+Ah. The illustrious “Seer” for hire. We meet at last.+
+Fuck off, Middler. Not looking for runs right now.+
+Middler? I am hardly such a thing. Indeed, I think we might of a similar path.+
+Not looking to join any crews either. Just want to finish my drink in peace.+
+Is that what you want? Or do you wish your grandfather dead...
2025-03-04 17:41:49 +0000 UTC View PostMaster of Hounds is a peculiar heaven, one that is built around the concept of perception. Perception, typically employed by seers to maintain a logistical or informational advantage for their cadre—or even to fortify a vault—had now been reimagined. Highflame sought something unique, an assassination Heaven that was both broad in scope and specialized enough to neutralize any threat wi...
2025-03-04 08:24:23 +0000 UTC View Post+Little was known about Frederick Three-Eye before 92 P.F. His early life is without account—no details, no mem-data, no acquaintances. He emerged from nowhere, first spotted in New Vultun as a Squire, a mysterious beginning that only added to his enigma.
Well into his middle age, Frederick specialized in kidnapping and spying. His methods were never overt or high-octane, a...
2025-03-03 18:20:27 +0000 UTC View PostTake care if you are invited to a gala or a major event in the Claimed Hells. Whatever circle you are drawn to, other major players will be present as well. Even though all the circles are at war with each other, this war is a family war, a civil war, an in-house war. And while Knights die in their billions, the Dukes, the Counts, and the Princes dine and speak and taunt, but ultimately coe...
2025-03-02 18:21:56 +0000 UTC View PostThere are twelve Consul Hierarchs that make up the leadership of the Inheritors. Twelve individuals who have held their positions for approximately five hundred years. The oldest among them is a man known as Haytham Winters. His origins are uncertain, but from gathered information, he exhibits the cultural characteristics of someone born during the late 1950s. However, as we have experience...
2025-03-01 15:35:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, everyone
As mentioned a few weeks ago, the official book one of TTF (Now titled Infernal Ascension) is on KU: https://mybook.to/ncBV
Thank you for all your support and I hope you enjoyed the original chapters. If you can, I would appreciate a review.
Aside from this, I am going to be returning to updating ch...
2025-02-28 17:47:17 +0000 UTC View PostAttention to all No-Dragon citizens. This is Dowager Brilliant Orchard speaking—Head of the Exo-Substance Council and acting First Sister of all the active political bureaus and the Branch of Exalted Warfare. I declare that a new alliance is being formed thanks to recent actions demonstrated on the part of the Symmetry.
We are embarking on an unprecedented era of peace and ...
2025-02-27 18:40:08 +0000 UTC View PostOn a fundamental level, the creation of a node is not a complicated process. What you need is memory. Memory informs a mind of what it can be, of what it should be. It is information preloaded and preset to create a personality. A personality that collides with material conditions results in decisions.
For instance, if I would like to create a node of myself, I would pull my ...
2025-02-26 09:41:02 +0000 UTC View PostOf all the guilds that have tried to create a human-analogous mind, the only ones that have ever truly come close to succeeding were Ori-Thaum and The Sang. We're discounting Voidwatch right now because, though they are a guild in name, they functionally do not participate in the greatest mutual gathering of our age, which is the Guild Wars. I am being very glib right now.
Th...
2025-02-25 17:08:32 +0000 UTC View PostIn retrospect, what disturbed us the most was the silence and sudden calmness that preceded everything to come. For a single moment, for a heartbeat in time, the Guilds stopped their squabbling, stopped arguing, and stopped skirmishing. Veylis, the High Seraph herself, grew restrained and encouraged a proper dialogue between the guilds to honor the passing of her father. Everything seemed t...
2025-02-24 17:46:22 +0000 UTC View PostIn the Claimed Hells, everyone has an angle. Everyone has something they’re going for, some goal they want to seek. More than anything, this is a city of dreams—damned, cursed, bleak, bloody, nasty fucking dreams, but dreams nonetheless. And ultimately, these people, these sinners, they’re dreamers. For this might be a place that’s called the Claimed Hells, but there’s enough hope...
2025-02-23 17:56:01 +0000 UTC View PostExpect some more delays for current TTF chapters in editing until later tomorrow. I'm suffering from some pretty stupid but time-consuming real estate issues. I'll try to make up for the missing chapters in the meantime; there's a lot I need to finish fixing.
Being a bit fried recently also has made me not a pretty substantial decrease in writing quality. I need to fix that too.
2025-02-22 18:57:13 +0000 UTC View Post
The story is much-improved thanks to Dath's editing, and I can't thank you all enough for reading. Expect improvements in the flow of the text, added scenes, smoothed character moments, and improved and fixed systems bits.
Read/get the existing chapters (3-51) within the next 10 hours, because after th...
2025-02-20 18:55:27 +0000 UTC View PostListen, if you need infiltration, sabotage, assassination, theft, or all-around subterfuge, there’s only one guy I can really recommend. He went by a bunch of different monikers and names during his time, jumping around the circles. Let’s just say he has, uh, purchasable loyalties, but there’s no one better than him when it comes to infiltrations.
Call him, uh, William ...
2025-02-20 18:43:11 +0000 UTC View PostRegret is poison. Regret is poison in life, in action, and in thought. Do not regret. Kill regret. Get rid of regret. The longer you dwell on what could have been or what might have been, the less you deal with the problems at hand—and the less you truly live. And don't get me wrong, that's the whole point of this endeavor: to continue living. Anyone who starts preaching, "Don't be afraid...
2025-02-20 15:10:55 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve spent decades trying to assemble an informational profile based on all the data we could gather on the savior, Jaus Avandaer. Decades of investigation, of simulations, of piecing together historical actions and disproving and discovering what were lies and deliberate misdirections of propaganda and fiction.
Through all this time, I’ve watched Jaus’s greatest crimes...
2025-02-19 15:56:16 +0000 UTC View Post[Constructing matter from forgotten memories—or destroying matter and using it as forgotten memories—or even just making more people forget, to build something that most can never see: a hidden architecture, if you will; an unseen battlefield, or facilities and institutions that we control, only perceivable by the people we trust, or to whom we have given grace. 2025-02-18 18:40:06 +0000 UTC View Post
But if all that is counts as a pattern, then what about all that isn’t? Is that not a greater, more encompassing anti-pattern? Or perhaps, with the flame you conjure from the lowliest canon, with the greatest miracle, should there not be a counter-dichotomy—an un-symmetry in the tapestry—something where other expressions can reside?
This, I feel, is a field of thaumatur...
2025-02-17 11:37:54 +0000 UTC View PostThough Tribulation Falls's official amazon release will be coming up. Chapters 4-51 will be stubbing soon. Read while you still can and if it's worth anything, the preorder is live too.
Special thanks to Dath for his considerable editing efforts and assistance during the process.
The current title for the story has been updated to Infernal Ascension, and it will be ...
2025-02-16 18:08:18 +0000 UTC View PostWhen you’re infiltrating a place, you shouldn’t be the one worried about whether you’ll be detected or if the enemy has more surprises for you. That’s something you’re going to have to deal with either way. Instead, you want to cause dilemmas for the person you’re infiltrating. Give them problems to deal with.
The biggest benefit here is that they can’t devote t...
2025-02-16 18:04:12 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes, beating your friend’s ass is the only way to know that they are, indeed, your friend. Don’t ask me why this is the way things work—it’s just how it is.
-John Bishop
II-67
Bad Instruction (II)
“Vendrian,” Wei said, greeting the Scion of Death, who had come to a sudden halt at his side. The layers of frost that formed the hound-shaped armor ...
2025-02-15 19:56:06 +0000 UTC View PostA word of advice to all lords, tyrants, and emperors who wish to be. If you are going to force your will on one of your subjects, or perhaps a wayward companion, make sure that they have something to fear.
If they cannot die, and you cannot reliably overcome them each time, every time in martial combat, they have the option to simply ignore you, maddening as it is.
I have always dreamed of creating a Heaven of Mind. Mind, or perhaps a Domain analogous to it. Alas, with the construction of the Nether—a wonder in its own right—the world has been granted a “public use set of canons” in a sense, while we of the Highest Art have been denied of what could have been.
A pity. Such a Heaven could have changed a great many things. Includi...
2025-02-13 18:02:46 +0000 UTC View PostTo be a successful middler, the key is understanding two things: your network and what people want. Good Middlers leverage their relationships, have a complex web of contacts, favors, and services. They also know what others in their network desire and can connect them to what they need, even if it’s not something they can provide personally. Sometimes, success doesn’t require high-stak...
2025-02-12 17:27:04 +0000 UTC View Post{This is EGI Contingency Bleak. We believe that the Hidden Flame has made contact with something within the Ori Delegates. Currently, the patterns of domain information are spiking unnaturally—corresponding to a signature that matches the Hidden Flame itself, now being emitted from within the substance.
Keep the Deep Ones in reserve. Keep the countermeasures for the domain ...
2025-02-11 11:53:38 +0000 UTC View Post{The ancient philosopher Clausewitz once said that war is politics by other means. This might be the inverse, I'm afraid, for New Vultun—and in Idheim in general—for war and death is the economy here, and politics is the means of obtaining more fuel for souls.
As such, when dealing with those who are on this god-forge, it is advised that you take a different approach to t...
2025-02-10 07:30:34 +0000 UTC View PostWhen you’re fighting as a team, it’s important to designate one person as a leader. One.
Now, unless you’re a hive mind like a hive chin—or one of those inter-archive worms—most people need a single set of commands to follow, and that is need. Not want, not prefer, need.
Because when things get chaotic, and shit flies off the rails, you need to react ...
2025-02-09 17:46:19 +0000 UTC View PostTo enlighten the ignorant is akin to lifting a feather, but to grant wisdom to the stubborn demands the teacher bear a mountain.
-Ancient Evernest Proverb
II-64
Team Building (III)
“So, I’m guessing this is the part you tell me what I did wrong,” Agnesia said sullenly. She was sitting there, right outside the rift, cross-legged and frowning. She hadn’t t...
2025-02-08 17:36:50 +0000 UTC View PostIgnium. What can be said about the Dragon God. The Creator, the Destroyer. Well, let’s start with the fact that direct attacks against them or their Scions will be rendered ineffective. Fire? Forget it. Force? Well, you better surprise them, because anything they see coming will hypercharge their Essence. Seriously, fighting the Scions of Destruction is a pain in the ass.
B...
2025-02-07 19:08:51 +0000 UTC View PostThere is one thing, above all other things, that determines if you’re going to thrive or die in the fathoms. It’s not even how high your essence level is, or how rare your class is. It’s not about your skill in combat, though that goes very, very far.
It’s not even about what kind of artifacts you have, though that might just save your life. No, the fundamental, avera...
2025-02-06 18:49:59 +0000 UTC View Post