Tsaimath

Chapter 253

Pushing away the exhaustion, I managed to stand, albeit a little wobbly. There were more messages, other than the one telling me that I had gained experience but for now, I ignored them, focusing on Sigmir who had fought the thing up-close and personal. 

“Are you alright?” I asked Sigmir, who was looking a little worse for wear, with gashes marring her skin. Part of me already knew the answer, but I still felt a need to ask.

“Yes, I am.” she answered, as ...

Chapter 252

My spell completed and a javelin-sized icicle was launched towards the rabid wolverine, cutting through the air with a whistling sound. It hit the wolverine just as it tried to launch itself at Sigmir, staggering it and giving her precious moments to brace herself. I started to construct the next spell, still not using anything fancy, mostly just throwing simple attacks into its direction. By now, it was an attack-pattern that I could sustain for hours without paying a lot of att...

Chapter 251

I had to try for a few minutes to convince the others that I was fine. Especially Sigmir was a little worried after I first started to uncontrollably shake and vomit, before conjuring up a glob of incredibly cold liquid and gargling with that glob. The sudden cloud of freezing cold mist I had exhaled with a soft burp hadn’t done much to assuage their disturbance. All of them knew that the Liquid Moonlight I had used as mouthwash would cause grievous harm to anyone else if they ...

Chapter 250

I kept myself consoled in Sigmir’s arms as much as possible, trying to ignore the cruel world around me. I let Adra deal with the family that had given us boarding, especially when, shorty before dinner, Liaste’s parents returned from their work. That got me slightly interested, simply because I was curious what they worked at but not to the point that I felt like engaging with them. No, I simply stopped ignoring the world and listened to Adra, Rai, Stelur and the two newcome...

Chapter 249

After a short look amongst ourselves, we accepted the quest to hunt down that wolverine. Partially because it would give us some juicy experience and partially because it would allow us to conserve what little coin we had earned in Kolyug. 

“Is it alright if we only head out tomorrow?” Adra asked, apparently wondering if it would be alright if we got the service first, before going out to repay the hamlet for hosting us.

“Yes, sure, that’s no problem.” ...

Scarlet Ch 52

When Keera had prepared food and shook Scarlet awake, she started smiling, as she looked at the other woman. Scarlet was completely wiped out, even as she was gently shaken awake, her mind was clearly not active, the normally ever-present mask of vigilance that even remained on her face when sleeping, was gone. For the first time, Keera saw Scarlet as the slender, young woman that she was, without her strong personality clouding the issue.

Once her eyes fluttered open and, ...

Chapter 248

After we had abandoned any plans on seriously going after the centaurs, we stumbled on the first village near the ancient road. There had been a centaur camp, which we had carefully avoided and ignored, not wanting to stir that pot, but seeing the village late in the afternoon, we decided to check if there was an inn so we wouldn’t sleep outside once again. At this point, all of us were completely used to sleeping outside, so it was mostly a psychological feeling of comfort tha...

Chapter 247

It had been two days since meeting the first supply-team and since then, we had met one patrol and another supply-team. It seemed that my first instinct, that they heavily used the ancient road, had been correct but it also highlighted something vastly different. Part of me had held ideas of getting revenge, paying the centaurs back for driving the wolves to turn their den into a dungeon and bind themselves to it, but now that I was actually able to see more of the problem, those...

Chapter 246

We discussed our options for a bit, mainly refining the two ideas I had presented and what we ultimately decided on was to mostly play dumb and if that failed, we had violence as a viable alternative.

We’d simply head down the ancient road, seemingly unaware that there was a group of centaurs behind us and if we were stopped and asked about it, we would speak about a group of Ankhegs that attacked us as we had been resting, forcing us to flee in the night. As we fled, we ...

Chapter 245

When I climbed into the capsule, muscles I didn’t knew I had were staging a protest about the abuse I had put them through. After Shifu had surprised me, his wife had sought me out, telling me that now, she would teach me. I was rather perplexed, not quite sure why she was offering now, or how it came about but, as it was something that I had been interested in for some time, I gratefully accepted. And was taught that the smiling, kindly grandmother was just a facade for the de...

DLM Interlude Bk4 II

While I hadn’t been going to church with any regularity, the service in the Church of the Holy Mother felt alien and familiar at the same time. After entering the building, Tanja, as my companion finally introduced herself, guided me to the main-room where other members of the congregation were already waiting. Again, the room was a strange combination of the utilitarian, with rows of chairs set up for the people, and the somber, as the lighting made the ceiling vanish into dar...

Chapter 244

“Good Afternoon, Miss Jacobs. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” the receptionist greeted me as I stepped into the gym. I hadn’t been here in person for a couple of weeks, almost exclusively spending my time in Road to Purgatory and doing my training at home, when I logged out, mostly to be present if my party needed me. It was a problem I thought I should address with the developers, the impact it had on someone with a social life. I was a rare breed, someone who hardly ca...

DLM - Interlude Bk4 I

•  AN:  
• Some time ago, Metis mentioned that she had an idea to consolidate her Power and a commenter asked that I go into details.
• So, here is a little side-story of how a world in which Metis does so might look like. 
• Enjoy. 

There was a noxious smell around me, a mixture of disinfectant, sweat and death, making me rather anxious. It didn’t help that I had been asked to come into the hospita...

Chapter 243

My new rune posed an interesting question to me, a question I hadn’t anticipated. Previously, I had mostly worked from a standpoint of normal physics, but the “Diamond Dust”-Rune challenged that, making me question just how accurate my previous assumptions were. The posed question was about the phase-state, what was a solid, what was a liquid, even, to a point, what was a gas. Normally, there were transitions that could only be accomplished by energy-transfer but with the c...

Chapter 242

Looking around, I nodded to myself, deciding that the area I was in was well suited for my purposes. For the latter half of the day, we had walked through a harsh, craggy area of broken rocks and small trees, sticking out of a thin layer of soil. The simplicity and roughness of the landscape was stark, yet strangely beautiful, despite the fact that the snow had mostly melted away after the weather had changed from freezing cold to the wet and warmer weather we had in the last cou...

Chapter 241

After it became clear that there was no point in trying to engage the centaurs again, we tried to make an educated guess about the location of the ancient, imperial road, planning to use it to create distance between the elite centaur-squad we assumed was there to hunt us and ourselves. We had to make estimates about the path we had taken to the battlefield where we had met the wolves first, followed by guessing at the position of the main den and the path we had taken from the m...

Chapter 240

“Well, that clinches it.” I muttered, looking through my scrying spell, watching the centaur camp.

During the night, I had discussed what steps we should take next with the others and, while Adra advised caution, they were all on board to attack the centaurs a second time, hoping that they hadn’t a second anti-magic crystal weapon. To achieve that, we had only rested as long as necessary, breaking camp while it was still dark and starting to move back towards their ca...

Chapter 239

If I ever wanted to know what it felt like to be inside the body of a bell when it was rung, I felt like I had an adequate approximation. Even if Lenore had managed to pull our mind back a little, whatever item the Centaurs had used had resonated through the magic I had used to attack them, shaking me up.

“Are you alright?” Sigmir asked, as she jogged away from the sallying Centaurs.

“I think so. They used… something to break my magic.” I answered, trying to...

Chhapter 238

I made Rai demonstrate his Shadow-Meld skill a few more times, carefully watching just how the magic worked, before trying it myself. It felt a little strange, but after trying around for a bit, I managed to get into the shadows, as he did. It added a bit of confusion, as I was unable to make out where he was, even when melding into the same shadow. When we compared notes afterwards, it turned out that while we both had felt a strange feeling of presence, different, more acute, c...

Scarlet - Chapter 51

Scarlet was running as fast as she could trying to keep up with Keera’s longer legs when the other woman before her started to slow down, maybe two-, three-hundred meters away from the shore-line. Both women were gasping for breath, unable to speak and Scarlet felt herself stumble as her lungs tried to supply her screaming legs with oxygen. Her mind was still reeling with the awe-inspiring existence they had just fled from, her body shaking from the fear of another near-death e...

Scarlet - Chapter 50

After breakfast, Scarlet and Keera continued to move, Scarlet dragging a little, due to her lack of sleep. Not that she would have admitted it, so she did her utmost to keep her head up and her senses sharp, even if she wanted nothing more than curl up somewhere and sleep for a while. They kept themselves near the water, staying on the grassy, solid strip between the waterline and the forest, ready to react to any threat coming from either area. At the same time, both of them wer...

Chapter 237

We got back to our current campsite after a bit of walking, but none of us felt tired enough to sleep, despite the sojourn into the centaur-camp. After a moment, to make sure that Sigmir knew everything was alright, I took Rai aside under the guise of a lecture. I was curious what he had to say about the shadow-magic skill he had used to hide us earlier. I was relatively sure that it was a different path to such magical abilities as the Shadow Teleport I had used when attacking S...

Scarlet, Chapter 49

Standing in the shallow water, Scarlet wondered why she had been so angry at Keera. Sure, the observation that Keera’s blunder might have brought Telram onto their trail would have been useful to induce feelings of guilt into Keera, binding Keera tighter to herself but she hadn’t even thought about choosing her words to that effect, she had merely lashed out. Feeling the water around her, she decided that having Crysna with her might be a good idea and, carefully controlling ...

Chapter 236

Rai and I were rather lucky regarding the timing of our night-attack. The weather, something mostly out of my control, was playing along beautifully, the night a little windy, the sky completely covered in clouds and even beyond those clouds, the moon was merely a waxing sliver of its normal glory, which strengthened my Darkness-Magic, even if it wasn’t as pronounced as during a new-moon. Still, it would be enough.

Shrouded by shadow, we closed in onto the camp, quietly o...

Chapter 235

For two days, we prepared our retribution against the centaurs by scouring the forest for the interesting plants I had looked up in the manual. The success varied a little, curiously, Rai was the one who managed to find the largest amount of herbs, literally stumbling into a clearing filled with wolf’s berry bushes and nightshades and in the middle of the clearing, there was even a special plant that tried to attack him using some strange plant-magic and poisonous spores. Sigmi...

DLM Bk 4 - Epilogue

She was good, I had to give it to her. 

When my old friend and colleague, Technica, told me that she finally managed to find a worthy apprentice, I was ecstatic for her. Both of our specialities required some rather peculiar powers to make someone a good apprentice and eventual replacement, just as our teachers, some thirty years earlier, had carefully looked for someone that could replace them. I had found my apprentice years earlier, by sheer luck and trained the che...

Chapter 234

For a moment, after the figure of Sirius vanished, I was stunned. We had succeeded in our quest, had managed to hold back the centaurs long enough to allow the wolves to do what they had to do. But now, why did it feel like we had failed, that the wolves had lost despite our efforts? They were eternally bound to their dungeon, encaged by their own volition.

Shaking my head, knowing that it had been what they wanted, I focused on the messages I had gained. They allowed me to...

DLM Bk 4, Chapter 41

I was a little lost in thought as I made my way back to the plane. There was quite a bit swirling around in my head, mostly regarding the questions caused by Fey’s words. 

What did I want to do in the future? 

What would I do with my power? 

I had agreed to become Technica’s apprentice because I had believed, and still was convinced, that it would give me connections and access to resources, not to mention protection from possible attack from ...

Chapter 233

For the first time in my life, I actually had a slight inclining why some people enjoyed reality TV. Using magical scrying to watch the Centaurs of the camp I had inundated with Miasma, fighting against the randomly appearing Nethersprites, scurrying about, trying to figure out the best ways to kill such foes, it was remarkably entertaining. There even was a small part of me that wondered if there was a way to make popcorn, but without corn, that idea was doomed from the start. 2020-01-08 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Interlude: A change in perspective

•  AN: Trying something new with this chapter. Let me know what you think. 

Once again, the horn blew, calling the guards to the berm. It was a new concept, digging a trench around the camp, using the excavated dirt to pile up a berm that made it harder to move across the trench. That trench gave the centaur-warriors a fixed position to defend, allowing them to easily keep enemies away, instead of being forced to move out and meet them in the open field, whe...