wind whistling through a particular gap’, was strangely boring. While he had a lot of knowledge about the local area and the unkindness he was part of but outside a narrow geographic range, he was utterly uninterested. Similarly, his grasp of magic was limited to what came easy to him, mainly wind-magic but even in that regard, Lenore was ahead of him. The onl...

Chapter 408

There were times that Nature reminded me of my own insignificance, when looking at the grand scale of things. Sitting within the golden soap-bubble of protection, watching the weather batter the mountainside managed to make me feel small. The winds were bad enough to pick up small rocks as the winds rushed around the land, creating an awesome symphony of howling and whistling sounds. In addition to the howling wind, rain and hail was buffeting the shield around us with a fury that made me shi...

Chapter 407

Talking to Olivia was an interesting, yet very frustrating affair. When it came to talking about the places she had been to, and the things she had seen, it was fascinating, the recollections of someone who had spent the last four decades wandering Mundus, never staying for long in any place, they were a marvel to listen to. But, on the other hand, whenever I asked about her magic, or the spells she mentioned, how they functioned, I was left with a frustration that made me growl. It sounded l...

Chapter 406

“Say, how did you manage to travel these mountains before you met us?” I asked Olivia, as we were packing up our things after breakfast. It was fascinating, to watch her move and work, the way she compensated for the lack of her hand, to the point that I had to make sure I wasn’t staring, again. Getting caught once was embarrassing enough, especially as I had a feeling that Olivia would call me out on it, probably with some sort of joke and a smirk on her face. She seemed to be that kin...

Chapter 405

“That Neamov you mentioned. Where exactly is it?” I asked Olivia once we were done with eating. My group was, at this point, a little lost. Originally, we had been travelling on the ancient road, steadily going west, neither because of open air nor for sun in wintertime, but because that was where we hoped to find a way to travel towards Aletoma or Arbotoma as North and South-America were respectively called. It was a little ludicrous and part of me wondered if continuing with the plan I ...

Chapter 404

• AN: Part of me wanted to make a joke here, but Joke not found...

The next morning came a little too early for my tastes. After my short log-out, I had returned and promptly been kicked out of my Hallow by Lenore, the irritation due to the recent use of our Avatar-form quite unpleasant. It might have been for the best, sleeping snuggled up to Sigmir was always preferable to resting within my comfortable Hallow, even if it meant waking up early.

Lucki...

Interlude - Forum, Seeking Help

Official Road to Purgatory-Beta Forum

• Harms, confirmed Beta-Account

Greetings and Salutations, Gentlebeings

Today, I come as a humble seeker of knowledge, a wanderer lost in the desert of ignorance, asking for advice on a matter dear to me.

The question, I am forced to ponder, is one we should all consider, regarding this world we have been allowed to travel, the world of Mundus. Namely, how are we to regard the ability to communic...

Chapter 403

“You should go back to sleep.” Adra advised me, or maybe this Olivia-woman who was sleeping in our camp. Or maybe both of us, as her eyes were moving between us quite quickly. For a moment, I wanted to decline but a combination of the throbbing between my temples and exhaustion convinced me otherwise. Whatever the circumstances surrounding that woman, they could be investigated and dealt with in the morning.

“Good idea.” Olivia agreed, a wry smile visible on her face, “If the ...

Chapter 402

A strange sensation overcame me, I felt watched. Somewhere, in the darkness around me, was something focused on me, giving me a feeling that I was being measured to my very soul. It was disconcerting, not only the feeling of being watched but also the darkness, instead of the usual, comforting embrace, I felt isolated, like unseen walls around me were closing in, about to crush me. I tried to reach out, to push back with my magic or at least get an inkling of what the darkness around me was h...

Chapter 401

By the time I heard approaching footsteps, I was mostly back to normal and had a good idea what I had done, even if not how I had done so. It was the teleport-trick that Rai was able to do thanks to his class, the one I had used once before, in Sigmir’s home village. It had eluded me ever since, even if my powers had grown quite a bit in the meantime, but today, I had somehow managed to do it again. That somehow, it irked me, that I hadn’t been able to replicate it yet and even now that I...

Chapter 400

We managed to get out of the fog.

It took us a while, far longer than the way in had taken, and none of us was eager to speak. I could feel that the experience had changed us all, had changed me. Before, when I had thought about power and powerful beings, I had mostly thought of the Grandmother, the way she seemed to be a fathomless being, able to change the world at a whim. But that mysterious power, even with the allure of the unknown, it paled before the bound Titan and the Eagle fea...

Chapter 399

Fear

Awe

There seemed to be little difference, just the scenery in front of us was able to invoke both, shaking my core, my very soul. It had taken a moment, a split-second in which my brain tried to make sense of what I saw, to bring perspective to the images my eyes were witnessing. It failed, there was no perspective that made the images less frightening. Less awesome.

Before us, now no longer hidden by the mist, was a wide valley, a meadow filled with colourful flowers b...

Chapter 398

Slowly, ever so slowly, we made our way into the misty forest. For the first time, since coming to Mundus, I was forced to appreciate my own methods, the discomfort of having your senses muddled and obscured. It was not a pleasant feeling, the lack of sight, the muffled sounds and the strange way that even scent was altered, it made me even more nervous, even more paranoid. That the mist wasn’t ordinary had been obvious from the get-go but just how unpleasant it was made a small part of me ...

Chapter 397

“That’s not ominous at all.” I muttered to myself, the vision I could see with my eyes just as disturbing as I had anticipated. We had managed to get close to the valley Elder Brightsun had told us about the day before and during the night, Lenore and I had used our magic in an attempt to gather information. Sadly, it had remained an attempt, the only thing we had been able to truly find out was that there was a strange forest in the valley, covered by an impenetrably dense cloud of mis...

Sidestory - Embers

• AN: This one is a little different and something I hadn't planed on doing. Today, we are visiting the inside of Dura Firebringer's head. 

“Oh Flamelet, why didn’t you talk to me?” a familiar voice, filled with compassion and pity asked. At the same time, a warm hand gently caressed my cheek, spreading a wet sensation.

“You’ve always been this way, charge ahead before thinking things through.” the voice chided me and I could just see...

Chapter 396

“We should get there tomorrow, right?” I asked Adra, while focusing on a distant image, shared with me by Lenore.

“Unless something serious happens, yes.” she replied, making me nod in acknowledgement. We had almost made it to the place of power Elder Brightsun had told us about and I had even managed to gain a level during those few days, due to the unusual hostility of the local wildlife. Not only were the monsters in the area relatively high level, some of them even reaching ...

Chapter 395

“This…” I admitted to Lenore, over our mental connection, “might have been a mistake.” Once again, my curiosity managed to cause me trouble, or should I call it anguish? Earlier, when checking on Rai, I had managed to increase the amount of information I learned when using my Blood Magic as a diagnostic tool and after we were done eating dinner, I had the bright idea to use that new tool on myself. If I was able to learn a little about the local anatomy by observing the healing proc...