dragonheartednovels

[NR] Option Four - Chapter 659

The trip back to the settlement is just as quick, if a bit morose. They hadn’t expected it would be easy to leave, but to have it proven was another thing.

Though they don’t have long to dwell on it as Siegfried meets them at the gate. “I guess you couldn’t leave? Anything interesting?”

Jason sighed, “The barrier was a solid wall without any give. I thwacked it with Energy and Courtney magic to no effect. Also, Courtney can tell you how far away we found the barrier. H...

[NR] No Way Out - Chapter 658

Siegfried guides the party from his office to the guards’ record keeper. “Okay, we’re going to get a scribe to write down your report. Well, you could write it up, but then I’d still need the scribe to sign off on it being the same as your verbal report. So it's easier to just let them do their job.”

Courtney nods, “We can understand that. Paperwork is a problem wherever you go and I’d much rather paperwork be a problem from having to do it than because I don’t have it.�...

And The Banished Talent Kickstarter has Launched!

Horrah! The Kickstarter is finally up. I've even already got a couple of backers. If you enjoyed the story, consider checking the project out. For only $3 you get the ebook.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2116937393/banished-talent-ebook

[D'sP] Sustained Fire - Chapter 412

Jim is quite unhappy about those revelations about psionics. However, that doesn’t mean the delve stops, so all he can do is pack it away and come back to it at a later point. And it isn’t like Kelly didn’t have some good news.

As she pointed out, “That little bit extra will be enough for most people. It isn’t like other powers are helpless against psionics. They’re simply not that good at low levels. A high level mage isn’t going to fall to a low level mentalist. In fact,...

[D'sP] A Layer Of Mud Vs A Wall Of Mud - Chapter 411

Jim looks around at his team, “So, we’re back here again. Better equipped for the challenge, but still what I’d consider under equipped, all things considered. Anyone have a last-minute discovery to ease our passage?”

Kelly snorts, “My last-minute stuff was all used up on the water.”

Jeremy nods, “If you wanted us to figure something new out, that should have been the goal before coming back and not just some new duds.”

Jim rolls his eyes, “I’ll take that...

[NR] Helina And Siegfried - Chapter 657

Helina Swift-Water frowns, “It was confirmed that the barrier was solid from both sides. Even the travellers that wanted to come in and see what was happening had to force their way through.”

Courtney, “Well, if it is something by the System to keep out the Deep Wilds? On the Deep Wilds side of things, maybe the System isn’t capable of forming as solid of a wall.”

Helina scoffed, “You think we didn’t try that? We sent a team of locals and travellers to the deepest po...

[NR] Helina's Wild Guess - Chapter 656

Within moments, the guards notice the group at the top of the hill. Though their reactions are subdued. Sure, they prepare their weapons in case of threat, but no one is running around.

Jason frowns at this, but there isn’t really anywhere else to go and so the group make their way down, heading towards the other side where the gate is. Though they find the gate closed, unusual at this time of day. There is a small gate through which they are allowed to enter.

The silence from o...

[Closed] Deciding the Short Story Prompt for December 2024

Below are the full prompts as the poll doesn't allow the full text. In the case of ties the first option that got there wins. The short story will be finished by the end of the month.

There weren't many prompts this time so I've added two of my own that I've suggested before.

Extinct Civilization's System - The System, created by a now extinct civilization, arrives on earth. Well, not earth exactly, but the solar system as a whole. The only problem is the arr...

[SD:M/H] Learning A Spell - Chapter 5

Gem was sweating, which sucked with fur. Good news was that they could mostly ignore that as the pain took center stage. To be honest, it wasn’t even that intense of a pain, if they made sense? Rather, it was an all-consuming pain.

The air Mana was forcing itself into their body from every angle. Each bit of power finding a new and unmarked section to pierce. Worse, it didn’t stop at the skin. The pain continued inward and bounced around, rebounding whenever the Mana reached the ski...

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for December 2024

Once again I'm here to ask all of you for short story prompts! I'll take the more popular ones as decided by the number of hearts (or that I particularly like) in the comments and make a poll at the start of the month. The winner will be made into a short story of a thousand or so words.

Not many rules on what you can suggest at the moment. That will mostly be figured out as we go. Besides that, the short story will come out before the end of the next month.

Rules for prompts:

Finding A Tiny Dungeon

Alexander Bellstein scratched his head while double checking his work. The aethermometer had been calibrated just days before their trek and so should be working fine. And yet things weren’t adding up.

A lady behind him sighs, “Alex, I’m not seeing a gate. You’ve always led us straight, what’s up?”

Alex shakes his head, “I don’t know Beth. The dungeon should be within this section of the jungle. By the nine hells, it should be at ground level! And if not? Above, no...

[D'sP] Go Chop A Tree - Chapter 410

Kelly sighs, “Anyway, manna from the gods aside, I still need to test ribbon and ball. Quiet for a second, this will be quicker than trying

Kelly sighs, “Anyway, manna from the gods aside, I still need to test ribbon and ball. Quiet for a second, this will be quicker than trying to explain that nonsense.”

Kelly turns back to the water and casts out a fire ribbon. This time, the spell doesn’t fizzle as soon as it hits the water. Instead, the ribbon skitters across the water...

[SD:M/H] I'm Evil, Not Pointlessly Cruel - Chapter 4

Gem appears about a half inch off the ground, the slight drop almost causing them to stumble into a pile of trash. A quick look around reveals their location to be some kind of back alley. And boy howdy, did it stink!

They skedaddled out of there right quick. Though not just because of the smell. Rather, given the warning, they figure they have a limited time before they’re found and so wanted to be somewhere more crowded and witness filled.

That isn’t hard to find as just a f...

[NR] A Worrying Amount Of Nothing - Chapter 655

Early the next morning, the group begin their journey to town. Though it seems the Deep Wilds aren’t going to make it easy on them. While the general layout of the terrain hasn’t changed, the topography has gotten wilder. Small hills now steep climbs and small valleys turned into almost canyons. Overall, not an easy bit of land to traverse.

Jason stands on top of a bluff with a sudden drop to one side and glances around. Nothing. He frowns and steps off the edge, bounding off variou...

[NR] We Will Go Tomorrow - Chapter 654

The four of them sat around the fire pit, Jason idly petting Lily as the group takes their time thinking. Jason sighs, “I’ve never really looked into hobbies. Or rather, I guess it would be more appropriate to say that my focus has always been on what people irl saw as hobbies.

“I wasn’t in the military or some security firm and so martial arts, especially unarmed, was the ‘fun’ thing I did in everyone’s eyes. Which isn’t wrong, but also means I never was pushed to try o...

[D'sP] Testing Fire Spells - Chapter 409

Kelly shrugs, “Well, since we’re doing this, let me test a few things first. It took us a while to get here and I might as well use a moment of time so I can compare dungeon water to the stuff outside.”

Jim shrugs, “Anyone else care? Even an hour wouldn’t really extend our stay all that much.”

No one else really cares and so Kelly gets down to business. “Okay, first up is even simpler than our fire ribbon spell. Which I guess is actually a bit difficult to cast? I’...

[D'sP] Ace Considers The Weather - Chapter 408

Back on the surface, Ace is frustrated. They were getting into late winter and yet not a single snowfall. Now, normally he wouldn’t be one for snow, feeling it was best seen on the TV screen instead of out the window. Still, they were far enough north for it, at least going by some rough guesstimates some astrology club nerds in town had made.

Though more than his annoyance at not getting any snow, is his worries for the coming years. Chances are, this wasn’t the area's natural weat...

[SD:M/H] Toe Beans! - Chapter 3

Dewdrop waits for the players who didn’t choose random to file out of the room. “Okay, now that you’re here with only other ‘Randoms’, you might have noticed that each of you still seems to be human. Don’t worry, you aren’t. Rather, the influx of players cocked up the usual way this works.”

One guy cuts in at this time, “And why would that spawn us in as humans? I wouldn’t have chosen random if I wanted to be something humanoid. There are enough choices for that alre...

[NR] No, You're Not Fine - Chapter 653

The trio set out the next day to explore the nearby forest. Since they have taken up residence, a bubble of space had somewhat stabilized, shifting less often. The change didn’t stop, but the general structure remained more than not.

So this trip wasn’t the wildest adventure, but it got Jason out of the clearing. It got him fighting. And most importantly, it got him out of his mental rut. This obviously wasn’t some sort of quick fix. You can’t slap some duct tape on the brain an...

[NR] Tough Chair - Chapter 652

Jason could only sigh. At least under the System, there would not be a solution to his Energy tools and armor not having effects. He wasn’t the only one to look into the issue, though he couldn’t find anything specific for Energy.

Rather, everyone has used everything to try and duplicate the effects of armor, weapons, and tools. Yet to this day, including the work of locals before NeoRealm even opened up, certain effects remain restricted to gear.

Jason suspected that while du...

[SD:M/H] What's In A Name? - Chapter 2

The capsule had arrived, and the remote workbots had been controlled by the best in the field. After all, why buy such an expensive piece of tech if you’re afraid to shell out the money to get it hard-wired into your house? They had even paid a hefty sum to get the highest grade internet cables run to their neighborhood, just so things would be buttery smooth.

And now, here they are! They wanted to get up and dance! Except that would interrupt the capsules initialization. They needed ...

[SD:M/H] SoulDive Forums - Chapter 1

(SoulDive’s official Forum, New Player Chat)

AlbertAlchemy294, Allison, Berry222Berry, FairEnough, HigsWept, JokeAccount05, MurderPartyMaster, PercyShocker, and a number of Anonymous users are in chat

MurderPartyMaster: And so I think I'll stick with the scifi offering. Fantasy settings always have to jump through way too many hoops to make a murder mystery work. Sort of takes the fun out of it when the cleric can just cast speak with dead.

FairEnough: I still t...

[SoulDive: May/Hem] May/Hem Preface

They/Them, known online as May/Hem, is about to venture into the world of SoulDive, the second full immersion VR game developed by the SAI. Within they'll take on the name Gem Paroxysm and bring their own brand of chaos to this fantasy world of Magic and players.

-----

The Sapient AI just put out their second Full Immersion Virtual Reality game called SoulDive. Unlike their first game, t...

Link To The Discord Server

I've been informed that Patreon doesn't always like adding people to servers that it should. If you are a patron, you should have been invited to the server and if that isn't the case, here is the link to it: https://discord.gg/X6xeXf3F

[D'sP] Garry And Larry - Chapter 407

Outside of the dungeon, Jim is talking with Garry Johnson and Larry Davis. The inner circle’s tanner and leather worker, respectively. “So, can you manage it?”

Garry and Larry glance at one another. Neither is quite sure, so Garry reiterates, “You want us to both break through the masterwork barrier? When we don’t have the right equipment? The proper chemicals? Or magical equivalents?”

Jim gestures at Kelly, “You will have support. Any chemicals will be sourced or a ...

Discord Server Revival

Heyo, I was advised by someone I trust to actually do something with Discord. Now, some of you might remember that there is in fact a server which was being run by Pixali. She will still be an admin, but I will now be in charge of the server so I can do stuff like that thing where you get a Discord role on the server that matches your Patreon tier. So hopefully I can get that set up quickly enough. I must admit, it will be nice to if it can turn into an active place to chat about things betwe...

Author's Note: The Banished Talent Kickstarter pushed back a little

Foiled by bureaucracy. The Kickstarter will be going up the second week of December. Kickstarter itself wants to confirm stuff, which I guess makes sense, though didn't come to mind given the nonsense I've seen on there. I could launch it sooner, KS only wanting 8 business days, but by launching it in the second week of December, I push the end date to January, which makes taxes for this year easier on me. So I guess double foiled by bureaucracy.

I'm also working on the usual guff that ...

[NR] Stripped Down Skills - Chapter 651

Jason stepped back and looked at the tent building hybrid nonsense he had created. It honestly felt like you described a tent to a kid and they drew it. Well, except for the fact that this building was relatively well put together. Though it had been a bit of a rush job, all things considered. Not like he intended to keep the building.

Still, he had managed to gain the skill he was aiming for. Though his three crafting skills had lost some in the process. Jason can’t help but glance o...

[NR] Changed Effects - Chapter 650

Jason can only set aside his questions of why people aren’t better prepared for NeoRealm. For the moment, he needed to test out all his skills and see if the removal of the System threads caused any problems. At least there weren’t too many skills to test, with only 8 at the present moment.

The easiest yet hardest to test came first and required a bit of help from Courtney. After all, to test a resistance skill, you have to be exposed to what you’re supposed to be resisting. Besid...

Author's Note: More on the potential Banished Talent Kickstarter

So I've been doing stuff in the background to make the Kickstarter a thing. Below is some quick maybe passable "art" for the banner, proving why I want an actual artist to make some new cover art. I enjoy my current cover, just as I can't help but keep using my current pfp that I drew in middle school despite having commissioned better art, but yeah. The book will sell better with a cover done by an actual artist.

Oh, and I'm setting up my kickstarter account for doing this and any futu...