Ali landed in the small grove, amazed to see just how much bigger the shrine had grown. It towered above the mossy ground and the little meandering stone path, reaching as high as some of her smaller trees, spreading a familiar glow around the grove from the runes that adorned its surface and the potent magic that flowed through them.
Shrine of the Ancient Grove
An ancient mystical shrine of unknown origin. Offers advanced class features and attu...
You have entered the Grand Library Arcana.
All Learning and Knowledge magic is enhanced by 10%
Ali popped into the atrium of the grand library and floated down to the habitable wing of the upper floor, Ryn’s constant efforts to improve it were clearly visible in the new tables and chairs, and the rugs covering the cold stone floor. There were dozens of people studying or reading, many who she did not personally recognize. Several glanced ...
2025-04-14 14:00:20 +0000 UTC View PostAli’s awareness returned to the gray surroundings of the Spirit Realm. The world flickered and outside, the Temple of Blood was suddenly restored to its former glory. Squatting up against the indistinct trunk of a partially transparent tree beside her, the witch doctor kept watch over her, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. A rather impressive pile of dead spiders, scorpions, and even a couple of Ghost Stalkers lay strewn about. The world flickered back to ...
2025-04-13 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostShe’s just a kid, Malika thought, disgusted by the kind of evil being that would impale a kid to a tree with a bone spear. She approached the wide-eyed, scared girl slowly. The troll girl’s clothes were ripped and stained with blood and her face was streaked with tears that had long ago dried up, leaving tracks in the dirt and grime. But as Malika approached, she raised her chin with a brittle pride betrayed by the trembling in her body.
“I’m not goi...
2025-04-12 14:00:19 +0000 UTC View PostMato transpired, as trees did. Sap flowed, drawing mana from his vast trunk and circulating it out through his leaves and into the world beyond, filling the broken ruined buildings with the influx of his Sanctuary Aura.
The frantic battle against the paramount troll of Aman Rak and his final Death Knight ascension faded to a quiet memory in the soft tranquility of his arboreal existence. However, the notifications still glowed against the bark of his inner nature.
Calen gently cradled Lyeneru in his arms while Malika poured healing magic into her torn and shredded body. She looked so frail and small without her blazing wings, crackling bow, and the powerful force of her personality. Her skin was gaunt and her cheeks and eyes sunken as if she had grown old over the course of the battle – he didn’t dare to look at the rest of her body. The injuries she had sustained at the hand of the Blind Lich were more than he could bear, but the wor...
2025-04-10 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAli scrambled from emergency to emergency with a frenetic urgency, barely holding on in a fight where a single mistake could spell disaster, unraveling their defenses and killing them all. The mental grip with which she clung to the recall potion in her inventory was cramping just like a normal muscle. Yet she hadn’t personally landed a single attack.
Her sole remaining Blood Berserker had been caught in the fear and vortex combination, dropping its remaining health t...
2025-04-08 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: A little shorter interlude chapter today to tide you over till tomorrow. Tomorrow's chapter will be longer. Hopefully that will make up for the tease!
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Worthington sat quietly daydreaming. The Silver Cog weekly strategy meetings were almost always a serious bore, and he couldn’t wait to get back to his warehouse and the newest cloth shipments that were scheduled to arrive this afternoon from his eastern trade route. He was going...
2025-04-07 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostHow is she still alive? Malika thought, staring at the broken form of the once-powerful Night Elf Pathfinder. She had to be holding herself together through the sheer force of her will alone.
“You still wish to give chase, Elf?” The Lich’s mocking resonated through the air. “Can you not see the futility of your pride?”
“It seems that someone broke your precious barrier,” Lyeneru taunted, not directly answering the question. Indee...
2025-04-06 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostStanding within its roaring fury, Malika became exquisitely aware of why the Blood Vortex was so devastating. The individual slashes from the blood blades might have been relatively small, but they lashed against her body with the fury of a storm, unremitting whirling strikes that sliced across her skin dozens of times per second – a literal death-by-a-thousand-cuts attack.
But Resilience of Body and Mind, her newest Soul Armor advancement, proved to be the perfect coun...
2025-04-05 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAxes blurred again with speed and power, and Mato braced against the ground. The air shimmered with the shattering crack of the collision and a shockwave of dust rippled out across the courtyard, blasting past Ali’s barrier.
“Critical Block?” Ali asked.
“Must be,” Calen said. “Mato has him, let’s go.” He punctuated his words with a volley of shining arrows.
“Attack!” Ali commanded. “Melee fighters charge. Ice and fire, shoo...
2025-04-03 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostDeath is not the end, but the beginning.
- Nevyn Eld, The Blind Lich.
“The Temple of Blood,” Ali murmured, gazing at the summit of Aman Rak using the peerless draconic vision of one of her Armored Drakes. The entire temple was ringed by a low, decorative stone wall with a large gate standing open as if inviting them to enter. Several sloped-roof ancient stone buildings clustered around the open courtyard of hard-packed dirt. Compared to the...
2025-04-02 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Thanks, Ali,” Malika said, sorting through the items she had collected.
“This might be interesting,” Ali said, holding a heavy gold band on her outstretched palm. “Joraa’s tusk ring.”
“Well, let’s see what we have here,” Malika said, slipping her awareness into the now-unbound storage ring. There was the usual assortment of potions, backup gear, and supplies, but her attention was immediately drawn to several letters stashed away in a corner. Sh...
2025-04-01 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostI hope this meeting doesn’t go too late, Lydia thought, eyeing the fading afternoon sun as she hurried along the main street on the way to the Adventurers Guild. She had begun to believe that Myrin’s Keep was turning around, becoming safer, and then suddenly the horrific news of William Turner being stabbed to death in his home had spread like wildfire through the influential circles. Who could have done such a terrible thing?
She glanced at the lette...
2025-03-31 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThey waited several hundred yards down the trail, relying on Calen to kill the continuous stream of Blood Thralls Joraa was sending out to attack them. The boss himself was tied to the blood lake, but his minions seemed to have free rein – and he had not forgotten about them.
By the time Ali was ready, they had mostly pieced together a new strategy. Joraa was a raid boss and gained enormous bonuses to his health. He was also a Blood Shaman, and so his health was already...
2025-03-30 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostMalika dodged the whistling greataxe, watching as it slashed a fraction of an inch past her left eye.
“Blood Vortex!” Malika yelled. She still couldn’t see the formation of health powering the blood magic, but she could see the preparation telegraphed in the giant troll’s body language and the stamina flowing around the invisible magical formation. She had learned the hard way how to recognize it in an instant. She pulsed stamina into Divine Step, le...
2025-03-29 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostEven though she had just learned to make them, Ali felt a surge of pride at how powerful her giant troll was. She knew she was being silly, but he was her summon, and he was awesome.
She found a few familiar-looking skills on the Blood Berserker skill list, and she quickly scanned them to confirm they were the same – Blood Manipulation and Scent of Blood were identical to her Blood Shaman’s skills, although, she easily noticed that the berserker’s scent skill wasn...
2025-03-27 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostRoses are red.
Violets are red.
Blood is red.
You are dead.
- Tol’brekk, leader of Aman Rak. First poem, penned at age five.
Leaving the guild raid group back home to revel in their fresh victory, Ali began the chore of deconstructing all the monsters. Several of the Bone Warriors in this group had been at a higher level than those already recorded in her Grimoire, so she made certain she collected everything, updating her imprints as she went...
2025-03-26 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Happy Tuesday, hope your week is starting out well.
TLDR: The increased chapter frequency will be staying.
I'm sure most of you have noticed the change to chapter frequency and length over the last month or so. Prior to the change, I was releasing full scenes as single chapters, regardless of length. This resulted in an average chapter length of about 5.5k words, with some creeping up over 8-10k occasionally. What I'm doing now is splitting some of the larger chapters and rel...
2025-03-25 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post“Attack,” Calen called at the sight of Bloodlust dropping, not that they needed any direction, and volleys of arrows and withheld spells were suddenly unleashed on the giant berserker troll, making the mist that billowed around him grow a deeper and angrier red.
The troll slashed crosswise at Mato with a powerful swing of his righthand greataxe and, for the second time, the sudden shockwave rippled through the air, making the troll howl with anger. The second weapon cr...
2025-03-24 14:00:36 +0000 UTC View PostCalen skirted the dense undergrowth, ducking under the hanging coils of an emerald-green tree snake. He made no sounds and left no traces, his Eclipse and Explorer skills continuously sipping from his stamina to make him practically invisible to the eyes of his foes. He kept his awareness focused on the breeze, what little of it there was down among the trees, attentive for any changes in direction. Ever since Ali had made him aware that the Blood Shamans possessed a scent-based...
2025-03-23 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostSilence descended suddenly upon the battlefield; a stark contrast to the panic-fueled, violent mayhem that had consumed her utterly until just moments ago.
Ali gazed in astonishment at the immensity of carnage and destruction wrought by a single giant troll. Of her entire melee force, only blood and dead bodies remained, strewn about like broken dolls. One single shaman had survived, standing beside her witch doctor and ice mages, and that had only been achieved because...
2025-03-22 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostFuck, the troll has Last Stand, too! This is bad!
In Mato’s repertoire, Last Stand was his best defensive ability. But in the hands of a Berserker, it was a potent damage boost. Berserker rage grew proportional to how much health you had lost – relative to your maximum. Typically, a berserker’s current health value went down to increase his damage, but Last Stand granted temporary health – allowing the percentage of health lost to increase beyond one hundre...
2025-03-21 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostMato shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears and levered himself up onto all fours, heaving splintered branches and the remains of the tree trunk off his back with a tremendous surge of strength. The Troll had come from nowhere, and with a single strike had sent him flying like a rag doll. I’m supposed to be heavy. He was not used to flying. He didn’t like flying. All four paws – or roots – on the ground. Like it’s meant to be. A massive gash a...
2025-03-20 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAli was in remarkably good spirits as they made their way through the jungle along what was progressively becoming much more of a road than a trail, avoiding potholes and the encroaching overgrowth. While she kept a close watch on her minions, using their senses to help Calen scout the area for monsters, she still maintained her split focus, keeping tabs on the trolls lobbing ice bolts at Naia’s boss halfway across the continent.
“Back off and let it regenerate ...
2025-03-19 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post“What is that?” Seth asked, and Ali glanced up to find her protégé standing beside her with a dark tome clutched in one hand. He was gazing intently at the Spectral Nightrose which radiated a tiny aura of death-affinity mana into the surrounds.
“An undead flower,” Lira said.
Seth crouched down to examine it, and Ali took the opportunity to glance at the book he had been studying. Necromancy? If she wasn’t mistaken, he had found her book on bas...
2025-03-18 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostMalika sat calmly, her mind relaxed with her awareness flowing through both her mundane senses and her Soul Sight in the training exercise Rezan had taught her. It had initially proved frustrating to learn, but now she used it to relax after the stress and frenetic pace of battle. As she took each long, slow breath, her energy rose within her, swelling upward through her spine and heart. Then, as she exhaled, her energy spread outward through her body in a relaxing wave. Their ...
2025-03-17 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAli’s first task was to see to the unconscious trolls still trapped in the ice and being continuously drained. She flew over, stopping just outside the range of the heavy necromantic aura emanating from the black altar of ice constructed atop a pile of red-tinged stone, looking about for Malika. But Malika was already standing right beside her, wearing a grimace in anticipation of what was to come.
We must end their suffering, one way or another. Ali gritted ...
2025-03-16 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostWhat’s this? Calen thought, eagerly reading the shining words unfolding on the tapestry in his mind.
Requirements met for skill advancement.
Mentor: Lyeneru Silverleaf.
Radiant Archery has surpassed level 40.
Mastered an advanced bow draw technique.
Landed a single attack dealing more than 2500 damage in raid combat.
Observed the Ambush of an elite, evolved archer in combat.
Dexterity has surpassed 800.
Radiant Archery ...
Calen left Ali and Malika to deal with the altar and the frozen troll prisoners. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, with his skills he would just get in their way – besides, someone had to keep an eye out for wandering monsters after all that noise. With all his senses focused, he carefully patrolled the perimeter of the courtyard and the ruined ice temple.
Or whatever this place is, he thought. Explorer was giving him confusing impressions, which he assume...
2025-03-13 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post