Ceranai

SOM - Chapter 13 - Loot Lust

After completing another couple of rounds of soul surgery, Luke had plenty of anger and pain to take out on the local wildlife. He was determined to remove [Undeath] from his soul, and willing to push through the pain, but subsequent rounds had diminishing returns. Much like an inflamed wound, his soul needed time to settle down. 

Luk...

SOM - Chapter 12 - Soul Surgery

Down in the forge basement nestled a modest living space. It comprised a small room for the old master smith, and a larger dormitory for her apprentices. Rurik remembered his old companion fondly, but so much time had passed that he didn’t remember her name. Instead, the aspect referred to her as ‘Vera’s maker’, after an apparently famou...

SOM - Chapter 11 - Truffle Hunting

It was late in the evening by the time Luke finished making his new shield. There was a level of satisfaction he derived from creating something with his hands. Apparently, Rurik enjoyed it too, because the forgemaster offered to work alongside him to make a full suit of armour.

During the crafting process he had learnt about shaping and i...

SOM - Chapter 10 - Fire Away

Adrenaline pumped through Luke, before he realised that the ghostly figure wasn’t making any aggressive moves. Luke recalled how strong the ghoul captain had been at level twenty-five. The dwarf in front of him was even higher. If the spirit attacked, he was dead.

“Are you not going to introduce yourself, son? You’ve made more of a m...

SOM - Chapter 9 - Forging Ahead

Not only was the apple a tasty snack, but it was more filling than its size would suggest. The fruit was more solid in a way that was hard to explain. Luke would have to keep his eyes out for other consumable loot. 

For just a brief moment, Luke considered going back to the corpse of the grackslau. He was curious to see what it had dr...

SOM - Chapter 8 - Run away

I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot, I’m a massive fucking idiot.

Luke watched in horror as at first one, and then all of the [Death Guard] turned to face the house. In that moment of frozen time, he prayed to any god listening that the death guard would just shrug it off, and go back to marching. He wished Luck was an attribute.

SOM - Chapter 7 - Shinies

Once Luke finished re-reading his latest system messages, he forced himself to close the interface. It was hard not to worry about the implications. What if the reason he was in the top thousand was because the awakening had killed everyone else?

He hoped that the reason was something more innocuous.

Maybe Gaia had safely tucked ever...

SOM - Chapter 6 - City of the Dead

Cautiously Luke crept back up the beach and lingered beneath the stone bridge. By the light of the strange glowing blue rods that illuminated the city, the streets appeared empty. However, Luke knew that danger roamed the city. He was going to have to be careful. 

Luke’s plan essentially boiled down to going house to house, looting ...

SOM - Chapter 5 - Eye See You

Without thinking things through, Luke drew back his hammer and aimed the claw at the eyeball. The creature on the other side showed an unexpected level of intelligence by simply moving out of the way. 

“Watch where you swing that thing. You could take an eye out,” a deep voice with a mild Irish accent said from behind the door. 2024-03-17 19:44:55 +0000 UTC View Post

SOM - Chapter 4 - Rise and Shine

When Luke woke up, the smell of rot assaulted his nostrils. Bile rose in his throat, and he had to fight off the rising waves of nausea. Standing up, he moved away from the slaughter.

Once his stomach was under control, Luke got his bearings. His surroundings hadn’t changed. He was still on a floating train, inside a dungeon, trapped wit...

SOM - Chapter 3 - Hammer Time

As Luke reached the front of the train carriage, he caught his reflection in the window and paused. With his bloody shirt discarded on the floor, his bare chest was visible, and his eyes widened at what he saw. 

When he first started working out, Luke had the singular goal of avoiding a heart attack. Fuelled by tragedy, Luke had blown...

SOM - Chapter 2 - Blue Boxes

Luke wasn’t sure how to process what he was seeing. The sudden appearance of an ancient city and a river filled with ghosts was a lot to comprehend. In some ways, it was even crazier than the world becoming a video game; it was more tangible and immediate. From the looks of it, whoever lived here had carved a city out of the cavern itself.

SOM - Chapter 1 - All Aboard

Luke regretted his life choices as he waited for the train to finally get moving. In the last few hours, he had self-destructed both his career and the tattered shreds of his personal life. If life came with a reset button, he would have smashed it repeatedly. 

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his matted and overgrown hair. He was ...