Writer's Notes
yo what the fuck im at chapter ix already
I don’t want to have high hopes (and I don’t like having one) but I’m having a nice feeling about actually managing to finish Story Simulation.
You know what’s the funniest thing about working on this (to me)?
Figuring out the schedule and managing my workload. If I thought this story would end up terrible, at least I got scheduling and time management skills. Which is something I’m pretty happy about lol, as someone who has shit task management skills.
Hmm…
The new chapter has started, and I don’t know what to say in this occasion.
Good luck, I guess?
Kat was getting late for her mission, as she frantically fired her attacks towards the certain armored knight—The Exiled. The cold in this icy dungeon was the last thing she would be worried about, as she had to take him down as soon as possible, while dealing with the frantic magic energy in the air. She cursed at each moment the Exiled sent out slash attacks with his blade. With the magic energy messing her head up, she got cut from the slash attacks here and there. The Exiled didn’t seem to be affected by this magic.
Gritting her teeth, her own magic energy burst and flowed from her arm on its own by the frenzied magic’s influence. Her task to get that knight down had gotten more challenging—he blinked and darted around in all directions, as her vision blurred by the overwhelming magic. Fighting someone with that speed along with this damn magic wasn’t… so fun. She had to end him right now, it’s getting late for her.
Kat screamed her brain out, her magma explosions flooding the entire corridor they were fighting at. She hoped that the Exiled would be hit in this desperate move—and she heard a heavy crash, followed by silence.
She slowed her breath and balanced herself on the ground, calming the magic energy in her. When it had settled down, she looked around for the Exiled’s body. She noticed the blood seeping out from his armor, and waited for a few moments to see if he’d move.
Then she left the body behind, running away. As she hurried towards her destination, her thoughts raced—how long had they been fighting? How many minutes had it been?
Still unoriented by the magic, Kat only hoped that she wouldn’t encounter another obstacle. The coldness in this place pricked her skin as she ran, and she looked for anything that marked her next destination.
From here to there, passages to passages, she followed the frantic magic energy she sensed. The dizzier it felt, the closer her destination would be—that was what she was told.
Once Kat located the hidden entrance that blended into the walls, she threw herself against it, forcing it open.
Noticing Dacien inside the room along with the Minotaur, she knew she was too late. But before Kat could report about the Exiled, Dacien stopped her.
“Just get up, the scroll’s been waiting for you.”
Following the beam would be their best bet, thought the squad. The two figures Aurielle and Rael noticed could’ve gone to the same destination too.
Not wanting to waste any more time here, Aurielle told everyone that they’d head to another town at the north—Azure City, to gather more information about the beam.
The squad then left the city, heading towards the northern tundra first as they noticed a large town.
Ace and Issac headed inside Azure City first, while Aurielle along with her students headed inside an empty house. The three changed their clothes for their destination ahead, checking for their tools. Afterward, the Magic Council duo returned to the squad with changed outfits, and told them about the beam they saw earlier.
According to the townspeople, they were only able to estimate where the beam could be fired from, and informed Issac and Ace about the location—they should head towards a cave, as it would lead them towards the beam fired above eventually. Some townspeople saw the beam too, but none of them had an idea of what it was exactly—except for speculations based on it being a very large magic beam, but what could cast a beam that size? No one had an idea so far.
After knowing where they should head next, Aurielle decided to cast a hovering platform that would support the entire squad, before flying away from the city, towards the arctic north—where the townspeople saw the beam coming from.
Along their ride towards the cave Issac mentioned, the squad huddled with each other in this climate they’re traveling in. Everyone held onto the platform tight, as Aurielle sent it flying across the icy white region, eager to arrive at their destination as Issac looked for the cave.
“Stone steps, stone steps, stone steps…” Issac mumbled beneath his mask as he glanced around, their surroundings covered by ice.
Ace pointed towards a mountain further away, guiding Aurielle’s platform to hover towards it. After arriving at the mountain, Issac spotted a cave’s entrance, and the platform flew towards it.
After arriving, they entered the cave together with Aurielle as the lead, and her floating light orb as the light source. Moving along traces of snow and water that resembled footsteps, they traversed inside the icy cave.
No signs of life were inside the cave. All the squad could hear were their own breaths and their footsteps. But once they arrived where the footsteps stopped, Aurielle poked the crack on the wall in front of them.
Some of the stones fell off from the crack, revealing a freezing location. Then Ace destroyed the wall with his Lightning magic to see what’s inside.
An icy dungeon-like place. Despite how man-made this place looked, they still couldn’t find any signs of life here either. Aurielle’s light orb that guided them began to wobble, and everyone noticed that. So Jean tried to sense for anyone’s magic energy in this place. But she jolted as she sensed something abnormal.
“What’s wrong?” asked Issac, noticing how startled Jean was.
“It’s… overwhelming. Something about the magic here is very off— Did they tell you about any weird magic in this cave?”
Issac shook his head, as he tried to sense for magic energy here too.
His reaction was similar to Jean’s, then he pressed his temple, processing what he just sensed earlier. “What the…”
Rael tried to sense for the magic energy himself, and his head went numb, unable to feel anything else. He only saw a bunch of unknown waves moving around wildly, and he couldn’t move.
Issac had to snap him out from it, and Rael tried his best to explain what he just saw. After watching Jean, Issac, and Rael acting weird from the magic energy, Aurielle tried sensing for them herself too.
Aurielle stopped once overwhelmed, and concentrated on it again and again. Her eyebrows grew tenser by this strange magic, as her light orb grew and erupted. Once done, she only gestured the squad to follow her along this dungeon, casting her wobbly light again. Rael and Jean followed right behind her, while Ace and Issac watched for any threats following them.
After going from passages to passages, walking through the crossed paths here and there, she stopped at a dead-end, resting her hand at the wall as she sighed, her shoulders relieved as she finally stopped sensing for the magic. Though, her light orb still was still hovering above her. "Behind this wall… It’s coming from there…”
Noticing how drained Aurielle looked, Rael and Jean checked on her, while Issac and Ace discussed the routes between themselves.
“How did you…” Jean asked.
“Concentrated magic energy, yeah. The worse it feels, the closer we are to that beam.”
Rael asked, “How did you know that’s the beam?”
“The beam was a powerful one from what we saw, so I went after the direction that screws with my magic the most.” Aurielle removed her mask, catching her breath as she turned to Issac and Ace. “Where are you guys heading next? We’re stuck at this end.”
Issac replied, “There were at least three crossroads we just walked past, I think. We could just head back to the last one and check out the other routes.”
Rael and Jean looked at the dead end, as they remembered destroying a wall together earlier today.
- Attempt to destroy the dead-end wall.
- Head back to the last crossroad and try checking out the other routes.
- Stay there.
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