probablyaturnip

CH177

“I know it’s not ideal Thera, but it would really be helping out both me and the clinic if you stop by for just a couple hours a day,” Ben overheard Sonya telling Thera as he got home.

“I’m not… entirely against the idea aunty, I just don’t think it will go well. Do you really not have any alternative?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I did, it will just be a little while as we look for new hands, please?”

“Oh alright, I guess I can do this for you for at l...

CH176 Thera's perspective

“Hey Thera!” Yelled the overly enthusiastic green girl as she ran up to her in the training grounds, drawing the few other eyes around as she did and leaving Thera to groan internally.

Despite her better judgement, she was going to be spending the day practicing her magic with Sachel, with that plan being one of the reasons she and Ben hadn’t gone on a two-day excursion into the woods for their weekend quest. It seemed the half-dryad was committed to her goal of making a better re...

CH175

His first idea was for an additional shield. Even though he’d just improved the cloak, all the enchantments he added to it were just to keep him from getting injured. Its immediate weakness was that it wasn’t anchored, so while he may not get harmed if another stone ape threw itself at him, he wouldn’t be able to avoid being knocked to the ground, where it might be able to start going for his less defended face.

To do what he had in mind though, he’d need to use a pretty high-qu...

CH174

The next day Ben went to the shop while Thera focused on training her earth magic. There were too many things he wanted to work on and not enough time to do it all, but since this was regularly his day off to hunt anyway he had the benefit of not needing to help out too much, instead focusing on using the tools around for his own purposes.

First and foremost what he wanted to improve came down to the church of Myriad itself, his coat. There were a variety of ways he wanted to enchant it...

CH173

“So what favour did you ask for anyway?” Thera asked as they made their way to the woods.

“Huh?”

“The one that has you making your god a church? It sounds pretty expensive so I figured it must have been something big.”

“Oh, nothing crazy. I just wanted him to put a blessing on Fredrick to see what would happen.”

Thera stared at him through her hood before giving a long, drawn-out sigh. “You know what, I’m not even surprised. That’s exactly the sor...

Poll time poll time

Hello everyone, 

Because of some unexpected events in my life that made this past month a bit more complicated then I expected I didn't have much of a chance to try and figure out new side story option so I'll be going with the same as last month, offering two extra chapters for everyone and coming out wednesday and thursday after the poll closes this time, or picking from some of the past options.

I didn't intend to do this again immediately after having done so the last mon...

CH172

When Thera woke up he prepared a nice breakfast for them before heading to the guild, bringing his bike and the pumps he designed in tow. After explaining the details of the type of patent he’d needed to make last time with the projector, he’d warned her that he was working on something else that would require the same type and she had told him that as long as he made sure to have all of the details written for her ahead of time, he could just drop in.

As he went in and brought ever...

CH171

With the brace done, Ben discreetly tested the effectiveness of it before Thera woke up with the results being that the amount of dark resistance someone would need was down to 17 at a distance and 27 on contact, a measly one point off both. While it did show that improving the quality of the item was able to increase the power of his enchantment, considering just how much better this brace was compared to the first one, only to get a single point of resistance off, chances were good there wa...

CH170

“What’s gotcha yellin’ boy?” Falk asked as he rushed to the room.

“Oh, sorry Falk, didn’t realize you were still here.”

“Figured I’d stick around for some of my own work to see how yours turns out, now out with it, what’s the problem.”

“No problem, I made the new brace to the absolute best of my ability, couldn’t have done it better if I tried. Then as soon as it was complete I leveled up so I’m stuck wondering if I should remake the thing.”

CH169

“So what now?” Thera asked. “Going to rush to the guild and place your patent? I think the guild master will be there for another hour or two.”

While he could have any of the staff deal with his patents as long as they weren’t so potentially world-changing like the braces were, Falk had advised him to deal directly with Ceselee for anything he made from his homeworld when he went to get one for the projector he’d made. While he wasn’t trying to keep his race a secret, it w...

CH168

“Hell yes, look at me go! I’m such a great freaking craftsman!” Ben yelled as he peddled about, not drawing any more stares than he was already getting as he zipped through town on his freshly created bike.

It had been two months since he got back from the dryad village and he hadn’t wasted a second of the time, being able to change his job as fast as he predicted, acquiring the new one ‘magic item maker’ as soon as he returned to Stonewall and working on the numerous projec...

CH167- Sleepovers

“I change my mind, this is dumb and embarrasing. What if Sonya comes home early? She’ll write about this to my mother and then I’ll actually die, Ben.”

“Sorry but it’s too late, I’ve put way too much work into making this fun so change into your pajamas then come help me make the pizza.”

She groaned but did as she was asked, changing into one of the nightgowns she’d rest in before returning to the kitchen and feeling Ben's eyes on her as he worked on preparing in...

CH166

“Please don’t go,” Delair asked, clinging to his leg as he was saying goodbye to her and Fontesh before he and Thera went to catch a ride with the merchant to get back to the gate.

Oh man, my heart’s going to break.

<You could always stay, maybe try to slowly convert the village. I think you have a shot.>

That would mean all the work I did on the statue would be for nothing so pass.

Sachel snuck behind the young girl and scooped her up i...

CH165

<5864 to the power of 3?>

201,642,412,544. Why are you making these so freaking hard?

<Correct and because it will give you the biggest payoff the fastest if you have to push yourself. Now what’s 39640 divided by 88 times 179?>

Um, it should be 80631.3636 and so on and so forth forever.

<CALCULATE LEVEL INCREASED>

<Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you that you got that one right, now can we take a break? I know you’r...

CH164 Thera's Perspective

“I’m sorry for how I treated you in the past, please let me help with the hunt and don’t leave me alone with him.”

She’d just gotten back to the house after discussing what they could try with Sachel and Ralia in the event Ben couldn’t make anything, but as soon as they set foot inside Skoe had immediately prostrated before her, throwing his face into the ground to try to show his sincerity.

“Ben’s trying to improve things for the village as well as make something ...

CH163

After a long night of making use of Myriad in his realm to work on his mind skills, he woke up and prepared breakfast for everyone. Over the last few weeks he’d picked up a few recipes from Fontesh, and so he was putting his efforts into making the frattles Delair enjoyed that he’d grown quite a taste for himself.

With food served and everyone satisfied, he was going to go off to work on the statue again to try and get most, if not all, of it finished that day when Sachel stopped hi...

CH162

The hard part hadn’t been getting the crystal itself. He already knew where a decently sized quartz boulder was from making the resistance amulets out of it, and breaking off a chunk hadn’t been too terrible, even if it took a while.

No, the hard part was when he got back to Fontesh’s home, sitting outside by a fire, slowly chipping away at it as he tried to make a perfect sphere, using one of his minds to learn how to craft the enchantment while forcing the others to devote thems...

CH161

“Alright, I’ve turned a blind eye since you’ve been helping the village, but what in the infinite hells are you doing?” The elder dryad demanded, eyeing the lot of them suspiciously.

Despite the prior conflict, Ben went back to using the more cheer-filled attitude as he spoke to her. “Ah, Hentath, nice to see you. Any thoughts on letting me fix up your home a little? Maybe work on improving your enchantments?” She was his only holdout, and even if he’d already gotten his q...

CH160

A couple weeks passed, and as Ben's mood only grew as the results of all of his work began to pay off, everyone else’s managed to degrade. He’d just finished his repairs to the last house, his ability to cut the logs into the lengths and shapes he needed greatly increased with the purchase of a saw and other tools he’d ordered from the merchant and came back to Fontesh’s home to find the girls looking defeated as they sat around the table, while Skoe was fast asleep in his shed, final...

CH159

When he awoke he didn’t immediately get up. Thera was using him as a pillow again, and since he didn’t know how she’d be feeling he wanted to be there for her in the morning if she needed to talk, so he wordlessly rubbed her head while staring up at the ceiling.

His mood was better at least after having talked it over with both Sachel and Myriad, what mattered though was how she felt. Now that he’d accepted a gift from Jagal, he felt obligated to see through her statue, but he w...

CH158

“I’m going to kill them.”

“I’d like to suggest finding an option that doesn’t get you imprisoned or executed.”

“Thera was a mess when she got back Myriad, I’m not exactly in the mood to be polite about it when I’m already putting in so much work trying to get this village to a semi-manageable state. So what happened?”

She’d been in no mood to talk when she’d returned and Ben didn’t force the issue, instead trying to comfort her until she’d falle...

Poll time Poll time

Hello everyone, hope you've all been well. It's that special time of week, and this time I'm going to be coming to you with something a little different. First off, I had some troubles thinking of side story options for the current place in the story. I have a few prepared for farther on but that doesn't really help now, so the one's this week are going to come from past polls, being one's I particularly believed could be fun or interesting. 

Beyond that though I'm going to add a n...

CH157 Thera's Perspective

She couldn’t stop smiling under her hood as she got back with all of the logs. A level up to her magic was more than she’d expected from their trip and she immediately felt its effects as she floated the logs back. She still needed breaks as she went, but the entire task just felt simpler, and she was looking forward to testing how that increase improved her overall magic control when she got the chance.

That could come later as she was hunting though, first she placed the logs down...

CH156 Thera's Perspective

Once again she’d woken up alone. Giving it a bit of thought, unless Ben was up late into the night working on something he would typically be up before her, out to her uncle’s shop with breakfast waiting on the table. It seemed like it was around noon though, so she got up and dressed before going out of the room to see what everyone else was doing.

It looked like she was the last up, with everyone else already recruited into work. Sachel and Ralia were tending to the fire, extracti...

CH155

“You know, I’ve never wanted to push the issue, but I’m just saying if you and her were to produce children I’d be able to get a couple believers that could potentially live a thousand years. Just something to think about if you feel like doing more to secure the stability of my faith.”

“Really, that’s the first thing you bring up? I just got here,” Ben told his god, already not feeling the conversation. Being a bit tempted by a friend he was close to was normal enough a...

CH154

“That’s impossible,” Ralia said firmly.

“And ethically dubious,” Thera pointed out, far more concerned that he’d actually do it while Sachel came in with a question.

“You don’t have an awakened life or death magic, do you?”

“God I wish. No, and it’s not something I would be able to do anytime soon, I’d need to probably level up my enchanting and connect at least a couple more times to make it work without having any help, maybe even have to awaken the...

Side Story- Steph and Will's training

No!

Steph bolted upright, gasping for breath as she tried to calm her pounding heart. She’d had the dream again, the same one she’d been having ever since their demon hunt. Ben dead on the ground as she was powerless to do anything, with it only getting worse each time she had it. Soon enough it wasn’t just Ben she was seeing, but the others as well, Will, Wedrow, and Thera, and before long it was encompassing other old classmates too, with her powerless to do anything to...

A minor update

Hey guys, hope you're all doing well. This update is basically just to say the side story is going up tonight, it just might be a little late. Long story short my sleep schedule is a bit of a mess and I don't trust myself to properly edit it without getting some rest. Sorry for the delay but I hope it will be enjoyable.

CH153

Minutes after the mildly concerning exchange with his god, their target finally started to appear, and Ben moved back to watch how the fight would go. He knew Sachel had life, water, and earth magic since her goal was to eventually awaken them to plant magic, which meant that she and Thera had a fair bit of overlap in skills at the moment so how they’d work together wasn’t clear, and Ralia’s role in the party was still a mystery to him. She didn’t have a weapon so perhaps she was also...

CH152

“Uh, what’s going on here?” Thera asked as she and the other two women returned in the evening to find seemingly the entirety of the village's young children in the yard and tugging at Ben, with Delair being the most demanding of his attention.

“Remember all those toys I made last night? Well, I gave them to Delair and told her to share them with her friends, and when they came to say thanks they just stuck around after.”

With the kids came their mothers, each less than ...