A Temperamental Enchantress: A LitRPG Adventure (A New Home Book 2), page 1
AN UNWITTING PRINCE
©2022 SEAN OSWALD
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Contents
ALSO IN SERIES:
The story up to now
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Emily/Emiri Stat Sheet
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Dave’s Stats and New Spells
Interlude 1
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Jackson’s Stats
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Sara’s Stats
Chapter 24
Interlude 2
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Mira Stat Sheet
Chapter 30
Interlude 3
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Gianna’s Stats and Class Notification
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Character Sheets at End of the Book
Thank you for reading A Temperamental Enchantress
Groups
LitRPG
ALSO IN SERIES:
AN UNWITTING PRINCE
You are about to read: A TEMPERAMENTAL ENCHANTRESS
The story up to now
The Nelsons, a 22nd-century family of five from Earth, are brought to Eloria, a magical world that operates on game-like rules, in book one, Watcher’s Test. They initially undergo the process of receiving new bodies where Dave and Emily, the parents, both get to choose their race. After Dave chooses to be human and Emily a moon elf, their children become half-elves.
Despite receiving skills based on their prior lives and some gifts of magical gear from the Watcher, they struggle to adapt to Eloria. Dave and his son, Jackson, are familiar with the system of the world from their experience with similar games back home, but for Emily, and to a lesser extent Mira, the rules of this new world are foreign and illogical. Sara, the youngest of the Nelson clan is only eight but seems to take things in her stride with her characteristic positive attitude.
After initially surviving and leveling up in the woods, they make a few discoveries. First, they learn that no one under ten can gain XP and also that seemingly the only way to gain levels is by killing monsters or meeting the requirements to gain a class.
Emily is gifted with a rare class and becomes a Daughter of the Goddess Shanelle. This shoots her past Dave in levels and becomes a bone of contention as Dave wasn’t able to gain a class. Dave’s internal struggles about how to design his new abilities cause him turmoil while he struggles between being the strong and durable defender he believes his family needs and the mage that he wants to be.
Eventually, the family stumble upon the frontier town of Eris’ Rise. It is little more than a logging village where a group of former serfs was granted their freedom in exchange for helping the kingdom of Albia with their needs for more lumber. The human residents are initially hostile to elves, but upon learning that Emily is a Daughter of Shanelle, they begin to revere her.
It becomes apparent in the village that most of the population is at level zero and does their best to avoid combat. Dave’s strength allows him to become the sheriff of the small town, which is beset by goblins led by a death knight. The reasons for the attack are unknown to them initially, but fortunately, help appears in the form of one of the Albian king’s squads of soldiers led by a man named Maxwell Smart.
Book one concludes with two significant points as they discover that Max is also from Earth—although he has been in Eloria for three years, he was pulled from Earth in the 1960s. Secondly, Sara Nelson is kidnapped by a goblin scout who took a liking to her.
Book two, Watcher’s Question, continues with the search for Sara and the Nelsons gathering more allies. Based in part upon his work and the recommendation from Max but also as part of a political game, the king of Albia elevates Dave to the nobility and names him the baron of Eris’ Rise under Duke Holstein.
In order to bind the Nelsons to the kingdom, Jackson is required to travel back to the capital and attend the king’s academy for young nobles. In exchange, the king arranges for more settlers, royal troops, and support from the three churches recognized in Albia.
Meanwhile, Emily is forced to meet with the rulers of the moon elves despite not having found her missing daughter yet. The need for help and to protect the rest of her family conflicts with her desire to find her child.
Since the land where Eris’ Rise is situated is disputed territory between humans and moon elves, the elven rulers raise Emily to be a noble of the moon elves and name her co-ruler with her husband as the human representative. They, in turn, send troops and Daichi—a high-leveled monk who will act as both bodyguard and mentor in elven ways for Emily.
Sara is found and rescued by a reclusive half-orc/half-elf woman named Balayria. Balayria takes her in and even accepts Krinnk who has become Sara’s first monster friend based on an epic class granted to Sara by the Watcher. This is the first time that a child under 10 has received a class let alone such an extremely rare one.
Her class enables her to form bonds of deep friendship with sentient but un-souled monsters. She gains a portion of their stats and specific abilities from her monster friends just as they gain intelligence and other appropriate stats from her. The class seems destined to make Sara into an outsider as it requires her to be a friend and defender of her monster friends who are unlikely to be accepted by the civilized races.
She, eventually, is recovered by her father and brought back to Eris’ Rise, along with Krinnk and Balayria. There she quickly becomes a darling of the town, popular with humans and elves alike. She also forms a second bond with a bear-sized rabbit she names Snowball.
Her older sister, Mira, has also gained a class. In her case, it was the rare class Meta-mage. Instead of specializing in any specific type of magic, she learned to work with the raw substance of magic itself. She quickly levels and becomes quite strong as something of a prodigy but mistakes points in her Intelligence stat for actually being smarter.
Book two brings about further revelations regarding the nature of Eloria both in broad and wider strokes. They learn more than they want to about the politics of the world but less than they probably need to know. They also learn just how unique they are and continue to keep their origins unique.
Most humans on the continent of Talos are capped at Tier 1, which means they can never rise beyond level 9. Elves while fewer in number seem to have a higher percentage who are able to reach Tier 2, but most of their population is capped there. The Nelsons not only are flying through the levels but also gain significant bonuses from the Watcher, which increase in value exponentially each time they reach a new Tier.
Book Three, Watcher’s Fate, has further exploration of the dungeon they discovered outside of Eris’ Rise. They also are once again targeted by those who have political agendas for the town of Eris’ Rise. The Nelsons continue to grow strong, and after coming to terms with the man that he wants to be, Dave achieves a powerful, epic class, Arcane Dreadnought, which enables him to be both the frontline defensive melee fighter
This growth and revelation cause him to seemingly grow in arrogance, but the change is subtle. He is not the only one who is facing turmoil, though, as we discover that Jackson has been the subject of brutal bullying at the academy both as an upstart noble and a half-elf. He does, however, form one true friendship that likely saves his life.
Dave is torn up when he finds out the conditions his son has been suffering under at the academy, but it becomes an opportunity for them to reaffirm the bonds of family.
Book three ends with revelations about who is really behind all of their struggles. They meet a spiderkin mage named Seimion who has been active behind the scenes as a representative of the Cult of Alucien. Dave is offered power if he will bow to the cult. Emily finally begins to accept that Eloria isn’t Earth and that if she truly wants to protect her family, she will have to become powerful herself. Sara also forms her third bond with Altracia the dungeon drake and core of the neighboring dungeon. This leads to an alliance of sorts between the dungeon and the Nelsons.
Book four, Watcher’s Repose, continues to efforts of the Nelsons to make Eris’ Rise into a thriving community with contributions from both elven and human culture. Emily fully adopts her nature as a moon elf and takes on her moon elf name, Emiri, along with their customs.
Jackson grows stronger and finds that the forces attacking his family are also active in Konig, the capital of Albia. A play is being made for the throne by Duke Holstein, and sides must be chosen. Jackson ends up fighting in the sewers of Konig against strange hellish creatures that hint at the dark alliances Holstein has made in his quest for power. He forms a new friendship that may be more with a foreign princess, Gianna.
Dave struggles with the voice inside his head pushing him to greater arrogance and demands for power. Mira works to master her craft of enchanting and makes some new discoveries simply because she doesn’t know what is and what isn’t possible according to traditional learning.
They also discover that there is another continent on the world of Eloria and that at some point in the past, the ancestors of those living on Talos were exiled here from the old world. Matters come to a head with enemies stepping out of the shadow and a valued ally falls in the final battle while a new king is chosen for Albia with Dave’s support. Thus ends the first story arc entitled Life in Exile.
The second story arc begins with An Unwitting Prince part of a new trilogy called A New Home. It focuses more on Jackson but follows the entire family. We see forces learned about way back in book one, like the orcs, coming to the forefront as the threat of continent-wide war rises up.
A new Earthling is discovered in the orc woman, Chemig—or Karin by her Earth name. It turns out she was brought to Eloria 26 years before the Nelsons and struggled alone to find a way to fit into the orc clans. They are a harsh people living in an even harsher world, and Karin found herself poorly prepared for that world.
Jackson’s relationship with Princess Gianna advances despite his missteps, and Emiri struggles to come to grips with seeing her children grow up. Mira is annoyed to be tasked to babysit an ambassador from the sun elves rather than getting to work on her enchanting or leveling.
Dave was raised to become a duke to replace the slain Holstein and must deal with a series of rebellions in his land. Once again it becomes clear that his enemy is not simply the human rebels.
Emiri is serving as an ambassador and building relationships for the moon elves with human nations. She is also very pregnant—something learned at the end of book four. This limits her ability to do what she wants, but both she and Dave look forward to the birth of their fourth child.
Sara has aged faster due to time spent in the time dilation of the dungeon and finally reaches the age of ten when she gains access to her character sheet and can make use of her stat and character points. She makes decisions guided by the divergent instincts of her monster friends while also forming a new bond with the infant treant, Petal.
An Unwitting Prince ends with three revelations. Jackson becomes engaged to Princess Gianna. They are both fourteen and only months from the Elorian age of majority. The second major event at the end is a discovery by Mira of an elven village where the people have been slaughtered.
Finally, Sara is once again separated from her family. This time though it is under her own power. She feels that she is neglected by her parents who are caught up in so many other things. She is struggling with more power than any ten-year-old child should ever have and is filled with conflicting influences. The wild streak of her monster friends causes her to feel ill at ease in civilization.
Yet, she is a Nelson through and through and decides to leave so that she won’t be in the way and to help an unknown person she feels drawn to in the far north. When she flies there, she rescued a beaten and battered woman who was fleeing from a group of dwarven warriors in the mountains.
Prologue
The darkness of the night was no impediment to Megor’s eyes. He had been set to watch, and watch he had. No one disobeyed the master and lived long, so diligence in his duties was the most prudent of actions. Not that Megor was what one would call a true believer. Rather he was a pragmatist. They had already killed the master once, and yet he still wielded more power than any of the praetors.
It might not be obvious on the streets, but those who had reached a certain level knew that another war was coming. This one would not be between the races but rather between differing visions for the future. The irony was that the Alucien had won the last cultural battle nearly a thousand years ago. His grand purge had been implemented. All the undesirables had been banished from Solun.
Instead of a panacea like it was supposed to create, society was even more divided. Anyone who didn’t make it into the academy now was deemed to be the dregs of society, fit for little more than menial work, even if they made it to Tier 4. Once again, there were even rumors of a growing number of those who stalled out at Tier 3.
Megor shook at such a thought. Thanks to the boons he had received from Alucien, he had already been accepted as a junior instructor of conjuration at the academy, even though he had only just reached Tier 6. Once he received everything that he had been promised, he would be able to challenge for the position of praetor in a couple of decades. That was nothing to a moon elf such as he.
His scrying had revealed the danger to the one he was watching. He had only been assigned to watch her two weeks ago, and while she was impressive for a child, Megor still couldn’t fathom what the master’s interest in her was based on. But questions were not encouraged, so he kept his mouth shut and kept watch over the girl. By all the true gods, if it got him what he wanted, he would have even married the half-breed despite the chill down his spine that such a thought caused.
