For all that my leg was currently decommissioned, I quickly proved that the munchling couldn’t match my crawling speed. Dexterity, after all, was not a stat that applied only to my legs. While the rocky, uneven terrain slowed me down, I was still more than fast enough to escape having my head bashed in. That didn’t mean I got out painlessly -- each motion agitated my wound, and it occasiona...
2025-01-13 13:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post“Sure neither of you want to come with?” Standing before a narrow hole in the mountainside, I examined my two companions. Far from looking battle ready, the two of them were each hefting around a large, poorly made cloth backpack.
“I am afraid I must decline.” Clearly unused to having to carry just about anything, Verin kept casting small glances to the straps on her shoulders, as...
2025-01-09 13:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter receiving my new spells, there wasn’t much left to discuss with Sett, and the three of us ended up returning to the surface shortly thereafter. While I felt like I deserved a bit more R&R after clearing the poison and mental regions, I also knew I wouldn’t be able to focus until I’d tried out my new magic. To that end, I’d walked over to the mountains, hoping to test out all t...
2025-01-06 13:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostAN: And here we go with a new book! As the kindle versions have actual recap sections at the start of them, I try not to include too much recap in chapter 1s, but you may still notice this recaps and re-introduces more than you all probably need if you're coming straight from a few days ago. Promise I'll make it fast and then we jump right into the good stuff after that. Happy reading!<...
2025-01-02 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostAN: Hello! In a stunningly low probability coincidence, Tess and I turned 28 at the same time. Spent yesterday in recovery mode, but we're back and done with book 4!
Want to work on this chapter a bit more for a punchier finish, but ultimately very excited to jump directly into book 5, where we'll wrap up the dungeon arc. Originally, I expected the patchwork dunge...
2024-12-31 20:18:59 +0000 UTC View PostIn the wake of killing the reaper, a large part of me wanted to blow up the mana-collection site, summon Tal’Ket to call us back to the cabin, and then call it a day. Verin and Cal could wake up in their rooms, and that would be that.
It was a nice thought, but I was trying very hard not to do dumb things anymore. Arguably, much of my current situation was the result of rash or poorly t...
2024-12-26 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostUnder different circumstances, making a single brick would not have seemed like much of a feat. As evidenced by my slowly tapering sobs and the influx of system notifications, though, this was a bit of a special case.
While a quick skim confirmed that the latter messages spiraled slightly out of control, the first was much closer to what I’d expect.
You have learned a ...
2024-12-23 17:49:56 +0000 UTC View PostAN: Big chapter today, both in length and content. Hope you all enjoy it.
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In the vain hope that I could distract myself from my present reality, I tried my best to be optimistic. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be. Sure, it wasn’t looking good -- quite literally, as my surroundings were pretty much as dismal and depressi...
2024-12-19 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWaking up in an unfamiliar place was always a jarring experience, and current circumstances were no exception. Frankly, I was a bit surprised to be waking up at all, given my last memories. Before I took full stock of my situation, I groggily opened up my messages to get a sense of what had happened. Battle notifications didn’t work properly while unconscious, but what little the system had r...
2024-12-17 09:43:31 +0000 UTC View PostIn the many months that Cal had been in the dungeon, she’d seen Tess take some brutal hits. Her general attitude by now was that, unless she confirmed Tess was 100% dead, then the Protagonist was fine and would bounce back from just about anything.
Even so, when Tess’s limp form flew into the ground with a resounding crunch, Cal knew something was very, very wrong. Temporarily abandon...
2024-12-05 09:41:58 +0000 UTC View PostAs I charged up my second arrow, a not insignificant part of me hoped that the battle was already effectively over. Sporting a horrific wound and without its normally potent poison, the hydra was clearly on the back foot.
Even when it shot all five of its heads into the air and billowed out a mass of toxic fog, I wasn’t worried. The poison was already heavily weakened, but even had it n...
2024-12-02 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostHi hello, all! And happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate! Hope many of you are having something good to eat today. I'm currently upstairs posting this before I head down to mingle with the family and start eating.
A few book updates:
1: Audiobooks! Have gotten some questions about the timeline for the audiobook release of the third book.
Unfortunately, the audio company h...
2024-11-28 20:58:01 +0000 UTC View PostAN: Having a struggle week. Fought off the flu, but now I have a secondary strep infection. Hurts to swallow/breathe/eat. Letting everyone know I'll be taking a recharge day on Thursday 1/30 to relax and/or make up some of the backlog chapters I've been posting while sick. (And also hopefully go fix my laptop which suddenly broke down.)
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The initial stats on the hydra loo...
2024-11-28 20:51:51 +0000 UTC View PostIf I’d been asked what I hoped to find deeper within the temple, I would have responded with the obvious answer: nothing. No matter how slim the odds of that were, I sincerely wished for us to waltz through the tunnel and end up in another region with our quest completed.
As for the worst-case scenario, there were too many bad options to pick one. Currently, though, I was waffling betwe...
2024-11-25 18:19:45 +0000 UTC View PostWhile not officially recognized as a safe zone, the junglings’ clearing essentially served the same purpose. Lacking the same pernicious poison cloud that permeated the rest of the jungle, it let us catch some much-needed shuteye without worry.
And so it was that I awoke the next day bright eyed and bushy tailed -- at least, relative to my previous state -- and ready for my brand new ap...
2024-11-21 17:19:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe harvester proved to be shockingly pleasant company. He -- for he seemed far too human-like to continue using “it,” and I’d arbitrarily decided he was a he -- was an easygoing fellow. Much like myself these days, he was rather adept at holding a comfortable silence. What more could I ask for?
As it turned out, the answer was skill levels. Long, long ago, in what felt like another...
2024-11-18 13:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostInternal Breeze has cleansed the air, ridding it of poison.
As Cal and I cautiously stalked through the jungle, the notification repeated itself, over and over again. Much as desired, Internal Breeze seemed to be up to the task of filtering out the region’s air-borne toxins, allowing me to venture forth with impunity. For the others’ parts, Verin was...
2024-11-14 13:00:20 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Cal eventually awoke, her first thought was that she was amazed to be alive.
Her second thought was that everything hurt. More than that, she’d never felt so weak in her entire life.
She tried to flip herself over so that she wasn’t lying face down against the blood-soaked ground, but it was no use. Her muscles absolutely refused to behave themselves. Confused, Cal...
2024-11-11 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, just posting to say that I'm feeling very under the weather. Did some traveling to be with friends in New York to watch the election coverage together, and I think I must have caught something while there. Rapidly getting better, but have not had the energy to write or really leave bed/do anything marginally productive since getting back.
I'm planning to have the next chapter up ...
2024-11-09 11:51:10 +0000 UTC View PostOne could be forgiven for thinking a long, protracted battle would come with all sorts of visible signs. As Cal neared a full half hour of fighting, however, nothing could be farther from the truth.
It was a mercy, she knew. In a region specifically designed to be a punishment, the bizarre cleanliness of it all was undeniably a boon. A dozen heads fell, and then a dozen more, the...
2024-11-04 13:00:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi all! It's definitely been a hot minute since I posted a stat sheet, so I'm doing so now! Full character sheet below.
As Patreon doesn't play nicely with colors or tables, it's in image form. Alternatively, I've attached an epub below, which will be cleaner overall and should work with things like text to speech/screen readers, to the best of my knowledge.
I've also taken the lib...
2024-10-31 12:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostOverall, Cal was a fan of her new class.
Sure, there were some hiccups along the way. Gods only knew how much she missed her old Dexterity. She was confident that she’d eventually be sundering the class if they ever escaped the dungeon, too.
For all that was true, there was something to be said for simply walking up to an enemy and cleaving it in two. While it had never been her i...
2024-10-31 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostNeedless to say, Cal’s less-than-optimal reappearance caused something of a stir in our tiny household of three.
More than that, if I thought my reaction was bad, Verin’s was several times worse. She’d been out hunting in the desert when it all went down, and by the time she returned, I’d long since moved Cal to her bed. The very moment Verin was brought into the loop, she started...
2024-10-28 12:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostIt took me a few days to fully get over my ill-fated ocean exploration. While the fight had felt endless at the time, in retrospect, I realized I’d never been in any real danger. The squids had a strange hodgepodge of skills and spells, but it was clear that their most advanced skill was their camouflage. Not that I’d enjoyed getting dogpiled by tentacles, but very few of them had ...
2024-10-24 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as I bought Arcane Choker, I wasted no time in testing it out. While a fragment of my attention was still fixed to my surroundings, steering me clear of any more fights, the rest of me was fully focused on the class skill. Arcane Augmenter skills tended to be my favorite of the bunch, and that was doubly true for my skills that had different variants for every mana typ...
2024-10-21 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAN: Let me know if I'm doing too much food. I always find the food bits to be fun, but I can scrap or tone them down a bit if they're taking away from the more standard progression elements.
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As it turned out, Cal hadn’t been idle during our time apart.
While apparently she made some good progress on her class quests, the real prize she brought b...
2024-10-18 11:59:28 +0000 UTC View PostEarlier, when I’d connected to the mind of one of the sentries, the experience had been both painful and jarring. Now, faced with a mind just as alien but far stronger, I was momentarily overwhelmed as a flood of raw sensations washed over me. Feelings, images, senses that my body couldn’t perceive at all, all jumbled together in an unnatural mélange. So powerful was the effect, that I was...
2024-10-14 12:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostAN: On admin week while I'm in India! Next chap on Dec 16th. Happy reading!
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I’d known from the offset that I could expect long-range attacks from the sentries, and on that front, they didn’t disappoint. Over a dozen wooden titans lifted their gnarled hands, sending forth their first offensive wave. Spear-like roots trailed out from their wri...
2024-10-14 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostThe Wandering Woods II
Having ventured deep within the forest and reached its center, it would be bad form to leave without greeting your host.
Requirements:
Gain an audience with the king of the forest.
???
Hi hello!
Just writing a post to say that I'm not dead and that new chapters are on the way.
I visited a friend in Canada for a week and a half, and the trip was both longer than expected and more eventful than expected (read, was dragged along to many events, and was made to drink to a level that was inconducive to writing).
Wanted to finish the newest chapter today, but got ...
2024-10-08 06:47:18 +0000 UTC View Post