《Unstable World》A World Anew
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"I said don't move!" The woman scowled fiercely at Garrett and gave off an incredibly powerful and threatening aura. Garrett's thoughts were racing too rapidly to really begin to understand what was going on before the woman was right in front of him. Garrett gulped nervously as she grabbed his hands. She began to pull and twist his arms and body around until he was posed like how he was when he came out of the cave, sword drawn and ready to fight. "There! Now don't move," the gray-skinned woman said as she made a small rectangle shape with her fingers. "You're gonna mess up my composition."
"Composition?" Garrett asked, but the woman was already walking away. Nervously, Garrett tried to hold the pose as best as he could, but his attention was more focused on the cave behind him. Had the Darge shifted on him? No, that couldn't be. Caves don't just change like that. Maybe he had returned to a different coffin? That could certainly be the case. If that's how it is, then was it too late to save Cerezie, Min-Tul, and Jerten? He desperately wanted to go back and investigate, but the strength the gray-skinned woman had made him too nervous to try and move without her permission.
After what felt like half an hour, Garrett heard the gray-skinned woman exclaim. "Picturesque!" He heard the sound of her approaching and turned his head to look at her. She was carrying a medium-sized canvas under her arm and a smile on her face. She held up the canvas, which was a painting of, what appeared to be, a duck with a tiara playing basketball with sasquatch. The woman smiled proudly. "Well? What do you think? Great, huh? I think I really captured the shine of your armor, huh?"
Garrett couldn't quite bring himself to say how much it didn't resemble him. He just nodded and turned back to the cave. "Yeah, I'm sure it's great hey listen I have to go bye!" He ran into the cave as fast as he could, ignoring whatever the gray-skinned woman was saying behind him.
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"Min-Tul! Cerezie! Jerten!" Garrett shouted as he ran down into the cave, past the blank wall where the coffin room was, and deeper into the Darge. He wasn't even concerned about being ambushed by goblins. His focus was trying to find his companions. "Min-Tul! Cerezie! Jerten!" His voice echoed throughout the caverns as his breathing became more panicked and rapid. "Where are you guys?" He kept running down different hallways, trying to recall the path he and Min-Tul took until he ended up at the top of the room where they had met Cerezie. To Garrett's dismay, there was no elf wearing military clothing perched up there. He took a few moments to catch his breath before heading down the side of the wall to continue on. As he got down to the floor, he noticed something odd again.
The gallows-like structure that had held Jerten before was intact, chains included. It looked like it hadn't even been used. In fact, as he surveyed the room, it didn't look like anything had even happened in here. There weren't any bullet holes or impact craters.
'...Did the goblins fix up this place?... How long has it been?... Am I too late?'
Garrett shook his head to clear his thoughts and continued running. It was more important to try and find his companions before anything else. As he approached the area that split into four, he immediately turned and went down the path with the minecart. He gripped his sword and prepared himself to face that room again, even with the slim hope that he'd find the bodies of Min-Tul, Cerezie, and-
"Jerten?" Garrett skidded to a halt as he came across a large blue ogre. The ogre turned around to Garrett and nervously held a crossbow. Looking at the equipment and journals that were on the ogre's pack, Garrett could see that this was Jerten, but something was off. "Hey hey, Jerten, it's me, Garrett. I'm so glad you're alive." The ogre gave Garrett and confused look, but still kept his crossbow trained on Garrett. "Oh, right, you don't speak Illiman, and I don't have Cerezie here to translate for me." Garrett set down his sword carefully so not to startle the ogre. "Garrett," Garrett said, gesturing to himself. He then gestured to the ogre.
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"Jerten," the ogre replied, still shakily holding the crossbow at Garrett.
Garrrett let out a small silent cheer. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you," Garrett said, miming his words as best as he could. The ogre just gave him a confused look.
As Garrett mimed his actions, he noticed something else strange. The room around them wasn't the room with the large Murder Crystal. Instead, it appeared to be a medium-sized room with minecart tracks on the ground. A sole minecart rested on the tracks, ready to be pushed along to its destination.
"What is going on?" Garrett said, looking around the room.
Suddenly, footsteps began approaching behind them from the direction that Garrett had come from. Jerten aimed his crossbow down the hallway and Garrett grabbed his sword, ready to face whatever might come out. Slowly, a gray-skinned woman wearing an apron emerged from the darkness. Jerten let out a whimper and fired his crossbow. In a flash, the gray-skinned woman grabbed the crossbow bolt out of midair just inches from her face.
"Hey! Watch where you're shooting that thing! You might take out someone's eyes. I kinda need those," the gray-skinned woman said, tossing the bolt to the side. Jerten immediately hopped into the minecart and cowered inside. She began to approach, but Garrett stood between her and Jerten, pointing his sword at the woman. She smiled widely and began to finger frame the scene. "Ah, picturesque!" She pulled out a small notepad from her apron and began to sketch in it. "A bold knight protects a cowardly ogre. Ah, just lovely."
"Who are you?" Garrett asked, keeping his eyes trained on her.
The woman let out an exaggerated gasp and posed dramatically, like a soap opera character receiving devastating news. "I can't believe you haven't heard of me. Frankly, I'm appalled, I'm shocked, I'm riddled with grief!" She let out a small chuckle. "But, you've captured my eye for the arts, so I shall answer you. I am Vanessa Fletcher, the greatest artist the world has yet to know!" She struck another dramatic pose as if she had just come onto the red carpet.
"Vanessa Fletcher?" Garrett said, slowly lowering his sword. "You're an artist?"
"Correct!" She gave Garrett a thumbs-up. "And when I saw you, I just knew that you would be the perfect painting subject for me to launch my career."
"Wait, you aren't here to kidnap Jerten, here? You just wanted to paint me?" Garrett asked, looking over to make sure that Jerten was still alright.
"Correct!" She kneeled down on one knee and looked up to Garrett. She smiled widely and earnestly at Garrett. "Allow me to be your artist to capture your future endeavors in paintings the world will one day know!"
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First Contact
Eight Thousand Years after the Glassing of Earth, Terran Descent Humanity has largely become a post-scarcity society based on consent and enjoying life. With the discovery of another ancient race beyond the «Great Gulf», events and history collide to draw the Terran Confederacy into war against an hundred million year old empire that has always won and believes it always will. With allies and enemies of multiple species, the Orion Galactic Arm Spur will be wracked by warfare the likes of which have not been seen. Cracked, harried, wounded, and damaged, Terran Descent Humanity willfully throws itself against the universe itself.«The universe hates you and will take away everything you love, laughing while it does so.» — Terran belief.***Author Note: Told largely from the viewpoint of other species, the story is currently ongoing. It involves graphic depictions of violence, war, adult language and situations, drug use, and other mature topics.The story will be updated on weekdays, so keep an eye on this page for more chapters.The story is 400+ chapters, and repeating characters do not start appearing until the Vuxten chapters. If you’re in a hurry for repeating characters then this story will not be enjoyable to you. The interwoven plot is not based on a single person but the entire war, with its effects upon multiple people.
8 239Dream of the Abyss
Elisa Mary Grant died in a hospital bed after being stuck in it for six months, and like any other, her soul drifted away from her husk when she passed. For her, death was a release. It merely meant that she no longer have to wake up in pain, breathing through tubes and have doctors flood her veins with dubious chemicals for “experimental treatment”. Free from her mortal constraints and useless body, she felt… at peace, serene, even. Death is bliss, after all, when objectively living sucked to the point of extreme. Therefore, there was no reason to mourn at all and she knew she definitely didn't. ... That was until, on her way for a proper reincarnation, she found herself rudely interrupted and left stranded in the great NoWhere. “Wonderful,” she remarked as she floated in the [Beyond], “Just when I thought that suicide is the answer.” Author's note: Updates every Tuesday-Wednesday, probably some time in between. ... P.S Notes: Contains existential questions and nihilistic themes, rather philosophical. Will be rather sluggish until the MC gets her shit together. P.SS Notes: Story takes time to develop. And maybe uncomfortable. It's not gonna be action-packed or filled with battles, I think. Anyway, it is kinda unusual. P. SSS Notes: It is not LitRpg. Don't be fooled.
8 114Travelers [DROPPED]
DROPPED. The story focuses less on dungeon building than on the why of dungeons and how they fit into the universal order. While I am working from a grand plot, the writing is going slice of life style because I need to do that to work out how things progress into that grand plot. The original story seed idea / synopsis is below. The Grand Tapestry protects Rhofhir from Primal Chaos by imposing Order via patterns. However, the patterns grow stiff, stagnant, and so the Tapestry is nearing a time of Unraveling. Evidence of past civilizations wiped out during previous Unravelings foreshadow the apocalyptic catastrophe looming over the world. The mages of the Arcane Asylum reach out across dimensions, searching for some way to prevent, or at least stall, the coming Unraveling. Among the many voices they find is a gifted graduate student researching machine-assisted telepathy -- and his gaming group. Lena never expected that the chance to play DnD with telepathy would result in her becoming an actual Dungeon Master, nor that her friends could become the bosses of her dungeon. This is, in many ways, her dream come true, but there's a catch: What happened to Brad, the creator of that telepathy machine?
8 98Where Giants Fall
A fantasy LitRPG about traversing through worlds and slaying giants with nothing but a wooden suit and an army of treants. Nicholas Atkins didn't expect to wake up naked in the glowing woods. What he did expect was waking up to a hangover after last night's party- fortunately, that wasn't the case. Unfortunately though, he had worse problems to take care of than a headache. At first he blamed it on the alcohol; from what he recalled in Biology, glowing flowers didn't exactly exist in the realm of reality. However he was as sober as he could be, so next he blamed the drugs, but there was a problem- he didn't have the money to do drugs in the first place. When the fairies came, things became even weirder. Talks of climbing towers, magic tricks, and dinner were all on the table. Of course, dinner was the priority, but so was getting back home. However slowly, Nico realized that he might actually want to stay in this fantasy world. After all, he's had enough listening to Professor Paul's lecture on calculus- the swords and sorceries were just an added bonus. Still, staying in this new world has its own costs- and money is but one thing on that long, long list. Updated everyday except Saturday GMT+8 (Specific time varies by around 30 minutes). Mon at 9:00 AM Tue at 12:00 PM Wed at 3:00 PM Thu at 6:00 PM Fri at 9:00 PM Sun at 12:00 AM
8 94Star Wars Episode 7: A Corpse Through Which the Force Speaks
The fall of the Empire heralds dark times for humanity. As the New Republic concedes much of the galaxy to alien rule, a group of special forces stormtroopers must find a way to survive the "new normal". This fanfiction sets an alternate course of events in response to general dissatisfaction with the sequel trilogy. In terms of continuity, this story only takes into account the events of the first six movies and Rogue One. Please note: This story comes from the school of thought that the purpose of art is to provoke thought, rather than distract us from reality. I hope that the disturbing parts of this story do just that! This story is COMPLETE.
8 244rosekook au.
Alternative universes where Park Chaeyoung and Jeon Jungkook always find each their way back together.
8 174