Light spread through the cavern in a coruscating wave, shifting and rippling with the motions of the mana-water that was its source. It was like slithering into a new world; from the darkness came light. Blocked in part by an alcove that hung down from above, creating a separation between the darkness of the cavern and radiant light that had been all but impossible to see in my initial fall. A river of mana-water that rained down from above, falling from a giant wall-crack in the s...
2022-03-23 02:18:00 +0000 UTC
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There was a reason that I hadn’t just thrown spore-puppets at the enemy from the start. I could have done that. I could have slowly whittled down the nest’s population, trading the life of one spore-puppet to infect another, but it would have taken too long. If I had enough puppets that they could simply swarm over their kin, then I might have actually done it.
Unfortunately, I just didn’t.
Despite my efforts, the nest contained many times the number of D...
2022-03-20 08:11:02 +0000 UTC
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It was to a changed nest that my spore-puppets returned, lugging their venom-filled gift behind them. Where once there had been a whirl of activity, with bad-thing after bad-thing busy shoring up its defenses, there was silence; an air of hopelessness, almost, palpable in the air. Of hunger.
Many of the hunters had never returned, joining the ranks of my spore-puppets instead. Those that did came back with either nothing at all, or just enough to be snatched away by the stron...
2022-03-20 07:48:46 +0000 UTC
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I let out a light hiss, tasting the air again. The scent-taste of desperation pressed against my tongue, or at least I imagined that it did. The many-legged bad-things had failed to put out the fires; they weren’t like the Great Core’s disciples, in that. The Coreless, back in the first many-nest that I had claimed for the Great Core, had fought the little fire that I set with ease. Shaped pieces of darkwood and hard-shell from monsters had let them toss great swathes of mana-w...
2022-03-19 04:21:46 +0000 UTC
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There was one thing that I forgot about new lives, something that should have been obvious. Really, really obvious.
If I did things differently, different things would happen.
In this case, that different thing was the many-legged bad-things retreating to their nest earlier than before. Between their hatred of light sources and the overwhelming strength of [The Golem’s Echo] and [Little Guardian’s Focus] merged tog...
2022-03-18 02:09:05 +0000 UTC
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The Darkweavers’ danger was in their ability to ambush and entrap their prey. Receiving [Ambusher’s Vision] as a Blooded Trait had only made that more clear to me, though it wasn’t necessarily a reminder that I needed. The cavern itself was enough of one.
More specifically, the cavern’s darkness.
It was unnatural; though some parts of the World Dungeon lacked light, it was hard to slither into a cavern where there was absolutely not...
2022-03-17 06:53:56 +0000 UTC
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It's 4am, why am I still awake? Anyway, here's a chapter.
The darkness broke as every bit of light that I had gathered in the past minutes was released all at once. Light flashed. Bad-things shrieked, blinded.
Vulnerable.
And far smaller than I remembered.
I moved towards the nearest in a burst of speed, my new, larger slithers devouring the distance between us. I marveled at the change, and then sunk my fangs into many-legged flesh. A stream of spores...
2022-03-16 09:05:11 +0000 UTC
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Itching was the first sign of my rebirth, that now-familiar sensation of scale-flesh too tight for comfort scraping against new flesh. I twisted and thrashed, sloughing off the dead and welcoming the new. Cool air brushed against my length as an opening formed.
I broke free; the thought-light welcomed me, as brilliant as it always had been. Offering me the chance to choose again. Offering me the chance to move in another direction, to test more of the blessings that the Great...
2022-03-16 04:54:50 +0000 UTC
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I never thought that I would curse a bad-thing’s lack of legs, but there I was. The stupid limbs were horrible, sure, prone to bumbling and stumbling about in response to the smallest of hazards, but there was one thing that they excelled at.
Being terrible for swimming.
I could imagine it easily; a giant bad-thing, a leviathan of the depths, restricted to awkwardly flopping its stupid feet to propel itself forward. I might have been able to outswim something like tha...
2022-03-15 07:28:54 +0000 UTC
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“...and then the Little Guardian sent his captured monsters across the null-water. They dove down, almost too fast to see, their wings buzzing and fluttering so loudly that I could hear them from where I watched,” Valera said, her voice loud and excited - though far less excited than the sounds she was making implied. Still, there was enough excitement to go around. Noise after noise was marked by sharp gasps and squeals by the little ones. Their grubby hands burrowed into the ...
2022-03-14 21:49:00 +0000 UTC
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A previous chapter posted a few seconds ago, make sure you didn't skip it
“I think that you have the wrong idea,” Elara said, keeping a wary eye on the men that held - or attempted to, anyway - her in place. They seemed nervous, faced with the knowledge that they were trying to keep a well-equipped Seeker in place. Resolute, too.
Another emotion that was out of place. What had them so determined? The who of it was easier to see; the man who had turned...
2022-03-14 05:13:36 +0000 UTC
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Elara trudged through the fading mists, another puppet draped over her shoulder. She didn’t recognize this one. Then again, it wasn’t like she had known everyone in Verdant Grove, and the struggles that had come post-Collapse had made some people hard to recognize anyway. Emaciation tended to do that; like many of the others, they were distressingly light. Lighter than they should have been. The puppet twitched, trying to free itself again. Overlong nails awkwardly scraped at h...
2022-03-14 05:11:56 +0000 UTC
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My mana burned like streams of fire-waters running through wooden channels. It thrashed like a leviathan of the deep, causing mana-water to roil in its wake. It struggled relentlessly, unwilling to move as I willed.
I/The Echo, even sculpted into the proper shape, wasn’t the skill’s natural host; lifeless stone and living stone were not the same. Far from it. That difference had meaning. One had far more power than the other, and that very same power required more power f...
2022-03-04 03:44:09 +0000 UTC
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It started with the grinding of stone. Not in the world, but in my mind. Like broken stone-spikes sliding against one another, each crumbling into ruin. I sunk mental fangs into the image, holding fast to the sounds. They were important. Necessary.
They were The Golem.
Something pierced my scale-flesh, pushing through the flames that surrounded me.
Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate I] Increased.
[Piercing R...
2022-02-26 05:43:25 +0000 UTC
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I wanted it so badly, with such fervor that I could almost taste it on my tongue.
Of course, I wanted a lot of things right now. With each and every new flicker of the thought-light, new choices had presented themselves - and, almost without fail, I found myself drawn towards them.
[Guardian Link] was only the newest of the choices that called to me.
And call to me it did.
I let the thought-light’s wonderful glow press ag...
2022-02-23 05:01:11 +0000 UTC
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Make sure you didn't skip the one posted just before this. Third chapter should hopefully come out before I head to bed tonight.
The first choice was as tempting as it was familiar. In fact, it was even more tempting with how strong its opposite had proven to be.
Death: You are a symbol of the eternal, just as you are of many other things. You are a symbol of death. You gain the ability to transform mana into the essence of death, using it to ...
2022-02-22 04:20:30 +0000 UTC
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Another one coming immediately after this, and then going to start working on a third for tonight. Sorry about the delay, some stuff came up and writing got pushed to the side. Buckling down so that I can catch up, expect a bunch of chapters in quick succession.
The thought-light appeared as it always did, presenting the rewards that the Great Core offered in return for my faith - not that I needed any in return for ensuring the Great Core’s will was done, but it was ...
2022-02-22 04:19:11 +0000 UTC
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The enemy descended; slithering, hissing, twining their deceptively small length down a bundle of vines. It looked weak, a tiny thing that even the least powerful of The Golem’s many defeated enemies could have swallowed whole. Only the Core embedded into its flesh, smaller than even The Golem’s own Core-heart, revealed the danger that hid behind its scales - marking the tiny creature as an Ascended.
That, and the plant-flesh that it so clearly controlled. The roots...
2022-02-01 04:02:30 +0000 UTC
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The enemy attacked again, roots smashing against The Golem’s clay-form with enough strength to send tremors across his body. Another shard fractured, splitting from the stone that was his skin. It was bigger than some of the others; too large to lose without a fight.
The Golem lunged, breaking free of the plant-flesh that grasped his limbs, and fell upon the lost shard with a deafening crash. As always, sensation in his clay-form was a muted and delayed thing. It wasn’t <...
2022-01-31 02:55:14 +0000 UTC
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I stared out through the wall-crack, sending thought-hiss after thought-hiss towards my assembled spore-roots.
Constrict, I told the ones that rested below. The spore-roots answered, flexing their gold-blue lengths, and plant-flesh wrapped itself around the bad-thing’s limbs. They squeezed, and though I could tell that the bad-thing was far too armored for the weaker of the Great Core’s plant-flesh followers to damage, even the lowest of them could have ...
2022-01-28 03:14:00 +0000 UTC
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There was a forest outside the Guildhall, the plants that formed it stretching ever upwards. Erik had never seen so much color in one place; golds and blues and greens and browns filled his vision, a scenic view of varied hues painted by a master of the arts. Splashes of color erupted here and there, bursting from the forest’s boundaries. Each formed in the same manner as the last: in hardly more than a moment and with no visible effort. They just came into being. Impossibly. Bea...
2022-01-26 07:12:47 +0000 UTC
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I almost hissed with frustration as the bad-thing slipped away again, falling through once-solid stone with unsettling ease. I would have, if I had control over my own body. It was frustrating, to see victory slip away again.
Still, Needle - and a few other followers, too - lived this time; that was some victory, if not the true victory that I wanted. More importantly, I didn’t think that it was over. Through Needle’s ears, I could hear the sound of stone fractur...
2022-01-24 03:25:33 +0000 UTC
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The Golem froze.
Mother prodded at him again and again, commanding him to move and fight and find that taste again. It made her happy. It should have made him happy.
He didn’t move, even if a large part of him wanted to obey. His tendrils jerked and jolted about in fits and starts, and his form began to collapse under the strain. Bits of mud oozed off its surface like a tiny rockfall, each little piece pulling at another as it tumbled down. He le...
2022-01-15 03:39:14 +0000 UTC
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The Golem didn’t like this.
Mother was angry, and the gold and blue roots had only made it worse; her roars felt as if they were shaking his Core, louder than the crick-crack of stone and far less satisfying. He wanted to escape it, to run and hide; his clay-form wavered and rippled as a reflexive use of [Sodden Earth] nearly brought him back to the comforting bliss of his mud-form, one so like the before-form that it almost felt as if his Creator ...
2022-01-11 23:00:16 +0000 UTC
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It fell faster than it would have without my direction, a plethora of spore-roots forcing the giant root down in a motion that audibly cut through the air; something closer to a roar than a whistle or a whine, even before touching the ground itself. I could sense a few of the spore-roots infesting its plant-flesh tear themselves apart under the strain, only for a new tendril to grow and take its place again under the constant touch of [Verdure Parasite], t...
2022-01-10 04:07:49 +0000 UTC
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I couldn't seem to write this chapter in a way that I was satisfied with and then started avoiding it because of that. Which is obviously far from ideal. You guys don't deserve that, that's for sure - so I finally decided to just say 'fuck it' and go with what I have. It's a better option than the writing paralysis that I was previously going with, even if it's not perfect. The chapter itself is probably not even really a problem and I'm just...
2022-01-07 05:34:53 +0000 UTC
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I slithered about in a daze, even the spore-roots that still controlled my every movement seeming just ever-so-slightly out of place. Wrong. Distorted.
Just like my victory.
I should have felt better about it than I did. That was an Ascended, a bad-thing that possessed powers on the level of my own - and I had won, forcing it to flee in fear.
That meant something. That was deserving of celebration, proof of my worth as the Great Core’s Champion. Everyth...
2021-12-23 05:02:08 +0000 UTC
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The tree creaked, solid bits of plant-flesh - each large enough to crush me with their overwhelming mass - falling down with every tug and pull. The giant bad-thing swayed as if caught in an invisible wind, nearly upturning the world below the many-nest in its powerful struggles. I hissed alongside it, my noises of excitement mixing with its sounds of terror.
The Lesser Core’s Guardian tried to fight. Oh, it tried so hard to fight; powerful roots thrashed and jerke...
2021-12-21 23:19:13 +0000 UTC
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I pulled free of my shed scale-flesh, exulting in my victory over the Lesser Core. Still, my thoughts were foggy; warped and distorted, jumbled by what surrounded me. Overwhelmed by the sheer scope of it all.
The thought-light flickered.
Core Skill: [Verdure Parasite].
Description: One Bloom Stunted, Another Grown.
I…didn’t quite understand, my mind feeling hobbled, confused by the strangeness of my new...
2021-12-10 03:50:35 +0000 UTC
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Kala ducked down, dodging another javelin. This one, like the ones that came before it, shattered into countless fragments upon impact. As far as she could tell, the monster’s stone was far more brittle than the earth it was created from; some part of its abilities morphed its characteristics, the transition from solid to near-liquid to solid again transforming hard stone into something closer to brittle clay.
In some ways, that made it even more dangerous.
The floor ...
2021-12-08 23:45:31 +0000 UTC
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