Dungeon Calamity (The Divine Dungeon, #3)

by Dakota Krout

were trying to leverage for better deals.

I'm not sure it's kosher to use "leverage" like that. Leverage is like exploit but with a positive connotation.

from his Essence control class taught by Craig,

Seriously awkward

He tried to ‘swim’ in the air,

Wile E. Coyote, suuuuper genius

Harsh screams

A harsh scream, unless that's the tallest cliff ever

corruptions then

Comma between these words

deadly-to-life

Redundant. Deadly is always "deadly to life"

“What are you doing, you psychopath?”

This maybe seems a little too confrontational considering the understanding they came to recently.

<Oh, be quiet, Dale. You have no part in this,> I shushed him nonchalantly.

Again, you're describing what he JUST SAID. We KNOW what he just said. The point of fancy "said" verbs/phrases is to add to or enhance the dialog, not to repeat the contents of the dialog in a different way.

“You found something interesting?” Minya’s voice sounded in my head.

Considering her excitement the next thing she says, I'd expect her to be more surprised here. Like "Hello? Wait... Cal? Is that you?"

toward his direction.

"…in his direction", "…towards him", or "…his way." Not "towards his direction." That's one too many layers of abstraction. I'd also merge the next sentence with this one: "…in his direction, then returned my attention…". As it is you've got too many simple "I" sentences in a row. Got to switch up your phrasing.

I also could ‘feel’

I think at this point it's safe to assume that readers understand that there are implicit quotes around any body-related verb Cal uses. Plus, normal people use "feel" (without quotes) all the time when talking about intangible qualia. or just use "sense."

I had made orichalcum, it seemed.

Doesn't he automaticaly know the names of things under his influence? Has he just not absorbed any? Wouldn't it be smart to immediately absorb a little piece of any new material he creates?

Minya finished her stray thoughts.

Redundant

flowing and screaming

Pick one, or use a comma and drop the "and"

having found an egress

You make it sound like he's wandering around like a stranger

Dale and Richard ran toward the arena where the clerics would begin gathering.

"…leaving a gaping, red-faced priest standing in Father Richard's office."

“And in Thy loving kindness, cut off mine enemies and destroy all those who afflict mine soul; for I am Thy servant.” As he chanted, it seemed that dawn had come. The heavens lit up, and the stars dimmed to indiscernibility. “For Thou doth connect all things, and all things are connected to Thee. By the power Thou hast imparted upon me, reduce all things unnatural to their unbound form, that they may be returned to the earth to be used in Thine works.”

Thumbs up!

highly damaged shapes,

"highly damaged" doesn't really work that well with "shape." Maybe "ruinous?"

with unmatched heat.

No one is competing with them. So many good heat adjectives to choose from!

but this was palliative; they were the symptom, not the true cause of the night’s horrors.

"i used a fancy word! Now I'm gonna explain what i meant!"

mephitis

Noxious gas from the earth? No one knows this word, man.

range.

Range would imply frequency, but Dale enhances amplitude sensitivity

voices; he

Semicolon is ok here, but a double hyphen would be even better

that was better than the majority of songs minstrels actually put into circulation.

Not possible

“It looks like a painting!” Chandra exclaimed with a clap of her hands. “What a beautiful change! Even the bodies are gone! Well, job’s done. I am going to take a nap.” The group dispersed, walking around to look at the changes. Dale shook his head and walked off to collect the people in the dungeon.

Whoah whoah whoah, they are taking visible miracles WAY too casually! There should definitely be more of a furor.

Bob intelligently pried,

Again, redundant. Also, "intelligently pried?" Just rolls off the tongue like a brick.

When we combine the memories, we ensure that Bob prime doesn’t lose his sanity.

Wait, how? This seems like thing kind of thing Cal would want to know! Don't just glaze over this!

<It is a ‘mutated amalgamation of nascent terrifying existences’ with a beastly Core!>

-_-

Various spacial distortions and mind-bending phenomena

Replace "various" with "terrifying" and tell me it doesn't sound better.

my mentor, Kantor.

I'm not sure a thirty second conversation and sending someone to help qualifies as mentoring

“We were battered by a horrible sneak attack, Dale. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.” Chandra placed a hand on his arm.

Totally changing the subject...

“It is always so painful to see a former innocent realize the truth of this world,”

Stilted.

The high Elf ambassador sneered at them. “Gross.”

Not sure "sneering" would be his manner there. "The high elf ambassador looked at them with disgust." And again, why are you capitalizing non-human race names? If you're capitalizing kingdoms, you also need to capitalize "high."

Dale explained the limits and benefits of the area, which was shortly followed by everyone agreeing to the offers made in terms of trade, academic expertise, and political alliances.

Well THAT sure got resolved quickly. Maybe mention their motivations?

she had essentially just saved his life with the forewarning of what his trek to her city would result in.

But it would only end badly due to her own people?

Dale walked to a podium that was prepared for him, taking a deep breath.

Since when is he giving a speech? Did he not have a single thought about that beforehand? Stuff is just kind of happening.

Since that city is built from the slave labor of an entire nation’s men, it is truly massive,”

The size of a city is not directly correlated with the size of the work force that built it.

faster than a chubby knight falling into a pitfall trap.

Chubby knights fall no faster than skinny ones

Did you get this name from a beer?

“It’d easily quadruple the space you have.” The Dwarf looked a bit pained for a moment. “Errr… that means it’ll–”

I still think non-dwarven civilizations should at least have a grasp on things like “four times as big.” You first made it seem like the dwarves were the only ones to know calculus, not basic arithmetic.

Look up what "immolate" means. It is by definition lethal.

Dale rhetorically stated.

Asked. Dale asked.

From now until eternity if needs must, until this quest has been completed, I shall bear the name of Odin.”

Ok, cool I guess, but Odin wasn't really a hunter/avenger kind of guy, so this feels a little forced. Especially with the coincidentally named brothers who just HAPPENED to get turned into Crows.

I couldn’t bear to kill them all off myself, so I opened a small portal and dropped all of this type of bug into the world below. They had decent survivability, but against the much more dangerous creatures in the wild, I didn’t expect my Mosquitos to last long at all.

Fuck you, Cal. Also, since when was he so sentimental?

Her weak constitution in life had made cultivation impossible for her, so she had died while in the F-ranks.

Is that why she was breaking cultivators' fingers and arms?

chunky salsa,

Does Dale know what salsa is?

thousand

Comma

Amber hijacked the portal on the ground and connected it with a different hole in the world.

Now you're thinking with portals!

contrarily burrowing

Just "but burrowing" is fine :)

sanguine or various hues of dirt

Too wordy