The ever-burning furnace in my heart demanded retribution, vengeance, power. It blinded me, filled me with absolute rage at the impudence of this mortal child, and ordered me to destroy him at once.
Mortal?
Some semi-rational bit of me thought. Mortal... prey? No.
I knew it then.
The thing I held in my claws wasn’t mere prey. It wasn’t afraid of death, didn’t back down when facing my ire, didn’t even blink when threatened.
T...
2024-01-31 21:08:42 +0000 UTC
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[Kliss Eliza Cessna / Elisabeth Johannes Kepler]
As our trio headed back to the Alanian tower, we stopped at the edge of the Cascadia river to admire the rapids caused by the Spring snow melt.
Now that I was no longer suffering from soul-decay, I found it...
2024-01-28 15:24:57 +0000 UTC
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“Question?” Delta asked as Cassandra brought us a basket of lunch sandwiches and departed quickly.
“Uh-huh?” I asked as I grabbed one of the sandwiches.
“Why is she soooo friggin’ warm?” Delta asked, pawing the somewhat bothered-looking Kliss like a small white kitten.
“The nature of the Astral Ocean is gradual decay and conceptual destabilisation,” I explained. “Back in the USSR, my institute professor Viktor Safronov proposed to us his mathematical theo...
2024-01-27 13:54:14 +0000 UTC
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Our trio walked downstairs, the stairwell creaking under our boots.
"So," Kliss said, looking down at me as I sat onto a root-bench framed by lilac trees created by Leemy and grown by Cassandra.
"So?"
"Explain," she stared at me.
“Explain what?” I...
2023-12-07 23:58:35 +0000 UTC
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[Dante Alan Skyisle]
I dreamt of the spires of Moscow, tipped with red, shining stars. The stars revolved, folded in on themselves revealing to me that within them was fractal endlessness. I could not draw my vision away from the eternally folding fractal structures above the sp...
2023-12-07 21:57:02 +0000 UTC
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…Horrifying? Conflicting? Dangerous? Free?
How did I see myself now? What was I, really?
A lot of emotions went through my head over the passing days.
My own body was finally starting to respond to me slowly, but my own mind still failed to recognize my own face whenever I saw it in the mirror. I was afraid that on some deep level my dreams and possibly my mind were slowly warping, changing, fusing to that of the monstrous dragon, changing the very nature of my soul, my sense...
2023-12-06 18:45:22 +0000 UTC
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[Kliss Eliza Cessna]
I was dreaming that I was lounging on my pile of gold, treasure and bones. It was a hearty pile, deep in the glacier-capped mountains. Then came the little vile creatures that walked on two legs. I burned their flesh and added their bones and the treasure which they carried to my trove.
It had been a mistake, a vile trap. The round treasure coated in gemstones and gold exploded beneath me, set my lovely hoard alight and filled my lovely cavern with vile-tastin...
2023-12-06 18:26:20 +0000 UTC
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The situation seemed utterly hopeless.
My eyes suddenly paused at the enormous form of the dead, red dragon. I sent the rest of my Infoscopes and scanned the massive beast. There were brilliant currents of magic radiating away from its gargantuan crystalline heart - its scales shimmered with magrad from within.
Aradria wasn’t fully dead, only knocked unconscious by the anti-magic pulse.
The creature was a furnace of power... power that I could use to save my friend!
2023-12-06 16:14:10 +0000 UTC
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It wasn’t hard to bamboozle my parents into believing that Great-Aunt Delta was a great Arcmage and a Bishop of Ishira that came to save Skyisle in its time of need. I knew exactly the kind of words that were necessary to convince mom and dad and knew that everyone feared the breath of the Valley of Death. Everyone in Skyisle knew that the magogenic fault would take away their levels sooner or later.
Giovashi had done absolutely nothing at all to improve the local situation, so it was...
2023-12-06 13:23:03 +0000 UTC
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“That's going exceptionally well,” Delta dryly commented from the sidelines. She was sitting on the bed beside me. “Want me to take over?”
“Shush, I got it.” I mentally deactivated the crystal microphone, shooing my twin away.
“Do you really?” She tilted her head. “Seems like you’ve spilled the beans, boss.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“Professor… Please, tell me the truth.” Cassandra’s silver-blue eyes bore into Great-Aunt Delta’s face. ...
2023-12-04 18:57:23 +0000 UTC
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I felt bad about having to deceive mom. I wanted to tell her absolutely everything, but knowing her character I knew that revealing such would not be safe for me and my sister.
Thirteen years ago, Cassandra nearly killed Delta thanks to her absolute faith in Ishira and Giovashi.
Giovashi planned to turn us into monsters, had full control over our parents thanks to their unshakable faith. Thus, we had but one option to work with - to undermine the power of the Archprieste...
2023-11-29 23:24:37 +0000 UTC
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“See we don’t need Kliss!” Delta winked at me from her leather-bound seat.
The hovercraft we built last year was gliding over the delta of the Cascadia river. Large ice chunks were floating downstream, heading to their final destination in the Valley of Death.
I glanced over at my overly cheerful sister. "Yeah, I suppose we don't need Kliss to gather the parts we need. But it would have been easier with an extra set of capable hands."
"We have ants now! That's like a b...
2023-11-29 22:47:05 +0000 UTC
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[Cassandra Alana Skyisle]
It’s not easy being the last Sentinel of Skyisle. My parents left me when I was but sixteen, told me that they must undertake the journey to the cursed Valley of Death to attempt to reclaim our legacy before the breath of [Decay] stole more levels from the villagers of Skyisle. Mom and dad made me swear a Vow to Ishira, that I would watch this house and protect Skyisle and then pass the Sentinel’s torch onto my oldest child.
They had not returned.
...
2023-11-28 21:09:36 +0000 UTC
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The Skyisle winter was long, far longer and harsher than the winters of Earth. It wrapped the town and surrounding forests in snow and blanketed the sky in thick clouds.
However, all things end and change. Eventually, the winter released its grip on the valley. Spring came to the mountains and bathed the valley in sunshine. Waterfalls carved a path through the ice and snow, rushing down from the great azure glaciers overhead.
Brilliant, silver-blue lily-like flowers embraced the w...
2023-11-24 16:43:45 +0000 UTC
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“I wish to make an [Unbreakable Vow] to [Goddess Equality] to serve Ignatius Oavion Cessna and to obey his orders for as long as he remains the Overseer of Skyisle. I will sacrifice my [Sadness] to this goal,” I finished the binding phrase.
“An interesting choice of a sacrifice,” Ignatius nodded.
My three Infoscopes saw brilliant, gold threads emerging from elsewhere. The divine threads crossed the threshold of my Ward-barrier, activating Battie as they reached ou...
2023-10-23 19:17:05 +0000 UTC
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Technomagica has acquired a publisher!
This means that new chapters will be released in far greater amounts as I will be working full-time on this series, publishing a new book every 3 months on a contract! Woo!
:]
2023-10-23 18:54:35 +0000 UTC
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[Dante Alan Skyisle]
When I woke up in the morning, I knew that I could no longer delay things. Something had to be done about the new Overseer. I made a quick breakfast on the fire and then went to the Church of Equality.
The old church greeted me with its high walls and a huge, arched gate that stood in the middle of the island leading up to the building. According to Delta, the gateway and the church were rebuilt a few centuries after the fall of Tricameron Citadel, most likely...
2023-10-12 17:52:34 +0000 UTC
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[Kliss Eliza Cessna]
I couldn't believe it. I was free… I was completely, fully free to make my own decisions for the first time since I was seven. It felt strange not to have a Vow hovering over me, making choices for me. It felt strange not to be bound to a path or to a cause. It felt strange not to have someone whispering at me constantly, watching me, telling me what to do next. My future was completely… open.
I wanted to follow Dante to his Inian tower, wanted to talk to ...
2023-10-12 14:51:43 +0000 UTC
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One of my Infoscopes flashed through the necklace on the Overseer’s neck.
The Vow-Breaker hexagram within the necklace activated, permanently cutting Frenny off from the mind of Kliss.
The large hexagonal battery keystone in the backpack that Kliss was carrying was continuously feeding power to the rune necklace, disrupting the Vow’s control over Kliss.
Kliss swallowed her words with a choke.
“Yes?” Inquisitor Jubz asked. “A local boy is… doing what? What...
2023-10-11 00:47:43 +0000 UTC
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I lead Kliss and Delta on a tour of Moscow across the deepest recesses of my memories.
Delta was acting a bit standoffish at first, but slowly and surely she became used to the company of the Overseer. Similarly, Kliss initially had a very sour attitude, but as I showed her more and more things from Earth, she gradually began to understand my strange, alien origins. As the night went on, she began treating me less like a mad necromancer and more like someone her age from another, foreig...
2023-10-10 16:45:34 +0000 UTC
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“I want to bring Kliss into my dream,” I said.
“Why?” Delta squinted at me.
“Some of her soul technically belongs to me now,” I said. “I reckon that I can easily tether to her soul through Klint’s shards and pull her into this very cafe.”
Delta frowned.
“She’s mentally trapped in her Vow-bound state. By entering my dream, she might be able to regain some sense of freedom and self,” I said.
Delta frowned, deep in thought. “What if it make...
2023-10-08 22:55:40 +0000 UTC
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I rushed the Astral ant out of the anthill. The army of ghost ants converged on us from all directions. I had no idea how the hive noticed what I was doing, but they were definitely targeting us now.
[Eat this!] Delta released a hundred Astral spores into the void behind us. Her spores rushed away from us, scattering in all directions and distracting the Astral ants.
The red ghosts came from the front, their jaws open to strike our ghostly carrier. I tried to manoeuvre the ant awa...
2023-10-06 23:02:11 +0000 UTC
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From our perspective the hive appeared absolutely gargantuan, stretching out downwards in all directions. The ants themselves were quite large too. It’s not that the human soul was small. Space was irregular, twisted in the Astral acting more like a fractal structure and the deeper one dove into it the weirder things became.
An Astral Phantom could fold themselves down a hundred times in the Astral by diving deeper into the currents simply due to how this dimension functioned. T...
2023-09-28 15:45:33 +0000 UTC
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In the years that followed, Dave found himself living a simple life alongside Cedez and her family.
He came to appreciate the tranquility of the croft, the warmth of the hearth, the garden surrounding it and the company of the foxkin family.
Cedez’s parents, Clothmancer Alisha and Agromancer Sentim were quick to integrate Dave into their household.
They taught him the ways of the Shandrian lower class, from the hard work of tilling the fields to the joy of communal meals. ...
2023-09-24 15:03:50 +0000 UTC
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Dave spent four hours at the ball, engaging in polite conversation with various posh, overdressed girls and their parents. Despite his efforts and expectations, he didn't find Cedez among the attendees.
After a few hours, the chatter and faces around him started to blur together. He struggled to maintain interest, becoming more and more stressed out by the crowd.
It seemed that every girl he spoke to was more interested in his noble title and wealth than in getting to know him as ...
2023-09-23 14:52:02 +0000 UTC
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Days flew by as Delta and I focused on our research of breaking Vows and rebuilding the Alanian tower with the aid of the Friendship-bound Kliss.
The Overseer stayed by our side and while it was nice to have a pair of helping hands, she also behaved akin to a perpetually happy automaton. I hated myself for being too slow, feeling that I was contributing to the suffering of real Kliss who was most likely locked away somewhere deep inside of her own mind. I couldn't even nip the Vow off h...
2023-09-22 18:30:10 +0000 UTC
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[Kliss Eliza Cessna]
I struggled to move, feeling the chill on my body, lying on a cold, wet stone floor of a well that went on forever upwards, my body bound in golden thread, my red hair covering half of my face.
My tormentor, the Friendship Vow bent down to me, her eyes woven from violet fire curiously examining my struggle. She was wielding my body and memories with far more experience than the Vow of the Overseer. She wasn’t stronger than him, but she was a lot more clever....
2023-09-21 19:22:15 +0000 UTC
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Kliss hugged me tightly. The sparks at the corners of her eyes turned into streaks of tears.
“I was really worried that you wouldn't wake up again,” she whispered through the tears. “That you’ve pushed yourself too far to save me."
“You were awake through that?” I asked, feeling awkward.
“Delta told me. She told me a lot of things, shamed me endlessly, called me a bad friend,” Kliss shuddered. “Am I a bad friend?”
“You’re a good friend, you help...
2023-09-21 02:07:44 +0000 UTC
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The frost-covered waves of the Barents sea broke against the beach made from black glass pebbles. Azure glaciers sparkled in the distance, engulfed by swaths of cumulonimbus cloud formations. I stood on the beach, facing the ocean. The remains of Severny were behind me, an uninhabited village that stood only fifty five miles from the detonation of the Tsar Bomba, also known a...
2023-09-20 18:51:33 +0000 UTC
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It was time. While I was making final preparations I noticed that Kliss took off her armored chest plate and shoulder pads. She looked defenseless, small without it and sat hopelessly staring at the fire, sparks fluttering through the air around her. I walked to her armor set and disconnected the magic crystal that amplified her strength.
“Kliss?”
“Yeah?” The redhead turned to me.
“I can help you, but I need you to trust me. I need you to obey me, no matter how odd...
2023-09-20 00:43:24 +0000 UTC
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