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Jess D. Astra

Jess D. Astra

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Jess D. Astra posts

DD2 CH31: Chimeti Showdown

Rhen shielded his eyes as he looked up to the misty clouds of the alpine chamber. He couldn’t even see it anymore. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Wyland, but he really hopped nothing went wrong with the aerial part of the plan, which was almost the whole plan.

Joseph led the team, two by two, down the softly trodden path. Th...

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DD2 CH30: Break From The Routine

After three weeks of being followed around by orbeyes, they all finally fell into a normal routine. Rhen had discovered that the broadcast doubled as a hiring platform when he mentioned casually over dinner that they really needed more metal workers, and two days later his doorstep was bursting with people eager to share in the profit of Zephitz...

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DD2 CH29: Orbeye Broadcast

“Just a little lefter!” Lowt yelled from the ground.

Rhen hung precariously off the edge of the broadcast tower and nudged the halfmoon projection disc to the left.

“Good! Come on down!”

Rhen released the brake on the belay harness and slid down the thick metal pole of the broadcast tower. The architect team had whipped...

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DD2 Cover

DD2 Cover

Henlo dudes! AHHH I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! So much that I ordered a cosplay of her outfit that I'm going to wear to DragonCon and MileHiCon this year! I'm super stoked, and you guys will of course get updates. I wish I had the time and skill to make the cosplay myself, but alas, I do not... Maybe in a few years I'll pick is up =P

Anyway, that'...

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DD2 CH28: Can We Finally Get Underway?

After meeting the Arannet’s contacts; Haru the media broadcaster genius, Felicity the advertisement specialist, and Xander the tech-man, Rhen was ready to head home. They agreed on a small up-front payment to get started, and a one percent royalty all around for the two and a half months they’d be putting on the show. Arannet supplied all th...

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DD2 CH27: This is the Way

The anima culminated in the palm of Rhen’s hand as he prepared to send himself for respawn.

“Wait, my friend. This is not over yet.”

Rhen looked over his shoulder to Aki. “You should go now.”

“Just wait,” Aki whispered urgently.

Tansi stood in Rhen’s periphery. He looked to her, confused. She gave...

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Thirsty Thursday Thoughts

Henlo my dudes! I've got two big-ol glasses of water with me and am chugging to stave off dehydration. It's very hot in my house and for some reason I'm still walking on my treadmill >.<  gotta fit in that cosplay I ordered (more on that Sunday with a cover reveal!)

Deathless Dungeoneers

Book 2 has been uploaded and sche...

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DD2 - CH26: Where There's a Will

Rhen’s leg bounced against the train seat. Arannet’s did something similar next to him, but her fine shoe did a click-click-click on the metal floor with every bounce. Aki sat across from him, his colors a muted blue. That didn’t give Rhen a lot of confidence, but then again, he hadn’t specifically cataloged all of Aki’s color...

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DD2 - CH25: Tiki Farewell

The crowd was curious, everyone whispering and guessing at the letters Rhen had received. They’d find out soon enough.

Rhen climbed on top of a pile of concrete stone, elevating himself above the chattering heads. “Everyone join me at the inn in thirty minutes, please. I have something important to tell you, and something important to ...

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Monster Haven 1 Is Aliiiiiive!

Henlo my dudes! The Reluctant Dungeon is alive and well on amazon, and I need your help!

Currently sitting at 92k paid in store, and we need to get to 500! Just kidding, what a pipe dream ^_^

But if you could swing by to drop it a review, help get some organic lift, that would really help me out <3

Thanks so much for all tha...

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DD2 - CH24: The Other Shoe

Aki guided the flat platform loaded with Welsh’s old machines down the river with Rhen’s guidance. As it turned out, Welsh had several machines Rhen could make good use of just sitting around at his dungeon, and when the auction notification went out, he was the first there. A few other owners of very small dungeons showed up to see what the...

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DD2 - CH23: Back in Business

Rhen pushed his anima drill deeper into the Magnite rich wall that Joseph’s team had discovered. They were all currently off enjoying their time in the bath, while Olliat, Eli, and Derk got the Faust parents up to snuff for the Alpine chamber by farming some terrockens. They’d need cephaloshifter and blubberific before they could join them i...

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DD2 - What should the new realm be called?

Henlo everyone, I just wrapped up book 2 but I need to have the new realm named! I said I would run a poll in the book, and I feel like I should run a poll IRL too! Contribute your ideas for the beachy paradise ^_^

~J.D. Astra

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DD2 - CH22: Any Way Forward

Rhen spent the train ride back to the dungeon in absolute terror. His circular thoughts revolved around his choices: stay and finished the dungeon build only for the Desedras to sweep in just before everything was finished and take it out from under him, or run.

Sen was giving him the chance to run, he wanted Rhen to run, because ...

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Fermented Friday Fancying

Henlo my dudes!

Yes, I did forget to do the Thirsty Thursday Thoughts... I'm sorry. I'm in Burbank right now visiting the Disney Imaginarium R&D warehouse! Some of you know I did work with them a little while back and we're doing a "wrap" party now, hooray! Sorry so much for forgetting, though... I've just got water with me now, but la...

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DD2 - CH21: The Faust and The Furious

The train rocked from side to side and Rhen watched the supposedly sleeping Tsu’me.

She’d spilled all the beans.

Welsh had not only tried to get her to destroy the node by sabotaging Wyland’s machine—for which she had a damned blueprint—the fluffer had wanted her to raid the coffers on the way out. And it hadn’t ...

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Free Monster Haven 1 e-book download!

Henlo my dudes! Monster Haven is coming out on Tuesday and I'm so stoked! For your patronage, you get yourself a shiny free pre-release.

It's absolutely not required, but I request with all my heart that you drop a review on release day. It would make me super happy, and it would really help my chances of getting organic growth an...

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DD2 - CH20: Sorry Serenade

Rhen awoke surrounded by warmth. He opened his eyes to the sparkling purple crystals and black stone of the inn. Teal light swirled around, sending watery ripples across the ceiling. Water slid down a steep shoot on the right wall, warming the pool, and another drain led out the left side, slowly cycling water.

He was in the bath, but why,...

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DD2 - CH19: Death Train

Rhen notched an arrow of anima and fired at the first yeti. The projectile speared straight through its chest and into the head of the yeti right behind it. They both went down with a thud. Rhen wanted to kill as many of them in the dungeon as he could, making sure they had plenty of time to harvest their cores before they disappeared.

He ...

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DD2 - CH18: Mountain Stronghold

The two teams had cordially crossed the lake together, and the race was on as soon as they hit the entrance to the Alpine chamber.

“Good luck out there, youngins,” Joseph said with a salute.

“And the same luck to you, old people,” Olliat said with a sneer.

“Great,” Bort murmured. “Babysitting.”...

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DD2 - CH17: Friendly Competition

When Rhen got back to the inn, several people were gathered and chatting with a grinning Arannet. They gave her a few pats on the back and retreated back to their posts when they saw Rhen.

He joined her at the paperwork table. “So, how are we going to show this bastard we mean business?”

“By getting some signatures done!” Ara...

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DD2 - Ch16: Rhen and Maddox Forever

Rhen awoke warm in his bed. He moved, but stopped immediately when he noticed the arm tucked around his waist. Jakira mumbled something in her sleep and tightened her grip on him.

Rhen tried to inhale through his nose, but it was stuffed, and his head was throbbing. He sighed. Had he really cried himself to sleep in her arms? How ...

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DD2 - Ch15: Wife Problems

Rhen used a chisel to make a cord notch in he bow-to-be and blew out the wood flakes. The dry, savory smell of black ashenwood filled the shop, as Barrek and Gil worked on making the new doors for the baths. Rhen had requisitioned some of the softer black ashenwood to create the bow he long sought.

He sanded the outside lovingly, giving at...

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DD2 - Ch14: Pressure Relief

“All I’m saying is, we can probably lob a flaming bag of terrocken dung into that big ass window without being seen.” Jakira slid through the snow on her side and bashed in the kneecap of the attacking yeti.

The yeti howled in pain and jumped back, more nimble than most. Rhen dashed around the side of it to see the blue syntial for w...

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Thirsty Thursday Thoughts

Henlo my dudes! It’s Thursday already!!! I almost forgot thinking it was tomorrow... I’ve got water of course, because I’m slipping into bed to read some more of The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Deathless Dungeoneers 

Book 1 is trucking right along toward publication. ^_^

Book 2 is at about 85%-90% complete ^_^<...

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DD2 - Ch13: His Majesty of Flufferdom, Sir Welsh

Rhen wasted no time getting to the Welsh cluster, using tremor blast jumps and swift twitch to speed him on his way. Aki held tight to Rhen’s shoulders, unable to keep up in the river beside him. They passed Derk and Tsu’me along the way. The Sephine had shriek in terror, thinking perhaps Rhen had come to enact some vengeance on her. When th...

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DD2 - Ch12: Treachery, Of Course...

Rhen awoke and threw back the shades Leslie had crafted for his window. Light from the rainforest chamber streamed in. He opened the window and took a deep breath of the warm, humid air. It was a relief in the depths of a dungeon.

Then movement caught his gaze in the underbrush. Rhen thought maybe just a deer-tailed jackalope, or maybe eve...

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DD2 Ch11: The Alpine Chamber

~ Pre-chapter note! Hey so, I'm writing this book kinda fast and so... here comes some more chapters faster! Schedule is now Monday-Saturday for the next few weeks.

-------------------------

They harvested the core from the yeti with much disgust and left most of its charred corpse to be absorbed back into the dungeon. Rhen couldn’...

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DD2 Ch10: Jetski Jettaway

“Test?” Tsu’me asked, wide-eyed.

Rhen nodded. “Yep. We’re gonna fight some yetis. Arannet, you can officiate some delver paperwork, right?”

“Uh, yep, let me just…” she turned yet another ring on a different finger and it lit up with a blue glow. Hundreds of sheets of paper going off into the distance were silhouette...

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DD2 Ch9: New Arrivals

The train jostled Rhen awake, sending splitting pain through his skull. The light was a nuisance, the sound was grating, existence was pain.

Ugh, why had he done this to himself?

Jakira was still sleeping, her head rested on his shoulder as she snored gently. Rhen tucked a stray strand of brilliant red hair behind her ear and smiled....

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