Foresight sounds really powerful, and it is.
Unfortunately, the version Rissa and Phoebe has has some serious downsides. They’ve learned how to work around some of them, but “what you See will happen whether you like it or not” is often remarkably unhelpful.
Enjoy!
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Russ and Phoebe continued to watch events unfold around their daughter and prospective son-in-law. Russ knew Phoebe wasn’t going to change her mind, even though she was clearly nervous; sh...
2021-12-30 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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I saw someone say something about an 'unstable magic geek' ... well, unfortunately, this particular unstable magic geek has gotten his hands on a piece of heavy demolition equipment (magically speaking). Used the right way, it's a useful tool.
Unfortunately, Liam doesn't know what the right way is, and in many ways he doesn't really care. On top of that, he's looking at a translation of a translation with half the information left out...
Enjoy!
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S...
2021-12-29 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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We probably won’t see much from Liam’s perspective. Still, this is his story, so here’s how he saw it…
Enjoy!
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Liam stared at the strange obese vantablack-covered man sitting on his ritual room floor. How did someone like that get invited to a Tutorial before someone like him?
Liam couldn’t make out any details about the man since the utter darkness about him made that impossible, but even if he was wearing a jacket, he had to be just huge. Surel...
2021-12-28 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Serenity things some strange things are cute. You can't even see the voidling. It just looks like a patch of darkness. Maybe nothing?
Well, normal people can't. Serenity can see it just fine.
Enjoy!
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“Thomas, are you sure you’re ok?” Rissa put a hand on Serenity’s other shoulder and her wrist against his forehead. As she stood with her back to the stranger, Serenity could see her lips move, without any sound. Serenity assumed she was asking if the ...
2021-12-27 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Serenity is way too inclined to eat random stuff. It’s going to catch up with him one of these days.
Enjoy!
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Once again, the taste reminded Serenity of curiosity. For a moment, he almost understood it, before it dissolved into energy and joined his healing pool. It wasn’t just mana touched by an affinity, it was something more.
That was why it tasted of curiosity. It was still connected to what it was, what it had been.
Serenity w...
2021-12-26 00:05:01 +0000 UTC
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I once lived in a gated apartment complex. “Gated community” has connotations that … let’s just say they aren’t all made of huge stand-alone houses. The one I lived in was … well, I’ve seen worse apartment complexes, but it also wasn’t anything special.
Enjoy!
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Unlike the first gate, the second gate didn’t even have a place for a person. Instead, it had a call-box where you could either punch in a code or call a specific residence.
They p...
2021-12-26 00:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Two steps forward, one step back…
Enjoy!
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Serenity turned back to the spell he wanted to update. Was there any way to improve it?
No, any spell he built based around this structure would have many of the same downsides. He could limit them by optimizing the spell differently, but he couldn’t eliminate them. What if he didn’t do the active detection/movement portion, though, and just did an aura-sensor? That would nearly eliminate the risk of damaging ...
2021-12-25 00:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Fair warning - magic technicalities in this chapter. I haven’t gotten much into the details in the past, but I decided to go a level deeper on this particular spell. I won’t do that often, but it fit in naturally and I realized I haven’t really given that much of a feel for how Serenity’s spellcasting really works.
Enjoy!
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The blow to Serenity from leaving the ley line seemed stronger than before, but when he checked his Status, it looked like he’d los...
2021-12-24 00:23:33 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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After Lancaster hurried off to whatever was happening elsewhere in the city, Rissa and Serenity went hunting for her parents. They were both in the guest room, watching television. The news was on, talking in exclamation points about the upcoming local elections.
Phoebe switched it off as they entered the room. “I hoped they’d have something useful; knowing who’s running for mayor next year doesn’t seem relevant.”
Serenity nodded. It was ...
2021-12-23 00:07:43 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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Serenity knelt next to the wall where the package with the partial artifact once was. There was a smear of magical residue on the wall. It was a purple so deep that it was almost black, and it tasted like … curiosity?
How can curiosity have a flavor?
Serenity built the spellform and keyed it to the residue on the wall. For a moment, he thought about doing a map-based divination, like the one he’d done for the ley lines, but he shook his head. ...
2021-12-22 00:05:43 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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Name: Rissa
Species: Hybrid: Auspex / Dragon (Time)
Core: Mystic
Evolution Path: Sibyl
Neither of them knew what an Auspex was, but they decided it might as well be human. Despite the complete lack of “human” in Rissa’s Status, she looked far more human than Serenity did. She had scales similar to his on her chest and back, but they didn’t extend onto her limbs...
2021-12-21 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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“So what’s the secret?” Phoebe’s reaction made Serenity intensely curious.
“It’s supposed to open a Guardian to the Guardian’s magic by first opening the Guardian’s Node, then connecting all Guardians together by letting you travel to the Guardian Sea. That way, Guardians can call on the aid of others even if they aren’t there, and learn from each other and Guardians of the past. The first part works. The second …”
Russ took a...
2021-12-19 23:50:54 +0000 UTC
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The news report is just as accurate as initial news reports often are - it’s what someone thought he saw.
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Enjoy!
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Breaking news from the Nation’s Capitol! A Washington DC police patrol car was attacked by four kangaroo aliens! A search is on to find where they came from and where they’re hiding!
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Serenity examined the closet carefully. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, the air in the closet kept distracting hi...
2021-12-19 00:05:01 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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Raz decided to accompany them to the edge of the dungeon; he wanted to know how big it was. He’d stay with Aki and the others would return the next day with supplies.
The walk out of the dungeon had them all on guard, but they didn’t see anything dangerous.They heard some frogs calling from near the water, but that was all. Even if there were already monsters, Serenity could understand why they hadn’t seen any; what low-Tier monster would wil...
2021-12-19 00:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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[Establishing Dungeon boundaries]
[Boundary instability]
[Repairing Dungeon core to hold Dungeon stable]
Aki?
Aki didn’t reply, but Raz could still feel her in the back of his mind, grumpy but pleased. It was odd to know the way she felt after so many years of just guessing, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was simply different.
It was something he’d looked...
2021-12-18 00:03:42 +0000 UTC
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And now for a viewpoint we really don't see often.
Enjoy!
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[Do you wish to claim this Nexus?]
The words were all Aki could see. She’d never expected to see another nexus in her life; she’d expected to die, and in many ways she wouldn’t regret it. She’d lived a long life, even for a dungeon core.
For all that most civilizations chose to protect their cores, civilizations didn’t last forever, and there ...
2021-12-17 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Sorry abut the duplicate ... the funny thing is, it had the right notes but the wrong chapter! Here's the correct one.
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It's been a while since we've checked in on how Raz really feels, and this is very important to Raz and Aki.
Enjoy!
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Raz felt helpless as he watched the spellcasting. He was supposed to be the one saving Aki, yet he sat like a lump watching two other people take care of finding her a place to live. His feelings didn’t get bet...
2021-12-16 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Apologies for the late post ... long day at work then a power failure followed by computer update when I restarted followed by power failure (fortunately right after the computer finished its update, while I was trying to get logged in....).
Fortunately, this isn't normal; apparently the power company is working a few streets over to restore power, and it seems that's making mine cut out (probably as it switches, all the power cuts have been short).
Just one of those days.
2021-12-15 00:29:23 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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It was late enough - near dark - when they arrived that the crowd of people for the spontaneous demonstration was mostly gone, but Serenity could see some abandoned signs. He couldn’t read them, but Rissa told him that KILL THE WORMS, END THE LIES, and CLOSE ALL DUNGEONS were the most common.
She started laughing when she saw an abandoned BIRDS AREN’T REAL poster. Explaining the joke to Raz took long enough for them to reach the ley line.
Serenity w...
2021-12-14 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The scared people here aren’t the group that left the dungeon; it’s everyone else. Quite reasonably, really.
The interview was preempted ... some of it's online. Here's an idea of the stuff that's happening right now.
Oh, and no, they aren’t actually dragons. No one believes that. They’re assumed to be a flight of cranes or eagles (even if it was an odd place for them and the radar returns were not quite right). That’s not what it was - but it also wasn’t dragons.
<...
2021-12-13 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Most of the worms in Made were expelled in the dungeon and killed by the wasps ... not that anyone knows that yet...
Enjoy!
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“No, I don’t have the Life Affinity.” Lancaster seemed grouchy as he looked at Serenity. “Some healing ability would be handy, but I don’t know where to begin. Do you think you can check me?”
“Anyone can learn their animating affinity…” Serenity trailed off as he remembered how difficult it was for Vengeance to learn the ...
2021-12-12 00:33:16 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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Serenity finally had the time to stop and think, and he realized that he didn’t actually know how New York City fell in the original timeline. All he could remember was that there was a huge explosion somewhere downtown; he hadn’t been nearby and he hadn’t paid attention. There was nothing there for him anymore.
He’d been in …. Denver? No, Denver was later. He’d probably been in Charleston. It was before his parents died. He thought his mothe...
2021-12-12 00:25:58 +0000 UTC
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I don't mind earthworms, particularly.
These are ... not earthworms. Also, it wasn't that far into Rissa .... it just seemed like it. Serenity is pretty freaked out right now.
Enjoy!
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Serenity felt a deep anger rising as he watched the worms writhe their way out of Made and he thought about the possibility of that happening to Rissa. There was one still sunk in her wrist; he grabbed it and pulled it away from her. It resisted for a moment, then what...
2021-12-11 00:03:10 +0000 UTC
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Some body horror near the end. I've tried to not be too graphic.
Enjoy!
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Serenity threw his axe at the extra-large wasp’s other wing and charged one of the two person-sized wasps attacking Russ. Lancaster was in armor and Russ wasn’t; hopefully it was the right choice.
As he charged, Serenity fed Plasma Affinity into his weapon as an Essence Strike. He slashed cleanly into the thorax, his Plasma Affinity making it as much a burn as a cut. Before t...
2021-12-10 00:02:09 +0000 UTC
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Did you know that yellowjackets can have colonies of thousands?
No, the big wasp isn’t a Queen or anything like that. Dungeons don’t have to follow actual biology - and a Queen isn’t a fighting type anyway.
Enjoy!
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“Is that wasp gold?” Nat had spent the past five minutes filming the crowd of wasps; she said she wanted it as additional footage for background during newscasts, but Serenity didn’t care; it gave him time to watch for interesting patter...
2021-12-09 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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No superheros were harmed in the making of this chapter.
Enjoy!
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They blew through the next two rooms. Serenity grew more worried with each room they completed, because none of them had any of the smaller swarm-type enemies Nat and Lancaster mentioned. The third room had one larger enemy, while the fourth room had two - they were simply repeats of the first two rooms. If anything, they were easier because the group had more of an idea what they were doing.
Th...
2021-12-08 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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The discussion of roles and responsibilities seemed to have calmed the fire in Made’s eyes and Russ released her while Serenity was setting up the three spells he was going to attempt to infuse. They’d interfere with each other significantly, but he doubted he’d have to balance them for long.
The hard part was deciding what to infuse and in what shape; for a true area spell, he couldn’t simply pick targets. He decided on a vertical cylinder with a ...
2021-12-07 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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No one knows if “Made” is a reference to the Mafia - “Made” Fulton won’t say. No one assumes that she is actually in the Mafia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_man
Enjoy!
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“You aren’t going to glow like that in the dungeon, are you? I don’t think the camera was picking it up right.” Nat continued staring at Serenity as she asked.
“No. We’ll be out ...
2021-12-06 00:07:38 +0000 UTC
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Apologies for the later-than-normal unlock. Got off work late followed by a power failure, a Windows update, another power failure ... good thing this isn't normal. Just one of those days I guess!
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So, I asked if there was a worse combination than clueless and annoying. The answer is ... yes....
Enjoy!
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Serenity didn’t laugh for long before he answered the implied question. “Firefly’s a good show, but it’s not where I got my name.”
2021-12-05 00:05:59 +0000 UTC
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Enjoy!
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“Rissa? Here’s the printer. Can I get maps of all of New York City? Starting close to the Central Park Giant Wasp Dungeon, I’m not sure which way the ley line goes, but there has to be one there.” Serenity set the box down and started opening it.
Claws were surprisingly helpful in opening boxes. They were somewhat less helpful in getting the printer out of the box undamaged, but he managed.
“Why don’t you? You know what you want, wouldn...
2021-12-04 23:58:41 +0000 UTC
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