Name: Paradox
Species: Snake, Ouroboros
Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail]
Minor Titles: None
Innate Traits: [Venomous II]
Blooded Traits: None
Resistances: [Pierce Resistance - Basic I] [Venom Resistance - Basic I]
Level: 0 2021-02-21 18:55:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I found myself stuck, unable to slither away. The mother Aridae continued to drift down on her shimmering thread, its arrival as inevitable as the Great Core’s victory.
Or at least, I hoped the Great Core’s victory was inevitable.
I prayed for it, because otherwise things were looking extremely bad right about now. I hissed weakly, chastising myself for my lack of faith. Unfortunately, that was the extent of what I could do. My entire length had go...
2021-02-21 03:35:32 +0000 UTC View PostI thrashed, doing my best to dislodge the bad-thing that had ambushed me. Its fangs loosened, and it skittered to the side. I could feel a cool sensation spreading through me, starting from where the thing’s fangs had cut through my scales. Already, I could feel myself beginning to slightly slow, my reactions impeded by whatever venom had been injected into me.
I twisted to the side, baring my fangs at the bad-thing with all of the threat that I could muster. I hissed, gath...
2021-02-21 00:42:56 +0000 UTC View PostIt was a scream that I hadn’t expected to hear. Of all of the mercenaries, Katrina had seemed the most indomitable. She had seemed that way because she simply was. The woman carried herself with a poise and confidence that reflected her utter faith in her own abilities - a faith that was, in many ways, entirely justified. The woman possessed a number of extremely powerful abilities, meshed together in a combination that would have given many villains of my own time pause...
2021-02-20 20:40:19 +0000 UTC View PostWhat did it mean?
My discarded scale-flesh glowed with the same light as the Great Core. I remembered vividly, despite the distraction of the fire-pain, the feeling of the Great Core changing. I remembered the overwhelming hot-fire that pierced through my head-scales.
I remembered the flickering of the thought-light.
Dungeon Core (Aspect: Time) Integrated.
Had the Great Core and I become...one? I could feel a sense...
2021-02-19 05:11:50 +0000 UTC View PostRoy puffed, his desperate breaths feeling as if they were cutting into his inflamed throat. The High Market was somewhere he was rather unfamiliar with before the day’s start. He had always kept his activities near the Low District, in the hopes - or rather, the certain knowledge - that the Spectral Guard did not keep as close a watch on the poorer district. It hadn’t always felt good, exploiting that fact, but it had felt far better than the alternatives. Act of rebellion or n...
2021-02-18 20:13:35 +0000 UTC View PostStill working on the current chapter for Risen, have been given a bit of trouble by the recent weather. I should be able to finish it late tonight or sometime tomorrow, depending on how quickly I can write it. For now, here's a chapter of The Great Core's Paradox.
The sacred-spots shifted their locations; a slow-spot pressed against the side of the male Coreless, sending him spinning to the ground when he brushed into it, each half of his body moving at different speeds...
2021-02-18 01:29:50 +0000 UTC View Post“Looks like you were worried for nothing, huh?” Roy teased as the sun fell. Despite his words, he had been notably concerned throughout the day. Part of that had been my fault; I had taken care to impress upon him the dangerousness of the Gray Woman, along with his own relative helplessness. Though he had already begun to take Jack’s advice, accumulating a horde of creepy crawlies, he lacked the Unified Risen to make himself truly effective in the way that he eventually could...
2021-02-15 23:32:20 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
I was surprised - and more than a little concerned - to see that Roy was going to join us in the High Market guard detail. I supposed that it shouldn’t have been entirely startling; he was, after all, now a member of Katrina’s Killers - and it was Katrina’s Killers that held the contract to guard the High Market for the next short while.
Despite that, I still felt like it was a bit too early. I knew that the mercenaries knew what ...
2021-02-11 01:37:31 +0000 UTC View PostEPUB/PDF attached.
I leapt from my hiding place, uncoiling my length and springing into the air. My mouth opened wide in a defiant hiss just as I hit a sacred fast-spot that suddenly appeared in my path. The Great Core was smiling upon me. I would succeed. I would drive away the evil baddest-things.
My speed of travel increased, flinging me even faster into the female Coreless. She raised her arms, eyes widening in fright. It was too late. By the Great Core’s gr...
2021-02-10 04:36:16 +0000 UTC View PostI curled upon myself, idly chewing the tip of my tail. The Great Core - even smaller than myself - rested upon its nearby pedestal. Gleaming light shone down upon me like a divine benediction. Somehow, it warmed my scales, a soothing comfort in the otherwise damp and cold room that we called home.
It was just the two of us - the Great Core and I. Something told me that such a thing should not be; I should be one among many, each of us willing to die to protect our creator. It...
2021-02-09 05:12:10 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
It took some time for me to find myself. I don’t mean that in some sort of philosophical sense. Rather, it was more difficult than I had expected to find the building where my optera-self lay in broken pieces. I supposed that I could have left it there; it’s not as if it would bleed out. That, however, would have been a waste. I had very few unified Risen left at hand within Dihaim itself, and knew that extra eyes would be extremely important in t...
2021-02-08 20:33:42 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
“Well, Alexander?” the masked woman asked impatiently. Her voice was heavily distorted, giving the words a sort of aberrant quality. It was a shame; I had been hoping to be able to see or hear something to allow me to identify her. Then again, there was a reason why both heroes and villains of my day had often chosen to wear masks. It seemed that this Gray Woman ascribed to the same prudence. “What news do you have for me?”
Alex...
2021-02-03 20:14:51 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
My enthusiasm was dampened slightly by my current dilemma: I was still ‘dead’ on the warehouse floor. Though I could leave any time I wanted, I’d prefer for my would-be murderers to not realize that their conclusions had been invalid.
Fortunately, dawn was soon to arrive and they had no desire to leave a body to fester within their hideout, temporary though it may have been. It seemed that Alex drew the short straw on dealing with my dispo...
2021-02-01 23:08:09 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
The blurry vision of my orthopt-self painted a rather dire scene. I say ‘painted’ because of the resemblance it held to a work of art that I once saw in a museum. A man surrounded by malevolent figures shaded in hues of black and gray. Someone stood behind him, weapon raised, betrayal imminent. The artist had made the unwitting man the focal point; sharp, clear. All the better to empathize with him. All the better to condemn the figures in the dar...
2021-02-01 23:07:11 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
“Please, just stop,” Mel begged. “You’re only hurting yourself more.”
I knew that she was right. She always was. Always so smart, always so kind, always so...nothing, now. Nothing but my own insanity. Nothing but a memory of her voice.
My head lolled, made heavy by the haze that filled me. The needle clattered to the floor, its purpose fulfilled. For a few precious moments, I would be free. For a few preciou...
2021-02-01 23:06:09 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
“Every idiot out there thinks it would be great to directly control a big bad monster like the Axtail you saw Markus fight - but I’m sure you saw its controller. The man might as well have been a vegetable. Completely defenseless; it would be far too easy to take him out, rather than wasting time trying to tangle with the beast itself. Remember: if the controller is dead, the Risen is too. Morons trying to do the same without [Unity] 2021-02-01 23:05:14 +0000 UTC View Post
PDF/EPUB attached.
It took only a moment’s thought.
It rarely took more than that, really. It was, after all, the thought of only a moment that recommended the guilty avoid responsibility. The thought of only a moment that cajoled the weary into capitulation. The thought of only a moment that required the fearful to run.
And so, with that moment’s thought, I avoided. I capitulated. I ran.
I lied.
“Oh, I’m not sure really,” I prevaricate...
2021-02-01 23:03:40 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
I was worried. Something was wrong.
Roy had arrived, at long last, but he looked far different than before. The former thief’s eyes were sunken, underlined by the dark circles that stood out prominently on his ever-paling face. He shivered, his hands trembling; his shoulders slumped under some invisible weight.
What’s more, I couldn’t help but stare at the bruise that had formed on his cheek.
Something was wrong.
PDF/EPUB attached.
I had found myself surprisingly intrigued. While the powers that Katrina and Jack had displayed - Katrina in particular - would have made them rather effective heroes, I had yet to hear notable mention of heroes.
Where had they gone?
Surely, they still existed.
In fact, there were a number of pieces that I was certain were missing; why were so many people Marked, as Victor had been? The world had clearly changed in my absence - to a ...
2021-02-01 23:01:20 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
I leaned against the alley’s wall, one hand braced against it while the other directed the stream of fluid. It dripped down, forming a small puddle on the ground below me.
“Hey!” I heard a voice shout. “You can’t do that here!”
Can’t a man empty out his beer in an alleyway without being interrupted?
Apparently not.
Still, I was already done - and I certainly wouldn’t make the mistake of drinking anythin...
2021-02-01 23:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
I was a bit shaken.
Though I knew that it wasn’t actually me, that I was only a mind piloting the limbs of the spider, dying had not been comfortable. I had felt my mind tear away from its pulverized corpse, ripped asunder at the moment of its death.
I felt less.
It was strange, what you could get used to in such a short period of time.
Only a little while ago, I had struggled with the multiplied limbs and sensations...
2021-02-01 22:58:45 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached.
There, in the empty shop, I learned far more about the soul I had replaced than I might have wished.
“I failed Sylv,” Gil lamented. “I lost her boy, just like I lost his father. Sylv, Victor’s mother and my own sister, left on a business trip to Orham a few months ago. She was trapped inside when the Veil descended.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what the Veil was, but I did not want to show off my ignorance to someone that had known ...
2021-02-01 22:57:23 +0000 UTC View PostAs always, PDF and EPUB attached.
“I love you, Eran.”
The words repeated ad nauseam, spilling into themselves again and again, forming a droning buzz that was simultaneously heartening and heartbreaking.
True awareness slipped in like an early morning drizzle; sputtering in fits and stops, hesitant and skittish. It gathered itself slowly, carefully, silently.
Until, finally, it poured - and I was fully aware once more.
Sorrow assaile...
2021-02-01 22:55:43 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB attached at bottom.
A thousand, thousand legs crawled across my skin; they spilled from my bleeding wounds, poured from my gaping throat, dripped from my open mouth.
Spiders seeped from my skin, venoms both minor and major dripping from their maws. Wasps whizzed from my wounds, stingers held in the air. Centipedes. Scorpions. Ants. Ticks. Bees. Anything I had been able to find, each and every one of them twisted by whatever phenomena had warped so many of...
2021-02-01 22:53:04 +0000 UTC View PostPDF/EPUB option attached at bottom for those who don't like reading on patreon.
Nations of Rothel:
The Veil: The nation of Inath, former Savior of Seals, otherwise known as the Suborned Savior, is the source of the Veil - a curtain of light from which there is no escape. The current status of the nation's people is unknown.
2021-02-01 22:49:38 +0000 UTC
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