Epilogue: Elsewhere
(MetaTech Virtual Headquarters, Shadowmen Control Room)
Demi Turner took a breath, and said, “All right, everything is looking good on this end. Sally, anything you can see in your area?”
Sally Navarro shook her head. “No, boss. Just some new updates from the Brotherhood storyline. People have started running into the bugs.”
Demi smiled. She’d been waiting for this. They’d specifically kept the bugs out of the beta, so no one ...
2025-08-30 16:00:18 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 85 – Tamer
As the Tier 1 creature that could eventually become a Lesser Dragon, it was only to be expected that Drakes were tough customers. The smallest ones we found in the dungeon were the size (and speed) of a horse, went on four legs, and had teeth like daggers. Their hides, meanwhile, were as tough as steel and made them resistant to magic. Plus, their bites were poisonous as hell, and they could infuse elemental magic into their attacks. Did I mention the fact that th...
2025-08-29 12:07:11 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 147 – Introductions
Sixty END spent out of the two hundred in the Endurance Reserve of the Rhuk’s power reactor was a sizeable cost for instant destruction of two piddly patrol craft. Still, the cost was worth it, in my opinion. I needed to get attention on me. Or, rather, my ship. And the best way to do that was to immediately take out the first two ships to step up to the plate.
The Rhuk had undergone some modifications during the trial phase. Tha...
2025-08-28 12:26:39 +0000 UTC
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Hurrah. Heading to DragonCon tomorrow. I wrote ahead, so still should be posts during.
Chapter 235 – Bleeding Out
(Bridge, CRN Invader, Incux Food Resource System 3)
Captain Tara Cox smiled as she looked at the tactical display. They’d launched two more attacks since they’d first let loose with the Tiamat torpedoes. The last of the truehives and swarmships were gone. The hiveships’ numbers had been cut from forty to eighteen. Of the initial two hund...
2025-08-26 22:07:06 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 393 – Delivery
(Jerusalem)
Aleyn Flintwater could not believe his luck! He had gone into the Adventurers Guild looking to see what jobs were available, and he hadn’t been hopeful. His combination of Plant Mage and Alchemist was a potent one, in theory. The kinds of things Plant Mages had done in the forests during the Grimbough War were legendary, after all, and as an Alchemist, being able to grow herbs with magic ought to be a boon, right?
Wrong. Unfortunately...
2025-08-25 16:07:52 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 40: Conversation
“Icy, good to see you. All of you. And in one piece.”
Alisha Cooper was looking rough. Rougher than she had when we’d left her at the Hades Club just a few days ago. She’d been up late a few nights in a row, almost certainly. Whether with work or worry was anyone’s guess.
Of course, we weren’t at Hades Club now. This wasn’t that kind of meet. Instead, we were meeting at a warehouse in the ‘Elven District’ on the south shore of Lak...
2025-08-23 22:01:34 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 84 – Upgrades
As it turned out, we all got some upgrades out of the loot pile, once we took the time to really go through everything we’d gotten from the Shadow Vipers and the kobolds. Zazriel had a good bit of work ahead of her, moving enchantments between pieces of gear. My own set of upgrades were quite nice, I had to admit.
Dark Lady’s Traveling Spellgoggles
Type
Face
Rank
Rare
Price
48500 gp
Weight
0.5 kg
T...
2025-08-23 00:18:11 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 146 – First Blood
(Command Nest, Gel-nak Imperial Navy Ship Threefold Destruction of the Unworthy, Srusk System, Gel-Nak Empire)
Ship High Commander Arlushk was less than pleased. Ever since the invasion of Earth, things had been going wrong. The loss of the fleet and the stalemate at the invasion points had been bad enough, especially with the existence of the Uprising Controls being spread throughout the Empire. Xarthun and Thraxl both suffered disaster, the...
2025-08-21 19:50:49 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 190 – Shadows
“My Queen, we have caught a couple packs of rats.”
I had been enjoying a nice evening in my hotel room, having finished with the day’s meetings. We were scheduled to return to Risen Athelia tomorrow, so it was the last night of our stay. Since no sneaks or assassins had tried anything so far during the stay, I had been expecting something tonight. After all, anyone who wanted to do something would have an easier time making a move while I w...
2025-08-20 15:48:15 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 234 – Hit and Run
(Angel Leader, Incux Food Resource System 3)
The plan was simple, really, Slave-Squadron Leader Isis ‘Goddess’ Saliba thought in the quiet of her own head. It wouldn’t do to let the rest of the squadron know she was nervous. As the leader, she needed to project calm, cool readiness, or the others would start getting nervous.
There was a difference between ‘nervous’ and ‘alert’, of course. Alert meant that you were ready fo...
2025-08-19 21:11:17 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 392 – Quest
With the local dungeons on board and willing to attend, I turned my attention to other matters. The upcoming wedding was important, of course, but it wasn’t like I was devoid of responsibilities, or needing to take care of tasks that I’d said I’d handle. Not to mention just running my dungeon, and my faith. There were always demands on my time, and, even with me being able to be in multiple places at once, there were limits to how much I could accomplish at...
2025-08-19 00:14:50 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 39: Extracted
As we headed back towards the above-ground section of the site, Twilight’s voice came on over our comms. “Hey guys, glad to see you’re all headed back up. Lost your signal for a bit, there. All that dirt makes for a bit of interference. Anyways, things are still clear, up here.”
“Glad to hear it, Twilight. Our main kill targets are down. Haven’t seen anyone trying to escape, have you?”
“No, if any of the bugs are left, the...
2025-08-16 14:28:10 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 83 – Into the Dungeon
“[Krenrena’s Marring Lash (Constitution)]!”
A smoky red whip formed in the air, and lashed down at the last of the Kobold Dragon Knights. The moment the red smoke struck him, the scaled dog-lizard hybrid collapsed to the ground, dead. As one might expect of a creature when their CON, which governed their HP and whether they were living or not, dropped by over a thousand points. Even with my insane stats, even my CHA was nowhere near 1000.
2025-08-15 21:41:33 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 145 – Symbols
Eighteen months to the day after the Gel-nak started the invasion, and we were finally ready to go. As much as I would have liked to get this show on the road earlier, I hadn’t lived this long as a villain by being an idiot. Most of the time.
Part of not being an idiot, as a general rule, meant checking your equipment and gear, and making sure everything worked before you got out in the field. The further you were from possible resupply, the more import...
2025-08-14 21:36:44 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 189 – Arms Deal
Making arrangements for Boone and his people was fairly straightforward, especially since I didn’t care about the whole ‘not making waves’ thing. While Armonk wasn’t exactly a major metropolitan center, it still counted as ‘local’ to New York City. So, when a successful local businessman sold off his business, home, and everything, that got attention. When a couple hundred families did the same to their homes, removing over six hundred people from...
2025-08-13 22:02:30 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 233 – First Blood
(Cinder Leader, Incux Food Resource System 3)
Slave-Squadron Leader Lelia ‘Heretic’ Carollo took a deep breath to steady her nerves. A ‘mere’ four light-hour hop at 20c was still a twelve-minute jump. Twelve minutes that they could be detected. Twelve minutes that the enemy could spend, getting shields and weapons ready, launching fighters.
Sure, she knew the science of it, or at least the surface level. Bow-shocks from FTL were easiest ...
2025-08-12 21:46:10 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 391 – Mediterranean DEN
Weddings, even mortal ones, were complicated affairs. You had to find a date and time, a place for the event, a place for the reception, line up a priest, catering, and music, and more. A divine wedding, however? Well, that made mortal weddings look mundane in comparison.
Oh, there were still some parts that were easier to deal with than others. We had already decided on the date and the venue, after all, planning it for 4 PM local time on the f...
2025-08-11 21:48:37 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 38: Regicide
Turning my eyes to the astral, I saw two of the mantis spirits in their true form slashing at the ward, while two of the hybrids punched it. Together, their attacks were more than enough to rip through the barrier, causing a gaping wound in the fabric of the magical barrier to spread. There were no words, nothing to say. We all moved forward. The only thing that mattered, at this moment, was killing the Shaman and the remaining ants.
The chamber beyond was w...
2025-08-09 20:19:09 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 82 – Welcome to the Team?
“Mistress, I found something on the bodies that wasn’t in the loot table!”
I nodded as Angelina came up to me. The loot table given to everyone by the Voice of the World did not include everything you could get from a body, obviously. Major pieces of gear, magical items, things needed for a quest, and so on showed up in it, but if one of them had flint and tinder for starting fires, that might not. Personal letters and the sort were anot...
2025-08-08 20:35:25 +0000 UTC
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Prologue – Trade Chat
(Capes & Cowls Forum, General Chat)
Message of the Day: Remember, Capes & Cowls is ‘neutral ground’. Keep it civil, and if you try to track someone through our site, it will not end well for you.
Speedy, AngelEyes, Victory, HotStuff, Jester, Freedom, Aegis, Stars, Emerald, Snowflake, MagicGurl, RedHot, Scholar, CantSeeMe, Turbo, Emperor, DontYouWantMeBaby, KoolAidMan, SliceNDice, Destroyer, Inquisitor, Narrator, PartyGurl, Chummer, Fabri...
2025-08-07 19:44:09 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 188 – Asylum
The next week was, obviously, quite busy. Constructing the building for the Embassy had been easy enough, but you needed more than just a building for such things. Sure, I had decorated the outside of the building with sculptures in relief, with the summoning being shown at the bottom, to the left of the gate, and following along with the counter-clockwise rotation of the building until, at the top, it showed my return home. However, that was just the outside. T...
2025-08-06 21:37:11 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 232 – Mark
(Bridge, CRN Promise, Incux Food Resource System 3)
Captain Sumisu Yoichi had prepared his crew well. They were just four light-hours out from their target. Just. As if a distance that was only slightly less than that between Neptune and Sol back home was a mere trifle.
The planning for this strike was both simple, and horribly complicated. Simple, because everything was just math. Not terribly complicated math, either. It wasn’t unlike a ma...
2025-08-05 21:06:57 +0000 UTC
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Prologue – Trade Chat
(Adventurer’s Guild Official Forums, Miami Branch)
SunnyBunz, MightyMouse, ImAPally, DontYouWantMe, AsaAkiraIsBae, BestGirl, LatinHeat, Salty, Backpage, Craig34, l33tpally, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, RedFox, Kimiko, DonnyJuan, Crusader, BadCompany, HurricaneGal, Ambassador, Scholar, Righteous, Id10t, Satyr, DarkEnchanter, RangerMiguel, ScoopGirl, VenusFlyTramp, MagicMike, TsundereHealer, Max, LightningLegacy, SwiftTaylor, Domino, Bacchus, Aegis, Temptation...
2025-08-04 14:04:59 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 37: Breach and Clear
It took less than a moment for DeeDee and the other Angels to finish off the remaining bugs. When it was done, she and the other Angels looked our way. Hesitating. I knew what they were thinking. Before, with just one mage, and an adept that didn’t have any magic attacks, spirits like them had the advantage. Even if we had some heavy weapons on our side. Now, though, we’d shown ourselves to be a lot more dangerous.
Shark knew when predators were ...
2025-08-02 21:39:44 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 81 – Easy Pickings
Syllia Zylgolor
Elf Female
Level 43 Waterbender / Hunter
Titles: Silver-Tongued, Seductress, Keen-Eyed, Slave
You have defeated the Shadow Vipers!
You gain 5220 XP!
Loot:
Syllia Zylgolor
Handy Haversack x6
Ring of Greater Fire Resistance x6
Ring of Perfect Sight x6
Pendant of Greater Resilience x5
Periapt of Piercing Wisdom
Pierceproof Mithril Chain Shirt x2
<...
2025-08-01 21:18:56 +0000 UTC
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Epilogue – Elsewhere
Director Max Hopkins frowned as he looked over his files in the new North American Headquarters of the Superhuman Defense Initiative. He hated the new office. It wasn’t any smaller than his old one, and no less comfortable. Even had the exact same shape and dimensions, and he’d had all of his old furniture moved over. But it still felt… diminished.
The last few years had not been kind to the SDI, to be honest. Just after the Initialization, the Tokyo...
2025-07-31 18:58:30 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 187 – Diplomatic?
“You certainly have a way with words, your Majesty.”
Naturally, my speech had ruffled a few feathers, what with my pointed statements towards Russia and especially towards the US. I knew that I was poking the bear, so to speak, but it was a calculated action. Sure, it was a near certainty that the President, egomaniacal manchild that he was, would take offense to such blatant and pointed disrespect, but I was not concerned in the slightest. There ...
2025-07-30 21:11:48 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 231 – Tactics
(Main Bridge, CRN Mercurial, Incux Food Resource System 3)
Captain Griboyedov Ivan Tikhonovich frowned as he looked at the scans on the tactical display. Third Fleet was coasting silently in the void, at the edges of the system that the Commonwealth marked as Leyater, but was labeled in his battle plans as Food Resource System 3. The last of the three ‘cattle worlds’ he and his people had been set to ‘cull’.
It was bad business, and...
2025-07-29 22:29:16 +0000 UTC
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Epilogue – Elsewhere
(Temple of a Thousand Moans, Iaruta 3, Iaruta System)
Once, she had been a High Priestess and Blessed Evangelist. Once, this holy site had been the Temple of Broken Chains. Once, her goddess was a beacon of hope for many. Once, she had been free. Once, but no longer.
Now, Malkai Werwall, former High Priestess of Pofmis, was named Whoremother, a Sacred Whore-Priestess of Pofmis and Blessed Courtesan, enslaved to a common Craftsman and Baker. When the ...
2025-07-28 12:07:18 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 36: Angels in Action
Berzerker’s Vehicle Attack: 9d6 = 3 hits, 2 miss
Fence Ramming Damage: 19P
Fence Damage Resistance: 12d6 = 3 hits, 1 miss (16P damage)
Van Ramming Damage: 10P
Van Damage Resistance: 36d6 = 11 hits, 7 Misses (0 Damage)
Babydoll’s Attack Roll: 10d6 = 5 hits, 1 Miss
Suppressing Fire: 7P, -7 AP
Guard 1’s Reaction+Edge: 11d6 = 3 Hits, 2 Miss (2 net hit)
Guard 1’s Defense: 17d6 = 3 Hits, 4 Miss (6P Damage)<...
2025-07-26 11:59:30 +0000 UTC
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