dragonheartednovels

[D'sP] Devastation - Chapter 292

When everyone is ready, the team sets out to finish the floor. This ends up taking a bit of time though as after another tight squeeze, they have to climb through two more pits, thankfully empty. Before the last fight, this wouldn’t have taken too much time, but now the group is a wee bit more cautious when descending into the things.

Those pits, however, are empty of any monsters and so even Jim feels like the effort was a bit wasted. Not that he has long to process things, because s...

[D'sP] Salt Of The Earth - Chapter 291

Jim was the first to react. He wasn’t on the side the Guard was attacking from, but that suited his combat style anyway. It would almost seem like an unfair match. Jim didn’t have magic.

Except he didn’t need magic, though he didn’t just depend on normal strength either. Rather, he had a secret he hadn’t meant to have. Everyone else had either woken to the power right away or at least got a defense set up.

Jim? He was sort of a late bloomer, but fighting the Udoroots had...

D'sP Chapters will be late today

I will try to get both chapters up late today or early tomorrow, but life happened and I'm currently running on no sleep and will be calling off sick from work as well because this gosh darn headache isn't letting me think straight. Even if it does go away, it isn't like I trust myself to drive to work without sleep. Sorry if this is a little ranty.

Blarg

[NR] Looking For That Shot - Chapter 497

Back with Jason, despite each hit pushing him back, it was the tardigroid’s fists that failed first. The cracks spread far enough that the chitin shattered, leaving the monster with jelly-like hands. This forced the boss to switch to using their buckler-like chitin guards on its arms to defend itself.

Except in doing so, the boss had given up the offensive. Now forced to defend without a clear line of attack, the beast takes a step back, then another. Though not a third. Well, technic...

[NR] Yellow Mana - Chapter 496

There is a reason for the saying about a lion using its full strength, even when hunting a rabbit. Jason isn't sure if it is literal, but in this case, the boss was finding the literal part of that saying. Though comparing Lily to a normal irl rabbit isn't exactly fair.

Lily is a small ball of sharp energy looking for an outlet and the boss's face looks like the perfect target. So since said boss was too focused on standing up, she applied said Energy directly to the forehead.

She...

[D'sP] Intense Mushroom Fighting - Chapter 290

This time, the group wasn’t as lucky while descending. The myconids in the pit managed to spot Jeremy as he climbed down. It wasn’t on purpose or anything, just dumb luck that one of them looked over at the right time to notice.

So as Jim and the rest of the team are making their way down, Jeremy is doing what he can to keep the area below clear. He is not as successful as would be desired. While he was able to sneak around and assassinate most of the monsters, that isn’t an optio...

[NR] Jason Turns His Back On It - Chapter 495

The dungeon boss wasn’t just one body melded to another. There was no jarring line that went from tardigrade to humanoid. Rather, the front section of the torso simply raised upwards, freeing the front claws to act like arms.

As if a pill bug in reverse. Except the changes went deeper. Chitin formed sections of defensive plates on the arms as if it was wearing a couple of bucklers. As for the head?

It kept most of the features from a tardigrade, except for oh so wrong human styl...

[NR] Finishing With The Trap - Chapter 494

Bright and early, Rosha returns to the trap. With the fronds taken care of, she could pass through on her own. However, she wasn’t looking to get a solo beat down from the dungeon boss.

That meant she needed to handle at least enough for Courtney to get through. While it felt a little mean to single her out, Rosha was certain that Jason could manage what was left. For Courtney, though, she was going to have to remove at least a few of the tripwires.

However, Rosha starts with th...

[D'sP] All The Pits - Chapter 289

Of course the prepared mycelium pseudo-wood was a wonderful thing as well. Though that kind of stuff would be left to others to care about. Jeremy didn’t really have a hand in building the actual town so ready made building supplies aren’t exactly in his remit.

Still, whether it was the food or the building supplies, the group only took a small sample of them. After all, they still have to finish the floor. So after doing one final look around the small bit of cave that extended out...

[D'sP] Jeremy Likes The Unplanned Supplies - Chapter 288

While the party wasn’t 100% on board with continuing, in the end they had come prepared to scale a cliff or two so turning back now would feel bad. In particular, Bill pointed out the fact they should have already known all of this coming in today. Nevermind the fact that no one had really considered what the cliff actually meant for the group.

Either way, they ended up pressing onward. Because honestly? The cliff was nothing to them. The only reason they turned back last time was bec...

[NR] Time For A Nap - Chapter 493

Each tuft a delicate puff ball of fibers. Shaped unnaturally so that even the slightest movement would be magnified. All towards triggering a trap with the only limits being the dungeon’s low level.

Even though Rosha’s experience with this sort of trigger was quite low, she could already see improvements that were possible. A lighter material so the shaft could be extended, making it even more of a hair trigger. At the base there could be something trying to push the frond upward, b...

[NR] Firebreak - Chapter 492

It takes Rosha over ten minutes to touch anything. While she is relatively sure that the triggers for the trap are only located where she can see stuff, well, she can’t see the other parts to determine otherwise. This time was spent trying to peek through the foliage at the edge of the path.

Then, once mostly certain instead of just relatively, Rosha began to disassemble the living plants that are covering the kindling behind. Not too hard to do, just a tedious task. In the end, thoug...

[D'sP] Landscape Drawing of Eleventh Floor

I only drew one herd of goats and a single aquatic cow. Also, the mushrooms would be thicker, but I wasn't going to draw them all.

[D'sP] More Popular Than Expected - Chapter 287

Next morning, it is safe to say the town noticed the new instances on the sixth floor. Jim was thankful that he had been burning the midnight oil last night after the delve and caught it. That allowed him to get ahead of it and come up with some sort of story.

Not that the story was all that good. Jim had basically blamed his party reaching the tenth floor on there being new instances available. Maybe somebody in the Guild hierarchy knew how it worked, but Jim wasn’t one of them, so f...

[NR] Two Traps - Chapter 491

Neither Jason nor Rosha really had a response for what Courtney had said, so they all settled in to heal up. While only Jason had been hurt by the monster, you don’t exactly come away unscathed when you throw yourself at the ground in a rocky cave. That and a bit of magic on Courtney’s part gets the party ready for more.

And more wasn’t hard to find. After a few times through everyone had noticed that the floors weren’t carbon copies. Yes, most of the features, the order in whic...

[NR] Nothing Like Pressure To Bring Out Strength - Chapter 490

The irl day passes, quickly for some and much slower for others. Some of that doesn’t even have to do with one day becoming five while in VR. Still, by the time Rosha is able to log back into NeoRealm, everyone is in a place to continue their delve. Maybe not perfect, but who ever really is?

However you slice it, the three of them and Lily are once again standing in front of the dungeon. Though this time the guards on duty have a bit more work on their hands as they have one of the wo...

[Closed] Deciding the Short Story Prompt for May 2023

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 and will be available to all patrons.

• Dragon Librarian: A dragon has decided that the most valuable commodity to hoard is Knowledge, and has gone about building the world's largest Grand Archives. A hoard that the dragon doesnt mind showing off, so long as visitors respect his rules.
• Legacy c...
  2023-05-01 08:25:31 +0000 UTC View Post

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for May 2023

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:

[Archived Short Story] Not Playing Their Game

Jack had a problem. It wasn’t the fact they were dead. That was old hat by now. While their civilization couldn’t claim to have 100% solved death, they knew quite a bit about the soul.

The problem was that they weren’t dead in the right way. You always heard stories. Some friend of a friend knew a guy who slipped through the cracks and didn’t end up in one of the civilization’s many afterlife options.

Jack just never expected to be the guy. Because they were dead, you do...

[D'sP] Got Instances? - Chapter 286

Jeremy sighs, “The question is, do we want to risk climbing down this wall?”

Kellinger takes another look over the side. “So I’m guessing you wouldn’t have any problem climbing down, but I’m just as likely to fall and break my neck.

“Which thankfully isn’t quite as much of a death sentence as it used to be. However, we only have so many of the potions which will allow someone to fully recover from that kind of injury.”

Kelly sighs, “We haven’t even seen...

[D'sP] For Want Of A Rope - Chapter 285

Jim stretches as Jeremy finishes what should be the last Udoroot. They’d been keeping count and knew that there were only 20 of the things on the floor. Not that knowing this makes them any less dangerous and they certainly weren’t going to let their guard down in case of a rare spawn or some similar nonsense.

Still, this one had been placed so deep into the floor that they could actually see the end of the tunnel. So, seeing as there weren’t any more sunflowers patches, it was mo...

[NR] Forever After - Chapter 489

Rachel stared up at the ceiling. She had died, though this wasn't the first time. Rather, while playing space games she had died an uncountable number of times. After all, deep space in a more realistic setting isn't the most hospitable of places.

However, this was the first death in NeoRealm. That meant a few things, though luckily not a loss in skill progress. Plus, the xp penalty at this level wasn't even enough to drop one an entire level.

Though it does sort of hurt being at ...

[NR] Confusing Rachel's Dad - Chapter 488

Courtney sighs, she had spent so many resources on so many strange things. Though she had to admit, it likely worked to confuse Rachel's dad. He was likely trying to find what she was really researching since stuff like the soul wouldn't exactly help. After all, even with the secrets about NeoRealm that Courtney did know, there wasn't even a hint of the soul being mentioned.

In fact, science as a whole had discounted souls as a thing for quite a while. An oddity when they were now deali...

[D'sP] Who To Ask? - Chapter 284

Doyle and Ally turn their focus to the newer bags. Those, while still easily felt, weren’t free from problems. If the old bag felt like it was covered in a fog, the new bags had the barest wisps of mist.

Still there though, which meant figuring out what was going on ramped up in importance. Doyle started by comparing all the bags in town. Though not much came of it, besides the fact that the smaller bags seemed more susceptible to whatever this was.

Ally, on the other hand, had ...

[NR] Taking Breaks For Speed - Chapter 487

As Jason cultivates and his mom wonders what is going on, Courtney has her work cut out for her. It took a good while to pep up Rachel, but that was still in VR so she still had a few days to work with. The first question she faced was what needed to be done?

There was not some enemy to research. The dungeon had simply gotten out of hand for a little. Given what she had reported to her and the note from Jason there was no helping it.

The team was all geared up with only Jason mayb...

[NR] Calm Cultivation - Chapter 486

Jason stretches and yawns. He had been clearing out his meridians for a few hours now and the progress was nothing to sneeze at. Though he was still in his prime for initial cultivation.

Way too many stories he has read made it sound like you have to begin cultivating as a young child. Now, Jason would never deny that doing so helps in some regards. It certainly makes the body forging go easier if done during puberty.

However, unless you are training in a body tempering art, culti...

[D'sP] Smaller Bags - Chapter 283

Ally sighs, ‘I won’t deny. A good elemental focus or intent for a monster will increase the power it has. However, the names can sometimes be almost coincidental.

‘And of course, you can be strong without anything fancy. Even this early on, some of the stats will have gone past what is possible without outside help. Human regeneration being a good example.

‘Unless you have some sweet tech or decent magic, none of those guys out there are regrowing a finger, let alone an ar...

[D'sP] More Spores - Chapter 282

With all the monsters for the eleventh floor placed, Doyle mentally takes a step back and looks it over. The design plan he originally had was a little lost. While you could see that the ceiling was the cap of a giant mushroom, technical reasons forced him to make things less clear.

On the other hand, the planned fight for the floor should turn out exactly how Doyle wanted it. Except he wasn’t quite able to fit as many monsters as he wanted. An honestly wonderful feeling as before, he...

[NR] Time On His Hands - Chapter 485

The strawberry blond lady bigfoot guild official sighs, “Though I don’t blame you for your outlook. Since you made it to the end of the ninth floor, your group shouldn’t have had too much trouble completing the dungeon. If not for the nonsense, that is.”

Jason nods, “A bit of a disappointment, that. What can you tell me?”

The lady shrugs, “In theory we should have things fixed up soon enough. However, I wouldn’t put my hopes on it. In fact, if you didn’t have a q...

[NR] Talking To A Bigfoot - Chapter 484

Courtney laughs, “This isn’t comparing you to anyone you could think of as normal. A normal person, especially the locals, spend most of their life not even breaking through to level ten. Players admittedly tend to reach 24 and many even manage beating a dungeon by the time they’re 30. Then there are the rich who if they manage to beat a boss will pay a small competent team who would be able to beat a dungeon anyway to drag them along. Then finally, with the next bottleneck, being rich ...