The cathedral wasn’t far; a short journey by any means. But it was frustrated by Takan’s mumbled complaints at having to take a carriage for such a distance. Suffice it to say, they didn’t care.
Olufemi joined Ezril in taking Shade to the stables at the heels of a priest there to receive them, leaving their brothers to take the lead. The stables were large enough to house tenAtle wolves but surprise was far from Ezril when he saw the massive chains spilling from the side of the bu...
2024-01-02 03:33:31 +0000 UTC
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Their reception at the seminary was without ceremony. They cut through the Umunna forest and through the mist as though these were not things that had once called fear upon them. They were ushered in by open gates, and—when they came close enough—raised portcullis.
Their rooms now under the command of new brothers bound on their journey to priesthood, they remained in the stables, where their horses were attended by the older brothers of the seminary, and Shade was crooned away to t...
2024-01-02 03:29:39 +0000 UTC
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The room was dark. The only touch of light that stained it came from a bulb of trapped fireflies. These weren’t normal fireflies, not the ones indigenous to this world. They were immigrants strayed from too many cracks in the world. They were like unwanted guests with a desire to stay so strong they would not be evicted.
That the room was too dark for how bright the world outside was didn’t seem to bother any of its occupants. They sat in it on chairs of wood and iron and something ...
2024-01-02 03:26:13 +0000 UTC
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“You sent me into a mad house!” Seth growled, discarding his twin swords on Jim’s table.
Jim spared him the briefest look, perhaps contemplating an accurate response to his outburst. In the end, he chose calm. “And what exactly do you mean?”
Seth ran both hands through his hair then took off his shawl. The action did nothing to organize his unkempt hair.
“All of them,” he repeated slowly, as if explaining a complex equation to a child, “are mad.”
“A...
2024-01-02 03:24:24 +0000 UTC
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The ship went down in a manner befitting its size and possible weight. From within what had once been a quite and stable environment turned and turned and turned. Zed’s feet kept him firmly in place. He swayed as a paper boat in a spiraling pool of water but his footing never failed. [Equilibrium] refused to be bested.
Ash and Oliver battled with keeping from being knocked into anything of consequence even as Oliver held Chris pinned to the ground with one hand. Discomfort clouded the...
2024-01-02 03:21:21 +0000 UTC
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General Truman looked back at Tilda and his expression was passive, empty.
“Are you angry, Mage Tilda?” He took a step closer so that they stood toe to toe. “Have I drawn your ire? Are you feeling dangerous, now?”
Tilda bit down on her anger, any harder and her jaw would break. The general was right. She was the most dangerous person in the building. She knew it as a bird knows the wind. She merely said otherwise to remind her of the nice and kind woman she had been before...
2024-01-02 03:17:58 +0000 UTC
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“That’s not true,” Beth said.
She’d approached them not too long ago with a look of curiosity on her face.
“And what are you doing?” she added, studying Seth’s expression for a moment. “The adventure guild will deal with it once we report we’ve cleared the nest. There’s no need to go core hunting.”
“I have no idea if that’s what I’m actually doing,” Tao Mei answered. “New guy was trying to pry it open so I offered a helping hand. Also, he ...
2023-12-27 04:23:40 +0000 UTC
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Seth squeezed the trigger of his rifle and it boomed thunderously.
Thirty paces away, his bullet struck a beast’s head; slapped it aside. He smirked behind his shawl at the power of the rifle. Even now the recoil hurt his shoulder. He shifted slightly, minutely, and aimed again.
Off in the distance the reia beast turned its head to him. It was a massive beast taller than a man and wider than a car. It had the head of a bald eagle and the body of some reptilian monstrosity that r...
2023-12-27 04:18:03 +0000 UTC
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Tao Mei rubbed her hands together. She stepped forward with a bounce in her steps, cracking her neck from one side to the other.
When she reached behind her for her butcher knives the hall exploded in a loud boom. It shook the air and halted everything around them.
“As fun as it would be to watch you all go at it,” Jim said, interrupting everything as they recovered from the pain from their silver hearing. “That’s not why I brought him here.”
Drew recovered from th...
2023-12-27 04:13:05 +0000 UTC
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For four years Drew had been an adventurer, seeking out new nests and predicting fissures for the adventure society. Three years ago, however, for personal reasons he still suspected Jim knew, he had left the direct employ of the adventure society. Now he led his own team with Jim’s support. It was why when Jim had suggested a replacement for one of his team members he had accepted reluctantly.
He had watched Jim and the new recruit bicker as they’d come up the stairs of the dilapid...
2023-12-27 04:09:13 +0000 UTC
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Seth held up an iron card with silver streaks. It was three inches long and two inches wide. Indented onto it was his name. Oden Jabari. Then beneath that was what was apparently his rank.
“What’s three stars?” he asked Jim.
They had left the guild hall and were in a vehicle driving faster than the one that had brought them. Unlike the one that had brought them, Jim hadn’t simply flagged the driver down. They’d stepped out of the hall to find the man waiting for them and...
2023-12-27 04:05:50 +0000 UTC
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They stayed in the tower for three days before embarking on the journey back to the capital.
Of all of Ezril’s brothers, only Darvi seemed truly disturbed by his actions. Takan treated the event as if it was a daily occurrence. Ezril often caught Salem with an expression of guilt, as though he had unwillingly taken something from him, and Olufemi… there was nothing different about Olufemi. It was as if he’d never left as far as the young priest was concerned.
All things cons...
2023-12-27 04:02:07 +0000 UTC
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The truth wasn’t pretty, so rather than tell her, Urden gave her an answer she was prone to scolding him for: he grunted something incoherent.
They had been traveling for four years. When he’d returned to her village and learned of her foster father’s death, he’d taken her with him. She had made a life for herself in her home, respected as much as she was feared. She had been the village healer, maintaining her foster father’s home as her own.
Discreet questions had prov...
2023-12-27 03:58:06 +0000 UTC
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“The nerve of you, Priest!” Iyvena snarled. “You will have us break an oath given by ancestors who walked Vayla as early as time began. This is madness, even for you. And thinking we will help you simply for who you are is greater proof that you don’t know what you are asking. If you think it’s so important, then why don’t you reveal it yourself, hm?”
Urden was losing a hold on his patience as she spoke. Women her age were never intended to talk so much. He’d always thou...
2023-12-27 03:53:44 +0000 UTC
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“Does he win?”
“The prophecy does not say.” Helva shrugged. “Now, where did you hear this?”
“In battle,” Ezril said. “I heard a man say it while two men fought.”
The old lady regarded him, skeptical, and he fought not to squirm beneath her gaze. “Fine,” she scoffed, “keep your secrets then. And just when I thought you’ve grown since you came to us. You may have lost the arrogance and the uncertainty of self, but you still hold on to your secrets. ...
2023-12-27 03:50:19 +0000 UTC
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Ezril crossed the expanse of the tribe, by-passing the tents as he moved. Shade’s attention twitched at his movement while a boy watched from a tent far removed from the wolf with a focused intensity. The child was no more than his tenth summer, and though he thought himself hidden, Shade was just as aware of his presence as it was of Ezril’s. He passed Olufemi where he sat tending to his Sunders without a word of acknowledgement even when his brother looked up at him. Eventually they wou...
2023-12-27 03:45:27 +0000 UTC
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Five years ago...
California R and D Institute
“Run it again.”
Tilda held back ...
2023-12-27 03:37:50 +0000 UTC
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Something in the air didn’t feel right. He was breathing normally. Air flowed into his lungs and out, mana filled him and left, yet something was off.
Zed came to a sudden stop. It took the others a step or two before they stopped too. Since he was no longer the one leading the exodus, they couldn’t be blamed for their delayed notice.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
“Of course something’s wrong,” Oliver said. “Why the hell is the exit so far?”
“Not ...
2023-12-27 03:34:15 +0000 UTC
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“We have to move. Staying here is suicide, begging for my men to die.”
Daniel was growing furious. How he kept his fury from his voice was testament to his control, and logic. Exchanging words with his commanding Officer was one thing, but raising his voice was another. If there was ever a time he needed control most, it was not on the battle field or the sparring field danced upon the training grounds, it was here tossing words with one above him. A person too steeped in the dilute...
2023-12-27 03:29:42 +0000 UTC
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Everyone watched Zed in worry, waiting.
They seemed to be hanging on his next words. If he was rarely ever given any attention, he had every attention now. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. One thing was certain, though, the Berserker liked it.
Thoughts flowed through Zed’s mind as he stared at the new timer. It had lost a whopping three eight hours in the space of barely thirty minutes. Why?
He frowned as he wracked his brain to find an answer. If it could lose eight...
2023-12-27 03:26:33 +0000 UTC
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Daniel ran a hand down his face. In front of him the map was zoomed in on the location of the ship he was currently in. The stealth drones deployed around the forest weren’t given the best feeds at the moment. They were mapping the forest properly but that was all there was to it. however, they were showing inconsistencies. The topography was all wrong and the heat signatures were questionable.
He didn’t like it. In fact, he liked to think it was the only reason he had understood wh...
2023-12-27 03:22:34 +0000 UTC
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Zed found himself standing in a dilemma, stuck amidst a few people. He knew his silence would brew questions. If not in Ash, then certainly in Oliver and Shanine. After all, he wasn’t known for his silence.
He watched the last vestige of steam leave his hand, disappear into the dominance of the air around them. When it was completely done, he made his decision. Priorities were always important. It is the very thing by which humans evolve. You do not worry about your thermostat not wor...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Daniel was standing in front of a holographic projection of a map when Zed walked in, throwing the door wide open without a knock. Once he was in, the sound of the roughly opened door done with its crescendo, he closed it gently behind him.
The planning room had been a hassle to find. Zed had gone through too many turns and curves, paths and doors. It had taken him longer than it was supposed to to get here and he knew it. He did learn of a few rooms in his lack of direction so that was...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Seth cocked a brow at Jim.
“Oden?” he asked.
Jim smiled innocently. “We very well can’t have them know you as Seth, can we?”
“Then why not change the entire name; give me a befitting alias.”
“You have nothing befitting, Oden,” Jim teased. “Now go hide most of your skills.”
Seth rose with a sigh. He was Oden now, ironic as it seemed, considering it was the name he’d given when he’d first arrived. For a moment his mind wandered to...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Where does he even find them?” Taliser scowled. “It’s as if he has a place, somewhere he grooms them and brings them when they are of age.”
“Calm down, T,” Jaqueline said. “It’s not that deep.”
He sighed and took a seat on one of the comfortable couches in her room. She was right. It wasn’t that serious. But to bring one every year. The only other person that was this lucky was House nineteen, and his wasn’t every year.
He turned tired eyes at his ol...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Seth sucked in a deep breath as he prepared himself for the next attack he knew was coming. “I ask myself the same thing all the time.”
When Taliser disappeared again, he was ready. He ducked as the mage appeared. The man lit up within the range of his senses a fraction of a second before he attacked and Seth swung his sword at him.
Taliser stepped away from the swing, evading it by a mere inch.
“Your awareness is amazing for an Iron,” Taliser noted, avoiding another...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Ezril turned instantly as Takan moved to land a fatal blow, his grip almost releasing his arrow when he stopped short. The blow fell, heralded by a painful howl, all of which were lost to him. He stood, arrow aimed at nothing as he watched Shade where it sat. Blue eyes watching him.
His brothers fought before it and it did nothing but sit and watch him. And he knew why. It’s waiting for me to choose, he thought. Friend or foe.
And with the understanding came th...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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It was high noon when they began their return to the tribe. Despite the hunt being ended, the men never broke formation. Always alert with each step, unlike their arrival, they walked with a caution, weapons drawn and arrows notched. It was an almost trained disposition, and Ezril might have been impressed if more troubling things did not plague his mind.
It bore it too, he thought, eyes fixed on the carcass of the animal they’d hunted. He had taken aim, and in those moments ...
2023-12-17 23:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Ezril stroked Lenaria’s hair where it fell from her head rested on his chest, wondering what she was still doing in bed with him four hours past the crack of dawn. On previous days she would have made her exit three hours earlier only after ensuring his breakfast was ready and he wanted for nothing.
“Where do you go every morning?” he asked her, giving life to the thoughts that had always danced in his mind.
Lenaria shrugged. “Out with the girls.”
Out with the ...
2023-12-17 23:00:05 +0000 UTC
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They drew closer, slow and alert. Closing the distance, they stood less than a hundred paces when Ezril armed himself with his bow, choosing not to notch an arrow. An unconscious decision, it seemed. As they moved, the women strategically positioned at the center of the group, he wondered what was different. From what he knew, the women never followed the men to hunt. They were always at a different part of the forest, away from the men, gathering herbs.
That they were here today was qu...
2023-12-17 23:00:05 +0000 UTC
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