There was no more pain, at least nothing physical.
Melmarc just stared. He was reading the notifications or anything like that. He was merely staring. As if knowing it had lost his interest, the notifications disappeared.
After a while, he got up from his bed and stepped out of the room. The light switch was right next to the door, and he turned it off on his way out.
In the living room he ran into uncle Dorthna watching a movie. It was almost a given at this point. Now that...
2024-01-29 06:08:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
There is often a cold touch to death, a vivid reminding that the world is capable of loss. To most it manifests itself in a cold chill, a mental blanket of trepidation and fearful realization. Perhaps it is in the understanding that mortality comes for everyone. There are those who experience it constantly enough to build an immunity and those who rebel against it. Seth had lived part his life around death and carnage and destruction. He had seen loss and watched it happen. But this was diffe...
2024-01-29 06:01:38 +0000 UTC
View Post
Six days into their march they were going three thousand six hundred priests strong, and at most, seven one-thousand-man generals. At over ten thousand men strong—priest horses ridden by white cassocks leading war horses ridden by black armor—they were a sight to behold, and a force primed for battle.
Then they began doing what Ezril considered the unreasonable.
Whenever they came upon a city, Bratvi would divide them into two groups. The first group—which he would lead—wo...
2024-01-29 05:55:41 +0000 UTC
View Post
“What’s happening right now?”
Zed ignored Chris’ whining. As long as he had Oliver following him, he was more than certain Chris and Ash would be in tow.
He’d gone back only to grab Oliver by the wrist and pull him along. Oliver had protested mildly for a while, but only with his words, and Zed had hushed him with his facial expression.
He led them through the tight and noisy market, meandering through people and stalls as he kept his eyes on his timer.
It wa...
2024-01-29 05:49:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
They rode hard for five days. During the day they pushed the horses as far as they could go, and at night they set up camp anywhere they found themselves between cities.
They left Ardin six hundred priests strong under the command of two reverends, who reported to Bratvi. Once outside the capital, they quickly met up with another reverend with command over three hundred priests. Before nightfall, they came upon the city of Hovgrad, a simple city of the realm with no significant repute. ...
2024-01-26 05:47:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
It was strange not to hear the rushing sound of the wind in her ear as she ran through the building.
Gunag had said Oden had done something stupid, and while Tao Mei refused to believe it, Gunag had already proven to be trustworthy since they began coming to the fissure nest.
But Oden wasn’t prone to impulsive actions. He obeyed as long as he wasn’t challenged and did whatever was required of him. Talking to himself and his constant concealment of his face with that annoying s...
2024-01-26 05:44:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ash stared down at an array of brass knuckles.
Oliver was looking over her shoulders. “Too rusty, don’t you think?”
She shrugged. “Was just curious, Ollie.”
“Maybe. But haven’t you ever wondered what it would feel like to hit someone with brass knuckles?”
“Sounds more like something you’ve been wondering about.”
She moved on from the stall with the brass knuckles to the displeasure of the seller, a young man with a round face and a ...
2024-01-26 05:38:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ark had returned with one of many comics in his hand. Melmarc didn’t recognize it so it was most likely a new one.
Spitfire was still staring at him and his scar still itched.
Ark took one look at Spitfire and laughed.
“I leave him with you for a whole minute and you already have him thinking he’s human. Way to go.”
Melmarc laughed along, and scratched harder. It was kinda nice. The scratching.
“Trust me, I had nothing to do with that. It just got up th...
2024-01-26 05:31:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
Surprisingly, uncle Dorthna was more than happy to let Melmarc go on the excursion. He didn’t even give it much thought.
Melmarc asked when he got home, Dorthna tapped his cheek with a finger for all of two seconds and said yes.
“What about mom and dad?” Melmarc asked.
He wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever that meant, but suspicious was suspicious. And he knew suspicious when it answered quickly.
Dorthna waved the question aside with his usu...
2024-01-26 05:21:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
There weren’t a lot of Delvers who were Mages. Perhaps fifteen… maybe twenty. Twenty-five would definitely be stretching it.
The Class was one of the rare classes, and it had the least known information, right next to a class called Unbound.
People loved the Mage class because most Mages turn out to be the strongest and most versatile Delvers. In fact, there was no known Mage below B-rank. And there was no known Mage that was not at least a Delver.
There had been a point...
2024-01-26 05:18:22 +0000 UTC
View Post
Most Reverend Father Bratvi Arrufa was a muscled, middle aged man with a clean shaved head. When he spoke people were forced to listen. His pale skin marked his heritage as somewhere not within the realm which made him a compelling sight, and his brogue, if it could be described as one, was flat, almost as if the man didn’t understand what intonations were. Perhaps his vocal cords didn’t care for the nuisance.
Men like him were rare in the realm, but among priests, outsiders weren...
2024-01-25 05:45:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Velroo stood as still as an unmoving mountain, all his skills and power and command wound tightly into his core.
He’d been standing here for days without food or water. At his level of authority, he needed none of those to survive. He could even go days without sleep. However, he ate when he could, not for sustenance but a simple indulgence in human pleasures.
A few days after his arrival two soul artists began venturing away from the group. In the scope of things, they were mer...
2024-01-25 05:40:43 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ark was more than happy to announce very early the next morning that his class was Unranked, and his Growth Potential was B-rank before going back to bed. Though, to be fair, Melmarc didn’t know if he had even gone to sleep at all.
By general standards, it was a good Growth Potential rank
Most Gifted walked around with less. B’s were more in the fifteen percent of registered Gifted. A’s were like one percent. And there were only three recorded S-rank Growth potentials known ...
2024-01-25 04:42:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
Boston squeezed the trigger and Zed was already moving.
The lady he had been oppressing and had almost crawled her way through the gate let out a terrified scream.
Zed ducked to the side. The gun aimed at him had not been fired, but he didn’t need to wait for it. Toby took a moment to realize what was happening and fired his own rifle but Zed was already out of the way.
The possibility that any random person behind him could suffer the bullet meant for him didn’t cross h...
2024-01-25 04:38:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
It was late into the hours of the night, or early into the hours of the morning, depending on what type of person was reading the clock.
Melmarc had fallen asleep on the dining table while coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t a bad person. At least Dorthna hoped that was what had happened.
He sat on his favorite couch, staring at the screen of the television. The news was narrating the events of a Chaos run that had happened in Johannesburg where giant monsters that look...
2024-01-23 05:45:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Seth darted away from the wide swing of a shroud wraith. Clawed hands clawing through the air were his head had once been. Gunag’s words registered in his mind but he ignored it as he turned his handgun on the wraith and shot it in the head. The kick back from the gun was as heavy as his rifle’s and it forced his hand up after the shot. The shroud wraith staggered back, pushed by the force of the bullet but did not fall.
That’s one pe...
2024-01-23 05:40:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ezril’s return to the cathedral was welcomed just as was the return of the prodigal son in the scriptures; with threats of wrath and fury which were followed through.
He was received at the end of drawn Sunders of varying designs, and displaced of his Sunders, bow and quiver. They’d even taken his insignia from around his neck. Somehow, he had a feeling if he’d worn his cassock into the compound they’d have ripped it off his body too.
Following his disarming, two priests h...
2024-01-23 05:37:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
Zed and the others made their way down the hill and into the city below.
The city looked below as it did above. Tightly packed and somehow overcrowded. The first thing Zed noticed as they strolled into the city was the smell.
“That’s horrid,” Shanine said, almost gagging. “How this place smell so bad?”
“Too many people and not enough baths,” Zed said.
The streets were small and people had erected tents and canopies between buildings. There were caravans w...
2024-01-23 05:29:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Mel, please stop looking up ‘demon lord class’ on the internet. We already know what you’re going to get.”
“There might be something. I’m sure of it.”
“You’re already on page ten. All you’re getting are anime references.”
“And that’s because those are the popular searches. There are a lot of hidden gems in the farther pages. Dad’s not going to just accept that you’re a Demon Lord, Ark. He might’ve kicked angel ass at some point but you know...
2024-01-22 05:07:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
The world was cold here was cold. It was like walking in the faintness of winter’s approach.
As annoying as it was, it was acceptable. Everything between realms was cold.
However, the true annoyance did not lie in the temperature. It laid in the fact that Velroo was not here of his own accord. It laid in the fact that he had been strong armed into coming this far out. Into walking the cold void of a winterless path.
He touched an absent hand to the hilt on his waist, wonde...
2024-01-22 05:03:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Dinma had said nothing in the past hour. When they walked through the gates of the city, he had paid her entrance fee while she looked around. Despite the hood concealing most of her face, she leaned back to take in the buildings and people around her.
They were just returning from the healer’s house where he’d gone to show her to a friend. Not all his contacts from his time at the realm were priests. Some men he had saved from certain perils, and he knew if they learned he was no l...
2024-01-22 04:57:58 +0000 UTC
View Post
They hijacked two cars.
The first car had been easy to access. After much posturing on Oliver’s part, and the lie that had broken Kid’s heart, he’d broken the window and slipped into the car.
Apparently, he’d postured because when he’d looked through the tinted glass, he’d seen the keys in the ignition.
They’d gone through a few more cars, the Olympians serving as watchmen with their guns held up before they’d found another working car with enough fuel. This ...
2024-01-22 04:45:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
It was into the early days of January when they found out what type of creature Spitfire was.
The winter snow still blanketed the ground outside, suffocating the grass and chilling the air. It was a vacation period so there was no school. Even if it hadn’t been, it would’ve been good enough to call it a snow day. So there would’ve still been no school.
They had yet to figure out what Spitfire ate.
It wasn’t chicken or chips or stew or rice. It wasn’t—and Melmarc ...
2024-01-19 05:56:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
The Dead Accords.
Not much was known of them. Their name was a product of an agreement between the powers of the world. But what they really were was something different. According to what everyone learnt, the world had once held seven continents, one of which was covered in ice and snow and uninhabited by humans. Now there were ten, two of which were uninhabited.
There were those who believed the extra three continents were the product of the world splitting apart due to every cr...
2024-01-19 05:51:51 +0000 UTC
View Post
Author's Note: I'm sorry.
Shaking his head in refusal Ezril almost stepped away in disagreement with reality. His throat grew dry, choked up, and his eyes stung. He didn’t fight it. He let the tears well up as he reached his hand to the woman’s face. Her voice had strained to push the words out even as a whisper, and saliva dripped from her mouth when she spoke. She leaned into his touch, blood and dirt staining his palm. He didn’t care.
She was crying fr...
2024-01-19 05:47:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
Their walk through the forest was relatively quiet.
The Olympians had nothing to say. Daniel led and they simply followed, while Zed and his group walked behind.
“Aren’t you the one who knows the way?” Shanine asked after a while.
“I found the exit,” Zed said.
“So why are they the ones leading?”
“Just because.”
Shanine frowned but said nothing.
Zed wasn’t exactly sure what she was getting at. They had an exit and they were making t...
2024-01-19 05:41:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
It was not a Hydra, a wyrm, a basilisk…
Or an angel.
The last one had gotten a good laugh out of Melmarc’s uncle. It was a full belly laugh, satisfyingly it was not the roll-of-the-chair laugh that was their uncle’s trade mark.
“An angel? What gave you that idea?” uncle Dorthna asked when he was done laughing.
Melmarc shrugged.
With his sister present and Ark carrying the Guardian like a baby, he wasn’t sure how they would react to finding out he’d ...
2024-01-18 05:01:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
When the others came halfway up the crater, Zed still had his arm around his new friend.
He waved at the others casually as they approached.
“You don’t look like someone who should be waving casually.” Ronda was giving him a testy look, as if she had more to say.
Kid said it for her.
“What are you?”
“Tired,” Zed said. “I’d give it a good yawn but something tells me you’d just think I’m lying. Do mages yawn?”
He looked between them. R...
2024-01-18 04:57:47 +0000 UTC
View Post
Clad in his hooded cassock, Sunders and bow securely strapped in place, and his quiver hanging low on his hip, Ezril left the hotel. When he relinquished his room key to the man behind the table at the entrance, the man said nothing, choosing to receive the key in silence. Smart men never asked priests questions. Especially when they were in their cassock.
The night was illuminated by glowing street lamps, and even after accepting three nights were more than enough to have grown accusto...
2024-01-18 04:42:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
Fire crackled with the effervescent snapping of burning wood. It rested as small as a campfire in a fire place that had not been in Jim’s office the last time Seth was there.
Today he stood before Jim’s desk with hands behind him and legs spread apart at shoulder length. Right now he was not an adventurer reporting to his benefactor. He was a seminarian reporting to his handler.
“I am to believe this adventurer was something of a false ranker?” Jim asked calmly, having lis...
2024-01-18 04:35:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
