“I hope she’s going to be ok,” Malika said, breaking the solemn mood as the three of them crossed the bridge in the middle of town.
“You can trust Ali,” Mato said. “She’s strong and resourceful.”
“I know, but…”
“I wish we could be out there helping her, too,” Calen put in. “But this life drain is making us all vulnerable.”
“Ali will get the water, and then we...
2024-05-19 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostDungeon Farming is adventurer jargon. When high-level adventurers or delvers kill the same low-level boss or monster over and over for resources or item drops, they are said to be farming it. Risk is eliminated by significantly out-leveling the threat, and the only thing that matters is time efficiency in exploiting the dungeon respawn for profit. Even the opportunity for earning experience is eliminated by this strategy due to the rapidly diminishing returns.
&...
2024-05-16 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Ali paused to smell the beautiful climbing roses that graced the fence of Eliyen Mistwood’s beautiful garden before they all went in. She was certain she would never tire of seeing the riotous array of plants, herbs, and trees all laid out in what appeared to be an entirely accidental natural harmony. It was at once a garden, and simultaneously a work of art.
Given the bounties placed on her and Malika’s heads, and the presumed interest of ...
2024-05-14 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostWhat? Are you kidding? It’s a storage ring – of course it should be Soulbound to your mana. Yes, it’s more expensive, but do you really want any random oaf poking through your stuff?
- Giddy Clicksprocket, Jewelcrafter, Myrin’s Keep.
Ali walked the rest of the way to the Adventurers Guild with the disconcerting prickling itch between her shoulder blades that kept making her turn around suddenly, certain someone...
2024-05-12 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: This is a non-story informational chapter.
Several readers have been asking for a full set of stat sheets, including long-form descriptions for the skills all collected in one place. I will probably do this again, but only at major development breakpoints.
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This is an optional chapter containing full status sheet dumps for the characters, along with the skill descriptions at the levels they reached right after defeating the Rui...
2024-05-10 13:55:00 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: I hope you enjoy the chapter!
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The Ahn Khen elders tell of a legendary ancient warrior who trained day and night for many years, striving to perfect the Nine Paths. This nameless warrior became so skilled his story began to be told across the land, even in his own time. Many people would travel great distances just to challenge him, however, he would always turn them away, rebuffing their pleas, taunts, and even sometimes underhanded attacks with e...
2024-05-09 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
The Twin Wights had been an incredibly difficult fight; a serious wakeup call. By all accounts she should be happy that they had defeated it – and first try too. But Malika had only one thing on her mind.
Health: 291/291 (-38% Life Drain)
I can’t heal it.
By now, Malika was quite used to her Healing Mantra being able to erase wounds like they were nothing more than painf...
2024-05-07 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Ali was sure Malika wasn’t nearly as certain about her ability to survive the damage as she had sounded – and had only said it that confidently so that she wouldn’t worry. But she chose to take Malika’s word for it, trusting her judgment. She did, however, load her up with extra healing magic before she called for fireballs, just to be safe.
Ali kept a close eye on the chaos of the magic she had unleashed, sorting the exploding fire man...
2024-05-05 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Time to see how the battle goes!
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The Dungeon Survival Guide, Rule 5: Teamwork.
You cannot defeat a dungeon solo, so don’t even try – what are you going to do if you are a Fire Mage and find yourself facing monsters that are immune to fire? How will you defeat a monster with an anti-magic aura? The optimal group is five, and includes a tank, a healer, and a diverse suite of perception, magic, and martial skills ...
Ali stood on the final bridge, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill of the stale air as she gazed out over the outer ring of the ruined city. Reaching the bridge had been easier than she had expected – the dungeon had only respawned a few of the undead and bone elementals in the inner and central rings, and those had been easy for them to kill, isolated as they were.
From her vantage point on the basalt-lined bridge arching down to join wit...
2024-04-30 14:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hope you all had a great week. Time for a new chapter!
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Ali stared in amazement at a smithy transformed. She and her friends had stopped by Thuli’s smithy to get some repair work done on Mato's armor, and Ali had wanted to check in to see how Kavé was doing in her new apprenticeship, but as soon as they entered, Ali had to stop and stare. She had thought it transformed the last time she had stopped by to introduce Kavé and T...
2024-04-28 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Mato eagerly watched the Skeletal Wyvern circling lazily above the stone ruins drawing slowly closer, a barely visible swirl of greenish mist trailing from its wings. According to Ali, it was a manifestation of its poison mana – a toxic aura – and the reason he kept being poisoned just by being close to the monsters.
His anticipation was entirely due to his desire to test out his new Swipe: Battle Master advance, and Calen’s ready acceptance ...
2024-04-25 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Back in his Beastkin body, Mato rotated his shoulders with a groan, before stretching his legs and arms one at a time. He had been fighting nonstop for more than two hours and he felt amazing. Well, sore, but amazing. The constant rush of charging through buildings, smashing his skills against the armor of the undead, and dragging them up to the fireballs only to begin again was a rush he couldn’t begin to explain. Even the frustration of flying monsters getting aw...
2024-04-23 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: New chapter, I hope you enjoy!
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Ali took the last step off the stone bridge, alighting on the time-worn gray flagstones of the central ring. To the north, she could see the jagged edge where about a quarter of the ring was simply missing, a great empty swathe of darkness where once had been a thriving district, ripped away by an ancient catastrophe to presumably fall shattered to the ground far below.
“This is s...
2024-04-21 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Ali’s mana flowed, shaping the elegant glowing runes in the center of the new, smaller square Calen had chosen for them today. It wasn’t as defensible as their last spot, but after fighting for most of yesterday, they had been able to make up a lot of ground. In the distance, between the buildings, Ali could make out the slender stone bridge that arched out across the void to the second, slightly lower ring, silhouetted against the soft dim glow that filtered...
2024-04-18 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe Dungeon Survival Guide, Rule 4: Preparation.
Bring the right gear, potions, and equipment – all the gold in the bank is not going to help you if you find yourself with too little armor to tank a hit, or in desperate need of a health potion because your healer got disrupted. Study what is known about the dungeon before entering and have a good plan for each boss. Make sure everybody knows the plan.
- The Unexplored Lands, by Lyeneru Silverleaf...
A/N: Bonus chapter today. Happy Monday!
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Calen sat quietly on what had once been a log and was now a granite bench taking in the warmth of Mato’s cookfire and listening to the banter of conversation around him. The food was good, as always. More than good. It was just that his stomach still seemed to be irritated after all that poison.
He glanced over at Ali who had returned to playing with the unusual glass-shard creature...
2024-04-15 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostMato’s paws ached. Technically, his whole body ached, and now that he was back in his Beastkin form he no longer had claws. But it was the persistent smashing of his paws into bone armor that had repeatedly been demonstrated to be denser and harder than stone that lingered in his mind. Too little damage. Far too little. He was hard-pressed not to imagine himself as a child shaking a rattle, the way he had flailed at that elemental scorpion.
<...
2024-04-14 14:00:26 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hope you're having a great day! My apologies for the cliff last chapter, hopefully this makes up for it!
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Perched atop her barrier, Ali had seen the entire thing go down. When the giant Piercer Scorpion had raised its tail skyward, she had expected the usual formation of the magic that summoned its devastating Bone Spear attack. However, the array of bone affinity mana had created a vastly broader spell formation, drawing heavi...
2024-04-11 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostA little exploration today - I hope you all are having a great day!
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A domain then, in essence, is the extension of its originator’s personal mana through space. It is a deceptively simple concept, similar in principle to a mana signature, but in practice, it creates an extraordinarily complex weave of mana, allowing some control to be leveraged over the area it influences. Domains are as unique and varied as the person or creature creating them and are thus ...
2024-04-09 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Alexander sat quietly surveying the dingy tavern, almost deserted in the midafternoon. Lyton did not have much in the way of proper amenities, but at least they had an adequate ale. He was currently the only patron, and he had had to reassure the waitress that his tailored suit did not mean that he was a noble, and she could simply address him as ‘sir’. The ‘my lords’ were getting annoying – just now the useless girl was probably slacking off in t...
2024-04-07 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostVivian hopped through the shattered hole in the sewer floor, cushioning the impact with her legs as she landed in the cavern below. She had lived in Myrin’s Keep for a couple of years now, and she had not had even the slightest inkling that something like this existed below the town.
She waited as the five applicants shimmied down the rope, chatting excitedly among themselves. Their first encounter with the monsters in the sewer had been...
2024-04-04 14:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostNo treatise on the fundamentals of magic would be complete without a discussion of the nature of magical affinity. Unfortunately, the nature and relationships between magical affinities are as broad and complex a subject as magic itself. Classification has been, and remains, a contentious subject among magical scholars with at least a dozen conflicting systems being accepted as standard by a significant portion of the academic community.
A magical affi...
2024-04-02 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAli stood on the threshold watching dejectedly as Ryn’s bright smile gave way to a concerned frown.
“What’s wrong, Ali?”
It all came out in a rush – yesterday’s story, and her failure in the library. Her friends had all been supportive and concerned when Malika helped her back to the camp, and she had already told her story once to them. But even today, telling it a second time, there were still tears. Tears of ...
2024-03-31 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostDal’mohra reigned as the fabled city of learning for many centuries. It held the largest and most extensive library the world has ever seen and was the home of the brightest and most advanced magical scholars of the age. Legend tells of many fabulous inventions and discoveries arising due to the confluence of talent, knowledge, and mana that congregated within the city’s halls. It is hard to separate fact from legend so many years later, but this is precisely what we have set out to d...
2024-03-30 14:18:34 +0000 UTC View PostIt was late morning by the time their little party reached the gates of Myrin’s Keep. Ali sent all her minions, save the Acolyte, around the heavy battlements to enter the underground cavern via the river channel she had blasted through the rock during the Goblin siege. Her Acolyte had attracted enough attention in town already, and she had no idea what people would do if they saw her strolling around with an armed and armored Goblin Storm Shaman.
...
2024-03-30 13:56:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Ali breathed deeply through her nose, inhaling the warm afternoon forest air, and the scent of soil, trees, and the leaves that were slowly composting on the ground. She was quite familiar with urban living, having grown up in Dwarven-made stone dwellings far underground, her entire life lit by magic rather than the sun. But there was something fundamentally invigorating about being out and about in nature, and even as a child, she had loved running through her f...
2024-03-30 06:30:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Ali walked up Artisan’s Row by herself, enjoying the bright afternoon sunshine and the busy sidewalks as people went about their business. She was the subject of a few strange looks, walking with her Kobold Acolyte in tow, but familiars and pets were quite common on the streets of Myrin’s Keep, so nobody made a fuss.
It probably doesn’t hurt that she identifies as an Acolyte, Ali thought. She imagined it would be hard for the tow...
2024-03-30 06:10:49 +0000 UTC View PostAli stood on the threshold of her domain, staring out at the wasteland of bone and death that filled the remainder of the cavern. What had once been an ominous dark roiling expanse of hostile dungeon mana was now… empty. Somehow, her impulsive action of deconstructing the enormous bone spire in the center of the library had triggered a chain reaction of unraveling that went well beyond what she could have ever imagined.
There were still rem...
2024-03-30 05:47:36 +0000 UTC View PostLike many other professions and specializations, adventurers create their own jargon words to describe phenomena important to their lives and roles. ‘Tank’ is one such word. It means both the act of tanking and the role, individual, or Class that specializes in it. To tank a monster is to deliberately attract its attacks. The usual tools are damage, proximity, and specialized Taunt skills to appear the most ‘threatening’ to the monster.
Many ad...
2024-03-30 04:37:11 +0000 UTC View Post