Vex had been a little concerned that his words wouldn't be enough — but it turned out that he needn't have worried. The 'rebels', such as they were, were strangely willing to trust him on his word, though they insisted on sending someone in with them to the dungeon. The new person wouldn't have to accompany them — he'd stay at the edges of the bonus room, hopefully away from the danger, and focus on studying the glyphs that Vex gave him. In the meantime, Vex could go out to identify new g...
2022-10-26 17:38:00 +0000 UTC
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Vex sat uncomfortably in the caravan. The windows were all locked and spelled shut — he could have dispelled it rather easily, but chose not to. Ingress had said something about taking them somewhere secret, and was sitting in the caravan with them; it was a bit of a tight squeeze with five people, but Vex didn't figure it was a trap.
Or, well, they'd discussed it and figured there was a chance it was a trap, but Ingress had been genuine when he'd agreed to help with food distribution...
2022-10-24 17:26:41 +0000 UTC
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Communication was only the beginning. There was still more to be done — the Communication glyph was not, on its own, able to mimic anything so complex as even the [Telepathy] spell, let alone surpass the physical limitations that rustbite imposed on its victims.
But the set of glyphs they had were limited. Given time, Vex would have loved to explore the glyph system on his own; he could have spent days diving into different glyph combinations, identifying everything t...
2022-10-21 14:23:32 +0000 UTC
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Xothok was... antsy. He hated using that word to describe himself. It was a stupid word, for small, stupid people. What use was anxiety? He'd never had to worry about it before, because before, his main concern had been about getting food. There was nothing to worry about besides that, and that was a pretty easy thing to worry about: either they had food, or they didn't.
But the Guild was giving them food, in the most baffling show of trust that Xothok had seen — along with t...
2022-10-19 15:58:01 +0000 UTC
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Whether he'd expected this or not, though, Karix's words triggered something in Vex — a seed of an idea. He had already found new magic, and if he wanted to, he could show it off right now. He could make his father eat his words. He couldn't deny that it would be satisfying, even; the knowledge that he had a new magic in his hands was enough to give him leverage. Enough leverage to free his brother from the family's traditions, maybe.
He wasn't sure that was enough for him an...
2022-10-17 15:50:21 +0000 UTC
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Breathe.
They'd known this was a possibility. Not this specific thing, perhaps — Vex hadn't even begun to consider that they might bring his little brother to a diplomatic meaning, he was only four — but they'd known that Wisfield was going to do something to try to throw them off. That they'd chosen this method... sucked? It sucked. For a second it felt like all the progress he'd made was hollow, if this was all it took to undo him.
But onl...
2022-10-14 15:25:21 +0000 UTC
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To say the glyph worked was an understatement.
They'd done two tests. The first of them was done with Vex's own Sign of Research, to make sure that the new glyph — or sign, Vex hadn't really considered what to call these things that were a mix of the two — would do what they thought it did; there was a slight concern that casting it would consume a reality shard, and those were in limited supply at the moment.
That concern was quickly addressed when the skill fed the ...
2022-10-12 13:43:01 +0000 UTC
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"Goddamn that took a while," Misa grumbled.
Vex... had to agree, although he was too tired to actually say anything. He let out a small groan in response, leaning most of his weight onto Derivan — who accepted him with grace and put an arm around his shoulders, despite being the one that had actually done most of the work.
They'd had to spend the last several hours cleaning up the errant, overgrown system. Or, well, Derivan had to. They'd chosen to stick together while he did so...
2022-10-10 14:46:25 +0000 UTC
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"Ah... shit." Sev winced a little at the words. He couldn't help but glance towards Vex, whose face was as impassive as he could make it — but he knew Vex well. He saw the way the lizardkin hunched over just a little bit more, the way his tail coiled around his leg; he saw the disappointment swim in his eyes.
He was familiar with it, even. Part of him thought he recognized that sort of disappointment. It was a hope that the people you cared about had changed for the better.
"You...
2022-10-07 17:31:18 +0000 UTC
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A/N: I am pretty happy with this chapter.
Also, reminder that you can drop down to $5 and keep access to all the chapters! Sorry to keep harping on about this, just want to make sure I'm not unwittingly taking anyone's money. I am grateful for any support you can provide, of course.
---
Sev woke up gagging.
[Smelling Salts]. He recognized the smell of them; it wasn't the first time he'd been forced into consciousness with them, a...
2022-10-05 14:54:13 +0000 UTC
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A/N: A quick note alongside the announcement: All chapters are now available at the $5 tier, and Platinum and Platinum+ mostly remain as support tiers. Feel free to swap down to $5 for chapter access, and send me a message if you need a refund for the month. Thanks again for all your support.
---
The trouble with Lendel was that his system was a mess.
Derivan knew that his own system was in a far worse state — but there was a difference in the way their systems were ...
2022-10-04 16:17:51 +0000 UTC
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Hello!
Some news today: I've been in talks with a publisher for getting Edge Cases published to Amazon, so I've been working on the Book 1 manuscript (mostly cleaning up and collating it into a single document, but I did make some minor changes and fix a couple of inconsistencies I spotted).
Chapter 44 is slightly delayed because I misjudged my time and spent too much trying to edit the manuscript. The good news is I've finally found a writing strategy that works for me; I s...
2022-10-03 17:34:32 +0000 UTC
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There was, unfortunately, no time for a conversation. Derivan would come to regret being quite so impulsive with breaking Lendel's connections, in time, but he'd had no reason to believe that it would make the man fly into a rage; Rekka's connection had broken, and all that had happened was that the orc had learned exactly how he'd been acting all this time.
That was not at all what happened with Lendel.
The man's scream turned into an enraged yell — and his party members, runni...
2022-09-30 16:46:49 +0000 UTC
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—
[CONNECTION BROKEN]
Reconnecting...
—
There was some text above that, but it had been cut off; all Derivan could see were scattered letter-fragments that didn't mean anything to him. It was strange that the window looked like this to him at all — no matter what errors the system had encountered before, he'd never seen the system windows themselves break. They weren't a physical thing to begin with.
But then he was observing this with Patc...
2022-09-28 15:59:48 +0000 UTC
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There was at least one good thing that might come out of whatever was going on with the Guild building, Derivan thought, once they found a spot within the Guild's grounds where they could leave the caravan. A small magical barrier flickered into place, automatically activated by their badges once they left.
He'd been needing a target to test Patch on for a while, now — he couldn't use it on himself or any of his friends without risking breaking all the complex mechanisms that went int...
2022-09-26 17:26:39 +0000 UTC
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Elyra's walls loomed over the horizon.
Vex's stomach turned a bit as he stared at them — he never thought he'd see them again so soon. He knew, objectively, that it had been more than a year since he'd left; it still felt like he was returning too early. He'd expected to have three years before being forced to return.
It had only been one and a half.
Only a few weeks ago, Vex would have said he wasn't ready, even with all the progress he'd made with the Guild and ...
2022-09-23 18:42:25 +0000 UTC
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The harvest went rapidly after Vex's impromptu confession. That had, apparently, been the only thing holding the lizardkin back from putting all his efforts into the harvest — and more importantly, into trying to identify the problem with growth spells that had apparently affected Elyra.
"I was afraid I wouldn't get the chance to talk to you about it if I didn't do it then," Vex admitted, when Derivan asked. "We're going to go to Elyra after this... And we need to figure out what's go...
2022-09-21 13:55:34 +0000 UTC
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Derivan had to admit to himself that he felt a little lost. Of all the things that he'd had practice doing ever since leaving the dungeon that had spawned him, harvesting magical crops wasn't one of them — nevermind the intricacies that apparently went into harvesting these particular magical crops. It wasn't that it was overwhelming, exactly; he just didn't understand why there were so many steps.
"The leaves of the Heuna maloris need to be plucked one by one," Emil...
2022-09-19 14:24:26 +0000 UTC
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Emily's home was unremarkable, for all that she was apparently a witch of sufficient prowess to warrant the coveted position of nobility in Elyra.
Derivan thought it was cozy, certainly; there was clearly a lot of care and effort put into every detail of the house. The place was spotless. The walls were painted a bright white, and had paintings of a multitude of exotic plants hanging up on them; nothing Derivan had ever seen before. One of them even looked like it had a mouth! ...
2022-09-16 15:50:46 +0000 UTC
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Anton's call came not long after Vex was done with his first series of glyph-tests. As before, the glyph they held began to glow with mana, which was interesting; without having mana-sight, it wouldn't be possible to notice that the glyph was 'receiving' anything. There wasn't even a thread of mana linking the two glyphs, which made Vex wonder how exactly the mechanics of the spell worked — but that came secondary to what Anton had to say.
The beetle-mage was focused on trying to give...
2022-09-14 14:33:46 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Both 34 and 35 were released today, so make sure you didn't miss 34!
---
"Is that... a problem?" Vex wasn't sure how to phrase his question, exactly, but Misa looked more tense than he would have expected for such a revelation.
"It's not that it going up is a problem," Misa said, but she looked frustrated anyway; her brows furrowed in irritation. "It's that I don't know what's causing it to go up and down like this, and my — my family relies on this....
2022-09-12 18:13:37 +0000 UTC
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It wasn't until Vex was back within the confines of the system that he could feel how different this form of magic was, strangely enough. It had been overwhelming and wonderful in Teque, but there something had been dampened in his senses. Perhaps it was the nature of Teque itself as a half-realized space, or perhaps he'd simply been preoccupied by what was happening to the city. Perhaps it was the tension of knowing that they were going back to Elyra, hovering at the back of his min...
2022-09-12 18:11:53 +0000 UTC
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That night, once again, Derivan cast [Starry Night]. They took a break on the side of the road for it, though they could have let the caravan keep running through the night; this was important to them, and they needed to use some crystals to refresh their connection to the system besides. So they gathered in a small circle, and Derivan allowed the magic of the skill to flow.
As always, he paid attention to the way the mana flowed.
Derivan had cast this spell a num...
2022-09-07 15:29:25 +0000 UTC
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They were back in the caravan, Derivan and Vex seated across from Sev and Misa as it chugged along the road. They'd given breaking through the barrier into Fendal a few more tries, but every attempt they made simply failed, and so they had decided it was time to move on.
Not before Anton had sent them an update through the glyph, though: Time dilation has been failing. Fendal and Teque now operate at a 1:2 dilation.
Which had been a relief. If nothing else, Teque wouldn't...
2022-09-05 16:38:34 +0000 UTC
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"Fuck," Misa said, again.
It had been an hour. The four of them sat outside the barrier to Fendal, still. They'd tried everything they could think of to break through the barrier, to no success — no amount of magic broke through it, and there was a weight to it that Derivan couldn't simply Shift through. They'd tried to dig underneath, but the barrier extended beneath the ground and up into the sky in a perfect sphere.
And it was visible. That was the worst par...
2022-09-02 22:27:22 +0000 UTC
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Velykos was not entirely sure how he had ended up in this situation.
Intellectually, he supposed, he understood exactly how he'd ended up like this; the strides he could take as a large, towering stone elemental were much larger than the strides of any of his skeletal companions, and as a result, he could move much faster with less effort than the other five. This was fine and expected, and he had intentionally slowed down so they could move at the same pace. He did not need to...
2022-08-31 21:15:51 +0000 UTC
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Vex felt like his words were caught in his throat. He'd spoken to Noram not long ago at all; it had been a little over a day in Teque, and with the time differential between the two places, only about an hour in Fendal.
Noram couldn't have changed this much in that time; if it happened this quickly, it would have been too obvious. Fendal would've sent for help from the Guild sooner. The Patchers didn't even move this fast! And they'd been beaten. Shoved back.
As far a...
2022-08-29 15:50:41 +0000 UTC
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Two hours.
It wasn't a lot of time. It was barely any time at all, Vex thought, and maybe that was exactly why Helg had chosen it — it was just long enough to seem kind, but not long enough for them to actually do anything with it.
Not that she seemed kind at all, if that was her goal. Vex glanced around the room — Sev was gearing up to argue with her, and Misa was stepping forward with her fists clenched, ready for a fight. Derivan was the only one that was sta...
2022-08-28 15:39:01 +0000 UTC
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Anton, it quickly came out, had happened to be carrying a large load of mana slivers when the Roads had shut down — presumably the exact moment the bonus room had been created, and this little pocket of reality had become 'real'. There was, he explained, a blip in his memory there. He'd been overwhelmed by a harrowing sensation of deep nothingness before his thoughts had flowed back to him, and when he came back to himself, he was lying collapsed on the ground, the mana slivers sca...
2022-08-24 17:05:58 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Two chapter releases, so remember to read 25!
---
Vex had known it was bad.
He'd known it was something that scared him; there had been enough spillover, enough intrinsic understanding from the Patcher's attacks that he could grasp that bare essence of it.
But this?
This... he didn't know how to fix this. He didn't know if they could! He didn't even know how to begin—
"Vex," Derivan said gently, and Vex heard the note of worry in the armo...
2022-08-21 16:17:59 +0000 UTC
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