With no valid destination circle, Ashtoreth’s [Runic Warp] had a large margin of inaccuracy. This meant that they had to aim for the air high above the city lest she be dumped below ground, and this meant that she tumbled into the air above a large body of and some bridges moments after the spell finished.
Before her lay Manhattan. Smoke seemed to rise from m...
2025-03-29 22:27:39 +0000 UTC View PostNearly an hour later, Ashtoreth and Frost warped back to Earth and landed exactly where they’d first been taken from, right next to the very same police car that she’d kicked a door off of.
It was the same moment that the tutorial had begun. Nearby was the very same beam of red light encircled by swirling black clouds, with a whole host of demons flying out of it.
“All right, ...
2025-03-29 22:24:35 +0000 UTC View Post“One last gear check!” Ashtoreth said as she rose the morning of their departure.
Dazel moved into the warm spot that she’d left on the bed, curling up to fall back to sleep. “You don’t need another gear check.”
“I can’t hurt,” said Ashtoreth. “And I, for one, like to lord over my magic items, thank you very much.”
She consulted the system to loo...
2025-03-28 21:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post“All right, troops! Listen up!”
Ashtoreth looked over where Frost, Kylie, and Hunter were lounging on the couch that they’d dragged outside. She wore a military uniform, complete with a black helmet that had two holes for her horns. As she spoke, she pulled a telescoping pointer from her belt, extended it, then conjured a glamour of a holographic image of earth and pointed to it. 2025-03-27 22:45:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Christmas Eve began with an excursion to the Deadlight Shard, where they’d fought against the armies of a dracolich that inhabited a broken tower. They’d been in good spirits, reaving down armies of skeletal drakes and decaying wizards while bellowing out the lyrics to every carol they knew.
From they’re they’d moved to an interplanar bastion that was held by a group of slavers ca...
2025-03-26 21:14:19 +0000 UTC View PostI'll probably be doing tier updates a little earlier than usual for the next few days. My sleep schedule is way off after getting sick and doing a bunch of oversleeping, so I'm going to update before I go to sleep.
Unfortunately, I'm only two chapters ahead on the 3rd tier right now (up to 81). Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have fully completed (and posted) the 25/25 chapter goal...
2025-03-25 21:47:14 +0000 UTC View PostAfter an hour or so of the most spectacular fighting between a vending machine and a Jack O’lantern that the cosmos had ever seen, they settled in to do what Ashtoreth had been begging them all to do since the start of Halloween: tell stories.
“...And then,” Ashtoreth said, leaning into the light of the fire, “everyone who had once been a port of Mrs Johnstone’s grade six classr...
2025-03-25 21:40:26 +0000 UTC View PostThe sound the pipe organ grew louder and louder as Ashtoreth finished climbing the outer steps of the cathedral and reached the double doors. She spared a single glance over her shoulder at the strange, metal city below, flashes of light and roars of sound indicating where her allies fought.
Then she pushed open the massive double doors before her and strode into the cavernous interior of...
2025-03-25 05:08:00 +0000 UTC View Post{Ding! You level up! You are now level 100.}
{You gain 12 DEX, 12 STR, 18 VIT, 14 MAG, 7 PSY, 7 DEF}
{Reaching level 100 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armament].}
{Reaching level 100 has altered your advancement progression. You will now be granted advancement every 10 le...
2025-03-24 05:08:01 +0000 UTC View Post“First things first,” Ashtoreth said the next morning as they sat in the cramped living area of her tiny house. “I’m level 62. Is anybody else level 60?”
“Hunter’s highest,” said Frost.
“I’m 57,” Hunter said. “How are you only 62? You did a whole other tutorial. Er, scenario.”
“Uh-huh!” she said. “But tier 2 starts at 60. The progress slows very...
2025-03-23 05:08:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Gotta hand it to Hunter,” Dazel said. “In a million years, you never would have thought of shaming them into cooperation.”
“True,” she said. “But I don’t think it would have worked if I tried anyway. This is all my fault, after all.”
Night had fallen over the jungle outside, and once again they were bedding down. She’d blocked the entrance to the cave with a gla...
2025-03-22 04:25:51 +0000 UTC View Post“Okay,” said Ashtoreth. “That was all a bit too much to deal with right away. So I’m thinking, why not spend a day or so in here and everyone can find their bearings?”
They were standing in a cave whose entrance was on the uppermost reaches of the rocky hillside where they’d spawned. Ashtoreth had killed the giant lightning centipede, but just as she’d turned away from that ...
2025-03-21 04:17:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe tall, robed figures with bundles of tentacles instead of heads each had four arms that sprouted from their shoulders at right angles to one another. The nearest of the enemies raised one of these arms and pointed at her, launching a thin bolt of black energy that swivelled and zigzagged through the air, impossible to dodge.
It struck her in the back just above the hip, and she felt th...
2025-03-20 04:46:26 +0000 UTC View PostAshtoreth sped through the air toward the fleeing army of alien beings, conscious that she had only a few moments before she had to turn her attention to one of the fast approaching, island-shaped bosses.
She tried to track the movements of the taller elites as they scurried beneath her, conscious that she’d only have a small window to execute one and hopefully start a chain reaction. 2025-03-19 04:55:14 +0000 UTC View Post
It was immediately clear to Ashtoreth that they’d spawned in the Abyssal Rift, even if she’d never see it before.
She stood in the middle of a vast, circular cavern filled with a diffuse light which had no apparent source. Gravity seemed to follow its own laws in the cavern, so that the landscape that was distantly above her was populated by the same strange assortment of terrain feat...
2025-03-18 04:21:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, they sat in the common room with less than an hour before they were ejected into their first scenario.
“We should be able to make level 300 relatively quickly,” said Ashtoreth. “Maybe a month or so.”
“That long?” said Frost. “It only took a day to get you higher than 50.”
“Once we hit 60, we reach tier 2,” said Ashtoreth. “We’ll get an...
2025-03-17 04:34:36 +0000 UTC View Post{You absorb [Tutorial Boon Core]; Tier 1}
{You absorb [Archfiend Pluto Core]; Tier 1}
{Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! You gain 4 levels. You are now level 52.}
“Ding!” Ashtoreth said. “52. I’ve still got an advancement from level 48, too. And since we’re technically invincible, I can finally clear some of these upgrades I...
2025-03-16 04:37:23 +0000 UTC View PostDazel repaired the shard in a moment, turning it from a dysfunctional collection of fragments of chaos into a functional one with little more than a touch.
It sort of frustrated Ashtoreth, how quickly he did it. After all, it took her almost two hours to carve out the runes she’d memorized for her pre-planned magical ritual, the one that would expend the shard to reorder the tutorial. 2025-03-15 05:08:01 +0000 UTC View Post
After more than fifteen hours of searching, Ashtoreth landed to join the humans where they had gathered on the cliffside above the lava lake.
Her fights with the dragon and her sister had left the terrain a flat expanse of blasted, scorched rock. Kylie stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the lake of lava, and Frost and Hunter sat together on the chest that held Pluto’s hat.
<... 2025-03-14 05:08:01 +0000 UTC View Post{The tutorial boss has been slain by the following creatures:}
{Vampiric Archfiend Ashtoreth — Level 48}
{The tutorial is now finished. An interactive point has been created on a cliffside overlooking a ruined bridge that once led into the center of the lake of fire. As you are a victorious participant, interacting with this point will gra...
2025-03-13 05:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostPluto clapped her gloved hands together in front of her. “Bravo!” she said. “Is Ashtoreth ready to fight at last? Because all you’ve done so far is run from me—dancing from trick to trick.”
But Ashtoreth could see through her sister’s performance, even at this distance. Pluto’s voice wavered.
“I know you’re terrified,” Ashtoreth said. “And you should be. You...
2025-03-12 10:26:20 +0000 UTC View PostPluto jerked her gaze toward the distant citadel as it broke away from the stone bridge connecting it to the cliffside and began to fall out of sight.
Ashtoreth’s sword finished conjuring a moment later, and she took advantage of her sister’s momentary distraction to launch herself back toward the citadel with a [Mighty Strike], flying fast through the air as the ston...
2025-03-12 10:10:00 +0000 UTC View PostAshtoreth immediately absorbed every core that she had, sure that the boss had to grant at least two levels by itself.
{Ding! Ding! Ding! You gain 3 levels. You are now level 38.}
{You gain 33 DEX, 33 STR, 45 VIT, 39 MAG, 21 PSY, 21 DEF}
{Reaching level 36 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armame...
2025-03-12 10:05:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe citadel floated in the air at the center of the lake, a cluster of narrow spires and high ramparts that were clad in matte black steel.
Anticipating a trap, Ashtoreth rose high into the air as the skygorger demons took a position some distance out from the walls and began to cast their spells, no doubt within the range of a great many diabolic archers.
Rather than conjure her ca...
2025-03-12 10:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post{Reaching level 30 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armament].}
{Reaching level 30 has altered your advancement progression. You will now be granted advancement every 3 levels.}
“Seven levels,” she said. “It’s time.”
“Look,” said Dazel. “I know I was saying that it looked like you co...
2025-03-12 05:15:16 +0000 UTC View PostAll Ashtoreth could think as the flames came toward her was: would Dazel lie to her?
While the answer to that question was an emphatic yes, it was also the case that Dazel wouldn’t lie to her to get her killed. He knew fiendish runes: surely he knew draconic runes as well. He knew, or could guess, what this spell would do.
Briefly, she wondered when he’d made it. Had he...
2025-03-11 04:58:27 +0000 UTC View PostCrucifect dove toward her, enraged by some combination of being maimed and being insulted.
Seeing that the distance between them was great enough for her to regenerate, she leveled her sword at him, then launched it with her [Mighty Strike], aiming for where one wing met his shoulder.
The counterforce snapped both her ankles and sent her tumbling back across the gro...
2025-03-10 04:17:53 +0000 UTC View PostIn every corner of the cosmos, it was generally acknowledged that dragons were to be feared.
Across all worlds, they were known as annihilators, plunderers, and tyrants. Such was their power that the image of a dragon was one of the first things that would resonate across the cosmos and seed itself in the minds of an outer realm’s inhabitants.
They were monsters whose might was ri...
2025-03-09 05:27:57 +0000 UTC View PostAshtoreth bounded through the forest, slipping between the trees and searching for new enemies. Her stats were higher now, and to test her strength she leapt up and bounded off of a tree, beating her wings to carry herself high above the red-leafed canopy and scan the world below her.
She saw a slight break in the trees far ahead of her, then dove back beneath the canopy and ran toward it...
2025-03-08 06:12:01 +0000 UTC View PostShe didn’t bother asking why Dazel knew how to write an infernal contract. So far, it seemed that he used to be some kind of spellcaster, and his knowledge of the antithesis shard made it clear that he’d been a very powerful one.
Within the confines of her illusory bedroom, Dazel passed her page after page of the contract he wrote out in diabolic script on conjured, tran...
2025-03-08 06:11:02 +0000 UTC View Post