Aster Brooks Books

Ch. 65: Obsidian Golem

The golem continued sparking as Cass ran toward it and Alyx. She redirected arch after arch of lightning to the side. Where the lightning struck stone, monsters rose from the ground or emerged from the walls. They were gaunt creatures, their form hazy and indistinctly humanoid, ghostly and glowing electric blue.

Living Lightning

Lvl 15

[A piece of living storm, given body on a physical plane. Trapped in a lightning trap, they have been forced to g...

Ch. 64: The Seventh Floor

“I’m full,” Pellen announced a little while later.

Cass’s Focus has recovered too, but her Health was a long way off.

Stamina: 129/129

Focus: 441/441

Health: 41/114

“Let’s get moving then,” Alyx said. To Salos, she added, “Lead the way.”

He nodded and hopped down from Cass’s shoulder. “This way.”

They followed him through the dark corridors of the Storehou...

Ch. 63: Loot

No longer possessed by the single-minded focus of demonic impulses, Cass finally had enough presence of mind to look around the room. 

The backroom reminded Cass of the science lab back in high school. 

Oh, it was a fair bit nicer than the permanent portable building they’d dropped the poor chemistry teacher in, but it had that same, over-cramped vibe to the space. Tables—now overturned—filled most of the middle of the room in two rows and four columns. Each had be...

Ch. 62: Identity

It was an interesting set of choices. Tempest Blade sounded like a better version of what she already had. Like Wind and Mana Blade, she could continue transforming her staff into a glaive. Better yet, it sounded like it would be both cheaper and more powerful than the combination of Mana Wind Blade was currently. 

The line “Condense elements of the raging storm into blades” was also interesting. That suggested she could manifest glaive blades of more than just wind. What count...

Ch. 61: Aftermath

Cass woke with a killer headache. Alyx, Marco, and Pellen all leaned over her. She was covered in the glowing purple ichor and still lying on top of the Keeper’s corpse. 

“Good, you’re alive,” Alyx said, reaching a hand down to help Cass up.

Cass’s first instinct was to ignore her hand and dig into the monster’s flesh for her prize. 

Cass pushed aside that impulse and took Alyx’s hand, anyway.

She winced as she moved, the pain in her shoulder ov...

Ch. 60: The Crystal Keeper

Someone shouted her name. Her vision spun. What was happening?

Kill that thing, Salos hissed from her chest, feral and forceful. Devour it whole.

Cass blinked, her vision clearing to see Alyx and Marco in battle against a giant spider-man. 

Storehouse Crystal Keeper

[The care and propagation of magic crystals is a lost art, known now to few outside this storehouse. 

As a construct left in charge of maintaini...

Ch. 59: Madness

The space beyond was more dark, stone corridors. It went straight away from the opening Cass made. She closed the entry behind them so Fioreya couldn’t follow and they set out down it. 

They were getting closer. 

Her body was shaking in anticipation. Her mouth watered. 

A feast was coming.

That thought gave her pause. What was that? Was she hungry? When was the last time she’d been hungry? 

Slyphids didn’t get h...

Ch. 58: The Sixth Floor

Loot collected, resources reasonably recovered, the group—now made up of five—backtracked to the main path. With Alyx and Marco, they had little difficulty with the nest of snakes in the previous room.

Standing in the main hall again, Cass looked between the doors. She still didn’t know which way was forward, and now, they didn’t even have Alyx and company coming from one direction to narrow it down.

Salos hopped off her shoulder walking directly to the one to her right. �...

Ch. 57: Rewards

Cass fixed up the remains of the campfire while Marco carried Pellen closer to the fire and laid her atop a sleeping mat from his pack.

 In a few minutes, all of them were seated around a blazing little flame, warm and comfortable in the glow of Beacon of Home and Hearth. Cass even broke out the tea.

Everyone settled, Cass finally turned her attention to the waiting Free Points.

The last set had been split between End and Vit, in other words, between Stamina and Health....

Ch. 56: The Cavalry

The wolf didn’t wait for them to regroup before lunging the nearest person. That was Alyx, who parried with an aura-shrouded blade. Their blades locked for a moment while the gophers and snakes rushed back in around them.

“There’s a lot of ‘em down here,” Marco observed with the slash of his sword. He took down three gophers and pushed back another two. 

A bolt of lightning raced into the circle. Cass directed it around her party and into the wolf. “Cover your ear...

Ch. 55: Time Remaining

Cass raced back toward the Pellen and the central circle. Only to run into a horde of gophers in between. 

Aventis Gopher (lvl 17) x3

Aventis Gopher (lvl 18) x2

Cass’s staff swept through them, dismembering the arms of the nearest two. Cass looked for the cores again, certain now that was the answer to killing these things, as she backstepped out of the slash of the third. 

Their cores were uniformly i...

Ch. 54: Trove Trial

Time passed slowly, their Focus ticking up point by point. 

Cass? Salos’s voice flickered at the edge of Cass’s awareness. 

Salos? Cass called back.

Oh, you are still alive. Good. 

Couldn’t you feel me? Cass asked. 

Cass got a distinctly disgruntled pulse from him. For all we know, we can sense one another’s dead bodies, too. 

I suppose, Cass said. She thought that was un...

Ch. 53: Pellen

A chest sat in the center of the next room. Sigils glowed around it in a wide circle to Cass’s ordinary vision and her Mana Sense. Trap Detection and Atmospheric Sense both had words to share as well.

Trap Detection informed her stepping over that ring was likely highly ill-advised while Atmospheric Sense reported that there was no airflow over the sigils, that it could just as easily have been a solid wall there. 

Pellen’s eyes widened at the sight of the chest. “A tro...

Ch. 52: Hide and Seek

The next room was filled with snakes. They coated the floor in a writhing mat. 

Silversoul Snake (lvl 15) x 57

Silversoul Snake (lvl 16) x 33

Silversoul Snake (lvl 17) x 9

Silversoul Snake (lvl 18) x 4

Entirely too many.

Identify has increased to level 11.

Even Identify agreed. 

Pellen shook her head. “Mayb...

Ch. 51: Silversoul Snake

Time passed slowly as their resources recovered point by point and Pellen’s injuries closed up. They took turns dozing, but neither was truly comfortable enough to sleep. 

“What now?” Pellen asked many hours later. “Should we return to the main path?” 

Cass reached out for Salos. He was still above them. Cass shook her head. “I don’t think our allies have caught up yet.”

Pellen frowned but didn’t ask how Cass knew. “Then you want to risk another...

Ch. 50: Ship of Theseus

Level Up!

+ 1 Dex

+ 1 End

+ 1 Wll

+ 1 Ala

+ 4 Free Points

Confounding Mists has reached level 4.

Stealth has reached level 10.

Dodge has reached level 15.

Elemental Manipulation has increased to level 16.

Mana Blade has reached level 8. 2024-10-02 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post

Ch. 49: Reinforcements

Cass and Pellen settled on either side of the side room’s door, their fire set between them in front of the door, recovering their Focus and Health under the benefits of Beacon of Hearth and Home. 

“So, why do you suppose the boxes unlock for you?” Pellen asked.

Cass shrugged. “You’re sure they’re locked?”

Pellen nodded. “I would have believed if one or two hadn’t been, by complete chance. But for 12 in a row? That seems unlikely.”

“Maybe the...

Ch. 48: Locked Doors

Focus: 369/369

The time had come. Cass had to decide. No matter how she ran the risks and benefits, Option 4: “Go Find Some Treasure” came out the best. 

The only questions now were: was she going on her own and which door was she going to try?

The fire had burned low, little more than a single log, more charcoal at this point than wood. Pellen dozed against the wall beside Cass. 

They stirred as Cass stood. “Huh? What’s go...

Ch. 47: Crocodiles

Cass started running. She didn’t know where she was going, just that she couldn’t stay here.

A bolt of lightning ripped through the air, sparking blue and white and illuminating the chasm for a fraction of a second, revealing the walls and casting strange shadows through the rubble.

It landed behind Cass, the air smelling of burned ozone and crackling with unspent energy. 

Another bolt. Cass ran faster. 

Another and another.

The mage was running as ...

Ch. 46: Falling

Falling was only a problem if you couldn’t fly, as Cass was finding. She had fully expected the stomach twisting drop of the floor falling out from beneath her and nauseating free fall to follow. Earth, human Cass certainly would have felt it. She’d gone on a drop tower once at an amusement park and that had been one time too many for her tastes. 

Slyphid Cass had no problem with the sensation of dropping like a stone. Her body was entirely unconcerned, as her mind acknowledged...

Ch. 45: Conflict

The tang of iron hung in the air of the next room. 

A body lay slumped against one wall. The stone doors across the way hung open, stairs leading down waiting beyond.

“The stairs, finally,” Alyx said with a relieved sigh. 

Cass froze in the doorway. The body was still breathing shallowly. It was a woman. Her armor was rent and twisted, plates missing from the abdomen and from her limbs. 

“First floor complete!” Alyx said.

Long gashes ran fr...

Ch. 44: Gophers

They continued in silence down the hall. Every room was full of more destroyed guards, their masks dented and beaten, their bodies mangled. 

Behind you! Salos shouted. 

Cass spun. Something popped up from the solid stone. A child-sized figure. 

It was a skeletal creature, glowing green energy for flesh, wearing the metal plates and gopher mask as armor. It was equipped with two pairs of clawed arms. Its feet were unseen, still hiding within the stone ...

Ch. 43: Entrance

They stepped over the threshold of the storehouse doors and the change in the air was immediate and stark. The morning air in the arena had been cold but fresh, moist with the dew of a new day’s beginning. The air that surrounded her as she stepped over that threshold carried a touch of the grave. It sent a shiver up her spine that had nothing to do with the bitter chill in the air. 

“We go straight as long as we can,” Alyx said, either unaffected by the dread creeping around...

Ch. 42: Opening Ceremony

Cass and Marco followed Alyx into the coliseum’s arena the next morning. Salos sat on her shoulder, his tail curled around her neck. They all were dressed in their armor and armed with their weapons. Marco wore a pack with supplies over his shoulder, his shield strapped across the back. 

The air buzzed with energy, as thousands of people flocked to the stands. The morning was young, and the high walls still shadowed the arena. 

Cass and company stood among countlessly ...

Ch. 41: The Workshop

Cass followed Alyx out of the manor and up the main road of the palatial hill, only to turn off the road a little further up.

The entrance was well kept, but the path quickly became overgrown as they walked further down it, weeds and thistles reaching over the cobble path and growing up between the stones. 

The path led to a rickety suspension bridge, stretching from the rising earth to one of the many spires floating around the palace’s mountain. 

Wind shook the...

Ch. 40: Guestroom At Last

“Oh, Alacrity’s mercy!” Alyx exclaimed as Cass stepped into her guest room. The swordswoman shot up from the couch by the hearth and rushed to Cass’s side. “You’re alive. Where have you been? Why didn’t you meet up when we agreed?” 

Alyx’s words slowed as her fingers found the bloody collar of Cass’s robes. She rubbed it between her fingers, a frown falling on her lips. “What happened to you?”

Cass explained her day, how she was attacked on her way to ...

Ch. 39: Madam of the House

A woman was standing outside the manor when Cass finally found her way to it. Identify called her a level 17 Human Servant, and she was dressed to match in simple, though good quality clothes. 

“Miss Cass Yuan?” the woman asked.

“Hi?” Cass said with a wave. This couldn’t be an assassin, could it? On Alyx’s front porch? At a level lower than Cass? No. No way. “That’s me. What’s up?”

“The madam has asked you to see her upon your return. I am here to ...

Ch. 38: Alyx: An Audience

“The lord wishes to see you,” Aldrick said with a bow of his head. He was a narrow-faced man in a fitted suit. He was her father’s head butler. 

Alyx looked between the darkening sky and the manor’s entrance. Cass wasn’t here either and it was getting late. Still, she couldn’t exactly refuse a summons from him, not when she had worked so hard to get it. 

“Of course,” Alyx said finally. “Now?”

“Now,” the man said. “Please follow me.” ...

Ch. 37: The Library

Cass had mostly calmed down by the time she reached the library. Every sound was sharp and dangerous to her ears, every motion out of the corner of her eye a threat, but she was breathing normally, at least. 

“Thank you for walking me here,” Cass said to Daidyn at the doors.

He nodded. “I’m glad I did. I hate to think what might’ve happened to you if I hadn’t. You just have to tell me about that research of yours when you see me next.”

“I think I can do ...

Today's chapter

Apologies everyone, there was a mistake in the scheduling of chapter release today.

For reasons only the Aster of yesterday could possibly answer for you, I initially, incorrectly scheduled it for tomorrow (Sunday) instead of today (Saturday). Today's Aster is as confused as you are.

I have fixed it, and today's chapter is available now. Please enjoy.

Sorry again and thank you for your patience.