Edited to make null-water/Core interaction a little clearer.
The ground was shaking again, a constant reminder that something was going on below their feet. A few of the children, those few that had managed to survive the Nature Core’s enslavement, were wailing; their hands held tightly to the glowing necklaces that dangled from their necks, clinging to the very thing that had once been enough to save them. For all of their youth, they remembered that well.
2021-12-07 23:32:06 +0000 UTC
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My scale-flesh quivered in anticipation. My mouth watered in the overwhelming need to taste the Lesser Core on my tongue. The urge had been growing for a while now, only cast aside due to the distraction of the disciples’ fight. Now, back in my own body and moving ever closer to the source of my hunger, it came in full force; like the bite of a bad-thing or the heat of fire-water, it was impossible to ignore.
Impossible to ignore, too, was the knowledge that it wasn’t jus...
2021-12-06 21:51:04 +0000 UTC
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The gem flickered again as The Grateful One reached for it, shadowy tendrils stretching outwards from the cracks in its facade. Just as before, it transformed everything in reach - even if that reach was hardly very far. The ore-flesh surrounding it dimmed, the bright light it gave off fading to a near-black.
The Grateful One’s hands went right through it, lodging themselves within the Coreless corpse that lay inside. She jerked back slightly, hurriedly pulling them free. A...
2021-12-04 03:56:21 +0000 UTC
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This chapter ended up being ~2x as long as normal, but I'm sure you guys are probably fine with that.
I knew that, despite all of its inherent inferiority, the Lesser Core wouldn’t be easy to approach. Its lair was surrounded by thick sheets of spore-mist and stolen Coreless, both of which would be a problem. While most of the corrupted were easily dealt with, there were more than enough of them to simply throw themselves at us and pin us down. From there, The Unrepen...
2021-12-02 05:31:35 +0000 UTC
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Doran’s gaze held steady, staring out into the mist. A few of the others stepped through his vision, their skeletal figures wraithlike and waiflike, battered by the effects of slow starvation. He had seen a few shove fistfuls of dead spores into their mouths on occasion, mechanically chewing and swallowing the grimy substance. Doran had his doubts regarding the nutrition it provided; he had even more doubts about the taste.
Luckily, his own captors hadn’t yet forced him t...
2021-12-01 04:43:44 +0000 UTC
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Needle’s message - whatever it had been - had sent a spike of [worry] through the nearest [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, eliciting a flurry of conversation that had me as lost as always. The once-corrupted that we had gathered made noises of their own, a mix of confusion and chaos that only added to my own confusion. Eventually, the disciples managed to calm down the gathered once-corrupted, ushering them to the side where they c...
2021-11-29 03:29:30 +0000 UTC
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Previously…
Kala stumbled as the ground beneath her feet rocked, groaning with a sound that she was sure would be found again in her dreams. Fighting the urge to do so and ultimately losing the battle, she looked back towards where Rowan had fallen. The man had disappeared in what had seemed to be only a blink, there one moment and gone the next.
The bridge shook again, and Kala knew that she would be next.
She took a brief moment to curse the giant roo...
2021-11-27 04:55:43 +0000 UTC
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Motes of spore-flesh drifted by, as thick as ever, forming images in passing. Writhing figures of darkness and bits of reflected light, disappearing and reappearing in a disorienting cascade of imagined threats. Some stayed longer, while others lasted only a brief second. Even though I wasn’t really there, the constant movement nearly made me twitch in anxiety - because some of those images weren’t images at all.
They were real.
Puppet after puppet wandered through ...
2021-11-25 05:58:44 +0000 UTC
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Will kneeled, offering his hand in acceptance. I took what was offered, slithering upward. The thought-light flickered as if to mark the moment’s importance, flaring as another drop of vigor met the spores within my mouth.
Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigorous Spores I] Increased.
[Life - Vigorous Spores II] Acquired.
His ore-flesh was cold against my body, an almost jarring sensation in how sharply it contrasted...
2021-11-24 04:53:34 +0000 UTC
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First things first, though. My body was still in terrible shape; without my spore-roots to hold it together, I wasn’t even sure that I could move at all. My many shattered ribs, free from the bindings that held them together, might have been left to slice through flesh with every slither.
Even now, I could tell that things were getting worse. Driven by the uncaring grasp of my spore-roots, I wasn’t necessarily moving any slower, but the pain...the pain was becoming far wors...
2021-11-22 06:55:55 +0000 UTC
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As painful as it was, I wasn’t able to heal myself yet.
Will’s frozen body needed to be dealt with before anything else; with my slow-venom having run dry and my body horribly injured, I didn’t have any desire to tangle with him again. He needed to be freed from the Lesser Core’s influence, and it needed to happen fast.
I let a few drops of vigor flow through my fangs, formed from the meager bits of life essence that remained within my mana core, and im...
2021-11-20 05:05:15 +0000 UTC
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For once, I was glad that my body’s movements were a step removed from my own control - beyond the protection that it provided from the Lesser Core’s corrupting influence, that is. With my ribs splintered and shattered as they were, only held together by the many spore-roots that stretched out to bundle them back together again, attempting to move would have been an agonizing nightmare.
It still was, in fact.
My torn flesh and fractured bones - hundreds of them, eac...
2021-11-19 06:44:02 +0000 UTC
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With the stolen disciple’s [Little Guardian’s Totem] still hanging around his neck, he had been easy to track. It was a little less easy to communicate with The Grateful One and prepare her for the ambush, though I had managed that too; the stores of light held within my reservoirs ran dim, but the constant glow of the ore-flesh wrapped around me had been enough to recover. By the third time that I had tried to get my point across, she had beg...
2021-11-18 05:56:33 +0000 UTC
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My jaws opened wide, eager to usher in yet another satisfying mouthful. The soft-flesh tore underneath my fangs, two lines tracing their way down its surface as the newest offering found its way down my gullet.
Level 17 Little Puppeteer Consumed.
Transferred to Core.
Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 8/20.
A hand reached out to scratch against my head-scales; just like the air around ...
2021-11-16 05:46:06 +0000 UTC
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“What’s going on with the little guy’s scales, anyway? They look different,” the male disciple said, pointing at my scales and peering closer. I preened, knowing that he was admiring my ingenious use of [Spore Puppeteer] to defeat the Lesser Core. Unfortunately, his [Little Guardian’s Totem] was pressed up against the outside of his ore-flesh, so I wasn’t able to bask in the waves of [admiration]
2021-11-14 06:15:02 +0000 UTC
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Level 1 Little Puppeteer Consumed.
Transferred to Core.
Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 6/20.
Level 23 Little Puppeteer Consumed.
Transferred to Core.
Progress Towards Next Upgrade: 7/20.
The thought-light flickered as I finished devouring the two Little Puppeteers that we had defeated.
I...
2021-11-13 03:57:50 +0000 UTC
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Elara noticed the effect of the Little Guardian’s efforts immediately. While some might have been forced to wait longer as the magical liquid seeped through muscle and bone, Elara’s mana-attuned senses made the smallest of changes obvious.
The golden liquid, somehow different from the previous drops that had only healed her self-inflicted injuries, forced a great many changes on her in short order - muscles became stronger, bones became denser, and even her mind seemed as...
2021-11-10 04:34:47 +0000 UTC
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It was weird, having to send out a thought-hiss in order to actually hiss. Still, I did it. In a fight, there were certain things that were necessary. Taunting was among them. It was important to aim for loss of morale. In a perfect world, that loss would lead a lesser creation to understand its origins, gratefully accepting the opportunity to serve the Great Core instead.
Sadly, the world was far from perfect.
Even with [Sound Shaping]
2021-11-02 02:19:48 +0000 UTC
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A thought-hiss pulled my head up, allowing me to take note of the mists around me unhindered for what felt like the first time since we had fallen from the bridge. Every so often, a cluster of spores tried to push their way through my mouth or nostrils; more often than not, they failed to take root entirely.
The few times that they did manage something hardly went better for them. Led by my persistent thought-hisses and [Spore Puppeteer], an...
2021-10-30 02:45:49 +0000 UTC
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Elara’s feet stepped through the mist, pushing it aside in tiny swirls. Her back was straight, her eyes focused. To any outside eyes, she would have looked confident.
She was confident; alone in the mists, Elara made sure to pull all the strings that would make her so, to adjust each of the little pieces of herself until everything felt just right. Not too confident, but not fearful. There was a balance, one that was easy to find when Elara could make adju...
2021-10-29 04:37:10 +0000 UTC
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I held my breath for as long as I could, but it was never a fight that I was going to win. I needed to breathe eventually; it was that or die. I chose to live.
Air filled my lungs, and the Lesser Core’s spores came with it. Latching themselves into my mouth-flesh, my lung-flesh, and every other bit of flesh that they could reach. Digging in.
Trying to take control.
Beside me, The Grateful One’s face was quickly invaded by lines of green and black; unlike me, s...
2021-10-28 04:57:11 +0000 UTC
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Valera could hear Rowan swearing under his breath as he tried to hold onto the steadily-collapsing bridge. It swayed underneath him, nearly sending the man tumbling as it seemed to buck and writhe.
It wasn’t actually writhing, but it was a close thing.
The bridge swayed again, bits and pieces collapsing as it continued its unsteady lean downward.
“Run! Get back up!” Valera shouted, her boots almost slipping on the trembling surface as she turned and...
2021-10-26 03:08:31 +0000 UTC
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“This tower looks to be as close as we’re going to get,” Will said, making noises at the other Coreless. A few careful bites from their fangs had sliced apart the vines around us, bringing the roiling mists below the bridge into sharper relief. I could tell that the Coreless were nervous, even without delving into the depths of a [Little Guardian’s Totem]; I was nervous too.
We had managed to move past a large number of the great darkwood’s...
2021-10-23 03:48:24 +0000 UTC
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In the upper floors of the first tower-nest that I had converted for the Great Core, my Coreless weaved past vines and branches and roots of blue and gold, slipping between the gaps with ease. When there were no gaps to be had, plant-flesh simply moved aside, spore-roots twitching themselves to provide us passage.
“It’s a little eerie, isn’t it? Good, but eerie,” the nameless male Coreless said, making quiet sounds of muted [wonder] and sligh...
2021-10-22 02:45:10 +0000 UTC
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The Coreless were still making noises at each other, though some of the turmoil in their emotions had begun to settle, stilled by something that the-female-who-was-not-Needle had said. Despite that, there was still a hint of [doubt] and [worry] whirling and tumbling about, found in downturned lips and wrinkled brows.
“You might be right about selling the Guardian Statues in exchange for concessions and trade deals. It’s ...
2021-10-21 01:05:09 +0000 UTC
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“What about the food supply?” Rowan asked. “That problem won’t just go away; things may have begun to settle now, but it’s possible that we’ll eventually run out of money. Supplies from Verdant Grove were cheap, but that was only because of the sheer number of crops they had to sell. It won’t be the same elsewhere, especially if their own supplies start to take a dip. Selling the [Little Guardian’s Totem]s will onl...
2021-10-20 04:06:54 +0000 UTC
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The return trip took a little longer than the initial departure; before, I had been rushing, desperate to cross the black-water and seek vengeance against Tiamat before she could gather too much power. Now, with the Great Core’s enemies having been punished as much as possible, I let the Great Core’s remaining flyer relax.
Its wings beat again and again, and I noticed the beginnings of a droning buzz at the edge of my hearing. Its hearing. Mine?
It didn’t...
2021-10-18 21:07:40 +0000 UTC
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My mind buzzed, filled with thought-hiss after thought-hiss as I led the assault on Tiamat’s creations. One thought-hiss commanded the [Little Guardian’s Totem] bearer to flap its wings hard once it came close enough, arresting its movement and holding its place in the air. Others sent gold-blue bad-things here or there, flitting in and out as they searched for weakness in the enemy.
My forces were met with sharp-tipped limbs and fangs, each lashing outward...
2021-10-10 03:41:27 +0000 UTC
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Wings buzzed and droned around me, freed from their prisons of roots and vines. A thought-hiss brought them to a halt, the former bad-things finding perches on the branches above. Rotting blood spilled from the places where shell-skin had fractured in their futile struggles, drip-dropping down from above.
Even now, freed from Tiamat’s control, they couldn’t escape the errors of their creation. I had done what I could to heal them before bringing them under the Great Core...
2021-10-08 02:43:31 +0000 UTC
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The bad-thing twitched its broken wings, frantically trying to escape. The spores, still growing steadily from the cracks in its flesh, pulled back. Broken wings all but stilled, only the occasional shudder left as a sign of its resistance.
Tiamat raged, demanding that I stop.
[INSTRUCTION]
Her demands went unanswered, bringing the blasphemous bad-thing’s anger to new heights. I tried to ignore her, focusing instead on [Spor...
2021-10-07 01:58:00 +0000 UTC
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