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The Fractured Tower- Chapter 51
All her life, Rue had been told stories about the fabled Antechamber between floors. All the best gear came from there. Every tale about some climber with a sword that could sever mountains or an armor that could repel dragon fire started with a visit to the Antechamber. Well, no, that wasn’t true. Sometimes it was a ruin cache or some legendary blacksmith who was also somehow a powerful climber.
But regardless, if there was one thing people agreed on, it was that the good loot came f...
2025-11-10 12:24:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 50
The Antechamber was a curious construction, impossible to reach in any way other than stepping through a portal after defeating the guardian of a floor. There was no atunement to it and no way to return to it, and a climber only had one hundred opportunities to visit it, once for each portal guardian they defeated.
Then again, that’s an assumption we always made. No one knew what the Floor 100 portal guardian was standing in front of. For that matter, we just assumed a tower is on...
2025-11-09 12:29:21 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 49
The next time the wolf exhaled poison black mist across the arena, Heldigar burst into golden light and immediately neutralized it. Soon after that, Sorin dispersed the first voidling, and it became a quick task to chop down the other one. Warily, he scanned the battlefield to make sure there wasn’t a third about to join the fray, but he saw nothing like that.
Instead, Yoru and Nemari were blasting the portal guardian with basic elemental soulprint attacks while Heldigar kept it under...
2025-11-09 12:28:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 48
At the same time Sorin was turning to face the voidling, the statue came to life. He’d been expecting a flesh-and-blood monster to erupt out of it, but instead, the granite just started moving. Color bled into the stone, turning it a dark, mottled gray that would have been hell to keep track of if it were dark out. That had been a known issue, though, so they’d timed their fight to take place under a bright afternoon sun.
The voidling was an unexpected and unwelcome addition. “Foc...
2025-11-08 13:50:23 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 47
The stairs set off warning bells in Sorin’s head. Floor 1 was very much themed with what were known as natural environments. Forests, grasslands, mountains, and other biomes tended to dominate the early floors, and any signs of intelligent life were to be treated as extremely suspect. Sure, it could be a sign of human life. Some people did possess the ability and desire to just disappear into a floor to get away from Floor 0.
Or it could be the tower trying to bait unwary climbers in....
2025-11-08 13:49:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 46
First thing in the morning, Odric burned through all the anima he’d regained overnight to work on Nemari’s injuries. Torso wounds were generally the most dangerous and life-threatening, if only because of the higher likelihood of some sort of organ damage, and so Odric has focused his efforts there yesterday to make sure she was stable. Today, Nemari wanted to be able to walk without slowing the rest of the team down.
“Most of this is just superficial damage, but there’s a...
2025-11-07 12:24:32 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 45
Rue was reasonably certain Sorin was actually asleep, but he was such a light sleeper that it was almost impossible to tell. With anyone else, she could measure by their aura fluctuations, which was how she knew that Nemari hadn’t been sleeping well for days now, but either Sorin didn’t actually sleep at all, or he somehow maintained absolute control of his aura even then.
No way to know for sure, but if he’s faking, he’s a damn good faker.
She rose silently from ...
2025-11-06 12:45:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 44
“So, don’t leave me in suspense,” Rue prodded. “What’s the last one?”
“I… don’t know,” Sorin said slowly.
“Really, because the look on your face makes it seem like you recognized it.”
“I do, but… I’ve seen this symbol before. I just don’t know what it means.”
“Okay, but what does it actually do?”
That was a good question, one Sorin should have asked himself already. Knowing the function of the tower-forged item could be the f...
2025-11-05 12:26:37 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 43
It didn’t take much work to enlarge the hole enough for them to step through. Sorin led the way in, though he didn’t expect any trouble. The ruin guardian was already dead and, apparently, it wasn’t the kind that sat on a seed and waited for trouble to show up anyway. On the off chance that there were any traps or smaller monsters waiting in ambush, he wanted himself between them and Rue.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked as he climbed into the room.
Was it ...
2025-11-04 12:22:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 42
“And here they come, like vultures circling the prize,” Yoru muttered to himself, though not quiet enough to avoid being overheard. That was the point, of course. His snide remarks were starting to grate on Sorin’s nerves.
“Seems only reasonable to share in the rewards, considering that without our help, you’d have failed to kill the guardian,” Sorin said. “Looks like four soulprints; let’s just split them evenly.”
“We will do no such thing. This ruin belongs t...
2025-11-03 12:48:27 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 41
The blade cut deep, but not through. Somehow, the monster’s neck was nothing but a bundle of thick, ropey muscles. Even with his enhanced strength, Sorin couldn’t decapitate the tortoise in one smooth blow. How the hell is this thing a reasonable challenge for Floor 1? And why do I keep running into this shit?
Heldigar was there to help, fortunately. As Sorin’s own strike stalled out a foot into the monster’s flesh, the huge warrior brought both his swords down...
2025-11-02 12:25:48 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 40
Whatever the hell was in that square, it had an enormous amount of anima. Rue had spoken with climbers as high as rank 10, and even they didn’t have the raw strength of that monster. Her, Sorin, and the other three climbers together had maybe a quarter of its reserves, and that was with Sorin having his own monstrous anima supply now at rank 2.
If she’d been by herself, she’d have stayed far, far away from this fight. Against some of the rodents infesting the ruin, she was confide...
2025-11-01 13:19:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 39
“What are you doing here?” Sorin asked, ignoring Rue’s question in the vain hope that she’d take the hint and drop the subject.
“Looking for you. Now answer the question.”
“You were looking for me inside an empty house?”
“No! I saw those ice blades go flying every which way and I was trying to get up onto the roof to see if I could spot you. That house happened to have a hole in the ceiling that I was going to climb up through, but then I felt anima out on ...
2025-10-31 12:32:43 +0000 UTC View PostThe Fractured Tower- Chapter 38
Teeth snapped closed a hair’s breadth from Sorin’s nose as he jerked backward, only to disappear a moment later when a shard of ice formed between him and the monster. It slammed into the beast’s midsection, shoving it away and giving Sorin just enough time to see two more of the creatures closing in.
They were similar to the giant rat quartet that had led the swarm they’d fought back in the house in size, but that was it. These monsters had a long body covered in sleek fur, bla...
2025-10-30 11:22:40 +0000 UTC View Post