You see, I don’t personally think that I write particularly well. Every time I look at something I wrote, I just see a bunch of things I did poorly and need to work on. But apparently other people enjoy reading what I write, so if I can make someone’s day just a little more entertaining, then that’s a win in my book.
Thanks for the support!
The ghost ships had returned, spraying cannonballs from afar at heroes and Oryx’ minions alike. Figuring that they had to put a stop to this once and for all, another raid was launched against the ethereal fleet. The pirates, always ones to horde their treasure, had a good deal of loot aboard, and our hero was able to snag some for herself:
After a long day of pirate-slaying (though they’re already dead, so… re-slaying?), Stormrage returned to her abode for some good old-fashioned quest chest whacking! The Tinkerer had given her four chests in exchange for marks from her numerous excursions, and she was ready to break stuff.
The first one didn’t give much of value, with the exception of some potions she could give to her friends. The second one had something quite interesting, however:
She had heard legends about a speedy armor capable of also boosting one’s defensive capabilities appreciably. She had now acquired one for herself, and looked forward to testing it against her bee items. She kept this one away from her ravenous cats.
The third chest contained an item which she had already received several of in recent times; the bee stinger pokey thingy:
She had hoped to get the bee hat, but that didn’t seem to be what RNGesus wanted her to get. Ah, well.
The fourth chest had another pokey thing:
All in all, not a particularly disappointing set of chests.
With the ongoing campaign to get the construction materials for the Nexus, Stormrage focused her efforts on defeating the denizens of the Realm and acquiring the building materials for the workers. As a part of this, she went against the Mad God himself a number of times. He never gave her the freakin’ T6 trap, but he did drop some other interesting stuff:
Earlier that same day, I was running on my trio ppe with guildies @Pegasusy and @Rmcgre, and I got the ST ring from the same set. Not all that interesting, but that day ended a ~1 year streak of me never getting any items from that set, despite religiously farming O2s on a few occasions throughout the past year during campaigns. And then I get two items in one day. Go figure.
A lot was about to change with the Nexus, but a lot had changed everywhere else, as well. The snake temples dotting the Realm had changed dramatically, and with these changes came changes to some of the items; namely, an unassuming ring made from the eye of the snake queen herself. Once a pathetic, near-useless item, it now had the ability to grant the user unmatched speed, and Stormrage had to have it. Luckily, it was common to get, and she was quickly successful:
Her attacks on the snake temples were far from over, however; they seemed to be one of the best sources of screws and nails out there, and so Stormrage found herself killing snake after snake in her quest for the items. Along the way, she got a musical instrument:
Sadly, our hero is tone-deaf and wasn’t able to use it.
Some friends were ransacking libraries once again, and she joined in. After brutally murdering the librarian and stripping him of valuables (as the heroes were inclined to do), she found herself a pretty neat pile of items:
“Oh look! A symbolic seal gifted to the most renowned philosophers of ancient times and an enduring garment of spectral steel worn by the shades of the shadows!” Stormrage exclaimed.
“Nom nom” said her cat.
But things were happening in the Realm. Big things. Like, the-sky-had-opened-up-and-portals-to-unknown-dimensions-had-popped-up-and-were-releasing-unfathomable-extraterrestrial-horrors things. It was time for the fight for control of the entire Realm.
With an alien civilization bearing down on the unsuspecting Realm, Stormrage and her comrades knew it was now or never. They slayed the attackers and leapt through the wormholes to confront the invaders, fighting advanced technology with swords and arrows. Stormrage found herself in the group fighting the onslaught from the world of Malogia, with very hostile wildlife. To make matters worse, the explosive rocks thrown by one of the most powerful enemies were invisible in the air, and thus were very hard to detect (DECA fix this glitch please (though no DECA employee will ever read this…)). Alas, @LeinanIII was slain by such an explosive rock.
However, in the end it was all worth it, when Stormrage was able to obtain a powerful bow channeling the full power of a foreign sun into each shot:
Seeing it as an upgrade to her current Doom Bow, she snagged it.
She also got a few random items, but none of them were particularly interesting:
As expected, none of these items lasted long before being devoured by the walking waste disposal unit that is our hero’s unmaxed rare pet.
Time for a quick update on our hero’s overall progress: fame, equipment, loot, etc.:
Vault chests specifically devoted to the PPE (I save a lot of marks, okay? Sue me.)
As you can see by “First Born”, our hero has surpassed all of my previous characters in fame on death. That’s pretty cool. It’s especially helpful because I’m getting close to making my third legendary pet, so I will need a decent chunk of fame for the fusing/feeding process there.
Continuing her dedication to construction, Stormrage continued her quests around the realm in search of building materials. In the course of doing so, she stumbled upon an Undead Lair, and opted to re-kill everything inside. Upon slaying the mighty ghost god within, she was gifted a mighty bow of light:
Still not as good as the Sun’s Judgement, but a good one to cross of the list!
Jumping back into the realm, she spotted another Undead Lair. Once again readying her bow, she went through the same process as before, and was similarly rewarded:
Another doom bow! I wonder if a cat will eat it…
Now, that was all fine and well, but there lurked in the realm a rare threat; a former associate of Steamhammer’s Mining Co. had struck a deal with the mysterious Crystal Entity and now threatened the livelihoods of the those in the realm.
The Keyper, as he was known, was a worthy opponent capable of immense destruction. However, Stormrage had the help of numerous friends on her side, and was able to defeat him quite soundly. The Keyper unlocked several dungeons for those who had defeated him, but Stormrage was much more interested in what lay right at his feet. Seeing a majestic white bag, she approached it breathlessly, muttering “Please, not a sword” under her breath and opened the bag…
“Well, THAT’S a time-saver!” she exclaimed. At last in possession of the Trap of the Vile Spirit, she turned the small, unassuming object over in her hands. An otherworldly glow emanated from the trap, imparting a sense of hidden potential. She had heard of the devastating power the item held within, and yet it was far lighter than the heavy Blacklight Artifice that she was used to wielding for such occasions. She figured she might be able to throw this one if needed.
Thoroughly satisfied with her loot, she continued on with her questing. Upon learning that Septavius the Ghost God had not learned his lesson from their past encounters, she drop-kicked him and picked up what remained:
Cat go nom.
But neither, it seemed, had the Keyper learned his lesson either. And so it was with great exasperation that Stormrage defeated him once again, though this time she just got a dessert item:
Screenshot feat. @Aurum, the stronk boi.
Septavius again, y’all know the deal:
Tired of defeating the same enemies over and over and over and over again, Stormrage enthusiastically joined @Rmcgre, @Umbrium and others for a small tomb. Excited to actually have to use her evasion skills in the vanquishment of her foes, she used her crossbow to destroy a massive sarcophagus that kept trying to stop them in their quest for destruction, and was rewarded with an interesting item:
“Hey, that’s pretty cool!” Stormrage exclaimed to her friends. Then she destroyed another sarcophagus:
“Okay, then.”
But now she had really done it; The Ancients had awoken, and were ready to destroy her and her friends. They had slumbered for thousands of years, but were ready to pulverize those who had so little care for their tomb. Their wisdom was infinite; their power, unmatched. Truly this would be our hero’s final battle.
“Hah, hah, crossbow go burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
Shortly afterwards, @Umbrium opened another tomb, which they trioed with @Rmcgre.
I had been doing that, but the issue I found was that I was never actually using it; as good as the defensive stats are (better than wyrm), the lack of offensive stats is an issue. I might experiment with different builds in the future, but at the moment, I’m not finding myself with much use for it. There is also the issue that I am limiting myself to only carrying the four equipped items and the eight backpack slots for gear, and leaving the eight inventory spots reserved for loot I encounter on the way. I just can’t carry it all!
Now, the Tomb was fun. But Stormrage wasn’t satisfied with just fun; she wanted cool items. So when she heard that a group was venturing into the mysterious labyrinth beneath the realm’s surface, she jumped at the chance.
She had fought such foes on occasion in the past, but her pet had been stronger before. Now, Shuriken just wasn’t as powerful, and was suffering an emotional crisis as a result. His entire life was devoted to helping Stormrage and other heroes in their battle against Oryx, and now saw his own weaknesses as a liability. As they journeyed into the poorly lit caverns, he pushed his furry head against Stormrage’s leg and let out an apologetic huff. The huntress patted her friend’s head, offering comforting thoughts in return. It wasn’t Shuriken’s fault.
After slaying the numerous denizens of the Halls, the adventurers found their way into a massive room containing a marble giant. The fight was long, but the heroes, while small in number, were among the most skilled the Nexus had to offer and had experience in dealing with these foes. It was not long before the colossus was nothing more than a pile of rubble, and Stormrage eagerly sprang to the heap to see what loot she had received.
Shiny! Maybe she’d keep her pets away from this one.
Following her fellow adventurers into the Void beneath, Stormrage felt chills grip her; she had done battle with the Void Entity, as it was simply known, on a few occasions in the past, but she knew that any one of these fights could very well be her last. She and Shuriken readied themselves, and the fight began.
Though the Void Entity was a mighty foe, the skill, speed and strength of the Nexus team was simply too great. Not a single hero fell in that fight, and as the Void finally fell silent, the adventurers approached the spot where the monstrosity had fallen to retrieve any remaining pieces of the Entity’s power:
“What is this?!” Stormrage exclaimed. “It is a mighty bow with great importance”, another traveler replied quietly. “They say that every shot that hits a target frees the soul of a forgotten hero. Every shot that misses is trapped for eternity.”
“Whoa, that’s amazing!” Stormrage replied, promptly sending a volley of arrows flying into the unknown before returning to the Nexus. “I’ll bet one of those was Carl” she chuckled.
It was after some thinking that Stormrage realized that the ring she had found in the Tomb was actually superior to the one she had been using for some time now. Switching the rings out, she felt ready to stand against any foe.
Now, Stormrage had, in her quest to obtain endless amounts of building materials, received a mysterious chest which held an unknown item of significant power. She had also gathered a number of Craig’s Shards, and was ready to combine them to create a similarly powerful item.
She held her breath and grabbed the two items.
Hmph. A weird crystal heart and a book. Ah well, maybe someone else would be able to use them.
But back to the realm it was for our hero, for just one last quest for a while; the Grand Sphinx had broken free once more and was ready to wreak havoc on the heroes of the Nexus. But Stormrage and her compatriots were able to battle it into submission, and all expressed great dismay with the lack of white bags the Sphinx dropped. However, Stormrage had gotten something else. She slowly approached the small yellow bag on the ground and beheld a small figurine of a sphinx:
Shuriken eyed the figurine with confusion, and then horror. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to use it on you.” Stormrage chuckled, dropping the figurine into her backpack.
The Ancient Tomb had opened once more. Stormrage reflected on how unfair it was that all of these enemies were able to survive dying so many times, but she only had one life herself. Deciding to use her one life to do as much damage as humanly possible, she got back to breaking things and getting loot:
Well, she had another book. And with literature comes a bigger mind. And with a bigger mind comes, well…
It was a little creepy holding such a weirdly-shaped skull. She also got a weird fruit, though at the cost of the mighty @BasutianxD:
Well, that was fun. Just like dragon-slaying!
Luckily, there just happened to be a dragon in the realm! (Don’t look at the fame bar, just pretend for the story’s sake that it happened right afterward.) It was very fast, but luckily the bats surrounding it no longer randomly blew up without warning. As such, Stormrage and her friends were able to slay the beast, and she obtained yet another magical sun knife:
“Wow, now if only they could actually buff this thing so it’s worthy of being an event white” she muttered as her cats chowed down on the mythical blade.
Journeying back to the beach, Stormrage spotted the opening to one of the local criminal dens. Deciding that she would eradicate the pests that were the Dreadstump Crime Syndicate, she dove in and began her mad dash through the series of docks and ships that the group used to smuggle any number of unsavory goods around the realm. Seeing a wizard boarding the flag ship as she approached and knowing that she couldn’t possibly make it in time to have a chance of loot, Stormrage yoinked her trap over the side of the ship and got the kill anyways. For her yoinking skills efforts, she was richly rewarded:
The wizard was not happy.
Stormrage, despite her usual destructive tendencies, is also a major contributor to construction and the betterment of life for her fellow pixels. It came as no surprise, then, that she was given many awards for her outstanding contributions of nails, screws and planks to the Nexus refurbishment project:
She put on the hard hat with pride, and also equipped her other construction gear:
(Honeytomb snare was used because it confers no stat bonuses, so you can see just how OP the Foreman’s Hard Hat is.)
Unfortunately, as a bow user, Stormrage had to resign herself to just using the nail gun to get the bonuses, which was by far the worst of the construction items. She decided to keep her construction equipment in her vault until she had to purge the realm of a bunch of weak enemies at once.
The two most recent ST chests will be waiting until the new archer and rogue ST sets drop, because I’m tired of getting more copies of items I already have.
Summoning a demon is hard. However, if you succeed, the results can be catastrophic for that particular plane of existence, and so efforts should be taken to prevent anyone from doing so. That is why, upon learning that the monk known as Daichi the Fallen was trying to summon his master, the demon lord Xil, the Nexus set out to stop him. They were successful, and to commemorate the time when she saved the realm from the demon lord, Stormrage clipped a branch off a nearby cherry tree:
Deciding to loot the place (definitely the same MT, I swear), she found an odd pendant made of the tears of yet another demon:
Now, some monsters are more dangerous than others. Some are just large, and not particularly intimidating to fighters like Stormrage. However, some adventurers are more susceptible than others to such enemies, and so it was of great distress to Stormrage when the Oasis Giant declared that he and his minions would have @BANEOFAL for dinner. It was of even greater distress when they actually had them for dinner. However, Stormrage was able to cut this short by sending a spray of pure Void magic into the monsters, destroying them in moments:
Now, what are giants? Strong. You know what else is strong? Ogres. You know what Ogres have? Layers. You know what else has layers? Big shields and good armor. You know what doesn’t have layers? Good armor that has been smashed by Ogres with big shields.
Stormrage had heard tell of this item, one with amazing power that few could withstand. However, she had never found herself to be one for the brutish techniques of slamming and slashing that came with the use of a sword and shield. She much preferred the fine arts of archery and trap-setting, and as such placed the item in her vault, next to her other Shield of Ogmur.
But is one hard-hat enough? Of course not. Safety knows no limits. So Stormrage got another one:
She’ll probably give this one to a friend.
Can we all just appreciate how insane the fame gain is now? Like, seriously. I gained ~6k base fame over the course of one day, just by running the realm a bunch.
@Kahvex never saw it coming.
“Why have just one Operator’s Hard Hat when you can have two?” Stormrage thought to herself as she grabbed her second such item from the Tinkerer. “Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Not really. But I have it now, and that’s cool, I guess.”
But there was no time for ruckus; the dragons were back at it, and needed to be put in their respective places. Stormrage joined the group of fire-breathing-lizard slayers and ventured into their Lair. Killing the red one didn’t give her anything good, but the blue one was kind enough to give her a fancy robe:
“So… what you’re saying is that it doesn’t close in the front?” she asked one of the fellow adventurers. “Nope!” “Okay…”
The green dragon didn’t give her anything either, and neither did the black dragon. However, the big dragon that had all of the powers of the other four was nice enough to provide her with a big handy wackin’ stick:
Stormrage had killed a lot of gods, and ran a lot of dungeons from those gods. However, there was an item she had been looking for for a while: a rather festive armor which dropped from the Puppet Master guy. However, she had as of yet been unsuccessful, and was eager to have every chance possible to secure one. Seeing an entrance to his theater open in the godlands, she hopped in and joined the fight, receiving a white bag in the process:
Well, that was disappointing.
However, she had also accumulated more construction materials by this point, and was ready to turn some more in to get another reward:
'Cause why not?
Figuring that she could probably stop getting construction equipment now, Stormrage decided to prepare herself for more adventuring! However, she had to equip herself properly to prepare for the most vicious parts of the realm, and so she armed herself with a large machete:
But before hacking her way through jungles, she joined an exploration group into the depths of a cave of ice, where one of the Crystal Entity’s most dangerous creations was supposedly lurking, ready for a fight. If it wasn’t stopped, it could easily infiltrate the realm, sowing chaos as it used its disguises to mimic the adventurers and gain their trust. So Stormrage put a few arrows into it, and was richly rewarded:
(Same XP bonus as an event white? Okay…)
Well, that was a good time. You know what else is a good time? Destroying corrupted kingdoms and ridding them of the evils within!
So that’s how Stormrage found herself in a weird, overgrown courtyard, killing off magic users and destroying statues before going toe-to-toe with a massive guardian on a bridge. The group was small, and the fight was a close one, but they succeeded and Stormrage was gifted with a truly amazing item:
“I FARMED ALL OF THOSE WINE CELLARS, OPENED ALL OF THOSE QUEST CHESTS AND ALL I HAD TO DO TO GET IT WAS RUN A FREAKING SHATTERS!?!”
Apparently it does.
However, Stormrage was finding the Honeytomb Snare to be more useful, so she decided to put the T6 trap in her vault for the time being.
And then she decided to play with spears for a little bit:
Then she killed a weird statue in the realm, and got an odd object:
Her friend Rmcgre wanted to go in the Lost Halls, so she joined him, along with a couple other adventurers. The first room, which was filled with bats, rats and slimes, was pretty easy to take care of. The second room had a bunch of Oryx’s soldiers, which Stormrage was pretty good at killing, so that wasn’t so hard. The third room was full of a crusade from the Nexus, which had turned evil and tried to kill them. It caused one of the adventurers to flee from the Halls, and killed @Deedlette. Despite losing half their group, Stormrage and Rmcgre pressed on deeper into the Halls, slaying the numerous dangers within. They encountered more crusades, more Oryx squads, more slimes, a bunch of golems and even a weird evil specter that tried to vaporize them. Stormrage used her new Mimicry trap a couple times, and all things considered, things were going pretty well.
Until they weren’t. Stormrage and Rmcgre found themselves fighting a room full of of golems, making decent progress. The massive Tormented Golem in the middle of the room charged Rmcgre, who didn’t move a muscle. “An existing connection has been forcibly closed by the remote host!” Rmcgre screamed as he vanished into thin air right before his friend’s eyes.
Finishing off the golems, Stormrage looked around herself to see how far they had come; they had cleared a good portion of the Halls, but there was still much to do before she could fight the Agonized Titan, after which she would have to clear her way through the Cult followers before finally fighting the Cultists themselves, which might not even give her anything good. “I’m not doing that alone,” she thought, deciding to return to the Nexus instead.
Death. Undeath. Sentient gourds.
That just about summarizes recent events.
With the task to collect the dismembered, rotting body parts of deceased fellow adventurers, Stormrage was more than a little grossed out. But you gotta get the loot, right?
So when a bunch of adventurers started to pile into one of the local cemeteries to pilfer from the dead, she joined in with mild enthusiasm. After killing a giant troll and a ghost bride, she then killed this weird guy with a pumpkin on his head and got a pretty cool thingamajig:
“An invisibility cloak!” Stormrage exclaimed. “Too bad that’s not the special ability I use!”
Next up was a weird grave caretaker guy, who wasn’t very resistant to arrows. He did not give any cool stuff, unfortunately.
But then Stormrage and her fellow travelers fought the ghost of someone named Skuld. After giving the undead another solid thrashing, Stormrage got a knife:
Before the heroes could celebrate, a giant, pumpkin-headed fiend appeared from the ground and started attacking them. So they destroyed the challenger and Stormrage got yet more cool stuff:
(30k base fame btw)
Well, that was so much fun, Stormrage decided to run the next cemetery she could find:
Shortly afterwards, she fought Oryx, her inventory so full of STs that she hoped desperately not to get anything good. Luckily, she didn’t.
But destroying cemeteries was fun, so she had to run just one more:
Now, by collecting a bunch of body parts from beings no longer in need of them, Stormrage was able to exchange with the Tinkerer (who now seemed way, way creepier than before) and got a magical pumpkin which turned into a poncho:
She also turned in a bunch of gooey brains and got a different pumpkin:
She couldn’t use it, but she was sure one of her friends would.
Yet more destruction, yet more quests. This time was another magical pumpkin and a bunch of Craig’s little shard thingies:
A large whistle and the heckflame bonkstick!
Also, woodlabs are no longer fun:
Let’s get a machete for a bunch of zombie pieces:
Flashbacks to last year when my pally ppe got 2 machetes and 3 ponchos without a single other item from those pumpkins. At least this time I got the poncho and the hat, which are somewhat viable together.
Time for more winning.
Despite the brevity of the Halloween event, Stormrage found herself with a new objective: to acquire some of the new items that she could now get from Lord Ruthven’s manor and those old abandoned stone structures all around the realm. It was not long at all before she found herself a couple amulets of decent power:
Then she got distracted briefly and obtained another prism she knew she would never use:
Then a cat ate it.
After confirming with a friend that the ST chests could no longer give her spectral rings, Stormrage opened a couple that were leftover from the construction campaign and got some handy items as a result:
The anger armor wasn’t her kind of thing, but she decided to hang onto the crystal one in case it ever comes in handy.
She continued to sack ancient shrine after ancient shrine, all without success. She knew of a majestic bow which she would rather like to use, but found herself unable to acquire it. All she got was a weird rapier that used its blade as a projectile.
Not being trained in exploding swords, she decided to give it to a friend. (She got three of these that day, but repeat screenshots are boring.)
After so much time in the desert, Stormrage found herself absolutely parched. She needed water, and badly. Unfortunately, she got a little lost on her way to the magic woods and instead ended up in a woodland labyrinth. The inhabitants were fierce (particularly the giant moth thing), but Stormrage and the paladin accompanying her dealt with them easily. After bidding the paladin farewell, our hero continued her search for water in the labyrinth. She was unsuccessful, but she did murder many squirrels and was richly rewarded for doing so:
Words cannot describe how relieved I am to no longer have to clear every wlab I enter for these things.
After eventually finding water, Stormrage decided to satiate her sweet tooth in a local hive, because bees are cool and they drop op items:
Regrettably, our hero was unable to handle the full power of the honey scepter, and could not use it.
Now, there is such a thing as too much water. Stormrage found this out as the dying Hermit God sucked her and her friends down into the depths of the ocean. Fighting from one air vent to the next, the heroes eventually found themselves against the mighty Thessal, the Mermaid Goddess:
Luckily, she wasn’t particularly hard to kill. Also luckily, our hero no longer has to run these:
Another set crossed off the list!
It had been a long day, and for part of it, Stormrage had collected a number of marks of some of the weaker enemies in exchange for some treasure maps from the Tinkerer, who was unfortunately no longer offering bounties on dismembered limbs. The huntress and her friend decided to explore and search the Cave of a Thousand Treasures for a mythical item. Stormrage had obtained two such maps, but apparently only needed one:
But then Rmcgre had to leave and become an astronaut detective or something.
Gimme that armor…
Also clearing empty realms for manors r the best but I’ve seen all realms cleared when I try to, so idk if it will work 
I need a better ring. I’ll probably start farming shatters or something in the hope of a bracer or crown (I also need, like, a lot of exaltations), just so that my ppe’s gear isn’t quite so lopsided.
wow… you are only 1k away from my knight now i might need to play ;c please slow down sire
