Luckily, nobody was around to hear my terrified squeaks, squeals and whimpers as the world below did its best to shake me off my tower. Intellectually, I knew that the tower wasn’t moving all that far or that fast but just the bit of erratic movement was enough to completely throw me out of balance, to the point that I was just hanging on to the railing for dear life, Bullet Time active as my...
2023-04-10 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostDiscovering, or maybe establishing the discipline of Alchemy, or potion-crafting or whatever my current pursuit might be called in the future was a pain. The biggest problem was, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to achieve, or whether my ideas were actually metaphysically feasible and I failed because I made...
2023-04-09 17:29:22 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time I was done with the locals, midnight was but a fond memory. Teaching people was always an experience, some of the questions would likely always s...
2023-04-08 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostTelling the most powerful people at Apple Gate Farm about the dungeon was rather amusing. Especially when I began mentioning levels, with the Undead outside being between level sixteen and twenty, while the enemies inside ranged from twenty-two up to level twenty-eight for the last boss. Their faces twisted in such stunned disbelief that I had to send out a stealthy Observe to find out their le...
2023-04-07 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostWatching Kevin lose his mind was strangely amusing. After a few seconds of stunned silence, the implications of what I had said fully kicked in and he went briefly pale before starting to stutter and try running of in order to warn people. He didn’t get far, after literally tripping over his own feet in his haste, and continued to flail and panic on the ground, like some sort of frantic insec...
2023-04-05 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostSomehow, it never got old. Every time we quietly approached Apple Gate Farm, using the cover of the night to avoid the ghastly sunlight, the guards let out frightened noises, either squeaks, squeals or even outright screams. Lia had suggested to actually try sneaking up on them, just to see how close we could get, maybe poke them from, or into their, behind, with points given for proximity, how...
2023-04-03 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostIn a place, far removed from Terra, mortal toils have thwarted divine plans. Radiant light streaks through the sky, blazing across a crossroad before flaring into a marble building and materialising into a humanoid shape, crafted from nothing but golden fire.
“What is the meaning of this?!” a shrill shriek shatters the blessed silence of the ever-growing library. Sharp enough to crack...
2023-04-01 16:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostFor the next five days, things settled into a rhythm. Each night, we headed into the dungeon, leaving a part of me utterly flabbergasted at its continuous replenishment. Every time we entered the dungeon, we were faced with a similar challenge. While the details varied, the experience never fundamentally changed. The only real difference was the quality of the loot, the first night’s loot bei...
2023-03-31 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThere was still flickering light around Apple Gate Farm as we approached and a few people were moving around the property, despite the darkness. It was quite impressive how much they had done in the week since our last visit, there was a whole new building set up. It looked rather simple, just a wooden frame with a sheet metal roof, likely only good to keep out rain and wind, but it was newly m...
2023-03-29 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAfter dark, Lia, Silva and I headed out, intent on visiting Apple Gate Farm. Partially to inform the locals about our presence, we might want to trade with them in the future, partially to warn them about the undead and maybe to offer help in creating a freezer. I wasn’t quite ready to tell them about the dungeon, but I was curious if they had any information about it. If I wanted to study th...
2023-03-27 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostUpon waking, I let out a long groan, my entire body feeling as if skelepigs had been tapdancing on me throughout the night. I was utterly sore, my head felt like it was filled with cotton and there was a funky taste in my mouth. I couldn’t even blame the state I was in on alcohol, I was simply beaten. Beaten and bruised.
With a few more groans and a couple of sounds that made me wonder ...
2023-03-26 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again, Kira let out a soft sigh. A common occurrence, nowadays, as she and all the others living at Apple Gate Farm are waiting for the other shoe to drop. The first few hours after the change had been pure hell. Waking up in the middle of the night, pain surging...
2023-03-25 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs we walked over to inspect the magnificent items the moonotaur had deigned to leave for us, my gaze flitted over to the notifications. My face curled into a wide grin when I read through them.
How a skeleton, bovine or not, could roar loud enough to disrupt my balance with the sheer force of its voice was not something I wanted to contemplate. If the necrotic energies that animated it strengthened the other ‘muscles’ to the same extent, I knew I didn’t want to get hit by even the most glancing of blows, the force of it would be enough to send me flying through the roof. Silva l...
2023-03-22 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAfter picking up the loot from the Chicken Shredder, we continued on our merry way. The items were luckily not as strange as the boss had been, though they had their own oddities. There was a necklace with a wishbone pendant on it, granting the wearer an increase to their Charisma, which we gave to Lia, a pair of gloves that suspiciously looked as if they were made of rubber, granting the weare...
2023-03-20 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the zombie pig’s corpse had disappeared into the environment, I took my time after the next group of enemies we faced, observing their scattered bodies. It took a little longer than it had with the boss, but eventually, they disappeared as well, absorbed by the environment.
Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they were absorbed by the dungeon, whatever that might mean i...
2023-03-19 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAs we moved through the complex, I began to wonder. What sort of mind had come up with this design, where did it come from? It was far too complex and, quite frankly, scary to be a product of random chance and the less I thought about the enemies, the better.
At first, we only faced the skelepigs, and the idea that skeletons could be reanimated by magic wasn’t far-fetched. However, afte...
2023-03-18 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWe battled five more groups of skelepigs around this side of the building until we had to make a decision. We now had cleaned up this area, there were no more undead around that I could detect but there likely would be just as much on the other side of the building, likely in other areas, too.
We could continue hunting them, they were good EXP for Lia and a trickle for me, but it would ta...
2023-03-17 17:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWe should have moved far sooner. If I had been aware of just how wonderful a space we could make our own, I would never have settled near the Gym, instead immediately moving here. Instead of having to make sure that the curtains were always drawn, that no sunlight could intrude on my resting space, the massive, dark cellar gave me perfect protection from the hateful light. Only a rather powerfu...
2023-03-15 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostChecking out the aired-out house turned into a morose affair and showed just how distanced Lia was from the memories of living as Chantalle. It turned out, the family had been home, a father, a mother and two children. Only, they hadn’t beaten the odds of becoming Shattered. One of the children, a barely teenage boy, was lying in the door of the main bedroom, with a hole in his head and burne...
2023-03-13 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWith a little guidance from Lia’s memories, finding a suitable farmhouse for us to take over was relatively easy. We had considered going back to the Apple Gate Farm, at least for a night or two, but ultimately, decided against it. Meeting Chantalle’s parents, with her no longer being Chantalle but Carnelia was simply uncomfortable for her, while I could see how horribly wrong things could ...
2023-03-12 17:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostQuietly, but with a wide grin on my face, I made my way towards the dozing cows. Some were likely awake enough to keep watch for their sleeping brethren, but it didn’t really matter, we didn’t plan to kill them all. Waste not, want not, and all that.
No, the plan was far simpler, to play on the innate responses of all prey animals. Fight or flight, it was ingrained in every animal, th...
2023-03-11 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostMoving out of the lair we had occupied for about two weeks felt weird. It had been such a short time, yet, the lair felt like home, almost more so than the apartment I had lived in for years. The strange sensations didn’t stop me from packing my bags and walking out with my companions, but they made me feel odd.
Other than the night we had brought them home, we had never moved with the ...
2023-03-10 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s time,” I quietly informed Lia, knowing that I had delayed enough, maybe even too long. We had lingered near the gym for a little over a week, bringing us to day twenty since the change had happened, and by now, the whole area was getting ripe with the smell of decaying bodies. It hadn’t been so bad earlier, when temperatures had been hovering between five and ten degrees celsius, ...
2023-03-08 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAfter sleeping for about half the day, I woke up and began working on my magic. Mainly trying to improve my understanding of the elements I hadn’t studied on Mundus, trying to figure out how they worked and in what ways I might be able to incorporate them into my spell casting. Sadly, without the affinity to them, progress was slow going, though I did manage to push my Water Magic to level th...
2023-03-06 16:57:22 +0000 UTC View PostI had heard jokes about herding cats and luckily, herding dogs was a lot easier. Likely due to their inherent instinct to form packs, even if a normal wolf pack wasn’t formed like this. Not by a collection of unrelated dogs, banding together for protection and strength, but by a breeding pair collecting their young year after year, until those young split off and formed their own pair and pac...
2023-03-05 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostNow that the battle was over, an awkward silence fell over the street. Neither the dogs nor the people truly knew what was going on, the previous cooperation might have been more a case of ‘my enemies enemy is my friend’, or at least an ally with whom I can cooperate to defeat my enemy, but now, without that enemy? Nobody knew how to interact, nobody except maybe Silva.
She wasn’t j...
2023-03-04 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post