ArcaneCadence

132 - Receive

131 - Catch Up

130 - Salvage

129 - Celebrant

128 - Twilight

127 - Stolen Bounty

126 - Chalice

With a bronze rank secured, Vivi wasted no more time in tying up loose ends. She had put off the Quest for too long already, simply out of sentimentality. 

Thus, she wrapped up discussions with Elise, met Remy, received his stunned and disbelieving approval, and then teleported the two siblings over to Vanguard. After signing him on as an adventurer and Elise as staff, Vivi warped to the Eastern Kingdom and scooped up Shel Donovan, Petra's prior apprentice. 

Malach had b...

125 - Blight

A dozen different emotions vied inside Elise as she watched the Sorceress herself descend the stairs with the obvious intent to interrogate her. The Sorceress. The Slayer of Seven Cataclysms. The Savior of the World, or close enough. And equal to those titles, though no one besides one of the maids or butlers inside this Academy would think so: the Headmaster’s own sworn lady.

The time for retreat had passed her by, and Elise once again debated whether Nicole had shown greater wisdom ...

124 - Academy

Elise was no stranger to serving unpleasant men and women, but the past month had been distasteful even by her standards. 

She had considered breaking her contract immediately after the events of the Convoy—though only after seeing Count Barnaby Caldimore safely back to his manor, of course. His refusal to send her to aid with that disaster had strained her professionalism nearly to its limit. The man hadn’t even needed to risk himself, only give her permission to go and help. ...

123 - Finalize

Unsurprisingly, Vivi found Rafael at the headquarters of the Adventurer’s Guild. If not for the fact that the demon clearly thrived under hectic conditions, she’d have felt guilty for how the man never had a moment to rest.

Yet here I go, intruding on his schedule anyway.

Though it wasn’t like she’d come with a frivolous pursuit. Logically speaking, there weren’t many events more important on a global scale than the development of Vanguard.

Seeing...

122 - Old Friends

Once Vivi was sure that the crisis at Crestwood had come to an end and that she and the other Titled were no longer needed, she set off with Eshara and Hollis. With her flight and acceleration spells, she trivialized a trip that would’ve taken the two adventurers most of the day. Even Titled couldn’t ignore the obstacles that distance posed—not so easily as Vivi, in any case. A skill that she was growing increasingly grateful for.

Afterward, she followed the pair as they met up wi...

121 - Apprentice

The great, interminable abyss of space hurled Saffra out into the open air, and she recovered her footing with only a slight teetering back and forth. 

Still not a fan of that, she thought, making a face.

But she was getting used to it. It was incredible what a person could adapt to given enough time and repetition, and Lady Vivi had dragged her through so many spatial warps that the unpleasant sensations that came afterward now passed in less than a second. The firs...

120 - Infuse

In a quick overview, Vivi detailed the Codex’s capabilities and how it might allow Hollis to heal the remaining infected. She also presented a [Phoenix Blood Elixir] and told them it would make a safe, if expensive, alternative.

“Either will work,” Vivi summed up. “And we have fallbacks. I know how painful casting with manaburn is, and there’s no need to test the Codex right away. I just thought I’d offer since it makes sense. And I do have marginally more trust in a proper ...

119 - Hollis

Rather than heading straight for Hollis, Vivi first [Blinked] around the cave system and found the townsfolk-turned-monsters, which Eshara’s team had restrained in various locations. Doing so gave her a moment to think, which she appreciated for a few reasons. Eshara was the one who had primarily tossed her thoughts into disarray, but Vivi also didn’t want to face down another ‘the Sorceress reveals herself’ with Hollis—an ordeal that would probably never stop making her uncomfortab...

118 - Relief

Eshara’s hammer slammed to a halt less than six inches from the monster’s skull.

For that matter, everything around her froze. In a blink of an eye, the air had congealed into solid mithril. The rhythm of combat was so ingrained in her that she didn’t make a conscious decision to fight back; her body did of its own accord. Yet even when she jerked and twisted with all her strength, she couldn’t so much as make the spell holding her wobble.

Under normal circumstances, she m...

117 - Plead

Eshara knew she shouldn’t leave Hollis behind with those being the last words they had exchanged. She hadn’t trudged back to their refuge spot only to see if he could aid her with any final defensive spells. Nor even subconsciously so that he could force her into confronting that brutal possibility with Corvan. But also because it might be her last opportunity to speak with him in general. 

Hollis placed an unusual amount of faith in her, a trait she could hardly find odd in a ...

116 - Burden

Eshara’s spear took the abomination through the mouth. Its roar cut off with a gurgling noise, and she yanked back, pulling a fountain of flesh, blood, and other particulars toward her that she would rather not identify. Her shield caught most of the stream, but a splash went through the visor of her helmet. The rancid smell pervaded the confines so suddenly that she almost gagged.

She’d have thought herself inured to gore by now, but through her long adventuring career, she had dis...

115 - Bailiff

Vivi wasted no time; freezing up had never been a fault of hers. 

As soon as she registered the noises echoing from within the building, she scooped herself and Saffra up with a [Blink]. Materializing inside the room, she took several sights in. Her stats meant she might as well have been standing still and studying a painting; action crawled by as if time had frozen.

There were four people besides her and Saffra. Vivi realized that she had actually gotten lucky. Both Leslie ...

114 - Owe

Mark’s head spun. That the city might send an orichalcum had been a far-fetched dream. The well-known, harsh reality was that the small town of Crestwood might not be important enough to muster up that kind of response.

He couldn’t even fully resent the Adventurer’s Guild for it. In the past few weeks, Crestwood itself had grown intimate with the concept of triage. What resources could be spared, and where. Besides, the Guild could prioritize Crestwood all it wan...

113 - Situation

Once Mark had put out food and water for the dog, he and his new companions—two adventurers and an infected Granny Shroom—set off down the dirt path headed for Crestwood. The old lady hovered in the air, dragged along by the demon mage’s spell, as unnervingly placid as before. He couldn’t tell if she wasn’t trying to move so much as an inch, or really couldn’t. Probably the latter. 

“Okay. Explanations,” he said after walking for a minute. “But maybe names first? ...

112 - Infection

“Miss Agnes!” Mark banged on the door, harder than the first time. “Miss Agnes, can you hear me? Are you all right in there?”

Behind the rickety wooden slab he’d slammed his fist against, a dog was going absolutely berserk. If his knocking hadn’t managed to draw Granny Shroom’s attention, surely her mongrel’s racket had. Yet after waiting twenty seconds, nobody unlocked and tugged the door open to reveal a familiar, leathery face.

Mark cursed under his breath.

111 - A Lead

Vivi suspected this meeting wouldn’t go as smoothly as the previous ones. Not all prior craftsmen of Vanguard had been shining beacons of social grace—Mae came to mind—but all of them were, if just by virtue of having existed in the time of Vanguard, old, wise, and experienced. That lent some ability to navigate a conversation by default.

Maybe not Ulden though. Assuming she could trust the backstory she remembered from Seven Cataclysms, the dwarf was even less of a peopl...

110 - Processed

Vivi had little problem tucking away the giant ball of condensed voidglass. With a wave of her staff and a high-tier spatial manipulation spell, the sphere vanished into a portable section of space she had carved out for the purpose. Notably, not her inventory. She tried that first, but while capacity and allowances like size and weight scaled with level, even twenty-one hundred wasn’t enough to stuff an entire compacted void invasion into her pocket. 

Or perhaps the mat...

109 - Deduce

“So, then,” the ash-haired woman in front of Saffra said, her lava-orange eyes narrowing in scrutiny at Lady Vivi. “What game are you playing?”

Saffra’s mentor met the demanding tone with a blank expression. “What game am I playing?”

A scoff. “Please. You clearly don’t know who you’re dealing with. As if I would fall for such an obvious ploy.”

“I don’t know who I’m speaking to. Maybe we should start there.”

The gray-haired woman p...

108 - Ember

“The what,” the Sorceress said.

“The, er, dragon, my lady,” Soren repeated, shifting in his seat. “I take it that means you were unaware of the situation?”

“There’s a dragon. In Prismarche. Looking for me.”

“Not that she’s claimed to be one,” he hedged. “But yes.”

The demon paused. Her bored tone took on a hint of incredulity. “You think there’s a dragon? You don’t know for certain?”

“Er. Technically no. But...

107 - Mysterious Mage

These past two weeks had been relentless.

The Peace Day Festival alone would be one of the busiest times of the year for the city guard, let alone the Captain of that guard. And this year’s had been the centennial celebration, lasting an entire week rather than the usual night-bleeding-into-morning. Throw in a mysterious demon mage, captured Morningstar members, and a dimensional anomaly that had brought grand magi from the Thaumaturgical Institute scurrying across the contin...

106 - Condensed

Okay, maybe [Blinking] into an ongoing meeting of Rafael’s had been rude, but at the same time, maybe he shouldn’t have sent her a message about how he’d been attacked. Yes, he’d assured her that the problem had been contained and that he was merely informing his guildmaster as he felt he was obligated to, but obviously that wasn’t going to make her go ‘Oh, okay’ and continue along with her day.

What an unfortunate coincidence that the two other demons in...

105 - A Given

Zael watched Rafael calmly consider him—and the implication of his statement. Eventually, the Guildmaster shrugged. “Calm? Yes, I suppose I am. I see little point in panicking or rising to obvious provocation. So I choose not to.”

Zael raised an eyebrow. Choose not to? Emotions weren’t exactly something you could control. Though maybe for this man, they were. 

But that hadn’t quite been what he had been getting at. He asked his question in plain terms this ...

104 - Scroll

Zael hadn’t exactly been drowning in options when it came to how he could retaliate, given that he had needed to impale himself on his opponent’s sword to protect Rafael. Even so, when his skull cracked against the human’s, he regretted his choice. Stars exploded across his vision, and despite having braced for impact, he created no opening for himself—he was at least as stunned as his opponent. 

He had hoped that [Innate Toughness] would overcome the level differe...

103 - Demons

When Zael finally stepped off the Convoy and into the fresh late-morning air, he took a deep breath and held it for several long moments.

“Thank the gods,” he said after exhaling. “We’re finally here.”

“Don’t be a crybaby,” his sister responded. “It was only a week. We’ve both been on longer trips than that.”

“Not cramped up the entire time, we haven’t.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“You’ve always been able to sit still ...