Kayday

236 - Living Cards

Lexie did not sleep throughout the night.

She and Pvilycht spent most of it working out possible pathways for the living card, and after brainstorming, they finally put it together, with Lexie writing her thesis and sketching it on her old black pad. 

“Eldritch and human pathways are different,” Lexie explained. “Because human pathways are naturally magic-resistant, with some leeway depending on how much mana they have internally. Eldritch and other creatures have most...

235 - Tool

The adults stared at the kids with a range of expressions, but it was Stein’s fierce disapproval that had Dewie shifting closer to Lexie. 

Lexie stared back at Stein just as fiercely, but that was also so that she didn’t want to meet her father's gaze quite yet.

Journeyman, whose expression was the friendliest of the bunch, somewhere between relief and amusement, was the one who broke the silence.

“Well,” he said. “I’m very happy to see you alive and well on...

234 - The Oracle Part 2

Dewie blinked several times. “Huh?”

“I’ll explain on the way there,” Lexie told him. “But we need to leave now, before the portal closes.”

“Portal?”

“Yeah. I teleported here.” 

"How?" he whispered as he sat up.

"Well, it wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much."

First, Lexie had searched for an alternative route onto campus, one that wouldn't trigger any of the security protocols. And there were a lot of them. It had taken her nea...

233 - The Oracle

Unlike before, when Lexie had explored Dewie’s pathways, this time he wasn’t on the medication that suppressed his soul magic; now it suffused his pathways, concentrating on those in his brain and his eyes.

It was a dark cloud that seemed to cause his pathways to glitch, and Lexie could also see the Pyner's twists, concentrated on his eyes.

Lexie also felt the effect of Xena’s light on it. It straightened out the twists, but it also drove back the soul mana cloud that had su...

232 - Epiphany

Vacek nodded, accepting Lexie's demand. "We'll go to him first thing tomorrow. You'll need to work quickly, because I get the feeling we're getting to the end."

"The end of what?" Lexie asked.

"The Alchemist’s ultimate goal. I think he caused all that commotion to bring the Fae to Earth and get them to attempt to enforce order."

"Why would he do that?"

“Veneration and vindication,” Aiden said. “The Alchemist justified his illegal human experimentation by statin...

231 - Afterburn

Lexie held the Fae Ambassador’s gaze for as long as she could, without breaking eye contact.

The Fae Ambassador also continued to stare down at her, and the mixture of his natural arrogance with the placid expression was irritating. Especially because Lexie could sense the smugness, the smirk that teased the corner of his lips, and the assurance that he would get whatever he wanted to get out of her.

“Ambassador,” Aiden’s voice was nearly as frosty as Lexie felt as he came...

230 - Feel The Burn

Lexie instantly grabbed Tate’s arm, keeping him from going further.

“What is it?” he asks. 

“There’s a dungeon underground,” she says. “Just appeared underneath our feet.”

“What?”

She didn't respond. She took out her phone and tried to reach her father.

“Lexie." He answered instantly.

“There’s an underground dungeon beneath me.”

He didn't even skip a beat, like he'd been expecting something like this to happen. “I’...

229 - The Troubled Path

Naem and Lexie stared at each other silently, while Lexie analyzed the emotions trickling through her.

The Eldritch part of her didn’t feel much for him. She was no longer attached to him, and vengeance toward him was no longer her main goal, so now she was stuck with mostly indifference, a flatness of affect, mixed in with a curiosity and a desire to overpower him.

The human side of her, though, extremely active after the soul exercises, was even more mixed and complicated. The...

228 - Demanding

Aiden caught his daughter’s arm before she could leave.

“You’re not going anywhere, missy, before you tell me what you’re about to do,” he said sternly, and Lexie raised an eyebrow.

She could simply teleport without her father’s permission, and seeing as how there were people around, he probably couldn’t follow her without revealing his powers.

Yet she hesitated.

He was clearly upset about this excursion because he was worried about her needlessly endange...

227 - Disarming

Mane gave Lexie an indulgent smile like one would give to a kid who’d just said something silly.

In fact, a few of the staff did the same thing, and Theo even ruffled her hair as Mane said, “Let’s go inside. The cook made some apple pie, plus that custard you like.” 

He turned away toward the door, and the staff started to disperse. Theo whispered in Lexie’s ear, “We’ll talk later,” even as he started shepherding her inside. 

They'd instantly dismis...

226 - No

Lexie’s simple denial seemed to throw them all for a loop. Even Vacek and Aiden shot Lexie looks. The Fae did not show their shock easily, but Lexie had lived with Ryn long enough to know what that little ear shake signified. They were surprised. 

“No?” the Ambassador said. 

“No,” Lexie affirmed. 

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to."

The Ambassador blinked at her, then turned to everyone else in the room, seeking further explanation.

...

225 - Rebellion

Dewie’s knee bobbed anxiously inside the Road Rocket.

He was staring out the windows, his hands folded in his lap because he was trying not to bite his nails. They were already short, round little nubs in his fingers, and his mother would kill him if they got any shorter. 

“What if it’s not really her?” Xena muttered for what felt like the five-thousandth time.

When Dewie looked over at her, she was freely biting her nails while watching the video of Lexie appea...

224 - Visitors

Lexie had her eyes closed when the door opened again.

She wasn't asleep. She didn’t think she could sleep, at least not without help from Ryn’s special tea. But she’d closed her eyes because she wanted to remember what it felt like. She wanted to soak it all in, the scent, the noises, the feel of everything.

She still had a few things she needed to do, but her priority was figuring out why the Land Card wasn't working. She was staring at the pathways of her soul card, tracin...

223 - Home

Lexie was having a little trouble breathing.

She didn’t know if it was because of how hard Aiden was squeezing her during their extended hug, or if it was because of the chaos storm.

Or if it was…something else.

She was trying to be patient with the hug, though she was a little uncomfortable with it. Her father was still crying, and she was emotional too.

Or she had been emotional, until she noticed how heavy the air felt.

“Um…Dad…” She tapped him on ...

222 - Madness

“The Mundane isn’t half bad,” Top Dog said to make conversation as they waited for the next match to start. This was the match he’d been waiting for all day, the one he really came to see. 

“Told you he was good,” Conrad said. “It’s a shame he doesn’t want to fight anymore.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“No. I’m assuming he’s found something else that brings him purpose. He’s different now. Happier, or at least more content.” Conrad shrugged....

221 - Flash

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Ambassador,” Dominic Vacek said as Ambassador Raz-Ro-Nan walked into the office. He was so tall that he barely cleared the door, and he looked comically large next to the short, round Jerry, who'd led him in.

They both took seats at the other side of the table, and though Vacek had gotten the largest seat in the building for the ambassador, it still did not entirely contain his mass.

He was muscular for a Fae.

Vacek had offered to...

Overpowered Pawn - 6 - Level One: Farmer

A ruddy-faced, hairy man cut a tall and imposing figure against the starry sky. He was standing at the rooftop of one of his city lodgings, a half-finished glass of ale in hand, and though the burn down his throat should have been enough punishment, it did nothing to soothe his guilty conscience. 

“Duke Weston.” 

The voice behind him dipped his mood further. In his quest for solitude, the last thing he needed right now was company. And the last company he needed was ...

Overpowered Pawn - 5 - A Risky Twist

The poison rushed through his blood, the metallic taste stinging his mouth.

He knew almost instantly what it was, and it was his very first guess. Blue Nightshade. A classic torture device, often used by the Borgans and the Underworld Brotherhood to extract information from spies and enemy knights.

Magically, it wasn’t that sophisticated. It came from the lowest of di terrestres sources, so it was barely even magic. But that only meant that it would wreck him physically...

220 - Out of The Box

A land card.

It sounded so obvious that Lexie was kind of surprised she didn't think of it instantly. The Mountain had said that Lexie could not exist as what she was in the human world.

But what if she did not technically exist in the human world?

Land cards had initially been created and used to give humans access to mana from Fae mana wells. Lexie had used it as a way to get around the limitation on Earth-made magic cards, to provide a more favorable ambient mana environm...

219 - The Decision

Aiden sat on his front porch and waited for Tate, who was walking down the lane looking more relaxed than usual. He also looked cheerier, though it did not show on his face.

He’d been going out almost every day, and Aiden knew that apart from fulfilling his end of their mission, he was also hanging out with his friends at the gym. Aiden didn’t begrudge him that.

On the contrary, he’d encouraged Tate to make those friendships and enjoy his last days, so he wouldn’t regre...

218 - The Mountain Part 2: Naem

Neqal’s lab was a mess, which was likely a reflection of his mental state.

He had essences and wasted chaos strewn about, the outerdarkness whispering and moaning.

Naem picked his feet through the floors, watching the snarling creatures that Neqal had chained up in the corners of his room of horrors.

There were fewer than he remembered. Neqal must have been busy in the last few days.

Naem had also been exceedingly busy with travel and had only just made it here to...

217 - The Mountain

The Mountain was not at all what Lexie expected. She’d been expecting something grand, something terrifying, a monster without a million grotesque faces.

Not this vaguely humanoid thing with a soft lilting voice, almost like that of a fairy. 

The being did not look Eldritch at all. It didn’t exude fear. It wasn’t chaos. It didn’t seem malevolent at all. 

Just because it didn't appear malevolent, though, did not mean it wasn’t. In a world like this, Lexie ...

Overpowered Pawn - 4 - A Desperate Choice

Arthur snuck out near midnight.

It took two carriages and a donkey to get to his destination. It was deep in the Weston lands, a place he used to call home. 

They said stars in the Weston sky were plentiful, far more than anywhere else in the Kingdom of Maradon. 

Some said it was because far more gods had their eyes on Weston, for it was the land of the goodhearted and honorable. Others said it was the opposite, that the gods kept their eyes on Weston to ensure tha...

Overpowered Pawn - 3 - Hell-Difficulty Pawn Dungeon

“Feel my wrath! Stab! Stab! Stab!”

Arthur was greeted at the door of his home with swift thwacks to his calf courtesy of his seven-year-old sister and her new obsession, a wooden sword their brother had gotten for her. His sister was in a rambunctious mood this evening, attacking him viciously with her sword in a zig-zag pattern she’d probably learned from the street boys playfighting outside. 

Arthur didn't bother dodging her attacks. While the enthusiasm was there, sh...

216 - Destination

Lexie started by attempting to send Little Fae home.

She knew this would likely be hard because she wasn’t sure how close the dungeon was to the Fae Planet. If it were too far away, it would require Lexie to dive too deeply into Yasycht’s essence, which could hurt her. 

But she was still willing to try. 

Ryn gave Little Fae a strict set of instructions to adhere to once she got to their destination and transmitted some kind of Fae note to her system screen that...

215 - Team

The group was silent, and Lexie was more than a little disappointed that they weren’t immediately impressed by her genius. 

And that’s what her plan was...genius. 

But maybe they didn’t understand it. Maybe they needed further clarification on how clever it was.

“Do you understand?” she repeated. “I’m going to help the dungeon extract itself from Yascyht and soul-link with me instead.”

They still stared at her blankly, and Lexie was growing a ...

214 - Reunion

The knock on Aiden’s door wasn’t wholly unexpected. He’d been expecting Vacek to visit for some time now. The paranoid man wouldn’t be satisfied with his spies reporting that Aiden had been doing nothing but keeping to himself and staying out of trouble.

Aiden had even started going back to the clinic to work and was teaching one class again. His schedule wasn’t as hectic as it was before, as he was understandably easing back into things. Emma was happy about it. She thought i...

213 - The Return

Uncle Max had his gun in hand and his other hand ready to flip open his eyepatch.

Lexie walked to the door and saw a serpent-humanoid in the courtyard, surrounded by dozens of other animal-humanoids.

Therianthropes, Lexie heard a whisper in her head, as knowledge dropped into her brain. Human Lexie apparently knew what these creatures were called. They are therianthropes. And he is a Snake-person.

Lexie activated the DECODE card as she stepped forward to ta...

212 - Finding The Door

Lexie was getting impatient. The hooded figure still hadn’t spoken, and he hadn’t revealed himself either. 

“Did you hear what I said?” Lexie asked, wondering if she should use <Can I Have Your Attention> to project her voice further. “Are you deaf? Or you don’t speak Eldritch?”

Yeah, that had to be it. Maybe he only spoke in their strange zombie chittering language.

Lexie looked to Cecilia to see if she could translate what she was saying. 

211 - The First Disciple

At the ultimatum, Pvilycht and Lexie stared at each other.

Lexie was annoyed, and Pvilycht was passive and more than a little smug. Plus, sadistic. Now that he was no longer bonded with her as strongly, it seemed his previous irritating personality traits were returning. He'd been much milder and more eager to please before.

Lexie wondered if the card had truly altered his personality or if he’d simply pretended to get on her good side. 

Most Eldritch couldn't pretend...