Shirtaloon
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Chapter 965: This Is Kind of How Team Biscuit Operates
🕑 Added 2024-11-22 22:00:06 +0000 UTCThe massive torrent of transcendent light continued to gush from the giant portal, inundating the rainbow glow of the manifestation. The adventurers surrounding the phenomenon looked on as monsters swarmed out, thick as insects, despite the smallest being the size of a bread van. Most were silver rank, with one in a hundred being gold.
Even the smaller, silver-rank monsters were hulking things. Each had a body shaped like a spider but the hairy, muscled flesh of a gorilla. Massive insect wings buzzed in a blur, carrying them ponderously through the air as eight thick, hairy limbs dangling beneath them.
The gold-rank monsters stood thirty metres tall. Like warped, oversized messengers, they had three sets of wings, six arms and three faces spaced around a single head. They were naked but sexless, with the smooth features of an androgynous ken doll.
“That’s a relief,” Jason said as he rose from Danielle’s shadow as if riding up an elevator. “It would make some confronting news footage if the eight-storey monsters were meat-and-two-veg to the wind.”
Hundreds of monsters had emerged by that point, with no sign of stopping. Many of the adventurers were already moving into the fray, while others held back at Danielle’s direction. She ignored Jason for the moment as she coordinated the group through a combination of voice chat, text chat, maps and overlays. The System interacted with various abilities, especially Jason’s, and was able to share them across the group.
“I’m going to start by probing them for capabilities,” she told him. “With this many, we’re not going to contain them here. Rejoin your team guarding the barrage until we know how hard they’re going to press that way. I’ll likely have you moving on outliers later.”
“Catching the loose ones and dosing them with afflictions so they kick it before reaching anywhere with people?”
“Precisely. For now, try and build up a butterfly cloud on any who come your team’s way. Along with Rufus’ abilities, it’s probably our best shot at clearing numbers this large. Perhaps Humphrey, depending on how the dice fall.”
“I’m on it.”
“Oh, and Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you just stop this thing from blasting a hole in the side of the universe?”
“It would have been a transformation zone, probably. It’ll still be a few years before the astral bridge stabilises the dimensional membrane enough to stop something like this without intervention.”
“Is that a yes?”
“More of a dimensional ulcer than a big old hole, but kind of.”
“Good job.”
***
Marie Finnegan sensed a presence outside her chalet, moved to the door and opened it. A chill wind blew in over the snow-covered ground.
“I thought needing to be invited in was a fiction,” she said.
“Most things are, when you really look at them,” Elizabeth said. “Civilisation; morals; money. Politeness. Yet they all have their place. May I come in?”
Marie looked her up and down. The vampire wore a long red coat with fluffy white trim.
“You look like Mrs Claus.”
“Nicholas isn’t that lucky.”
Marie smirked and gestured an invitation. Elizabeth entered and Marie closed the door behind her. She took Elizabeth’s coat and hung it on a rack.
“The cold affects you?” Marie asked.
“It’s not dangerous, but we consume life force faster. Something we can ill-afford with the Asano Clan aggressively attacking our blood farms. I don’t suppose you’ve dealt with that issue?”
“We’ll see. The communications room is up the stairs and to the left.”
They went upstairs to where four monitors were displaying various feeds from the drones in Pakistan.
“The first plan didn’t work, then,” Elizabeth said.
“We’ve successfully generated multiple transformation zones from silver-rank manifestations. It should have been even more effective with a gold-rank one, but—”
“Asano did something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Simon will have to analyse the data, but I’m hiding him and the entire project, even from my own branch. They’re twitchy enough about working with vampires.”
“They aren’t wondering where the reality cores are coming from?”
“They don’t know about the reality cores. I don’t trust them not to cave under pressure, and after today, the other factions will know that someone is manipulating the grid. They’re going to throw a wet fit over that. We have to be more careful than ever.”
“We will need to be bold, soon enough.”
“I will be putting that off as long as possible, but I suspect you’re right.”
Marie grabbed a laptop she could use to control the feeds and they both sat in armchairs to watch.
“That is a great many monsters,” Elizabeth observed. “Is this a monster wave? The kind that took place before I reawakened?”
“It seems so,” Marie said. “This one is accelerated, and more powerful, though. There was only one gold-rank monster breach, back in the day, and even that was nothing like this. How Asano turned the transformation zone into this, I have no idea. That column of light looks like—”
“The wrath of god.”
“Yes. I would have preferred more time for testing, but events in Australia forced my hand. Did you prod the Australian Prime Minister into acting?”
“No, he came by his stupidity honestly. I also would have liked more time, to get the blood oaks more controllable.”
“Perhaps this will be enough,” Marie suggested. “If we can force a loss out of Asano here, and we can demonstrate enough power, the factions might be convinced to ally against him.”
“Still the optimist, Marie? I gave up on that plan the moment he reached out from another universe to annihilate my collected rivals. His power is not to be doubted. And neither, it seems, is that of his companions.”
***
Standing on the dam next to a circle of powdered bone, Humphrey rolled three twelve-sided dice into the circle.
“I always liked D12s, bro,” Taika said as he looked on. “Feels chunkier than a D20, but still kind of round. Big thumbs down on D8s and D10s.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” Sophie asked Farrah, who had returned to the team.
“It’s a game thing, I think.”
“It is,” Rufus confirmed. “Also, there’s just something iconic about a fist full of D6s.”
“I hear that, bro.”
“We should leave,” Neil said. “I think there’s something about this planet that does things to people. This whole journey may have been a trap.”
“Wait until you try jelly beans,” Rufus said. “It makes it all worth it. If you get the right jelly beans.”
Humphrey ignored them, watching his summoner’s dice as they stopped rolling. From one, an illusion of a brown blob rose from the face-up side.
“Mud,” Humphrey said. “I would have preferred air or water, but it’s not bad for a river environment.”
Another die projected an image, this one of a frog.
“Mud frog,” Humphrey said. “I can work with that.”
The last die, instead of projecting an image, rolled itself again.
“Bizarre,” Humphrey said. “Lucky.”
“Bizarre?” Rufus asked.
“It’ll roll itself twice and take both results,” Humphrey explained.
The die stopped and an image of a frog appeared, before expanding to be much larger. The illusion lingered as the dice rolled again, this time producing an image of disembodied arms, bound together like a bouquet of flowers.
“Giant and extra limbs,” Humphrey said. “We might want to step back.”
He held out his hand and the dice flew into them as he took his own advice and backed off. The others did the same as mud started seeping into the bone circle from the middle, as if bubbling up through a crack in the concrete. It soon filled the circle and expanded beyond it, spreading rapidly. The moment it stopped, something rose up from the mud, pulling itself out as if it were a deep pool, accompanied by a wet sucking noise.
It was a toad the size of a small cottage, but made of thick, clayish mud. Parts of a skeleton jutted from body, but rather than frog bones, they looked like those of a comically overweight dragon, curved and bulbous. As they watched, blue and gold armour shimmered into existence around the toad’s body, the armour’s ornate gleam incongruous on the disgusting creature. It opened its mouth impossibly wide to let out a hideous, rumbling belch. As it did, no fewer than nine tongues shout out, each dozens of metres long. They flailed as if caught on the wind of the extended belch before snapping back into the creature’s mouth.
“Bro, that’s pretty gross.”
The toad leapt off the dam and into the river, displacing massive amounts of water. A second toad appeared from the mud and did the same, others following at a much greater pace.
“How many of these will there be?” Taika asked.
“Not sure,” Humphrey told him. “The dice affect my summoning, but the more powerful the result, the fewer the summons. Without the dice, I get a hundred dragon bone soldiers. The size of these will soak up some power, but the frogs don’t look to have particularly potent abilities. I’d guess we’ll see somewhere between forty and sixty.”
“I’ll take those odds,” Belinda said. “I have a good feeling about those frogs. I’ll bet a box of Pastry Stash biscuits that there’ll be thirty.”
“Oh, I love that bakery,” Clive said. “I have a tray of Jason’s sandwiches in my storage space. I’ll bet them on fifty frogs.”
“I have sandwiches too,” Neil said, “but I’m keeping them. No bet.”
“This is our first proper battle on this planet,” Humphrey said. “Could we please act with decorum, just this once?”
Wind washed over then as Sophie appeared in a blur of motion.
“Forty frogs,” she said.
“Really?” Humphrey complained.
“What’s the ante?” Belinda asked.
“Jam and cream donuts,” Sophie replied.
“They were meant for us to…” Humphrey began before stopping himself and letting out a sigh. The admonishing glare he levelled at his team was undercut by the loud slurping as one frog after another pulled itself out of the mud pool.
***
The silver-rank flying gorilla spiders were not as ungainly as they appeared, able to move in sudden bursts of speed. If there were anything other than elite gold-rank adventurers to fight, they might well have posed an individual danger. As it was, the true threat they posed was numerical, either in swarming adventurers until they exhausted their mana or escaping to reach population centres.
By the time the monster count had reached two thousand, Danielle had split the teams up, reconfiguring the group to make the most effective response. The area specialists were concentrating their attacks around the pillar of light still spewing out monsters as it burned off the magic of the manifestation. The pillar itself was only visible as a glow within the churning storm called up by Zara. The gold-rank force of the storm battered and yanked at the monsters, trying to pull them apart like a confectioner making taffy. Jets of water and blades of wind sliced apart silver-rank flesh like industrial tools.
Into the storm, other area attacker were firing off abilities with little care for where they landed. Hannah Adeah shot arrows in blindly, their explosions churning the wind and water of the storm even more. It once again served to remind Rick Geller of the dangers in marrying the most volatile and aggressive member of his team.
Above and below the storm, forests of giant staves, the size of architectural columns, had been conjured by Emir. They shot up and down like the hammers inside a piano, slamming into one another and crushing monsters between them. So dense were the gorilla spiders that, even used blindly, the staves rarely missed.
The creatures were tough, even for silver-rankers. Their seemingly fragile wings holding up surprisingly well against the storm, although many were still ripped off, sending monsters plunging into the river below. Others flew out of the storm, surviving by their numbers being dense enough that their fellows became shields.
Outside of Zara’s cyclone was the second line of battle, where Danielle had stationed most of the other adventurers. Those able to sustain attacks worked on cleaning up the silver-rank monsters who, even counting summons and familiars, still wildly outnumbered the adventurers.
Giant mud toads were gathered in the river below, half submerged in water whipped to a frenzy by the artificial storm. They were snatching monsters out of the air with their tongue clusters that were something like nine-tailed whips made of tentacles. They yanked the gorilla-spiders out of the air and swallowed them whole. The monsters were quickly digested, reduced to rainbow smoke that sprayed out of orifices covering the mud toads like warts.
The summoner of the toads swept through the air on dragon wings, enacting staggering violence with a huge flaming sword and fiery breath. One attack would carve off half a monster’s legs off and a third of its body. The next would make one explode, releasing a wave of force that hammered the monsters behind it. bodies were shattered and limbs smashed to paste. His fire breath burned away wings, dropping monsters into the waiting mouths of the toad swarms.
“Are you sure you didn’t just stop summoning those toads when it got to forty?” Clive asked through voice chat.
“Yes, he’s sure,” Sophie said.
This was Humphrey in his element, the quintessential adventurer. Fighting monsters, protecting people, pretending he had a normal team. His powers gave him more impact than most, and a combination of carefully selected equipment and the support of his team allowed him to keep up the pressure when others would flag. Aura buffs, mana-regenerating items and the occasional swig of very expensive potion meant his onslaught never stopped.
Humphrey was far from alone in his endeavour, with no shortage of monsters to go around. Rufus and Gabriel fought together for the first time as equals, two master swordsmen using the well-refined techniques of a family who, as had been occasionally mentioned, ran a school. Both had been trained by arguably the greatest swordsman alive, and both had diverged from those teachings, compromising pure swordsmanship with more magical abilities.
Like Jason, both Gabriel and Rufus mixed afflictions onto their attacks. Gabriel wielded fire, while Rufus’ sun and moon afflictions were more exotic. Unlike Jason, they both had plenty of power behind the initial attacks as well. They may not have matched Humphrey’s punch, but they still carved through silver-rank monsters, quickly racking up kill tallies. Gabriel’s attacks left many monsters cripples, and the flames he left behind finished the job. His victims fell from the sky, plucked from the air by toads or splashing into the water. That was not enough to extinguish the fires, which set the water to boiling.
“You’re falling behind, son,” Gabriel’s voice boomed as he flew past Rufus, trailing fire.
Rufus was the textbook Vitesse adventurer, with an eclectic mix of powers. In the hands of a lesser adventurer, he would have been the jack of all trades that Rimaros adventurers like to mock. But with his extensive training and raw talent, Rufus turned his versatile power set into a series of force multipliers.
Rufus’ afflictions were less effective than his father’s, at least until he turned the sky dark. The sun was eclipsed, turning day into night, and every affliction Rufus had left behind exploded violently. Almost every active silver-rank monster from the current wave died on the spot, more than two hundred at once. Then, a massive beam of transcendent light shot from the sky.
Realm of the Infinite Eclipse was one of the most powerful attacks available to any essence. Despite that, it was extremely rare, not for how hard it was to unlock, but for how hard it was to use. It required tens of enemies for even the most basic version, and hundreds to reach full effectiveness. It also required more time than most battles took to set up. Finally, it required not just a large horde of enemies, but also powerful singular ones to be worth targeting.
It was a spell of war, almost unusable at low ranks, making it famously hard to rank up. If not for the Builder Cult war, the grand monster surge and being able to hunt the outer reaches of Jason’s astral spaces, Rufus might well have been languishing at silver-rank, or even bronze.
The reward for decades of dedication and training was a power that dwarfed almost anything else an essence user could produce. Even Farrah and her limit breaking powers could not equal the single moment of all-consuming annihilation that Rufus could produce, given the right circumstances and enough time.
The eclipse beam of transcendent light walked across the battlefield at Rufus’ direction. It settled on one gold-rank monster, then a second and a third before the power was finally expended. Not a scrap of the monsters remained, and for a strange moment, everything fell still and silent. Zara’s storm had faded, and even the animalistic spider-gorillas stopped, staring in shock.
Even amongst the experienced adventurers present, none had seen power on that level from anyone below diamond rank. Many of them cast their minds back to the Builder War, and Dawn wiping out a city with one spell. It wasn’t a match for that event, but that was what it felt like, coming from a gold-ranker. The ambient mana sizzled against supernatural senses, as if Rufus had scorched it with the raw power of his display.
Then the moment passed, and conflict resumed. Zara recast her storm and Danielle directed their forces to face the hundreds of monsters still streaming out of Jason’s light column. For the many gold-rank monsters that remained, Danielle followed Rufus’ example. No one else could match that power alone, but the adventurers with the heaviest burst damage could recreate it in the aggregate with focus fire. Some even managed solo kills, with Farrah taking the speed record after Rufus. By overcharging her abilities and dumping her entire mana pool in short order, she could turn two gold-rank monsters into glowing piles of slag before needing to stop and rest. What was left of the monsters fell into the river, letting off ugly brown smoke as they cooled.
While letting the stacked group buffs replenish her mana, Farrah didn’t waste her downtime. Resting up in Onslow’s shell, she made use of tools borrowed from Clive to examining the ongoing manifestation. The grid was somehow sustaining the manifestation, allowing it to keep producing monsters. If that wasn’t cut off, the manifestation would keep going until the adventurers were too exhausted to fight or the dimensional membrane ripped, triggering a transformation zone or worse.
Most of Team Biscuit were in the main fight now, except for Jason chasing down monsters that slipped the cordon, and Sophie, back at the dam. She and Prince Valdis were tasked with protecting the barrage, using their absurd speed to cover its two kilometre length. For any monster that came that way, Sophie set it up and Valdis cut it down.
Danielle had assigned herself to the gold-rank killing group. At silver, her kill-speed had been below average, but ranking up had changed that drastically. She could, if she pushed it, do a passable imitation of Farrah’s approach, including the hefty recovery time. She arrived in Onslow’s shell to rest and take stock of the overall battle.
“How is it going?” she asked Farrah. “Got anything?”
“I have,” Farrah said. “I wasn’t optimistic about a quick solution—”
“That’s all anyone ever wants on this team,” Clive called out as he blasted beams and bolts from his rod and staff weapons.
“Not right now, please Clive,” Danielle said.
“No one ever says that to Jason,” Clive complained.
“That’s because he’s not going to listen,” Farrah said.
“Sure,” Clive said, “let’s only be nice to Clive when we need him to practically invent a new branch of magic in the next twenty-seven minutes or an entire civilisation gets wiped out.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he listens either,” Farrah loudly confided to Danielle.
“You were saying you had something?” Danielle asked pointedly.
“Yes, sorry. This is kind of how Team Biscuit operates.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Anyway, I’ve been looking at what’s happening to the grid, and I recognise some of the patterns here. I think I know who developed the magic that’s being used here is based on.”
“Who?” Danielle asked.
“Me.”
Comments
Jeff
Woah Rufus is a BEAST
ItWasIDIO!!
Here I thought Elizabeth was trying to think up ways not to shoot up the "Things not to be shown mercy but killed with extreme prejudice"
Nea
I love they bet with the best food instead of spirit coins now
Sandra Pomeroy
TYFTC
Kevin Anderson
No way Jason would not provide a proper education
StarkRG
Most games that use dice just use d6s so they may not have ever heard the term before.
StarkRG
It sounds like at least some of the team don't know about Stash's side hustle.
StarkRG
No, a barrage is a kind of dam.
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Chloe
Tyftc
Chloe
n your team guarding the barrage until we know how hard they’re Guarding a Bridge right?
Kelly
As well as props for other things.
Soli116
Ingrid
Soli116
There's a link on here. I can't remember which tab, but it wasn't hard to find. Edit: membership tab
ABTelford
“We’ve successfully generated multiple transformation zones from silver-rank manifestations. It should have been even more effective with a gold-rank one, but—”. I read this and thought - oh yea, because experiments ALWAYS work the same when you scale up. Psh! Freakin morons! They are lucky Jason was there or they would’ve blasted earth into the astral. MORONS!!
Tim
Hm, I dont know if thats something Jason just forced into being, or if it actually is a potentially unknown AK ability, but that would be neat since he would be making them all immortal.
Bethany Bluebird
Actually no I bet he's the sort of monster who likes the cinnamon ones...
Charles W. Grainger
I love that Jason and stash prepared food is currency in team biscuit
michael pigott
If not originals, there's demonstrated potential for other Astral Cortier positions that havnt been discovered/created because the orthodoxy doesn't really do "new ideas" like "Defier of the Will" but better suited to everyone. Imagine an "Advisor of The Will" position that let Clive pass knowledge back to Jason and gave him some of Jason's Astral intuition
Kconraw
Thx for the chapter
Arieh Sochaczevski
He’s spent a lot of time meddling with Messenger souls. So much so that he might be said to be more familiar with gestalt souls than otherwise. Do we know if Nik is gestalt or not? It could be Jason is fully capable of safely changing the team in that way.
Chiqui Joy
“This was Humphrey in his element, the quintessential adventurer. Fighting monsters, protecting people, pretending he had a normal team.” 😂🤣😂
FlareNight
Farrah played some with Greg too. So she would definitely know.
AfroMocha
Should make a mini series in X and insta format of the teams interactions with Jason’s world
AfroMocha
Earwax I think it earwax guys
Idan tal
Well, with all the gold rank auras, healers, and set of powers that just get stronger with time they have there, they aren’t going to have any problems with a prolonged fight. That and why Amir ain’t getting his heavily armed cloud ship/palace to add some literal cannons to the mix?
Alex Schellenberg
I bet it's an odd one like popcorn.
Bethany Bluebird
I bet he likes the marshmallow flavor the best.
Tim
No, hes not omnipotent. Not in the way that matters. He COULD change them but they most likely explode when they left his realm. He might have an idea as to how iy works, but theres no way hes on the level of a GAB yet. Once he fully transcends he MIGHT be able to then. The MOST he might be able to do now at this junction os MAYBE make awakening stones, MAYBE.
Tevin Pruitt
So they don't really talk about it, but Jason's indestructibility means he gave up the afterlife, which we know actually exists.
Kismet
My heart tells me it old school 3.5 D&D. I'm sure it's so stupidly high iteration on the game or some cool new thing they have there. Whatever it is, I want to play!
James Kinsler
How do we get back into the discord? My account was hacked and I lost access to the server and I'm just trying to get back in.
ByLAWphoto
what kind of jelly beans do we think Rufus is addicted to? Jason mentioned him importing them by the wheelbarrow. I figure they've got to be Jelly Bellys.
Kevin Anderson
With all of Jason's earth games that the team plays , how do they not know about the different kinds of dice?
Vincent Ciavone
I feel like with the soul forge and omnipotence in his astral kingdom, as long as his friends allowed him access to their soul and he has the practice, I don’t see why Jason couldn’t turn his friends into gestalt beings. Just like how the world Phoenix used her authority to turn Jason, inside his kingdom his authority is limitless, and the system states that as long as he has the power of the rank of something, he can recreate things of that rank, and they can leave his kingdom, and they’re just as real as anything else. He might screw up and they die upon leaving, but he should be able to combine their body and soul. If I’m not wrong he could technically do it to a diamond tanker inside his kingdom too, but the effects would become unstable upon leaving his kingdom since he isn’t diamond rank yet
Shirtaloon
Thank you for that. To be honest, I'm running on fumes in this last stretch before I go on break. There's a lot of outside-the-story stuff going on, even with my mum out of hospital. Mixing up twins is far from surprising to me.
Spencer
This chapter had me laughing out loud several times. Thanks so much!
Tim
@John, it was GOING TO BE a transformation zone, but Jason used his transcendant power to break it down into basic magical manifestation.
Tim
Reality Cores. Transformation zones that resolve themselves led to reality cores being retrievable.
Tim
Dammit, I just listened to that book the other day...it Hilda? Or Gertrude? Something like that.
Tim
Yeaaaa, she said she wanted to look good in the public to keep from being wiped out, only to collude in attempting to burn the world down, but basically theyre just looking to harvest more reality cores, since thats the only reason to force transformation zones, and its clear that they have some way to control the location and keeping others from reading them as active zones.
Tim
I hate this...why should someone have to download a separate app to share these things when theyre paying here? And if youre going to take peoples money on a site that allows them to communicate with the seller then the seller should communicate on that site. And if they have staff, then that staff should also be using the site that ACTUALLY collects the money.
Tim
It would be tricky. He worked with them in Greenstone to differentiate their soul, so that they could feel it to amplify their auras. The first step is to be able to recognize and utilize the soul directly. The second is a bit trickier but doable, and that is being able to visualize your powers as a space which Jason started after killing the village of Bandits, and Arabelle told him that that didnt generally happen until Silver BUT she was talking about directed powerups, but in Jasons case he was building a space within his soul. After this is where things get murky because we dont know if its absolutely necessary to be able to ENTER the soul, but my guess would be yes since that would be the first actual step to becoming not just Original, but an AK in general. The question now becomes does one NEED to be a Gestalt? Im gonna say...MAYBE! To become an AK and Original, the answer is YES, but at this point is where Diamond rankers step into the realm of Transcedance, because when Jason became a Gestalt Being it forced his soul into being part physical and part astral, which is key for creating the Astral Kingdom, but after that it becomes a game of transmutational knowledge. To become an astral king, first you need a kingdom (making your soul part astral), after that you need several key points. 1. An Astral Throne - this allows the king to actively build and change their realms, giving them basically godlike power over their own realms. 2. An Astral Gate - this allows them to interact with the great Astral, and modulate the flow of pure magical forces within themself. 3. A Soul Forge - this lets them manipulate other souls. These three artifacts are actually representative of points of knowledge that a Diamond Ranker on the path to transcendance needs to research thoroughly to move beyond. The throne is an understanding and power over physical manipulation. The gate is an understanding of astral forces, and the forge is naturally an understanding of the soul. So, could Jason turn his team into originals? Maybe. It would come down to how each of them would be able to grasp the concepts above, and whether or not becoming a gestalt is something that can be reproduced by mortal power or not. But on the flip side, can Jason turn his team into Transcendants? I would almost certainly say, Absolutely! Finally, it should be said that this is just MY understanding of the process, and there are other points that have been brought up but we just dont have enough information on, that being when Jason finally meets the cloud person. They have a clash of, not auras but Presence, in which Jason complements them for being "well on their way to cultivating a transcendant aspect." So, Presence differs from Auras, and I would guess that it comes down to personal Authority, or the power to shape reality, and Aspect would be THE WAY in which they shape that Presence. For example, Gods. The Healer's Aspect is using their Presence to shape the world, or Authority, into pure healing. Again, this is all MY understanding, if someone else has anything to add, feel free.
Carl Gherardi
Joanna, I think you've nailed it. Lots of (legitimate) ways to justify forcing proto-astral spaces to form instead of allowing normal manifestations to occur. We may find that's SOP now. It's almost a natural step to get at those reality cores for the power hungry
Paul B
Could Jason unlock the potential for his team to also become originals? You know, since he has already admitted to creating some already. Imagine Humphrey using his relics whilst going ham. He wouldn’t need the team and could hold up against a great many foes. Or Belinda and Humphrey as an astral kings team…
Stephcuv
post it in the discord
GentlemanG33k
True but i think it's mostly for the single reality core that comes with each
Tempitheadem
it wasn't Marie, that lady was German.. don't remember her name tho
David
“Pretending he had a normal team” haha
DirePants
lol the call is coming from the house
C0bra$
Thank u for the story
Crystal Donak
Yes YES YES! I want to read this.. a whole 17 chapters on just this. Lol one where Grantham gets super pissed because she wants to be Clives real wife and the team tease Clive mercilessly but 20 years later and he is still oblivious. .. And Stash sneaks out with Aunty Farah and Emi to find the best bakery... Paris, Italy maybe New York .. oh the possibilities are endless!
Skyler Weichey
Love the new chapters keep up the good work shirt
Skyler Weichey
It would of been a transformation zone if it’s wasn’t for Jason and if you remember the vampires were stronger in the transformation zones that’s why they want more of them
Nathan Gagnier
Edit: in the bit about the area specialists, "Claire Adeah" should be Hannah Adeah, the magical archer an Rick Geller's wife. Claire Adeah is her sister, and a healer.
Dec
Ha! It always beats me how the pursuit of power warps perspectives. The vampire says she gave up some of her plans and she expects Jason not to lose but here she is colluding with other power hungry people. If I were her I would be bending over backwards trying to find a blood alternative and the deepest hole to hide in because there is no long term winning with how many gold rankers Jason has .
John Durrett
Endgame- Jason takes over the planet and guts all the bad vamps
John Durrett
Discovering a new transformation zone is discovering a new planet with its own eco systems. Toss out one you might as well be asking to toss out all adventuring. Then all that’s left is politics, and the world already has enough of that .
John Durrett
Honestly getting placed on one of Jason’s worlds would not be so bad for vamps.
John Durrett
I think he is wanting to showcase the rest of the teams awesome and in many cases awestruck powers for the world to see. It’s not just Jason, everyone he brought over is a powerhouse to be reckoned with
John Durrett
It’s not a transformation zone though, I’m pretty sure, but a big mana manifestation event and someone is using the detection grid to spice it up
Joanna
Only great ones and horrible ones, right? But the correct answer is Jelly Belly green apple!
dragon
I mean, it is provably more habitable for vampires (the sun doesn't drive them mad), plus everyone there doesn't hate their guts and want them dead.
Joanna
Hunter, by the end of book 6, he’d patched up the dimensional membrane enough that they wouldn’t form on their own anymore, which appears to be part of why somebody spent enough effort to figure out how to force one to occur so they could get back to harvesting a few cores. Sigh.
Joanna
Regular transformation zones resolve themselves, turning any normal folks in them into different species. The ones Jason had to fix were abnormal. I have to admit I don’t see what the baddies expected to gain from causing one. The team would have been stuck inside for a couple of days, but that’s all
Ty Cooper
So has Marie Finnegan showed up in past chapters? Or is this the lady that held Travis hostage?
Big I
Huh, isn't Jason the only one who can resolve transformation zones? And doesn't doing so give him dominion over them, expanding his clan lands?
Liesmith
If Elizabeth is smart, she'll see Rufus' orbital cannon and just fade into the background like Homer into a shrub.
Laura Hemly
I'm just surprised they had to search for it. Must mean it's time for me them to do another reread. 😅
Mike Zebill
Too bad they didn't bring the cloud house, they could have set it up as a bunker and used the weapons that Travis installed on it.
Laura Hemly
That's very clear in the first Earth arc (books 4-6) I'm just curious how her work on bringing back up and stabilizing the grid plays into Elizabeth and Marie using the grid in a twisted way.
Laura Hemly
The internet: Earth's contribution to the cosmos. 🫤
Laura Hemly
There are worse fates.
Laura Hemly
Careen is part of the Rimaros political team. She's about the only person we know is on that team.
Laura Hemly
Can you read the chapter on a laptop or desktop? The PDF is attached at the end of it.
ByLAWphoto
I suppose the good news is, when Team Biscuit wipes the floor with the monster cloud, and after Jason's "god in smiting mode", it's possible the Earthlings will give more merit to the idea that the adventurers from Palli are way more powerful. (then again, Earthlings are ridiculously stubborn and disinclined to change or admit when they're weak. Let's kill it!)
Nick Remis
Yeah. But I also have a feeling that any pardon would come with a permanent home on the astral kingdom vamp world.
ShowBizGAL 1996
Um, I don't remember if Zarene (Liara's daughter) came or not. But for sure Zara (the former Hurricane Princess) did! Does she count? ;-)
Kevin Anderson
I have a feeling she's going to feed them to Jason in return for him sparing her. Make the problem big enough it's less damage to just pardon her.
Blake N.
I applaud the dedication
Blake N.
It’s a lie. There are no good ones
Blake N.
I imagine they did the forcing back then, and it just never came up cause Jason had checked out by the end of the reality core business and was fully focused on his own task
wanderer26
I don't have access to the discord PDF files...
michael pigott
RIP to the idiots trying to get a team involving Clive, Lindy,Farrah and Travis by doing something complicated with obscure magic. Edit, with the amount of emphasis put on teams ability for violence I wonder how much the amount of varied competencies and other specialties are gonna play into things going forward? They've got Liara Rimaros' daughter, Estella, Constance..... just so much unleashed political savvy and quiet competence
Richard Tatar
“The team he hoped for”. Great chapter SHIRT 🤪
Monty Crisco
Massive chapter. Thanks!
Connor Wilson
Tftc
Michael Smalley
I did remember in book 12 when he introduced the pirates the captain mentions that they have some rituals to dig up cores again. Something like opening a glass bottle, can be opened but never close the same again. How people of earth figured that out no clue. Maybe it's something to do with the "BBG"??!
Alex
Probably not here; he’s said he can only do that once before the Council of Kings realizes there’s an enclave of the Unorthodoxy on Earth and his people have to bail.
Frapaloptagis
Exactly where my head was going with it. Imagine the internet's hunt for Clive's wife, the YouTube theories and reddit threads to try to deduce who on the team or expedition it is, and the team just feeding into it. Some of the posts are actually done by Belinda and Sophie. Clive being completely oblivious to every thirst trap made about him. I'm just saying the potential for peak slice of life filler is limitless when the Internet gets involved.
Samuel Strode
I can agree to popcorn but burnt popcorn?
J W
Burnt popcorn of course
Hunter
Didn’t think Elizabeth would be this anxious to die. But good for her, one more plot against Jason from the Vamps. I wonder if this is the beginning of a longer arc with a vampire war or a swift elimination by the team biscuit and honestly the whole world after this gets pinned on the Vamps.
Hunter
See when that got brought up I was thinking the same thing. But didn’t Jason make it impossible for them to take anymore reality cores back in book 6?
Martin Tomsic
I can so picture Neil getting fed up and taking off his shirt to say, "do I look fat?" and then the internet just going crazy over him. Of course the fame will go straight to his head and he'll turn into the lazy guy in the band that threatens the break up and downfall of their glory. (See the Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted 2)
BloodStorm
I’m not sure how many more transformation zone arcs I can through
BloodStorm
I hope Boris makes a grand appearance with an army of messengers
Frapaloptagis
Can we get a filler chapter or 2 after a bit of the internet's reaction to Jason's team? Like I'd love a scene of Humphrey wondering why he keeps getting compared to this "superman" then just getting really into comics, followed by Neil complaining that this world is slowly infecting them. Even better if after a few public appearances Neil gets called fat, then has to set the record straight on social media then becomes the team influencer.
Samuel Strode
I can see that with the black licorice the anise can be a bit much
Martin Tomsic
Licorice! (I personally like the licorice ones, but almost everyone I know says that it is an evil flavor.)
Martin Tomsic
Same. I'd been wondering if it was an old faction we knew or some new players coming out of the shadows. Turns out it was a little of both, pieces of different factions working together in a new way. Still the classic, cliche objective. World... DOMINATION!!!
Laura Hemly
Apparently Rufus loves the weird flavors. Like they sell on the Hogwarts Express.
Justin Butler
Farrah. The Immortal Anti Jason to save the day!
Soli116
How many reality cores they've stolen and how mad / disappointed Jason will be.
Soli116
I laughed so much I had to reread that paragraph 3 times before I could finish it.
SmokeJam
Farrah is famous for implementing the grid system in cooperation with the Network in the first place. It was talked about in the off so to speak, but that's the reason she is so good at that magitech stuff to create the new way of communication on Palli.
Martin Tomsic
Thank you for another amazing chapter, Shirt! Your writing since book 1 has always been very good, but you are really on a whole other level from most (if not all) LitRPG writers now. This book has just been pinnacle in every aspect; plot, characters, action, pacing, all of it!
SmokeJam
I had some great chuckles throughout this chapter, thank you very much!
#savegarytheleonid
This was Humphrey in his element, the quintessential adventurer. Fighting monsters, protecting people, pretending he had a normal team. - "pretending he had a normal team" amazing casual bangers in the writing
GentlemanG33k
Did Akari get Rufus into D&D?
3rdImpact
Oh shirt thank you so much I loved the chapter the banter the fighting the bedazzled hopeless arch villains. The blend of style chaos and randomness . This is a work of art thanks for creating and sharing it!
Zack
I wonder how many transformation zones they've forced and what the damage is.
Justin
Great end of the week, thanks! Hope everything is going well at home! TYFTC!
Tevin Pruitt
Rufus plays tabletop games!
CritHappens
This is the stuff. Mr Loon I wish you would take breaks more often. I would take these sorts of chapters weekly at this level of quality. Hope you’re travelling ok and your mum is on the mend.
Joanna
Well, that’s my question from Wednesday answered! Fuckin evil Network agents in bed with vampires.
Flojoe
Yes claire is the healer. Quote from book 1: “Rick has Claire on his team. She’ll just cleanse all of Jason’s afflictions.” I totally forgot it but searched for it rn 🙂
Flojoe
Well if the basic concept is from her then should be able to shut it off or at least weaking it so that jason can smash it to bits.
Laura Hemly
Thanks for an excellent and wonderfully destructive chapter, Shirt, with several choice laugh-out-loud lines. As has been occasionally mentioned, the Remore family runs a school! who knew? And one more line I loved: "This was Humphrey in his element, the quintessential adventurer. Fighting monsters, protecting people, pretending he had a normal team." 😂 Lots of good cliffhangers, too. Elizabeth the head vampire working with Network official Marie? And Farrah created the grid magic that the monster attack is based on? What is Earth coming to? Although clearly Elizabeth shares our opinion of Other Gordon. Also, when will you start selling Biscuit Stash biscuits, Shirt? You could make a fortune!
Samuel Strode
Jelly beans the good ones? What flavors
Cam
Tftc!!
Kenneth
Uh oh. Someone is in troubleeeee.
Alex
Potential correction: wasn’t Claire the healer on Rick’s team, and Hannah the archer?
Jacob Kraus
Thank you for the chapter Shirt!!!
Jace B
Biscuits
Matt Doyle
Tally ho team biscuit
