emergencycomplaints

Chapter 192

Nym found it much harder to focus over the next day or two. Every time he repeated this process, he had to incorporate new elements into his being and make terms with them. His first echo had been so close to him that it hadn’t really changed much. The second layer echo had some conflicted desires, but they found common ground before even completing the merger.

The third one had caused problems before he managed to get a handle on that newly exaggerated facet of his personality, but t...

Chapter 68

A second day of hunting saw Luke rise up to level 23. He was frustrated though, because he’d wasted a lot of his time discussing skill options with System. Trying to pry useful information out of it was always annoying, but not getting anywhere after hours of going around in circles had him ready to tear his hair out.

As far as Luke could tell, what he was trying to do just didn’t work with a heavy mace. Never mind the fact that his strength was so high that he could probably hurl i...

Chapter 191

Nym didn’t even try to force a teleport out of Rizin’s den. When he felt he was ready, he simply asked the fox to transport him out. They appeared on the slope of a snow-covered mountain, much to Nym’s discomfort. He quickly slapped a warming spell on himself and glared at Rizin.

“One would think you’d be more prepared,” the fox said.

“I guess I thought you’d give me a bit of warning.”

“That was foolish of you.”

Nym rolled his eyes and asked, “A...

Chapter 67

The mountains had been a fantastic source of monsters for Luke to hunt, just based on his brief time spent scouring them before he’d ventured into Valtira. Landston was in the opposite direction, though, so he reluctantly gave up the idea and started searching for game trails that would take him generally north.

Despite the difficulty of navigating the woods, he still made it the full forty miles in a single day. Being able to just force his way through thick underbrush or leap crevic...

Chapter 190

It did not take Rizin long to confirm Nym’s story. “Looks like they’re fighting,” he said. “And making a huge mess in the process.”

“Who’s ‘they?’” Nym asked.

“At least two different factions of ascendant society. I guess you could think of Niramyn and Mylazik as lords, and each has weaker ascendants pledged to their service. There are a few other Exarchs with similar deals, and one who has a reputation for viciously attacking anything that gets close to hi...

Chapter 66

The effects of the first [Life Surge] hadn’t hit Luke too hard. He’d been tired, but it turned out the effects of regular, full meals did a lot to mitigate the insane amounts of hunger it generated. Having less to heal also reduced the drawbacks. But if he used it again so quickly, there was going to be hell to pay afterward.

Luke could still move, so he held off on that strategy. Killing Myla and then collapsing next to her body where the rest of the church templar...

Chapter 189

Nym was ready to finish recruiting his last two echoes, but Ferro didn’t answer when called, and Niramyn wasn’t even worth asking. He showed up on his own terms, and he reminded Nym more of the father he’d met in Niramyn’s early memories than anything else.

With nothing left to do but wait, Nym started on the top shelf of books. He’d been hoping they’d make more sense once he finished the red set, but he was disappointed to find they were as obtuse as ever. It was so bad tha...

Chapter 65

Before he’d gained skills that moved his body for him in battle, Luke might have been surprised at being attacked from behind. Well, probably not in this case, since obviously the church wasn’t just going to let him go. But despite only being on Aros for a few months, he’d spent a lot of his time fighting, and if his matches had been good for anything, it was teaching him the difference between an animal or monster and an intelligent, reasoning person.

So he didn’t need a skill ...

Chapter 188

The world was, for all intents and purposes, standing still while Nym did his best to become someone who could survive the incoming storm. He’d completely lost track of how long he’d been trapped inside the box. It could be years for all he knew.

He was going crazy, that was for sure. Having so much going on in his head was causing problems, despite his best efforts. The problem was a simple one: he and his echoes lacked a unified goal, and it was pulling him apart. Incorporating hi...

Chapter 64

Zea told herself that she wasn’t committing to anything when she bought the bag. It was only sensible to have something like that, especially considering she was still kind of homeless. She had a place to stay, for now, but she was under no illusions that she’d have enough money to pay for the rent next month. Even if she did, it would likely be all her money, leaving her penniless again. It would be far better to save that money for food and other necessary supplies.

So, she bought...

Chapter 63

The way Luke saw it, they’d either wandered into something meant for someone else and Myla was completely innocent of any malicious intent, or she’d led him into a trap on purpose and was an excellent actor. The third possibility, that someone had known where they’d eat lunch and managed to clear the whole place out to set it up for a trap in literally minutes, seemed too unlikely to consider.

If it was a trap, then it was probably the church. They knew about his existence, as evi...

Chapter 187

The red books were, if anything, even more dull and tedious than the blue ones had been, but there weren’t quite as many of them. More importantly, since they’d fused together, Nym’s mental processes were much faster now. Part of his mind was devoted to catching up the part of him that used to be an echo, but the overall gains more than made up for that. He was reading through them faster now, taking less time to understand and making more connections to other information with each new ...

Chapter 62

Three days was the earliest Sideon was willing to go on a match between Aldrick and Zammin. He wasn’t wrong to take that stance, since the longer they hyped it up, the better the turnout would be, but the fight fees wouldn’t change based on that. So it helped him, but didn’t help Zea and Aldrick. She couldn’t really blame him though; it wasn’t like Sideon knew who Aldrick was or how quickly he wanted to leave.

Three days wasn’t too long though, and it would give Zea time to ...

Chapter 186

The spell to connect to his reality echo was based at its core upon the idea of the conduit. It was just modified so heavily as to be practically unrecognizable. Nym and Ferro ended up on an isolated island far, far out in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles or more away from anywhere.

“Wouldn’t this make it harder to make the connection if I’m not near where my echo is in his layer?” Nym asked. The books had very clearly listed that as a possible point of failure.

�...

Chapter 61

Luke had a goal, and he was going to keep moving towards it, but he knew himself well enough to know that if he didn’t take care of himself along the way, he’d crash and burn long before he hit the finish line. He’d rather it took an extra year because he wasn’t rushing forward at breakneck speed than never get there at all.

He wasn’t worried about the idea of the journey taking an extra few weeks if Zea went with him, not if it meant he got to spend more time with her. He’d...

Chapter 60

Despite his earlier predictions that he wouldn’t want to buy a nice harness when he could simply make his own with his [Leatherworking]skill, Luke had to admit that the stuff Donaley had for sale was way, way better than the thing he’d made. It was kind of the same design, except it was adjustable with a few straps and was modular. It could have sword sheaths attached across the back in two different directions or either hip, for example.

It could also do axes or kn...

Chapter 185

It was hard to keep track of time, subjective linear or otherwise, while embedded in Niramyn’s sanctuary. Nym didn’t think his physical body even existed right now; he was just a mind puppeteering an illusion that never needed to sleep, or eat, or go to the bathroom. It was one of the many, many questions he was still trying to answer.

At some point in the early days, he’d conjured up a clock so he could see the hours passing by. It was modeled off some of the clocks he’d seen i...

Chapter 59

Author's Note: I screwed up on RR and accidentally posted chapter 29 instead of 28.  So since they got 2 chapters today after I fixed it and added 28 in, you guys are getting 2 chapters too.

- - - - -

The viscous liquid dripped into the vial while Myla counted. For a man Aldrick’s size, two drops per ten stamina should be enough. She’d watched him fight once and thought she had good estimates of his stats, but there was always a measure of guesswork in something like this...

Chapter 58

“You need to stop using that skill if you want to save any money up,” Zea said as she watched Luke stuff some food into his bag.

Luke shrugged, bit down into an apple, and held it with his teeth while he closed the bag. “I don’t think it matters all that much,” he said. “Pretty sure the whole boat idea is a non-starter. It would be faster to walk than to try to save up money to take a ship.”

They started walking away from the stall and she said, “What about money f...

Chapter 184

Ascendants didn’t bother with things like light, Nym supposed. He was in a lavishly decorated bedroom, which included an entire wall of shelves filled with books, an oversized writing desk, the most comfortable looking chairs he’d ever seen, and a bed big enough to get lost in. There were no windows, but there were orbs hanging from the ceiling in delicate gold wire meshes, so thin as to be nearly invisible.

A door opened in one of the walls, or rather it appeared where there hadn�...

Chapter 57

Shopping wasn’t really Luke’s thing. Luckily for him, Zea seemed to know exactly what she was looking for. He had no idea what it was, but he dutifully followed along behind her until she ventured into some sort of dwifkin specialty store. He took one look at the size of the door and how low the ceilings were and told her he’d wait outside.

When she came out twenty minutes later, she had a package wrapped in some sort of paper and held with twine in her hands. Her eyes sparkled an...

Chapter 56

Zea and Zammin sat at one of the tables with the adjustable height chairs with a pair of mugs in front of them. She didn’t drink very often, both because she couldn’t afford it and because she needed to keep her wits about her. Today had her frazzled though, too many emotions churning inside her and rebelling against what she knew were the smart, rational choices.

“There is no way he’s ready to fight again,” Zammin said. “Him and Kalishka beat the hell out of each other. I d...

Chapter 183

Time didn’t have any meaning to Nym anymore. He was aware of it, conceptually, and he remembered experiencing it first hand, but couldn’t reconcile those memories with his new state of existence. He was no longer a single point moving forward, but something that sprawled out across the face of eternity, something that dug roots down in a thousand thousand places and experienced all of it at once.

Nym couldn’t wrap his mind around that concept. It was too much, too big. It was only...

Chapter 55

Luke woke up to find Zea practically lying on top of him and snoring softly. It wasn’t possible to slide out of bed without moving her, but, well, he really needed to pee. She groaned softly when he relocated her, cracked one eye open to glare at him, then shot up right, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“You… and I… we didn’t…” she trailed off.

Luke laughed softly and shook his head. “Nothing like that. Your dignity is safe.”

She threw the pillow at hi...

Chapter 54

Luke laid on the floor and stared up at the ceiling while Zea sat on the bed. He’d gotten a meal on his way out of the Harbor, then stopped at a street vendor for a second one while following Zea to their new home. Rather than eat it on the spot, he’d taken it with him and, only once behind closed doors, triggered [Life Surge] while devouring it. He still wasn’t at a hundred percent, but he figured he’d be able to fight tomorrow.

“This is weird,” Zea said, g...

Chapter 53

The first thing Luke did when he woke back up was panic over the notification he’d received right before passing out. He was afraid he’d killed Kalishka, but as soon as he checked it, that fear dissolved.

[Congratulations! Counter has reached rank 2. 250 XP awarded.]

It was still a warning to him though. The fights could get vicious, but they’d gone too far. Towards the end, neither was holding back and both were determined to win. It had been a fight to the...

Chapter 52

Kalishka didn’t waste a second in closing the distance. She led with an outstretched hand, and only [Twitch Reflexes] kept Luke out of the way. He faded back and sidestepped her grasping lunge, which didn’t slow Kalishka down at all. Smoothly, she pivoted off her lead foot and swept her other leg around to crack against Luke’s shin.

The blow was surprisingly weak, coming from the number three ranked fighter at the Harbor. Whatever her style was, it didn’t focus ...

Chapter 182

Niramyn was forging a conduit to the Transcendence layer even before he opened his eyes and spinning out the wild, thrumming arcana into four separate spells at once. A second passed, and the first spell coalesced into existence. Below him, the gate runes flared to life, primed and ready for the next spell to give them instructions. That spell washed over the runes the instant they activated.

Two seconds had passed now, and he could feel the turbulence in the timeline as another ascenda...

Chapter 51

Author's Note: I have been saying this on Royal Road for about two weeks now, but forgot to ever mention it here. Now that the initial chapter push is done, and since I am still writing two projects at once, I am only committing to M-W-F updates for the God Machine. I may still do Tues/Thur updates, but they will be bonus chapters, not guaranteed. It will depend on how fast I write.

-----

Luke walked into the Bloody Harbor about half an hour before his fight was scheduled to start...

Chapter 181

Author Note: Here we go guys. The big arc. Stay with me here, stuff is about to get shaken up.

-----

Nym found himself a nice mountain peak far away from any sort of civilization, settled into a shallow cave on the west side perhaps thirty feet deep, and took the cube out of his bag. It was just as he remembered it, the same as the ones he’d seen in Research Lab Six. But this one was full of his memories, not random information and arcana prints.

He settled down on the gro...