Dakota Krout - Dungeon Born (The Divine Dungeon Book 1)

I left the rooms and traps on the first floor mainly alone, not bothering to alter them too much. One major change on the first floor was a vain attempt to alleviate the annoyance created by people poking at my walls by moving the iron vein into the entry room. Minor pun there, sorry. This wasn’t so much an attempt to help prospectors as a way to provide raw materials so people could mine the ores and turn it into new items for me to study.

Moving on to the lower floor, I placed traps with highly pressurized acid pockets that would blast into the air at high speed if the thin stone covering them were disrupted. I had found that even if an item were destroyed by means other than me breaking it down with influence, as long as the destruction happened in my dungeon I could obtain the pattern. Therefore, I was unconcerned if armor and weapons were damaged or destroyed by my etching solution. At a few of the dead end tunnels I placed large slabs of stone that could be dropped, trapping the occupants in a room containing light drippings of acid, which would turn into a downpour when people were trapped, or could possibly explode if exposed to open flame.

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’. Finally done with the cosmetic and trap changes, it was time for me to try and upgrade my Mobs, then make a Boss monster for the lower floor. I kept the Bloody Bane as the floor Boss of the first level as I didn’t really care to make him a common Mob, to be frank he seemed a bit... lackluster. After all, the entire time he had existed, he had never managed a kill!

I looked into what I had available for Mobs. I could try to upgrade my Bashers, but what would they grow into? I was uncertain if pouring Essence into them was the correct way to go about things here. Maybe I should just use what I had, fill up the dungeon with a large number of Mobs and wait for inspiration after opening the door. Hang on a second… the door? The door! Of course! When the bloodmoss had absorbed Essence and infernal energy, it had naturally evolved and gained vampirism-style abilities. With my ability to move corruption, could I build Mobs in the style I wished?

Nothing to do but try! But where to start? First, I created a few of my Bashers and made them hold still so I could... experiment on them. Which kinda feels creepy to think, but it had to be done! They were all at the second rank of the F series, so I had some room to grow them. I decided to start by attempting to increase one's ranking by infusing it with air corruption and Essence. I poured a bit of each into the Basher, and it started to noticeably grow. I added more, feeling confident with this plan, when the poor thing gave a startled squeak and exploded into a bloody mist, which slowly settled on the walls and floor, scraps of fur and bone plopping wetly onto the other bashers in the room.

The other Bashers were now fidgeting, desperately trying to fight the compulsion I had placed on them in order to run away.

“Well, that was dramatic. What, ah, what just happened?” Dani seemed far too calm for the literal bloodbath that had just occurred.

I exclaimed wildly. Did my voice sound shrill there?

“That’s odd, if you are just giving it Essence it should have easily and naturally assimilated it.” Dani was now concerned.

I confessed innocently.

“Oh, that makes sense. It seems like a sound plan at least… Hmm. What did you use?” Dani inquired in a calm tone.

I walked her through the process I had attempted, followed by the obvious end result of the test.

She considered what I had done, then offered an explanation, “Your Bashers don’t normally have much Air Essence in their makeup do they? Maybe that one’s body rejected it. Or, maybe you just added too much taint too quickly. Try again, but add less taint at a time.” Dani declared, settling in to watch.

“Why not?”

“It’s a figure of… Yes, try Air again Cal.” She slowly exhaled.

Selecting another one of the bashers cowering on the floor amongst the gore of its brother, I again started adding Essence; slowly this time. As before, this one started growing rapidly.

“Stop!” Dani ordered. I did, waiting for an explanation. “Look, the amount of corruption almost overtook the Essence it can hold! That is probably what happened with the first one, are you adding corruption and Essence at the same rate?”

“Try a smaller amount, maybe... one part tainted to four parts pure Essence?” She directed. We continued on the same rabbit and it started growing again, albeit slower. When it had gained enough to get to F-rank six, I stopped adding Essence and waited for a result to become apparent. As I had hoped, it gained an elemental ability!

I exulted in our success.

Dani was a bit more impatient. “What does it do?”

I looked at what the bunny could now do,

“Ooh, cool! That means when it attacks, it’ll hit an area in an arc in front of it. Since it is air based, it’ll likely create an intense gust of wind with each hit that will form the arc. Even if it misses, the air may extend and successfully land an attack!” Dani told me triumphantly.

is cool! What should we try next?> I was excited to continue my experimentation.

Water corruption had yielded no effect, and I was loath to try infernal. We moved onto earth, where our effort rewarded us by granting a new ability.

grew armor!> I breathed, awed by the form of the new Basher. Nearly double the size of its fellows, the thick muscles and tough bones were now also hidden under plates of what appeared to be stone. This could be considered a tanking unit, the member of a group able to take the most damage.

A tank type unit was fairly common, for instance the knights in the groups that came into the dungeon, with their thick armor and big ol’ shields, were a good example of a tank. By having one of these as a Mob, I could have my other Mobs focus on attacking and hope that this creature would remain the main target of adventurers because of its size and formidable appearance.

Next, we tried adding the Essence of fire to the pattern of a basher, but each time the Basher would scream and spasm on the floor until it died. A few tests of this determined that no matter how diluted I made the combination of fire taint and Essence, I could not make a successful prototype. With some trepidation, we decided to move on to infernal taint, as we were running low on options and infernal was the most plentiful in my arsenal, after earth corruption of course. This we were more careful with, going very slowly so we didn’t accidentally create an uncontrollable demonic animal.

Again stopping at F-rank six, we watched as the animal started panting heavily; It began shuddering, almost having a seizure. I watched its bones grow longer and denser, becoming harder than even the Earth-type Basher. The nub of bone on its head grew, expanding longer and tapering into a sharp point. Its growth slowed, but it had gained a dark, solid horn. The muscles on its back legs strengthened, though fully grown its size was roughly equivalent to the air-tainted basher.

I was a bit let down. The last creation felt so anti-climactic!