"Bwahahahaha!" the weirdo with pastel-colored skin—pastel purple, if you were wondering—and vaguely military outfit complete with a peaked cap laughed villainously as the people who had found themselves trapped in the call center cubicle maze screamed, pounding on the doors and windows. Well, those close to the wacko, anyway. The rest stayed at their stations, nervously continuing their soulless, insincere customer service scripts despite the potential danger to their lives, because other...
2023-08-30 07:46:17 +0000 UTC
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The place I was looking for was technically on the thoroughfare, but only their stock gate opened onto it. The actual front door was on a street that extended out from the thoroughfare—I should probably find out what it was called, but honestly I was terrible at remembering street names—that had probably formed because the place had situated their entrance there.
Emborin and Sons was a heavily built wooden building two stories high but several paces long and deep. The wide,...
2023-08-29 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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When I'd first arrived in Covehold, fresh from a very long sea voyage in a tightly packed ship with food I'd rather not try to remember, the ship had come to rest on a solid stone dock that had been built along one of the encircling stone arms around the cove—the left one from the perspective of the cove entrance, to be more specific. The dock had been made of Whispered stone, something I'd only properly recognized the second time I'd come to the city by the sea, having become familiar with...
2023-08-27 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Further Testing for the Trap
Lori had to change the binding of lightningwisps so that all the imbuement wasn’t consumed almost instantly. Hindsight, she should have realized putting that element directly from the offensive lightning binding would have resulted in something like that. Usually, the imbuement was consumed in getting the lightning to traverse the air between herself and the target she was aiming at, but since the binding she had made would have t...
2023-08-26 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The journey to Covehold was hot, nerve-wracking, and mildly terrifying. Even though we had to sail—drive?—close to shore so that we wouldn't have to face the large ocean waves that could fill the ship with water or possibly even roll us over, having so much water in all directions made everyone a little nervous. The occasional sighting we had of large dillians and other things curiously poking at the ship didn't help.
I did my best to hide my own nervousness and keep a smile on my f...
2023-08-24 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The sun was shining, the bugs were being loud—I really can’t understand why anyone would call the spike to the ears they make ‘singing’—and the sun was starting to get warmer as we moved away from spring and into summer. Personally, I felt it was still far too cold, but everyone else in the demesne except Lori was saying that the summer heat had arrived, and so I bow to the will of the majority.
This meant our house no longer used a blanket when going to sleep at nigh...
2023-08-23 04:34:41 +0000 UTC
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Lori held the almanac in her hands as she held it open for the hunter that she'd had Riz bring to the discussion after dinner. A new binding of lightwisps directly over the table shone down on the pages, since the man had said it was hard to see from where he was leaning over Shanalorre.
"That looks like the beast I saw, your Bindership," he said after studying the illustration. "I wondered what the things on its back were, but they might have been spines."
Colors and rainbows. "I...
2023-08-22 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Lori had to change the binding of lightningwisps so that all the imbuement wasn’t consumed almost instantly. Hindsight, she should have realized putting that element directly from the offensive lightning binding would have resulted in something like that. Usually, the imbuement was consumed in getting the lightning to traverse the air between herself and the target she was aiming at, but since the binding she had made would have the lightning travelling along the lines of anchored lightning...
2023-08-20 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Seeling Is Not Shirking My Responsibilities!
“I’ll build the trap. Find me a place we can lure the beast so that I can anchor the bindings in place,” Lori declared after breakfast the next day.
"Uh, are you all right, Great Binder?" Riz said, making a vaguely concerned face.
The non-sequitur made Lori frown. "Of course I am. Why do you ask?"
"You seem to be breathing heavily. And you're clenching your hand so hard it's shaking."
Sh...
2023-08-19 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Lori was surprised to find there were not as many people as usual in the dining hall at lunch. The children were there, hair wet from either bath or a quick dip in the river, but many tables seemed depleted, leaving mostly women present. Even Riz was absent, with only Umu and Mikon sitting across from Lori. Mikon didn't seem worried, so nothing bad had probably happened to her temporary-Rian, but it was curious.
"Where's Erzebed?" she asked Mikon.
"She's helping with butc...
2023-08-17 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Lori never thought she’d see the brat looking envious. It seemed she hadn’t been able to join the hunters who had gone to River’s Fork to seel for meat there. Well, there was still tomorrow. The girl alternated between directing that envious gaze at Lori and pointing at the seels trapped in ice that Lori had trapped and dragged ashore, visibly counting them even as she kept losing track of which ones she’d already counted and having to start over. The only reason Lori had sto...
2023-08-15 16:00:09 +0000 UTC
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So, after 332 chapters here, I'm here to correct a grave disservice on my part. I would like to acknowledge and thank Obloquy, who has been my pre-reader and beta for the whole length of time that I've been writing this story. It's... like, VERY late, but I figure better late than never. He's been with my since day one of this story, reading every chapter and occasionally bouncing ideas with me, and it's high time he's given the public acknowled...
2023-08-13 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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I Want To Shirk My Responsibilities!
It took Lori several days to build the bath house in River's Fork. Most of this was the difficulty of moving material to the building site she had chosen—the rock debris hadn't nearly been enough to work with—but the rest was the sheer difficulty of the project. It wasn't just that she was working outside of her demesne and had to claim wisps like any other Whisperer, or it was so stupidly hot and humid! No, the...
2023-08-12 16:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Kolinh’s suggestion to deal with the beast was to lay a trap. A pit filled with spikes, or simply gather piles of Iridescence ready to be set on fire—an idea that Lori found both horrifying and dangerously pragmatic—which would be set alight once the beast was near enough to ignite the Iridescence growing on its own body.
“Given the situation, we don’t have the days it would normally take to track the beast and learn it’s habits,” Kolinh said.
“But we do h...
2023-08-10 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Even after she finished with building the bath house, Lori's Ice Boat continued to make the trip to the other demesne and back. Beasts and seels had to be hunted for food, after all, and the nearly week-long stay in the shelter while the dragon passed had depleted much of the comfortable margin that they'd managed to build up over the spring.
Thus, hunting was redoubled, as the still abundant numbers of beasts and fursh were slowly rendered into food. The hunters stay in four d...
2023-08-08 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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It took Lori several days to build the bath house in River's Fork. Most of this was the difficulty of moving material to the building site she had chosen—the rock debris hadn't nearly been enough to work with—but the rest was the sheer difficulty of the project. It wasn't just that she was working outside of her demesne and had to claim wisps like any other Whisperer, or it was so stupidly hot and humid! No, the delay was caused by practical problems.
To build the bath hous...
2023-08-06 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Leaving For Covehold, Again
The ten days of a week passed by faster than she thought. In that time, work had progressed and returned both of her demesnes back to the state they were in before the dragon's arrival, which was the point that Lori felt everything had recovered and was back to normal. Not everything, of course. While the attempt was made, they lacked the skilled hands to save all the crops that were damaged by the dragon's passing. Most of the damag...
2023-08-05 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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I was glad I'd had a roof extended to the back of the Coldhold. It solved so many problems, not the least of which was how hot it got when someone was operating the tiller. The sun still managed to shine on whoever was steering during the morning, but that was a tolerable heat.
The trip downriver was routine enough that Yhorj handled the steering while everyone else was cleaning and butchering the seel we'd caught earlier… from the shade cast by the roof. I,...
2023-08-03 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Yes, I know it's filler, but we're back for another round of 'What If...' where we find out what powers our heroines and heroes would have gotten if they'd been the one to devour certain monsters instead of the one who'd managed it in the story.
Geyser Rat
- If Sanny or Tammy had gotten it, they'd would have gotten nothing, as it was incompatible with theirs power as they currently were.
- If Jas or Kim had gotten it, they'd ha...
2023-08-03 14:50:43 +0000 UTC
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Nightmærangers - Beach Episode!
Summer in the Philippines! (March to May)
"It's the sea!" Tammy cried, wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit and a pair of cut-off shorts. Next to her, Willy wore a shy-blue one-piece, a baseball cap keeping her hair in place.
"Wooh!" Ryan and Katherine agreed excitedly. The former was wearing orange swim-trunks, while the latter was wearing a pink two-piece.
"Wooh," Ryan's twin deadpanned.
<...
2023-08-02 10:55:43 +0000 UTC
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Another month, another poll. Yes, once more we're having a the poll to find out what the patrons want to to read about on this month's Patron Exclusive chapter.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to warn everyone in advance that there will be no chapters posted on the last week of September, as It's my and my quarterly break.
Also, I'm probably going to finally read Mother of Learning soon, because I read an MoL fanfic and liked it. This should cause absolutely no ...
2023-08-02 08:40:46 +0000 UTC
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Lori spend the rest of the day making wispbeads just beyond the upriver edge of her demesne. It was a familiar tedium that she didn't have to think too deeply about, and allowed her to get lost in her thoughts and simply wait. Since she spent it sitting inside her shed made of bound ice, she wasn't uncomfortable even though she was technically sitting outside of her demesne. The binding to circulate cool air inside the shed saw to that.
The tray she used was a pace long and half that wi...
2023-08-01 16:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The ten days of a week passed by faster than she thought. In that time, work had progressed and returned both of her demesnes back to the state they were in before the dragon's arrival, which was the point that Lori felt everything had recovered and was back to normal. Not everything, of course. While the attempt was made, they lacked the skilled hands to save all the crops that were damaged by the dragon's passing. Most of the damaged crops died, though some seemed to persist even with broke...
2023-07-30 16:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Distillation and Damage Assessment
The rain had stopped when they opened the mine doors again after breakfast the next day, replaced by the punishing summer heat. The heat was made worse by the sudden humidity in the air, which somehow combined to distill the worst parts of being wet and being hot.
Lori wanted to just stay in the mine with a binding of waterwisps in front of the entrance to keep out the moisture in the air, but unfortunately there was wor...
2023-07-29 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Over the next few days, Lori had to work to restore what she could of her demesne back to how it was before the dragon's passing.
She started with recovering the Coldhold from where it had been encased. It took up most of the afternoon of the day she arrived, since she had to move the stone container with the boat close to the dock before carefully raising up it up, and then opening the block slowly so that the Coldhold would float in the water. At that point, Rian and...
2023-07-27 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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There was the slightest hint of a breeze as Cassan carefully set up his brass telescope on the foot of the stairs leading out to the stone dock that extended out into the river. Here, there was just enough light to see what he was doing but no light to reflect off the lens. The instrument was his most precious possession, an inheritance from an aunt when she had passed, given to him who she knew would care for it. Truthfully, he'd had many relatives glare at him jealously when it had been giv...
2023-07-27 06:41:26 +0000 UTC
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After making sure that the large wispbeads—reduced and unused—were secured back in the third alcove, and doing one last check on the water distillation bound tool—it was functioning properly, and there was already a small pile of some sort of white powder in the catch bucket—Lori was able to settle down onto Lori's Boatwith Riz, Rian, and the other people who had come with her to River's Fork. Rian had come by himself, supposedly so that the boat wouldn't be as crowded with e...
2023-07-25 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The rain had stopped when they opened the mine doors again after breakfast the next day, replaced by the punishing summer heat. The heat was made worse by the sudden humidity in the air, which somehow combined to distill the worst parts of being wet and being hot.
Lori wanted to just stay in the mine with a binding of waterwisps in front of the entrance to keep out the moisture in the air, but unfortunately there was work to be done. While it wasn't as bad as the puddles of water caught...
2023-07-23 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Resting to Be Ready For Emergencies
Once a second bucket was placed to catch water, it was time to eat.
Lori made a little seat of stone extrude from the wall a little bit away from the sink and sat down, one hand on the tube to continue imbuing the binding. It was relatively simple, so she'd be able to form another one another if it ran out of imbuement and dissolved, but she'd rather she didn't have to. She'd have to alter one of the wisplights to provi...
2023-07-22 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Lori didn't unseal the mine immediately, even though she could feel the dragon moving away. First, she checked on her demesne through her connection to her core, and was able to ascertain that while it was still raining, no solids of potentially caustic metals were falling any longer, and the falling rain wasn't filled with firewisps anymore. There were also no mobile voids of wisps that might denote living dragonborn abominations, though that didn't bar the possibility of undead dra...
2023-07-20 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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