thundamoo

62. Void Beast

I’ve never felt souls that fill me with such abject dread as the creatures from Hiverock.

I’ve felt souls that I know are dangerous plenty of times.  Large souls, painful souls, deadly souls, ugly souls.  I’ve looked at the core of a person and felt disgust, revulsion, or outright hate… but not dread.  Not <...

61. Delicious Humans

“Lark… you know, I… if you want, I could heal you as well.”

I glance up from my meal, looking at my Claretta with confusion.  What is she talking about all of a sudden?

“I can heal myself,” I point out, leaning back over to take another bite.

“Well, what if you’re stuck without food?  Or you get hurt e...

Oops! Late Chapter.

Hey, everyone!  I just wanted to give you a heads-up on my status.  Basically, I got my second Covid shot this weekend and it just about knocked me out for two days.  I was unable to complete today's chapter in time, but fear not!  I'll be catching up soon.  Expect the chapter later today or, more likely, at some point t...

60. Stretched Thin

“So you’re telling me that this little girl, who has barely been a hunter for a few months, is the longest-range scout you have?”

“She’s the longest-range scout we have available, yes.  As I’m sure you know, most of our teams are scouting the other Hiverock egg sites.  What she lacks in experience, however, I...

59. Chicken Soup for the Undead Soul

A little under a week later, Lyn ‘scrounges up’ a little over two pounds of metal, and I just about faint.  You could make a national treasure with this, if you knew a blacksmith.  Of course, I don’t know a blacksmith; not counting apprentices I think there’s only two in the whole city, and both work directly ...

58. Family Meeting

“It’s none of your business, Vita,” Rowan insists.

“Well if it’s none of my business, then you’re not getting any of my money!”

Rowan and I had managed to make it back to the shack’s underground before I started yelling at him, which I count as an impressive show of restraint on my part, but now he was stonewalling me...

57. Soul Surgery

“Is that the place?” I ask, pointing towards an utterly nondescript building in front of us.

“Indeed, oh work of art!  Your vision sees true!”

I frown, nodding without looking in Capita’s direction.  It’s easy to guess the right building since I can feel Rowan’s soul underneath it.  Rowan markets his stre...

56. Head Full of Sky

I slip my tendrils inside of Squigs and Frigs, ready to instantly kill the two closest enemies to me if this becomes a fight.  Two more tendrils prepare shards of my soul; anyone that attacks me is going to switch sides.  The Animancy cat is likely already out of the bag, I will not hesitate to use it to save my life.

No order to...

55. Draken's Den

“Fancy-looking place,” I comment, staring up at the massively wide one-story building that apparently serves as the base for the Broken Drakens.

I’m not entirely lying, either.  Sure, the building is no lord’s estate or anything, and that’s certainly a fresh comparison in my mind after having been there this morning.  P...

54. Fragile

“Be careful with that flower, Lark,” the Claretta tells me.  “If you squeeze it that hard, it’s going to die.”

I loosen my grip immediately, a growl of worry escaping from under my breath.  Sure enough, the bright blue petals have crumpled under my grip.  I try to smooth one out, only to end up ripping it off. &nbs...

53. Big Happy Family

“You fucking parasitic monster!” Theodora screeches, following up her first punch with an immediate second.  The blows are amateurish, but more than enough to knock the slime-Revenant flat.  “One-hundred and fifty-three hours—”

“—thirteen minutes and fourty-three seconds, I know!” the slime-revenant snaps...

52. Twisted Love

“Shouldn’t we have changed for this?” I ask grumpily, descending down the stairs after Penelope.

She glances up at me, her grin gleaming in the dim light.

“Vita, please!  How could you even think of doing forbidden blasphemies in anything but a black dress?”

I roll my eyes, declining to comment.  Pe...

51. A Lark's Story

“This is a Lark’s story, content yet seeking more…”

“Shut up.”

“The Lark... flies... far for she... loves naught but to explore...”

“Shut up!  Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

“No,” I say, turning my head in the direction of the noise.  It’s a good sound, ‘no.’  Refusal.  Negat...

50. Stacking the Deck

“‘Conventionally attractive?’  What does that even mean?  What are you doing to me?”

Penelope’s revelation is not sitting well with me.  A biomancer fucking with my body without permission?  She can’t do that!  It’s my body!

“Vita, this kind of thing is important.  A lot...

49. Things that Matter

Lyn and I exit the lower room to find my team getting along with the kids.  Bently and Norah race each other while giving piggyback rides.  Orville patiently allows two of the girls to braid his white hair, which he’s been growing out recently.  Penelope is doing her healing work, stoically treating one of the little ones while ...

48. Do No Harm

My throat is parched and raw.  I can’t sing a single second more, no matter how hard I try.  No matter how much biomancy I toss at myself and the surviving members of my team, it doesn’t matter if we don’t have water.

It’s been almost two days since our capture.  The black-toothed monster had happily allowed...

47. Work-Life Balance

“Well, shit, here we are,” Norah comments happily.  “Is it just me, guys, or was this mission way easier than the last one?”

The rest of us trudge out of the forest behind her, looking up gratefully at the distant but finally visible walls of Skyhope.  We’d made it to the ring of cleared land around the city, w...

46. A Hunter's Song

“What do you mean there’s nothing in front of us?”  Baldreg asks.

“How is that ambiguous?” Ivan drawls back.  “There’s nothing in front of us.  No movement.  Some wind and that’s it.”

“Nothing triggers my danger sense in that direction either,” Fulvia confirms.  “It’s as blank as goo...

45. Lonely Genocide

She’s dead.  My friend is dead.  Penta’s soul floats lifelessly inside me, like so many others have and will.  She died in there, so I never even had to collect her.  Her body drips down my spine, her little soul-tendrils hang limply.  She is inert and lifeless, waiting to be used like any other soul within me.

44. Worst Nightmare

Eventually, I feel Theodora go to sleep.  Penta and I sneak over to Seong’s house, pour enough from the Everfull for them to do their thing, and return to our room undiscovered.  Taline and Seong work hard throughout the next day making the feast, though each for vastly different reasons.  Penelope spends most of her time with T...

43. Penultimate Practice

Penelope and Theodora are still talking by the time I finish my soul-cuddling session, so I head their way.  The wispy, tattoo-covered Theodora seems to be quite animatedly enjoying a nerdy magic talk with Penelope.  For someone who’s not that much older than us, she sure is strong.  She’s even more powerful than Penelope, and...

42. Hugs and Horrors

I grab Melik and drag him somewhere I’m confident no one can overhear, turning on him before he can have a chance to talk.

“All right, kid, three things.  One: I know you’re not a Nawra.  Two: if you plan to stay that way, you’re not going to tell anyone about my artifact.  And three: how the fuck do you kno...

41. No Better Option

Okay, sitrep.  There’s a lot going on here right now, and I need to lay it all out in my head.

Penelope and I are here to kill all the Nawra, or failing that, retrieve Remus’s sword.  The Nawra here think that we are also Nawra, but they’re mostly wrong.

Remus is the ringleader of this whole thing.  He and his co...

40. Family of Lies

“Vita, come on.  The mists aren’t getting any thicker.”

Penelope waits impatiently on a ramshackle, swaying rope bridge hanging over the deadly abyss.  I, meanwhile, have my feet planted firmly on the ground like a sane person.  I am, against all of my rational instincts, attempting to stop being a sane person...

39. Lines Drawn

I claw at Gladra’s armored hand, trying to get a breath in to answer.  Choking, I pull at her fingers with one arm as I hold the other away from her body, my tentacular soul fleeing down my arm to hide in my hand, outside her burning soul’s reach.

“She caused this…?” Dasil asks, hand moving to his sword.  “How?”

38. Deus ex Anima

Every human I have ever felt has a core to their soul.  While I have the vague insight that souls are more than their apparent shapes, the space in which a human's soul resides is always more or less a sphere.  Their soul's energy may permeate around the inside of their body, but the soul itself, the part they will leave once they die,...

37. The One Below All

More days pass, the wagon plodding along little by little as the islands float by overhead.  We break free of the forests near the start of the seventh day, the horizon appearing surprisingly close.  As it turns out, it is close; as we travel onward, it becomes clear that in front of us the island simply stops.  Soon we're at the ...

36. Suspicions of Danger

As the penumbra of the next island hits, we find a clearing to rest and start a fire for the night. I help the Templars go around collecting kindling and before long the strongest thermomancer there is acts as a glorified match to get us all started. Meals are unpacked from the wagon and cooked, and it’s actually among the best food I’ve eve...

35. Future Promises

I do not, unfortunately, get to rest for long, as I am soon brought screaming into wakefulness by the pain of getting immolated alive.  I spasm, trying to run, but something grabs me and hauls me further into the flames!

“Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” Gladra snaps.

What…?  Oh.  The fire’s not real, i...

34. Trapped Inside

Well, I’ve been surrounded by Templars for a solid half hour and I’m not dead yet, so I’m now willing to bet they can’t passively see I’m an animancer somehow. Penta also hasn’t died, so all things considered I think this is a successful outing so far.

The two of us and Penelope are resting in the wagon, which to my surprise is...