Cornman8700

MT 226 - The Boss We Deserve

MT 226 - The Boss We Deserve

With a wave of the Elder Lich’s hand, the six remaining collectors exploded. Tons of frozen debris rained down, but another swipe of the hand swept it all aside to land clear of the soldiers. Spiritual energy funneled from the wrecked devices, flowing into the General’s palm.

With a few gestures, an Undead soldier floated up from the ground, the energy invaded its body, and the creature reshaped itself into the form of the Lich Commander we�...

MT 225 - Lich in a Ditch

MT 225 - Lich in a Ditch

“Stay alert, we aren’t done,” I thought to the group. The Demilich’s soul thrashed and escaped from the corpse, fleeing up through the mound of bodies held at bay by my Elemental Barrier. I noted that Nuralie’s Spiritual poison was still attacking the boss’s soul even as it fled, and it had to shake off Xim’s Divine fire. That was good information to have.

My Soul-Sight pierced the corpse dome and I watched for a second a...

MT 224 - Handling It

MT 224 - Handling It

***

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: DELVE CORE 9963

ADDENDUM NOTE: Those bastards.

***

Core 9963 watched the Delvers work in shock. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, so she reset her sensor arrays and even did a soft reboot of her operating system. When everything came back online, the scene before her was the same.

They were stealing her Minion.

The social victory was one thing. That was irritating but valid. Not all D...

MT 223 - Please Die

MT 223 - Please Die

***

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: DELVE CORE 9963

ADDENDUM NOTE: Sometimes it’s better to cut your losses.

***

Delve Core 9963 had come online after a brief, eighty-year nap to discover Phase 2 had been implemented. She’d been surprised it had happened so soon, but also excited beyond words to finally see her Delve in action.

She’d worked so hard to unearth and capture the Throne of Zng after the fall of the prior ...

MT 222 - 1,518

MT 222 - 1,518

The legion was spread out in a large chamber that looked like it might have once been an outdoor field. The side where Nuralie and I perched had windows and large doors that gave the impression of a building’s exterior wall. The observation platform was about three stories up, with the second story featuring several small terraces accommodating tables and six-legged pieces of furniture beneath the ice, which I assumed were lounge chairs. There were a few dark for...

Volume 2 Bonus Chapters and Notes

Hello!

I wanted to make a post detailing some of the work that was done on Volume 2 after publication on Patreon and RR and to provide a couple of scenes that got added during our review of the volume.

Vol 2 Notes

Substantively, there is only one change in Volume 2 of note that has yet to be mentioned, and it’s one that doesn’t have a huge impact on the story. It’s the timing of the Dumping achievement.

Minor spoilers for Volume 3, which everyone here ha...

MT 221 - How Many Zombies in a Horde?

MT 221 - How Many Zombies in a Horde?

Instead of experiencing the abstract concept of instantaneous movement on the soles of my boots, I felt something slippery.

Despite not focusing on Agility, my score of 10 still placed me into the superhuman category for balance and coordination, if only barely. Thus, the slick surface refusing to grant me an iota of friction did not cause me to take a tumble.

Falling on my ass would have been embarrassing.

No,...

MT 220 - Delving Through the Snow

MT 220 - Delving Through the Snow

Ayama was an ecological impossibility. It was a verdant nation established in the center of the Wastes. A century prior, the space it occupied had been as barren as everything else around its borders. Godking Ayamari had spent decades performing magical terraforming of the region, an ongoing project that transformed frigid, lifeless desert into a lush, temperate rainforest.

No other nation held claim to the Wastes, since no one wanted it. T...

Updates 1-1-25

Happy New Year!

2024 was a pretty transformative year for us here, and hopefully it brought some positive things into your life as well. I wanted to take the opportunity to mention some stuff that'll be happening in 2025.

Volume 1 Publication

Volume 1 is getting an official launch!

We've been working with Aethon Books to get Mage Tank onto Kindle, KU, and Audible. Volume 1 will be releasing on March 4th both in digital print and audiobook. Here's the 2025-01-02 05:16:33 +0000 UTC View Post

MT 219 - Implant or Eccentricity?

MT 219 - Implant or Eccentricity?

Etja gave us all a long look while we waited for Grotto to join us. The Delve Core was allegedly unaffected by the outside influence and was coming to assist Etja in judging us. Grotto teleported into the room, wearing his little man disguise. His c’thonic body had been destroyed, and he’d need access to an array of specific organic compounds to remake it.

I’d never asked him where he’d gotten the ‘supplies’ to make the wee gent...

MT 218 - Offer on the Table

MT 218 - Offer on the Table

“That sounds like quite the opportunity,” said Etja. “We haven’t had the chance to pursue any Dungeons, given what little time has passed since returning from Deijin’s Descent. We are interested in them, of course. However, like the matter of your Creation Delve, I’m not sure why the Empire would need outside assistance.”

Empress Littana nodded contemplatively. “When we initially requested a meeting, it was primarily to clear the ...

MT 217 - Cognitive Biases

MT 217 - Cognitive Biases

I was compromised.

I didn’t know how it happened. I didn’t know what kind of danger I posed. All I knew was that my mind couldn’t be trusted.

And it wasn’t just me. It was almost everyone in the party.

Three hours after handing Hysteria off to Avarice, I found a wealth of new essences in my inventory, along with a note. The essences were our reward for helping with the dramatic avatar’s capture. Fertile Soil essence, Purified ...

MTB3 Epilogue

MTB3 Epilogue

*****

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY USER NAME: [ERROR: REDACTED]

ADDENDUM NOTE: Two months after the founding of Closetland

*****

Brae’ach seethed as he grasped the table, and the air shuddered around him. Lately, it was always crowded around Brae’ach; there was always some avatar, some United, some follower that needed his attention. Jakom feared it would soon be too much for him to bea...

MT 216 - Intentional Nation Building

MT 216 - Intentional Nation Building

I undid a swath of slots at the Icon’s feet. The moment the floor was released, it crumbled away, reduced to tiny chunks like something had been taking a sledgehammer to it every day for a month. As the floor collapsed to reveal the plant beneath, the Icon used its fleshy tendrils to crawl away up the wall.

The Dominion Ivy was a pulsating hive of endless thorn-covered vines. Their leaves danced and shivered. Melon-sized buds blossomed...

MT 215 - God Wranglin'

MT 215 - God Wranglin'

All of us were experienced enough to wait for the kill notification. Predictably, we didn’t get one.

“I’ll be honest,” I said. “I’m not sure how to double-tap a puddle of burning goo.”

“More fire,” Nuralie offered. “I have some acid, as well.”

“I can keep using Disintegrate,” said Etja. “And you can send it to the void?”

I decided that plan was as good as any and threw an experimental hammer at the pile ...

Chapters Incoming & Brief Update

Hey folks,

I've got three chapters ready to go, with at least two of them dropping today. I've been working them as a group to make sure everything is lined up the way I'd like since these are the final few entries in volume 3. I'm going to try and run them over with SRK a final time today and push them out as soon as possible, but I need to catch a few hours of sleep first.

I did a ton of writing this weekend and I'm really excited for volume 4. I did so much writing, in fact, t...

MT 214 - Lockdown

MT 214 - Lockdown

The shockwave pushed me back a step, and a dense web of cracks appeared in the inventory slots below our feet. I was momentarily stunned by the sight but tore my eyes away from the now-wiggling vines when metallic plates along the golem’s arm began to open.

The inside of the golem was covered in glowing mana weaves, but the power rolling off of them was hundreds of times more potent than what the Chovali had been working with.

The fist disconnected...

MT 213 - Unworthy

MT 213 - Unworthy

Hysteria flipped the chalkboard over, revealing a cartoonish image of a castle.

“A disaster like an earthquake is a classic example of an external threat with well-defined boundaries,” they said. The castle cracked down the middle, then crumbled. “In this example, ‘nature’ is the external threat. It originates from outside of the society itself. It is also easy to establish a clear beginning and end to such a disaster since it’s over once the g...

MT 212 - Divine Cowboy

MT 212 - Divine Cowboy

“Sorry for making you look bad,” I said to Hysteria, filled with regret. “I’m an asshole, and I deserve a good spanking.” I hung my head in shame.

“He is,” said Xim.

“It is true,” said Varrin.

“And you,” said Hysteria, pointing past us. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I turned to see Etja walking into the obelisk room, picking gravel from her hair. She stumbled over a dead Gekkog, then swapped to...

MT 211 - Chat Room

MT 211 - Chat Room

“Brae’ach!” said Hysteria, clapping their hands together. “Buddy, friend, pal, guy, when have I ever called you for something that wasn’t important?”

The hulking Davahn stared at the avatar, what little I could see of their face devoid of emotion. The grid of souls surrounding them sat silent and still, and the moment stretched until even I felt awkward.

Hysteria huffed. “The king of Hiward got away,” they said, then ra...

MT 210 - System Call

MT 210 - System Call

Please provide additional context.

I took a deep breath and formulated my argument.

“Delve Core 1156 has suffered significant damage to his chassis and has become non-responsive,” I said. “The perpetrator is suspected to be another Delver, but I am unable to determine whether that Delver has been killed. An entity that matches the Delver’s appearance is currently interfering with the obelisk for Delve 1156-B, ...

MT 209 - The Plant Dimension

MT 209 - The Plant Dimension

Using Coordinated Thinker to find a valid teleport location for Shortcut was a bit like groping about blindly with a big phantom hand. I didn’t ‘see’ the spaces I was searching through, but I could get a feel for their structure and dimensions. 

It made me think of one of those sticky hands I used to get out of a gumball toy machine at the grocery store. There was a long, stretchy ‘arm’ that connected the appendage to my perceptio...

MT 208 - Shared Fate

MT 208 - Shared Fate

I was blinded for several terrifying seconds after the beam hit. I kept a spiritual eye on everyone with Soul Sight, but the wastelanders seemed to be as fucked as I was. When the afterimage cleared from my vision, it was just in time to see a massive section of the six-foot-thick stone floor droop and fall away into the empty space of the Closet below. Blue’s corpse went along with it. This time, there was no miraculous resurrection for the mage.

The...