“So, are we considering your trip, that you took without me, a success or not?” Timon asked as we sat down in a meeting room back in Alexandria. He had been a bit annoyed the whole way back at not getting to come.
“Who would have rescued us if you had been there too?” I asked, not sure it was a good point, as we likely would have just brought the bus, but I figured I may as ...
2025-10-05 07:35:52 +0000 UTC View PostWe had apparently found our way to an old apartment building, much further away from the place we had started than the tunnel should have allowed. It looked like the pathways did something akin to a gate, but likely at much smaller distances. It was another thing I’d need to discuss with Quarilyn at some point, but now I was just glad to be free of the GPA headquarters.
From a win...
2025-10-05 04:04:24 +0000 UTC View Post“Come on, we’ve gotta go, we need out of the building now!” I barked out the command, trying to think of the best way back now. While I wasn’t sure on that yet, I did at least have an idea of how to escape. “Actually, no, not out, down. Get us to the lowest basement level we can find.”
I pulled up a new chat window as we moved.
__________
>Dave: 2025-10-05 02:47:14 +0000 UTC View Post
“Honestly, I’m surprised there wasn’t more resistance. I was expecting heavier weapons at least,” I said as Pryte and I took seats in the most comfortable room we had found so far. It looked like someone’s private office, but it was big enough to work for the purposes I had in mind, and I figured it was just another show of power to have stolen some bigwig’s p...
2025-10-05 00:33:25 +0000 UTC View PostI had severely underestimated how long it would take to check through several thousand people for soul knots. Luckily, Elody had recovered enough from her injuries to join in the effort. Still, even with her help, we had spent half the next day working at it and hadn’t even gotten halfway through the city.
Everyone we scanned was coming up clean, and I didn’t un...
2025-09-25 07:24:34 +0000 UTC View PostWe had sealed Rabyn, Connie, and the brothers in another meeting room while we worked. There hadn’t been time to initially talk to them and find out exactly what they knew and didn’t know. There was also the problem of what to do with them now that we understood more about their soul knots. I didn’t just want to lock them away, but it did mean, for the time being, they couldn’t ha...
2025-09-23 23:55:48 +0000 UTC View PostDave
It could have been a lot worse. Those were the thoughts I used to try and comfort myself as I went over the losses in my head. Only five people were dead, all Reltleons. They had apparently been in the path of the ‘best’ as he was escaping with William. It was still far too many.
It had been hours since my family had left, almost all of which had been...
2025-09-23 23:54:08 +0000 UTC View PostAlex
I examined the thief class first, as it was the one I was most unsure about having taken. There was some small part of me that still cried against the moral implications of having that as a name, but if it at all helped to save my son, morality be damned.
__________
Thief
The Thief is one of the most basic classes within those ...
2025-09-23 23:52:15 +0000 UTC View PostAlex
After the meal, Grum had offered us rooms for the night. Troelsk had returned with news that Squidlen was on his way to a chaos port named Last Safe Harbor. In other times, I’d have likely commented on the name, but I didn’t currently have it in me.
Some of the numbness had given way as the day wore on, though. The complete shell I thoug...
2025-09-15 04:29:49 +0000 UTC View PostBack to Chapter 234
As a note Alex is not taking over the book. That said, she will have a higher focus than normal. Given that her POVs will also now be in first person, and she will have more chapters going forward.
Alex
They had taken William from me. The thing with its stupid, horrible grin, the one that seemed so friendly at first. It had just asked, and I ...
2025-09-15 03:07:09 +0000 UTC View PostMel
Mel had told them to go take care of their shit while he checked the gate. It wasn’t like he had time to unpack yet, so he didn’t have anything he needed to grab. He had been looking forward to some time in his tree, but you don’t always get what you want, no matter how much you may want it.
The damned jesters had taken William, and he sure as hell k...
2025-09-15 02:39:04 +0000 UTC View PostI watched in vain as Mel rocketed off toward the escaping ship. I even reversed the gravity to give him as much added momentum as possible. But it was too late. I knew he couldn’t catch them. The jesters had kidnapped William. They had taken my grandchild. I had to find Alex. I only glanced at the experience notification, pulling up a chat window instead as I began to fra...
2025-09-15 02:37:31 +0000 UTC View PostNo one had come up with any solutions to our problem, and I was getting increasingly anxious as the seconds ticked by. I had no idea what we would do if we ended up stuck here. It seemed unlikely anyone else in attendance would let us go to their homeworld and borrow a gate there. As these thoughts doom spiraled their way across my mind, a chat window popped up.
__________
Orglina
“Okay, Red, let’s start at the school, maybe she’s there, and if she’s not, we can still check if the other kids are okay. I hope they are,” Orglina said as they passed back into the city.
“A good idea,” the bear said in what sounded like an attempt at a whisper.
Orglina was glad they were lucky that the jesters were ...
2025-09-08 09:17:09 +0000 UTC View PostMel had spent the last several months searching out some of the few contacts he had left with the scattered Cloudform populations. Originally, he hadn’t intended to send any of them to the Empire of Dave right away, but Greelk’s kid had worried him too much to delay on that one. So he gave them instructions and a message to pass on. He hoped they had made it in time. 2025-09-05 04:42:16 +0000 UTC View Post
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” I said loudly the moment we were back in the bus.
“That was quick, I mean, I heard the prophecy and all, but kind of figured you’d all stick around for more,” Timon replied, squinting an eye at me.
“Dave is a little unnerved by the husk they use as a doorman, but I do share the sentiment. We need to head out. They’re a little c...
2025-09-03 05:18:32 +0000 UTC View PostTimon
It had taken nearly half an hour, but he had finally managed to scale to the top of the building. The view he had now confirmed his initial fears. They were deep in chaotic space.
Where exactly he had no idea, but this building was clearly built onto a flat plane, and shielded from the raging inferno of forces outside. Timon wasn’t at all...
“So you’re sure this is going to work?” I asked for somewhere around the tenth time. I somehow had actually lost count, but I was concerned we’d miss the opportunity to grab the information from my brain. Apparently, the only way Karlinovo could come up with to actually make sure it was done correctly was by capturing it at the moment I connected the gate.
“You...
2025-08-27 11:46:33 +0000 UTC View PostTimon
Why’d it have to be Deepscales? He hated Deepscales. At least he could respect most of the other secretive races out there, but these things? Deepscales were the worst. They were always so serious, never any time for fun or relaxation. Plus, their sense of style was horrendous. It didn’t help anything that his ex had run off with one, eith...
2025-08-20 17:42:43 +0000 UTC View PostMaud
Maud had been worried about the orca for a couple of months now. She had been so excited with all the animals at the time that it hadn’t fully settled in just what it meant for an orca to awaken as a primal mana beast without the rest of its pod. They must have been so lonely. She had planned to check on them the moment the gate was operational, but John need...
2025-08-18 09:47:44 +0000 UTC View Post“How did you find out about the GPA issue already? I was just about to call this meeting myself?” Grant asked as I walked through the door with Karlinovo following.
“Wait, what? I don’t know anything new about the GPA. This was supposed to be about a masquerade I was invited to, but we can cover that second. What is the GPA doing?” I asked.
Grant had ...
2025-08-18 09:46:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe next several days had been spent in some small celebrations, which were used as an excuse for John to cook a few special meals and test out his core advancement. Rabyn used that as an excuse to take a few days off as well. I was surprised to see the Orc seeming to genuinely enjoy himself during the dinners. His apprentice was growing, though, so it made sense. He was ...
2025-08-14 20:57:22 +0000 UTC View PostJohn
John had enjoyed his talk with his dad more than he expected. Who knew a nice dinner and a discussion about classes would be one of the things to bring them closer together? Well, besides Rabyn, that was. The Orc seemed to have a sixth sense for just how John could better connect with his dad.
Actually, did it count as a sixth sense for other ...
2025-08-13 06:30:47 +0000 UTC View PostThe nap had only lasted about thirty minutes, which was enough to refresh any of my earlier mana usage in the day. As long as I kept a full stomach and got a reasonable amount of rest, it had become incredibly easy to keep my mana pools full. A secondary side effect I had started to notice was that I seemed to need less sleep.
I had looked into this, and it turned out, u...
2025-08-11 06:32:07 +0000 UTC View Post“You’re sure, that’s what’s happening with our universe?” Elicec asked.
Pryte had just explained to the brothers what he had earlier told me. I hadn’t bothered going back to dinner. This news was far too big for that. We needed to plan, and we needed to do it now. With a soul chat message, I sent cores and people gathering everyone we needed for the meetin...
2025-08-10 04:40:29 +0000 UTC View PostMagical Engineering Book 4: Wide Area Networking
The cold had really set in once we hit January. That also meant we had survived until the end of the year. Twenty-twenty-six would be the first full year Earth spent as part of something bigger than itself. That was, of course assuming we could survive until the end of this year as well.
Both my confidence and d...
2025-08-07 22:05:43 +0000 UTC View PostAs I charged the creature, I felt it probe my mind again, and again it failed to get a grip. It felt like oily fingers trying to reach deep behind my eyes and being forced back out. There was a pain, but I could ignore that. I had no idea what was keeping it off me this time, as Connie’s music hadn’t started yet, but whatever it was was working, and I was thankful for i...
2025-08-04 14:41:59 +0000 UTC View PostLaura had managed to delay her trip by another week. With that addition, it had made those three weeks the longest time she and Alex had spent together in years, and I was glad to see some of the bond they had shared when Alex was younger returning. I only caught Laura talking about future colleges for William a couple of times, but Alex shut down each attempt with a laugh about how littl...
2025-08-02 20:08:26 +0000 UTC View PostAlex
“She’s going to be okay. We were able to completely deliver the baby without complications. And thanks to that wonderful little pumakey Dave has there, it’s likely that her core won’t even be as weak as I was initially worried it would be.” Alex heard the words of the doctor through a half-awake state. She scrunched her face slightly, tryi...
2025-08-02 20:06:55 +0000 UTC View Post