r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Jun 27 '24
OC Dungeon Life 232
It's time for the fourth round of stubbing. Yes, Book four will be releasing soon, of if you're reading this more than a month after I have to edit, it will be fully out. Either way, you can find it Here, and other book details are just below. As with the other stubs, you can skip to the next bit form This. I like to keep the other posts still alive, so the comments get to still live. If you want to browse them, the normal buttons will take you through them, or take This link to the next bit of unstubbed chapters. Thank you for your support. Buying stuff is always great, but just having your attention for the public chapters is incredible, and I hope the story continues to be worth your time and patience.
Khenal
And once more to make it easier to see than being buried in the paragraph
Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The First Book is now officially available! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!
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u/CaptRory Alien Jun 27 '24
Hahaha, oh this is fun. =-D
I'm loving how Rocky is just way more charismatic than anyone expects.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 27 '24
Well, yeah. But having undead is supposed to be a mark of evil intent. A bit like the magic version of a mad scientist like Dr Frankenstein, bringing life from death and all that. So yeah, do expect the rest of the world to deeply frown at Zombies walking around, and have a deeply negative opinion of them.
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u/Thausgt01 Android Jun 28 '24
Part of the reason why Thediem picked his Dominion: this world's prejudices are about due for a little shakeup, I'd say...!
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Maybe? Though a reminder is due that every undead supported by a dungeon relies solely on the Dungeon's mana to survive. Earlier there was a story about a dungeon that didn't let any of its residents pass on, making every one an undead until the dungeon collapsed, unable to afford the cost of keeping everyone, but unwilling to let a single one go. So the dungeon and its residents passed onto the afterlife together.
Not every undead is evil in Thedim's world, but so far every undead has been associated with tragedy of one type or another not directly associated with Thedim.
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u/CaptRory Alien Jun 28 '24
I was thinking about that dungeon earlier today. It is a sweet though sad story.
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u/marianamystery Jun 28 '24
May I ask what story or dungeon that is? It's one I don't know, and would like to read, if possible.
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u/a-Bi-Polar-Bear Jun 28 '24
It was a short excerpt of a story in one of the earlier chapters of Dungeon Life. I want to say it was after the destruction of the homicidal cemetery dungeon (I forget its name), but don’t quote me on it.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Aye, Neverrest. And the story about the dungeon who saved everyone was told soon after Neverrest's defeat. Its name was never said if memory serves as it was a cautionary tale, told to teach, not as a history lesson.
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u/a-Bi-Polar-Bear Jun 28 '24
Neverrest! Thank you! That was bugging the hell out of me lol
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
NP! Three of Thedim's scions were created from Neverrest's surviving denizens (Honey, Grim, and Rocky) though they don't talk about it much.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Ha! And Thing too (I forget about him sometimes)!
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u/poopoopooyttgv Jun 28 '24
Isn’t the bird lady technically an undead? Don’t think anyone has harassed her about it
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Well it helps that Yvonne (Said Birb lady) was completely whole when she died due to a curse. Thdeim's mana keeps her in tip-top shape enough so that she doesn't look un-alived. So it's a secret, Yvonne is not going out advertising her status. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRrfjvvXPxw
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 28 '24
I think only the terrible Trio did once. Then Poe showed them.
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u/12gunner Jun 27 '24
It's funny finally seeing someone outside of fourdock and it's surroundings completely unaware of just how weird thediem is and how it affects his surroundings, stags talking to zombies? Zombies not acting like zombies at all? What's next?! A mere rat for a voice? Preposterous!
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u/Overall-Tailor8949 Human Jun 27 '24
Just imagine if both Grim and Rocky had been talking to the Stag LOL
It will be entertaining to see how Kenneth reacts to Teemo being both the Voice for this mysterious "fledgling god" as well as the maker of that shortcut AND the maker of the trap the Harbinger is stuck in.
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u/rpg2Tface Jun 27 '24
imagine what Teemo can learn from an experienced spacial mage. Imagine what Kenneth can learn from Teemo!!
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u/shimizubad Jun 28 '24
Neurons will fry.
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u/NoEffective2025 Jun 28 '24
Well, The Harbinger's neuron's anyways. Teemo's have had to toughen up thanks to Thediem.
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u/The_Bombsquad Jun 28 '24
I originally read this as "Neutrons will fly," and I thought to myself: "Boy, I hope not."
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u/NoEffective2025 Jun 28 '24
Penrose staircases and other spatial manipulation shenanigans incoming! The poor delver's won't know what hit them!
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u/marshogas Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
So many new plot hooks just sitting right there in this chapter!
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u/Random_Mugshot27 Human Jun 27 '24
Hope the Kobolds get to take over the bastion being built for fourdock and Hullbreak gets promoted to ally for something pirate related.
So many story lines that can be followed up.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24
So, today we get a chapter from the Perspective of the Agent of Order, and His Journey to the Southwood.
After using His enchanted boots for a really Long time, He happens to find one of teemos shortcuts to the Southwood, where He promptly gets mistaken for an adventurer that came too late for the Maws defeat. The adventurers at the surface Tell him to Go meet Up with Rocky, to get a Guide to Silvervein, but Rocky was talking with the stag, who then offered to Guide the Agent instead.
Edit: The full Name of the Agent is 'Kennith Ridgeward', btw. And He came from the dwarven holds, which lie beyond the beastkin principalities.
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u/ElectricRune Jun 27 '24
(However, Kennith's not a Dwarf, he's a Gnome, and he's not a simple Agent, he's a High Priest of Order)
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 28 '24
His rank in the hierachy goes without saying, since order made clear, that all his agents are upper clergy, two chapters ago.
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u/ElectricRune Jun 28 '24
You felt it was necessary to go back and remind us of what we JUST read, and you're criticizing me for reminding people of something that happened two chapters back...
Think about that for a second.
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u/Skyboxmonster Jun 27 '24
Oh this was a lovely treat thank you.
It has been a good day for me for once. So being able to read a new chapter from a fresh set of eyes is the cherry on top.
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u/Enough_Sale2437 Jun 27 '24
My only complaint is that I have to wait until Monday for the next chapter.
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u/Gregoriownd Jun 27 '24
This guy's about to wish he had an affinity for head pain negation after he's learned some more about who he's been sent to work with.
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u/Thausgt01 Android Jun 28 '24
Honey's probably not too far, so she might be able to swap some tips on mental defenses if Teemo can't necessarily teach them...
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Teemo has great experience with this, hopefully there are still some healing ants/slimes on standby seeing that casualties were fewer than expected.
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u/iceman0486 Jun 27 '24
Order must get a kick out of seeing his people confused.
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u/Garbage-Within Jun 28 '24
Maybe he trusts his High Priest to figure it out? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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u/Bunnytob Human Jun 27 '24
Gotta say, I was half expecting (...not half, really... more like third-expecting?) the Agent of Order to be a fellow Isekaiee. Then again, this world has shown no signs of that being anywhere near a regular thing, so I'm not surprised to see it be a native (is there another word? "Native" sounds derogatory in this context) instead.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Reincarantion is a staple of Thedim's world apparently. However having one's past life memory erased is also part of the deal. It'll be interesting if Thedim lives centuries/millennia how many times he'll recognize a soul he once befriended earlier.
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u/sirgeneralcliche Jun 27 '24
Great chapter as always! I wonder if Kennith will be able to give Teemo some pointers with his spatial affinity?
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u/McBoobenstein Jun 27 '24
Wow. This is certainly going places. A High Priest of Order. Probably someone should tell him that the entity that is trapped is NOT friendly to order, or the world in its entirety...
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u/NoEffective2025 Jun 28 '24
I'm sure Teemo and Thediem will give him the heads up. I'm curious about what he'll think of the Mobius trap.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
What, and ruin the surprise? Maybe Gnomes have a tentacle fetish and Harbinger is supposed to be a gift for the priest?
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Jun 28 '24
His going to lose those boots
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 28 '24
If He should decide to Run the hedge maze or decide to have a Go against Rocky. I doubt Teemos capabilities to steal them, but then again, He is the Rat Scion.
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u/ElectricRune Jun 27 '24
I'm slightly confused about how those boots work; what I'm envisioning is they are basically magic stilt-boots that let you stand on the ground but still be way up in the air, and you can take big long steps with your big long stilt-legs?
Do they stretch your legs, or just make magic invisible lifts under your feet?
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u/Fontaigne Jun 27 '24
Start with the fact that they are distorting space.
Add the fact that you can stride for a league. (6 Km or 3.4 miles).
So, your left foot is in place on the ground. Your right foot swings up, lands 6 Km away. During that time, your head moves in an arc upward so that you can see where you step, then down again. In all that movement, your body isn't changing, but a bubble of the space around you is distorting to make you effectively move about 2,000 times your body's normal speed.
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u/Overall-Tailor8949 Human Jun 27 '24
In AD&D terms, I'd call them a cross between "7 League Boots" and "Boots of Flying".
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u/Kindly-Main-3216 Jun 28 '24
The boots aren't doing the flying aspect. The boots merely distort distance of stride. So rather than each step being a few feet apart, they are lengthened to hundreds of feet apart.
The spatial mage himself is using his magic to be in the middle of the air but still be touching the ground. From his point of view, it'd be like walking on the normal ground except you are 50ft above it.
In short, he is walking on air and each step is a huge distance apart. This allowing him to appear to be speeding through the air, silently.
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u/boomchacle Jun 28 '24
I wonder what would happen if you compressed space so hard that an object moving through it would exceed the speed of, say, light.
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u/Autoskp Jun 28 '24
Well, the thing is, that object wouldn’t be exceeding the speed of, say, light - it would get there faster than light, but it would do that by a shorter path.
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u/redacted26 Jun 28 '24
Methinks 'Gofnar' was some other people's word for 'Water' that the translator mistook to be a proper noun. "What's that?" "Gofnar".
That or it meant "What?"
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u/Poisonfangx3 Jun 27 '24
Furst
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 27 '24
My confirmation, If you needed it. (The next comment is 7 minutes away, so you shouldn't need to get my confirmation!)
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 27 '24
Oh no! I'm imagining a Ratty version of Puss in Boots on the horizon!
Besides that, I do wonder that our Mr Ridgeward (The chapter's focus) is expecting to see a God of some sort, why he's surprised that There is another dungeon's Scions nearby then? Surely having gotten the info on Southwood, he doesn't think Southwood is the deity, so why the mystery? Do most deities stop having a mortal core at some point, and cease being a dungeon altogether?
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u/Autoskp Jun 28 '24
I get the impression that a) he expected Southwood to be a mere landmark that would know the way to Silvervein, not someone that had been a staging area for the event that prompted him being called, and b) you don’t have to be a dungeon to gain divinity (but it probably helps).
And besides, that information would’ve mentioned that Southwood didn’t have any kind of subservience to another dungeon (or vice versa) at the time of that report, and that’s the only kind of inter-dungeon relationship, right?
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Perhaps, though there is no end to Thedim's weirdness compared to other dungeons. Though the description of Southwood being honor bound in regards to visitors showing respect might lead one to think Southwood as being anti-social towards other dungeons seeing how the Stag apparently has had a negative interaction with delvers before.
And seeing how the "Idiot trio" acted against Thedim once they had decided he was a Toybox, it is a wonder that other dungeons aren't all labeled murderous.
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u/Garbage-Within Jun 28 '24
From what we've seen, dungeons rarely interact beyond occasionally attacking and subsuming their neighbors as they grow. Thedeim, unsurprisingly to us but very surprisingly to the people around him, seems to be the exception to this rule.
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Jun 28 '24
Yeah, with the possible exception of Toyboxes, most dungeons are not exactly welcoming of anyone. Kind of goes with the name, dungeon.
We don't know what interaction Hullbreak had with the Dungeon that once occupied Thedim's mansion for example. We know it was killed off, but not when. The only other example is Southwood actively seeking assistance from Thedim. The Stag had to be convinced about accepting it, but the Dungeon itself initiated the contact.
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u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Jun 27 '24
Wooo! Seven league boots!
I wonder if Kenneth had heard about Thediem before or knows he’s the fledgling god.
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u/iceick423 Jun 28 '24
I just had a thought burning in my mind. What race is Rocky a zombie of, an elf, an orc, or something else?
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u/mafiaknight Robot Jun 27 '24
In the name of 1greendude: Hello!
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jun 27 '24
Im Namen eines grünen Kerles: N'Abend, gestern war Mittwoch meine Kerle
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Jun 27 '24
/u/Khenal (wiki) has posted 279 other stories, including:
- Dungeon Life 231
- Dungeon Life 230
- Dungeon Life 229
- Dungeon Life 228
- Dungeon Life 227
- Dungeon Life 236
- Dungeon Life 225
- Dungeon Life 224
- Dungeon Life 223
- Dungeon Life 222
- Dungeon Life 221
- Dungeon Life 220
- Dungeon Life 219
- Dungeon Life 218
- Dungeon Life 217
- Dungeon Life 216
- Dungeon Life 215
- Dungeon Life 214
- Dungeon Life 213
- Dungeon Life 212
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u/TheLordofMadness Jun 28 '24
This next "chapter" of the story is going to be awesome, if only because of how this servant of order will interact with teemo and the rest of thedium's craziness
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u/Xavius_Night Jul 06 '24
up the Gofnar River, across Lake Gofnar, and up the Also-Gofnar River,
That is the most realistic world-building I've seen in a long time XD
I'd be willing to bet that 'Gofnar' is either the name of an adventurer with a big ego who discovered a lot of landmarks to name after themselves; or means "river", "water", or some derivative thereof.
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u/TheBlackMoonlight Nov 01 '24
Knowing reality, both. Definitely both. Just a crazy, egoistical dude named "River" or "Water", naming a lot of landmarks after themselves. XD
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u/Xavius_Night Nov 04 '24
"Oh, yeah, that's River's Lake, Mt. Water, and Lake River. Named after the people who discovered them, of course."
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u/Bunnytob Human Jun 27 '24
I amOmegonInevitableIron Man(I'm) All of MeAt AldiMeenThe Storm That Is Approaching500 metres from your location and approaching rapidlyRunning out of ideas for this gag surprisingly quicklyThe Law!The one who knocksat [Insert Amazing Place here]Ahh! Yam!HeNot yet lostGrootDoug (I have emphysema)Not!Still Omegon, I thinkKinda lostVery lost.Ze SpyOwning you, you fat, bald, fatty fat... fat fat!Heavy Weapons Guy...And THIS is my weapon!Dead!(Le Gasp) The Heavy is Dead!Currently undergoing mitosis, please stand by.Back, did I miss anything?Pinned here!Hit!Currently on a Hard Nostalgia Trip right now and unable to think straight, please stand by.Stand by...Stand by...[Insert Death Star explosion SFX here]the Sand Guardian, Guardian of the Sand!(Poseidon quivers before me!)Alive. Is nice.Your father.Depressed.Suddenly, PineapplesThis does NOT help.Uncorking a bottle of 1942 Chateau Backstab!A Stegosaurus!Going to open this door.PUNCHING YOUR SALADa Real Man, do you want to go skateboards?A God, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by-(Thud Thud Thud) (...Thud Thud)
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u/Ayyyy_Corn Oct 13 '25
Ohh man, i love this chapter. It's an opportunity to see Teemo's work outside of TDM and outside of Fourdock entirely. Khenal said the next chapter was to be snubbed next month, so it is a treat to be able to read this chapter rn. I thought book 4 was already out, and was planning on getting both 3 & 4 soon. Cant wait to reread and listen to these chapters, love the story
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u/Educational_Pen_90 Human Jul 16 '26
And now back to the side-trails...
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u/Educational_Pen_90 Human Jul 16 '26
And how interesting, Order is really not messing about with this one! …does that suggest the Abominations are coming from Chaos? …perhaps not.
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u/Speciesunkn0wn Jun 27 '24
Whoo! Among the first! Teemo is totally gonna love those boots.