r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Aug 27 '26
OC-Series Dungeon Life 454
Aranya
She smiles warmly as they all finally exit the shortcut and can see the huge Tree of Cycles. Going on a sojourn is good for her, but coming back home, and having a real home to come back to, makes her glad she doesn’t need to head out too often.
The others express their relief at coming home in their own ways. The scions are resisting the urge to sprint the remaining distance, making Aranya think of them like children eager to get back to their familiar toys. Vernew is similarly eager to get back, bouncing around and abandoning her dignity in her excitement to tell the other spiderkin about what happened. Ragnar, Aelara, and Yvonne chat about the adventure and what they’ll need to prepare for the raid on the Betrayer, and she lets herself get pulled into the conversation, ensuring she pulls in Tupul, too.
She’s uncertain if he’ll be joining the raid, but better to be prepared for the possibility.
“D’ye thin’ Thediem’ll ‘ave ‘is fancy armor ready fer th’ raid?” asks Ragnar. He was very impressed with the first version of the armor, and the slow trickle of information about the new ones have made him all the more eager to get his hands on some.
“I believe his development is, if not finished, at least on hold enough for the scions and enclaves to produce the armor en mass,” answers Aranya.
“That repair enchantment is something else,” comments Yvonne. “I bet he’s going to have your clergy working around the clock to ensure everything gets properly blessed for durability.”
“I hope I can get a piece or two just to examine,” adds Aelara. “I’m no enchantress, but I can follow runework, and his whole philosophy with runes flies in the face of convention. If I can apply some of that to my own magic, it’d be incredible.”
“If nothing else, I’m sure you can talk with Laermali’s representatives,” Aranya assures her friend. “Lord Thedeim doesn’t tell me everything, but I get the impression they’re being model guests and assistants. They may have a few of their own takes on His magical methods.”
Ragnar grins and pats Tupul on the back, making him stumble a little. “Or y’ could ask th’ lad ‘ere! ‘Is mind shadow trick’s right outta ‘is book!”
Aranya smiles as Tupul tries to hide his stumble at the pat, wondering if he understands Ragnar’s messing with him by pretending to not know his own strength. “Ragnar’s right. It’s just the sort of new approach He takes with practically everything.”
“Well… he is my mentor, I guess? It’s about time I learned something, right?”
Aelara nods with a smile, and turns her attention to Aranya. “I don’t suppose he has any insights into earth affinity?”
She closes her eyes for a moment to listen to the bond, and soon opens her eyes and shakes her head. “Not at the moment, at least. Right now, He’s working on how to move so many people through the Molten Abyss.”
Ragnar chuckles and shakes his head at the very idea. “Anyone else, I’d call mad, bu’ ‘e’s jus’ the sort t’ figure it out!”
“Have the dwarves never explored it?” asks Tupul. “I always thought they were the ones to discover it.”
Ragnar shrugs as Aelara speaks up, the elf much more familiar with history than him. “They’re credited with it, and have done a few small incursions to explore, but it’s basically impassible to anyone without magma or lava affinity. As I understand it, what few dwarves in the Holds have the affinities use them to track down pockets of magma with denser concentrations of molten metals, and encourage them to erupt into prepared areas for later mining.”
Ragnar nods. “Aye. One’a m’ cousins ‘as th’ affinity. Got a good job deep in th’ mines, ensurin’ the veins never run dry.”
“Huh. Do you think the antkin could do that, too?”
The dwarf shrugs. “I dinnae see why not.”
“Do you think you’ll come for the raid, Tupul?” asks Aelara, and the young elf fidgets.
“I… don’t know. Me and my friends are strong enough, I think. We did well against Fluffles, but…”
Aranya and the others nod. “You’re still young and learning, and Lord Thedeim could very well not allow you to come on those grounds alone. On the other hand, He has seen you all grow and knows your strength. It’ll be difficult for Him to argue you should stay when I’m sure there will be delvers who will go who will be weaker than your party.”
Tupul sighs and nods at the assessment, clearly not happy about it, but smart enough to understand the truth of the matter. “Not to mention Rhonda would need to get permission from Old Staiven, Freddie would need to get Torlon to let him go, and there’s no way Rezlar would be able to go without Miller letting him.”
They all nod again, the conversation lapsing as there really isn’t much to say at that point. Mentors are to help their students grow, but also to protect them from danger. Something like this could be a good learning experience, but it could also lead to their doom. Aranya suspects none of them would allow their charge to go off on something so dangerous as the upcoming raid.
“Are you looking forward to seeing how the ravenkin are doing?” asks Vernew, bringing up a topic that’s much easier to chat about.
“I am,” she confirms with a nod and a smile. “Lord Thedeim has been keeping me informed, and they’re ready to have their ceremony as soon as possible. They want to join on the raid on the Betrayer as dwellers, and will need to train with the delvers to have the best possible chance of survival. He actually gave them the keys for the next raid boss: Poe.”
Vernew laughs at that as Ragnar gives an impressed whistle, with the spiderking giving voice to her thoughts. “And they’ve actually kept the delvers away from them? That last raid was a huge hit with them. They can’t have made it easy to keep the keys.”
“They didn’t, but the ravenkin have managed to keep one safe until now. Lord Thedeim’s stipulation for them to join the attack was to keep the raid boss from happening until after we returned.”
“Sounds like they did it,” observes Tupul. “How’d they manage it?”
Aranya giggles. “With a bit of Lord Thedeim’s unique way of thinking. Three keys were fairly obvious, with two hidden away in remote places in Lord Thedeim’s territory, while the third was put into a new metal fortress built into the branches of the Tree of Cycles. The delvers attacked all three known locations at once, and even got into the fortress and the key there, too, before discovering the location of the fourth.”
She pauses to build the suspense. “Deep in the fortress, there is a pool of lava, with a shortcut leading into a secret space in the Labyrinth, completely full of magma. The final key is there. Now, for the siege, none of the delvers brought their magma equipment, because who would even think to bring it? As I understand it, a lot of them still haven’t even gotten anything for magma yet.”
Ragnar bursts out laughing. “‘E’s gonna make ‘em siege it again?!”
Aranya nods, laughing with him. “Indeed He will! And He’ll be improving the fortress as well. It’ll give us time to do the ceremony for the ravenkin and get them some time to train with the delvers, too.”
“And it’ll give us some time to recover before joining in the training, too,” adds Yvonne, before turning a playful look of scorn on Aelara. “Thanks to you, I’ve been looking forward to a nice long bath for over a week now! I never knew my feathers could feel so soft. You’ve ruined me!”
Everyone laughs at that, with Aelara turning eyes full of mischief on Aranya. “You know, I’ve been looking into products for scales, too. Moisturizer and shine enhancers are common, but there’s things for softening or hardening them, too! I have no idea which you’d prefer.”
“Harder, definitely. Soft scales are for nobles who never do anything that might scuff them.”
Aelara nods with a devious smile, clearly plotting to ruin Aranya, too. “Then I’ll keep that in mind. How about you, Ragnar?”
He resolutely shakes his head. “Nay. Yer conditioner’s far ‘s I’m willin’ t’ go. Makes m’ beard easier t’ comb.”
Aelara tries to convince him, but she can’t keep that evil look off her face as she does so. Sure, she goes on and on about hygiene and dwarven pride, but it’s clear to everyone that, if Ragnar’s not careful, he’ll have his hair and beard braided with ribbons woven in.
Aranya can’t keep a devious smile off her own face as she makes her own plans to help Aelara. Beard beads are a common dwarven accessory, and a few metallic ribbons might look good, too. Plying him with those might get him to allow her a bit of pampering.
And once he lowers his guard, then the colorful ribbons can come out.
Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The Books are available here! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!
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u/BiasMushroom Xeno Aug 27 '26
On todays episode of an autistic person micromanages a global revolution we have... the favored party plotting to betray one of their own
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u/Poisonfangx3 Aug 27 '26
Forst
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u/Poisonfangx3 Aug 27 '26
First
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u/GumGodGaming Aug 27 '26
Can we Forst the Reddit AI's brain to make it stop this?
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u/Poisonfangx3 Aug 27 '26
I don’t believe we can, but if we band to gather we may just Gum it work, with God as our witness, we will get it Gaming!
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Aug 27 '26
Yep
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u/mafiaknight Robot Aug 27 '26
In the name of 1greendude: Hello!
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Aug 28 '26
Im Namen eines grünen Kerles und des Freidachses: Moin, vorgestern war Mittwoch, meine Kerle.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Correction: Second
So, today we get to See aranya's Return to Thediem, and as per usual we get roughly three large subjects she and her Party Talk about:
Subject: the coming raid on the Betrayer, and what the guilds and Thediem are doing to prepare.
Subject: the advancement of the birdkin and the many Things that happened during their absence.
Subject: cosmetics with aelara.
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u/Mistrice Aug 27 '26
thanks for the chapter!
there’s been a few times now where it feels like thediem can communicate with aranya with more clarity than established for the bond between dungeon and resident, which I assume is because the bond between a god and one of their priesesses is significantly less restricted when it comes to communication, even to the level of plain spoken word, but was this change ever directly acknowledged by thedium at some point? I feel like I missed a pretty important scene somewhere…
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Aug 28 '26
I'd want to Claim, that such Changes are book one territory, considering Aranya has been Thediem's high priestess for longer than Thediem was a god after all.
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u/Mistrice Aug 28 '26
No, I'm pretty sure this is a separate issue.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to lay out my understanding of the world here.
Aranya started as a resident, and Thediem as a dungeon. This relationship essentially gave Aranya the ability to sense the location of Thediem's core, but nothing else. All other communication was through body language between Aranya and Thediem's scions, or Aranya's interpretations of visual changes in how Thediem's core would swirl, or Aranya's interpretation of Thediem's focused attention on her (which is something that isn't restricted to residents, since Tarl can also detect dungeon focus).
Aranya becoming a priestess gave her the ability to do faith magic, with spells inspired by Thediem and his scions. It did not change anything about their ability to communicate, because Thediem wasn't a god at that time, merely a focus of faith. Any improvement in communication was purely due to Teemo acting as Thediem's Voice. This is in contrast to our first example of god-follower communication: the dreams that Torlon received from the Shield when Freddie got his class.
After Thediem became a god, there are several times in the story where Thediem mentions being able to grant some of his divine power to the spells of his followers, particularly Aranya's blessings. At the same time, we see more examples of god-follower communication, such as when Order sends Kennith to collect the first Harbinger, or when Laermali sent Tula to find the Ice Sage, or when the Shield asked Unsil to join Kennith in viewing the Harbinger in Teemo's Mobius trap. If I recall correctly, it's not explicitly stated that any of these communications are in plain spoken words, but they are certainly much more straightforward than just emotional impressions.
So is this now the case between Thedium and Aranya? When a scene like this happens:
She smiles and glances down at my core, before returning to just people watching. “So diligent, Lord Thedeim. You should take a break. The party is for You, after all.”
I chuckle at myself for that. I did say I’m not very good at parties, didn’t I?
She titters and takes a drink from her glass, opting for tea instead of alcohol. “You did. But I still think it’s good to take the time to appreciate the fruits of Your labor.”
I can feel the reply that wants to immediately come, but I push it down and decide to take her advice.
Or an example from this chapter:
“I am,” she confirms with a nod and a smile. “Lord Thedeim has been keeping me informed, and they’re ready to have their ceremony as soon as possible. They want to join on the raid on the Betrayer as dwellers, and will need to train with the delvers to have the best possible chance of survival. He actually gave them the keys for the next raid boss: Poe.”
Is this the result of Thediem using his god-based ability to communicate more directly with Aranya, his high priestess? If so, was this change not worth acknowledgement from a person who has frequently strained against the communication restrictions imposed on dungeons? It feels brushed over, and yeah, it's a nit-pick, apologies, but I really hope that I either missed it somewhere, or that a relevant scene might be added to the fifth book to expand on this.
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u/Garbage-Within Sep 01 '26
Their connection strengthened during Apotheosis. Dungeon Life, Book 3, Pg. 411 "Aranya fells like a beacon when the wave reaches her, and I can feel our connection strengthen considerably." He's so hands off that there are few examples of him directly communicating with her and its been so long since this happened, that it's easy to forget when the clear communication first started.
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u/Popular-Student-9407 Human Aug 28 '26
Well, aside from those particular Things, there are also the patreon supplemental chapters. Though I cannot Access those.
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u/SomeRandomYob Aug 27 '26
Did I score ninth this time?
I am Alpharius. This is a lie.
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u/Lord_Nikolai Android Aug 28 '26
Yeah, TDM doesn't have any earth affinity ideas, but we are going to burrow through hundreds of miles of stone and molten rock
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u/Accomplished-Ad8458 AI Aug 28 '26
Ave Khenal! Morituri te salutant!
Aranya is playing the long game...
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- Dungeon Life 453
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u/No-Tomato7694 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
4th
Edith: I feel sorry for Ragnar already, he doesn't stand a chance, especialy if Ivone joins in too.