A flood of insectile machines skittered toward the pair of companions, sending an avalanche of detritus bouncing down the slopes of the mountain of trash. Elijah’s thoughts raced with various plans, though he discarded each as quickly as they came to mind. But one stood tall above all the others, and he latched onto it as the only hope of escape.
“Clench up!” he sp...
2024-07-20 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe smell was the first thing that hit Elijah, and he was reminded of the few times he’d visited a local landfill back home. Thankfully, those trips had been infrequent – just when he’d had to help his parents clean out their storage shed or garage – but the memories had stuck with him. And they came flooding back into his mind as he beheld the challenge of Mortalum.
...
2024-07-19 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe battle began just like any other, with two sides clashing. The monsters utilized similar a similar approach to what they normally employed, though Abby knew better than to grow complacent. The creatures had shown a remarkable ability to shift tactics at a moment’s notice, and some of her lesser commanders had found themselves on the losing end of a battle they’d thought woul...
2024-07-19 13:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m doing this for two reasons,” Ron said when he arrived a week later. As always, he wore his sparkly robe, but he’d covered it with a leather overcoat that fell almost to his ankles. Beneath it, he’d donned a sturdy pair of hiking boots, completing his odd appearance with the fairy godmother style wand he’d tucked into a specially made holster on his hip. Given ...
2024-07-18 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostFrom his vantage high above, Zeke gazed out at the vast fields. He didn’t know the names of the crops the farmers had planted, but he could feel the mana billowing from the expanse of farms. The Artisan’s Terrace, which really didn’t qualify for that name anymore, had grown considerably larger, though he’d yet to hear the extent.
“How big is this place now?” ...
2024-07-18 13:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
“I’ll meet you guys later,” Elijah said as he zeroed in on a familiar figure. “Same place we stayed last time, right?”
Kurik said, “I need to restock on some trap supplies anyway.”
“I wanted to see if there was any news on the other challenges. We have seven more to go,” Sadie added.
Dat shrugged, “Guess I’ll just go hang ou...
2024-07-17 15:10:31 +0000 UTC View Post“Gods bedamned cold,” grumbled Kurik as he knelt beside one of the crops beneath the fortress. He cupped his hands, shoving his fingers beneath the frozen soil. From experience, Elijah knew that it took a fair bit of force to penetrate the ground, and in doing so, one would need to expose themselves to sub-freezing temperatures. He likened it to thrusting his fingers into ...
2024-07-17 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“What the hell?” Elijah demanded, glaring at the Witch Hunter.
“What?” asked Dat, an expression of wide-eyed innocence on his face as he stood over the Ka’alaki Druid’s body. “He’s not dead.”
Elijah looked closer, concentrating on One with Nature. It had gone wild during the previous encounter, obscuring his senses to a large degree. But now every...
2024-07-16 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostZeke’s mind swirled with a million symbols, each one subtly different from the last. There were pieces that were meant to fit together, but it was like trying to piece together a puzzle, if said puzzle was a three-dimensional depiction of the abstraction of an ephemeral concept. And sometimes, those pieces needed to be adjusted so that they fit into the proper place.
So mayb...
2024-07-16 13:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAn arrow whistled past Miguel’s face, barely nicking his cheek before thudding into the wooden frame of the wagon. He couldn’t spare even a second to ruminate on how close he’d come to being killed, because it was all he could do to sweep his sword out and knock an oncoming spear to the side. Even when he used all of his Strength, he barely managed to redirect the weapon befor...
2024-07-15 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post“You don’t have to choose right this second,” Eveline pointed out. “You can give it another couple of days.”
“Do you think that’ll change anything?” Zeke asked, already looking at his choices.
“You can devote your full attention to it, rather than just whatever is leftover after you burned out on runecrafting,” she answered. “You’ve been bur...
2024-07-15 13:00:26 +0000 UTC View PostElijah immediately cast Healing Rain, then cycled Soothe onto each of his companions. At the same time, he whipped around, searching for the source of so much movement in the ambient ethera. Yet, he found nothing, even when he focused all of his attention on One with Nature.
“I have a really bad feeling about this, bro,” Dat said, holding his crossbow to his shoulder as he...
2024-07-14 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostAlright folks. First things first - I apologize about not getting to the check-in for the past couple of weeks. I've been super busy, and it mostly just slipped my mind. By the time I remembered to do it, it was already too late. So, that's on me, and I'm sorry.
That said, the past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic for me. Some of that is due to poor planning on my part, but it'...
2024-07-13 20:26:35 +0000 UTC View PostElijah swung his staff, connecting with the little creature and sending it flying across the room. After sailing through the air for almost twenty feet, it hit the wall with a dull thud before falling to the floor in a boneless heap. But Elijah didn’t have time to admire the results of his attack. Instead, the whole of his attention was required elsewhere – most presently,...
2024-07-13 15:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“This place is amazing,” Elijah said, leaning close to inspect the wall. Like the rest of the fortress, it was made of mostly featureless stone. However, it had the distinction of being run through with geometric patterns of white ice. “These look like snowflakes, right?”
“They look cold is what they look,” Kurik growled, rubbing his own arms with a thick bla...
2024-07-12 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostZeke left the manor on a mission to test his latest skill, but to accomplish that goal, he needed enemies. Rather than use an untested skill in a battle where his people might have to pay the costs of his lacking experience, he chose to do in a more quarantined environment. That meant heading out into the wilderness.
Ideally, he would have gone into the dungeon arena where he...
2024-07-12 13:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostCold pinpricks spread across Elijah’s face as he looked up at the sleet falling from above. It was such a curious thing, experiencing natural rain in the middle of a subterranean cavern, and he couldn’t explain it. His scientific mind tried, but nothing he considered really made sense. It wasn’t that difficult to create weather in an enclosed space, but scaling it to the...
2024-07-11 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostZeke stood, overlooking the town and struggling all the while to repress his repulsion. It wasn’t easy, considering the advanced state of decay. He asked, “How many?”
“Seven thousand,” answered Adara. “We couldn’t get an accurate count, but that’s the estimate.”
He just shook his head, then ran his hand through his hair. It needed to be cut,...
2024-07-11 13:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAs Elijah stalked through the fields, he was tempted to believe he was repeating the mistakes of the past. Only recently, he’d nearly been killed because, in his hubris, he’d tried to take on too much responsibility. But was that true? Or had the incident in the ice fortress happened as a result of ignorance? Perhaps the answer was tied to both. In any case, th...
2024-07-10 15:10:01 +0000 UTC View PostSadie ducked beneath a horizontal club strike, then kicked out, crumpling the yeti’s leg at the knee. It howled in pain, collapsing sideways and directly into the path of her oncoming blade. The silvery metal of its armor – now dented and scratched – screeched as the Sword of the Morning bit into it, cutting through flesh and erupting in a spurt of pale blood.
But ...
2024-07-10 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” said Kurik, his eyes downcast.
Elijah understood the dwarf’s emotions, largely because he had a complicated relationship with killing as well. He’d wrestled with the realities of his own actions often enough to know that he couldn’t really say much that Kurik probably hadn’t told himself a hundred times over. Still, h...
2024-07-09 15:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostZeke threw himself forward, tackling the Knight to the ground and locking his arms around the man’s neck. He squeezed, feeling bones break beneath his grip. Still, the Knight struggled on, his entire body glowing blinding light – a fact which epitomized the issue Zeke faced.
The battle had gone as well as could be expected. Even as his army of kobolds fought ag...
2024-07-09 13:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Yeti patrol sounds like a sick band name, bro,” Dat said, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “Like death metal or something.”
“After everything I just said, that’s your takeaway? I just admitted to doing something incredibly stupid,” Elijah said. “I could have gotten everyone here killed. And you’re talking about band names?”
Dat shrugged...
2024-07-08 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostAbby Summers, the High Inquisitor of the glorious Radiant Host, stood on the battlefield, her features twisted into an expression of disgust. More than a thousand soldiers, each one loyal to the Imperium, all dead, and there was no sign of the monsters responsible for the resounding defeat.
But she knew who’d killed them. Or rather what.
Those bestial lizard-men ...
2024-07-08 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostElijah loped through the halls without even attempting to conceal his presence. With the restrictions upon Guise of the Unseen, it wouldn’t have done any good, which meant that he had no choice but to meet the challenge head-on. However, that didn’t mean he intended to rampage through the lower levels of the Ice Fortress like some mad beast. No – his goal was simple.&nbs...
2024-07-07 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostFor Elijah, being underground was always a unique experience. He’d visited a few caves before the World Tree had connected with Earth, and he’d found that each time had filled him with unease. Mostly, his discomfort came from generalized claustrophobia, but it went a little deeper than that. More than once, Elijah had heard about people – usually divers – getting lost ...
2024-07-06 15:00:16 +0000 UTC View Post“Behind me!” shouted Sadie, planting herself at the mouth of the cave. As the words left her mouth, she used her shielding ability, wrapping a glowing bulwark around her form. Her greatsword and armor gleamed in the light, though the illumination dissipated after only a few feet. Beyond that, only oppressive darkness lay.
Dat and Kurik shot to their feet and to...
2024-07-05 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe pools of the Crimson Spring stirred, sending ripples through the steaming water. But there was no one there to see it. No one but the enormous, metal man at its center, and he could see nothing. Nor could he hear. Blind, deaf, and dumb, he didn’t even know his name.
And yet, there was a spark. A memory. A world torn asunder by an eternal war betwe...
2024-07-05 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post“How the hell’re you not cold?” demanded Kurik as he rubbed his arms. He was wearing a thick leather coat, gloves, and sturdy boots, but he clearly wished he’d packed something even warmer.
Elijah grinned. “A guy needs his secrets, right?” he replied with a wink.
“He ain’t even wearin’ any shoes!” the dwarf growled, gesturing at Elijah’s bare ...
2024-07-04 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostZeke floated in pervasive nothingness. He struggled to feel anything, could not think, and failed to move. In his most cognizant moments, he was reminded of the space between Earth and the Mortal Realm. He’d spent eons there, content with similar nothingness.
And yet, this was different, though subtly so.
The ephemeral pain, barely felt but still defi...
2024-07-04 13:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post