Calm
Alice’s madly-pumping chest only slowed after a good ten minutes spent resting down on the shivering grass that grew over the massive carapace of the Rhinoceros Beetle.
As she rested, the huge crystalline spike she had just extracted from the titan’s flesh, and that was lying on the ground just a couple of meters away from her, slowly began sliding a bit fu...
2021-10-14 06:04:34 +0000 UTC View PostFavors (II)
As she let her consciousness meld with her biological system, Alice sank into the largest and most visible organ of her body, her skin; a complex and multilayered sub-system that interacted with countless others while protecting the organism in the meanwhile.
Just the epidermis, the outermost, thinner strata, was composed by at least five different sub-l...
2021-10-10 18:16:59 +0000 UTC View PostThis took a lot longer than expected but I'm already writing the following chapter at least. I'm going to take a couple of hours of break and then go back to Discord. It's the first night I have some time.
----------------------------------------
Face-off
The next morning, Alice woke up with a yawn in a much different environment from the one that had surround...
2021-10-05 16:08:15 +0000 UTC View PostFavors
The creature moved its lumbering body around the clearing, maneuvering with its six trunk-like limbs until its head was less than three meters away from her restrained body, the joints of its legs creaking loudly as they started slowly bending, lowering to the ground the carapace they were supporting.
A few long seconds later, the grass-covered exo...
2021-10-04 18:20:01 +0000 UTC View PostFeeling a lot better today. I think i'll try reading the comments, even if I do feel almost ill doing so.
I hope you will enjoy the chapter. I'll try to pump the next one as quickly as possible, I had to change a bit of the progression but everything should still end the way I envisioned it. Not much longer.
---------------------------------------------------
Beetle 2021-09-29 19:25:07 +0000 UTC View Post
I've gone missing again. Great. I really wanted to deny it but it seems like my yearly depressive episode is on full swing and being all alone isn't helping. Can you call it depression? I don't know. All I know is that I've literally spent 4 days looking at my computer and finding myself unable to write or even check on the site. I've always suffered from anxiety and I always have some times wh...
2021-09-26 18:45:39 +0000 UTC View PostFirst of all, I'm sorry for the numerous delays. I've honestly been really struggling between the writing and the rest of my life which has become a lot more hectic during the last few weeks.
I'm going to be working on ways to prevent these things from happening again once I get to writing the next volume but let us proceed by importance.
Next month there won't be...
2021-09-21 19:23:32 +0000 UTC View PostHides
The first thing she did after crawling back into the small, room that had been excavated by the marmots was sealing back the outside access once more to avoid being ambushed while she was hunting.
After that, Alice proceeded to gradually enlarge the tunnel through which the first marmot had managed to reach her, using the Lumen to make a hole that was quite a ...
2021-09-21 17:58:39 +0000 UTC View PostRest
Alice lay panting between the tall grasses that covered the undulating prairies around the forest, her back pressed against the ground as she slowly caught her breath after the frantic escape from the horrid creatures that had been following her.
Her silken rucksack was strewn right beside her, along with the long metal spear that she was tightly clutching in h...
2021-09-21 17:56:28 +0000 UTC View PostSurprise
The last, barbed spike clattered on the ground together with a few droplets of her blood and Alice exhaled a sigh of relief as she willed the wound close with a trickle of her magic, the blood vessels tightening and the blood itself congealing within a few seconds, the last one of the dozens of scabbed-over boreholes that were already being slowly sealed from the...
2021-09-17 19:55:39 +0000 UTC View PostEel
Alice stood perfectly still in her position near the center of the room as the creature slid the rest of its long and swollen body through the gate, blocking her only way out with its bulk before extending two elongated sensory organs that were incredibly similar to a squid’s tentacles, their pads covered in strange, darker membranes that constantly shivered and twi...
2021-09-14 18:19:47 +0000 UTC View PostHi sorry every chapter will be delayed to tomorrow because I can barelty think today.
I have been having headaches for like two days and if it keeps going i'm going to the doctor.
2021-09-12 13:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostMeeting
Alice quickly moved through the short and perfectly straight hallway that had welcomed her as after crossing the armored gate, its walls lit up by multiple, glowing squiggly lines that she wasn’t able to translate given the absence of images or symbols that could aid the process.
Despite that, she did spend a few minutes trying to inspect the glyphs on the...
2021-09-10 16:52:27 +0000 UTC View PostDoor
Leaving behind the locked metal gate, Alice quickly sped through the halls and rooms she had walked through just a few minutes before, now ignoring anything but the road ahead, her mind working hard to retrace her steps until, after a couple of wrong turns that pushed her further into the labyrinthine structure, she finally found herself in front of the round opening...
2021-09-07 19:20:28 +0000 UTC View PostForest
After stepping down the hill, it didn’t take long for Alice to reach the edge of the forest, her muscles never tiring despite having to wade through the sea of tall grasses that tried to entangle her, her pace never faltering and her breathing barely speeding up as she crossed the gentle undulations that separated her from the cluster of trees, the uneven ground ...
2021-09-05 17:51:21 +0000 UTC View PostI made some changes to the end of the previous chapter and i'm going to post them here so that the new chapter makes sense. I'll remove them in the next days after I'm sure most you guys read the new chapter.
[...]
The object was a crystal, no larger than her hand and with a multifaceted surface that was covered in cracks and chips, as if something ...
2021-09-03 21:32:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Fragment
It didn’t take long for Alice to descend the rest of the tree, repeatedly planting the pick into the wood while using the previous indentations as handholds, a process that took her far longer than before, when she still had access to the pitons.
On top of that, the new routine was much less forgiving on her body, forcing her to hang from a single hand wh...
2021-08-31 19:55:03 +0000 UTC View PostBottom
“Ow,”
The barely audible whisper came from the dimly-lit upper floor of one of the many houses that had been built along the massive wall of the domed city, the thick curtains of wisteria leaves trying to conceal the flickering light of a small fire shining through the glassless windows of the building, the smell of burning wood mixing with the delicate s...
2021-08-29 20:19:31 +0000 UTC View PostMuscles
Alice was so tired that she was barely conscious when she finally reached the first house occupied by the fluffy yellow birds, their chirping calls echoing from the openings in the upper floor of the building, leading her on like a very off-key siren’s call.
Without an instant of hesitation, she forced her weary legs to move once again, her body on the bri...
2021-08-26 15:32:28 +0000 UTC View PostSmoked
After a bit of hesitation, Alice started dragging the carcasses over the rubble until they were all lined up in front of her, eight corpses ready to be harvested for meat and other resources.
As she was dragging the ninth body, however, the girl was suddenly aware of the barely visible movement of the creature’s chest, her eyes widening and her hand immedia...
2021-08-22 12:58:28 +0000 UTC View PostHumiliation
The large male pushed itself off its throne, muscles rippling and short fur puffing up as it stared at its subject, busily playing with the glinting objects in its hands and completely unaware of the attention it had garnered with its actions.
In the meanwhile, not immediately noticing the change in the mood of their leader, the current ‘performer’ c...
2021-08-22 12:56:35 +0000 UTC View PostRed
Alice stared in horror at the practically-empty room she was in, her ears filled by the rustle of disturbed undergrowth and trampled leaves that was coming from outside, rapidly approaching the ruined building she had just managed to reach.
Fuck! She exclaimed in her head as she frantically scanned her surroundings, uselessly searching for an escape rou...
2021-08-18 18:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostEmpathy
(Warning. This chapter contains actual Animal Cruelty. You have been warned.)
It didn’t take long for Alice to finish descending the plant-invaded stairway, pushing past the confusing jungle of vegetal tendrils and finding herself in another, larger cluster of broken structures, the leaves of the massive wisteria tree forming a green canopy that stretched ...
2021-08-15 21:38:59 +0000 UTC View PostSignet
For the first time in many, many weeks; Alice was woken up by the sun shining past her eyelids, its light turning a warm red as it moved through those thin layers of skin and blood before painfully flooding her retinas with far too much sensory information for such an early hour.
Or, at least, so thought the young woman as she turned on her side with a groan,...
2021-08-13 20:22:59 +0000 UTC View PostFeathers
“—it!”
Alice had just the time to drop onto the ground and curl up in a ball before the literal cloud of birds descended on her, their ear-shattering chirping pounding at her head while their sharp talons scratched at any exposed spots of skin, their beaks sliding on the smooth silk of her armored dress or painfully ripping at her hair.
As she l...
2021-08-10 16:31:48 +0000 UTC View PostRuins
From the small ledge she had just found herself upon, Alice stared slack-jawed at the scenery that lay in front of her still-blurry eyes, the low-light receptors contained within her retinas slowly turning off while the ones that worked best with a high level of brightness started activating, bright colors soon flooding her starved brain.
Despite the small twi...
2021-08-07 01:14:06 +0000 UTC View PostSky
The words were already in their spot when she realized she was in the black void of her mind.
You have reached Level 27 in the Biomancer of Symbiosis Class.
You have changed your bones to be as resilient as yourself, able to ignore the blows of your enemies and proceed forward. You have learned the skill Enhanced Body: Bones. Your ...
2021-08-03 17:47:12 +0000 UTC View PostToad
Alice could only stare as the huge toad labored to fully emerge from the murky depths of the underground lake and finally clambered on the soft and muddy ground surrounding it; its wide, webbed feet displacing a mudslide of dirt and water every time it moved.
Despite its squat body and somewhat short limbs, the monster was incredibly bulky, standing over three ...
2021-07-28 21:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostMucus
Alice could feel the first wave of calcium molecules as it streamed through her circulatory system and was sent to her hungering bones, the sticky collagen scaffolding she had created just a few hours before slowly growing sturdier as each one of the tiny building blocks found its place on it. Countless more would be needed but even one molecule meant progress in he...
2021-07-27 20:28:03 +0000 UTC View PostTadpoles
While a part of Alice’s mind was busy focusing on her skeletal system’s overhaul, the rest of her consciousness hadn’t remained idle.
As a thin scaffolding of collagen slowly reinforced her bones, the girl had worked hard to turn into reality the plan she had devised in her mind room the previous ‘night’.
After all, if she wanted to obtain e...
2021-07-23 18:29:11 +0000 UTC View Post