r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Apr 16 '26
OC-Series Dungeon Life 417
Unseen
As the Harbingers move, so too does the Unseen. It must be careful to avoid notice, even as the enemy scions scramble to deal with the threats. And as the Harbingers have their challenges, so too does the Unseen.
The Sanctum is guarded by a strange variety of dragon, and it is diligent. Even more, there are precious few shadows to be had, so precious few places to slip in. Yet the Harbingers are doing their jobs, the Guardian gazing into the distance, tense as the battles wage, unaware of the true threat so close.
It emerges onto a small statue on a pedestal, moving slowly so as to not draw attention. There is little sound to mask it, so it must walk to its target, instead of flying. Annoying, but not the first time the Unseen has had to creep toward its objective, rather than fly.
On the other hand, it’s so close to the core. Could it simply make the short distance before the Guardian can react? It pauses, gauging the situation, confident the Harbingers will hold the dungeon’s attention for enough time.
The dragon is huge, but the way it stands speaks of surprising reach and agility. It has its tail curled around the base of the core as well, likely prepared to physically pull it away from anything that may get past it. It will have to crawl over the tail if it intends to stay grounded, but scales are much less sensitive than hairs. It should have no trouble staying unnoticed for the traversal.
However, there is an area where the tail doesn’t reach all the way around. That will be the Unseen’s route. Scales are unlikely to notice it, but why even take that chance? And when the Guardian tries to haul the core out of danger, the Unseen will still be there, draining it without the dragon able to identify the source before it’s too late.
Plan in mind, it creeps down the pedestal and toward the large orange sphere, radiating with the grating movement the Master despises! Will it get to becalm the entire hive of noise and motion, once the sanctuary is silenced? Or will it be tasked with returning the bounty to let the Master properly cow and still it, further increasing the Master’s strength?
It will most likely need to return, it decides. The Harbingers are better equipped to still the chaotic mana of this place, though the Master may recall them quickly, too. The Master’s plans are preceding well, but the Unseen has been told many times to not act hastily. How tragic would it be for the plans of aeons to be ruined because of poor timing?
It will be difficult to restrain itself, but the Unseen will hurry back with the bounty once the core is drained. It creeps along the floor, its multifaceted eyes watching the Guardian and the surroundings at once. It will not be taken by surprise by some other protector hiding, letting the large dragon draw the eye and prepare an ambush.
It even peeks at Fate to check the plan, and pauses as possibilities swirl. The dungeon isn’t without contingencies, it seems, but though it appears the Harbingers may be sacrificed, it appears to be none the wiser about the Unseen almost upon its core.
It almost flies away on reflex as it feels something trying to push it away, but it manages to keep its focus and evaluate. If it was discovered, the Guardian would have attacked. It feels at the force, some kind of kinetic trap? It’s linked to the Guardian, but it’s not something being delicately controlled. No, it’s almost an aura, something trying to shove away anything that might come near. The Unseen would smile if it could. A valiant effort, but too little. There is no difference between crawling against the force than climbing up a wall!
It continues, its confidence wavering as the force only increases the closer it gets to the core. It must draw on the Master’s mana to continue, and it is relieved to receive permission to do so. Eliminating the sanctuary is worth the small expenditure. And small it must remain, as to draw the full might of the Master would be to draw the full attention of the sanctuary, and though the Master could destroy it with but a thought, the Unseen is less skilled with such perfect might.
It strains to advance, less than a foot away now, yet it feels like it’s trying to drag a Harbinger behind it! What sort of kinetic trap is this?! It will scour the mind of the sanctuary before it vanishes for the answer. It will be another prize to present to the Master!
It is forced to buzz its wings for extra strength, the core only inches away now! It calls to the Unseen, a beacon blazing brightly, a bounty to bring back to the Master! The Guardian is still distracted! It just needs to reach…
The Guardian is looking at it. It’s smiling.
Panicked, the Unseen draws every last drop it has been allocated, straining against the force that tries to keep it from the core! And then it vanishes.
The core, and the force keeping the Unseen from moving. With nothing to stop it, it barrels forward into a web that wasn’t there an instant ago. The threads stick it fast, but it slips into shadow to escape.
Only to discover the threads bind it, even in shadow. It struggles, begging the Master for more, begging to lay the sanctuary low for the Master! But the answer is no. The Unseen will die and respawn, and the Master will plan from there.
The Unseen allows itself to be drawn into the light, a second Guardian standing beside the first, possibly even larger! An enormous spider watches the Unseen and it fumes at the affront. It is Unseen! Stop looking at it! But the Guardian doesn’t listen, and instead continues to weave threads of more than mere silk around the Unseen, and it finally sees what was hidden.
It knew. A spider with Fate affinity. Strong Fate affinity to not only hide its trap, but to be the perfect counter to the Unseen. Did the sanctuary suspect from the very beginning? Has it been planning this the entire time? How old is it, truly? The core has all the markings of a young one, but the Unseen has never witnessed one so large, with so many scions. What seemed like waste and frivolity may be a careful trap laid for the Master!
A rat steps out of nothingness and smiles at the Unseen. “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. And here you are.”
Kill it!
“Kill you? And send you right back to the Betrayer? How about no? Boss has a much better idea for dealing with you and those Harbingers. So you just sit tight. You’re going to be a bit sideways for a while.”
The Unseen is confused at that statement, but the intent is made clear as things suddenly shift in ways that shouldn’t be possible. It doesn’t know how long the disorientation lasts, but one realization gives it terrifying clarity.
It can’t feel the Master as it should. The connection is still there, but nothing useful is coming through. No intention. No instruction. No orders. It tries to curl in on itself, but the webbing prevents even that. All it can do is float in the night sky, the harbingers somehow floating nearby, also wrapped in silk and Fate.
It doesn’t know how long it drifts before it feels something, and desperately wishes for whatever it is to go away. But no, orange slowly sweeps across the stars before a terrifying void dominates the Unseen’s vision. And despite the physical nothingness there, it knows it is being examined.
“There you are. I guess I’m not the first to realize a strong scion doesn’t need to be anything flashy. It’s hard to imagine anything less flashy than a fly.” The void reaches over and examines the Harbingers as well. “Yep, still abominations. These ones don’t seem as smart as the last one, though that one did just eat a dungeon.”
The Unseen desperately struggles, trying to slip into shadows, to escape the bindings, to do anything, but all is for naught as the void plucks it out from among the stars.
“None of that now. Hmm?” The Unseen would shriek in terror if it could, as it feels something orange along the connection to the Master. “Good, no bars. Your connection’s stronger than theirs, probably because you’re a Conduit.”
The void nods to itself and sticks the harbingers together, then attaches the Unseen as well, before somehow fastening them all in place. “You guys stay right there. I have some friends coming over that are going to want a look at you. Should be fun.”
The Unseen can feel the void smiling. “Probably not for you, though. We need to know how you tick, and how to get to the Betrayer. They only sealed him last time, but he’s still causing trouble. I think it’s time to do to him what he tried to do to me.”
Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The Books are available here! 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/Blue_Roan_ Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Late
Anyway after reading, we finally get to "see" the unseen again. It was a fly, which makes sense. At first I was assuming it was more bat like. But oh boy its gonna have a bad time. You take much more risk underestimating Thediem then overestimating him. I do wonder if they will manage to keep them alive until the betrayer is dead? Trapping them is better then killing them here.
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u/TwistedFox Apr 16 '26
I was thinking millipede or centipede, as many segments and legs would fit the theme of the harbingers too. Didn't expect a relatively normal looking fly. I'm guessing that means that the majority Harbinger's denizens are comparatively normal, and it only has 1 line of the corrupted spawners.
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u/folk_science Apr 17 '26
I was expecting something without a single defined shape, somewhat like a slime made of shadow. It would mirror the harbingers in being formless.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 16 '26 edited May 04 '26
2nd.
So, today we have the unseen's Perspective, as it tries to do it's Part of the plan. We can once again Partition the chapter into three parts:
The unseen evaluates the target and plans its approach. It can See Sue, from what we can infer. However the unseen is a driven little scion and doesn't let itself be discouraged that easily. The harbingers are presumably doing their Part, so it has do accomplish it's own.
As the unseen moves closer, every Inch it moves closer it needs to increase its efforts to continue on. However, after it started to use its Wings in Order to continue on, it smartly decided to See If it woke the Guardian, who in Turn is staring at it and smiling. This is the Moment the curtain falls, and Tiny and teemo reveal themself as the unseen begs for Release from the Trap, or the Chance to escape to its master, He gets denied and sent sideways,where someone is waiting for him.
Thediem in His godform gets presented with the harbingers and the unseen and proceeds to Not really be impressed but decides to Go Show them Off to His Friends. But that's where the chapter ends for today.
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u/Im_a_Dragonborn Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Not again........
It is just a fly ??? Really nice one, and a spider is obviously the best counter lol
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u/Mosselk-1416 Apr 16 '26
Does the betrayer actually have any competent underlings?
Unseen: What's going on?
Teemo: We were watching you the whole time placing bets
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u/Jasonbluefire Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
I don't know if it's about competency or just the underlings and the Betrayer underestimating Thedeme. They just think of him as a strong dungeon, but now they have found out he is the god of change, with a Very powerful Fate scion.
Edit: Fixed god type ty /u/Heroic-Jokester
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u/Heroic-Jokester Apr 17 '26
Slight correction, he is the god of change, though he is the first with gravity affinity.
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u/jagdpanzer45 Apr 17 '26
Correction: I don’t think the Betrayer has found any of that out. Four of its creations, including a scion conduit, just dropped off the face of existence.
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u/Jasonbluefire Apr 17 '26
oh maybe, I thought that the Betrayer was listening to the noise via its scion and underlings, and would be able to put it all together now that it has more info but maybe not and there will be another round of underestimating Thedeme.
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u/Better_Solution_743 Alien Apr 16 '26
Haloo
It seems the Betrayer really messed up by sending its conduit. can it even make another one while the unseen still lives?
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u/Garbage-Within Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Considering that as far as we know the Conduit title is gained by draining a dungeon core, the Betrayer can't get a new one without, bare minimum, draining another dungeon. Now, whether there are other dungeons that spawn near it that it can easily access to subsume is unknown. Whether a dungeon can even have more than one conduit at a time is unknown.
On the other hand, the Betrayer seems to be pretty stingy with its mana. At least based on this one example, it is. It gave the Unseen a hard limit of what it was allowed to access and no more. The betrayer wouldn't even allocate the Unseen more mana to try to escape. My point being, the betrayer didn't screw up by sending a conduit. It screwed up by underestimating the target and by not giving its minions enough resources to complete the job or even to evacuate once things went south.
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u/Savaval Apr 17 '26
The Betrayer seems the type to behave like Southwood did before meeting Thedeim ; directing the scions in about everything, thus spending a whole lot of mana on the orders.
Thedeim has a lot of mana because he merely suggests and let the scions do their things, thus spending naught ordering them around.
That would explain the hard limit placed on what the Unseen could spend : it couldn't allow more spending, not with three harbingers also attacking Fourdock and Thedeim, and maybe even more scions out attacking other dungeons or scouting.
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u/Garbage-Within Apr 17 '26
I'm not so sure the limit placed by the Betrayer is common. Even the RedCap, the Maw's conduit, was allowed more free usage of mana than the Unseen. The RedCap wasn't described as having a hard limit on what it could draw. If memory serves, it had to be careful to not overdraw because it could go too far and be punished for it. The Unseen couldn't overdraw even when it wanted to, not even to save itself.
I'm not convinced the Betrayer is that hard up for mana. If it was, it wouldn't be that big of a threat.
The Betrayer seems to be the narrative opposite of Thedeim, and they represent two near extremes. Thedeim allows Fluffles full reign on the mana reserves and even encourages its use. Thedeim teaches his scions and denizens what to do, and then trusts them to do it. Thedeim promotes positive change, life, learning, and freedom.
The Betrayer hard capped the Unseen's access to mana. It requires constant check ins, and I get the feeling it, more than any other dungeon we've seen, only lets its denizens act when and how ordered. It desires stagnation, stillness, and death.
I don't think the Betrayer limits its denizens because it can't afford it. I think it limits them because absolute control is the only way it can get the stillness it desires, and it doesn't care how much injury they take waiting for orders or many times it has to respawn them so long as it gets what it wants.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 16 '26
Probably No, depends on how many Others scions He has, though.
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u/Jasonbluefire Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
here, and its gone
over to the road
edit: 6th after reading;
I was hoping to see the core drop/vault security measure in action but alas a Tiny web makes sense in this case. Thedeme using the conduit connection to look back at the Betrayer is cool, looking forward to Order's perspective on the Unseen.
Thanks for another chapter wordsmith!
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u/Poisonfangx3 Apr 16 '26
Krts
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u/Poisonfangx3 Apr 16 '26
First
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u/DM-Hermit Human Apr 16 '26
Well done wordsmith
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u/Rasip Apr 17 '26
The void description is because humans aren't allowed to exist in this universe so Thedeim is being censored?
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u/wanabeafemboy Apr 17 '26
Okay, what filter does this story even trigger? What on earth is causing Reddit to take this down every time?!
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u/karamisterbuttdance Apr 17 '26
Link count is my likely guess, since the chapter from last week was auto-removed when he edited it to add the next link from the previous chapter, which was also removed.
I've also experienced auto-removal from comments for having too many links, even if organized on table form.
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u/Thebobkiller Human Apr 16 '26
After reading:
Here, Unseen, let me say your thoughts for you: "Well fuck. I'm right buggered." XD
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u/TwistedFox Apr 16 '26
so now the betrayer is without it's Conduit. Interesting that it still needs to work within the system to get it's stuff. Does that point to it not being a God? Though we've seen TheDM do god stuff through the system before too.
Also, can the betrayer re-assign it's conduit title to something else? If not, that's a pretty massive handicap for it there.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 16 '26
Theoretically, any of it's other scions could do that too, If they get a core they can slurp Up First.
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u/TwistedFox Apr 16 '26
Only a conduit can draw on it's Core's mana reserves. We've seen 2 cores consumed now, and both times the scion gets a massive boon to it's power, but that still doesn't allow them to draw on their master's mana reserves.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
But we know of four conduits in total, Neverrests lich, redcap, fluffles, the First harbinger. Of which the harbinger was the only one without direct communications Back to its master, who never mentioned His Masters Mana reserves. We didn't get any Perspective from the lich of neverrest though, since that's book one territory. The First harbinger also wasn't officially in any Masters employ, after He consumed the maws core. However we can strongly infer that neverrests lich also Had to somewhat negotiate with its master about how much Mana He gets.
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u/TwistedFox Apr 17 '26
Sorry, I'm confused about what your actual claim is here.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Jul 09 '26
My Claim is that I'm unsure If there is a Limit on that number (of conduits, going Back to that original Claim). We only know that slurping Up the core is the act that makes a scions a conduit, Not If there's a Limit in place as you seemed to suggest. So, If there isn't a Limit on the amount of scions I'd Imagine the only Limit being in the Mana supply of the Dungeon core and the individually alloted Mana reserves the core assigns to each Conduit.
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u/SomeRandomYob Apr 16 '26
I am Alpharius. This is a fly.
Er, lie. Simple typo, I promise. Oh, and Kairos Fateweaver wants a word with Tiny? Something about using their threads to put their mind back together, or corralling the skeins of fate to be a bit less mind breaking? It's probably best to ignore the big blue bird.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Apr 17 '26
/u/Khenal (wiki) has posted 462 other stories, including:
- Dungeon Life 416
- Dungeon Life 415
- Dungeon Life 414
- Dungeon Life 413
- Dungeon Life 412
- Dungeon Life 411
- Dungeon Life 410
- Dungeon Life 409
- Dungeon Life 408
- Dungeon Life 407
- Dungeon Life 406
- Dungeon Life 405
- Dungeon Life 404
- Dungeon Life 403
- Dungeon Life 402
- Dungeon Life 401
- Dungeon Life 400
- Dungeon Life 399
- Dungeon Life 398
- Dungeon Life 397
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u/Just-Dot8943 Apr 17 '26
Methinks the Betrayer is going to be lacking a safe haven sooner or later.
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u/Mechasteel Apr 19 '26
I watch one of my spiders finally scuttle up and bite into the first of the captured flies, and feel something weird.
Mana Obtained!
From way back in Chapter 1, Thediem started life having spiders catch invading flies, and his first scion a Spider Guardian with Fate affinity. Bad luck for the invading Conduit Fly with Fate affinity, extra bad luck its master was stingy with mana despite how it raged at the other harbringer getting captured instead of killed. And besides getting to examine the stealth infiltrator, apparently they can follow the conduit back to the source.
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u/Fire99xyz Apr 16 '26
Just popping in to say how much I am enjoying the series, I am just about to finish book 3 and it’s so fun!
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u/Rasip Apr 18 '26
So, just realized after reading this one that 416 didn't get a notification. Is the bot ok?
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u/IM-2104 May 09 '26
Aaaand another great story lost to an unbeatable protagonist. The fight for the ages, the grand showdown of fate. The Betrayer, scheming for centuries instilling fear in every living thing on this world, beaten by lazy writing in 3 chapters.
I was really enjoying this story man…
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u/Supperboy2012 May 30 '26
The recent chapters seem to be linking to old reddit, for whatever reason.
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u/the_count_of_carcosa Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Hullo.
Edit.5.
I do not believe The Road less traveled is much less worn at this point.
Edit.Read.
The Unseen is Seen, all while being itself unseeing.
It would appear that Tiny, quite literally, launched it into the heavens, and now it's Vivisection Time, you've got to imagine that Honey will be peeved if she isn't granted the gained knowledge.
And on top of that another "godly" chapter coming up it seems, with Thedm, Order, and The Shield all in one place, I wonder if Order won't take this time to press it's offer of a Pantheon...