dragonheartednovels

[NR] One Failed, One Classic - Chapter 386

With another infusion of cash and being at what is basically the forward operating base for the local adventurers, Jason decides to look around and find out if there is anything he might want. Instead, he ended up selling more stuff.

The next shop he went into was a more locally based store which dealt with buying and selling parts of less important animals. You, like all the claws, teeth, and feathers Jason had been collecting. Sure, he could have just as easily sold them at the place ...

[Closed] Deciding the Short Story Prompt for May 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. The short story will be finished by the end of the month and will be available to all patrons.

• God-like Watcher - a god-like being watches as an INCREDIBLY system reliant world has to deal nigh total collapse of their culture, technology, and possibly even understanding of magic, as they see the "horrors" of functioning without it for the first time in millions of years, af...
  2022-05-02 08:09:53 +0000 UTC View Post

[D'sP] Axebeak Plus Kobold Equals A Dangerous Fight - Chapter 208

Jim looks up at the ceiling before focusing on Susan again. “With all the strangeness going on the whole system-thing has probably been hard for you. The fact that a centerpiece of our new life seems to break the rules can’t be easy, either. That doesn’t mean you can be so reckless.

“Now, I’m not your therapist and you likely already know this, but it sounds like your specialization in gathering information likely has more to do with making sure reality doesn’t surprise you....

[D'sP] She Did Not Actually Explain Why - Chapter 207

Doyle pauses for a moment, ‘Now, there is just one final thing I want to ask about. What is up with that bit about your soul shell needing repair and your level limit being raised?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Remember, before this I wasn’t just a blank slate. I had a bunch of levels, skills, and paths. I’ve lived longer than civilization has existed on your planet and even if higher does come slower, I was still up there. I can’t really remember as after I broke level one thousand, it re...

[NR] A Bird In The Sky - Chapter 385

Over the next few days, Jason spotted more than one giant electric salamander. Being the local apex predators they didn’t exactly hide. They weren’t worth the risk though and so Jason made sure to take the long way around. Not too much of a hassle and soon enough he had moved past the area with all the water features.

This led to an annoying if safer, fight. It started with a noise coming from above, which sent Jason dodging towards a nearby tree for cover. Good thing too, as right ...

[NR] A Little Too Shredded - Chapter 384

Jason was tempted to continue hunting the Giant Electric Axolotls, only tempted though. He didn’t see any spark of sapience in their eyes, but as a whole were well past too clever. This could either mean some heightened instinctual teamwork or what Jason would actually bet on, something guiding them.

Not controlling them, mind you, but guiding. The difference is a little loose when dealing with non-sapient beings, but Jason could tell. Why this was important dealt with a key piece of ...

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for May 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] An AI Finding A New Hobby

[Main Story] Quest [12C1873] complete…

Alternate Completion Criteria Confirmed and [Completing Team] Labeled System Abusers…

Filing…

Pause Filing…

Deletion of all Accounts related to [Completing Team] Detected…

New Accounts with names exactly the same as [Missing Reference]...

The same as Completing Team except with the number on the end incremented by 1

Still lacking in [Authority] to do anything about it

Creating a new set of [Main S...

[D'sP] Ally's New Path - Chapter 206

{Name: Ally Huxley

Race: Autumn Court Dungeon Fae

Soul Bound: Doyle Huxley

Paths: [101] True Dungeon Companion II 10/10, Primal Magic I 10/10, Limit Breaker I 1/1, Autumn’s Jester 3/100

Level: 10

S[12] A[9] C[12] I[17] W[8] P[15] D[13] K[24] L[16]

Skills [5/5 Class, 1/5+1 General]: Tutor lv25 > 31, Primal Glamor lv2 > 7, Courtly Manners lv5 > 9, Telepathy lv19 > 58, Soul Sight lv14 > 15, Scry lv21 > 36}

Doyle claps a couple of ston...

[NR] New Tools - Chapter 383

As luck would have it, there was a giant electric axolotl to his left. Well, there were about five of the things. This lake really was jam packed with the things. That didn’t matter though as Jason focused in on the one closest to the forest. Those to the right started charging up another large attack, but the five in front of him all looked quite startled.

They tried to get off a low-powered shock to paralyze him, but Jason had already charged his body with Energy. This created quite...

[NR] Back To The Lake - Chapter 382

Next morning, Jason decided it was time to go and play with the axolotls. He assumed that their electricity producing and or storing organs would be worth a shiny copper or two. Though he also admitted to himself that those damn amphibians had gotten the best of him and he wasn’t going to stand for it.

With a deep breath, Jason curled his hands into fist and charged his body with Energy. Even with his unique situation, electricity can mess a body up good and there was one quick soluti...

[D'sP] A Simple Question - Chapter 205

Doyle watches as the group leaves the floor and can’t help but laugh. ‘I didn’t intend for the myconids to do that.’

Ally shrugs, ‘It is kind of their main defense when in large groups. Though not really something mentioned. In the normal swing of things, myconids are one of the more peaceful monsters, even when not led by a sapient. A normal myconid colony will keep the spore density well below the dangerous level and since you don’t have normal people exploring their terri...

[D'sP] All The Spores - Chapter 204

It doesn’t take long after discovering the first bit of warped space for Jim’s group to find many other examples. Though admittedly that mostly comes from Doyle spreading them around the floor for this exact reason. While he hadn’t meant it that way, this was an unconscious action on his part to warn delvers about it being a potential threat in the future.

Back with Zach, the wood mage is getting a bit nervous. For the past few minutes, the group has been stalked by something in t...

[NR] Unexpected Changes - Chapter 381

At this point, Jason is almost afraid to look at his other skills. While sub-skills can be powerful, that is for stuff like farming where there are just too many potential skills for it. No one has the time to train twenty different skills just to grow some beans so instead it gets lumped into one bag.

Here though, the System was strictly limiting Jason by forcing the movement skill to match his cultivation. While he didn’t have proof, Jason was willing to bet that without the change ...

[NR] Subbing In A Skill - Chapter 380

Jason took half a day to figure out the combination of Desolate Traversal’s traction assist and powered grip. Not because it was hard to combine, but because he didn’t settle for the first solution that came his way. After all, the difference between the two was that assist used sub-point amounts of Energy while grip could only increase the traction.

The obvious answer was to make grip an extension of the assist, but that would be akin to taking a volume control and adding an eleven...

[D'sP] Sleepover At Doyle's - Chapter 203

The next day, Jim and his new team are at it again, though this time they were able to skip straight to the sixth floor. The new starting location was a two-fold benefit for them. First was the fact that they didn’t have to fight through the previous floors and especially the boss fight. When the main thing that drove them off last time was fatigue, the gain from skipping earlier floors, even if it was basically just a walk in the park at this point, was immense.

Second, and almost mo...

[NR] They're All The Same - Chapter 379

The Desolate Traversal Technique was, in theory, simple enough. It involved a foundation of parkour mixed with some interesting uses of power, Energy in Jason’s case. The problem with the skill is that even after all this time, it was still stuck at the top of apprentice rank. Sure, that is where most of his other skills are at, but he had gotten to apprentice level 9 with 99.99% towards the next level for quite a while now. Jason was sure he was missing something with the skill, especially...

[NR] Lightning Swing - Chapter 378

Satisfied with the results of the skill alteration, Jason takes a slightly hasty step to test it. A quick slice of his nail with a bit of Energy opens a wound on his right palm. Then he pours whatever is left of the poison and venom mixture onto the cut.

“Boy, does that sting”, escapes his mouth before he can get his reaction under control. Quite the mild reaction all things considered, because while the mixture doesn’t necessarily hurt as much as some other things Jason had exper...

[Closed] Deciding the Short Story Prompt for Apr 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. The short story will be finished by the end of the month and will be available to all patrons.

• Demon King's army provider: "The Demon King has given you the honorable task of growing his monster army in preparation for the war against the Heroes. You have however encountered an unforeseen issue. How the hell do you stop the mindless, bloodthirsty monsters from killing each ...
  2022-04-01 20:40:25 +0000 UTC View Post

[D'sP] Boss Talk - Chapter 202

Starting on the first floor, because despite what Doyle had said he couldn’t help but check the floor in numerical order, he starts to give them all a once over. First floor? How can you improve on perfection? Second floor? Marvelous! And of course the third floor is random, so not much to do there.

Though at this point Doyle suspects something and takes a moment to gauge his mental state while flipping between all the floors. It takes a minute but he catches it. Whenever he is lookin...

[D'sP] Ally Feels They're Missing Something - Chapter 201

Ally pulls up a bunch of screens and begins by pointing out the basics.

‘So you should already know their team setup. For instance, Jim is a ranger archetype, though tending more towards the nature focused scout side of things from what I’ve seen. However, from that alone, people won’t be able to tell what exactly he provides in a fight so we need to go deeper.

‘There are three basic categories that will let you get a handle on a person. Well, technically four, but that fo...

[NR] A Much Shorter Skill Entry - Chapter 377

Jason recenters and focuses on how the poison and venom are being resisted. As he had previously seen, there wasn’t all that much of a difference. Now, though, he can tell that while the process is the same, the skill is treating them differently.

Of course, this would have been true no matter what. He had different levels of resistance to the two in the first place. Besides that, the method of removal was different. To take care of the poison, the skill was focusing on large concentr...

[NR] A Skill's Possible Origin - Chapter 376

From within, Jason can see both the substances begin to war with his body. They aren’t directly affecting one another. A thing he had been worried about as more than one high-quality poison was made by mixing other lesser poisons. Though if he was unlucky enough to stumble upon such a combination by chance, well, the System was truly just out to get him at that point.

Jason moved on from that and took a closer look at the two. Yep, not much difference between how they were attacking h...

[Closed] Collecting Short Story Prompts for Apr 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] A New Grim "Reaper"

Deep in a tomb, forgotten by all, a man named Ven’or stands over an ornate burial mound. Yes, a mound and not a coffin. Quite the strange thing to find in a tomb. Though the wall art in the chamber was nice enough.

And it was definitely a chamber, if not some other term like “hall” or “auditorium”, definitely not any word that would make you think it was small. Because while it wasn’t mind-bendingly big or anything, the place did a good job of mimicking a large forest cleari...

[D'sP] Do You Think You're Some Kind Of Protagonist? - Chapter 200

Doyle turns away from Jim’s new group as they rest. They’ll take some time before moving onto the next floor so for the moment he can focus on other stuff. Most important of which is a question for Ally which had percolated to the top of his mind. ‘Hey Ally, even the wolfkin has mostly caught up to them. Though that likely has more to do with having started in a more martial society. Why aren’t I gaining levels?’

Ally looks up from a screen and shrugs, ‘Remember, you gain le...

[NR] Peaceful Rest Petunia - Chapter 375

At first, Jason’s luck wasn’t all that good. While no more spiders ambushed him, there weren’t really any herbs along the way, either. This was honestly to be expected. After all, even if this was the path less traveled, it wasn’t the path untraveled so others would have picked anything at the side of the road.

It is only once he gets into the next danger zone that things start to appear again. Even then, it is only the lowest of herbs. That and a bunch of fruiting deer. A stran...

[NR] All In The Right Hand - Chapter 374

As Jason focuses, there doesn’t seem to be anything happening at first. Despite this, he waits, dealing with venom not exactly being the best time to rush things. Then the System finally turns its back on what he is doing and his insides revert to being a void.

The venom, once contained in his stomach, spills out into his body. This prompts the System to try and reassert its version of what is natural but it is already too late for that. Even as the System is reinstating Jason’s fle...

[D'sP] To Know Death - Chapter 199

It is unfortunate that Doctor’s disruption can only go so far. Good thing that after pointing out the effect he was having on the kobolds to Jim, things got a whole lot easier as arrows started to sprout out of the surprised mages. There weren’t any clean shots, what with the kobold mages hiding around the bend, but it did the job of easing up the pressure Zach was under.

This was especially true once a lucky shot managed to take out one of the fire mages. Sure, the patrol leader an...

[D'sP] Stand Out Cattle - Chapter 198

They don’t get much time though, as the cattle stampede into the alley. Not by chance though. It is a little hard to hear, but Jim is certain that some of the kobolds had guided them to attack.

He isn’t wrong either. Out in the plaza, the four remaining kobold goatherds have taken charge of the animals and created enough distance for the cows to have an actual run of it. More than enough for the cattle’s teamwork skill to kick in and allow for an actual stampede and not just a sim...