《Come Sevenfall》Paradise for the Insane - 5.1
Advertisement
“Hime, you lazy roat! Get up. You sleep like a hog. It’s noon already,” Mevin said as he ripped Lex’s blanket off.
“Five more minutes,” Lex groaned as he waved Mevin off.
“Nope, not going to happen. Now get up before I dump this bucket of ice water on your head.” Lex bolted up. He glared at the bucket in Mevin’s hands.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would. I still haven’t gotten my revenge on you threatening my pay yesterday.” He held the bucket aloft in a position to launch its contents.
“Stop! I’m up. I’m up. Why are you attacking me this morning?”
“Two things. We’re in sight of the boarder wall, and, well it’d be better if you just see it. Seven’s having a bit of a problem. And I’m not attacking you.”
“Where is he?” Lex said as he stood up. He grabbed a shirt and combed his hair with his hand. Then, he headed out of the bedroom.
“In the engine room,” Mevin said, following Lex.
“Why is he in there?”
“Sven was giving him the grand tour.”
“Did something happen? Is everything alright?”
“Well, he’s sort of stuck at the moment.”
“Stuck?” Lex sped up his pace. “Stuck how? He better not be hurt.”
“He’s fine. It’s just, well, he got stuck on the ceiling?”
“Mevin, what the jeck are you talking about?”
“That’s just it. He’s stuck on the ceiling. There’s no other way to describe it.”
They turned the corner and opened the door to the engine room. Several Cakemen stood staring confused up at the tall ceiling. Lex pushed his way into the room and then looked up. It was just as Mevin said. Seven was standing upside-down on the ceiling. His position defied gravity.
Advertisement
“Lex!” the boy called, “Lex, I can’t get down!”
“Seven! What? Are you alright? How did you get up there?”
“Hime, we’ve been trying to get him down, but there isn’t a good way to get up there. He’s too high, and there’s not spot to reach him,” Rowan said.
“What exactly happened?”
“We’re not really sure.”
“I was showing him around in here. He was fine one moment, but I turned around the next minute, and he had disappeared. I look up and he’s floating high up to the roof,” Sven said.
“Lex! I accidentally touched that thing. Sven called it the generator. I got shocked,” Seven shuddered.
“You touched the generator? Are you alright? You’re not burnt are you?” Lex said, slightly panicking.
“I’m alright. I’m not hurt at all. Just can’t get down right now.”
“Are you sure? The generator has a lot of electricity going through it.”
“What does that have to do with why you’re on the ceiling?” Blick frowned.
“It’s my other ability. I can float. Well not exactly that, but something like that. I didn’t want to say anything ’cause Jo… Anyway, normally I can control it, but on occasion it’ll glitch and go haywire. It’ll only happen when my body’s stored up too much electricity.”
The whole room was quiet for a few seconds trying to process the absurdity of what he said, but the fact that he was standing on the ceiling made it hard to dispute his words.
“That’s so cool!” Sven broke the silence. “How do you do that? I wish I could!”
“How long does it usually last?” Josem asked.
“Usually four or five hours. Three at the shortest. I’ve had it go on for as long as ten hours once before I got back in control. Depends on how much excess electricity I have in my body. I can build up a lot before I glitch,” Seven said.
Advertisement
Lex sighed. “Alright Seven, we’ll find a way to get you down, so just hand tight. But we’re talking about this later.”
“Lex, it looks like he completely switched his gravity around. Look, his hair isn’t even hanging. I think Tegan might have a grappling gun that he picked up from somewhere,” said Basalt.
“No way, José! You are not putting a hole in my ship! Find some other way, but don’t you dare make a dent in anything, you hear, or I’ll smash your face so hard that you won’t even see Pluto with how fast you’re shooting out of the solar system,” Juleka said.
“Seven!” Mevin suddenly said, “Can you reach that air duct over there? If you can climb along it over to the wall and down a little, you might be able to grab onto the cooling unit. Rowan could climb the access ladder, and with a little work, he could reach you.
“Ah, that might work. I think I can do it!” Seven made his way over to the air duct. With difficulty, he climbed up it using the slight ridges and bolts along it’s side. Occasionally he slipped and slid back to the bottom, tearing up his hands. Those on the ground flinched every time it happened. After those few failed attempts, he made it to the top.
Seven looked at the cooling unit. It was a bit disorienting looking up at it, considering his world was flipped. It was several feet above him and off to the left. It would be a hard jump to grab a hold of the railing, he missed, it was a thirteen foot drop back to the ceiling. He didn’t fancy that drop.
He looked over at Rowan who was climbing the access ladder. His stomach flipped. Rowan looked like he was climbing head down first. It didn’t feel right watching him. Seven swallowed. He was afraid he would fall. Even if he made it, he would have to climb the cooling unit dangling only by his hands.
He decided to wait until Rowan climbed as far as he was able. Only, Rowan had already reached that point. He really couldn’t stall anymore. He gulped, then made himself back up to get a running start. Seven hesitated.
“Can’t I just wait up here until it wears off?”
“Do you really want to wait up there for five hours?” Blick said.
“How good’s your control when it does?” Lex asked.
Seven thought for a moment, then admitted, “Not very good.”
“So, you’ll fall then?”
“Probably.”
“Then, no. I’m not having you fall thirty feet.”
“You can do it, Seven!” Sven yelled.
Seven gritted his teeth, then jumped.
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial6 Chapters
Party Leveling
{A new notification has arrived.} In front of a few people, these hologram-looking messages appeared and changed their lives in entirely different forms. Things such as growing stronger, becoming smarter, feeling more agile, became possible within short periods of time from that point onwards. The one who regretted his weak healing abilities for years began to chase after the magic powers that could turn reason and sense upside down while keeping his goal, this duty to the wrongs he committed. The other one, who complained about his lack of strength, strove towards the path of an unbeatable champion to protect those he held dear. When the person who had everything found a path to desire for more, not fearing the consequences and the obstacles, he also began to walk onwards to a new life. And among them, the one who walked aimlessly but also never stepped down on the choices he made along the way, was the one who couldn’t be ignored nor disrespected by anyone. The “Player” system that they all obtained, and which granted them several abilities, knowledge and directions, was also the beginning of an entire new era in this world where monsters, magic and technology, were already common and wide-spread. There’s not a single hero, but after committing mistakes after mistakes, learning from the painful and thorny path that they take, and growing as people with the people that surround them, then someday... there will certainly be saviors. [Quick reminder that this novel is also being published in Webnovel(dot)com and ScribbleHub(dot)com]
8 84 - In Serial6 Chapters
Game Start Cancel
Today was a great day. I died. It wasn't a great day because I died. No, it was a great day and I died. One has nothing to do with the other. Enough nonsense. Let's continue with the topic we're all curious about. Why was it a great day? I achieved my dream to transform my real life into an MMORPG. Grinding skills, leveling up, collecting coins, going on an adventure, and making progress on my main quest. The dream of every gamer. And no, I'm not mad. Let me give you some context before we continue. I'll keep it short, for we have more urgent matters to discuss. Art by: Roland Deaconu
8 130 - In Serial13 Chapters
Lobotomy Corporation: Second Wave
Area description:Welcome to the new Lobotomy Corporation. Our job is to maintain Abnormalities and use them for power. There are 5 levels of threat here, ZAYIN barley causing harm and may even include benfits to us, TETH, HE, WAW, and ALEPH being the toughest to contain and utterly the most hellfull. Anyways welcome and good luck. Plot description: After a hellish event that happened 2 years ago, Leo Reid was hired by the Lobotomy corporation as a clerk for his seemingly endless loyalty to his previous group and assigned as one of the first hundred employees to the new Lobotomy Corp.(This is only a side series I'm working on, it may not be updated as much as my others)(This also contains some minor and Major Spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina)
8 161 - In Serial32 Chapters
On Venus and Mars [Vol. 1]
"Most people say their first words when they're one or two years old. The grown-ups would get all excited and they'd tell stories about that day years later. But I said my first word at twelve years old and there was only one person there to hear it. This is the story of us." - EllieCover Artist: @CBMokediFellow Editor: @KylieTraskTW: Harsh language. Child abuse.
8 203 - In Serial84 Chapters
The Devil's Bride
"I am not sleepy so why don't we tell each other a story?" Her voice was low and raspy and fuck, I'd been lying if I say I wasn't turned the fuck on. "Like what?" I ask swallowing my pride and probably my sense of direction. Her skin was on top of mine, in contact, burning. "I don't know." She says taking her time to adjust herself on my lap. I had to grip the chair for support feeling all my breath vanish from my lungs. "Maybe a short bio about yourself." She advocates placing one of her hands on my chest. I feel the contact through my shirt, my eyes trained on every movement of hers. The worst of it all was that she is unaware of what she was doing to me. "Uh-" I feel my words shorten. On impulse, I grab her by her waist for support instead. Leaning back painfully on the single chair. "You're so cute when you're confused!" She giggles going ahead to move slightly on my lap. I blow out a groan feeling my erection harden.
8 72

