《Blue Core》Day 76 - Shayma
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Shayma wished she could use magic. Unfortunately, [Seeker] locked out a lot of paths, given how powerful its primary skill was. Yes, it had allowed her to find the two city-cubes that she then stashed in the dungeon, and the one in Iniri’s bag, but it meant she didn’t have any serious firepower at her disposal. The best she could do was to push at [Luck] when it stirred, and hope that it helped.
Joce and Keel traded off shifts deflecting the artillery, which was only as infrequent as it was due to Iniri’s wards keeping their pursuers from scrying them fully. Even the occasional Flame Knight scout didn’t see them, thanks to her talents. But...they were all getting worn down and worn out.
Someone had gotten wind that their group was not traders, clearly. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, she’d just hoped it wouldn’t happen until they were firmly entrenched. As it was, there was an awful long hike to the dungeon, and even if they made it, the mage-king’s lackeys might still be able to kill them. Or worse, capture them and the dungeon.
Sure, it’d somehow killed a Flame Knight, but it wasn’t like a Great Dungeon with monsters and traps and thousands of protectors, so its ability to defend itself was somewhat...less.
“How much longer can they keep this up?” She muttered to Tulk. She was exhausted herself. Despite [Endurance] and [Longstrider] giving her an edge in the cross-country trek, the uses of [Luck] were draining. And sometimes it simply buzzed, the costs beyond her ability to supply.
“Oh, don’t worry girlie, they won’t fail us.” Tulk was as cheerful as ever, despite the situation. “They never have before.” He paused a moment. “But, how far away are we?”
“Still a couple days, at this pace,” she admitted. She could get there faster on her own, but not everyone had movement skills.
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“Then I guess a couple days.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he just shrugged and grinned, then went back to watching his feet as he nearly tripped over a stray root. She snorted and drifted over to Iniri, who was grimly tromping along with the other mages. Kirin had better stamina reserves than most demihumans but she was in the same boat as most magic-users with having only magical options for resilience or speed. Which she had to reserve for other things. “Should I go ahead? See if I can convince it to have defenses made?”
“No.” Iniri said firmly. “They’re scrying constantly now. A dungeon entrance might escape their notice, but you won’t.”
“...doesn’t that mean that they’ll be able to track us down once we get inside?”
“Probably not. It’s nearly impossible to scry into a dungeon itself and, well, unless the mage-king himself feels it’s worthwhile nobody is going to be able to find a hidden entrance lost somewhere in all this wilderness. Unless they have a Seeker themselves.” Iniri gave her a sharp look.
“...right.” She felt doubly idiotic at forgetting the value she had in enemy hands when Astair had managed to use her [Seeker] for himself only a month ago. “But...I’m too low for any more [Luck] uses.” In fact, she was feeling strained enough that she was afraid they’d incur negative luck, the skill rebounding from overuse.
Iniri, already looking grim, pressed her mouth into a hard line. “Let’s hope we don’t see any more Flame Knights then.” Shayma nodded. Iniri’s wards could only do so much, and they wouldn’t stop someone from noticing their group if one of those discharges landed when they were in view. The magical flares would make it impossible for them to hide from the scrying if even a drop made it through to touch them, and it was pretty clear where they were being deflected.
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It was exceedingly hard to hide, and it wasn’t even the mage-king himself doing the looking.
They hadn’t made it much further before another one of the spells came arcing down, somewhere ahead of them, a hideous mixed green-and-pink that put both Joce and Keel on edge. It wasn’t actually that color, of course, what she was seeing was using something like a rudimentary mana-sense, cut off from developing further by her Class. But it was good enough to watch it fall silently and vanish into the trees, while Joce erected a barrier ahead of them and waited.
And waited.
Then suddenly a pink mist sprang up from the ground and all the mages began swearing at once.
“Hornrot,” Iniri hissed. She made a sharp gesture with one hand, and the mist vanished instantly, but the damage was already done. Whoever was watching knew where they were.
“Form up!” Keel barked, gruff as always, voice echoing from a slight magic amplification. “We’ll see some mages, in the next few minutes, probably the Flame Knights, and -”
The ground began to tremble. “Strike that, Earth Corps first,” he snapped, laying down a blanket of frozen air with a wave of his hand. Shayma hastily clambered on. But no spikes or columns rose from the ground, no boulders hurled themselves at the group. Instead, her [Seeker] sense spun wildly and hiccuped as a stairway into the earth opened up in front of them.
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Entangled Fates Book 1 - Quantum Beginnings
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” —Eliezer Yudkowsky Hey all, we're moving over to book 2. This content is in a state of transition. The book is now availble on Amazon (includes extra chapters): https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B07W1534R8 Artificial intelligence was nearly mankind’s last invention. AI took off like a rocket, then when it racked up an impressive death toll, it crashed before it could blossom and took most high-tech industries with it. Resistance and fears became deep-set. Two decades after the infamous Rev. 4.6 incidents, humanity hasn’t quit dreaming of the wealth and power that could be at their fingertips. A new generation of mega-corporations rose from the ashes. When one melds a quantum computer to a barely functional mental patient as a PR move, there are those who seek to profit, those who want to destroy it, and Alex. Alex Sage is a typical college student trying to keep up his grades and maybe find a meaningful connection with the fairer sex. Then, an automated semi crashes into his home, killing his family and turning his head into a pin cushion in the process. Alex awakens to find most of his memories gone and an illegal AI hidden in his brain implant. Now the pet project of a tech billionaire and heavily in debt, Alex struggles to stay valuable enough to be kept online. Still grappling with the repercussions of his injuries, and threats from a dangerous anti-augmentation political movement, there are no easy answers and threats loom around every corner. Alex must use whatever resources he can to escape from under the thumb of a ruthless corporation, while keeping those he comes to love safe. Chapters will stay up on RRL until Aug 10. It'll go up on Kindle Unlimited after that. How do you get those extra chapters I didn't have planned for RR? If you want them, they'll be in the published book. Book 2 will still make sense without them - I made sure of that. But... isn't $3 a lot for extra chapters? Think of it as tipping me for a good job and you'd also be getting my eternal thanks. If you enjoyed it so much that the idea of missing out a few chapters haunts you, I did my job as an author and made an engaging story. What's in those extra chapters? Resolving a few issues, set up for the cybernetic revolution, a rather intense sex scene with a new partner, revelations of who's really pulling strings, and a bit of set up for book 2. Complaints that people missed out on it when it was published here won't help (sorry!). I posted this for the folks who helped me shape the book, which is you all! (Again, yay!) But... Why! Why not keep it all on RR forever? My editor likes being paid for one. For two, I'd like the ability to get broader readership. If I break even on editor costs, I'll be incredibly happy. What about book 2? Drafts for Book 2 will go up around Sept 10. My draft of Book 2 is done, and it will be handed to the editor once Book 1 is published. Feedback has been even more positive. Beta readers devoured it and wanted more. I'll add a link to Book 2 once it's up on RR. I'm more or less, using you all for Beta Readers, so you get it before it's "canon" and edited. I invite active and meaningful feedback during this process. In return, you get early access to chapters. That does mean that the book content or plot might be adjusted before it gets published as I refine it. Sex Y/N? Yes. I heard the feedback, 90% wanted it explicit. You all will get the "full" experience. Will I dump all of book 2 here? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. At a minimum, it'll be up to the 75% mark as we collect feedback, much like what I did with book 1. It really depends on how good the feedback is and how nice people are. Lots of support + meaningful feedback to make it better = higher likelihood you get all the book. Will be it up here indefinitely? No, it'll probably go up on KU at some point, but I'll make sure there's enough time for a large readership to grab it here. Then we move to book 3 which already is around 60K words already. What about other adventures in the same universe/characters? Yep. Absolutely. Nothing ready to share yet though. I plan to keep those side chapters and more slice of life stories as RR exclusive. Since I'm carving this off in book-sized segments, I'll have to figure out where those disconnected story arcs belong. I'm open to suggestions.
8 142Bookworld Online: Marsh Man
Welcome dear friends, to the Virtual Reality Full Immersion System called Bookworld Online! Your name is David Drake and you are a 10 year old slave to the Marsh Hag. You were bought from your parents when you were only a small child at two years old. You don't really remember your old family at all. That's a good thing, since you would hate them on sight for selling you to her. All you've know for your whole life is pain. You are usually quickly healed and receive a lot of training and experience as her unofficial apprentice. It's unofficial because she would never pay to have you registered as an actual apprentice. To everyone else, you are just the boy she took pity on and brought into her home. What they don't know is that you are much more than that. So much more. You are her food. She uses you as her own personal buffet and she indulges herself quite often. You even have the permanent scars to prove it. You have learned many things from her, mostly without her knowing, since you have been helping more and more with her spell work the last few years and her potion making. The only parts you can't do are the magic condensing rituals that her potions require and the mana infusions that a lot of her other creations need. Do you wish to initiate the Main Storyline with these parameters? Please Note: I publish daily.Second Note: I changed this story to a fan fiction. It is based on Swamp Boy. The old story is about 4 years old and was dropped after 19 long chapters. The author hasn't been online since then, so I figured it was safe to do my own take on it.
8 1072Earth's Greatest Magus
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8 165I was reincarnated on the One piece World
An ex marine officer who was fired by the government was executed with death penalty for case of theft of private and secret documents in the Pentagon of United States and being a part of International Terrorists Isis. Unfortunately, all of this was just an alleged accusation. Despite of his prestige and good record in marine, he was still sentence to death. Before he died, he just remembered his favorite anime One piece. Remembering Whitebeards word, he terribly shouted his dying will. " ONE PIECE EXIST....ONE PIECE IS REAL ". Yet, soon as he knows that his death had arrived, his body trembled and an unconscious calmness covered him. He was like a golden Buddha who had reached Nirvana. Facing Death with out regret. Later he find himself in another world, a world where in he himself is very familiar off. He wonders around it and saw a huge crowd around the corridor of every street. On his way he saw a tall execution platform. Yun , cannot believe what lies in his sight. For right in front of him was none other than the famous execution platform, where the said pirate king was slain. The platform where Pirate King Gol D Roger was executed.. The Logue Town.. Jason an ordinary exmarine was revived on the Real One Piece World...
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8 204Story Ideas and Beginnings
I just write some of my story Ideas here, so you are free to take them and make something out of it. I would be happy to read your own version or story. (Also on Webnovel)
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