39.
“Are you sure there’s hostages?” Justin’s deep voice cut across the sudden hubbub as Santi finished giving his report. They had left right as the sun began to rise, avoiding the clumsy goblin patrols to arrive back at the building the rest of the raid team had taken refuge in. Hana and Daniel had split off right as he got to the building, heading toward where a series of small apartment complexes were. Santi had been left alone to give his r...
2024-06-17 20:55:22 +0000 UTC
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38.
They came out of the hospital in a clutch of huddled forms. Bloodstained clothes were stitched together in a gristly motley that covered their misshapen bodies. Long arms dragged across the ground, spindly fingers brushing the cement. They moved as one mass, going from pile to pile of stolen possessions.
When they moved their stitched together rags of the murdered revealed flabby and pale skin. Sheets of stringy black hair fell to their ...
2024-06-16 22:08:04 +0000 UTC
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37.
The cityscape slowly morphed away from the tight packed older homes and into more sprawling buildings. Strip malls, wide parking lots, and abandoned box office stores dotted the roadway as the raid group continued after the signs of the goblins. The stench of decaying bodies, smoke, and blood mingled in a cloying stench.
Members of the party were using bandanas, ripped up shirts, or masks to try to keep the smells at bay. Watering eyes a...
2024-06-16 20:50:52 +0000 UTC
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36.
“What do you think caused that?” Daniel whispered as he and Santi stood staring at the hole in the side of the building. Scattered boards, pink insulation, shattered glass, and a host of broken belongings lay in an arc all around the side of the building. The hole occupied nearly the entire side of the house and there was little remaining of the original wall.
“Fuck if I know, but I don’t want to find out. Let’s keep an extra e...
2024-06-15 03:56:52 +0000 UTC
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35.
It was in the early afternoon that they began to organize the counter-attack. There had simply been too much death and chaos for anyone to begin planning any earlier. Santi had taken a quick nap and was now perched on the edge of a bench as the small group from earlier and a few others gathered to figure out what they wanted to do.
Santi wanted to strike out now with the best fighters he could get his hands on. The victory they had won t...
2024-06-14 21:54:24 +0000 UTC
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34.
Santi was staring at the charred metal and scorched flesh in front of him. A heap of armor that still radiated heat, it had been the most dangerous thing any of the survivors had fought. So far.
“Fuck,” Santi said shakily as he wiped at his face with a dirty hand. The strength of the sub-boss was worrying. If the nest was strong enough to support a monster of this power, he could only assume that the monster at ...
2024-06-13 20:19:32 +0000 UTC
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33.
The hobs raced in front of the War Chief with their spears leading the way, bloodlust filling their eyes. The War Chief kept coming forward with slow shuffling steps that shook the earth. The first of the hobs closed the distance spear bobbing in front of it.
Santi swatted the speartip with the flat of his saber, pushing the spear up and over his shoulder. A quick thrust finished off the hob, the point of his sword digging through ...
2024-06-13 19:27:09 +0000 UTC
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33.
The hobs raced in front of the War Chief with their spears leading the way, bloodlust filling their eyes. The War Chief kept coming forward with slow shuffling steps that shook the earth. The first of the hobs closed the distance spear bobbing in front of it.
Santi swatted the speartip with the flat of his saber, pushing the spear up and over his shoulder. A quick thrust finished off the hob, the point of his sword digging through ...
2024-06-12 22:00:04 +0000 UTC
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32.
The twisting flames and weak starlight were the only light that Santi had to navigate by. The streets had been cleaned to a decent degree, but there was still detritus that he had to be careful to avoid. Warm blood was cooling on his hands, forming a sticky layer as he raced toward the heaviest of the fighting. The boiling rage fueled him and made him reckless.
The barricade was on fire giving a ghastly light in which dozens of figures d...
2024-06-11 21:40:34 +0000 UTC
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31.
It took a lot longer to convince them to listen to him. Even with the strangeness of the world changing, the adults in the room were nervous to take any type of backseat to a teenager. Every moment spent arguing with them on why and how they needed to level further made Santi want to test the structural integrity of his skull with a brick wall.
Eventually though, he won. The pseudo council agreed to the allocation of resources needed for hunting do...
2024-06-10 21:00:04 +0000 UTC
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30.
Santi eventually ended up taking that nap. As the lethargic afternoon wore on his eyes grew heavy and he found a shadowy room to close his eyes for a few hours. When he woke up he felt refreshed though dealing with cotton mouth and a slight headache. He alternated rubbing his temples while sipping on a bottle of water. The dark room was well insulated, the sounds of the late afternoon completely isolated from him.
His new attribute let h...
2024-06-09 21:16:15 +0000 UTC
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29.
Santi didn’t go to sleep, it was only the middle of the afternoon after all. He went and gave himself a wet wipe bath, trying to remove the worst of the offending odors and foreign fluids that had decorated him. He was going to burn through his clothes supply too quickly if he changed after every little scrap. The last few days of enjoying hot showers and being clean were seeming more like a distant memory with every passing minute.
Finally findi...
2024-06-08 22:19:04 +0000 UTC
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28.
“Lot of people here, Tank,” Santi immediately moved to settle his questions. The larger young man didn’t even look up from his work. They were working to stack a series of pallets to build a small station for people to look over the wall of cars. It was amateurish work at best, but Santi couldn’t help but be surprised at everyone’s industrial nature.
“Yeah. We started knocking on doors and pulling people out of their houses. ...
2024-06-07 21:00:04 +0000 UTC
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27.
The stone was wrapped up carefully in the shredded remnants of several shirts, then cocooned in a wad of tape. The moment the cursed stone was completely covered everyone received a notice from the system that was a welcome surprise.
Minor Achievement:Twice-Cursed Stone contained.
Curse of Gluttony (Lesser)
Curse of Greed (Lesser)
Re...
2024-06-07 00:21:03 +0000 UTC
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26.
The anchor for the curse was two men welded together in a fitful mockery of life. Four uneven legs had it tottering as it moved, four arms emerged from different parts of its torso, while the two heads looked about with wild eyes. The first head was where heads generally are, mounted on a flesh neck above the shoulders. The second head was emerging from underneath the ribcage and facing backwards.
The first head was that of a rather flor...
2024-06-05 21:00:03 +0000 UTC
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25.
The back door swung on silent hinges, letting them enter the pitch black back room. Santi cursed as both Daniel and Hana grabbed and cracked glowsticks, giving an eerie green light to the surroundings. Pallets of dried goods were arrayed in neat lines, labeled with the aisles they belonged to. The concrete floor had splotches of dried blood on them, smears of it as if something was dragged.
The glowsticks destroyed their surprise, but no...
2024-06-04 01:40:19 +0000 UTC
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24.
“The store, it’s fucking haunted. Don’t go in there,” the leader of the small band hissed as Santi and his team got closer. Broken glass crunched under their shoes as they entered the small salon. The chairs were slashed, bottles of shampoo and conditioner tossed to the ground, detritus littering everywhere. The small salon had been ransacked, but little of worth had been taken.
“What do you mean haunted?” Hana asked, her voi...
2024-06-04 01:36:40 +0000 UTC
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23.
It took several hours to organize and find volunteers. The shock of the world’s ending hadn’t worn off at all yet. The boost in stats had helped some though as they were able to boost their willpower and intelligence enough to function. Others were just desperate or mad, not needing the stats to be functional. Either way, Santi couldn’t afford to care that much.
His plans had already been derailed, his original plan of building a s...
2024-06-04 01:33:33 +0000 UTC
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22.
Santi awoke quietly, his eyes darting around the dark room. The only illumination was the faint flicker of candles in the corner of the room. Bodies were sprawled out everywhere, soft breathing filing the room. Santi groaned as he got up, his wounds causing pain as he got to his feet.
“You shouldn’t be moving around. You got stabbed,” Tank drawled from the corner of the room. Santi hadn’t noticed him, just another shape in ...
2024-06-04 01:29:02 +0000 UTC
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21.
Naomi Weaver spun into her attack, the longsword nothing more than a blur as it beheaded the lizardman. The kill notification dinged but she was more focused on the small pack racing toward her. They were five and half feet tall, though they ran hunched over. Yellow-gray pebbled skin, flickering tongues, and holding crudely made spears, they were a nuisance.
An arrow whistled past her, slamming into the chest of the lead li...
2024-06-04 01:25:15 +0000 UTC
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20.
“There’s a tarp in the way!” Someone yelled as they got to the corner of the brick wall. It was the only way to enter the premises of the hideout, and Santi had tied a tarp around the crumbling corner to keep anything out. He wanted to roll his eyes, but was to busy avoiding a club that was headed towards his knee.
“CUT THE DAMN TARP!” Santi screamed, his throat ripping at the effort as his saber took the diseased goblins head ...
2024-06-04 01:21:18 +0000 UTC
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19.
Santi slashed down, the curved saber slicing skin as the goblin screamed as its flesh split. The saber was sharp, tearing through the paper thin skin like it was nothing. Black blood gushed out of the grievous chest wound, staining the ground as the goblin collapsed to the ground. A notification dinged letting Santi know it was dead.
All around him the convoy was fighting viciously. They had barely made it two blocks before...
2024-06-04 01:15:18 +0000 UTC
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18.
Most everyone was already gathered downstairs in the common room. The numbers had swelled to well over forty people, most of whom Santi couldn’t recognize. He hadn’t been the most social person, just really hanging out with his dormmates. They all looked at him as he came downstairs, eyes tracking him as he marched up to Tank.
The hours of sleep and shower had been a godsend, Santi finally feeling human again. The boost to his willpo...
2024-06-04 01:06:56 +0000 UTC
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17.
Santi watched as the slew of kill notifications scrolled by. The single kobold he had killed, the shamans, warriors, the chief, and finally the ent. Nothing exciting, nothing that he hadn’t expected. It was the rest of the achievements and class selection he was hoping for. He had listened to others who had done great things in the early days of the system’s coming, earning titles and rewards for their bravery. Most hadn’t done anything with i...
2024-06-04 01:00:28 +0000 UTC
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16.
Santi woke with a start, bolting upright, skin peeling away from the leather couch loudly. Light filtered through the broken glass doors, but the common room was still gloomy. People were lounging around, some collapsed and sleeping. Eyes turned to him as he bolted upright, eyes full of questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer right now as his headache decided to announce itself with a blast of crushing pain. Dehydration and exhaustion made p...
2024-06-04 00:57:26 +0000 UTC
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15.
Santi spun around to look at the creature that had just yelled in his ear. His frayed nerves snapped, a scream of fright and rage boiling out of him, and he slashed at the figure. His axe chopped through the air, intent on killing whatever it was. Santi’s eyes took in the figure just before his axe started to shear through skin. Or, at least it tried to. The axe stopped dead an inch from the creature’s skin, frozen solid as everyone else in the ...
2024-06-04 00:46:51 +0000 UTC
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14.
After retrieving his pack, stashing his spoils in the process, Santi started to work his way out of the temple. He was out of water and was desperately thirsty. It was really the only thing he could think about as he left the cool confines of the underground temple and entered the brutal heat of the outside. After so long in the weak light of glowsticks or glowing moss, the bright red star burned. Santi was forced to wait several minutes by the temp...
2024-06-04 00:40:46 +0000 UTC
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13.
The ent was on him faster than Santi thought something that large could move. Its arms swinging down in a brutal chop meant to pulverize him. Santi dove forward, refusing to retreat against the monstrosity. His body was growing numb, limbs heavier by the moment. He didn’t have the strength left to try to kite the monster. Instead he threw himself at it with a reckless fury.
The red eye was now in range and Santi was swinging for it. Th...
2024-06-04 00:33:28 +0000 UTC
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12.
The guardian’s chamber was hewed of rough stone. Stairs led him further down, through the floor of the temple and into a natural cave. Luminescent moss gave off a blue light, gentle in contrast to the harsh blaze of the road flare he had left at the top of the steps. This stairway had been burned in his memory. The quiet descent, the party still reeling from Harry’s death as they walked down to face the rift guardian. Death was a constant, but w...
2024-06-04 00:16:25 +0000 UTC
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11.
His fury carried him to the Chief’s hall. Santi threw the glowstick into the corner and then snapped open another road flare that he tossed into the opposite corner. The red light overpowered the darkness revealing a long rectangular hall, crumbling stone furniture pushed to the sides.
The Chief stood straight and met Santi’s eyes as he entered the hall. The kobold chief was tall for its kind, slightly over five and a half feet. Its fur was mat...
2024-06-04 00:06:34 +0000 UTC
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