A violent snap echoed from the slingshot launcher, followed by a shockwave that flared Vivi’s hair, shaking the air itself.
A gaping hole appeared in the raven’s chest. A flurry of ethereal feathers scattered, then promptly disintegrated, as the missile ripped through the monsters and into the sky.
The facets blew up, taking the blunt of the missile’s force. Cracks formed, and glass-like shards of the facets fell, revealing levelstone above. Vivi’s missile got stu...
2025-10-11 11:27:06 +0000 UTC
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“Well, it wasn’t designed to look pretty,” Patryn said as they gathered around the finished prototype.
The weapon looked like its parts had come from a junkyard, perhaps polished a little, then put together to create some mess of parts. The barrel was made of steel, and for now, enhanced with simple outside-carved veins and a mass rune. Vivi intended to make an inside-carved version with stronger metals later, but with the time-restraint, they hired an experienced runesmi...
2025-10-10 10:07:27 +0000 UTC
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Vivi remained shaken from the events in Paradise as she exited the Luminary’s palace. It was the dead of night; Vivi had only slept for three hours out of the intended six, having jolted awake upon her death in Paradise. She had a headache, and her eyes slightly sideways, but she wasn’t tired.
They’re probably at the foundry right now, Vivi thought. She took a moment to recall where the foundry actually was. Her eyes struggled to connect the dark city with the la...
2025-10-09 08:52:27 +0000 UTC
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Seven thousand wisps flowed freely, clashing against Vivi’s protective layer. She clung to the protective wisps with her eyes closed, still focusing entirely on the sixth sense. Without distractions, she managed to keep the layer active, somewhat protecting herself from the seven thousand wisps. After two hours of practice, seven thousand wisps no longer hurt, and her protective layer stayed firm.
She’d figured out two tricks to make the job easier. The first trick was quite simple:...
2025-10-08 10:11:44 +0000 UTC
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Rainfall welcomed Vivi to Paradise.
Heavy rain, though not quite comparable to the violent downpours of Fellwater, where droplets hammered against the steel roofs loudly enough to make conversation difficult. This rain was calmer, each droplet landing softly on leaves, flowers, tree bark, as well as Vivi’s face as she lay on her back. The wet cold grass quickly soaked her dress from below, rain tapping on the fabric from above.
She lay there for a while, admiring the dark clouds...
2025-10-07 08:57:51 +0000 UTC
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“In order to protect yourself from ascension skills,” Tsarvan said, “you need to understand what wisps of ether do in your body in the first place, and why having ten thousand of them wreaking havoc inside your body is just about one of the most harmful things you can do to your body.”
Vivi nodded, indicating him to continue. She sat on a stool in a private chamber within the Luminary’s palace—a little reading nook, or an alcove hidden from the bustling servants. Carpets and...
2025-10-06 10:01:29 +0000 UTC
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The ether root shot forth with speeds invisible to the naked eye. It clung against the back wall, bounced a little, before clattering to the ground, where it continued bouncing with enhanced momentum, until the ether inside eventually ran out.
Civar was frozen with his coffee mug in hand, having spilled some on his shirt and ground. He blinked, took a sip, and said, “Holy shit.”
Patryn burst into a cheer—an uncontrollable laugh of disbelief. “What was that? Are we serious?...
2025-10-05 09:53:11 +0000 UTC
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The scientists led Vivi into a quiet workchamber. The box-like room was far from a smithy—she had tables instead of anvils; flasks and beakers instead of vises and crochet hooks—and the white walls were distracting at the very least, but the chamber was nice and private, simple enough for her next experiment.
She laid out all fifteen ether roots on the table, placing each one into beakers to hold them upright. The set-up looked flimsy at best. Vivi’s instincts as a runesmith urged...
2025-10-04 11:15:51 +0000 UTC
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The mass rune accepted Vivi’s ether. The adamantite root didn’t grow heavier, as Vivi had expected. The mass rune was incomplete, and thus it wouldn’t show its effects.
But Vivi doubted it actually did nothing. Her ether had passed through its branches. The rune’s branches did something. They just didn’t ignite the rune.
Her heart thumped as her wisps made it through the first root, from the mass rune to the shockwave rune. Th...
2025-10-03 09:08:44 +0000 UTC
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“Shit,” Coshi cursed under her breath. She tapped her finger on the table. A light coating of ether oozed from her skin, as if her anger was flowing freely to the air.
More writing appeared on the wooden board. Coshi glanced at it. To Vivi, the text was incomprehensible, until Lucius felt her attention on the board. He began translating the text.
“I’m truly sorry,” it read, “but our hands are full as is. All we have to spare are loose mercenaries, none of ...
2025-10-02 09:37:35 +0000 UTC
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“Evacuate?” Vivi asked, voice hazy.
Coshi tapped her finger repeatedly on the table. “We’ve tried to contact the Exalted Knights, mercenaries—anyone who would be interested in clearing a few storms for free. Typically, whenever Shivenar has been too weak to survive storm season, fighters all around rush in to earn what ether they can. This time, however… Well, take a look for yourself.”
Coshi flicked a switch, and the large map shifted to a landscape Vivi had not yet...
2025-10-01 08:37:44 +0000 UTC
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Ideas flowed freely on the way home.
The shockwave rune of her experiment had blown up when active, already shaped ether tried to enter. A similar effect happened when Vivi tried to push active wisps back to her, or Luicius’s core.
And it made sense. Activating ether essentially burned the branch that was activated. A strength rune ignited the pathway leading up toward the strength branch and its sub-elements. Every other branch was used merely to fuel...
2025-09-30 10:06:01 +0000 UTC
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“I believe we have mostly deduced the skill’s functions thus far,” Civar explained, facing the large blueprint. “The wielder’s ether enters here, at the core, and splits up into these three paths. The first path is what we’ve named the amplification path. Its job is, quite frankly, to amplify ether, flaring ether to its maximum powers.”
He pointed at the rightmost pathway filled with runes and structures, slowly making his way up the runes as his explanation continued. “...
2025-09-29 09:10:33 +0000 UTC
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Heavy! was Vivi’s first thought as she lifted Grandpa’s sword to throw.
A greatsword with all three power runes and no swiftness rune to counterweigh the mass runes. The sharpness rune, in turn, added even more firepower. In theory, the sword was a flow rune short of the most destructive runesword that could be created with the six main runes.
Her ascension helped her aim, to throw the sword regardless of weight. It launched from he...
2025-09-28 08:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The storm broke in much the same way as the previous one. Wisps exploded from the ground, spinning in a deadly whirlwind before evolving to a full typhoon. A thick mist of loose wisps radiated from within, and the bright day turned into a gloomy war-field.
Vivi’s wavy hair fluttered, the hem of her flapping slightly. The sheer force of the storm could be felt from a mile in the distance, and that was notwithstanding its presence in Vivi’s sixth sense—even more oppressive than the ...
2025-09-27 09:36:07 +0000 UTC
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“Ah, good, you’ve come,” Patryn said as Vivi arrived at the storm zone. He offered a slight bow.
The camp, and the battalion at the front lines, was smaller this time. Only four ballistas were present, and a third of the archers were missing. Coshi and Anthony were discussing off to the side. The bivouac was generally much smaller.
The storm zone itself appeared like a quagmire of ether sticks and bones. Most of the ether sticks were cracked or snapped in half entirely. This...
2025-09-26 08:59:08 +0000 UTC
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The remaining time before the storm passed with hasty preparations. Vivi crafted another two tips for new missiles, while the ballistics crew practiced with the singular existing missile. Vivi performed the job two hours faster compared to her first time, though the blacksmithing process was still arduous. She had ideas on how to improve the design, but for now, she crafted what she knew would work.
The missiles weren’t the only weapons Vivi wanted to improve and work on. She wanted t...
2025-09-25 09:11:07 +0000 UTC
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The next morning, after channeling ether in Paradise again, while Vivi was eating her porridge, The Luminary showed up on her door.
Her usual cheery smile was missing. For once, the Luminary appeared like the leader of a country. She stepped into Vivi’s smithy with confidence and authority, and a sharp look in her eyes that indicated she wanted to have a serious conversation.
“Is something… wrong?” Vivi asked.
Her half-eaten bowl of porridge sat on the table. Coshi g...
2025-09-24 08:33:02 +0000 UTC
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“She’s impossible,” Kvim said, the words accompanied by a long sigh.
Ealan studied the expression as Kvim leaned back on his chair. They sat in the lunch alcove, and Kvim was still clad in his overalls, ready to get right back to work after lunch, which today was peas and root potatoes. A rationed meal due to storm season, and not very tasty, but still nutritious enough to keep Ealan’s team working.
Kvim was tall for a dwarf, though still short overall, with a shaven face ...
2025-09-23 08:47:42 +0000 UTC
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The ballistics crew gathered outside city walls two hours later. The facets had dimmed completely as the clock approached midnight. Bright ethereal lamps lit the ballista as test runes were performed with dun non-runic missiles.
The desert of the Shivell mountains was eerie at night. Dark outlines of sandy hills made out the landscape. The area felt much more closed-in and dungeon-like. A few auras of white wisps wandered aimlessly in the distance, where the landscape was pitch black. J...
2025-09-23 08:42:49 +0000 UTC
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The mold makers resided in an underground foundry near the science lab. A small reception on Shivenar’s surface led Vivi down a wide set of stairs. They descended a hundred feet or so before reaching impenetrable levelstone, which served as the foundry’s floor.
The foundry itself was combined with a large open warehouse. A vast range of industrial scents and loud sounds welcomed Vivi. Hissing from the galvanizer at the back, clanks from various machines metal being handled with forc...
2025-09-22 08:11:09 +0000 UTC
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After a few more blueprints and discussions, Vivi picked up her crochet hook and prepared to work. The vision in her head was perfectly clear now, though reaching the final blueprint had required another hour of theory crafting. Shaping veins inside the missile’s tip was easy enough. The hard part was getting ether into that tip, since it didn’t have a hilt like a sword did, and the ether root couldn’t extend out from the bottom, since the shaft would be in the way.
In the end, s...
2025-09-21 09:29:23 +0000 UTC
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“I don’t have any coffee, unfortunately,” Vivi said. “I was about to brew tea, but I’ve been told my tea is undrinkable. I can call for Senith to bring something better if you’d like. She bragged about new leaves from the eighth level if you’d like to try them out.”
The two gave each other a quick glance, as if uncertain whether the offer was a threat to avoid or an honor to accept. Patryn was the first to speak. “I’d love a taste in that case, if it doesn’t bother...
2025-09-20 11:14:05 +0000 UTC
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The facets were dim by the time Vivi returned to Shivenar. Construction was still ongoing around her smithy, the street lit by a bright spear of light cast by a large ethereal lamp atop the Runes and Rain building. The buildings behind the rows of scaffolds were slowly resembling livable businesses.
Is this really what the city should be spending its ether on? Vivi thought. To improve the Lowmoor district?
“It’s not like these guys can fight,” Luci...
2025-09-19 08:41:55 +0000 UTC
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Vivi took a stumbling step toward the next golem. Her feet felt heavy. The whiplash from burning nearly twenty thousand wisps in her body at once hit as hard as she perhaps should have expected. Momentarily, with the ascension active Vivi had felt like a god.
Now she felt weak. Like a sick little creature struggling to stand, despite the five thousand wisps still powering her.
But she still had more wisps. She pushed another five thousand for Lucius.
“No!” Luciu...
2025-09-18 08:48:14 +0000 UTC
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It had been a while since Vivi ascended by burning wisps. The thousands of ether rushed through her at once uncontrollably. It felt as if she’d activated a powerful ascension skill, one that temporarily removed her limit of ether entirely.
Ascended wisps already leaked out to the air around her. The moonweaver’s silk of her dress breathed it in, ascending alongside Vivi. The black of her dress stopped looking like fabric, and more like a void in reality—a protective layer of ether...
2025-09-17 07:58:06 +0000 UTC
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A fog of residual wisps clouded the air, blocking the facets’ light. In under a minute, the storm zone was transformed from a sunny desert to a desolate war field, where the brightest light sources were the countless white auras of monsters behind the fog. An ominous sizzle echoed from the monsters, slowly growing louder.
Vivi’s hand was ready to summon Moonlight, though she definitely wasn’t ready for a fight.
The monsters ranged from deadly ether sticks on four legs, runni...
2025-09-16 08:04:10 +0000 UTC
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The war camp and the landscape around it bustled with demons. Easily hundreds of them performing different tasks. There were tents and large canopies. A dining hall, storage units, even a quick infirmary, though currently empty of patients. The area was like a sprawling bivouac, many times the size of Vivi’s home street within the Lowmoor district.
A battalion of archers and spearmen, and a few swordsmen with runeswords, stood by the front lines. Along with them was Anthony Ailman an...
2025-09-15 08:16:01 +0000 UTC
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A day passed in work, continuing the drawing of Thorn Sword and throwing in a few failed four-runed attempts, until the storm break took Vivi out of her daily routine. Lucas welcomed her at the front door. “Evening, Vivi.”
Evening? she thought. It’s that late already?
“Has something happened?” she asked.
“The storm is about to break,” Lucas said. “We are the last to depart.”
Oh, right, Vivi thought, realizing that she’d to...
2025-09-14 09:27:15 +0000 UTC
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Senith waited nervously on a chair outside. She was clad in a casual dress with light make-up. She sprung up when Vivi and Grandpa came out of the room.
“We found a translation skill,” she said. “It should include most of the humans’ languages. Ythar’s Standard, at least. We hope it includes yours. Please ask your Grandpa to use it.” She bowed, holding out a skill container to Grandpa.
“Who’s this?” Grandpa asked, wary. “Why is she bowing to me?”
“She...
2025-09-13 08:58:31 +0000 UTC
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