“This is a terrible idea.”
{Nonsense! This is the perfect opportunity to get some answers.}
“The man shot at us. What if he just pulls a gun?”
{Aha! That’s why I brought…}
Chip digs through his pockets, tossing out random nicknacks Elise swears she recognises from her apartment, before proudly presenting a knife.
{This!}
“What’s that supposed to do?”
{Well, you know w...
2025-05-21 16:21:11 +0000 UTC View PostShurelya: My Vanguard is such a nightmare! The idiot refused so many of my better defensive suggestions in the early days because I: ‘can’t be trusted’. It took me almost a year to persuade him to get his first cybernetic. If I could cry, I would have blown a circuit that day.
Iysaac: Tell me about it! He’s so bad he almost ruined my Vanguard! Luckily, the Queen managed to loosen her up to the idea of modification before she was lost.
Liandry: Unlucky...
2025-05-14 20:51:52 +0000 UTC View Post{Has your home been ravaged by a recent incursion that wasn’t your fault?
Did Trash Bandit’s kind raccoons clean up after the nasty aliens for you?
Did they possibly borrow a few of your shiniest wares?
Head on down to Bandit Trade™: The Raccoon Trading Emporium, to see if they’ve traded your items to nice people for snacks!}
**Disclaimer: Bandit Trade™ is not responsible for any items stolen while visiting the emporium...
2025-05-05 22:25:09 +0000 UTC View PostEmily rises from the dark chute connecting to the array chamber, brimming with energy.
At a glance, she sees the cliff’s long shadow, cast by the mid-morning sun, stretching out across the ocean. Pod is standing in the dim light near the window to the outside world, diligently using a press to form a piece of metal.
Emily approaches him, turning to inspect the stacked-up rows of identical metal rotor blades he has laid out for her in the cavern’s open space.
Bending down...
2025-05-02 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post“This fire is out of control,
We’re gonna burn this city, burn this city!"
--Deleted recording of Trash Bandit and Shadowflame performing a duet at a Round Table karaoke night, 2035.
¯¯¯¯¯
New Purchases!
Class II Esoteric Single-Use Explosives Devices – 1600 points, 1 token
Class II Prolotor Bacterial Genetics – 400 points, 1 token
...
2025-05-01 10:50:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Okay, you can stop now,” Emily calls out as her eyes snap open, revealing the rolling sea stretching out before her, lit by the midday sun.
She slowly pushes herself off the ground where she was meditating and turns away from the opening, facing the main cavern where Pod is in the middle of clearing space.
“You’re done?” the boy asks, turning to look at her.
She doesn’t respond, reaching out and releasing a dense flood of purple mist in response.
Pod sighs...
2025-04-28 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“So I sat down to write you a love song,
It was full of clichés,
It wasn't impressing anyone,
Even though I tried really hard,
All I came up with was,
'You are a raccoon living in the trashcan of my heart,
You're a raccoon in my heart.'"
--Elise singing 'I Hope My Raccoons Don't Fuck This Up.', P.A.W: channel #01.
[“Heyo, Gwen!”] I chirp silently into my augs, ...
2025-04-27 20:51:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun peeks over the south-eastern horizon behind Emily and Pod, chasing away the night and bathing the sprawling sand and grass on either side of them with light. The dry air gains a salty tang as they run through the early-morning light, and the faint sound of crashing waves grows closer until it's loud enough to fill the air.
A tint of blue creeps over the horizon, but it’s not until they drive their heels in and come to a grinding halt at the edge of a looming cliff that they ge...
2025-04-25 17:00:38 +0000 UTC View Post“Whereabouts are you heading off to then?” Earnie asks as Emily sweeps the last of her scattered tools into her belt, leaving the workshop work surfaces empty for the first time in weeks.
“The shores north of Valum,” she responds, glancing over to check on Pod as he adjusts the straps of the sleek new bag that she made him with integrated spatial storage.
“That’s an odd choice. Why the shores? One of my best iron suppliers is situated just south of Valum, surely that...
2025-04-21 16:44:59 +0000 UTC View Post{Gentlemen, we do not stop ‘til nightfall.}
The four raccoons in forest-green cloaks pause their movements, midway through unloading the heavy packs bound to their horse.
{What about breakfast?}
{We’ve already had it.}
{We’ve had one, yes. What about second breakfast?}
Three raccoons in a trench coat turn and walk away.
{I don’t think he knows about second breakfast, Chip.}
{Wh...
2025-04-18 22:17:57 +0000 UTC View PostA week later, Podrick follows Emily through the front doors of the Silver Moon Mercenary Headquarters as she walks purposefully towards an empty counter. He chases after her, his gaze scanning the room and the countless pairs of eyes following them.
“Savage Moon?” he mutters in a questioning tone, picking up on several whispered conversations at the tables they pass.
“Not my choice,” Emily replies with a dismissive shrug. “It stuck after I broke a few bones sparring on m...
2025-04-18 17:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostThis emotional suppression isn’t healthy.
One of Emily’s cores forms a small bird of crackling charge, sending it out to alert Podrick and Earnie as she rolls her shoulder, feeling out the connection with her new mechanical limb.
Having my emotions locked in this… emotional vault, has limited my enjoyment of my day-to-day life. The emotional separation is helpful for my memory and certain situations, but I should be able to control it.
The metal hangs...
2025-04-14 17:00:36 +0000 UTC View Post{Oh, come on. We can take ‘em!}
{It’s a long way...}
*Snarling and swords clashing*
The raccoon wearing a Viking-style helmet with an axe on his back peers around the corner.
{Toss me.}
{What?}
{I cannot jump the distance, you’ll have to toss me!}
Three sword-wielding raccoons in a trench coat grab their friend and prepare to throw.
{Ah- Don't tell the fox.} 2025-04-13 10:09:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Tw: the last passage (installing the arm) is essentially a graphic depiction of self harm... if that gets to you, you may want to skip that.
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A few days later, in the middle of the night when only Emily remains active in the workshop as Earnie sleeps in his attached accommodation, the sound of three heavy fistbeats on the front entrance breaks Emily’s focus.
She looks up from the crackling Steam Source, remade and mounted on top of a workbench, pumping...
2025-04-11 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostJust a little note that I edited chapter 169 to include Emily finding Anna's diary within her saved items.... That was just me forgetting she owned it, oops!
(no relevant plot changes, but go back and have a quick look if you're interested. It's only the paragraphs between the quest and item system pages)
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They arrive back at the outpost where Emily and her squad left their truck as the sun starts setting over the horizon, lighting the s...
2025-04-07 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostEmily’s grip on The Clock finally relaxes as her arm drops to her side.
Her water dress evaporates, with no remaining mana to fuel it, leaving her naked as her gaze settles on Everette’s mangled body.
He was so weak. How did he reach fourth circle and still make the mistake of looking away from a lightning mage?
A bitter taste taints her victory, and it’s only worsened when her emotional core whispers about how the death would have fed Mensacus if she hadn’t...
2025-04-04 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post{Overhearing your confident bluster of hunting The Great Old One, the old man slumped over the counter beside your group suddenly gasps for breath, sitting bolt upright and staring through you with a haunted gaze devoid of life.
He whispers: ‘I have looked upon all the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. The monster you seek should not be touched upon by mortal minds, else you beg the torm...
2025-04-03 16:11:33 +0000 UTC View PostEmily ravenously devours the first fruit, feeling soothing water mana spread through her body, soothing the damage dealt to her magical pathways as her magic circles slowly recharge back to full.
The real boon, however, is the gentle whisper of inspiration the calming sensation brings, pushing her to further explore the element.
She shuts her eyes, standing up and focusing on the fleeting feeling as she catches the two remaining fruits before they can fall. She sets them down on t...
2025-03-31 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostSilent, all-encompassing nothingness makes up Emily’s everything as she drifts motionless through the void. Thoughts slip through her fingers as a faint whispering licks at the back of her mind, pulling her onwards.
The soft, dulcet tones humming through her being soothe her as a falling sensation forms in the pit of her stomach, suddenly dragging her down into a jagged bed of searing pain.
Emily’s lungs feel heavy as her consciousness returns, screaming for lack of air yet sw...
2025-03-28 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostSorry it took a little while!
I've been struggling with motivation (as always), and have been particularly slow with raccoons... I should have another one soon.... hopefully
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"You know, you should be proud.”
*Muffled screaming*
“When you show up at the pearly gates, and the funny-looking grim reaper asks for your method of death, you can tell him you took part in an important scientific study.”
*Chai...
2025-03-26 12:57:34 +0000 UTC View PostEmily wraps her arms in runes of orange and silver, pulling the ball of metal apart with twisted threads of colour wrapped around her fingers, forming it into a twisted lattice with several slots carved out to fit mana crystals. Then, she produces a pen-sized carving blade and fills it with mana, etching runes into the arcing limbs of the creation.
Her squad don’t interrupt her, quietly stripping chunks of meat from one of the beast carcasses and turning over the sands to cover the re...
2025-03-24 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostA week later, after returning from the East Woods and claiming over half their harvested crystals as payment, squad Cold separate on orders to wait for another contract. Emily returns to Earnie’s workshop, happy to take some time to work on her research.
“Hey,” she calls out as she barges through the front door, charging her voice with a touch of mana to be heard over a whirring metal grinder.
She leaps gracefully between a few metal gangways, landing on the main production ...
2025-03-21 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostEmily places her hands against the hefty, glowing crystal before her, gazing into the swirling vortexes of wind trapped within its crystalline confines. She attributes her mana to match, pushing a wind current of her own through the unstable formation.
Slowly, like a shepherd guiding her flock, she nudges the chaotic winds, bending the wild vortexes and gathering them together. At first, none of them touch, but under her influence, the first two violent currents meet, sending shuddering...
2025-03-17 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe Stream barks, kicking back against Emily’s shoulder as it spews glowing brown bullets, with cores formed from a blend of mithril, white iron, and powdered tezerite.
Each small projectile smashes into the rotating magical shield protecting the Denrosi mages with a weighty thud, sending spiralling cracks across each hexagon with one shot, and shattering them with a second. The first half of her magazine shreds the wall protecting her targets, draining one of its crystals empty, leav...
2025-03-14 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post"My name is, my name is,
My name is, Elise Trash Bandit!
I love the raccoons,
And the raccoons love me,
So much that they restored the English monarchy!”
--Popular recording of Elise singing to herself on the Prolotor Active Wavecast, channel #01.
I drag myself past the burning plant corpses blocking most of the front gates, my stomach groaning in complaint as I join my siblings and Stripe’s c...
2025-03-12 00:04:31 +0000 UTC View PostAnticipation spreads through the two squads, their grips on their weapons tightening as greed lights up their eyes.
“Jackpot,” Force Bearer mutters, shifting impatiently.
Ice Petal is the only member of the group who seems confused by the sudden excitement, turning to whisper a question to Pretty Boy beside her.
“I get crystal veins are valuable, but why are you all so excited? We still have to return most of what we harvest to the company, right?”
“Partially...
2025-03-10 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe captured mage fills Emily in on their instructed patrol path after a dose of Dead Man’s Breath, but she doesn’t provide any other useful information, and Emily dispatches her soon after.
She leads her squad on through the woodlands, searching for other groups from Denros.
It takes longer than she’d like, but within two weeks they’ve filled out their map enough for Emily to highlight the area the groups are circling, as if guarding it without getting too close. As the s...
2025-03-07 18:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post"What do you think wackus bonkus?
Kill him!
Oh, you naughty wackus bonkus. What a good idea!"
--Elise 'Trash Bandit' Roberton, definitely not delirious from hunger and talking to a big hammer to decide the fate of a nosy ganger trying to break into her den, 2032.
An alert ping from Pin lets me know our time is up, so we leave our den behind.
It takes a bit of extra effort to squeeze Chip out through the truck’s window ...
2025-03-07 15:06:44 +0000 UTC View PostAfter finding a small clearing a few metres wide, Emily drops her prisoner to the ground and pulls the barrier disc out of her belt.
She then takes out an extra water and light crystal, slotting them both into new sockets on top of the disc before activating it and tossing it up into the air.
The anchors fire out into the surrounding trees, suspending it above their heads, and almost immediately the metal disc pulses with mana, releasing a burst of thin water vapour that arcs out ...
2025-03-03 18:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostEmily ducks behind a tree with a bored expression, letting a shard of rock slam harmlessly into her cover and glancing back at her squad.
Sandman is channelling mana into his staff, using it to control a large magic circle while Ice Petal and Pretty Boy stand on either side of him, picking off the rocky howlers dancing through the trees around them. Every time the screeching monkeys throw a conjured shard of earth towards them, Sandman’s circle pulses and a chunk of the ground below t...
2025-02-28 18:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post