The Divine Dungeon Complete Series (The Divine Dungeon #1-5)

by Dakota Krout

‘Mob’ is a short way to say ‘dungeon monster’.” <Why not call it a ‘Dum’? For ‘dungeon monster’.> Where was she getting that abbreviation? “It just… It just isn’t,” Dani sputtered, seemingly exasperated.

It isn’t so much that I am happy they died, I am happy that I lived. I’m glad that I got stronger. The cost of it is just… the way it happens.>

you attach the ‘loot’ seed to the monster, and when it dies it triggers the ‘seed’ to grow. It is really funny to see because if you don’t know how it works, it makes no sense! Imagine someone accidentally squishing a patch of moss, and out pops a helmet! I bet they would scream! Haha!”

Stopping mid-sentence, his eyes nearly burst from his head as he saw that the crevasse was no longer a hole in the ground with sheer walls but a solid looking, spiral, stone staircase leading to the depths. “Well, that makes it easy.” The Elf stepped forward, and after a brief look of concentration, pronounced the stairs safe to use. “It’s like an invitation!” Dale declared nervously. “That is exactly what it is,” the large man replied ominously.

Within just a few minutes, only a few charred scraps remained. A few copper coins suddenly rained to the ground. “Bribery will not save you from your despicable ways,” a taciturn man with a glowing holy symbol on his chest announced in a ringing tone. “Onward!”

If I had let you cut that tree, I would have had to declare war on your Kingdom on behalf of my race.” “You whaaa?” “Look carefully. That is a Silverwood sapling,”

“Yes, and it also explains why you can absorb all of them without ill effects! I still don’t know how you can get rid of the corruption, but we will… figure it out.” Enlightenment touched her. “Cal! That is why it is so easy for you to learn some things! Words and concepts especially! It is because you are re-learning them!”

Humans never get pulled into Beast Cores! It doesn’t happen! It never has, Cal!” <I… don’t think I was pulled into a Beast Core. Do the words ‘soul gem’ mean anything to you? I think I was trapped in one by those disgusting Necromancers.> She squealed a bit. “That makes perfect sense! Oh. My. Gosh, Cal! We have so much to learn! Imagine, ME being the first Wisp to be bonded with a cunning, human-soul dungeon! We are going to get SO famous.”

I chuckled at the thought. ‘Oh no, basil! Look out, it’s mint!’ Maybe I would get lucky, and someone would be allergic to them and die from a bad reaction.

<How long until they can reproduce naturally?> I offhandedly interrogated Dani, my attention focused on watching my new creatures bound around the room playfully. “Well,” she snorted, a very unladylike sound, “seeing as you have two male rabbits, it may be a long time.” That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. <What time frame are we looking at here? Like three, four days?>

“You are going to need to work hard, but I think you have what it takes to succeed. I sense serious ambition in you lad,” Frank spoke kindly. Dale’s mind flashed to murdering Tim, and he nodded. Dale had ambition in spades.

“Essence is endless, and the more of each type of basic Essence in an area, the more Essence is generated. If you somehow got all of them to coexist together, you would have a very powerful Essence generator.”

So far they had found three left boots. Maybe I am evil.

Listen, I hear there are pretty decent herbs down there. No one complains right now, but it’s hard to eat food that tastes of dirt.” Handing a few sacks over, he continued, “Fill these up, and I’ll make it worth your while. Different plant, different bag. Got it? Great!” He turned away, paused, then finished menacingly, “Don’t fill ‘em up, and I’ll make sure you get your… just desserts?” Hans looked at the chef warily and responded in a voice that was almost bereft of his previous accent, “Hmm. Dale, I’m gonna let you in on a secret to a long life. Never piss off your chef, your boss, or your wife. I even rhymed it for you. That’ll help ya remember. Also, when you get famous, never let someone make a song about you. Never ends well,” he advised sagely.

power is not in what something looks like but in the quality of the effort that it takes to get there.>

actually all of them can heal. There is a solid reason they don’t all do it, though. Apparently, the problem is that they feel the element used, so being healed by a fire cultivator is not that pleasant,

“No, you can’t have that space! We’ve had it roped off and claimed for the Portal Mage’s to build on for weeks now!” Frank was red in the face, spittle flying from his lips. “You are going to deny the Holy Church an area that will be able to best serve the people? This will be the center of the goings-on in the area, and who better to guide people than the church?!” the taller man angrily intoned, his voice ringing out clearly in a manner trained to catch attention. “The PORTAL MAGES!” Frank roared, throwing his hands into the air. “That is their exact job! They guide and send people where they want to go!” “Well, the church sends them where they need to go!” the tall man boomed back, unimpressed.

Everything I made was, of course, an attempt to gain as much Essence as possible, but I liked to reward intelligence and ingenuity, so I always added ways for these traps to be deactivated. I wanted people to continue coming down here, after all, and with a reputation as a place where the smartest and strongest could almost always prevail, people would always assume they were among the ranks of the ‘certain survivors’.

Try again, but add less taint at a time,” Dani declared, settling in to watch. <You want me to try with air again?> “Why not?” <Because the last one exploded.> “It’s a figure of… Yes, try air again, Cal.”

You could take the day off of dungeoneering and help me out instead. We could use someone to dig a new latrine, ours is near overflowing.” Frank deadpanned with a gimlet stare. “Oh, look at the time! It is work-with-the-Spotter o’clock,” Hans chattered cheerfully as he made his escape from the room.

Dale was again confused as to why Frank was helping him make a profit off his own Guild. “You will need that money in order to stand being around them. You’ll see,” Frank ominously promised at Dale’s blank look.

“That would be the effect of being the magically enforced landowner of this mountain. Any citizen of this Realm—under the political rank of a Duke—would be forced to leave if you told them to. You cannot force someone to stay or to do things for you, but you can obviously make them leave. In a brilliant yet uncomprehending move of forethought, you bought this from two Realms, meaning there are two Kingdoms of people that would need to obey the command you just gave him.” “Well. Damn.” Dale turned to Frank as a realization dawned on him. “Hey! Is that why you have been so helpful to me?” “Nah, I’m just a polite person. I’m definitely this nice to everyone, Heck, I let random people into the Guild all the time.” Frank grinned. “Then I let them come to me, the Guild leader, any time they have a question.”

I broke out of my reverie with a start, remembering that the Mobs who helped kill a person would gain a portion of their Essence! I moved the squad that had won their first battle into a hiding place to await lower level groups. As an experiment, I would try to get them to evolve naturally. I needed to keep them separate, so as to ensure I would remember them. I’d call them Alpha Squad and give them a pleasure warren for when they weren’t in combat.

<Wow. That is so beautiful! I cannot believe people can go up and see them every night,> I articulated with a hint of jealousy, peering beyond the Silverwood tree above me and out into the stars. “Most people don’t bother,”

“This may be dangerous, boys. If we can’t tell where to go, we may walk directly into traps. Be extra careful today.” “Vigilance!” roared Josh, badly startling everyone. A couple of them even had to force themselves to stop attacking on reflex. With a withering glance, Steve rounded on Josh. “Yes, thank you for your input. Very helpful.”

“Go out of your way to be respectful to the one who brings you your food, holds your money, and most importantly, those who work to heal you. That cleric expected nothing for his service and now goes into danger with less power because of me. How could I do less for him?”

“Madame, you know that to get on a Guild team you need to be in the Guild. I wouldn’t trust another team with the proper care of a lady in a place where there are ways to make a body disappear, without worry, in a way no one will question.”

“Does everyone think so poorly of me?” Dale blatantly questioned him. Hans eyed him, finally deciding not to lie. “Only those who don’t know the facts or you,” he admitted reluctantly. Dale looked at the ceiling and exhaled noisily. “So… everyone.” “Lad, most people don’t know you are the landowner but are still jealous that you make it into the dungeon every day when they get in maybe once a week. Others see your fine armor, not the man inside it, and covet that. People are always unhappy with those that have better fortune than them.

“We had fun! We did other things too! He brought me to a pleasure house,” Dale chattered indignantly. “He did what?!” Craig gasped, turning and glaring at the man. “Not like that–” Hans tried to explain, glares directed at him. Dale continued talking over them, “I met a Madame. She gave us a discount because we went to her together, and she thinks her granddaughter would like to come train here.” “Hans, you disgusting pervert,” Josh coldly stated. “How could you do that to the lad? You went together? At the same time? With a grandmother?” “Well, how else do you do it? Who wants to do that alone?” Dale sounded a bit exasperated at the questions. Hans was literally on the floor crying with laughter as he tried to hold up his hands in surrender. “N-n-n-no, guys! Guys! Hahaha! W-we went to the Pleasure House! The one Madame owns! He, he doesn’t know what this sounds like! The restaurant!” He could say nothing else as he gasped for air around his laughter. The others started chuckling, then laughing almost as hard as Hans. The look of confusion on Dale’s face made them laugh even harder.

Now, while the reanimated creature has to do what the summoner wants, the summoned creature is always, always insane.” She shuddered and cuddled up to me. <Why is that?> I was really curious now. “The only souls that are able to be summoned are those that have run from the Creator’s judgment. They fear the void, the nothingness that awaits them, or the abyss, which is terrible for other reasons.

In a dead end room on my second floor as far away from my Core as possible was where I experimented with unknown Runes. I lovingly thought of it as the ‘horrible failure with a few successes room’. Long name, amazing results. Over time, if I had been unable to repair the stone in there, there would only be a smoking, simmering room full of molten rock and odd noises. It seemed that poorly made Runes tended to explode. Who knew, right? That was one of the… nicer effects.

A multi-Essence Rune that I tried to make had convinced me not to try combining corruption again until I knew what I was doing. It had created a rift, which used all of the Essence so fast that I was angry at first. The rift snapped shut after only the blink of an eye, but the rotten, clawed hand that had made it through in that timespan was a testament to the continuation of working freaking carefully.

“Hmm,” Hans jumped in, “seems like that Rune should be worth more to you than just ‘one on credit’ to me.” “Standard terms and conditions apply. Thank you for choosing the Mages’ Guild.” The Spotter disappeared back into his tent. “Hey!” Hans shouted in shock.

The real reason for our interest is that the pollen from a Silverwood tree allows my race to become fertile, able to bear children.” Dale was shocked. This was not the direction he had foreseen this conversation taking. Brianna laughed at his stricken look. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, sometimes we get lucky, and a child is born without it—maybe one in five hundred couples is so lucky. But a Silverwood tree allows all of those couples given access to become fertile, which is why they are so well-protected when found. Without it, we would become extinct.”

He looked up to see Brianna waving furiously at the guards. “You! Go sit down on your hands! What part of ‘this is a peaceful talk’ didn’t you understand?” she fumed angrily. “Sorry, Dale, he is really dagger-happy today.” “Um. Ohhh-kay. Those details. Right,

“It’s because your Essence is able to purify your body. No longer fighting against blocked channels, your body gets stronger, faster, and your brain is a part of that. A healthy mind makes more connections, allowing you to experience the world on a deeper level than you could before. You will see how things link together and be able to see how one action affects another. There are people who do that as a profession, you know.”

“What will I be able to do, though?” Dale insisted earnestly. Hans shrugged. “Whatever you like. First, you need to see where your talents lie within the earth. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and the uses for Essence are endless.” Dale deflated again, “So it comes down to waiting again.” He grumped sourly. Hans laughed a dark laugh. “Welcome to life, kiddo!

“You think she will have trouble with making the building?” Hans snorted. “Doubtful. She’ll likely grow it in a day. She’s an A-rank nine plant Mage. She’s the closest thing to a Saint I have ever seen. Heck, she trained Frank for nearly a decade.” Dale’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t even thought to look at her cultivation. A bad habit he would need to break; even regular-seeming people could be horrifyingly dangerous if he didn’t even bother to notice them.

<I want it to be BIG, Dani.> She snorted. “That’s what every male says.” <…Huh?> “Nothing. Explain.” <I want to adjust my floors so that the floors themselves are massive Runes.> If she had a jaw, it would have dropped. “Cal! I don’t know if you will be able to activate this Rune. How would you possibly activate one so large?”

You just had to feed a wild animal.”

The warhammer came to rest on the ground. “My name? I bear the name of my father and my father’s father, for generations uncountable. We are the mighty hunters of the frozen north, giants among the men of humanity. I am what you call a ‘barbarian’,” He lifted his chin disdainfully. “I am the warrior known as Tom.”

The acolytes sent there with the soul gem you created some time ago did not completely fail, it seems. Their sacrifice created the dungeon, though they were unable to nurture it as they had been ordered.

“I have some gear that was left for you by the Sword Polishers.” Dale did a double take at the name. “Uhhh. What? I’m not sure I should be associated with… oh! My gear! They are the professional cleaners, then?”

So he got that but not the pleasure house?

three hairy men walked out of the tent laughing darkly. They froze momentarily when they noticed Dale looking at them, but then tried to nonchalantly walk away. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” Dale called harshly. He immediately felt like a moron for his word choice, but what were you supposed to say in these situations?

“Nothing in our world worth having is gained without pain and effort. This process, in particular, is quite punishing, which is why there are so few Mages ascending each year. The connection allows Mana to flow through you, replacing all bonds of Essence with bonds of Mana. The Mage ascendant is literally ripped apart at the smallest level and rebuilt with Mana. I’m told there is nothing more painful known.” “Naturally.” Dale shook his head.

By the age of twenty-five, the C-ranks, at which point they are considered adults in their families. By thirty, they are usually almost ready to ascend into the B-rankings.” “Considered children until twenty-five?” Dale was aghast. In the mountains, the average lifespan was forty years. By twenty-five, most couples had several children. He was considered odd back in his old village for not going out to find a wife, but he had been too busy—and that was before finding the dungeon. Now he was busy for other reasons. Craig nodded. “Not quite. They are considered children until they reach the C-ranks, but some geniuses have been known to do this in their early teens. What is wrong with being considered a child, though? When you are going to live for several hundred years and you don’t need to worry about income, food, or health issues… why not?”

She considered it, then turned on me suspiciously. “This isn’t… you aren’t… you are, aren’t you?” <I have no idea, but would love to be a participant in this conversation,> I stated blandly.

Pulling the pattern of its aura from memory, I energized it with the subtle combinations of Essence it needed in order to produce flesh, veins, nerves, tendons, bones, and, after a few minutes, fur. In just a few minutes, standing six inches tall, a white-coated Dungeon Kitten stood on shaking legs before us. *Mew!* Dani screamed, breaking my concentration, “AHHH! I love it! Hi, kitty! You. Are. So. Fluffy!”

name you Snowball, and all who face you shall feel your wrath!” she told the kitten seriously. It tiredly purred back at her. <Snowball? C’mon. Imagine this place in two weeks,> I pleaded. <‘Look out, it’s… Snowball! Yeah, ol’ Johnny got mauled by… Snowball.’ Heh. That… that’s actually hilarious. I’m in. Snowball it is.>

Dani’s voice was dangerously calm. “Cal? Did you… test this combination yet?” <…> I was frantically adjusting the levels of Essence. “Do not kill my kitten,” she hissed venomously.