Holding a finger to my lips, I leaned the piece of scrap metal away from the wall, so the others could the small blue coin nested there. Maybe I was taking it too far, but in my mind, if they had location tracking, there was a solid possibility of audio as well.
I watched their reactions carefully.
Nick had broken out in...
2022-03-23 22:21:20 +0000 UTC View PostIt was reminiscent of times long past.
Even early on, I wasn’t great at making friends, but that didn’t stop my parents from trying. There was a never-ending series of play dates in my early childhood. Said encounters eventually gravitated from meeting schoolmates at McDonald's to hours spent attempting to clear a particul...
2022-03-21 02:22:33 +0000 UTC View Post“Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?” Nick grabbed several cheap beers from the fridge, placed the bottle neck against the counter and then thought better of it, hunting through the drawers until he found an absurdly over-complicated bottle-opener.
“It looked like judo to me.” Jinny commented. She was lean...
2022-03-19 00:18:53 +0000 UTC View PostAs the figure dropping down from the balcony came plummeting towards my face, there was a split-second to decide how I was handling this. If I could get <Probability Spiral> off in time, it would be easy enough to fuck with their landing, potentially shattering their leg from the fall.
I hesitated, drawi...
2022-03-18 01:03:32 +0000 UTC View Post“I am not your pet, and you will not treat me as such.” The wolf growled. She was as far from me as possible, though even with her newer, smaller form the elevator didn’t allow more than a single foot of distance.
“Only a fool would treat a sentient being as a pet,” I agreed, attempting to build some semblance of rap...
2022-03-15 08:55:14 +0000 UTC View PostBut this was in another league
If I were to attempt to put it into words, imagine looking down at your finger an...
2022-03-15 08:45:21 +0000 UTC View PostI discovered quickly that the marketplace was inaccessible from the dungeon lobby. Somewhat awkwardly, I replaced the <Allfather’s Mask>and stepped back outside to finish my shopping.
The <Arctic Wolf’s Pelt> and teeth fetched nearly thirty-thousand Selve. Despite the provocati...
2022-03-13 03:45:40 +0000 UTC View PostI gripped the seat of my chair tightly. Nick had no idea how badly he was fucking me. This situation had gone from bad, to worse, to nigh unrecoverable in less than a minute.
It didn’t change the fact that his offer was, perhaps, the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for me.
I had my suspicions to the purpos...
2022-03-11 02:54:41 +0000 UTC View PostHi folks, as mentioned in the schedule post, I'm throwing stuff in my car and about to move to the snowy wonderland of Wisconsin. Daily posting will resume either on either March 9th or the 10th, depending on how long it takes me to get settled.
Also, we're doing character drafting for side-characters in Double-Blind...
2022-03-07 04:39:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe Nick I’d known had been relatively muscular. But this was something beyond simple post-athletic build. He was absolutely loaded with muscle, though the physique combined with his own natural looks created something of a Hollywood aesthetic. I stared at Nick in disbelief, even as <Cru...
2022-03-07 04:08:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Arthur, what the hell?” Sara shouted.
“That’s enough.” Tyler stood, furious. “Arthur, back off. You’re removed from this discussion.” Arthur swore under his breath and walked to the edge of the instance. “And you.” Tyler pointed ...
2022-03-05 02:28:36 +0000 UTC View PostI studied them all, struggling to keep my face emotionless.
Sara wore simple armor, not unlike my set, accented by a simple gray coverup. Short, shoulder-length blonde with a single red streak accenting her bangs. I relaxed my mind and let <Cruel Lens> take over.
Early twenties, confident, no trace of post-...
2022-03-05 02:27:02 +0000 UTC View PostHi all,
Thanks so much for reading. There's a lot of new names and I'm trying to keep track of them all.
Just wanted to comment real quick on the state of the schedule and backlog. I'm working hard to bring us up to the twenty chapters ahead--Should be on schedule to get up to that before the end of the month. RR releases...
2022-03-03 03:48:06 +0000 UTC View PostFive minutes. Every nerve in my body was tingling, every part of me on the verge of panic. I considered putting on <The Allfather’s Mask> more than once, but I wasn’t certain how it worked. It was something I felt safe testing, even with any of my allies. If I put on the mask, and someone saw me, would they be able to ...
2022-03-03 03:31:11 +0000 UTC View Post<Urgent Quest Received>
Quest: Ignition
Primary Objective — Prevent an outbreak of violence at the Open Forum.
Personal Objective — Remain unidentified by other Users (excluding Kinsley, Merchant).
Threat Level: (S)...
2022-03-02 05:18:36 +0000 UTC View PostOur City Hall had always struck me as somewhat pretentious. It had the feel of an upside-down ziggurat, with layered sections extending further and further out, the odd-looking architecture held together by three massive pillars. The somewhat sprawling, style over sense layout extended to the connected park. Which was really more li...
2022-03-02 05:17:31 +0000 UTC View PostIt was a quick trip down to the lobby to warm up, and back to the fourth floor. Much of the frigid bite of the floor itself had lessened after the clear, making the after-battle clean up far less complicated than it would have been otherwise.
I only received one text on my freshly unpackaged burner.
<Mom: We...
2022-03-01 03:15:35 +0000 UTC View PostImagine, for a moment, the feeling of a seatbelt kicking during an emergency stop. Now layer on another point of restraint, and another, constricting and growing tighter. And then by some miracle loophole of gravity, you slip free, plunging through the windshield, the shattered glass tearing and lacerating and brutalizing your body ...
2022-02-27 04:25:27 +0000 UTC View PostA bolt shredded through the wolf’s coat, leaving a line of red across its shoulder. A graze. Not nearly good enough. If my crossbow’s enchantment was going to have any discernible effect, I needed to start landing hits center mass. Which would be easier if the creature wasn’t so god-damned fast.
Massive, quick, probabl...
2022-02-26 01:14:42 +0000 UTC View PostWhat? What the fuck? How was this adaptive? How was this fair?
...
2022-02-25 02:21:33 +0000 UTC View Post<Would you like to form a guild?>
<Y | N>
Another complication.
I immediately hit no on the prompt.
It was impossible to be certain of how the guild screen functioned, god forbid if there was some sort of roster. If the leaderboard in the adaptive dungeon was any indi...
2022-02-24 02:07:47 +0000 UTC View PostKinsley stared at my family, filled with sudden stage fright. Still, even after only a few hours out of the storehouse, she looked significantly less exhausted. A long awkward silence hung over the office room in the community center. She glanced at the whiteboard, still empty except for OPEN FORUM scrawled at the top.
“You...
2022-02-23 21:40:20 +0000 UTC View PostEstrada’s first, somewhat unhelpful, recommendation was to quietly assassinate either Rousseau or Voltaire. After some back and forth, she conceded it was probably safer to kill both. When we moved on from the idea of murdering philosophers, the conversation became much more useful.
But it had the overall effect of highlight...
2022-02-23 02:42:08 +0000 UTC View Post<Quest Received>
Quest: The Cradle of Civilization
Primary Objective — Form the Foundation of the Merchant’s Guild.
(1 of ???)
Secondary Objective — Achieve the Primary Objective before greater violence erupts. 2022-02-22 03:21:53 +0000 UTC View Post
I stared through the ring of the crossbow’s sight, keeping the pin trained at the center of the mess, waiting for the slightest movement, the smallest shift of paper. In the back of my head, I wondered if there was a chance Kinsley had intentionally misdirected me to the corner, so the source of the ambush could come at me from an...
2022-02-21 05:03:32 +0000 UTC View PostI offloaded almost everything. As tempted as I was to keep the <Tribal Gnoll Blade of the Undying,> the survivability buff only kicked in when the User was in combat. If anything, as a glass cannon-less cannon, it might be more dangerous for me to use. If it was harder to tell how hurt I was, it could...
2022-02-20 02:42:57 +0000 UTC View PostFrom what I could tell, it started with a sign: Water - 500 Selve.
A gloomy off-yellow light projected from a nearby streetlamp that was flickering. At least we still had power, though there was no guarantee of how long that would last.
The ground was littered with crushed gallon containers and ejected navy caps, the pav...
2022-02-19 03:28:08 +0000 UTC View Post