“My father wants to see me,” Sidjin said.
Below, performers were dancing to the sound of a drum arrangement in mesmerizing patterns. The rhythm was fast and intense. It made Viv’s teeth shake with every percussion. They hurt a little, reminding her that her body would fail before spring set in unless she acted. Tick tick tick.
“Now?” Viv asked. “There is less than an hour left before the next round.”
“Yes. He requested it. It was… carefully worded. I have n...
2022-12-11 15:00:18 +0000 UTC
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Ok quick update. First of all, sorry about the lower productivity these past two months and a half. I find myself in a situation where I have to be the main caretaker for my tiny child and it takes a lot of effort for me so it's been taking over writing time. The situation should return to normal at the end of the month. Thanks a LOT for staying in these challenging times. I will make it up to you with a small writing surprise.
I'll be taking an annual break for two weeks around Christ...
2022-12-08 00:41:56 +0000 UTC
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Sweden, November 1938.
Snow crunches under Loth’s mechanized armor. Each of his feet stomps the earth with as much might as an elephant. I can barely hear myself think in the cold winter night.
“You could just stay, you know?”
“Lass…”
“Not that you’ll make a difference in that hulking thing.”
“Lass, do not try to neuter me please. Those are my lands.”
“And I’m a good friend. I could just run there and be back by the time you get of...
2022-12-08 00:37:21 +0000 UTC
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It was the eve of the two days of intensive duels and Viv admired the result of months of training. From the brief campaign against the Halurians to duels and physical practice at the Academy, she’d been tireless. All for the hope that it would pay off with her survival.
Current status:
- Mana channels (mage)
- Extreme compatibility
- Divine spark: luck
- Draconic Surrogate Mother
- VANDAL
Mana distribution:
- Black 100%
...
2022-12-04 01:39:42 +0000 UTC
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Another claw raked the shield. It sounded like nails on glass. Another. Constance held a wince at the unsettling sound and the pressure on her mind. She just had to hold a little longer.
“Constance,” Wang said by her side.
“Shut up.”
Quick movements let her recenter the shield; make it smaller. She traced a ring with practiced ease using the tip of her foot while another claw traced its circumference almost sensually. Moor was circling them like a shark while in the ...
2022-12-01 09:45:04 +0000 UTC
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Viv cast three small nets, rupturing the attacking spells. Three booms rang across the small arena, pushing dust aside. A cast of eldritch wall to the side followed as she ran left. just as insurance if she needed to move. An astra spell was quickly blocked by a small wall of water barely strong enough to trigger it. The resulting explosion spread with a hiss, slowly. Too slowly. Sonagi used a water intent on his defensive constructs.
“Is that all?” the man mockingly teased from a w...
2022-11-27 23:07:21 +0000 UTC
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There were corpses in the streets. Not many, not yet. Just enough for that familiar stench of the battlefield before carrion got to work. It turned the streets of Shanghai into familiar grounds for Constance. Just another warzone filled with corpses. The architecture and tools became secondary before the universal nature of human suffering, and human cruelty. The cloying heat didn’t help. Sweat stuck Constance’s clammy glove to her skin. It made her armored dress damp, clinging to her low...
2022-11-23 22:19:17 +0000 UTC
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Viv walked through the hallowed corridors of house Trez, of Helock. It was her first time visiting a manor of the Helockian nobility after a disastrous social season where no one had invited her. Ereska, her roommate, had briefed her, but she was still a bit leery. It would be her first time rubbing elbow with the Paramese nobility in a way that wouldn’t involve dismemberment. Hopefully. It was also the first time she would join high society without her dad guiding her every st...
2022-11-19 14:23:35 +0000 UTC
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NA: I should have written this before.
***
Constance approached the man with more nervousness than when she had last faced a werewolf. She’s been burnt before. A part of her whispered that no one wanted her and that she was unloved, just a planned weapon designed by fate to accompany a powerful being. This was her last relative here, alive, at least in direct line. If he didn’t like her… and why would he like her? The voice urged, insistent. She was an adult grandchild...
2022-11-15 16:19:27 +0000 UTC
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After weeks of travel, I would have hoped to stay in a nice hotel upon my arrival. Unfortunately, Shanghai is hostile territory, and the city lives through difficult times. A message on my desk informs me that martial law has been declared throughout the city. Constance is in there. I am rather cross.
Towards the end of the afternoon, the skipper comes to see me. All my skippers are Dvergur-blooded men with grim countenances, possibly due to my unique need for both engineering knowledge...
2022-11-15 16:17:50 +0000 UTC
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Ok so I have dates. First, I'm going to get my eyes lazered in... one hour. So expect shorter chapter this week. Journey chapter is almost done but Bob chapter might be more impacted. Second, I'm heading back to China and getting quarantined on the 16th of December so there will only be a single chapter of each story on the second half of december.
See you soon!
2022-11-08 16:57:05 +0000 UTC
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It was all wrong.
Tuk’s old man had told him: “Son, the war is like a tide”. He had said so while mending their nets on the coast of lake Kital, by the shore, where beasts made truce with man for the duration of a drink. His weathered hands worked deftly, calmly, with confidence. Tuk’s old man had survived two wars and brought Tuk’s mother as captive the second time so he wasn’t spewing fish gut. He’d said that the tribes crashed against the rock of Baran and fought. If th...
2022-11-05 14:56:08 +0000 UTC
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Marquette, April 1927
“What do you want?” I ask the redhead sitting in front of my desk.
Melusine has free access to me as one of my oldest and most annoying allies. My door is always open to her, though our rivalry precludes long and friendly visits, thus she has never felt the need to make appointments as she has done now. It must be serious. Especially since she usually enjoys catching me at the most inopportune moment.
“There is little need for artific...
2022-11-02 01:11:56 +0000 UTC
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“The fort’s occupied alright. By those thrice-cursed Halurians!”
“Language.”
Cernit’s eldest son faltered under his father’s gaze, his bluster gone in an instant. The mood in the tent grew awkward. Viv shifted and leaned over the map to offer a distraction but the old captain would not have it.
“We are here to receive your report, my son. Not to see you grandstand with all your youthful bravado. Provide your report in a concise and gentlemanly manner, so your...
2022-10-29 06:57:10 +0000 UTC
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I am King.
Bertrand took a knee, then stood back again. The heat assailed him, pushing against his instincts to flee the burning hell around him. The flaming wreck of a Renault tank smoldered to his right while human soldiers shot and died against the fae’s onslaught. But fight they did and so Bertrand would stand.
I am King.
Reality clashed against the lord’s vision. This was a world of volcanic rock and bloody dust. Cracked stones and spontaneous fires dotted the infer...
2022-10-26 23:46:29 +0000 UTC
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“I fucking hate escort missions,” the young sergeant said.
It was tight inside of the command tent. Tight and a little rank, and hot despite the cold air blowing from the south. It was dark as well. The company didn’t have oil to waste on lanterns while the sun still shone outside.
His name was Tarn and he was an idiot. Not a bad sort really, and not a bad commander either, provided someone told him what to do. He could do his job well enough beyond the fact that everything ...
2022-10-22 21:48:17 +0000 UTC
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The base extends below us for miles, an haphazard assembly of tents that lacks the usual discipline. Not even the fact it was designed for me suffices now. That damn armor has a mind of her own.
“We have our work cut out for us, gentlemen,” I tell my newest minions.
“Do you mean to tell us the lemures have already infiltrated their ranks?” an Erenwald courtier says.
Daft lad. A blond. Feels compelled to repeat everything I say like the world’s blandest parrot.
<...
2022-10-19 23:21:46 +0000 UTC
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Sadly for Viv, instant looting didn’t happen since the army pretty much fell where they were, asleep in minutes. She was feeling comparatively fresh since they had gone to great lengths to protect her, so she led Solfis on a hunt for stragglers.
All the undead who could have reached them had done so, but there were a few idiots left in the maze of rooms and suspended bridges of Sinur’s Gate’s many towers. Solfis just grabbed her and carried her up if necessary. Honestly, the golem...
2022-10-14 21:23:57 +0000 UTC
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Rows of smelters lay cold and quiet. The giant machines forging the guns of tomorrow no longer beat with heavy hammers, pounding steel into the perfect shape. The Dvergur engineers who manage the enchantments that make IGL the best supplier on the planet are nowhere in sight. I walk among the assembly line with a calm step, then a more cautious one.
The smell is slightly wrong.
Overheated metal has a specific aroma that I find lacking here. I look down and see I am missing m...
2022-10-11 20:47:17 +0000 UTC
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It was fortunate that Nous would give her a hand because there was a lot to unpack, and she wouldn’t have had the time to do so at the breakneck speed the knights were going at. Her slow perception helped her think.
She quickly wondered if the interface offered this to everyone who progressed mid-battle but decided that knowing didn’t matter at the moment. She had a choice to make.
A brief inspection revealed that all choices were valid, in the sense that none of them felt cle...
2022-10-01 14:39:57 +0000 UTC
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I will be flying back to home country with my young child and it will be a hellish, 20+ hours long journey so I will be taking a break to recover and spend some time with my family. Haven't seen them since the beginning of the pandemic. Anyway, one week and then it's back to our regularly scheduled misadventures!
2022-09-27 14:46:59 +0000 UTC
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I think I needed it as well.
2022-09-27 14:43:00 +0000 UTC
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March 1907, the night of the lich camp raid.
The thief was good at his job. He had retired once already, and would have stayed retired if he had not been found. Few managed such a feat in his line of work. Fewer managed it without visiting prison, yet he had succeeded. The thief knew the keys to success. Dedication, preparation, cold rationality. He had canceled jobs before because he smelled a fish. He had refused others because they were too ambitious, going after targets whose insura...
2022-09-27 14:39:13 +0000 UTC
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It was morning. Swirling dust covered the formation, setting pennants aflutter and leaving them a spotty gray. The sound of battle never died down. There were always revenants in the deadlands, Viv remembered. It was the grave of an entire civilization, and then the kingdoms had bled their lost dead to it over the centuries. Over the mountains and through the forest they had walked, tireless and without thought. Now, the Harrakan army faced a wall of rotten bodies. So they fought.
The p...
2022-09-23 16:51:33 +0000 UTC
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Despite her best effort, Constance didn’t find anything too horrible about Ariane. The strangest element of it all was that she allowed Constance free reign over the domain. She felt like a child being allowed to play spy in a normal house, except she was an adult and the house was cannibalistic.
The existence of ‘Pookie’ certainly came as a surprise. Despite that, the strangeness of a shape-shifting building mimic came second to Ariane’s art collection. Some of the ...
2022-09-20 12:47:47 +0000 UTC
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AN: might still have quite a few typos.
Viv’s mortality notwithstanding, there were a few tasks that required her attention. The first was the raid in the Deadlands to liberate their first major city after Kazar. The second was the impending war with Param’s boogeymen: the Hallurians. She suspected the second part might take much longer as it had been a long time since the last conflict and the various countries had a lot of spare poor people to feed their war machines.
Viv w...
2022-09-17 06:13:08 +0000 UTC
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Humans are stupid.
I wish I could blame most of the nonsensical behaviors to either fate or an addled, fringe elements. Unfortunately, the case remains that even those who should know better do worse. It is with disappointment but no great surprise that I watch Millie enter the building just before dawn, interrupting the rogue vampire’s departure preparation.
“Where are you? Come out here?” she half-sobs, half-screams. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else!”
Her smal...
2022-09-13 12:48:32 +0000 UTC
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Viv’s father used to say that criminals were not stupid. It was just that the police rarely ever got the smart ones. Viv intended to be smart.
Breaking the law around Helock was pretty much a death sentence if caught. There would be no slap on the wrist for a fake bandit attack done for a decent cause. The Paramese courts of law and their enforcers didn’t do extenuating circumstances. The only thing awaiting her would be a noose and possible torture before. Both Lim and Solfis expec...
2022-09-09 16:28:14 +0000 UTC
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“I need to impress. I will be the first vampire they ever meet. I cannot use my usual polite and harmless persona or they will hunt with flawed ideas,” I remark aloud.
Lafayette, whose input I value, stares at me. The short and sturdy man only gives me an impassive glance, though his heart thunders in his chest.
“Harmless persona? Ma’am?”
I tut, though I do not begrudge him this rare trait of humor.
“They shall still see me as a young woman, no matter how t...
2022-09-07 15:58:47 +0000 UTC
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There was a trail up leading to a ridge facing the entrance to the lone mountain. Viv knew they would have to climb that then walk down to the merl’s hidden city. They immediately set out, Sidjin strangely giddy.
The trek led briskly uphill. With their gear, it would have been an extremely challenging task, but here Viv had a power of 21 and she was fit. It merely counted as more than a nice afternoon stroll.
The Deadshield Woods smothered them with its pervasive au...
2022-09-02 15:55:25 +0000 UTC
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