《Dreams of the Aasimar Cleric》Relics of the Past Recovered pt.2
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A Dream:
The room you are in is dark, no steady light anywhere, only flashes flickering through the doorway on a far wall. Not a candle flickering or something so simple but plumes of fire rushing into existence with a roar and then extinguishing in that same moment, along with bolts of lightning arching off surfaces. The sounds of chaos echo on beyond that door, of struggle, of battle. Iron matching iron and magic meeting magic. These glimmers, flickers light the room for instants just single instants giving you moments to take in the space. A room irregular in shape, none of the corners are square but are wider, as you try your best you count there is 7, no 8 maybe more walls to this single room, with its single entrance. That door, the one on the far side through which even now flashes of light rush through the only way in or out it seems. The room seems devoid of furnishings or structure save the single pillar in the center of the room. The rest of the room is plain, just grey stone walls, large pieces, roughly cut. The pillar in contrast is anything but plain, a jet black, carved in detail with flowing loops and whirls, and it places it seems the shapes of these carvings could even be a language of some kind, integrated into the design and even the shaping of the pillar. The middle third of the pillar’s height is hollowed out. The one solid piece twisting into four smaller pieces that then reach to the upper portion leaving a void in the center. There is something there, in the void, floating. The cacophony outside is coming down, the blast of magic and strikes of weapons have lessened, the screams, they persist a bit longer, but not much. The bright flashes and brilliant sparks are now replaced with more steady sources. Footsteps, coming this way, metal clad heavy footsteps. A lit torch is thrust into the room, its light spreads to fill the space. A figure begins to enter its form filling the whole of the doorway, a sword in one hand and the torch in the other, the figure cautiously looks over the room before taking a single step inside, bent over, almost crouching waiting for something, being ready for anything. One second, then another passes, then another, nothing. The hulking figure in scorched armor takes several more steps inside the room, then begins to circle the pillar looking it up and down as he does.
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You have a better look at it now, it appears to be roughly cylindrical in shape. It appears to be vellum or parchment; it appears to be a single large sheet wrapped around some kind of metal rod forming a single large scroll. The top of the metal rod has fashioned onto it a skull, very human in appearance, but without features it could be an elf or a couple other things. The upper jaw of the skull seems to be where the rod connects to the skull and the teeth, all being unnaturally long and pointed, protrude out all the way around where the rod meets the skull forming a complete circle. The bottom of the rod has a similar appearance, a single piece of large bone like a bottom jaw except it is a circle forming all the way around where the rod meets it, this half’s teeth too are unnaturally long and pointed.
The armored figure moves closer and examines the thing carefully, without touching it or holding the flame too close to it.
A voice emanates from within the armor, seeming caught almost echoing inside the enclosed helm.
“Lord,” the voice speaks in a deep and almost whispered tone.”I have found what you seek.”
The figure then lowers the torch it has been holding overhead to it’s eye level and holds one hand up to the flame, as one would shield a lantern from shining in your face. Half the room bathed in the darkness that had existed before this had entered. It waves its hand back and forth in front of the light illuminating and delluminating the doorway and other sections of the room before it lifts the torch overhead again. When it does this you become aware of another figure in the room, one that had not been there before. A short figure nearly half the height of the hulking armor that bows at its presence. Moving slowly and steady across the floor this new figure moves closer to the pillar and to whatever it is that it contains. The armor clad thing sheathes it’s sword and moves the torch closer above and behind the short figure as it examines the pillar closely, it is very careful to stay out of what is obviously it’s superior’s way and yet be helpful in providing light for it as it studies. Slowly working up an down and side to side the small figure looks over every inch of the pillar, muttering to itself the whole time, you do not know if it is simply talking to itself or reading or chanting or evoking a spell but whatever it is doing is unsettling, for every whispered word it speaks echoes through the room with perfect clarity coming back and repeats again and again till there is no distinct word or pieces of words just a constant droning whisper of a thousand voices all speaking at once and seemingly coming from every direction every corner of the room.
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Then in a single instant the room falls silent, all the noise all the whispers gone, extinguished. The small figure reaches up, for the first time its hands reaching out beyond the edges of the dark colored robe that covers it. One hand a pale peach flesh tone, the other, a dead necrotic black, reaches up and grabs ahold of the object. One hand placed on top of the skull the other reaching carefully under, holding it from top and bottom. It pulls and with the slightest bit of effort it comes free from whatever force held it still, floating inside the pillar. It lifts its cloak with the forearm of one hand and seems to pull the object under the cover of the cloak where the large bulk of the object seems to disappear. The cloak then falls as it had before to the shape of this short figure. The small figure nods to the larger who then follows him out of the room.They are finished here they have retrieved what they came for.
You wake.
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- 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 Serial16 Chapters
Goblin Flood
John is a young boy of just fifteen winters. He has trained his whole life, and fate has decided it is his time for an adventure. John will face wonders, fears, and dangers with each step he takes. As John struggles for his life he will learn what it truly means to live. Please come support our young hero as he finds out the Truth of the world. The title of hero belongs to those who happen to survive.
8 276 - In Serial13 Chapters
The World Below
A place of myth and mystery, the Below is spoken of by few with any real consideration, and fewer with any true belief. After all, a realm filled with magic and monstrosities beyond imagining would be ridiculous, especially existing beneath one's very feet. Someone would have found it by now, through science, even if rumor dictated that it was able to "choose" who entered it. More wishful magic nonsense. ...Right? Note: This is a story on dungeon exploration, not a dungeon core/sentient dungeon!
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The park master.
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confessions | wenga
✧・ the journal that contains all the love letters of son seungwan fell into the hands of min yoongi ・✧- wendy & suga fanfiction-journal entry setting
8 112 - In Serial200 Chapters
After Divorcing, She Shocked The World (1)
Top Special Agent, Wu Mei, was murdered in a conspiracy. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself transmigrated into the body of the gorgeous, abandoned wife of a handsome, wealthy man and... She was sleeping with him!The handsome man placed the divorce papers in front of her and said, "Let's get a divorce. I'll give you one hundred million."Father: "If you don't get the money from President Li, your mother will pay with her life!"Stepmother: "Quickly get a divorce and let your younger sister take your place!"A sly smile crept up Wu Mei's face. She agreed, "Sure. But... you'll have to raise the stakes."After her divorce, Wu Mei became stronger and stronger. She dealt with her stepmother and punished scumbags. She was awesome!Gradually, her true identity was revealed - A medical genius, hacker, businesswoman... Her existence shook the world!All the big shots knelt before her. "Whoever messes with her, messes with us!"Then, at a cocktail party, someone saw...The almighty Mr. Li clinging onto Wu Mei's waist, his eyes red as he begged, "Let's get married again. I'll even give you my life."Just like before, Wu Mei smiled slyly and said, "You'll have to raise the stakes."This book is a Chinese novel written by Dickens and he deserves all the credits for it. Link for the original novel will be provided at the end of the book.Read at your own risk! ⚠️Read at your own risk! ⚠️Read at your own risk! ⚠️
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