Chibi-Reaper

Chrome Butterfly Chapter Four

Mechalopolis University had more than a few challenges and disputes to resolve every single day, from resolving the situation when someone spilled coffee on another person's jacket to when a dispute over attendance needed to be settled. If you wanted an extra day to get homework turned in? If you felt like you had been graded unfairly and wanted to argue for a few more points? If you needed to change the date of a presentation? It all boiled down to 'fighting' for it.

... Tho...

Black Heart Chapter Fourteen

... Nothing in particular changed for Malicia's day to day life after that. It was... In some ways it was infuriating, that even after slipping up and tasting the blood in full view of everyone, it hadn't changed how Lord Ravensworth treated her even a little bit.

But on the other hand, how could it? It wasn't as though he could withdraw from her presence or look at her coldly when he never particularly interacted with Malicia to begin with. It was already impossible from the...

Black Heart Chapter Thirteen

It might seem nonsensical to assume that Central, the region where the Emperor sat upon the Golden Throne and his close family resided, where there was more money poured into hiring and maintaining standing guard regimens, roaming patrols of bandit hunters, and law officials working under the local magistrates than any two other kingdoms in the Empire, also had the biggest issue with bandits and brigandry. It would seem that all of that money and effort invested into enforcing the law and roo...

Black Heart character design

Due to being 'generated in character creation', the 'Protagonist' character has a uniquely versatile breadth of options in a video game, where most others are relatively set in stone.

What Class should the Protagonist have, when encountered by Malicia?

Chrome Butterfly Chapter Three

A basic model of PI-doll didn't include anything like distributed repulsor nodes to allow an effect similar to anti-gravity, or kinetic amplifiers to allow the movement of disproportionately large objects, or even significant reinforcement beyond what was required for the PI-doll itself to function.

This meant that depending on the structural materials used in the frame, a PI-doll could be unexpectedly fragile... such as when ceramics or glass features were included in the mo...

Chrome Butterfly Chapter Two

"Humph! Don't think that this is because I l-like you, b-baka!"

Alex and Genesis considered the approximately twenty centimeter tall schoolgirl model PI-Doll as it crossed its arms and tossed hair over its shoulder, making the condescendingly dismissive expression that matched the gesture.

The display model wasn't connected to a proper Aide, of course. It was operated, if that was the correct term, by something between a chat-bot and a copy of the sort of scr...

Black Heart Chapter Twelve

The first thing that Malicia recognized about Central was that it was notably warmer, all of the time. The North was the coldest region of the Empire, of course, followed after by the peaks of the West and the chill over-seas winds of the East for second and third coldest. While it held not a single candle to the oftentimes sweltering South, which Malicia would struggle to imagine, it was still a change to not feel the air nipping with invisible teeth at whatever skin was exposed. Something t...

Chrome Butterfly Chapter One

Mechalopolis was a city built on the top of a floating super-structure, the artificial island 'Tentatio', built in a rough circular shape and with a radius of approximately thirty kilometers. It had been, Alex recalled, an experiment in determining if it was viable to build a self-sufficient and populated artificial island.

The results were... debatable. A lot of the surface area had to be designated as farm land, prioritizing bulk crops, which reduced the area for the actual...

Chrome Butterfly Prologue

There was no light in the room save for the muted, low glow of lines of code scrolling across subdued and dimmed screens. The occupants didn't need the ambient light, with visors fixed over their eyes or entire helmets in place to provide a display directly to the wearer. The occupants worked in silence, save for the occasional soft beep of equipment.

One shadowed figure drummed his fingers across a desk-top, before raising his hand. With a flicking click of his fingers, a ho...

Black Heart Chapter Eleven

For a little while after Malicia woke following the fight that could be thinly veiled as either chastisement or training she wondered if Jack had simply made up the mention of the lady Ravensworth's pregnancy. It did not take long to conclude that he hadn't, though. The position of head butler left him in a position to be more aware of the private matters of the elder Ravensworths, and while there were a number of petty things that she would not put past the man?

The fact of ...

Black Heart Chapter Ten

The blades carved deeply into her forearms, scoring lines of white-hot pain as they ground against the bones where Malicia had thrown them up to block while backstepping away from the most recent swinging arc of steel in her direction.

It wasn't ideal, but when she wasn't in a position to fully dodge Malicia was left with little other choice in the matter beyond the snap decision as to where she should take an inevitable injury.

Taking a blow to her arms made...

Black Heart Chapter Nine

Dinner went normally, with everyone at a polite distance from one another and the meals being gracefully served by maids that would transfer the meal from a large trolley to the requisite dishes and elegantly exchange them for used ones. Far from dinner at an orphanage or for commoners in general, whether it was a new course or a second serving of something, new food did not set on an old plate.

The way that a group of commoner children would hold death-grips on wooden dishes...

Black Heart Chapter Eight

"Today, we have a little treat prepared." the butler declared, smirking from his position standing on top of several crates that had been prepared. "This was intended to wait until you were at least ten years of age, young master, but both the construction and your training proceeded ahead of schedule. Well, it is a small enough matter to go ahead of the plan, I suppose."

"I'm ready!" Adrian declared, waving his sword in the air.

"Oho, I'm sure you are, young master." the butler c...

Black Heart Chapter Seven

Social connections were important for the nobility, and unlike commoners, they spread out vertically as well as horizontally.

A commoner's important social connections were almost always going to be other commoners, with few exceptions. Usually, that would also be limited to those in close physical proximity to them. Individuals who all lived in the same village or town, forming connections to the local butcher, the local farmers, the local baker, and so on. Sometimes, if a c...

Character Poll

In 'Black Heart', a Heritage can have obvious effects on the body. For example, a Porter in Malicia's orphanage had a notable feature that set her apart.

What should that be?

Black Heart Chapter Six

Sophie's journal was still Malicia's most treasured item, as her fourteenth birthday came and went with little fanfare.

Admittedly, the celebrations for the blood-related Ravensworths weren't much of note themselves, from what she had seen. Edward or Adrian would be allowed to choose the meals for the day, as long as they decided on them far enough in advance for the arrangements to be made, and they would be given a purse with money that they could spend on whatever they too...

Black Heart Chapter Five

There was no remark on Malicia having missed meals, but she couldn't say as to whether that was because it had approval from the elder Ravensworths to begin with or if it was simply because such things were beneath their notice and of no particular consequence. It hardly mattered which. Even if it turned out that the butler did not have direct permission, there was no chance that they would countermand actions and damage his authority in the long term over a small matter like Malicia's traini...

Black Heart Chapter Four

"There's no need for you to attend dinner today. You must be exhausted, miss Malicia." the butler said, almost managing to feign kindness. "Wash up and head right to bed. Ah. And for breakfast..."

With a smile, he dropped a small cloth pouch in Malicia's hands. The thing felt like it was filled with smaller, hard objects... nuts, still in the shell.

"A healthy alternative to sausages and eggs. You are becoming a bit large for a proper noblewoman, after all." ...

Black Heart Chapter Three

The elder son, Edward Ravensworth, was eleven years old to her twelve when Malicia had been brought to the estate.

He was still set to inherit. Not because he was the first child of the Ravensworth's blood, and not because he was a boy while Malicia was a girl, though her inheriting had never truly been in question as long as the Ravensworths had any children of their union at all. Rather, Edward would inherit because he had been born with the Class of Aristocrat.

<...

Black Heart Chapter Two

The Empire of Phantasma could be broadly divided into five parts.

There was the North, frozen over and forested heavily, rich in trees and ice and not much else. The Northern wilderness grew few edible plants, which in turn meant that the game animals were few in number. Those solitary wild beasts which lived their own lives in the north were typically heavily furred, but for a Northman, fur was often something that was too valuable to be sold. The border of the North natural...

Black Heart Chapter One

Sophie's little journal was about half writing practice and actual journal entries and about half prophecy that had been written just speculatively and vaguely enough to come off as idle musing about the future.

Or, and much more frequently, as unclear rambling, with tidbit lines like 'Rmndr for dung grndg. Bk out & rdo frm strt for LV gains bfor BOSS' fitted in between a dozen repeated practice lines of writing difficult words to memorize the spelling and a drawing of a ...

Black Heart Prologue

In the Empire of Phantasma, Status was everything.

A person would be born with a Class. This was something decided in a way that no living being could find a reasoning behind. Sometimes, a family would consistently produce the same Class, over and over again through the centuries. Sometimes, however, it wouldn't happen that way. It wasn't as though the Class was the final say on what it was possible to do, either... many Farmers did not cultivate vegetables or rear livestock,...

Seed 1.2

Try as he might, Rick couldn't get the sword out of his mind, questions of just how it had gotten there circling around his head. On some level, he wanted to believe it was a prank... but if that was true, then it was a joke that not just the car owner, but also the police force, were in collusion on pulling on an ordinary mechanic shop. He just couldn't see why they'd do that, even if the police officers in these parts were the type to joke around.

That left the possibility ...

Seed 1.1

It was ironic, considering he worked in an auto shop, but Rick did not actually own a car of his own. He could have one if he wanted, of course. He had the license, and he knew enough about how cars worked to keep one in good operating condition. Couldn't get away without knowing that much, working in an auto shop, of course. Thing was, there had come a point where his old car's engine had given out and he'd known enough to know that the replacement parts he'd need for the repairs would be ex...

Seed 1.P

The beast paused, rearing its head back and snuffling at the air with flared nostrils, head turning from side to side in uncertainty. Something had changed, it could feel it in the air. But just what that change might be, it couldn't tell. Not beyond one simple fact.

It had been hunting the small and hairy ones through their tunnels. Carved large to allow for the passage of carts piled high with the profitable ores of their mining expeditions, wheeled back along rails to cent...