XelofBloom posts
17.4
When committing a crime, the first thing required is an alibi. Eve thought as she double-checked with the guards to ensure the duke had escaped.After being assured the duke had reached safety, Eve assisted in mopping the remaining forces. While cutting a swath through the left attackers, she contacted Charlotte discreetly through the telepathic earring.I cannot see Ralph anywhere. Eve sent. She could see the younger woman look out over the crowd....
Schedule Shift
Tues: Matt/SystemThurs: Kyo/SaraSaturday: RandomSunday: EveI decided to set it down since I keep defaulting to Sunday for Eve's chapter. Writing the short takes a great deal of me, as Random is the hardest of the five.To that end, rather than have people waiting for a chapter that may or may not come out on Saturday, I'll just move it directly to Sunday.This gives me three days off to recover from the stress of the new job's promotion...
Daily Short: Random 07
Ralph Zienfer watched as the current Duke retreated to the sanctuary room with his guards. Only members of the direct bloodline could enter, a safety precaution from centuries ago. As the door sealed behind him, the duke paused at the sight of his brother already seated in the room.“Greetings, brother,” Ralph said from his chair at the head of the small rectangular table inside. It was no error; he had placed himself at the head, directly fac...
Daily Short: Sara 07
Guns are a Divine gift. Sara thought as she shot another Green Oakensoul Dungeon creature. The runic bullet sliced through the mana shielding punching a bucket-sized hole in the target’s head. The mantis dropped to the ground in a heap of lifeless chitin. As anyone with the sense to buy a dungeon guide knew, the upper levels of the massive Dungeon were insect and plant biomes.Sara was currently shooting her way through the fourth floor without ...
Daily Short: Kyo 07
Meat is meat, chop, sever, slice, fillet, de-bone. Meat is meat.Talos the ButcherFluffy beds are the best. Kyo thought upon waking up with the feeling of cleanliness on her skin. The bacon smell is the best, too. Lured by the scent of cooking food, she threw on a too-big shirt. Socks that looked more like leggings accompanied the shirt to keep her toes warm on the cold floor tiles. Properly outfitted, she immediately engaged her food detection ra...
Daily Short: System 07
Dealing with the Deep Dark was never easy. Even for Wilson, it was a bit annoying. Still, the power of Numbers trumped mere inconvenience. Calculations flowed as Wilson moved across realities to clean up the sleeping glow light’s mess. After dealing with the Daedric Prince, barely a moment had passed. It was one of the few benefits of manipulating Time with Numbers.There was always enough of it to get problems solved.The Deep Dark was a branch ...
Daily Short: Matt 07
Matt examined one of his masterpieces, ensuring no flaws or problems. The Dark System was running smoothly, drawing mana from the set of dimensions allocated to it for energy purposes. The result was a smooth duplicate of the System Creator’s original template. The structure was stolen, of course, from a particularly thrilling past adventure. His personal creation was pared to the bare minimum, providing only one thing in excess.Power.While oth...
17.3
After disposing of Bloodwood and cleaning up the mess, he left behind, Eve was satisfied. She wasn’t worried about Professor Swift in the least. Charlotte could outmuscle him easily if it came down to a battle of Air superiority. That wasn’t how the younger girl operated, though. Unless necessary, the future heir wouldn’t take action against a potential addition to her forces. In the case of Bloodwood, he had picked the wrong prey. It was t...
Daily Short: Random 06
Raven Wasser looked askance at Charlotte’s servant. The girl had obliterated the enemy with pure power. It had been a sickening moment to be puppeteered like a living doll. The entire situation only highlighted how valuable the relationship with Charlotte had become. Her servant’s incredibly lethal speed was faster than anything Raven had ever seen.That wasn’t odd, though, as a quiet look at her pointed ears highlighted that the servant mig...
Daily Short: Sara 06
3rd D.E.E.D, Month of the Salted SkiesSara finished gearing up. She was currently arrayed in a tightly fitting bodysuit wrapped in leather straps. Pouches of various colors were strapped to her belt while the crest of the Adventurer’s Guild shone brightly from her left side. A specially crafted runic hood woven with anti-inspection magic kept her features indistinct.Sara would take a break from running the Gem Shops every so often. Her lieutena...
Daily Short: Kyo 06
3rd M.A.D.E., Month of the Burning GlassThe world is filled with idiots and genius, with only results from separating one from the other.-Alchemist of the Flask, Malachite“Oops!” Kyo said as the bubbling flask started to glow brightly. Sene leaped into action, grabbing the mixture and throwing it towards a hole in the wall. There was a moment of silence as the darkened hole in the wall glowed with the light of a burning son. Kyo heard a crack...
Daily Short: System 06
3rd Y.E.A, Month of the Golden BeetleThe woman Eve had slightly hampered Wilson’s attempt to get a contract for Vol from her. She’d locked herself in a box of eldritch silver for bizarre reasons. Mortals were extraordinary sometimes. Shrugging its mana body shoulders, they left a message and then turned their attention to the floating light bulb.“Vol, the Silver Witch, is busy at the moment,” Wilson said with a placid expression.“What? ...
Daily Short: Matt 06
3rd Y.A.M., 1rst Month of the Dark Arrival.Matt left a shadow to watch Jennifer’s struggles. She fought against the harpies that infested the Titan’s body like lice. They were the first line of defense against invading organisms. Screeches mixed with screams as Jennifer’s mastery of Blood tore through the innate mana shielding of the flock. Dehydrated corpses fell like raindrops, causing a feeding frenzy in the chilled waters below.Jennifer...
Schedule Shift
I will be shifting the shorts to stacking them on Tues/Thurs/Saturday.Matt/System will be Tues.Kyo/Sara will be Thurs.Random/Eve will be Saturday.This is to better align with my current work schedule.Thank you for reading! (TYFR!)
17.2
Sorry for the delay this weekend. I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head zombified. The VA is disputing a number of my claims while at the same time admitting I have the conditions I claim. Now I have to slog through the battle of proving my military service exacerbated them.I love the military, and I regret not staying in. Still, the advice I would give for anyone before they leave is to make sure you have everything medical docu...
Daily Short: Random 05
Bloodwood stared at the endless parade of young, nubile, fresh-faced women circling the talented upstart who’d overtaken him in the Element of Blood. The younger boy, Justin Mickleton, was everything he hated. Capable, young, quiet, and possessed of the attention of his superiors.“Do you think the Praetor knew before he sent us here?” Bloodwood murmured to Swift. The two had been working together for almost two decades. He didn’t worry ab...
Daily Short: Sara 05
3rd Decade Eve Escaped Death. (D.E.E.D.)Sara paced in front of the ritual circle that had been built. It was a Summoning, made possible by extensive contacts in the black market. She’d dipped into her gold reserves to fund this project. It would return Her and pave the way for more extraordinary things if successful. The ritualist she’d found to work on the circle was easily enticed after a few visits to a Gem Shop. Sara’s gems were special...
Daily Short: Kyo 05
3rd Millenia After Dark Eve(M.A.D.E.)If it is stupid and it works, it isn't stupid.-Silver GeneralKyo’s emerald eyes flickered like sparkling stars as she moved from one wonderous item in the lab to the next. She was gobbling up the entire place, her eyes darting from one location to the next. Talos had lifted her over his head to restrain her and allow her to see more simultaneously. She was giggling glee at all the stunning glassware, thi...
Daily Tues Short: System 05
3rd Year Eve Arrived (Y.E.A.)Wilson gave the Evil Eye to Vol, but that was a mistake as the floating orb of idiocy ate the expression without dismay. It would almost swear the Divinity operated expressly to annoy it. Running wildly through the Dark Deeps was like stirring sediment in a calm lake. Vol’s actions would introduce several annoying problems that need to be solved. There would be variables that would have to be accounted for to provid...
Late Monday Short: Matt 05
3rd Y.A.M. (Year After Mana)“The secret to killing titans is time,” Matt said, floating both him and his Shard Companion near the monstrosity. The power he was exuding had hidden them in a pocket dimension separated from reality. It was the easiest way to approach it without being disturbed. Showing the world around them was a paltry exercise of his power, as a mere dimensional shift didn’t stop his sight.Jennifer was a prodigy in her affin...
Late Friday Short: Random 04
The Duke gritted his teeth as he watched his daughter’s servant utterly decimate the other duelist. While livid at his daughter’s actions, he couldn’t argue she had an eye for people. The young woman had never handled a rapier in her life, but she improved in skill at a speed visible to the naked eye.Learn or Grow were terrifying Skills that any noble would give their soul to possess. A commoner had acquired such was nothing less than a bla...
17.1
As she moved through the crowd in her deathtrap dress with more lace and ruffles than a legion, Eve glanced around at the banquet hall. The entire place was done in white marble or a copy. The deep redwood stairwell shone with the luster of countless servants’ work. While the hall was tiled stone, it had been worked by earth magic to prevent falls. Carpeted open doorways led off to deeper parts of the castle, one of which was the kitchen. Serva...
Timeline
There has been some discussion about how the shorts work.To clear confusion, I have attempted to lay down the mechanics behind the scenes.I realized a rather significant error was that while I, the author, know that the time between Eve’s escape and arrival on the Prison Plane was lengthy, the readers did not.I had assumed, in my idiocy, that the readers would understand that when Dust went to the closest location he could to contact Matt, it t...
Chapter delay
Friday's short will occur with Saturday's chapter.I'm currently trying to iron out a decent timeline so the shorts make more coherent sense instead of being placed in Limbo atm!
Daily Thurs Short: Sara 04
Sara reclined in the luxurious bedroom attached to her office. The contract with the Blood Snakes had been lucrative. She didn’t know why they wanted Vampires and frankly didn’t care. With the support of Marco from the Wild Hunt and Victor from the Blood Snakes, she had moved upgraded from a local Power.The order had gone out quietly that every Flock member who used Gem Shop services was to be smothered softly. Bodies would be fed to the Ooze...
Daily Wed Short: Kyo 04
Food is wealth. Wealth is power. Power is fish. Fish is food. Bless the Great Cycle.-Green Goblin ChantKyo’s eyes sparkled at the massive three-story building that would be her alchemy lab. It was surrounded by a fence wreathed in strange symbols. The symbols glittered and sparkled with an inner light. They almost looked like words, but Kyo couldn’t read them. Talos the Butcher had taken over carrying her from Sene, which was a nice change. S...
Character Hunt~!
I could go back through reams of pages, hundreds of thousands of words, searching for every single character...But that would take away from writing!So, I offer a deal to my beloved readers.Hunt them down.In the hidden sections of the story, in the lost and forgotten mists of the last two years.Find those who are unremarked. Find those who are unremembered.But! I do not expect your valuable time to be for free!So, a bounty, you see!For every ten ...
Daily Tuesday Short: System 04
Wilson narrowed their numerical eyes at the visitor in one of their dimensional waiting rooms. “What do you want, Vol? Shouldn’t a Lord of Light be off galivanting around doing good deeds?”“Why would I do something so exhausting?” Vol, the living liquid light replied. It was hard for the poor creature to speak to others, but Wilson had no trouble speeding up its senses.“I’m always in need of a new Solar Furnace,” Wilson said, the ...
Daily Monday Short: Matt 04
Shifting a few continents from a Barren World was nothing to moving a Prime World through the Void. As of now, Matt has done both. He preferred the ease of transporting folded continents to the moving mass of a thousand suns. The size of each was incomparable to the other. Matt Smith fought a few of the residents of the Void who failed to recognize him. The eternal hunger of those that waited in the dark spaces between realities was never truly f...
17.0
“Are you sure you want me attending this death trap ball?” Eve said, her tone containing a barely noticeable hint of desperation. It wasn’t every day she got ambushed right after waking up from meditation.She’d taken her meditation rest in Charlotte’s room after finishing Taylor Zienfer, the Vampire Lord, off earlier. That had been a small but critical mistake. The younger woman had quietly prepared the traditional welcome ball invitati...