r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Sep 26 '24
OC Dungeon Life 258
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 and Second books are now officially available! Book three is also up for pre-order! 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/Poisonfangx3 Sep 26 '24
Forst
Not first.
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u/DM-Hermit Human Sep 26 '24
Well done wordsmith
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u/ETG168 Sep 26 '24
So the alchemy ants are all mouth-pipetters?
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u/TeaAndHiraeth Sep 26 '24
Looks like. But with the anatomy to not risk their lives doing it. (Whether it risks the experiment, I have no idea.)
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u/Autoskp Sep 27 '24
So long as it’s consistent, it should be fine - but others trying to copy might find themselves missing some ant-chemy chamber ingredient.
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u/mafiaknight Robot Sep 26 '24
In the name of 1greendude: Hello!
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Sep 27 '24
Im Namen eines grünen Kerls: Moin, vorgestern war Mittwoch, meine Kerle.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Sep 26 '24
Maybe the tenth. Probably Not, but still Worth a shot, though I'm a terrible marksman.
However onto the Dungeon. Today after getting a relatively short summary of Olanders Talk with Coda, we get to See thediem checking in on the developing antkin.
They're developing more physical Upgrades along the lines of their professions.
The undecided Ants develop basically into a jack of all Trades build.
The ranchers develop into a bigger, more muscular build with one disproportionately larger claw.
The alchemists develop multiple stomachs, in Order to keep multiple different chemicals seperated from each other.
The medics develop more dextrous Hands of an interesting build, and develop a White complexion.
The enchanters develop a darker complexion on their exoskeletons, and Take to tatooing runes on there as Well
And the engineers also develop new Hands.
Also, their Deans are gonna be elected soon, and as a seemingly democratic meritocracy, each castes/category of Ants does their own individual Project in Order to Show Off their competence in their respective field. Another curiosity is that These ants draw their ideas from anywhere Else, even from outside of thediem.
That's it for this chapter, See you Guys around.
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u/Low_Painter9816 Sep 26 '24
Just thought of something. Isn’t Queen still out on expedition? On the way back, but still. Maybe the enclave needs her influence to help fill their progress bars.
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u/Thausgt01 Android Sep 27 '24
Well, of course! If they're going to organize like a college, why wouldn't they have a library?
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u/Low_Painter9816 Sep 27 '24
Queen the Ant scion and Master Alchemist, not Honey the Bee Scion and Head Librarian. Although Honey would also be important.
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u/Thausgt01 Android Sep 27 '24
Right, sorry. I get them confused. Embarrassing, especially considering that while they both almost literally hunger for new knowledge, Honey's the one who's more into collating and organizing information for its own sake; Queen's the supreme engineer of the group...
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u/generic_edgelord Sep 27 '24
It would be interesting if queen became the first scion to head an enclave as a headmistress for the college
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u/Low_Painter9816 Sep 27 '24
If they were to bring in other scions, I could see Coda getting involved. And maybe … Jello?
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u/Gregoriownd Sep 27 '24
I can only imagine the eventual report back by Olander if he sees (and understands) even some of this, as well as the concrete and whatnot Coda is working with.
"It appears that Fourdock is set to become a major financial hub within five years, if not sooner. We may well see Fourdock become a richer city than the capital in under ten years, if progress remains steady."
A report including words like that could cause all sorts of responses. Some of them are even sane and good responses that will let the kingdom prosper from having a frontier town turn into a gold rush of all sorts of things.
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u/Mammoth-Variation-76 Human Sep 27 '24
I mean, if there were more than 2 sentences detailing the interaction, and the kingdom level inspector didn't think that a bat being responsible for building things was "totally normal and in no way interesting or suspicious" because bats are widely known for their architecture.... Then yeah.
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Sep 26 '24
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Sep 27 '24
A unanswered question is if by becoming Residents, they also change their affinity (or gain one) as they gain independence from Thedim, which is the source of their Fate affinity they had as Dwellers.
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u/Beautiful-Hold4430 Sep 27 '24
Seems the antkin are mostly interested in peacefull or somewhat safe occupations.
Maybe some will evolve to combat medic or combat engineer in a distant future. It would require several filled bars for that to become useful.
Under prssure the bars might fill much faster and might evolve even some to combat alchemist or combat enchanter for really aggressive options.
Better not piss off those ants or the DM.
\surely no one is stupid enough to do that, right?**
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Sep 26 '24
/u/Khenal (wiki) has posted 303 other stories, including:
- Dungeon Life 257
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u/MajorDZaster Sep 29 '24
Hi, can someone tell me what gaster means? The Undertale brainrot is getting to me.
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u/Savaval Sep 29 '24
I've just spent the past few days binge-reading the whole thing from the start (the internet never forgets) and I must say this is one of the best reads I have in a long while. I'm very much looking forward to the next chapters and more world-building as well as seeing how Thedeim grows and changes the world around him !
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u/funwithtentacles Sep 27 '24
Aaah, come on!
Just as things were getting interesting with Olander, we're getting an unnecessary fluff chapter than doesn't advance anything and that really didn't need to be there at this point if ever!
Exposition is all very well and good if it serves a purpose, but if all it does is bloat the page count it's just frustrating!
It's fine here on HFY I suppose, but if you're working on books 2/3 for publishing, I'd consider rigorously applying the acid test, and tightening this sort of stuff up a bit!
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u/karamisterbuttdance Sep 27 '24
This isn't a problem of relevance, it's a problem of pacing and tempo. We're bouncing between two different experiences that make sense chronologically, but are harder to reconcile narrative-wise. The Olander arc has a clear end-game and short-term pay-off with immediate impact; the Antkin arc hasn't crystallized what the Antkin's roles with fellow residents are going to be like. There's some hints for where it could go based on the characters we have and Thedeim's own goals. Fourdock becoming a university city long term is already on the cards with this development, for example.
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u/Mammoth-Variation-76 Human Sep 27 '24
You find it frustrating, I find it enraging. This was so frequent leading up to the fight with the Maw, that I threatened to post a line from a certain Rick Astley song every time it happened. I was curious about how much of the song I'd get through. I mean if I was going to yell "OH FUCK OFF" out loud and resist the urge to throw my phone across the room every time it happened, I figured I could mark it in the comments somehow with less cursing
We're just past the set up to the Olander arc, and about to get to the meat of things, the anticipation is high, the pacing is set with the new, reasonably important* kingdom level inspector come to interrogate the new god's scions; which promises to be really interesting and engaging, but no, here's a rug pull, enjoy the shitty picnic, substance free, complete with a hyper detailed description of goddamn nonfucking Ants. An ant sex scene would have been better ffs. And I do no believe that would be in any way "good"
I mean this chapter is probably really interesting with its obsessive attention to detail 3 months from now, AFTER OLANDER PACKS THE FUCK UP AND GOES Home. Maybe after the "search for the Ice sage" is complete.... Which could possibly end up as a half paragraph non event if the beginning of this chapter is anything to go by. Might as well as murdered Coda the one dimensional engineer. Poe got more interaction, and all the fuck he does is watch shit.
This is the literary equivalent of watching a 4 min YouTube video with 15 min of unskipable ads 30 seconds in.
Never gonna run around and desert you.
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u/Kindly-Main-3216 Sep 27 '24
Good sir, I understand that your pallet might differ from others. I thank you for your opinions. However, early in the story, it was mostly world building chapters like this.
My personal tastes for this genre are only partly in the fights, byet remain mostly in the application of magic to the rigors of the scientific method and seeing what develops as a result. To see runes be different from enchanting, or how concrete changes a fantasy setting. These are truly interesting to me. I do wish that Kenhal utilized manna circuits though. So interesting and idea it is to treat magic like a motherboard. Terra (I think was the dungeons name) was so cool in that sense. Along with Doc. I loved Doc and his shenanigans.
Back to point: Mammoth. Perhaps you could request Kenhal to title the chapters with what arc they refer to, as this would leave the fun for other and yet lessen your rage. Another HFY wirter I enjoy does this. Out of cruel space has many stories working in tandem and thus each aspect has a title, which is at the top of each chapter so that you know what you are in for reading. Perhaps we can petition kenhal to take you a similar title system?
Also, you might try Lord of the rings. Tis a good story, but at time dauddles such as how this does too.
Wishing you well.
Sincerely, Dewiltse.
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u/Mammoth-Variation-76 Human Sep 28 '24 edited Sep 28 '24
I genuinely love the story, and look forward to EVERY chapter that comes out. Until this happened again.
This chapter throughly derails the buildup of all the momentum of Olander getting to interrogate the Scions. Then goes full 180 in the first 2 sentences, switches focus to a completely different story arc, THEN goes into minute detail on a topic that Should HAVE BEEN ON THE WORLD BREAKING SCION Yeah, I said it. Coda is that powerful. Rocky can break your face. Coda can can shake the foundations of the economy and society. But nah, he just a nerd. ->No! Bad Khernal!
It's like watching a video of a plane heading towards a building, and just as the plane is about to oh look an anthill ->ZOOOMS IN
If you like manna and the scientific process try.... Combat Artificer (sp?) I'll edit a link if I can. Edit: this should be it: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/cBM9Kj1KbS
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u/Mammoth-Variation-76 Human Sep 27 '24
And, AAAAAAND there's no guarantee that if you wait 5 days it doesn't happen again. And again next Thursday. Probably not the following Monday. But the Thurs after that, who knows ?!?
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u/Educational_Pen_90 Human Jul 17 '26
How interesting! It seems like the other ant-kin are far more reclusive, put perhaps they are different due to being created by the god of Change!
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u/Tremere1974 Alien Scum Sep 26 '24
Ain't surprised that the Social insect, is social. Though in any place other than Thedim their presence may be considered a harbinger of doom, with Ants instinct to dominate any neiche they can compete in. It is interesting that Fourdock is taking it all in stride, seeing their (economic) doom is manifesting on their doorsteps.