The Conciege

(TLO) Chapter 54: Nothing Should Smell So Bad

Seth peeked out from behind the tree and watched. Whoever was striking so vehemently was tired now, fatigued. From the way he raised his hands and brought them down, it was clear there was something wrong with at least one of his arms.

Seth doubted the person had much of a fight left in him. Whatever he had been through had left him drained.

The next time his hands descended, there was no thud, in its place was a wet crunching sound of something breaking. The next strike bore the ...

(TLO) Chapter 53: Thudding and Groaning

Seth did not look back as he ran. He did not check to see if anyone had noticed him. He did not check to see if any had followed. He simply soared through the distance, passing foliage in the dark and bumping into plants and trees he did not see well enough.

“You, count,” he commanded no one in particular as he ran.

Noted, one mind answered.

“You.”

Yes. This from another.

“Keep me away from the trees. I don’t want to be useless when ...

(TLO) Chapter 52: A Better Vice Than Weakness

The conclusion of the first test left their numbers dwindled. For the first month after it, Seth and his brother whispered amongst themselves. Murmurs and mumbles were the event of every night before lights out.

Borriovani never returned from Igor’s grasp, not that they were truly surprised. And Norman’s death was taken like the taste of medicine; bitterly but quietly.

Josiah, however, had somehow survived. He held the title of being the only one to be taken out of the room an...

(TLO) Chapter 51: Ask Away

Dante Faust stood before Seth. The Rector stroked thinning beards gently in an almost skeletal hand. He stood tall today, unbending at the back as he mostly was. The walking cane in his left hand swung in midair, twirled between his fingers. It was an action that would be expected mostly from a jovial adult. Today he wore a cassock of dusty brown and smiled a crooked smile, showing a little bit of teeth that was mostly brown and touched with a small stain of red.

His smile widened at Se...

(TLO) Chapter 50: Actors and Psychopaths

The air was stale with the smell of blood. It wasn’t metallic, to be honest, though there was iron in it. No. It smelled like rotten grass and melted bone if acid had been used.

Two suns blazed from above, disagreeing monarchs vexed by the survival of a particularly troublesome subject sent off to die in some forgotten war. One was yellow. The other was a dirty orange that felt and looked wrong.

The ground beneath them, a desert of infinite sand, once a beautiful brown and yello...

(TLO) Chapter 49: Again

We’ll just like to point out that we’ve seen a wyrm before, one of Seth’s minds thought as they watched the monstrous creature.

“And where would we have seen such a thing?” Seth asked, stepping back cautiously, increasing the distance between him and the monster.

In one of Jonathan’s books, the mind answered hurriedly. But that’s not the point. The point is that that’s not a Wyrm. Whatever it is. It. Is. Not. A. Fucking. Wyrm.

“Ar...

(TLO) Chapter 48: We Do What We Must

What had the boy been thinking?

He had been watching Igor as he stepped in the room, just like the rest of his brothers, contemplating on Borriovani’s safety and his own. But when the priest had turned to speak to Seth, things had changed. Timilehin’s attack had been far from predicted. And how he had struck, it was ludicrous. How had he covered the distance so quickly?

All these thoughts made Jason frown as Igor left the room, their thrashing brother in his arms. With the abs...

(TLO) Chapter 47: Time Left

Jason was the first to move as Borriovani put his life at risk, thrashing like a fish out of water. He left his bed with the same speed he always displayed in everything, as if always in a hurry. Seth had barely reacted when the boy was at Borriovani’s side, holding him down by the shoulders.

“Help me!” he barked. “I can’t hold him down.”

Fin reacted almost immediately, a soldier to his commanding officer’s instruction. He moved quickly, securing the Borrivani’s fe...

(TLO) Chapter 46: He Is Not Jabari

There was a numb sensation in Seth’s hand when he woke up, some piece of pain between his fingers. That was the first sensation he felt. The first thing he saw, however, was Timi, sitting across from his bed, staring with a worried look in his eyes. When their eyes met, Timi’s expression eased a bit, but it still held worry, perhaps a fraction of what had once been there.

Sound came to Seth next. He heard the whispered mumbles of his brothers, pieces of knowledge and information pas...

(TLO) Chapter 45: Fracture Quest

Seth knew what was to happen next, at least if Domitia was the opponent he was facing. The priest had a certain favor for attacks and defenses that it led him to a certain bias. Domitia had proven he knew all the techniques but favored the few. In the fighting stance his opponent had chosen, the next form was more than obvious when coming against a staggered enemy. So Seth pushed to the side with a single step, braced for impact, and prepared his counter.

His mind was like the priestess...

(TLO) Chapter 44: He'll Remember

Seth’s hand moved without command. It rested against the wall and he eased himself against it. It was rough and hard. Its temperature was unknown as his ability to feel had remained an elusive lover since the beginning of the test.

He ran a trepid hand through his groomed, sleek hair as he heard the howl of a particularly pained voice from one of the replicas fighting. When he’d packed his hair back was beyond him. He remembered doing it, but it was as one remembers a particularly m...

(TLO) Chapter 43: A Dog In This Fight

All four of them met the mountain another day into their journey. Around its base the mist was nigh nonexistent.

It stood like all mountains do; solid and unmoving. It was littered in greenery the likes of which put most of what Seth had seen to shame. It was beleaguered with leaves as well as flowers. Hibiscuses and snapdragons blossomed from every groove and crevice. Plants climbed along its sides so that it gave it the visage of an African woman blessed in the beauty of her braids, t...

(TLO) Chapter 42: The Stain of Individuality

The world remained covered in the tainted stain of mist. However, where it had once been all mist, white enough to put the bridal gown of any woman, it was now no more than a simple sheen, a hue on the world around them.

Behind it they saw the trees they’d known to be there. They were as black as he remembered with the mildest stains of green from the moss that grew on their rough barks with bountiful black leaves that only sprouted as high as they were tall, blanketing the world from...

(TLO) Chapter 41: Cognitive Dissonance

“I need silence,” Seth mumbled, needing sleep more than silence.

He needed a quiet world and a quiet mind. A silence that would let him think before he would drift. The replicas’ bickering and constant conversation was unwelcomed. Left to him, he would slit their throats and have only one left. Four was three too many. There could be only one. It was what was meant to be.

This fracture of a mind did no good. It did little in the path of unison. That they would disjoint their...

(TLO) Chapter 40: Something Wrong

One of the groomed versions of Seth waved a nonchalant hand. He dismissed Seth’s question as he said, “We don’t know why we are always late.” To the second version he added: “Perhaps he should be disjointed.”

The strangest thing happened immediately after. The other replica paled visibly. “We do not joke about such things Seth; it is not right.”

Seth opened his mouth to speak when the replica replied. “Calm ourselves, Seth. We merely jest.”

“An expensiv...

Chapter 81: The Institute (2)

“I can’t believe you tried to fight attendant Don,” Peter laughed. “Isn’t he like the biggest guy here.”

Zed said nothing. He kept his lips in a thin line and continued walking. He was in one of the hallways of the institute with three other boys from his class. He was silent as they talked around him and made fun of his situation.

Peter was the oldest of them at seventeen years and was going to be eighteen in three months, which meant he’d be leaving them for his ad...

Chapter 80: The Institute

· You have unlocked memory [The institute].

……………………..

The Berserker bashed Sassan’s face in a second time. Then a third. And continued till he lost count. Now the man laid unmoving beneath him, and sparing the crushed face, now more blood than face, he got up.

The Berserker teetered on his first step but caught himself before he fell. The only sounds that filled the air now were of burning cars and the occasional explosion of ammunitions subjected to seve...

Chapter 79: With Great Power

Locked in battle, every mage around Zed was a walking perfume of aura, discomforting or not. The monsters were pretty much the same, but their auras were wild and feral, uncontrolled where the mages were contained, controlled to an extent.

True to Oliver’s words, Ash was the only Beta rank mage here, but there was something about the Olympians’ auras that didn’t sit right with Zed. The both of them exuded Rukh rank auras and while Kid’s felt like a second category, Daniel’s fe...

Chapter 78: Tangos

Shanine stared at the massive bone-white club Chris had hefted over her shoulder as they walked. She carried it as if it weighed nothing but Shanine knew enough about mages to know the club likely weighed just as much as it looked.

“Also,” Ash said, “you don’t have to worry about your height. Once you awaken you’ll add a few more inches.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I don’t know why, exactly. I just know it’s how magic works.”

Shanine did her best not to ga...

Chapter 77: Memory Trigger

“Careful,” Zed said, both hands on Chris’ hand that squeezed his new shirt, “I just got this shirt and it wrinkles easily.”

“That’s not going to work, Bloodbath,” Chris said, her grip tightening. “You aren’t going to annoy your way out of this one.”

“Alright,” Zed sighed.

He raised an index finger between them and pointed left.

“It’s that way,” he said, defeated.

Chris turned to look in the direction he’d pointed. Her grip remain...

Chapter 76: Man Of Culture

Zed was happy to see the others—mostly Oliver and Ash. In fact, he’d assumed meeting them would’ve been full of joy and some level of celebration. Well, he had expected at least a little bit of that. And if that wasn’t the case, at least Oliver would’ve been exceedingly happy.

Unfortunately, while there was happiness, it was difficult to dwell on. So while the others stood around him with words and mixed emotions, he struggled with pain. A pain that had no intentions of leavin...

Chapter 75: Healing Magic Or Life Magic

Kid holstered his assault rifle easily. He placed it against his thigh and it simply stayed, as if held by some form of magnetic force. Then he retrieved his side-arm, a simple hand gun, and proceeded forward.

“Nice spellform,” he complimented Oliver as he passed him.

Oliver said nothing, gave no response or acknowledgement that Kid had even spoken. His eyes remained forward, however, staring into the shrubbery as if he could see past it. Behind them, the rest of Oliver’s te...

Chapter 74: Help

Kid walked a step behind Daniel. His armor was switched to stealth mode so that the ground bore the weight of the armor surprisingly well, considering its size. Most people often wondered how suits of armor so large and heavy were able to move so quietly, but anyone who’d spent enough time with one of them knew it was all runes.

Each VHF suit of armor was a combination of mana infused metals and scripts of runes. For the stealth function, the armor had a rune situated in each limb and...

Chapter 73: Wrong Reaction

The forest was just as Zed remembered it with the addition of a bit of extra growth. A lot of extra growth. The trees were a countless myriad of colors as if someone had made a garden, planting a variety of flowers for nothing but their colorful beauties then splashed a bucket of bright paints all over the place.

The trees still had barks of fur so bountiful that Zed’s hand sank into them when he touched them and gave him a nostalgic tingling feeling like countless bugs trying to craw...

Chapter 72: Marigold

“Wow.”

Zed stood to the side, taking pleasure in the amazement he heard in Shanine’s voice.

“Told you,” he smirked.

“Beautiful trees are not blooming trees,” she said absently, staring at the sight before them, her mouth held slightly ajar.

Zed and Shanine stood before a wall of tall trees colored so brightly and so bountifully that it was a strain to count them all. Just the ones in front of them bore a total of at least eight colors by Zed’s count. 2023-08-13 23:18:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 71: Elves

“Are we sure we have the right location?” Oliver asked.

He was walking down a plateau of small grass and scanty flowers, each a variety of different soft colors. Beside him Chris walked with her bone milk club hefted over one shoulder while Ash walked with a scowl a half-step behind her. In front of them, Jason led with a disk in hand that projected a miniature display of a blue map. A small arrow head on the map indicated the location of the disk itself while a blinking green dot i...

Chapter 70: Not A Mage

The sky was a clear orange, basked in the glory of a bright afternoon sun. Under its tyrannical gaze, Shanine and Zed walked. Shanine was dressed in a half-torn gown, rips riddling it as if she’d gone through a particularly thick bramble. Zed on the other hand was a far cry from anything near the term ‘family friendly’ in what was left of his pants. He was a slim man with uneven length of red hair and what was the equivalent of a too short short-shorts.

At some point last night, S...

Chapter 69: Bright Light of Cynicism

Ash stared at the hologram in front of her not for the first time. It was a blue rendition of a three dimensional map, complete with topographical arrays and the likes. It contained clear borders, differentiating over fifty-two regions. Each one was labeled with rising flags varying in colors of green, yellow, and red. It wasn’t a long throw to understanding what each one meant. Red indicated danger zones, most likely parts with either dense monster sightings or high ranking monsters. Yello...

Chapter 68: Not A Laxative

Zed’s breathing was measured. Eyes closed, there was nothing in the room that escaped his attention. He let his aura seep gently out of him like slow mist from a smoke machine. He pushed his breathing consciously, making adjustments here and there, tweaking the few errors born of the subconscious until he felt a notification come alive.

· You have activated [Refine].

· Your [mana] flows better.

· [Raw mana] detected.

· You have 0 unallocated [Aptitude points]. 2023-08-07 23:19:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 67: You'll Break My Focus

“I fail to see the benefit of us helping you,” Madam Shaggy said with a twisted scowl. “Even if we do find the mana surge, what’s in it for us?”

Alvin shrugged in his suit of armor. “You get to get rid of the threat of a monster wave?”

He wore one of the armors that carried no specification. The VHF called it the Ranger armor but others called it the all-rounder for obvious reasons. He was resting against the wall of the room, actually tired of having to listen to th...