DakotaKrout

Short stories!

Hi guys! I have a short story coming out each Friday starting today until Invent comes out!

It is free, grab it here!

Invent ~ 37!

Joe was still a Beginner at Enchanting, which made it highly unlikely that he would be able to figure out all of the intricacies of a Journeyman-level enchantment designed to force people to act a certain way in time for a meeting of heads of state. At best, the power of the enchantment would push them to be cordial, though not as overtly friendly as it would force people that were at a lower power level.

On the plus side, there were still a few options available to hi...

Invent ~ 36!

Two weeks went by in a flash, if a flash consisted of sleepless nights, intense training, and a relentless instructor. After those two weeks, Havoc finally said that enough was enough. Apparently, there was only so much that could be trained before Joe needed to go out and get real world experience. According to the Dwarf, until he had a long break, the tutelage he received from that point forward would be less than half as effective.

On the fifteenth day after they had begun, Joe slept...

Invent ~ 35!

“I have a proposal to make this way more dramatic than it needs to be,” Joe told the group of volunteers who showed up to help him install the Guildhall. “I just want to make sure that everyone is on board with having some fun with this project.”

There were several smirks all around as everyone nodded. Only one person was shaking his head, but Havoc wasn't about to stop the human from having his fun. Seeing that the group was on board, Joe guided them all into position for fabri...

Invent ~ 34!

Finally returning to the Shoe after… Joe wasn't actually sure how long he had been down in the landfill. It felt like a long time? He had done a lot of things, but the lack of day-night cycles had really messed with him. He ogled his own lights, vowing to alter them when he had the opportunity.

“Joe! There you are!” Stan the despondent administrator ran up to him with the most aggrieved expression that Joe had ever seen. “Do you know what he did? Where have you been? Th...

Invent ~ 33!

A door appeared in the wall of a dark alley. Before this moment, there had been no indication that such a point of egress had existed, and—unlike what common sense dictated—the door did not open into the building behind it. A rain of goop and filth splattered onto the floor as a white boot stepped out and touched the ground, at which time the filthy liquid vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.

Joe breathed out a sigh of relief. “Finally out of that place...

Invent ~ 32!

He knew that the horde would be surging toward him like a tide, and yet Joe could not find it in himself to move from his current position, or try to fortify his location further. Joe took a look behind him, seeing that garbage was still flowing into the array. The only major difference that he could see was that the top of the building now had two columns of gray smoke coming out of it, as if this was some kind of refinery. Rolling his eyes at himself, Joe rubbed his shiny head and mumbled, ...

Invent ~ 31!

Array layer complete: Common.

Class quest complete: Novice Reductionist III. Reward: 500 Uncommon aspects you can claim at any time, in any storage device that will accept them.

Class quest gained: Novice Reductionist IV. Create an Uncommon rank permanent array. Reward: 250 Rare aspects. Array created: 0/1.

“Oh, come on! Another Novice rank quest? It’s gotta be higher than that!” Joe stared at the white, sticky strings that made up t...

The tenth Artorian is live!

If you get a few seconds today, I would greatly appreciate a review on Amazon and/or Audible of this latest release - Artorian's Archives: Acyrologia! 

Thank you in advance and have a wonderful rest of your day!

Invent ~ 30!

The last of the flames guttered out, leaving behind a scarred and pitted metal floor. Joe looked around hollowly as he inspected the damage, regrew his foot, three fingers, and his left arm; finally getting a notice as the structure itself stopped taking damage.

A.S.P.E.C.T. durability: 113,333/150,000.

“How in the abyss did that deal over sixteen thousand damage to the structure? I had barely even started!” Joe slammed his hand on the only undamaged...

New covers! ...?

Hi guys!!

You're the people that really and truly show that you want to be a big part of what I do, and because of that I really want to have your thoughts on a change I was thinking of making.

I have new art for Completionist, and an artist that is making covers all the way out to book 20. The question is, do we like this art, and should we continue to make it, should we use it? 

I'd love to hear your answer, the poll is also live!

New covers! ...?

Hi guys!!

You're the people that really and truly show that you want to be a big part of what I do, and because of that I really want to have your thoughts on a change I was thinking of making.

I have new art for Completionist, and an artist that is making covers all the way out to book 20. The question is, do we like this art, and should we continue to make it, should we use it?

I'd love to hear your answer!

Invent ~ 29!

Joe looked upward, seeing his glowing barrier rituals far above him. He had only gone down about fifty feet this time, not wanting to destabilize his work above, nor get too far away from the scant protections that he had put in place.

Once he was able to get his new building up, a lot of this would be automated, and he was very much so looking forward to that. However, even though his building was going to be a glorified open-top dumpster, the blueprints labeled it as a Unique...

Surprise Artorian!

Hi all!

Check your email! If you’re at the $5 tier or above, you’ve got an ebook waiting for you - AA10: Acyrologia!

If you’re at the $15+ tier, the audiobook is there too!

It releases on the 25th on Amazon and Audible, I’d love it if you’d be so kind as to leave a great review at that time!

Invent ~ 28!

The fortunate thing about having an excess of mana, or perhaps an unfortunate side effect depending on how Joe thought of it, was that he could continuously work for extreme lengths of time when he was providing a simple trickle of mana such as converting garbage to aspects. With his bonuses, everything under Common aspects took only a single point of mana per second to convert. Frankly, he would not even notice the Mana loss unless what he was reducing touched on the Uncommon ranks at twenty...

Invent ~ 27!

“Wait, this shouldn’t be happening…?” Coming fully to his senses, Joe managed to flip around in midair as he shook off the final lingering effects of whatever it was Havoc had dosed him with. “I don't even have defensive rituals ready! Havoc, you son of a-!”

Then he landed in the middle of a house-sized pile of rotten vegetables, and slammed his mouth closed just to ensure that none of it slipped in. His initial reaction, destroying everything around him with acid, ...

Invent ~ 26!

Even though Havoc protested, the first thing Joe did when they got back to the settlement was take a nap. Something about combat, perhaps getting his foot chopped off, had really put him in a bad place mentally and he needed to sleep it off.

When he woke up, he felt wildly refreshed and ready to take on the entire Elven Theocracy. Before then, he had dozens of notifications to go over. He collapsed them so that he could choose to read them based on their categories. After that,...

Invent ~ 25!

Curling into a ball in a vain attempt to impact his attacker’s aim, Joe slammed into the wall and fell to the grounds as a dizzying array of projectiles were launched at him.

Fire, ice, pressurized air, arrows, bolts, bullets, throwing knives… whatever someone had, they used it against him. If Joe were a fan of psychology, he would have cursed them all with the knowledge that they were taking out their inadequacies and failure on him in various fits of rage. Yet, he couldn’t find ...

Invent ~ 24!

The Dwarves began cheering, and Joe dropped to the ground panting as the attackers fled into the single remaining volcanic shaft that led back to Elven territory. Only moments later, dozens of tiny reputation gain notices appeared in his vision, and he allowed a slightly cocky grin to appear on his face. “Oooh, looks like they chose to try to escape down the super-deadly, over-trapped path. That was a bold move, let's see how it plays out for them.”

“Joe!” Jaxon called as he ran...

Invent ~ 23!

As his Ritual Orb returned to its standard icicle shape, notifications began trickling into Joe's combat log. At first, it was indeed a trickle, but it rapidly became a flood of notices telling him the same thing: reputation had been gained with the Dwarven Oligarchy.

He was too far away to hear anything directly happening with combat, but a rumble—followed by the vast majority of tunnels beginning to spew lava into the chamber itself—told him everything he needed to know.<...

Invent ~ 22!

Joe fiddled with his table, joined a group of Dwarves that were gambling to try and boost his luck stat, and made a few more rituals for town defense. Each ritual that he made was ever so slightly closer to the town proper, meaning they were starting to become very difficult to hide.

The glowing manifestations of power simply hung in the air, waiting for anyone foolish enough to enter their proximity. To mix it up, Joe made sure to put some rituals directly on the surface of th...

Invent ~ 21!

It seemed to take almost no time at all for Joe to complete the next four Rituals of Minor Earthquake, as well as the associated receiving ritual portion of the Ritual of Remote Activation. Major Cleave, apparently now holding him in a higher regard, also helped Joe by taking a few moments and smashing large piles of rubble out of the tunnel walls.

They stacked the rubble around the free-floating rituals, very effectively hiding their glow. As they were inactive, there were no magical f...

Invent ~ 20!

One of the things that Joe had learned during his time in the military was that engineers were only ever a gentle push away from shifting into full-blown sappers. Anything that promised even the potential to step away from creation to beautiful, cascading destruction was a career path that all but the most satisfied were ready to step onto. Happily, there just so happened to be a large team of engineers in the volcano that were waiting on Havoc to return to begin on the next phase of...

Invent ~ 19!

“Major Cleave, I’ve decided to assign my Intelligence to this Orb and hope for the best!” Joe declared as he began lightly coating the entire exterior of the Orb with the purest of white aspects. “Don’t try to stop me, this is something I need to do!”

“No, no…” Cleave called out as Joe *scritched* away at his Ritual Orb, drawing out a fair likeness of himself and highlighting the interior of his head. “I think likening your Intelligence to a chunk of dead me...

Invent ~ 18!

Quest complete: Novice Rituarchitect II. You have created all ten of the buildings that you scanned in the first part of your quest! You sure can follow instructions well! Reward: 5,000 class experience. Record breaker reward: you have completed this quest faster than any other Rituarchitect in history! All ten buildings have been upgraded to Uncommon rank and Tier.

Joe and the Dwarves were cheering as the final building was completed, but they went still and silent as all<...