slifer274

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 7

The basket was full of food, packed bottom to top. I’d kind of been able to sense it through my abilities as a dungeon, but I hadn’t appreciated what that meant until Rose took an entire picnic blanket out to put them down on. There were three full platters in there, each of them full of goodies, and by the time Rose had finished setting up the blanket and placing them down, the boys were back.

“Sorry about that,” Ryan said sheepishly, his hand at the back of his neck. “I have...

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 6

“You’re sure he’s still there?” Troy asked. The three of them were still bunched up in my entrance room, hesitant to take another step forward.

“Where else would he be?” Rose replied.

“Out dealing with the Kingsguard, maybe,” Ryan said. “He did say something about that.”

“Also, he’s just a tour guide,” Troy said. “How do we know he isn’t taking time off?

“He said he’s bound here before,” Rose said. “Come on. Let’s just go.”

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 5

The two men that Ryan had identified as Kingsguard were still in the room where I’d left them. They must’ve been rather confused, having the dungeon close the doors on them, since even though that wasn’t entirely unprecedented, it certainly wasn’t something that was supposed to happen in an empty room.

I wondered if other Dungeon Cores could do this. Manipulate themselves at will and trap people within. I’d never run into one that could do that during my time as an adventurer,...

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 4

Making this one had taken me some time. At first, I had only had the use of [Spawn Monster] and its resulting [Spawn Snake] to create mobs with. Theoretically, I could’ve just made a final room without a bossfight, choosing instead to just dump snakes on them from high above, but that would’ve been boring, bad level design.

So I’d tinkered. It had taken a while—as well as the remaining mana I’d had stored in my dungeon-self—to get it put together, but I’d figured out that ...

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 3

“I don’t see how this is supposed to help,” Ryan said.

When I’d been making this room, I had had the idea of people parkouring up the poles and platforms in mind. How couldn’t I? Even if my last party hadn’t had anyone like that, I’d watched a few of the agility contests in town, and the talent that otherwise ordinary adventurers showed for this kind of thing was honestly really high.

While experimenting, I’d discovered that apparently the coordination, strength, a...

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 2

The three new adventurers were hitting their stride, now. They were still pretty weak, but Troy had learned both the [Missile] cantrip as well as the ubiquitous [Fireball]. Impressive for a newbie, though I did have to question why he didn’t have a single piece of equipment for wizardry beyond an arcane focus that was basically just a stick.

Combined with Rose’s [Song of Mana] as well as Ryan’s mediocre swordsmanship, they managed to at least stave off the snakes in their immediat...

Dungeon Tour Guide ch. 1

[Warning: Dungeon Core overloaded.]

That wasn’t good. The entrance was sealed, and the core was glowing bright white. I was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to happen.

[Critical core failure in ??? seconds.]

This was only my second dungeon outing! It wasn’t fair. I only just got started, why was I going to die now?

“Hey, Lucas, are we going to be okay?”

I turned my attention towards the voice. Right. I...

17.3: Escalation III

There were eleven of them, I counted. Just yesterday, that might’ve been too much for me. With the power that they wielded, built through decades of practice and prayer, I would’ve been no match for even two or three of them, let alone nearly a dozen.

“Move the nobles if you’d like them to live,” I said. “Or let them die. Either works for me.”

“I’ll evacuate them,” Jasmine said. “Alex, Lukas, with me?”

“On it,” they said as one.

Fleur did no...

Chapter Delay (life update)

Yo. What's up, guys?

So... I'm moving out this week. This Friday, to be exact. I'm going to college! It's super exciting for me, but it's also kind of scary. I've never spent more than a month or so away from home, and I'm shifting my entire life out of the place where I was born and raised.

For the time being, I'm going to be saying my goodbyes and having some last meetings with the friends I have here (who are all going to different, incredible colleges, so proud of them).

17.2: Escalation II

When we woke up, things had gotten worse. Of course they had.

The sun was still low in the sky when the sounds of distant detonations shook me out of sleep, though I could forgive it for that when I woke into Jasmine’s arms.

The moment had to end at some point, but I held her for a little longer when she stirred awake, stretching it out as long as possible.

Eventually, though, we had to get up and face reality, and it wasn’t looking pretty.

“Those are explosions,...

17.1: Escalation

“Where do we stand?”

That was a good question. Physically, we stood somewhere in the streets of Dakheng, the blood and dust covering us the only signs that a brutal conflict had just occurred beneath our feet. I had been able to displace us far away from where we’d started, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention to where exactly we were going, so we’d ended up in a deserted plaza in the middle of nowhere at four in the morning.

The others in the area had realized that...

16.12: Rescue XII

“You’re alive,” Jasmine said, relief flooding her voice. “Where are we?”

I was intact. Whatever bringing my body here had involved, it had also undone whatever damage had been inflicted to it in the moments before. The benefits of drawing so deep on my oath, maybe.

Jasmine was just a little too far from me for me to reach her, and as much as I wanted to move over and touch her, make sure she was real, things weren’t over outside.

“We’re elsewhere,” I said t...

16.11: Rescue XI

A/N: This one's a little rushed. Expect some moderate rewriting of the ending at some point.

Laur didn’t bleed like a normal person did. I’d had my fair share of experience with stabbing people in the throat or slitting them, and those always tended to have some sort of spurt. Even if the blood didn’t fountain out of the wound like the plays might have one believe, there would still be a steady stream of blood pumping out of the wound, especially if the attack hit...

16.10: Rescue X

The door swung wide open, revealing a passageway into the ground that would’ve looked like a pretty average tunnel if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was apparently the Church’s secret domain.

Before we could take more than a step inside, a sickly green cloud exploded into an existence, an audible pop the only sign that someone deeper within had decided to cast a spell.

I brought up my magic instantly, drawing on the not-memories I had gained just before Lady La...

16.9: Rescue IX

“The Church maintains a set of catacombs underneath the city,” Seb said, waving his hand over a table-wide map of Dakheng. “Entrance points are here, here, here, here…”

Seb was under the influence hard. I didn’t know why the veiled woman hadn’t done the same to us—my working presumption was that, just like how it had been when I was a kid, the brainwashing had to be done across a longer period of time to take that level of control, which hopefully meant she coul...

Requesting your help for my Amazon release!

Hi everyone! In case you haven't been following RR, Heretical Oaths Volume 1 is going to Kindle Unlimited on August 1st. This won't affect any of your reading schedules, don't worry.

In order for the story to do well, Amazon prefers if you can get a number of reviews out on it early. As such, I'm asking you all to help and review HO on August 1st when it comes out. If you want to keep a copy, you can download a slightly edited version of V1 with my snazzy new cover by c...

16.8: Rescue VIII

The cafe that we’d ended up in wasn’t something I would’ve exactly called a safe house. It wasn’t the most conspicuous building, but it wasn’t like it was actually hidden away from any prying eyes. Then again, maybe that was the point—having something so mundane that any investigation would just roll over it.

To hear the veiled lady talk about it, though, I was getting the impression that it was more because the Church didn’t have knowledge of this place’s exist...

16.7: Rescue VII

The sensation of someone invading my mind was unfortunately no longer an unfamiliar one. Oathtongue had become something that I’d gotten used to seeing recently, and yet this… this was different. This was familiar in a way that spoke to me in an almost nostalgic manner, except I would have been much happier if this part of my past had been burned to shreds.

If there had been any doubt in my mind that this was the same lady in white that had overseen the majority of my childhood, the...

16.6: Rescue VI

Six enemies. Only six, and none of them were using oaths.

Seriously, who did the Church think I was? Against the seemingly unstoppable combination of a bunch of their strongest oathholders, I was pretty sure I didn’t stand a chance. And now they were throwing that away just to send a message? I’d faced six oathholders before, each and every one of them stronger than me. With the help of alignment, I’d demolished them without a hitch. This? This was laughably easier.

It almos...

16.5: Rescue V

“Here we are,” I said, staring down the headquarters. It was a formidable building, I had to give them that.

“This has to be the tallest building in the town, right?” Kyle was fooling around with his knife again, causing it to disappear and reappear with a few flicks of his wrist. Was that a nervous tic?

“Probably,” I said, craning my head up. “I would believe it.”

If it wasn’t this building, then one of the other Church headquarters probably qualified. Fin...

16.4: Rescue IV

“There’s people coming from each hall,” Kyle said. “Just cast a detection spell, that’s what I’m getting. Looks like they’re split up and attempting a pincer.”

With the alignment I’d fallen into, the weird ability to sense the presence of other oaths even when they were obscured by walls was back. From what I could glean, he was right. There were one or two signatures coming from each of the six other halls. Apparently, some mechanism or another had alerted them to act...

16.3: Rescue III

The first thing I noticed about the Church’s church was how big it was. We weren’t in a part of Dakheng that was particularly affluent—as a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I’d passed through here with House Alzaq earlier this week when we’d been canvassing the city looking for enemies, and this area had been notable for the number of shabby, sleazy establishments taking up space.

For an area that had to be on the poorer side, the church was huge. It stood out, its spire near...

16.2: Rescue II

Kyle thrust his hands out, and the particles from his spell spread out across the area, coating it like a thin layer of snow. Not that I’d seen all that much snow—Syashan had been in a pretty temperate area, after all—but from the little I’d experienced up in the far north on the one or two times I’d been travelling when I was a kid, I was pretty sure that it was a similar sight. Well, that or dust, but snow felt a lot more poetic than the latter in my mind.

“What does this ...

I am sick

Well, this sucks. Just after I have a huge chapter delay, I have another one. I'm in bed with a huge fever, so chapter is late. Sorry, and thanks for sticking with me <3

16.1: Rescue

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I hadn’t been in Dakheng in literally over a decade. I hadn’t been involved in noble affairs—events of last night excluded—in that same period of time. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what had happened, where Jasmine was, and even if there was hope for her to still be alive.

Step by step. Assess the situation.

The Varga estate—or what was left of it, rather—was on fire. Whatever had done this had been pretty damn thorough, beca...

Chapter Delay

I am at NSDA Nationals, a weeklong tournament.

This unfortunately means that I currently have extraordinarily little free time. Thus, there will almost definitely not be a chapter on Tuesday on RR or Patreon. I'm sorry. Will do my best to ensure a release on Wednesday or Thursday.

15.11: Dakheng, Divided XI

“Fancy seeing you here,” Seb said, his voice as wild as it had been when we’d parted ways.

I squinted at him. That voice… had it always been like this? Maybe it was more apparent today, but there was an element of calculatedness to it, like he was intentionally pushing it forward. Maybe not something that a person less experienced in dealing with professional bullshitters would catch, but there was an anomaly there.

That… was a consideration. I already knew Seb was a lot...

15.10: Dakheng, Divided X

“Full disclosure,” Kyle said, flipping a knife around, “I saw the [QUERY] you used.”

“And?” I asked, restraining my curiosity. I had to tread carefully here. One wrong step and the critical information about my past might leak to people that really had no business knowing.

“I don’t know enough about nobles to be sure, but the flashes I got made it seem like you were one.” Kyle thrust the blade into his palm to punctuate his statement, the metal n...

15.9: Dakheng, Divided IX

“There are multiple groups of commoners,” Jasmine said. “Some of them we know the origin of.”

“Sorry,” Orchid said. “They are likely still under the control of House Alzaq in some fashion.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that one,” I said. “The one that I bumped into didn’t seem to give two shits about House Alzaq yesterday night.”

“My siblings are somewhat more heavy-handed than I am,” Orchid replied, heaving out a sigh. “They’ll have reco...

15.8: Dakheng, Divided VIII

We didn’t run into any commoners that recognized Orchid on our way to the meeting place. We definitely did pass commoners, and some of them were even armed and rushing towards the location we’d departed from, but few of them seemed to connect the tired, limping pair of travellers with the noble that they’d been ordered to kill. Given that most of them had probably never seen a noble in real life before, let alone Orchid Alzaq, I was willing to bet that they had been pointed at the exact...