Tsaimath

Chapter 285

It seemed that my demeanor managed to set the dwarves back for a moment, giving me time to think. A short glimpse to my combat-log showed me that the amount of experience we had received for joining the battle had been substantial, enough to bump me up to level 68 and pushing the control regarding my Ice-Rune Mastery had raised it to seventy-two. The amount of experience hinted that there was more going on here, more than just a normal area with enemies, if the undead hadn’t do...

Chapter 284

There wasn’t really a deeper reason for my decision to help the dwarves. It was simply due to the fact that we were looking for something shedding Death Astral Power and the potential for a connection between a bunch of undead coming out of a creepy swamp and death in the water seemed obvious.Maybe the dwarves had information we could draw on and if they had, having them in our debt would be useful. Another factor was that the undead looked, quite frankly, absolutely disgusting...

Black Sky - Chapter 53

“Twitch, hey, wake up!” an urgent voice penetrated my mind, ripping me from a pleasant dream. For a moment, I wasn’t even able to remember my own name, my mind not quite wanting to work just yet. 

“What?!” I groaned, looking at the door and Airah who was standing in it.

“We just left hyperspace at system C-531 and there are multiple contacts nearby. I’d rather have you at the helm, just in case.” Airah explained, causing me to grunt in acceptance ...

Chapter 283

I let out a low groan as I lowered myself into the capsule, ready to return to Mundus. Training with Mrs. Wu was a curious kind of torture, the forms and movements she was showing me were never obviously violent but, when taken in the context of the book she had given me, they all had a common purpose, the death or incapacitation of another human. In addition, what she was showing me was stretching my capabilities but the true soreness took time to accumulate, sneaking up on me a...

Black Sky - Chapter 52

Sneaking out of the starsystem we had hidden in was a pulse-pounding affair of sheer excitement and incredible piloting. At least that was what I would tell anyone who’d ask, in reality, I set a ballistic course that would carry us far enough out of the gravity well to jump into hyperspace while trying to mimic the natural course of an asteroid as much as possible and let the Tyton follow that course without any interference while the computer kept analysing the passively colle...

Black Sky - Chapter 51

The next couple of days made me glad that I had accepted that Airah hadn’t acted in malice and done my best to shelve her past actions, looking at the future. Otherwise, one of us might have murdered the other, simply due to the proximity that was forced upon us. Our frigate, which I had learned was called Tyton, was sitting on a small asteroid, tumbling through a boring system in which multiple spaceships still might search for us and there was, quite frankly, nothing to do. W...

Black Sky - Chapter 50

The pained expression, combined with the long, drawn-out sigh almost answered my question by itself. There was no confusion visible on her face, only a look of resignation, mixed with annoyance. I only had to wait for a short moment, before she started to speak.

“They want me, aren’t I fabulous?” she asked in an achingly sweet voice, as she tossed her hair with a disdainful gesture, before letting her shoulders slump. “And the real question is, why do they want me, ...

Chapter 282

“Did you hear the howling earlier?” Adra asked, as she was walking back onto the clearing we had made our camp on. She and Rai had been hunting while Sigmir and I had discussed Sigmir’s displeasure with the way Leneira had acted towards me, giving us the privacy to have a deep and stimulating discussion. By the time they came back, we had exhausted all avenues of inquiry and were cuddled up together, listening to the quiet song of the wind, rustling through the leaves above...

Black Sky - Chapter 49

I watched the sensors with bated breath as the small, maybe five kilometer in diameter, asteroid  was continuing its tumble through space. I had been careful when landing, even if the asteroid massed about seven-thousand times as much as our frigate, even the smallest deviation might have alerted the computers on the destroyer searching for us. At the end of the day, looking for movement was next to impossible but looking for acceleration was certainly plausible.

My la...

Chapter 281

After I finished telling Leneira my story, I urged the others to move on. The way she had behaved at the end of it had been a little too pushy, too intimate, to make me comfortable. In addition, Sigmir had displayed a similar sentiment, only in a more physical manner. Once I had left the lake, she had stepped up and, quite forcefully, inspected my mouth for cavities, using her tongue. Not that I complained about her forceful manner but I had a feeling that, if Leneira kept pushin...

Black Sky - Chapter 48

“Can you tell me about the Void Guard? You said they see themselves as protectors of humanity in the stars but how would that work in practice?” I asked Airah, deciding that I, again, needed more background before I could even begin to ask meaningful questions or make useful plans.

“I won’t be able to go into details until you have plotted your course, I hope you understand. But otherwise, sure, I can do that.” Airah agreed and started to tell the other side of th...

Chapter 280

•  AN: Not totally sure about the chapter, already re-wrote it twice, let me know what you think. 

Waking up a second time felt a little strange. There was still a lingering exhaustion that made me simply snuggle up closer to Sigmir, as I considered the situation. 

I had logged out for a few minutes earlier, to make sure I didn’t wake up to a mess in the capsule and taken a short look into the forum. It turned out, the centaur I had played with ...

Black Sky - Chapter 47

I let out a slow breath, making a decision. What had happened was in the past, it couldn’t be changed. While I didn’t know if Airah had an ulterior motive in the past, I doubted that she had planned the events in any way, in some sort of attempt to trap me. That idea was just ludicrous and thus could easily be discarded. Understanding that made me realise that Airah hadn’t acted with malice towards me, or, at least going by her explanation, anyone, really. 

In ad...

Interlude: Forum - Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau

Official Road to Purgatory-Beta Forum

• Kelphram, confirmed Beta-Account

Before I forget it, disclaimer. There will be cursing in this thread.

With that out of the way, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! When did Road to Purgatory become the latest survival-horror with monsters stalking the world and fucking you up in ways that I don’t even want to think about?

I mean, there were early clips of some fucked up shit but I t...

Black Sky - Chapter 46

I woke up, feeling as if I had been run over by a large ground-transport. Repeatedly.

After I had jumped us out of the Celraph-system I had found out that the person who had packed my things had been thorough. Whoever it had been. I had all my clothes and personal effects, from the small keepsakes and knick-knacks I had brought with me to Celraph and collected during my time at the Academy, to the more recent acquisitions like the legacy I had been given by Commodore Ryker ...

Black Sky - Chapter 42

•  AN: Sadly, I mucked up the postings and thus, chapter 42 somehow slipped through the cracks. Thanks to the Patreon who pointed it out. As I'm not sure if you want your name mentioned, you know who you are. Thanks and my bad. Enjoy. 

“And what did you do with the Moneymaker?” Airah asked, after I finished the recounting of the horror-story. It was a story I didn’t even need to exaggerate much, at least from the recollections of Grace, to create a ser...

Black Sky - Chapter 45

Taking the small courier out was just routine enough that I was able to let my mind check its specs in their entirety and what I found surprised me a great deal. From the outside, it had looked like a courier but from the inside, things were a little different. My first impression, that it was based on a frigate, had been more accurate than I had imagined, it wasn’t just based on one, it could go into service as a frigate right this instant. Why, by the void, did a presumably c...

Black Sky - Chapter 44

•  AN: I changed a few details, some small, some a little bigger, in the last chapter. 

Stumbling after Airah, my mind was trying to catch up to the events. The thought that I had murdered three security-officers was looping through my head, keeping tact with the pounding of my heart. A small part of my mind wanted to put the head into the sand, simply denying reality and hoping to wake up from the nightmare but I couldn’t simply give up. Focusing on the w...

Chapter 279

It had been quite a while that I had pushed my Avatar in such a physical manner over a long period of time. We had been continuously moving through the night, making just a short stop for breakfast, and to allow me to step into the real world for a moment, before getting back on the road. When the afternoon was rolling around, we were only sustained by stubbornness and magic. Both Adra and myself were using our magical abilities to keep us going, with me trying to regenerate our ...

Black Sky - Chapter 43

•  AN: This is Chapter 43. Chapter 42 was posted out of order and is, sorted by time of posting, after chapter 45. My bad. 

Walking up to the club felt a little strange. Normally, I’d have to get to the back of the line, waiting until it was my turn but somehow, today was different. It had started earlier, when I had gotten dressed and Airah had seen my get-up for the first time. The slight widening of her eyes, just before she broke into a wide smile had ...

Chapter 278

Moving through the night was a curious experience. My low-light vision allowed me to see the world in different way, as if I was looking through silvery-blue glasses, maybe due to my affinity for Ice-Magic, so the darkness was not an impediment for me. The others were not as lucky but Adra had created a small orb that was shedding amber light, carrying it at the top of her spear. 

As we walked through the night, Rai walked next to me and spoke up.
“Master, what di...

Black Sky - Chapter 41

I let out a slow, long breath, trying to empty my lungs, before breathing in again. For the first time in two months, I was breathing air that hadn’t been through a filter-system, with all the pollutants and different elements that came with that. Nearby, other cadets were similarly standing around, mingling and simply enjoying that we were back on solid ground. Behind us, the Celraph 4 Orbital Lift was slowly climbing back up to the station where we had spent the last few hour...

Black Sky - Chapter 40

Home, sweet home. Or something like that.

We were on our last hyperspace-jump, back to the Celraph-System, home of the Third Starfleet-Academy and the regional Fleet-Headquarters, up on the orbital station. It had been an interesting trip, the information I had been taught in the classroom being tempered and tested by the reality of serving on a fleet-vessel, out in the deep dark.

The last week had been a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I had managed to get myself into...

Chapter 277

“Rai, go to Adra and tell her to pack up, we’ll move throughout the night. I want to get as far away from the Centaurs as we can. The Traveller I just killed won’t be back for some two days, while his Avatar is reformed. That doesn’t mean he can’t get word out, so the centaurs might already know about us.” I told the others, trying to gather my thoughts, to make sure we would get away as smoothly as possible. Rai heard the urgency in my voice and quickly hurried off, ...

Black Sky - Chapter 39

It was always a fascinating view, watching the moment that marked the transition from Hyperspace to normal-space, the flaring energy stretching strangely in a manner that looked just impossible. The intuitive part of my mind simply wanted to call what I was seeing unreal but, alas, reality had a different opinion. It was the old problem that humans had trouble grasping the reality of space-travel, not just hyperspace and travelling through it, but even such simple co...

Chapter 276

I’m not sure who was more surprised, Lenore or myself, when the Centaur nodded his acceptance when I proposed that, if he didn’t struggle, I wouldn’t sever his spine. But then, maybe I shouldn’t have been, he was in an untenable situation and going along with my demands kept him whole, at least for now. 

“A wise choice. Now, you might have noticed with your companion, I’m attempting to create a permanent shield against hostile magic, mostly by obscuring you...

Black Sky - Chapter 38

Sometimes, the human mind surprised me. Just from the overheard reports and what I had heard from Grace, some twisted part of my subconscious managed to create a special kind of hell, one just for me. I didn’t even speak at the theatre, yet, I was damned. Curiously, a small part of my mind was screaming at me that it was a dream, as I wandered through the familiar corridors of the Merathorn, a strange mist of smoke and blood hanging in the air, illuminated by the eerie, red eme...

Chapter 275

I was inspecting the magical traces left behind by the backlash that had torn the centaurs arm apart when I noticed that one of the other centaurs had slumped down, obviously unconscious. What a wimp, just because he was hit by some flesh and blood, maybe a bit of bone, he was losing consciousness? Pathetic. 

In my mind, I heard Lenore laugh at my thoughts, the sheer disdain I was having for the supposed warrior. What would he do in battle, if he had to cleave apart an...

Black Sky - Chapter 37

Over the shift we spent out in the void, making sure that nobody was sneaking up on the Merathorn and the Moneymaker, I was listening to the teams rotating in and out of the moneymaker. They had a lot to do, mostly to make sure that the malfunction that killed the original crew wouldn’t re-occur and kill the one volunteer that would be left on the ship. I wasn’t sure if I would be willing to volunteer to such a task, sure, it would get me a commendation, something quite rare ...

Chapter 274

The others had a few questions about the patrol Lenore had spotted, mostly if there was danger in attacking them. I highly doubted it, the group she had seen and I had identified as a patrol might be one, at the very least they were likely to report to the other centaurs if they noticed us, but I doubted they were part of the centaur-military. Not that it mattered but by calling them a patrol, I gave us an easy justification for attacking them, even if only to our own minds. It w...