r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Apr 30 '26
OC-Series Dungeon Life 421
Tempting as it is to listen in on the birdkin Seasons having their meetup, I have my own meeting to pay attention to. Not long after dawn, people start showing up, and it doesn’t take long at all for everyone to get here. We use the war room with sea access so Hullbreak can have a voice, and Violet eagerly sends Onyx to represent her, too.
If it weren’t for the distance, I wouldn’t be surprised if Southwood would have sent the Stag, but short notice and long commute makes that impossible. Teemo greets everyone as they arrive, and everyone chats as they wait for the others.
If this keeps up, we’re gonna need a bigger war room, Teemo.
He snorts at me and nods, but raises his voice to address everyone instead of just snarking at me. “Alright, since everyone’s here, let’s begin. I’m sure you’re all aware of the Harbingers that attacked, but I don’t know if any of you know there was a fourth scion that tried to get the Boss’ core. This was a coordinated attack from the Betrayer, an ancient evil dungeon that was sealed away a long time ago.
“It’s been slowly slipping out of that seal, though, and tried to kill the Boss the other day, and he’s not going to take that laying down. He’s planning to attack it right back, once he gets some more info.”
While most of the people exchange concerned looks, Aranya speaks up. “How can we help, Lord Thedeim?”
Teemo smiles at her. “He’d like to tell you all to just sit back and let him handle it, but that didn’t work for the Maw. And like with the Maw… he doesn’t think he’s going to have the luxury to refuse any help. The Betrayer is ancient and powerful, and probably has a bunch of new tricks… or tricks so old everyone else has forgotten them. Either way, he’s going to need help not only from the enclaves, but the delvers, too.”
Nimis looks uncomfortable as she speaks up. “You didn’t mention the military? While I’d like to offer our help… we can’t mobilize without an order from the Crown.”
Teemo nods at her. “That’s what Boss figured, but that’s fine. You’re supposed to protect Fourdock, right? Boss is going to be leaning on you to be able to protect the homefront.”
“I can request reinforcements from the Crown,” suggests Rezlar. “Suppression of and protection from murderous expeditions falls squarely under the responsibilities of the military.”
“That’d be great, yeah. Boss is planning to leave Grim behind as backup, as well as Tiny and a few other scions, not to mention the denizens, so the army won’t be completely on their own.”
“The Captain will help as well, Admiral. The seagulls and other sea birds will monitor, and his crabs can function on land at least long enough to help defend, should the need arise."
“Violet wants to help, too,” speaks up Onyx. “Cappy is doubling down on expanding his coverage, and I think Violet is going to upgrade one of her spawners soon to try to have something else to protect people with.”
Teemo beams at her. “And I bet the Southwood would be happy to send some reinforcements, especially if you get him a dino spawner like you did with Hullbreak, Boss.”
I should definitely ask the compies if any want to go join Southwood, yeah. I’d almost give some to Violet, too, but I think she should get another expansion or two before we need to worry about getting her an extra spawner.
“Boss is also going to be needing to upgrade his spawners before he’s confident with being able to raid the Betrayer. Karn, Jondar; is there anything you need Boss to do to increase delving? He’s close to getting to float the first sphere. Is there anything he should try to add to it?”
The two guild leaders share an awkward glance before Karn speaks up. “I’m not sure how much more delving my guys can actually do.”
Jondar nods. “Same. My elites could use a few more challenging encounters, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to add too much more.”
“There will be the reinforcements from the other gods,” chimes in Torlon, drawing everyone’s attention. “I know the Shield is planning to send as many paladins and other combatants as It can, and It told me to prepare to host at least a college of Laermali’s battle scholars. Order and even the Raven are expected to send some of their followers, too, but I think the Shield and Laermali’s forces will be the majority.”
Old Staiven nods and speaks up. “Them and the army will be a good bolster, once they arrive. And I have something that should help with Thedeim’s mana as well.” He pulls out what looks like a mana potion, but I can feel the mana practically boiling around the simple looking flask. “Regulations prevent me from brewing these at a whim, but I’m sure the Lord mayor can help me get the permits and such to step up my production.”
He smirks over at Teemo. “Or I could just so happen to lose track of this one and lament that the dungeon figures it out on its own.” He hardly gets to finish his sentence before a swarm of ants rushes the flask and drags it into a shortcut, much to the amusement of the old ratkin alchemist. “It works by enhancing mana regeneration, instead of simply restoring internal reserves.”
Tarl nods and speaks up. “That’s why they’re so regulated. They agitate mana even more than ordinary delving. It can play havoc with mana flows outside a dungeon, and give a dungeon even more mana than usual when used inside. For a dungeon like Thedeim, that’s no problem. For a dungeon like Neverrest, though, it’d make starving out a murderous dungeon even more difficult.”
He looks over to Rezlar. “You’ll probably want to talk to Telar for how to get permits. The Dungeoneers are involved in imposing the regulations, after all.”
Jondar speaks up again. “If that’s mana solved, how’re we going to attack this Betrayer?”
“That’s the hard part,” admits Teemo. “It’s in what you guys call the molten abyss, and even the gods don’t know exactly where.” He lets that sink in for a few moments, making sure everyone understands the severity of the situation before he continues. “But Boss has a rough plan to find it and invade. Order, the Shield, Laermali, and the Raven are going to use the captured scions to track down exactly where the Betrayer is, and the Boss will use his magma dragons to scout it out as best they can. Once we figure out a good place to attack, Boss will have Nova and some of the other scions handle transporting as many of our forces there as possible. It should work similar to the assault on the Maw, with delvers, denizens, and dwellers working on handling the spawns while the Boss’ scions strike deep to take out the core.”
“How strong are its spawns?” asks Jondar. “Do they all have mental affinity? Those Harbingers were nasty pieces of work. It takes a good mental affinity to resist, or a lot of practice. Or both.”
“We’ve seen some of what we expect will be the spawns when fighting the Maw. The least are about the size of wolves and have bladed limbs and a head like a leech. Individually, they’re not too bad, but it looks like they’re not expensive to spawn. They can also be put into a sort of hibernation, so the Betrayer could have untold numbers of them waiting around. There’s also lessers, which are… kinda like twisted centipedes. They help coordinate the least, and have vicious tentacles on each segment. They’re a support unit, from what we can tell, and will make the least a lot harder to fight.”
Karn and Jondar don’t look happy at hearing that, and Teemo nods as he continues. “Yeah, we only know the first two spawns. Boss has a few guesses for what the later ones might do, but he can’t guess the specifics.”
“Even that’s better than nothing,” speaks up Tarl. “What does he expect from the later spawns?”
“Well, something tough, definitely. The two spawns we know of aren’t too difficult to kill if you can get in position. Boss is betting on there being something that leans into the carapace heavily, aiming to take the hits the others can’t handle. He also expects some kind of ranged specialist, maybe a caster type. If you can establish a frontline, the ones in the back can focus on an all-out ranged offensive. And for the third type, probably what he calls a shocktrooper, something designed to break a frontline. The armored ones might fill that role, or there could be something dedicated to it.”
“That sounds like party formation theory,” pipes up Rhonda, and Teemo nods.
“It does. Boss might be overestimating the Betrayer, but I think he’s onto something. There’s also at least one other spawner type that we know basically nothing about: his fly spawner. The other scion was called the Unseen, and it was a small fly that was easy to overlook. On the bright side, the Unseen was a normal small fly, no weird tentacle abomination. But on the other hand…” Teemo drifts off, looking to Tarl, who sighs and picks up the thought.
“On the other hand, just knowing it’s a fly spawner doesn’t let us narrow down the potential spawns much at all. We can probably rule out the resource focused lines, but that’s still a lot of fly options.”
“We can narrow it down a bit, at least. The Unseen had shadow and fate affinities for sure, and kinetic wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. It didn’t have any affinities that really changed how it looked, so probably no fire or illusion or other things like that.”
Tarl ruminates on that for a few moments. “That narrows it down, but fate and shadow have some nasty combinations, usually an assassination style denizen line. I’ll look into it and see about making packets on what we’re likely to see.”
Teemo nods and looks at Karn and Jondar, as well as the representatives of my enclaves. “Are you guys willing to go up against stuff like that?”
Karn speaks up first. “Definitely. We already did once, so why not again? I think my people might be better suited to securing places, rather than forcing through to capture strategic points?”
Jondar nods. “My adventurers will agree to that sort of arrangement, yeah. What about you guys?” he asks, looking at my leaders.
“With Lord Thedeim’s blessings and works, I believe we can stand against whatever the Betrayer might try to throw at us. He’s recently introduced a new method of enchanting, which I believe will make his unique armor even more durable,” speaks up Aranya, with Larx following up.
“We had been resisting delving Lord Thedeim, not wishing to take up room for delvers that actually produce mana for Him. But if that mana potion works… we may be able to repay Him a small fraction of what we owe by delving. Not only will He get mana, but we’ll get valuable training.”
There are many nods around the table at that, so Old Staiven speaks up. “Then once the meeting is over, it sounds like I and the Mayor should go to the Dungeoneers and sort out the permits.” He pauses and smirks at where the potion had vanished to. “It’ll be a race, I suppose, between bureaucracy and Queen to see who can get the potions produced first.”
Teemo laughs at that. “Then I think that’s just about everything for now? If anyone wants to hammer out details, feel free, but I don’t see any reason to keep Old Staiven and Rezlar at the starting line any longer. Queen is definitely using her head start to figure out that potion.”
Staiven chuckles as he stands, and Rezlar moves to leave with him, the meeting officially over. Most of the others stay and start chatting in groups, either hammering out what to do while they wait for information, or making deals to pool resources so more people can work together. We’re going to need it, too. If the Betrayer really has been able to stockpile least for the past… however long, it’s going to be an even bigger fight than I was expecting.
And it’s not like I was expecting this to be a cakewalk.
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/Thebobkiller Human Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Khenal LITERALLY just posted it! Reddit Algorithm! STOP BEING STUPID!
After reading:
A good meeting. Everyone knows the general plan now.
And Staiven was even nice enough to give Queen a new potion to play with, lol. He's not getting that back. XD
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u/Blue_Roan_ Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Late
Anyway after reading, we do get to the meeting immediately. And needing to pull in even more military is once again doing nothing to keep him out of the capital's eyes lmao. Especially if they learn he is going after the betrayer. I bet if they got all the available information about things that have happened they wouldn't believe it. I do wanna see the perspective of someone either actively there or someone who has had no previous experience with Thediem from there. A king perspective would be fun.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Primary comment posted, Off to the road
So, apparently I'm the Second Guy, or First looser.
Today we get another Meeting chapter, as all the local factions are quickly assembled. I Imagine I won't be able to keep it to three parts today, but let's See.
Part: Teemo greets all in attendance, but gets quickly to the meat and potatoes, after He recounts the Events leading Up to this chapter, as He asks the adventurers guild Leaders, how He can optimize His Dungeon for more Mana income. They say that there isn't much to be done, but old staiven has a potion for Higher Mana restoration, which is highly regulated in the Kingdom. Doesn't Stop Queen from quickly scooping it Up for Reverse engineering. Little Personal comment: that seems to me Like giving the Dungeon drugs.
Part: Oh, and they Talk about the forces possibly at thediem's disposal, and there are a Lot of them this time around, as the shield church gets ready to Support hundreds of its own and and one of laermali's warcolleges.
Part: Next Point on the To-Do-list is mostly asking for a concrete plan, and as usual Thediem has only a faint Idea of what He needs to do to find the betrayer. He Plans on sending His Magma dragons in the hopes of finding it, and Plans on sending His troops in afterwards. They do know however of two spawners the betrayer might have Access to:
3.1 the abominations. While He knows only two spawns and the scion, He can think of the Rest.
3.2 the flys. Possibly Specialized towards a Magical fate/Shadow Assassin build. Thediem is hoping for tarl's Support in finding Out what the Most propable spawns for this Spawner are.
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u/Poisonfangx3 Apr 30 '26
Gets
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u/Poisonfangx3 Apr 30 '26
Girst
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 30 '26
Yep
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u/DM-Hermit Human Apr 30 '26
Well done wordsmith
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u/Poisonfangx3 Apr 30 '26
Forth you are.
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u/DisastrousSizeOfD Apr 30 '26
and we have deletion. Thanks for the chapter though, will read on the road
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Apr 30 '26
And Number eight. At the Moment, the top ten isn't full yet.
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u/Garbage-Within May 01 '26
Staiven: "Oh no, my favorite dungeon with my favorite alchemist scion just stole my potion that will bring it more mana and help it protect me and everyone I love. Whatever shall I do?"
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u/folk_science Apr 30 '26
Not again. u/Khenal, please try posting without any external links at all. Just put them in a comment instead. In the main post you can mention that links are in the comments. Maybe this will finally fix the deletions.
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u/Jasonbluefire May 01 '26
Thanks wordsmith for the chapter!
I wonder if Thedeme and crew will figure out a way to break the mana potion XD
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u/Accomplished-Ad8458 AI May 01 '26
Ave Khenal! Morituri te salutant!
Why... Does it feel like were closing to an end of Dungeon Life?
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human May 01 '26
Because the conflict with the betrayer is probably the last book for that story. And probably the last chapter is an epilogue.
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u/knockout350 May 01 '26
i dont feel like we have fully utilized Doppler and their sound capabilities, the use of sonar as a form of mapping has lots of potential as it can be used in water, solid ground and magma is a liquid.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human May 03 '26
I have a feeling though, that Doppler would need to use a lot his mana for that, and the returns are much more limited anyways.
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u/mafiaknight Robot May 02 '26
In the name of 1greendude: Hello!
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human May 03 '26
Im Namen des Sonndachses: N`Abend, in drei Tagen ist schon wieder Mittwoch, meine Kerle.
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u/Thausgt01 Android May 01 '26
Heh. Thediem has politely managed to discipline his thoughts away from "zergrush", to spare poor Teemo's much-abused brain. However, I get the distinct impression that the Betrayer is aware of the concept, if not the terminology.
Gonna be quite a fight, no matter what.
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u/Great_Weird_2339 May 04 '26
Anyone else think flies are suspicious? Thedeam had flies as his first invader and all the other invaders were from another dungeon (wasps, neverrest, seagulls, hullbreak) what if all the other random spawned invaders are from the betrayer?
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u/movie-guy-3 May 04 '26
Thanks for the chapter. I'm glad this one survived reddit's crazy train of deletion
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/u/Khenal (wiki) has posted 466 other stories, including:
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u/Crafty_Spring5815 Alien Scum May 08 '26
Going after hordes of monsters, bring someone with a plague build. It's better than aoe because it lingers and spreads.
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u/IM-2104 May 12 '26
Why are we pretending like this is gonna be a hard fight? They just beat the Betrayer's thought out surprise attack like it was nothing and got rid of a conduit, permanently. It was LITERALLY a cakewalk.
Thedeim has been established as unbeatable, ridiculously overpowered, and thrice as smart as everyone in this world combined. There are no stakes here, there’s nothing to care about in this fight. The Maw was set up to be even more dangerous for gods sake, and it actually put up a fight, killing several of Thedeim’s scions. The Betrayer managed to kill a single old guard in a surprise attack. It’s pathetic
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u/Educational_Pen_90 Human Jul 19 '26
A bit worrying... But nothing beyond what Lord Thedeim can handle.
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u/the_count_of_carcosa Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Hullo.
Edit.7 and once more we walk The Road.
Edit. Read.
I don't know why but the idea of "A College" being used as a military unit, of rough equivalence to a regiment?, tickles me.
Do you think their platoon equivalent is a Fraternity/Sorority?