Accidental Artificer

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

All I wanted was to eat leftovers and have a drink after a long day at work, but somehow my fridge turned into a portal to a massive dungeon in another world.

[Winner ofthe Royal Road Writathon challenge April 2024, word count 72,671][Book 1 stubbed to first three chapters on August 11, 2025]

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2024
Author: SomewhatSaucyFrog

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Followers: 946
Views: 32,031

Chapters(6 total)

What readers say about Accidental Artificer

“Good story, with what I think is a pretty realistic take on what would happen if a texan found a dungeon. It has great bones, but stylistically it's a little stiff and could use some work. Even with the stiffness, it is never overly so and it doesn't draw…”
something pretentiousRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Do you like fridges with portals to extra dimensional dungeons? Do you love guns and blowing up goblins and orcs? How about gold and leveling up? If so, then this is for you! What really sets this story apart is the ability of the author to create visual de…”
JJB4335_80_815Royal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(8)

something pretentiousRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Good story, with what I think is a pretty realistic take on what would happen if a texan found a dungeon. It has great bones, but stylistically it's a little stiff and could use some work. Even with the stiffness, it is never overly so and it doesn't draw you out to far from the story. overall, a nice story with some light content to read between all the grim dark horror shows on top-rated. it is definitely worth a try and a good realistic dungeon fantasy with lots of potential.
As a sidetone, I put five stars because if I put four and a half stars it would actually lower the average rating (currently like 4.75), but if I was rating this in a vacuum without RR's system I'd probably give it a 4.5. It's still really good, but it definitely has room for improvement in grammar and style.
JJB4335_80_815Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Do you like fridges with portals to extra dimensional dungeons? Do you love guns and blowing up goblins and orcs? How about gold and leveling up? If so, then this is for you!
What really sets this story apart is the ability of the author to create visual descriptions that are both hilarious as well as vivid without being long-winded. The author expertly uses common cultural references to craft a captivating scene with refreshing brevity.
This story is still in the beginning stages, so it did take a little while for the main character to earn his artificer class. That has been slowly progressing as a plot point and something that I hope for more of in the future.
In conclusion, the author's style of writing is superb and worth reading for that reason alone.
Scarroll911Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Simple concept in premise with lots of potential. Mc finds the door to his dungeon in his fridge > goes in with AK. Honestly I love stories that merge guns with fantasy and this one does it far better than most. Highly recommend and excited to see where the story goes !!!
ConserveguyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I tend to ignore 5 star reviews because they don't tell you much other than OmG bEsT bOoK eVAr!111!!!! So if you ignore mine thats perfectly vaiid, but I will tell you why I'm rating it 5 stars.
First off I feell like he's a legitimately smart MC. For the first 5 chapters he doesn't get a system. Why not? Because you have to touch a weird rock the first time. And guess what? He fucking doesn't touch a glowing rock! he picks the class system up with tongs and puts it in a tupperware container until he can study it carefully!
Secondly I jusy really like the idea: What happens when a texan finds a dungeon in his fridge and uses guns? Spoiler alert:
Its fucking awesome
and there;s enough mystery to keep you interested witthout becoming Lost (Oh God did I just date myself with that reference?)
DreadHawkRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Munitions, Magic, and Murder who could ask for more. So this is a fun read, the some mistakes in the grammar and I wish we saw a bit more of other people, but like I said it’s a fun read and I can’t wait to see where you take the story.
DreamsRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Update: Knocked down to 3 stars, MC has starting making some dumb decisions, I.e. chapter 29 to 30 his rationale and logic just completely changes over the span of an hour or two in universe. Consistency in his logical approach to the dungeon/abilities was/is the strong point of the story, losing that really tanks it.
I've enjoyed reading the story up to this point. The MC started out as a fairly rationale character which was different than the average MC in the genre, although that's slowly changed in the last 10ish chapters. The dungeon diving setting is somewhat interesting and reading about a gun nut MC using advanced equipment tactically is satisfying to read. The doom prepper gun nut friend has been entertaining in his small doses with his military grade stocked vault in his house.
Grammar is okay, not many errors but very simple prose.
The one big negative so far is the introduction of his housemate and likely love interest. It's just pure and unabashed wish fulfillment, almost too much to take in a genre where it's already expected. Our MC is this machoman military badass which is fun when dungeon diving, but now that his real world chapters are spent with a damsel in distress falling for him within 2 days it's really killed my enjoyment in the story. I hate using this word but it really does come off as somewhat "cringy" too me.
I still think most people on this site would enjoy this story, and I'm still planning on follow for at least a little longer because i'm interested to see if there's any interesting world building in the dungeon. However the entry of the new character in the last 10ish chapters and their interaction with the MC has definitely took a star off my rating of the story.
DaicemanRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
Starts off as a pretty solid story of a gun nut finding a fantasy portal inside his fridge. A little unrealistic in terms of him not getting the cops called on him when he has multiple instances of shooting things in his own home, and their investigations of his home when he calls an ambulance, but it doesn’t stretch disbelief too far.
There’s also some psychological aspect as well, which is a wonderful addition. Most people would be scarred after life or death experiences back to back, but the dungeon seems to be effecting his mind, making him want to enter again. I really liked this, because it gives a reason why a normalish person would keep risking their life.
Unfortunately, the introduction of a literal damsel in distress which the MC conveniently has all the tools to save, along with the girl’s turnaround is some supreme gentlemen fantasy stuff. It feels very unrealistic and is dragging the story down. It feels like a caricature of “help help!” “I’ll save you m’lady” “my hero!”
optimitchRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
This story starts off okay - the flow of the writing is a bit stilted but as the author writes more they seem to get a handle on their character voices.
The main character is a sort of extremely generic white conservative (think "the dang communist government coming for my guns, taxes are robbery, I hate rap" kind of guy.) This can work, I like characters whose motivations I don't agree with all the time, but there has to be interesting decisions and pacing and conflict that is generated there. (paranoid mage is a good example of this, where I don't agree with the fantasy but the writing compels a good amount of buy-in.)
This story is, quite frankly, a white suburban punisher power fantasy. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is a lack of consideration in the characters, some offensive words are thrown around with no real thought put into them, the main character has somehow made it 20 chapters on an all meat and potatoes based diet. (burgers and fries, chili, bacon, and a bacon and hash brown MRE) This is less relevant, but it did make me laugh when I realized it.
The main character seems to be driven by a feeling of other people wanting to think "what a badass" or for personal vindication (quits his job by yelling at his manager about a requested raise 6 months ago). This makes him read as a petty man with petty vendettas - not necessarily someone I would root for gaining a large amount of power.
I think there are interesting ways to write a conservative character. I think there are interesting ways to talk about someone who is really into guns! I think they're neat, which is part of the reason I kept reading after some of the hiccups. But the lead here is such a caricature of an extremely violent paranoid prepper that it totally takes me out of the story. Maybe there is something interesting done with this character later down the line, but as it stands now I'd hesitate to recommend the story to anyone.