Lycra was 'familiar' with Reid's propensity to improve himself by being catatonic for days, but Win was not - at least, not yet. Calming her down had taken nearly twenty minutes, and included the promise to her - and to Nyx - that Reid would take some time immediately to simply rest and relax and recover. He drank, and ate, and bathed, and slept.
While he wasn't supposed to test things out, Reid still probed within himself. He could feel his mana pool slowly fill itself as he r...
2025-02-19 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Reid moved from sitting to lying flat on the bedroll with his eyes closed, as instructed. Unlike his friends, Reid wasn't supposed to take notes - but rather feel himself as thoroughly as possible throughout the lesson. A far distance away, Lycra was excitedly telling Win about something he'd created. Win was shouting encouragement back at him. Reid tuned them out as Nyx spoke.
"You think of your stats in an... oversimplified manne...
2025-02-17 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
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"You're fully committing to the Vuxarinan disguise, correct?"
"That's the plan. I have Win's medicine to make me look like them - and you've been reminding me on an hourly basis that I need to stay under the radar, so yeah. I think that's a good way to make myself look like I'm not from Earth."
"A good way - but not great. Winnie's pills are a big help, but you won't fully pass for Vuxarinan if you don't make some adjustments. We can pretty easily spin a story on your...
2025-02-14 15:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Lycra's yellow eyes shone with excitement.
Win had energy in her hands as she moved them both around Reid's skull. "There's... nothing wrong? That doesn't make sense, unless - maybe you're being affected by a skill I can't sense with the suppression collar? But, no - there's nothing that I know of that wouldn't at least have..." Her face was still filled with worry as she continued talking to herself.
"I told you, I'm fine - well, there's the ca-... never mind. I'm fine."
Th...
2025-02-12 15:00:05 +0000 UTC
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When she made it to the shelf, Win immediately healed Reid's wounds, then let Lycra prattle on about the storage ring's capabilities for minutes. More was discussed, in detail, about being able to stack similar items like rations and waters into a single slot - but that the moles were too large to store without cutting them up. She didn't interrupt him until she let out a pained cry minutes later - right as Reid felt a pinprick on his ethereal self.
"Ow, fuck! Reid! Are you serious?"
2025-02-10 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Reid panted. The King's head, even offered to him, had taken two fully-empowered blows to sever. It racked Reid's body and left him feeling more winded and spent than he had the entire time in the den. He The System's chimes felt out of place next to the solemn scene. Between the three others in the final Den and the king itself, Reid's experience gains were massive.
-
You have defeated Ancient Deep Mole King - lvl 26. (+200,000,000 xp)
Experience: 157...
2025-02-07 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
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(((..-- DenWu --..)))
Four orders of business sat on his desk. The first was an analysis from his boys that stated the weather for the next few months could result in highly active seasonal storms. Rain wasn't always a given on Denduram, but it was plentiful when it came.
The second was a nothing report - but also a serious one. The raw crystal mine - his mole warrens - were not the most monetarily lucrative venture on Denduram. They weren't even the most strictly profitable thing...
2025-02-05 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes, nature was just cruel to you. A former classmate loved bread and baking enough that she bought herself a small shop in a nearby town. Nearly a decade went by, with her making her dream life work by scraping and pinching in the hard years. All the while - though every bad day and in every celebration - she was still doing what she loved. Brioche bread was still fluffy, even if you were late on a utility bill. But what she loved betrayed her. It was almost targeted, that a baker woul...
2025-02-03 15:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The next group they found was another group of three, digging a new tunnel. They fell just as easy as the first. They repeated nearly the same encounter twice more before anything changed.
A pair of moles, larger than any they'd seen so far, were screeching wildly ahead as they... coupled in the middle of the tunnel floor. They foamed at the mouth as they twisted and rolled. The fur on both was more grey than chestnut, and the claws seemed to be a deeper brown than any he'd seen so far....
2025-01-31 15:00:06 +0000 UTC
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(---) Jim (---)
He moved, silent and stealthy through the tunnels. His people's darkvision wasn't the most prolific, but he'd earned himself two skills over the years that made his current work easy - invisibility and heat sense. The invisibility was a good one that almost completely masked his presence - and was usually the way he got himself out of trouble. The heat sense was his way of figuring out where his targets had gone. After the poop cave, they'd kept up an absolutely brutal p...
2025-01-29 15:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The cavern glowed as green light oscillated and pulsed over Win's entire frame. Her chest and arm expanded. Wounds closed. Scars disappeared. It took mere seconds, and when the light faded, her body started to convulse. Win sat bolt upright, then turned and vomited black bile onto the cavern floor.
Win had both arms raised towards Lycra, radiating healing energy even before she finished with the sick.
Reid wasn't the target of her skill - but familiar, warm energies seeped into hi...
2025-01-27 15:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Their group moved though the tunnels, path lit by crystal-powered lanterns. There were no lights embedded in the tunnels this far down. Reid had almost gotten used to the constantly-on illumination, and being farther in, with the prospective of true darkness was unsettling in ways he didn't expect.
As they walked, Reid expanded his cube-map to show their path. Win - unaware of Reid's ability - had tablets she was scraping and etching into with a fingernail every time they came upon fork...
2025-01-24 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Reid froze. Breaking the rock off the wall was cathartic, just like Win had said. He'd definitely still been more wound up than he realized. The thing was darn tough, but he pushed through and cleaved it off in a series of large chunks - with only a little power cycling through his muscles. He'd finished, sweating and a mix of grateful and annoyed at Win, when she slapped him with the question.
She seemed like a good person - and they'd bonded - but that didn't mean she was. Re...
2025-01-22 16:00:00 +0000 UTC
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(---) Jim (---)
Jim paced back and forth in front of the canteen, fuming. He wanted to scream and shout - but he couldn't even do that. Not properly.
Three years. Three whole fucking years he'd endured so far, playing up the hick slang and rural background to make himself more amenable to the committee - and specifically Win.
Other prisoners might've showed their age more readily, but Jim had been through enough institutions to pick out the people that were too comfortable a...
2025-01-20 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Reid screamed in agony. Everything burned, and ached. Stabbing, throbbing pain lanced its way over every area Reid empowered, and his brain had long-passed the stepped-on-a-lego pain and gone into full on brain-melting and imploding sensations.
He learned more about his 'updated' body and changes as he worked his way through the process of rebuilding himself. The threads within him had nearly imperceptibly moved - he either didn't need to change anything there, or it ended up being a si...
2025-01-17 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Lycra and Reid spent another full hour meeting more of the prisoner/miners. Some preferred one term over the other, but most used them interchangeably. They learned the five circular buildings were comprised of three separate only-restroom buildings, one functioning shower, and a final converted shower building that housed the sick and elderly. The breakdown of facilities made a lot of sense after it was explained to him. People needed to relieve themselves far more often than they needed to ...
2025-01-15 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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The guard raised a hand in threat as Reid continued.
“I promise, we are innocent. Give us a trial, and I'll prove it.”
The backhand was swift but weak.
Reid jangled his shackles as he tried to gesture towards Lycra. “We were both prisoners on that ship! We had nothing to do with what happened!”
The guard rose and grabbed a metal fishbowl hanging from the cramped, bumpy transport’s ceiling. Sound stilled as it was secured around Reid’s head.
Reid wante...
2025-01-13 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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+ Reid +
Lycra rose a hairless eyebrow at Reid. "The changes. Everyone gets them when you go through a jump. They'll be in your notifications... What were you so upset about if it wasn't that?"
Reid ignored the question and brought up his notifications.
WARNING! Exposure to volatile mana detected
NOTICE: Exposure to volatile mana has affected skill, petrification [rare]. Skill removed.
NOTICE: Exposure to volatile mana has imparted new passi...
2025-01-10 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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"Reid Calderwall. Father of the Pathfinder Progenitor."
He had seen that title on the obelisk in Sanctuary. The alien recognized his name, and his power - and knew his daughter. Sara was famous - massively, interplanetarily famous. Enough that a homeless orphan from a faraway world was aware of her enough that he recognized her by name. Hope and emotion welled inside of Reid and washed away all other thought.
"Sara and Susan - How do you know them? Are th...
2025-01-08 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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+ Reid +
The alien's arm was light, and fragile. It shivered as Reid held it against the front of the cage, and raised a four-fingered hand in a placating gesture. Reid's first two words had barely rumbled out of his mouth. He was still dehydrated - and spent.
Reid tried to clear his throat. “Open up the cage now or I'll kill you, your buddy with the knock-out stick, and every other alien on this ship.”
The thing grimaced, and looked - almost dejected. It shook its head ...
2025-01-06 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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<]]) Thad ([[>
A clanging alarm rang out from Thad’s console. This was not good.
He’d started the jump procedure, which meant pointing the ship at the direction he needed to go, then pulsing the engines in an oscillating pattern until they reached the critical point, and releasing a mass of extra energy from the mana reactor. The issue with that right now was the whole ‘point straight forward and don’t move’ bit.
This loaf, the current bane of his existence, ...
2025-01-03 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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+ Reid +
Reid coughed awake on stale air, rife with the smell of sweat and piss.
He was in a cramped cage welded to the floor. Slivers of light filtered in through a series of vent holes, with the majority of the glow coming through a sliding metal window on the face of the door that had been left open. Through it, he could see stacks of metallic cubes running floor to ceiling, secured to each other. They groaned and tilted as the ship snapped sideways, and Reid’s elbow ached as...
2025-01-02 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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+ Reid +
The figure before him was a bipedal humanoid wearing overlapping pieces of leather clothing on its chest and upper legs. It had pale purple skin interspersed with tan fur, and no nose. A wide mouth grinned above a pointed chin, and it stroked a bar piercing set into one of its furry, triangular ears. The same sandy fur was present on its long digitigrade legs. The walk gave made Reid think of a noseless, bipedal cheetah. It was still smiling and playing with its earring when it...
2025-01-01 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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+ Reid +
Reid stumbled through the forest, drawn to the sound of running water. His legs burned with the effort of moving himself forward - dehydrated and spent.
It was reminiscent of his days right after the awakening happened - except then, he'd been wearing pants. Reid considered making himself some bone armor, at least, to cover himself up. But when he'd reached for his internal energy, he found next to nothing for his reserves - and the experience of touching the energy felt ...
2024-12-31 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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^+ Nyx +^
Nyx screamed as pieces of herself tore and intertwined themselves with Reid. They melted and melded in an agonizing and beautiful display of high magic and soul alchemy that would've made the pinnacle mages at Zoenuth Academy sing and cry in revelry.
This was the single most difficult thing she'd ever done - in all her years. She forced herself to stay aware and focused throughout the torturous task. Hours blended to days, and days to months. Time was an old friend - and...
2024-12-30 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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<> Shackle 213 <>
The Shackle - a shapeless entity - spoke in the void. No one could hear its voice. No one could perceive it. It was bound to a dead creature that was neither awake nor aware.
Existing was… difficult. Months drifted by as it fought to find ways to achieve a simple goal. Get outlier to the beacon - or get free. But the outlier was stuck, and it did not have the tools to make it move.
The collective was all-powerful. It could move stone and rock ...
2024-12-29 17:08:00 +0000 UTC
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+> Sara <+
Barry put an elbow into Sara's spine and pressed as hard as he could. It cracked under the strain, and Sara let out a sigh of relief. The man's smile practically glowed, framed by beautiful brown curls.
Her most recent fight, against another upstart, had honestly been a fun one. The woman even managed to send her rocketing into the ground. The impact would've been fine, If Sara hadn't hit a mana crystal deposit. The material was still too hard for her body, and it...
2024-12-29 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Sara reached a trembling hand out to the stone effigy of her father.
Her midsection strained with effort as she leaned forward and brushed her fingers against the cool, rough surface, and her legs gave out underneath her.
She had wanted to vomit when the realization first hit her. Was it irony? Misinterpreted intent? Or maybe just some sick cosmic joke?
Her father's resting place was the same one Pathfinder had led her to, over and over again. How many times had she come her...
2024-12-29 02:00:00 +0000 UTC
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~ Marlene ~
She steadied herself as her van, the caboose to their train of cars, slammed into another rock. If Marlene wasn't careful, the binoculars she was trying to use would slam into her eye. Their vehicle was still close enough for her to make out some details of what was going on with Reid's attempted 'distraction'. She had hoped to be farther away by now, but the van carrying Sara demanded a slow pace.
Her one attempt to check in with Susan was met with a simple and short ...
2024-12-28 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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-{///} Finola {///}-
Sanctuary was all but lost.
She'd watched the beasts break through the settlement's second defensive structure, then the people fled in groups. Her nascent planetary lord was already gone, and only a token force stayed behind to defend against the creature. The self-affixer was there, sure, but there were too many enemies even for a prodigy. And there was no way the small force with them would be able to deal proper damage to the big one. By all rights, her de...
2024-12-27 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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