Working with metal was an utterly fascinating experience. Looting both the hunting store and the jeweller gave me a plethora of objects to experiment with, though I initially focused on the simple knives and plain silver hoops, not even trying to work with the gems. To make matters worse, the change had left its mark on the different objects, their physical features were altered in some minute ...
2023-06-25 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the extreme reaction to the catatonic Skulker, I was a little hesitant to return to Racoon City. If anything would get the Withered to alter their actions, to go from the casual swipes the Hunters took at us to a concentrated and utterly overwhelming effort to exterminate us, it might be what I had done the previous night. Was it brave to head back into an area where the creatures might s...
2023-06-24 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostUpon realisation just how enraged the Withered were, I was stunned for a moment. That hadn’t been part of the plan, not that I actually had a plan for such a massive reaction. The biggest reaction I had expected was something equivalent to the times I had tried to use Mind Magic to mess with their psychic connection, but this was bigger by an order of magnitude, with a massive amount of blood...
2023-06-23 16:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe serious work on the Withered Skulker started around two hours before nightfall. Not only...
2023-06-21 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostAs so often, battle didn’t start with a bang but a whimper. We had been hunting Withered for the last few days, pushing a few more levels on our way to fifty and increasing out various skills as we went, but we hadn’t made it to the big five-oh yet. Soon, but not yet.
Tonight, however, wasn’t another hunt for EXP, it was time for an experiment. I had been trying to get a better read...
2023-06-19 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostSpending some time with people other than my daughter was strangely amusing. Lia and I had grown into a comfortable, quiet comradery, we didn’t really need to talk while existing in the same space. Both of us could follow our own interests, though I often helped Lia with her training. Sure, her physical attributes were coming along nicely but there was still quite a lot I knew about physical ...
2023-06-18 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post“So, Mark, you’ve been away for a few days, what news do you bring from town? I’ll just assume you guys managed to establish the bridgehead we’ve been talking about or you would have been back days ago,” Cassie looks at the returning hero, quite proud of the achievement the fighters gathered around the farm have accomplished. Pushing back the Undead is no small feat, their mindless na...
2023-06-17 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post*“It’s a little quiet around here, isn’t it, Mother?” Lia asked me, her voice barely above a whisper. Looking around, I realised that she was right. We had been travelling back towards Apple Gate Farm throughout the night and now, we were in the area of town closest to the farm, an area we had fought quite a few times in. It was almost time for us to look for shelter, the slowly advanci...
2023-06-16 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostTwo more times, I tried to scry on the park the Withered had overtaken. Both times, I immediately was smacked back, the Water Mirror not even fully forming in the area I wanted to look into and after the second time, I noticed a distinct scent in the air around it.
The moment I noticed it, and realised that the mouldy scent wasn’t just carried in the moist air but was something else, so...
2023-06-14 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, Lia and I were just sitting there drenched in the water from the exploded Water Mirror Spell, neither of us quite knowing what to think, do or say. The explosion had been incredibly violent, making me rather glad that I hadn’t tried to use a more direct method to scry, like projecting my mind or traversing the Astral River to get a better look. If I had, and whatever had destroy...
2023-06-12 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again, I was standing on the roof of a building in the middle of the night. There was a bit of drizzling rain, just enough to make the idea of venturing out into Racoon City an unpleasant one, even if I wasn’t trying to figure out a way to gather information on the Withered without endangering my group.
However, where the rain was unpleasant to be out physically, it had one major a...
2023-06-11 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time we managed to get out of Racoon City, I was thoroughly annoyed. The whole night was practically wasted, we came, saw and had to run away because our enemies would have crushed us, far from the Cesarean ideal. There was no conquering to be done, as much as I would have loved to conjure up a massive snowstorm and bury the Withered under mountains of ice.
But the night’s failur...
2023-06-10 16:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostOur sneaky escape didn’t get us as far as I had hoped, but further than I feared it would. Somewhere halfway to the boundary of Racoon City, roughly in the area we usually used for our attacks on the Withered, we, quite literally, stumbled upon a Withered Skulker. This one, in contrast to the majority we had seen of them, used to be a Rat before it became a Skulker, making it small enough tha...
2023-06-09 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe beginning of the night was as they all had been, those last two weeks. We moved across the empty zone between the Shattered territories and Racoon City before going deeper into the Withered’s territory. We had to be cautious, stealthy and quiet on our way, making sure we were avoiding the Skulkers and Husks that populated the outskirts of Racoon City, otherwise, we would see ourselves in ...
2023-06-07 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostIf there was one thing I had to say about the Withered, it was that they were consistent and persistent. For almost two weeks, we had been venturing into Racoon City, killing more of them each day, gaining EXP and quite a few skill levels as we went and their response to our attacks didn’t change. Sure, they increased the number of Hunters sent after us on some days but most of the time, they...
2023-06-05 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again, the council guiding the people living at Apple Gate Farm was faced with a familiar pair of faces. Sure, the pair now had a somewhat weirdly looking racoon with them, in addition to the massive dog that had accompanied them before, but it changed little in the things they said. The racoon wasn’t talking, at least not yet, and neither was the dog.
But what the other two, mainl...
2023-06-04 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe Zevarra Agha, the book of spells, the Grimoire of the Grandmother, a wholly unique item originating from another World. There was nothing even remotely comparable to it anywhere on Terra, nothing that held as much arcane lore. Some of the other legacy holders might have read about different magical concepts in the libraries of Mundus, but I doubted anyone had managed to gain a truly compreh...
2023-06-03 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIt was fascinating to watch and experience the reaction of the Hunters to our attack. On one hand, there was the purely physical part, the creatures we had struck let out hisses of pain, and the others let out angry yowls, nothing that I wouldn’t expect from a feline that was suddenly in pain or confronted with an enemy. On the other hand, there was the psychic side, where I could hear an exp...
2023-06-02 16:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostQuietly, four shadows crept through the night. Almost no noise escaped us, only the soft clicks of Silva’s claws breaking the quiet night, but it wasn’t enough to alarm any enemies to our presence. The idea was simple, circumvent the outer layer of Undead and Withered Husks in order to get to the inner layer, where the Withered Skulker and possibly the Withered Hunter were waiting. Kill as ...
2023-05-31 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostIn the middle of the ritual circle, right atop the second glyph symbolising myself, were two things. Neither item was terribly complex at first glance, one was a simple, black Feather, the other a book. There were no special notifications, nothing but a message that my Blood Magic had risen by one, reaching level twenty-five, nor was there any other indication that the ritual I had done had wor...
2023-05-29 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostSitting down in the basement of the building we had decided on, I let out a soft sigh. Finding supplies in town was getting difficult, everything seemed to have been picked clear already. Sure, we still managed to find a few things, mostly in warehouses and hidden in cellars, but overall, the pickings were getting sparse. Sure, we had stashed a lot in our lair, but it would only last for a few ...
2023-05-28 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSitting in yet another dark cellar, I was looking at the body I had caught while sneaking about. After sleeping for most of the day, I had told Lia and our two four-legged friends about the discoveries I had made during the night. Lia was quite intrigued about the diversity of creatures I had discovered within the area I had dubbed Racoon City. Sure, they were all Withered, just like all those ...
2023-05-27 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostMany a curse was whispered in the depth of my mind when I realised that stealth wasn’t going to cut it. Not solely, at least. The Withered Hunter had managed to get a whiff of me, scent, sound, magic or something else entirely, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care, at least not in the moment. They were after me and I had to escape as quickly as possible.
Ceasing to channel magic into the...
2023-05-26 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLaying my eyes on the hounds for the first time was not a pleasant experience. After about twenty minutes of dodging them, I had become quite accustomed to their chittering and used the noise to stay away from them, but now, there was no way to circumvent this one and I found myself face-to-face with it. Given that I only had the psychic chittering to go by, I had assumed that the hounds huntin...
2023-05-24 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostIf only things could have been as easy as I hoped. But no, that would be utterly boring, if I could have managed to sneak out without any of the Withered realising I had ever been there. Instead, barely a minute after I killed the Withered Skulker before I even managed to freeze the body for later analysis, I noticed that the psychic chittering around me shifted once more. While I was still una...
2023-05-22 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostA sudden shift in the psychic not-noise caught my attention. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but the pattern I had noticed shifted, making me pause in my actions. I had been skirting around the outer area of racoon city, trying to get a better idea of the inhabitants of it, both Undead and whatever the racoons were, doing my best to remain hidden. The entire time, the chittering had been f...
2023-05-21 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostFor once, I was all on my own. We had been trying to catch one of the racoons for over a week now and never managed to get close enough. Their ability to sense opponents was only second to mine, their stealth-ability better than anything Silva could manage, even if I helped her. We had yet to determine just how they managed to beat the concealment magic I was habitually casting on Silva, but th...
2023-05-20 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post