dragonheartednovels

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for January 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] Failed Dungeon Inspection

“Hmm. Hmm. Hmmmm.”

The man taps his fountain pen against his clipboard.

“No matter how I run the numbers, this dungeon is a little too dangerous. A one in twenty survival rate for people new to the dungeon, even after being properly informed of the dangers, is a bit too much.

“I’ll just mark that down here. Mhmm, I don’t know why this kingdom has put up with such a death trap. There are a ton of safer dungeons on this planet.

“Not that it is my problem. J...

[D'sP] Maybe This Time Is The Time - Chapter 260

Back in town a few days later, Kelly was finishing her first experimental rig for testing the golden spiral. The pattern is common enough in nature and even after the end of the world she still had sufficient access to a knowledge base that allowed her to study the concept. Of course, it helped that the subject was so basic in nature. The two libraries in the old towns weren’t exactly college level, but they had more than enough material for this.

As for her rig? It was a simple enoug...

[NR] Interesting Ideas About Dungeons - Chapter 455

After that first fight, the floor basically repeated itself. One chest-high wall after the next, each one followed by a ramp down and then a turn so the ceiling could reset itself. About the only change was the addition of an extra tardigroid with every encounter. By the last encounter, this meant they were fighting 15 of the things at once.

This, while not an easy fight, did not hold the group back. It was only the first floor after all and they were here to conquer the dungeon as a wh...

[NR] A Cave Of Chest-High Walls - Chapter 454

With Jason’s caution, the group enters the dungeon safely. Once in though, they do take a second to look around. Not much to see here at the entrance, just the classic gray stone landscape you’d expect from some sort of space rock. Though Courtney assures the other it gets wilder further in.

While overall space still isn’t some thriving place despite literal magic, you apparently can find it and this dungeon features some of the more basic flora. The start is just barren because i...

[D'sP] Why They Can't Remember - Chapter 259

To Kelly, the stepped nature of the monument’s lower section was obvious enough, especially after Billy’s input on what was written there. A simple structural design that placed the most foundational knowledge on the bottom and built up from there. Even the images of the various forms of kobold were dissected and figured out. Though the knowledge of all the different forms a kobold could come in wasn’t the most useful at the moment. She was even able to notice that each section of writi...

[D'sP] A Discovery Of Great Worth - Chapter 258

With Ace back in town, Jim didn’t waste any time gathering together a team to check out the kobold monument. Not his usual team, though. Since the goal isn’t to dive deep, but rather to just check out something on the fifth floor, he grabs those best suited to check it out.

That results in a team composed of him, Doctor, both Barrais, Kelly, and Billy Brown. The last guy was one of the two core members who came from overseas. As for why he was joining this expedition? Simple enough,...

[NR] Keep It A Secret - Chapter 453

Early in the morning; Jason, Rosha, and Courtney are gathered in the Adventurers Guild, standing in line. While they aren’t required to report their plans to delve the dungeon since they are all travellers, there aren’t any downsides to it and the guild does prefer to know. Not that technically locals are required to report in either, they just get kicked out of the guild if caught. Still get to go into dungeons though.

As they wait in line, Courtney makes sure the other two underst...

[NR] Checking In On Jenny - Chapter 452

What's The Mom Doing

Jenny watched as her son, Jason, leave his room. He normally kept a relatively stable schedule, coming out for some exercise and meditation once a NeoRealm day, so five times every irl day. Sure, sometimes he would be busy or getting a full night’s sleep and so will miss one.

Over the last week or so, Jenny had noticed him missing multiple NeoRealm days in a row. Not the strangest thing, as sometimes you are better off sticking to the game. ...

The Patreon now uses the Subscription payment method

I just flipped the lever, pressed the switch, clicked the button. The Patreon is now using the Subscription payment method.

What does this mean for my current Patrons? If you are currently subbed to any of the tiers, nothing changes. You're payment goes through on the first of the month as always. Things will only change if you unsub.

What does this mean for people who join up now? It means that instead of paying on the day you sub and then again on the first of the month, you jus...

[D'sP] That Isn't Strong Enough - Chapter 257

Ally turns her attention to one of her screens. ‘Anyway, besides silly uses for psionics, you seem to have gained something with your victory. It looks like you went up a level.’

Doyle pulls up his notifications, only to find Ally was right, not that he doubted her.

{Level Gained!

Level goes from 4 to 5, Strength goes from 48 to 56, Agility goes from 60 to 76, Constitution goes from 67 to 77, Intelligence goes from 54 to 64, Wisdom goes from 104 to 128, Presence goes fro...

Probably Will Switch To The New Sub Payment

It has been a few months since Patreon introduced the new Subscription payment model. I've asked around and so far other creators haven't had any major problems. There are some issues with payments failing, but that seems to be a separate issue and affecting everyone. With that in mind, unless someone has any serious problem with it related to the actual system or enough people are against it, I'm planning on switching over this weekend.

This shouldn't change anything for people who are...

[NR] The Rest Of The Team Getting Along - Chapter 451

Rosha and Courtney

Rosha smiled as she led the way down the road, Courtney just behind and to the side of her. While she missed Jason’s quiet stoicism and, of course, Lily’s soft fluffy presence, it was nice to have a relaxing walk with Courtney. If only she would walk side by side with her.

Though thinking about that, Rosha realized a fun way to force the issue. So she turns around and looks Courtney straight in the eyes. “Courtney, I’m going to order you...

[NR] Calico Catkin Cleanup - Chapter 450

Calico Catkin Cleanup

A certain calico catkin captain takes a moment to wipe her brow and glance around. The kingdom’s capital was on fire. Though that was the preferred outcome, no matter how sad that might sound. Much of it was even self-inflicted.

Over the five decades she had grown up in the kingdom, this was the first time the Order of the Raging Fire was forced to fight in friendly fields. Still, when the capital was threatened by a Maralith and their army...

[D'sP] Sunflowers - Chapter 256

Ace coughs awkwardly, “Well, I don’t intend it as...

“Yeah, it is basically a form of ironically non-magical mind control. Magic just makes it a lot easier to reinforce things since it can detect intent and not just actions. Especially since people won’t know it is happening. I know there is a better word for this besides mind control as it isn’t quite that far, seeing as the system is okay with it.”

Jack shakes his head, “The fact this sort of training doesn’t cou...

[D'sP] Oh Hey, New People - Chapter 255

Outside of the dungeon, time moved on. While to Ace and company, it might not seem like they’ve been in there all that long, once you add up all the breaks and the sheer number of monsters to fight it certainly isn’t morning anymore. Though it certainly doesn’t help them keep track of time now that they all have a decent amount of physical stats. What only a month or so ago would have exhausted them, not just requires a short break before they’re ready.

This isn’t true for eve...

[NR] The Plant That Lived - Chapter 449

Gregor and the Plant

Gregor had been examining the houseplant for weeks. A true triumph of modern medical magic as the poor thing kept trying to die. Something that boy had done to it had caused it to lose the support of the System and Gregor wanted to explore things deeper.

He had bombarded the plant with all kinds of light and power. Used his most powerful observation tools to the point of having a record of every single one of the plant’s cells over multiple ...

[NR] The Wild Side - Chapter 448

Peter in the Wilds

Peter carefully watched the sky as he moved through an open savanna. While uncertain, he felt that he should be close to a new area of the deep wilds. Then the sun changes, going from normal to bigger and hotter.

This was exactly the kind of thing he was looking for, now the only question was if the locals would let him leave or not. So with great care, Peter steps backwards, following the path he took to enter this region. While nothing changed...

[Closed] Deciding the Short Story Prompt for December 2022

Below are the full prompts as the poll doesn't allow the full text. I'm going to run the poll for five days and 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.

• Dungeon Inspector ends up rating a “great” dungeon of over 100 floors as “Too Dangerous” because of its particularly poor survival rate, and in turn bans adventurers from entering it- this causes a Great Depressi...
  2022-12-03 05:05:29 +0000 UTC View Post

[D'sP] Eighth Floor Conquered - Chapter 254

Ace and his team; Sammy, Jack, Susan, Og, and Ruby managed to tank the strange effects of the square room with five sides decently well. While each of them tended towards having one or two stats they’re focused on, they still spread the points around. Plus, they had a few paths which gave points per level to all stats.

Of course, while they were capable of handling the strangeness, that didn’t mean they were able to roll with it right away and this presented a chance. As they try to...

[NR] More Andrew - Chapter 447

Andrew’s Continuing Adventures

Andrew had gotten bored, it had been a while since grabbing those animal-headed goblins and as always, messing with more humanoid monsters took time. So he decided to go out and have a little fun. Despite living nearby, it had been forever since he met with a certain friend of his.

So, without a second thought, Andrew took off flying, heading straight for the center of the rabbit plains. Though before he can reach his target, a cer...

[NR] So Close To The Dungeon - Chapter 446

Bright and early the next morning, Rosha is bouncing around in excitement. Though she soon calms down once she realizes they still aren’t heading to the dungeon. While they technically could, dungeon’s being heavily instanced, there were enough possible quirks that Courtney needed to ask around a bit.

Sure, last night she sounded quite knowledgeable about the dungeon, but that was all surface level information. Some of it could even be figured out without knowing a single thing abou...

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for December 2022

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] Just A Simple Delivery

Casey flashed across the war-torn landscape. He didn’t particularly want to be in the continental divide, but his pride as a courier required him to deliver the package no matter the difficulty. Plus, they were paying extra and the offered materials might be what he needs to upgrade his trusty courier’s pack one more time.

Still, having to travel through the divide was a dangerous thing, even for him, as the literal continent between the two major empires had been a battlefield for ...

[D'sP] Back Into The Dungeon- Chapter 253

Doyle couldn’t help but shake his core as he watched Ace’s plan play out. It was impressive, long reaching, and could have blown up right now if Melanie reacted differently to his last bit. The fact she only sighed before leaving shows this likely not the first time she had gotten caught up in a crazy plan like this.

That wasn’t really the center of Doyle’s attention, though. Rather, it was the fact that before Melanie had arrived, Ace had decided that his group would start delv...

[D'sP] Melonie's Reason - Chapter 252

Introductions done, Melonie turns to Ben and the rest with a fire in her eyes.

Ace chuckles at this, “When you’re finished straightening things out, come by my office.” And he waves to Melonie as he leaves the house, closing the door just as she begins to bark orders at the others.

Bright and early next morning, Ace has a report on his desk, transcribed on a tablet of unfired clay as good paper wasn’t the easiest to produce, of how the people from up river all seemed to ha...

[NR] Chaos Species? - Chapter 445

The realizations that Jason had towards the end of those five days really started to mess with him. Wheels within wheels within wheels, and he had only seen the shallowest depths. Good thing this sort of mental breakdown isn’t new to his old world. When prophets can control entire nations from a cave two countries over, people realize their actions may not be their own all the time. Sort of like the insanity that can come from seeing more than one’s mind can handle, what in his current li...

[NR] Well That's Troubling - Chapter 444

Jason stood there for a moment as the chupacabra alternated between being stunned and gnawing on his arm as he got a feel for what was happening. Not very exciting, though it somewhat explained why the town chose to cultivate the nest. The dang things were perfect practice dummies.

Not only did the one attacking him keep trying the exact same thing over and over, but all the while others ran past him. In fact, as long as he wasn’t almost directly in their way, the other monsters compl...

[D'sP] Change In Leader - Chapter 251

Out in the second circle of Wolf’s Rest, Ben is moping around. This doesn’t really pin down a time frame because that has been his default state ever since fleeing what was technically “his” town. The tutorial settlement having been taken over in all but name by a group of older men who believed the pre-system government would have their military rolling down the road any time now. An idea that was generally supported as the system doesn’t seem to have overly messed up physics as pe...

[NR] A Classic If Lame - Chapter 443

Jason stood up and stretched. There was a slight feeling of scratchyness from under his skin, but most people wouldn’t be able to notice it. Jason was only able to tell because he shouldn’t be able to feel anything at all like that and the System was forcing those areas to exist. At least for the moment.

Given enough time, the salts will dissolve into Jason's body. It shouldn't even take all that long. For the moment though the feeling was almost worse than the pain. At least the pa...