Oz yawned, stretching wide. Sunlight beamed in, warming his bed. Sid sat up, stretching twice as luxuriantly as Oz, and crawled into his lap, settling in to purr and be pet. Absentminded, Oz stroked her, yawning occasionally in his daze. Nice cat, nice sunlight, nice cozy bed. Maybe I’ll just stay here all day.
The walls shook. ...
2024-01-20 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostHis hair singed at the ends, the ribbon long gone, loose strands blowing around his head in the wild winds, a storm cloud gathering overhead, Oz yet again raised a piece of paper. Letters curling like cursive and living vines, five words burned into the paper, all of them burned almost as deeply as the others. Scraps of paper danced around his h...
2024-01-19 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostOz tucked his list into his robes and stood. He glanced down the hallway. Is Linnea still in that small realm? Excellent. I’ll quickly lock her there. I don’t want her to know too much about my enchantment, or else she could interfere with the spell. He pressed a few symbols on his control tattoo, locking down the grassy realm.
<... 2024-01-18 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostQi rushed into him, filling him up. He circulated it, desperately sending it into his core, then paused. No. That’s not right. I’m not controlling it. I’m letting it flow with me.
Rather than capturing the qi and holding it in his core, he sent it from one hand to the other, then back into the world. As the qi rushed through...
2024-01-17 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostOz sat quietly on the floor, legs crossed, reading a book in his hand and skimming through one in his mind at the same time. He took a deep breath and let it back out slowly, relishing in the scent of old paper. Nothing like reading a real, physical book.
Though on the other hand, there’s nothing like the convenience of a di...
2024-01-16 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostDark, demonic, or fey magic. Which do I pursue?
“Let’s do a quick cost-benefits analysis,” Oz said aloud.
“A what?” Linnea asked.
Ignoring her, Oz continued. “Dark magic. Upside: developed by humans, for humans. Probably pretty descriptive tomes. Downside: it’s taboo for a reason. Likely to face a backlas...
2024-01-15 17:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostStone rumbled. The chamber trembled.
“At last… someone figured it out! Gods, I thought it was too easy, but the number of idiots who failed such a basic test… even before she made me visible, it was exhausting watching them totally flop such a simple puzzle.”
Oz let out a sigh of relief. “You had me going for a min...
2024-01-15 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostOz pulled the book. The floor panel twisted open, and they descended the narrow staircase into the dank, dark space below the library. Oz glanced around, then dragged his fingertips along the hallway as they walked. His fingertips left trails in the perspiration on the wall, the damp stone cold to the touch. No books here. If they’re hidde...
2024-01-14 16:50:29 +0000 UTC View PostOz hurried into the library, delving into the shelves he hadn’t explored yet and the books he hadn’t organized. Compared to magical manuals, there’s relatively few books on the history and events of this world, but the library isn’t empty. It’s true that I won’t find scandals worth chasing in them, since anything published or wri...
2024-01-14 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostTurning to the control tattoo, Oz brought up the console.
>Fenrir, are you able to change the internal configuration of the library?
>What do you mean?
>Can you connect the front door to the World Door that leads to the plains?
>…
The sword hovered inches from Oz’s nose. Sunlight gleamed off bared steel, inscribed gold patterns glittering brilliantly. An armored hand led to an armored arm, all the way up to a shining steel helm. Dark eyes glared down at him.
“Hand over the demon. Now.”
Instinctively, Oz put his hands up, then lowered them. He cr...
2024-01-12 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostHours passed. Oz sweated over the furnace, brewing antidote after antidote. Rather than sticking to the same recipe, he tried every recipe in the books, modifying them as he went. Black, burned pills piled up beside him on his left, but to his right, the bottle of successful antidotes slowly filled. At last, his stomach grumbled.
Oz pushed...
2024-01-11 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostOz lit the fuel beneath the pill cauldron, the motions familiar by now. Lifting Professor Keane’s pill, he chopped it in two with a nearby knife, then dropped half into the cauldron.
“What’s the plan?” Linnea asked, settling beside him.
“Well, according to the books I’ve read, the classic way to investigate pills is to ta...
2024-01-10 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostOz opened his eyes and grunted, frustrated, staring at the dormitory’s ceiling. Why do I keep almost meeting people in these strange realms? Almost, almost, almost. It’s like I’m afraid of acknowledging them, or something.
No, for that matter, why was someone whispering to me in my personal core-realm? Unless it was Ossi...
2024-01-09 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostPain. Bright light.
Oz squinched his eyes, reluctant to open them. Why does everything hurt? With effort, he peeled his eyes open.
He laid in a field, surrounded by low grass. Confused, Oz sat up and looked around. This… isn’t the library. It isn’t the plains outside the World Door, either.
Three large b...
2024-01-08 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe floor dropped out from under them, and they fell into darkness.
Fira screamed. Fire lit up around her body.
“Hey, calm down, calm down. If you actually fly, you might actually die,” Levi warned her. He hummed, pleased with himself. “Nice! A rhyme.”
She took a deep breath. Using the flames as light, she took in their...
2024-01-08 02:07:08 +0000 UTC View PostFira tensed. “Edwin’s in trouble.”
“If you’re gonna unalive yourself, do it on your own time. You don’t have the time to worry about others right now. If you stick around, that’s it for you,” Levi said. He half-walked, half-jogged away, leaving her behind without hesitation.
Looking over her shoulder one last time, Fi...
2024-01-08 02:06:15 +0000 UTC View PostRainer Drift screamed. A pearlescent rainbow barrier materialized between her and the boy, blocking his advance. She backed away, terrified, her perfectly coiffed chestnut curls and glittering diamond jumpsuit swaying with her fear, bright red lipstick making her shaking jaw all the more obvious. The boy slammed into the barrier, then bounced ba...
2024-01-08 02:05:24 +0000 UTC View PostLevi fled down the alley. Last thing I want is for Jet Engine to recognize me and start associating me with Fira. Especially if she decides to join up with Them.
A blast of fire lit the alleyway behind him. Fira burst after him, bright as the sun.
“You—stop it! Turn off the fire! Stop!” Levi snapped, frustrated.
...
2024-01-08 02:04:41 +0000 UTC View PostSo hey. Look. I know I saw them. But you know. I really, really thought that was it.
You know. We look each other in the eyes, acknowledge that their stealth mission has failed, and they try again later, let us have a bite to eat—hell! Maybe they go get a bite to eat themselves. I mean, reasonable, right? Very professional. All of us hav...
2024-01-08 02:03:52 +0000 UTC View PostClimbing out from the forest, Levi led Fira out onto another quiet backstreet and immediately took off down the road. Fira glanced left and right, then snuck out of the forest, ducking her head a little as she followed him.
Levi glanced back. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” Fira asked.
He nodded at her. “Act lik...
2024-01-08 02:02:58 +0000 UTC View Post“Of course I’m serious. Have I been un-serious once since you came with me?” Levi crossed his arms.
“That’s a public toilet.”
“Incorrect. It’s my private toilet. And home sweet home.”
“You live here?”
Levi grinned. “Since I got evicted permanently for missing rent too many times, it sure i...
2024-01-08 02:02:09 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to Central City! Come for the enormous statue of Alpha with its concerningly exaggerated bulge, stay for the back-alley doctors hacking you to pieces for your organs! No trip to Central City is complete without losing at least one organ. Ten out of ten recommend losing an organ on your trip to Central City!
There’s a rea...
2024-01-08 02:01:17 +0000 UTC View PostLevi knocked on the door of the run-down apartment. The wind whooshed by, spraying him with the damp from the rain pouring down just on the other side of the apartment’s outdoor walkway. He shivered and knocked again.
Seconds before his hand landed, the door was yanked out from under him. An angry, overweight woman scowled at him, lookin...
2024-01-08 02:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hello, readers! Apologies for a bit of spam. The last few days, I've been working on something a little experimental. It might be a one-off, it might die shortly, but right now, I'm very excited about it. If you don't like it, let me know, and i'll remove it from the shared book tiers.
In Central City, there’s only one hard ru...
2024-01-08 01:58:58 +0000 UTC View PostSudden paper flapping caught Oz’s ear. He turned to find a paper human fluttering out from Aisling’s pocket. She caught it, unfolding the paper, then frowned. Reluctantly, she looked between Oz and Linnea.
“What?” Oz asked. Another talisman? A note from her Master, maybe?
“Master Sachairi is calling me. I have to g...
2024-01-07 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAisling emerged from the room frazzled, her nostrils flared, glaring off into the distance. Behind her, the assassin boy laughed defiantly. “Go on. Get out of here!”
“No joy?” Oz asked.
“I’m not very good at people,” Aisling bit, her lip twitching.
Fair enough, from the martial mage. I wasn’t expecting her t...
2024-01-06 14:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe assassin lifted his lip in disgust. He strained against the spider silk that still held him. When it held strong, he gave Oz a defiant look instead. “Talk to you? Never! The Black Blades—”
“You aren’t confident in that, though, are you? The idea of torture terrifies you,” Oz said, looking him in the eye. He arched his hands...
2024-01-05 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostI don’t necessarily want to use the same herbs I did first time. That antidote I made involved too many ingredients, and it took too long to make. This time, I want to keep it simple. Create something quick and dirty that does a good enough job to revive our friend over there for questioning. It’s a bit callous, but I don’t need him to...
2024-01-04 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOz pulled the fake book. The round panel, embossed with a black begonia blooming from an open book, lifted out of the floor and spun open to reveal a boy, about the same ten as the other children, struggling on the top steps. He paused in rubbing the spider silk against the rough edge of the stair and stared at them, frozen in place.
“He...
2024-01-04 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post