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[Message and portal functionality is disabled for all nodes within the Zenith Control Zone until City Control is determined]
[Zenith Node information available]
Serenity groaned. He’d forgotten that City Node features were often disabled during the attempted takeover of a city; while it was most common for it to be done by the defenders to prevent outside infiltrators, the attackers could do it if they captured the ...
2022-09-11 23:19:54 +0000 UTC
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The run was plenty long enough to tease out what he needed from the mana field and determine that it was essentially a suggestion field saying ‘you want to go this way; the thing/place you want is this way’. All he’d need to do was keep Andarit isolated from it and she should come out of it. Possibly a little confused, like waking from a dream, but she’d be fine.
The run was not long enough to cast the spell to fully free Andarit.
Worse, the L...
2022-09-10 23:01:17 +0000 UTC
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Yeah, I can't blame anything for being late tonight. I thought I'd posted it, but it looks like I only did the final edits without actually posting.
Sorry!
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Other than the roar of the fire in the distance, the city was eerily silent. Serenity had traveled the route to and from the Palace a number of times and he’d never seen it so still. Part of that might have been the holiday; if much of the population was at the demonstration when the coup started...
2022-09-10 01:56:32 +0000 UTC
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Akert was smaller than Rissa had expected from Katya’s descriptions; she’d assumed it would be a major city, with everything Katya had said about the market. It wasn’t.
At least, not by the standards of someone who lived in one of Earth’s cities.
Rissa guessed that she should have known better when Katya called it Akert Settlement, but somehow the idea that there would be an entire family of skilled crafters in a “Settlement” that seemed t...
2022-09-08 22:58:33 +0000 UTC
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Andarit and Arrin were appropriately impressed as Serenity hurried them towards the creeper rot. The demonstration was worth the time and mana use, but he didn’t want to take more than that. He still didn’t know how big the patch was, after all.
As they moved, Serenity felt when they passed near strands of creeper rot. At first, they were rare, but they became common quickly. The good news was that the feedback from his spell told him that the creeper...
2022-09-07 23:16:46 +0000 UTC
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“Creeper rot?” Andarit turned to Serenity, confused. “That doesn’t sound that bad. What is it?”
“A magical fungus, I think. The important thing is that it eats organics and spreads really easily. When it dies, it quickly turns into rich soil without any outside help. The problem is that it doesn’t die on its own until there’s nothing left to eat and it grows quickly. The one good part is that it doesn’t spore the way fungus normally does,...
2022-09-06 22:58:05 +0000 UTC
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Arrin bit his lip before he continued, looking uncertain. “Dead paid more but gone was enough. It wasn’t just the Lowpeaks; I don’t know who the other targets were, but I know they were nobles and the date was the same. I wasn’t in Zenith then so I didn’t get the details. I was given the contract after the sixth failure, the one that you interfered with.”
Serenity snuck a glance at Andarit. He’d had no idea there had been that many attempts, ...
2022-09-05 23:04:45 +0000 UTC
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“Yeah, I do. I want to know what he was after. Why were they targeting us? For that matter, why didn’t he wait until we were out of the dungeon? Soloing a dungeon is risky and he’s not prepared.” Andarit sank onto her bed. The adrenaline was clearly leaving her; she looked exhausted. “Why did he have to attack in the middle of the night anyway?”
Serenity chuckled. “That at least was a good choice for him. We were both sleeping. It should have...
2022-09-04 21:42:48 +0000 UTC
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Arrin was pretty confident he wasn’t gaining on Andarit, but he didn’t think he was all that far behind her. It was pretty clear that he was fighting whatever she didn’t kill; the birds he fought were followed by sections of scorched forest, and there were quite a few monkeys on the ground a few minutes after he fought them. He didn’t think they’d been dead for more than a few hours, either.
He wasn’t sure what to think when he found the big c...
2022-09-04 00:26:54 +0000 UTC
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Today's chapter will be out shortly. I got grabbed by my family for dinner and didn't get it posted ahead of time. Oops!
2022-09-04 00:08:57 +0000 UTC
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Arrin followed the trail into a small room with two beds and two chairs. He noticed the door vanish, but it wasn’t like he was going to try to go back until he’d killed Andarit anyway. He only had three days, now. It wasn’t enough time.
A quick look around the room didn’t tell him anything; he couldn’t read the exit door, but he didn’t spend much time trying. Andarit had gone out that way, but after the nightmare of the tunnel transportation, A...
2022-09-02 22:55:23 +0000 UTC
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The first four entrances seemed to support the “evacuation” guess. They were small shops and restaurants, and they’d been cleaned out. The fifth entrance was boarded off and locked; they skipped it, figuring they could come back if it was important and it was probably just someone who wanted to try to keep their property safe while they were gone.
The sixth entrance was a larger shop than the others; it appeared to be two shops with the wall betwee...
2022-09-01 23:03:41 +0000 UTC
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Sorry for the release delay today - my computer decided to lock up when I went to upload the chapter, which led to a reboot, and my computer's reboot is ... let's just say that it's slow. The computer's been showing its age for about three or four years now, but it keeps working so I've kept not paying for a replacement. One of these days it'll give up the ghost and I'll have to, but until then...
At least these issues don't happen often; as annoying as they are, they aren't common.
...
2022-08-31 23:38:14 +0000 UTC
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“Why is the hole here? I can guess why the car stopped if the Mana Eater damaged the enchantments, but how did it make that hole?” Andarit stood next to Serenity outside the subway car, staring at the hole she’d exited through.
Serenity stared at it, frowning. “It looks like it goes through some of the runes on the front of the subway car, so maybe it’s the real reason we stopped and not the Mana Eater. I don’t think it was from the Mana Eater. ...
2022-08-30 23:02:05 +0000 UTC
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It seemed like this particular Station Node, Station Node 2, was a sort of massive interchange; upstairs had symbols that looked like a bird and a flying carpet, while this level and the level below seemed to lead to different colored lines, probably subway lines. Serenity followed the yellow line markers down the stairs to what was clearly a subway platform.
Three lines came together at that particular platform; they’d all start in the same direction, ...
2022-08-29 23:08:18 +0000 UTC
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Zonal Evocation Mage
Level 10 - Magesight - Advanced Sight Skill that combines Mana Sight, Basic Sense Raw Mana, Essence Sight, and Vital Sight into a single improved Skill. Passively view all forms of magic. Observe how they affect each other and can transform from one to another. When used actively, additional details can be observed such as Affinities and faint traces of spell residue.
A combined Skill that took...
2022-08-28 23:09:49 +0000 UTC
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As they walked to the doors, Serenity queried the Voice.
Am I remembering correctly that XP from actions in a dungeon awards at the end of each level, not just at the end?
Ever since he’d come back in time, the only multi-level dungeons he’d been in other than the Great Tutorial Dungeon were either on Tzintkra, where he hadn’t paid that much attention or Aki. Experience he’d accrued while inside Aki’s dungeon didn’t seem to hav...
2022-08-27 23:07:44 +0000 UTC
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I spent some time playing with some AI art generators today. I was hoping to come out with either some cover art or a good image of Serenity.
I wasn't very successful. I figured I'd share the hilariously bad dragon pictures anyway.
It is very, very obvious that the AI does not know what a dragon is, and it's a little questionable even on 'ruins'. These are the best two ruins images I was able to make (trying to do something for the Final Reaper) and a number of really bad dr...
2022-08-27 05:21:24 +0000 UTC
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At the end of the corridor was only the single doorway. It looked exactly like all the others, so Serenity chuckled. “Well, now I know we’re traveling through a representation instead of an exact replica of what happened. That means this is probably far smaller than the original. I prefer this type.”
“A representation?” Andarit clearly hadn’t heard about that either. Well, she didn’t know much about Field Dungeons; that was obvious and not r...
2022-08-26 23:10:53 +0000 UTC
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I just realized I forgot to post Serenity’s Status in chapter 466. Oops!
It’ll be coming in 475 instead. I added a note this time to make sure I don’t forget again.
The primary changes at this point are the Death Magebolt, Crystal Seed Remote Link, and the addition of a ‘Planetary Enabled Features’ section.
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Tek watched as a fervent believer tried to convince a shopkeeper that “technology” was “the way of the future...
2022-08-25 23:14:09 +0000 UTC
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The meditation room was situated on top of the tallest tower on the Palace, and there was an odd slit in the half-sphere that formed its roof. Serenity had had a suspicion of what the room was when he first saw it, but he hadn’t been able to immediately confirm it because it was another room with extremely complex runes.
It took hours and Serenity ended up photographing all of the runes in the meditation room as well. It wasn’t just an astronomical obs...
2022-08-24 23:05:49 +0000 UTC
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Prince Ora showed Serenity around the palace for the next few hours, introducing him to the different areas. It turned out that almost all of it was a single building, though Serenity suspected it hadn’t started that way.
The Palace was divided into three types of area - public, private, and staff. They started with the public areas, where events like the dance were held; there was also a large banquet hall and several smaller rooms for smaller gatheri...
2022-08-23 23:07:28 +0000 UTC
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Yes, there’s been a persistent typo over the last half-dozen chapters of Lykandeon’s name as Lykandaeon. I think I have them all fixed in the RR releases, but I didn’t go back and find all of them on Patreon. I must remember: don’t get the planet confused with the character…
He’d like it too much, and no one wants that!
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Arkandaeon followed the prince through the secret tunnel to where it exited, well away from the main entrance to the mans...
2022-08-22 23:17:16 +0000 UTC
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The house was nearly empty.
Kalo had left the day before, along with his son and the rescued slaves who wanted to resettle on Zon. Andarit was still in Zenith, but she was getting ready for an event that evening. Serenity was already ready; he didn’t know what was taking Andarit so long, it was just another gathering at another noble’s mansion, surely one that was far larger than the modest Lowpeak house. There probably wouldn’t even be any music, ...
2022-08-21 22:52:45 +0000 UTC
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Margrethe stared at the comfortable confines of her room in the Ranar Guild Hall, letting her eyes rest on the Knife’s Banner she’d hung on the wall when she was first admitted to the Guild. It was good to be home, but she couldn’t just sit around; she needed to report to the Guildmaster.
That was always her first task after returning from a Tutorial, and it was more vital than ever. The Guildmaster would be very interested in this one; it was unique i...
2022-08-20 22:55:36 +0000 UTC
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Blaze reappeared at the same place he’d left from: a few steps outside the boarding house he’d lived in before accepting the Tutorial invitation. He hadn’t expected it to last six months, and he was grateful he hadn’t tried to keep his room. It would have been long gone, along with anything he’d left in it.
Not that he’d have been able to afford six months’ worth of time before the Tutorial, anyway. In the Tutorial where there were few peop...
2022-08-19 23:02:31 +0000 UTC
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Serenity patted Curio as the kitten squirmed in his lap and mewed at him, annoyed at the lack of attention. “It’s fine, boy. I’m just a little distracted.”
He made sure to give Curio some under-the-chin scritches and the kitten settled back down.
[Tutorial Instruction Complete]
[All Mandatory Goals Completed]
[Tutorial Results]
[Survival Rate: 99%]
2022-08-18 22:58:02 +0000 UTC
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Quiet moments never last - but they’re oh so helpful while they happen.
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Curio mewed from his hiding spot, which seemed to be between Serenity’s belly and his armor this time. Serenity was certain the shadowkitten was mostly shadows right now; otherwise, he wouldn’t fit. No matter his shape, though, Curio was always able to make cat noises. Serenity wanted to learn that one of these days, but there hadn’t been time.
“Come on up, boy.” Seren...
2022-08-17 23:03:13 +0000 UTC
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Serenity stepped firmly out of the shadows, searching for the person wearing the burgundy he’d seen. Unintentionally but usefully, his step echoed in the quiet room and he saw a man spin around.
He stumbled when he spun and Serenity grinned. “There’s no need to be jumpy. I’m not planning to hurt you.”
Of course, Serenity left it unspoken that he could hurt the other man. Implications were better sometimes, even if he thought he might hav...
2022-08-16 23:13:13 +0000 UTC
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It turned out that Serenity could summon water. Unfortunately, he couldn’t control it very well, so he ended up summoning it to more or less fill a bucket that he dumped on himself. The fact that it went away if he didn’t maintain it was the only reason he wasn’t soaked and covered in mud. Instead, he was partially cleaned with streaks of dried mud.
It was better, but Serenity still wasn’t happy about it. Also, the water was cold. He knew he ough...
2022-08-15 22:51:10 +0000 UTC
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