168 – Unending
The reunion with his family had been bittersweet. No matter what, some differences took time to come to terms with. Albert was not the same person he was when he left the present, he had grown and aged together with his te...
2024-01-21 15:51:23 +0000 UTC
View Post
167 – Epilogue III
This time, the place they arrived in was the right version of Temalas city. Or at least it looked like it. The ‘smell’ of the air – which was an intuitive way Albert used to indicate the quantum signature of the ...
2024-01-19 10:45:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
166 – Epilogue II
Albert stepped through the portal. Portal travel was not always the same, and the experience was hardly uniform across the many ways it could happen. Even with this in mind, he could not help but be surprised when he st...
2024-01-14 16:12:58 +0000 UTC
View Post
165 – Epilogue I
Time passed. The city around them crumbled to dust. War, battles, the incessant erosion of existence itself. It all took a toll.
After the first few months, all that could be seen when looking out and through the s...
2024-01-12 20:22:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
164 – Power gap
“Stay here,” Albert said, after deploying a shield to make sure his allies couldn’t be detected. “I need to see how strong those things are.”
“You are not going to fight them alone, are you?” Elle said...
2024-01-08 14:57:48 +0000 UTC
View Post
163 – Sitea
Portal travel was… jarring. Most of the discomfort came from having to punch through what – to most people – amounted to an impenetrable defense: Sitea’s shield. Fortunately for them, Albert was not most people, and h...
2024-01-03 21:52:57 +0000 UTC
View Post
162 – Moving in and on
They kissed and kissed and kissed. It was long, and passionate, and full of emotion. There was a well of emotions behind it, pent-up desire on one side and reciprocation on the other, and in moments it went from pl...
2024-01-01 16:25:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
161 – Reunion
The village had changed in the thousands of years since Albert had last seen it. Now it was more like a sprawling metropolis, with no trace of the squat buildings that even in Albert’s time were already remnants from the ...
2023-12-30 16:28:24 +0000 UTC
View Post
160 – Elven blood
“Sir Albert?” Scrappy said after they were done eating. “What happened to you? Why are you so different now? I can see that you are trying to be normal, that I do, but you are changed.”
Albert inhaled loud...
2023-12-28 13:24:49 +0000 UTC
View Post
159 – Power up
Just as the world began moving for the first time after so long, Albert made it so that it suddenly stopped yet again. But this time it was only the world that had stopped, not him. He was free to move. His eyes moved firs...
2023-12-26 14:39:46 +0000 UTC
View Post
158 – Frozen time
Time stretched on. The attacks converging on Albert hung frozen in the air, mere meters away from him. He stood still, suspended in the liminal space between instants stretched into eternity by means of dilated time, an...
2023-12-24 11:13:27 +0000 UTC
View Post
157 – Help II
“Help!”
A high-pitched whine filled the room, like the cry of a mother who had lost her child, a wail so loud as to be deafening. Albert’s heart thumped as his mind filled with panic and worry. He looked around,...
2023-12-22 16:40:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
156 – Help
Albert grinned as he pulled a fat block of C4 from his inventory. Truth be told, he did not have nearly enough of it stored to blow up the room and make sure that whatever hid under the water was truly dead, but converting som...
2023-12-20 13:02:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
155 – First rule of warfare
Albert perked up. “Oh, oh oh oh! This Alignment Bio-Lab do be hiding all sorts of goodies!”
He didn’t realize that he was speaking quite loudly until Scrappy got up and joined him. Albert felt bad ...
2023-12-18 15:36:26 +0000 UTC
View Post
154 – Gore
Albert stared at the sign painted on the concrete wall. The letters were quite well-preserved, which went against what he believed would have happened after so much time had passed. It didn’t matter much, but his brain seeme...
2023-12-15 14:12:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
153 – Break-in
“Interesting,” Albert said, stopping for a moment to look around. He licked a finger and measured the air. “I am reading a faint electrical energy signature hidden by all the other mess. I wonder how any generator co...
2023-12-13 18:42:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
152 – Scent of portals
Morning was a slower affair than Albert would have liked. He was hyped up after having found one of the core fragments last night, but the same couldn’t be said for the girls. Scrappy was being rebellious just fo...
2023-12-11 15:00:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
151 – Four-way split
“Alright. Just a few more moments in the shadows, Scrappy, then you can come out okay?”
A muffled hum came from a space beyond the material realm.
Albert surveyed the terrain while he finished prepari...
2023-12-09 16:17:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
150 – Dead mage
“We are quite lucky, girls.” Albert said after gathering the trio back together. “There is one survivor, and they look badly wounded. Looks like interrogation time!”
Lina’s blood grew cold. Who could ever ...
2023-12-07 16:10:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
149 – Nuclear weaponry
Three figures sneaked across the open field under the cover of night. Two of them were cloaked to appear completely invisible in the dark, the light itself bending as to not touch them in the slightest. To anyone w...
2023-12-05 11:14:46 +0000 UTC
View Post
148 – Catching up
As they made their way towards the source of the magical signature Albert was able to feel, the group began to come across the first signs of activity. It was only the last few stragglers at first, the slowest of the zo...
2023-12-02 17:47:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
147 – Following scents
Albert was outside the hedge camp. It was time to move out, but before dismantling everything he needed to find a lead towards the energies he presumed were the originating from the Kirkesis core.
“Two appr...
2023-11-29 16:10:48 +0000 UTC
View Post
146 – Ritual
With the important talks out of the way, it was finally time to proceed with giving Lina back some semblance of power. It didn’t sit well with Albert to see her so diminished, and even though she was hiding her emotions on...
2023-11-27 17:21:37 +0000 UTC
View Post
145 – Talks
“…I might.” The girl said in a small voice. “But I would like to have some more time to think about it, Sir. That I do.”
Albert smiled. “Oh? And why would that be? Are you on the cusp of something?”
...
2023-11-25 14:06:48 +0000 UTC
View Post
144 – Night stalking
It was on the way back from hunting, sporting a decent collection of cores in his pocket both for his own consumption as well as for the girls, that Jeff gave Albert an update.
Albert. I have an update ...
2023-11-23 15:34:36 +0000 UTC
View Post
143 – Inventory access
Albert concentrated. Okay Jeff, pulling plates and cutlery out of my inventory was all fun and games, but how about something useful. How about a gun? I really miss handling a gun after so long.
2023-11-21 15:35:37 +0000 UTC
View Post
142 – Debrief
“Please sit.” Albert said.
They were in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by thick trees and hedges, a warm campfire burning in the center. Around it, chairs made of wooden stumps had been set equidistant to on...
2023-11-19 17:14:26 +0000 UTC
View Post
141 – Zombies in the red
It took a while for Lina to calm down after her outburst, time Albert spent preparing. There was no telling what he would find at the far end of the cave, where the monster that had trapped the B-ranks in here wa...
2023-11-16 17:51:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
140 – Crimson throne
She is trying to sneak on the octagon.
Jeff’s voice was like the hit of a defibrillator, bringing back life to Albert’s mind. His eyes widened. It was true. She had activated her Stalk ...
2023-11-14 20:47:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
139.5 – Jeff’s life
Jeff walked slowly, taking measured steps in time with a tune only he could hear. The light was filtering in from the huge window of the cliffside mansion overlooking the lake below, a hint of sunlight reflected by ...
2023-11-12 17:32:41 +0000 UTC
View Post