《Stepping Through》We Play The Game – 18 – Call that damned Limo back!
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He looked up at her and let out a slow breath of exasperation.
“And what is that?” Devon as, as if he didn’t know.
Wow. Tina wanted to clock him.
“That you call that damned limo back and take me home!” she yelled. “If I get back soon, then I won’t make a complaint to the police. I’ll just quietly quit and that will be that.”
Not that anyone would believe her, even if her stola didn’t turn back into a 2019 outfit and her pouch of coins didn’t turn into a roll of fifties or God knew how many rolls of toonies they were worth.
The dwarf looked up with a distinctly unhappy look on his face. Oh, now, he was giving her the sad look. And damn but it didn’t work on her, at least a little bit.
“But…” she didn’t want to say it, but hell, when she went back to the employment office she was going to need the form that said she didn’t quit. “You will state that you laid me off or something like that. Understand? So I can keep paying my rent until I can find another job. And I damn well want a decent recommendation as well, for even putting up with a minute of this!”
His unhappy look turned to more of a contrite expression.
“You are certain that you won’t enter the tournament?” He said that in a rather unexpectedly hopeful tone after all she had yelled at him.
“One hundred percent,” she told him. “I’m only going to live once, and I intend to die with my skin intact! Someday… in the distant future. The distant future from 2020, you know, like 2099 or something even more science fictiony! I’m going to live to see people on Mars! A robot prime minister. That kind of stuff.”
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Okay, that was enough. And Tina knew it from Devon’s raised eyebrows.
“Very well,” he told her. “Again, I will check the conjunctions tonight and let you know. As I told you, it may take a few days before we can find a ride back to when we came from.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. “We get back for the weekend? I told you my cat only has a couple days of food and water!”
“Oh, no,” he told her. “As I said, we will return at near the same time we left, within hours at worse. The doors between realms are rather fixed. Besides, don’t you have a roommate? Your cousin? Can’t she feed your cat while you are away.”
“She isn’t going to be happy about it, that’s for sure!” Tina shot back. “Okay, how long will I have to stay here in this smelly world?”
“A few days at the most,” he told her. “And I have arranged that the stay isn’t going to exactly be unpleasant. Why don’t we head back to the apartments I have secured for us. To give you time to calm down, and think things over.”
He motioned her to follow him and started walking.
Tina let out a breath, but as he started to stroll out of sight, she started after him, catching up quickly.
“I’m not changing my mind,” she told him. “You’re not making me change my mind!”
He stopped, and turned to glance back at her over his shoulder. She could swear that there was a glint in his eye and a bit of a smirk on his lips. Maybe glint had to with the torchlight, but the smirk, that was pure dick.
Damn, she thought. He’s not going to stop nagging, is he?
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Why should he? that devil’s advocate in her head whispered. Don’t you want to have a little fun? Don’t you want to win?
“No, of course not,” Devon told her, completely ignorant of the debate playing out in her head. “Now come along. The streets of Constantinople aren’t especially safe at the best of times, and are even less safe after dark.”
Tina took another breath, this one of steely resolve and hurried after him. No, after thinking about it, she did not want to find herself lost in the alleys of this ancient city with who knew who wandering about looking for someone with a jangly purse worth their stabby while.
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Dungeon Scholar
Girl meets dungeon. What could go right? A story of a good-hearted Scholar driven by her compassion and curiosity. She might be a little combat averse, but um, isn't that only logical? Love me a good grimdark, but sometimes I want to read feel-good fiction that isn't pure action, romance, or comedy. The plot and characters of Dungeon Scholar won't be all happy and fluffy, and the world will be more dungeons and monsters than rainbows and puppies, but overall the sweet moments should overshadow the bitter. Let's say three dollops of sugar for every pinch of salt, with lemon slices left on the saucers? Enjoy. Note: This is NOT a typical dungeon story. If you are here for the dungeon aspect, then fair warning this will seem incredibly slow-burn to you. The dungeon will eventually become the most important 'character,' arguably, or the second-most important narratively, but you might jump out the window in frustration long before that happens. At its heart, the story's core remains 'girl meets dungeon,' not 'dungeon meets world.' (To be clear, this does or will have a plot! It's just the more conventional story-like elements contribute to Rowena Loress's greater story, not the other way around; no conflict takes center stage until it becomes personally significant to her. Meanwhile, have some Slice of Life.) Updates every Friday Cover made using Waifulabs Written using 4thewords (referral code: UZJRY55368)
8 105Spiteful Healer
In the year 2090, technology has advanced to the point where Simulation Boxes, (Sim Box for short) are common place, allowing for the user to link up their brain's neural network to a full dive Simulation. While initially used for educational purposes, recently a large gaming company, Averon, released a fully fledged immersive MMORPG simulation where users can become anyone they desire, level up, choose their class, and become a hero or a villain. The name of this simulation is The Shattered World Online. Eli Winters had no interest in playing it. His father, a jobless bum who spent his entire life playing games in the hope of becoming a famous player or streamer, was able to use the release of The Shattered World Online to gain wealth and fame, quickly becoming the number one player and a household name as the game took the world by storm. He immediately abandoned Eli and his mother in favor of being with someone from his guild, despite his mother having worked two jobs to support them and raise Eli by herself. Eli had nothing but spite for his father and the game. When Eli's best friend convinces him to try out the game, his father's fame begins to interfere, culminating in him being singled out and shunned by his peers, and his father offering to pay for his university tuition in return for Eli hiding their relationship and quitting the game. Instead of complying with his father's wishes, Eli decides to prove to everyone how useless a guy his father is by challenging him that if Eli is able to surpass him in the game world he must delete his account and quit his streaming career. His father accepts the challenge believing his son to be useless at games - but Eli will soon show him just how ambitious a spiteful person can be. ----------- Updated Daily
8 1084Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG
~~ On Hiatus ~~ After Flora Fluss burns down the kitchen, her son insists she is too old to live alone. She's got two choices. Either move into a retirement home or spend the rest of her life within a virtual reality game governed by society's most advanced artificial intelligence. When you've worked a lifetime as an engineer for home appliances, naturally, you go with the option that has more toasters. Soon, Flora finds out that the virtual world is more familiar than she thought. Though, it takes her a while to get used to the idea that tanks don't hold water or oil but the aggro of mobs. Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG contains cute crafting, complicated game-mechanics plus how to exploit them, unconventional training methods, and a lot of toasters. New chapters: Mondays and Thursdays. For additional information, companion vids and pictures, please check out my Patreon posts with the tag #attv. Companion videos on YouTube are in the playlist Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG You want to get notified on Twitter or Facebook when I upload a new chapter? No problemo! Discord: https://discord.gg/hX8gWPE
8 130The Kodoku Game
In Japanese folklore, there once existed an ancient technique among alchemists for harvesting the strongest poison known to man. A poison so vicious, so horrendous, that a single drop could incapacitate an entire nation of humans, several times over. A poison so intense that a single drop could turn the tides of a war on its head. As potent as it appeared however, this poison could be harvested from the blood of a single insect alone- an insect the alchemist’s called the ‘Kodoku’. As lucrative as was attaining this poison however, the problem lied in identifying this insect- its appearance, shape and size changed from region to region and from continent to continent. Sometimes it took the appearance of a ladybug and other times a horned-beetle. In order to determine the identity of this special insect the alchemists came up with an ingenious method. They created an impregnable jar of clay out of the best sandstone they could find and placed hundreds of different insects into the same jar. The jar was made with such great mastery that it allowed no insects to escape and allowed no objects to enter. The laws of nature dictated that the insects would remain together in the jar forever. However, it turned out that as time went on, the insects’ hunger for food and power caused them to turn against each other- one insect ate another until only one remained. This sole insect contained a poison that far surpassed that of all the others and became stronger as it ate more and more insects. The alchemists at this point had succeeded in identifying the Kodoku and could extract it’s poison as long as they continued to feed it regularly. Although this folklore ends here, the actual story does not. One day, as the alchemists cheered in joy of having identified the Kodoku they so eagerly wanted, they forgot to close the lid on the very jar that was considered to be completely impregnable. This small gap was just large enough for the Kodoku inside to crawl out. Famished from not having been fed for weeks, the Kodoku ended up eating the very alchemists that nourished its growth until not even the bones remained. Yet, the Kodoku’s hunger didn’t seem to subside in the slightest. So it traveled to the next village and began eating whatever it could find there. Its poison made it unparalleled in strength and slowly but surely it began to dwindle down the population of the entire city. Yet its hunger only continued to grow. So it traveled to the next city over and ate all it could there. Very soon, the Kodoku couldn’t find any more food to eat. There was no one left to eat and no one left to spectate. So it stood there, by itself pondering what possibly was left to eat that could satiate its hunger. But there was one thing left that Kodoku realized it had never eaten. Itself.
8 104INFERNO: Destruction [Completed]
Дэлхий ертөнц урьдын тайван байхаа больжээ. Гэнэтхэн энд тэндгүй хүчтэй газар хөдөлж, олон хот тосгод сүйрч, хүмүүс сая саяаараа үхэж үрэгдэв. Гэвч дан ганц энэ аюул дэлхийд нүүрлээгүй байв. Тун удалгүй дэлхий даяар хүн рүү дайрч, тэднийг тасчиж, өөртэйгөө ижил болон хувиргадаг үхдлүүд тархсан юм. Гэвч эдгээр аймшигт сүйрэл болоод үхдлүүдийн цаана маш том нууц, далд зорилго агуулагдаж байв.Ким Жисү их сургуулийн ангийнхантайгаа зугаалж байхуй эхний сүйрэл нүүрлэж, тэр зугтаж явсаар, нэгэн айлын зооринд орж амь гарах ч, дээрээс нь нуранги дарж, дээш гарч үл чадан олон хоног өнгөрөөнө. Ертөнцөд тэр эргэж ирвэл шууд үхдлүүд таарч, түүнийг болоод хамт байсан гэр бүлийг нь тасчин идэж, хөнөөж орхисноор үйл явдал эхлэх билээ.
8 91Skywalker Rises
A post-TROS fix fic. Ben & Rey's story after Episode IX.This story contains plenty of spoilers from Episode IX, and some from the Mandalorian.These are not my characters, world, or artwork.
8 87