A Novel Approach chapter 99
Callie and I struck out on our own this time. I was going to need to do some serious sleuthing, and that meant lots of downtime. If Bethy came along we could have used her Domain to store the others, but despite being much more savvy than she usually let on, Bethy was not a patient or quiet person. She wasn’t really suited for a long term stakeout like this, and honestly aside from Callie non...
2025-06-03 00:08:18 +0000 UTC View PostDevlan’s voice was pleasant and urbane, but his eyes were hard and cold. He wasn’t some sophisticated gentleman, even if he dressed up like one. This was a ruthless thug, and he would have absolutely killed us if he thought he could get away with it and had a reason. Unfortunately for him, neither of those things were the case.
“No reason,” I told him pleasantly. “If you want to...
2025-05-31 00:32:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe path up to Yettin was long, and it was made longer by the constant attempts to sell us things. Animal had mentioned space here was at a premium, but I hadn’t considered the logical (or illogical, considering the fervor) conclusion of that concept. Namely, EVERYTHING in Yettin was for sale.
After the first ring, we made it up to the second gate. Except it wasn’t one gate. It was tw...
2025-05-29 23:11:34 +0000 UTC View PostYettin was…big. We’d come up from out of the ground on top of a hill. The trek over had been on a slight incline, but we’d traveled so far I hadn’t realized how high we were until we emerged from the caves. Turning to look though, I was able to see the city from above, and looking at it was astonishing.
First of all, the “city” of Yettin wasn’t just one town. Or rather, it w...
2025-05-28 23:57:12 +0000 UTC View Post
nsfw section at the end of the chapter mind the tags.
2025-05-28 22:03:07 +0000 UTC View PostWe waited for the others to report back before getting up. Bethy and Abel had divided the group in two, and with them running things I wasn’t too worried. Bethy could scout pretty well when she needed to, given her mist form, and I’d her running point on recon. She might mess around sometimes but she’d never put our people in unnecessary danger when I was trusting her to run things.
For those of you hoping for a big dramatic blowup with the Kim thing...this was never that kind of story lmao. Too big of a derail.
2025-05-27 22:22:23 +0000 UTC View PostReversing the process of converting the formation into a void shallow was time consuming and complicated. Back in the dungeon, the thing had been old and established, which was what made it stable enough to use the mist as a carrier to spread across the entirety of the screeching shoals. This one was much more recent and much less solid, so it COULD be reversed, but doing so required Callie to ...
2025-05-27 00:19:01 +0000 UTC View PostWe walked for quite a while, but we weren’t attacked again. Everyone was tense, ready for battle, but despite our sharpened senses and focus, we didn’t end up stumbling on anything for the next few miles. As we walked, the black trees became sparser, the air became colder, and the ground beneath our feet became hard and cracked. It felt like this place was dying, slowly losing vitality the ...
2025-05-23 21:09:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Mild nsfw ending leading to next chapter which will be fully nsfw
2025-05-23 17:52:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe stabby bugs didn’t attack right away, to my surprise. Instead, their creepy eyes pulsed in time with each other, and an otherworldly cascade of overlapping voices rang out. “Halt, intruders. You enter the territory of the Anatta Mantis Clan. Retreat if you value your lives.” They had no mouths, so the speech just kind of appeared from midair, and as it did, they smashed their bladed s...
2025-05-22 22:44:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe first hint that something was wrong wasn’t an attack. We were waiting for that, but it never came. We walked for about ten minutes, taking turns along the path, and we passed a small pond with a bright orange fish in it. We avoided it, continuing our trek, and ten minutes later…we passed a small pond with a bright orange fish in it.
We passed it again ten minutes later, and the TH...
2025-05-21 23:58:49 +0000 UTC View PostAfter a few repetitions of the technique, my sister and the dryads had opened up an idyllic path for us to follow. To my surprise, rather than reveal the golden sphere we’d been waiting for, the path led further into the oasis. The small copse of trees, like everything else on this planet, was bigger on the inside. Staring off into the jungle, all we could see was a winding path, open and dap...
2025-05-21 00:15:01 +0000 UTC View PostWe avoided the kobolds in the next few chambers. Between Dantalion and Callie’s Path, we were able to safely navigate the other groups. We DID hear several violent confrontations through the caves. Or rather, we felt them. Those kobolds were WAY more dangerous than they looked, and I wanted no part of it.
Sadly, we didn’t even get any loot from that dragon thing. It had dissolved as s...
2025-05-20 00:23:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe kobold wizard was staring intently at me from across the cavern. Not smug, or mocking, but focused. The lungs hanging around his neck pumped like bellows, glowing as the dragon skull manifestation became clearer. Behind him, the skull began to expand. A spine appeared, and then a pair of skeletal wings, and from the spine grew six skeletal arms.
As the thing expanded, I saw some of th...
2025-05-16 19:18:36 +0000 UTC View Post“So, this is going to be a bit tougher than expected,” I told my friends as we came to a stop in the middle of the plains. I had us under Murmur, so we weren’t exposed, and it was safe enough to stop to plan our approach. There were a LOT of people ahead of us. “Belsara, any information on who we’re dealing with?”
My new ally frowned, squinting into the distance. Her aide, Jes...
2025-05-16 00:48:49 +0000 UTC View PostWe DID end up having dinner early. Callie was awake when we got back, and she raised an eyebrow at our new friend, but didn’t say anything else. Belsara was practically glowing with smugness over how quickly I’d gotten the Animal (he tried to get us to call him Mal, but Abel informed him it would be too confusing given Mel’s name, and told him it was Animal or ‘Annie”) on our side. 2025-05-15 00:30:41 +0000 UTC View Post
After my shower, I was about to try to take a nap, but I was cut off by a call from Belsara. I answered with an annoyed grunt. “What?” I asked with exasperation. “I thought we were meeting in a few hours for dinner?”
She grinned sheepishly. “We were,” she admitted. “But I got a call from one of my local contacts. A friend of a friend heard that I knew you, and decided to use...
2025-05-14 00:16:15 +0000 UTC View Post