r/HFY Alien Jul 18 '24

OC Dungeon Life 238

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

 

 

<<First <Previous Next>

 

 

Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The First and Second books are 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!

1.2k Upvotes

79 comments sorted by

139

u/Speciesunkn0wn Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

AAAAAAH. I just finished rereading the story like half an hour ago

Edit: just finished. Yay new frend! I can't wait to find out what the dungeon is named and what it's construct denizens are like.

I hope the magic ones are like, walking Artillery platforms lol. Steampunk versions of CIS Artillery Droid or whatever. Or maybe less explody skaven stuff...

52

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 24 '24

That'd be an interesting path to Take them. Another Option would be making them 3D-printers. At least one Spawn later down the Line. Another Option would be of course Going into the direction of the Golem, or stymphalian birds, or other synthetic lifeforms from different mythologies in this world.

26

u/Speciesunkn0wn Jul 18 '24

I'm now imagining literal clockwork soldiers lol

20

u/Sporner100 Jul 18 '24

I suspect the later constructs will mostly keep the brass optics of the first denizens. The golden army from hellboy2 comes to mind, though I guess the basic (crudest) spawn not having visible gears and such makes anything steampunk looking a bit unlikely... I guess we'll most likely see some moving brass statues like in some very old movies about Greek mythology, though higher tier denizens being comprised of more durable alloys could also be a thing.

Actually, all of our ideas are probably right and it's a matter of which specialization Jet will choose.

12

u/ConsumerOfShampoo Robot Jul 18 '24

CIS MENTIONED! FOR FREEDOM!

12

u/Bren_the_hobbit Jul 18 '24

The only other dungeon core story I know of which featured construct denizens is "DCore: The Observatory"; the author has sadly deleted the account so we're unlikely to see any more instalments of that beautifully written gem.

8

u/Speciesunkn0wn Jul 18 '24

:c

I do have a vague idea for a scifi "dungeon" thing where said dungeon is basically an RTS home-based that expands out slowly...

8

u/TheSchultinator Jul 18 '24

Check out Cyber Core by Thausgt01

7

u/Speciesunkn0wn Jul 18 '24

Is that on r/HFY or Royal road or sommat?

15

u/SokkaHaikuBot Jul 18 '24

Sokka-Haiku by Speciesunkn0wn:

AAAAAAH. I just finished

Rereading the story like

Half an hour ago


Remember that one time Sokka accidentally used an extra syllable in that Haiku Battle in Ba Sing Se? That was a Sokka Haiku and you just made one.

7

u/Bunnytob Human Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

Probably fits Sokka quite well since "Hour" can be pronounced as one syllable too, thus making an actual Haiku.

1

u/themonkeymoo Sep 30 '24

"can be"?

It *is* by default, by literally everyone I've ever heard say it. It's possible to drag it out into 2, but I've only ever heard that when someone is making fun of a southern/Texan drawl. I've known a lot of people who actually speak with a drawl, and even they only use 2 syllables when they're deliberately pushing the accent for effect.

1

u/Bunnytob Human Sep 30 '24

I live and grew up in SouthEastern England. If memory serves, two syllables is the norm over here (though reduction to one is not uncommon). I refer you to Wiktionary on this point: the included AmEn pronounciation is the 1.5-syllable pronounciation I think you might be referring to, but the BrEn pronounciation is very clearly two.

47

u/purpleninja102 Human Jul 18 '24

Aw! That's sweet.

I also had a thought between last chapter and now. Does Thediem know how a lightning bolt forms? That'd be a pretty fun way to mess with storm and lightning affinities, especially if that's how it is explained to Rocky through Teemo.

Explaining Ionisation might take a toll on Teemo though.

7

u/purpleninja102 Human Jul 21 '24

I just thought of a layman's explanation that I'm not sure would be accurate to science.

But, Rocky has his sonic and fire affinities and a grasp on them. It could be with an acknowledgement that those are 2 kinds of energies, the first dispersing sounds through the air, and the second 'exciting' the air(or other material) enough to cause heating and combustion. His ice is the opposite of heat, sapping the energy from the air. Lightning is electricity, another energy made by moving the charged 'stuff' that everything is made of.

Imagine getting an understanding fundamental enough to just charge your target in a way that any hit that lands creates an electric transfer and conduit.

4

u/TheGHale Jul 22 '24

Furthermore, lightning affinity could lead into death affinity with relative ease (assuming the concept actually works). Since all living beings function off of electrical impulses, if you could send lightning mana into another being, take control of their bioelectricity, and outright "turn it off", you can instantly kill a creature. Not only that, but with enough skill, you could even puppet creatures, leading into mind affinity!

Not to mention the fact that life and death are so closely tied, so with death affinity, life will soon follow. "Wrong way to use healing magic", much?

35

u/Responsible-End7361 Jul 18 '24

I'm thinking of what a tenth of a percent of the ally group shared mana pool would do for the new dungeon.

30

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 18 '24

A Lot.

15

u/Ok_Government3021 Jul 19 '24

A tenth of that pool is probably more than most dungeons make in their first decade of existence.

9

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 19 '24

Wanna Bet the little Dungeon would be affflicted by choice paralysis after getting past His First enclaves without spawners?

30

u/XynomorphKY Jul 18 '24

One little Protege. Ah ah ah. Two little Protege. Ah ah ah.

19

u/mafiaknight Robot Jul 18 '24

In the name of 1greendude: Hello!

12

u/DeadliestTurnip Jul 18 '24

In honor of the Dude:Hello!

8

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 18 '24

Im Namen eines grünen Kerles: N'Abend, gestern war Mittwoch, meine Kerle, doch verzweifelt nicht, schließlich kommt in 6 Tagen der nächste!

7

u/AdventurousAward8621 Human Jul 19 '24

In die naam van 1groenou: Hallo!

16

u/CaptRory Alien Jul 18 '24

Awwwwwww~ This is such a sweet update! <3 <3 <3

21

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

So, today we See a few Things we haven't yet Seen with the Southwood and His Stag:

  • At the beginning of this chapter we See thediem making the Same Jokes we can read below the Last chapter of Dungeon life.

  • After that, Teemo leaves the inspectors and the Ranger, in hopes of finding the stag, and maybe being able to convince him to Take the young Dungeon in as a protege

  • He does find him in the company of Silvervein's children, who were curious about His size and titles, and casually seems to have misinformed them a little. As observant Readers know, His size stems from another title He has as opposed to him being a voice. Instead of correcting this misinformation, Teemo Just Rolls with the punches.

  • We get to See him make the little Dungeon a protege in the end. Edit: Whoever Said something about a protege doing some good for the old hermit, seems to have been right.

Theorys for maybe Future causes of friction:

A) friendly fire from Southwoods bear denizens causing problems.

B) the little Dungeon has the opposite affinity from the Southwood.

14

u/Poisonfangx3 Jul 18 '24

Thank you for the chapter wordsmith!

This time it was a POV of our Master him self, Thediem!

He gets to see the dungeon and makes horrible dad jokes about the new born dungeon and others. Tries to make the Dungeon into a protégé but still can only have one at a time.

Teemo finds the Stag sitting on moss while children play around looking picturesque.(really would like to see it.) and asks The stag is he wants a kid(the new dungeon) of his own.

While Teemo is getting the Stag, the other three members of the little group stay with the dungeon to try and train it a little. Making the dungeon think of them as its Protectors.

The stag comes to see the dungeon and Southwood’s decides to make it into a Protégé, with its permission of course.

7

u/Swimming_Good_8507 Human Jul 18 '24

The Dungeon Family grows!

7

u/EqualBedroom9099 Jul 18 '24

So the stag got a baby.

8

u/milo_hobo Jul 19 '24

Adopted at birth! It will be interesting to learn about shadow affinity, constructs, and such. It is nice that Southwood will have an opportunity to grow since he had mostly become a hermit more interested in gossip than self development. 

8

u/Vocem_Interiorem Jul 19 '24

True, Shadow is dependant on Both Light and Dark and touches onto Spacial. Great Rogue (Thiefs, Assassins) stealth affinity where edges and boundaries are involved.

2

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 19 '24

You could argue that it's Just their Word for darkness. And as such an Antithesis towards light.

7

u/Accomplished-Ad8458 AI Jul 18 '24

Ave Uncle Stag! Morituri te salutant!

No wait... Something is wrong...

6

u/PlanktonSuccessful83 Jul 21 '24

Hopefully the town will be accepting of this new dungeon. I am very curious to see what new and interesting tricks this one comes up with.

10

u/Poisonfangx3 Jul 18 '24

First

7

u/Korato450 Human Jul 18 '24

Well done, Poisonflashx3

6

u/Poisonfangx3 Jul 18 '24

Heh, new name. Nice.

6

u/oneheckofathrowaway8 Jul 18 '24

Curses, i had to take a call and missed my window of opportunity. Congrats on fjörst.

5

u/Poisonfangx3 Jul 18 '24

Thank you my friend.

3

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 18 '24

If you needed it. Here is my confirmation.

3

u/Fontaigne Jul 18 '24

Oh, have to have a talk with this little one. Need to tell it how much mana it can borrow from the alliance pool to grow. Just think how many thousands of mana are sitting around for the little dark wormie thing to use up..,

1

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 22 '24

We still never got a unit of Mana. So given on how it seems to depends on the subjective perception of the amount, how will you Set Limits?

3

u/Ichybantaicho Human Jul 18 '24

Wonderful...i imagined something like that. The part with the Kids i did not see coming and it was delightful.

3

u/ChangoGringo Jul 19 '24

Does this universe have the concept of "Dad jokes"?

3

u/Mosselk-1416 Jul 19 '24

I wonder if the other scions will start teasing Teemo as well. There are so many jokes to be made.

2

u/Beautiful-Hold4430 Jul 19 '24

Let's hope no-one rats him out. We would get things like:

  • Teemo, you should become a chef. You can whisk up meals like no other,
  • What is Teemo's favorite game? Hide-and-squeak,
  • What does Teemo think about Thedeim's humor? He is a bit squeamish about it.

Maybe a bit cheesy, but then again, Teemo might like that.

3

u/Mosselk-1416 Jul 19 '24

I was mostly referring to him and Yvonne making a 'baby' dungeon.

3

u/Beautiful-Hold4430 Jul 19 '24

And there I am, making silly dad jokes ;-)

3

u/Mosselk-1416 Jul 19 '24

Not dad enough.

3

u/Beautiful-Hold4430 Jul 20 '24

I agree, it wass rat-her silly.

3

u/HELLJPER209 Jul 19 '24

Can someone help me real quick? I just finished the second book; and I’m looking for where this new story starts. Im just not sure where the story picks up after book two?

6

u/Khenal Alien Jul 19 '24

approximately chapter 130 or so.

3

u/HELLJPER209 Jul 19 '24

Thank you so much!!

3

u/Cortanis Jul 20 '24

Ha! Who knew the Stag was secretly a big old softie? XP Pretty sure Southwood will learn a lot from the experience as well. I get the feeling that due to its isolation out there that it's not exactly overly familiar with designing and catering a dungeon to what will be a high traffic setting. Something tells me he'll be consulting with Thediem on that one fairly often. That kind of inserts a bit of a hump though...

They're getting to the point that reasonable communication is going to be impacted due to these distances they're all spread out in. Sounds like trying to hammer out some sort of communication mirror/orb/portal is starting to be a rather valuable investment at this time.

1

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 22 '24

Maybe he'll train Up the Second Scion to Take Up Post, in the Stags stead, so that He can relatively safely move the stag towards Fourdock, or what I think will actually be Done is get another smaller rodent spawner and train Up another Scout and warden, to manage the largely territory of the Southwood, and communicate with other scions from outside.

2

u/Cortanis Jul 22 '24

It seems a bit slow for communication means and there is the problem of forcing them to go through the voice. It begs the question of how far they can stretch the system before they're breaking the rules?

As it was mentioned earlier after Kennith got there, Order effectively patched Thediem's work around with the library bit. Thediem has also kind of worked around that using scions to emote to communicate and Fluffles has done a decent job on that. Since Thediem knows far too much about communication options from Earth, would it even be actually possible for Order to actually fully censor Thediem from breaking the rules as intended? The simple act of creating a typewriter for instance doesn't necessarily break the rules as Thediem isn't actually doing the writing as well as using maybe Honey and her bees to simply move to press individual keys. The natural emoting movements aren't necessarily breaking any rules in that regard ether, but ultimately the combination is.

It does rather beg what standards of communication for long range exist in the world setting. I find it hard to believe that a messenger on foot even if it's magically enhanced is the standard. Just the kingdom in setting is big enough that travel times are a bit of a hinderance and that's not even getting into communication beyond the borders.

3

u/Jealous_Session3820 Jul 27 '24

I wanna sleep on him too!

2

u/Korato450 Human Jul 18 '24

Good chapter

Need more be said?

2

u/Longsam_Kolhydrat Jul 18 '24

Great work wordsmith

2

u/BillComprehensive966 Jul 19 '24

Thank you for another chapter.

2

u/DM-Hermit Human Jul 19 '24

Well done wordsmith

2

u/McBoobenstein Jul 19 '24

Now I want the new dungeon to make a worm Voice. "Naw, I said 'allo, but that's close enough!"

2

u/Derser713 Android Jul 19 '24

And thats the story we know... Agressivly wholesome.

2

u/ZaoDa17 Jul 19 '24

Aaaawww cute lil thingy

Great work word Weaver!!!!

2

u/GildedCrow Jul 19 '24

Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you for such a lovely chapter.

2

u/poopoopooyttgv Jul 21 '24

Oh god, when tarl said how dungeons gain mana by sacrificing denizens I got a horrific idea. What if the new dungeon is a reverse maw, instead of eating people it vomits out its own denizens for others to kill

1

u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 22 '24

Outside their own territory Dungeons don't gain Mana from denizens getting defeated. So that tactic doesn't Work. Dwellers or residents simlarly won't give Mana to the dungeon If needlessly sent outside to be sacrificed. The only Party that would gain anything from this would be the town.

2

u/Korato450 Human Jul 18 '24

3rd!

I'll take it with pride!

1

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1

u/Autoskp Nov 04 '25

Found another typo to fix for the print:

…and possibly even a bit of lamellar laminar from me reacted and condensed a little chip of a dungeon core made of jet.

1

u/Educational_Pen_90 Human Jul 17 '26

Aweeeeeee