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

The slim man landed lightly, nodding sagely as if he had confirmed a great and profound secret. Lifting the splintered remains of the pick head, he examined it for a few minutes before turning, exposing shredded clothing with untouched flesh underneath.

“Yup! It’s cursed earth.” He proclaimed cheerfully. “Not getting through that too easily!”

He started walking away, humming, when Craig stopped him. “Can you tell us a bit more please? We have to report to Frank.”

“Oh sure, it is stone that has been reinforced with earth corruption, with the basic Essence removed!” The man sounded nearly giddy at having a sample to study, “Not easy to do, I tell you what!” He started off again, humming a happy song.

Craig was turning red in his effort to remain polite, “Is there a way through, good sir? There are many people awaiting entry to the training grounds below.”

The Mage turned, startled, as if he had forgotten they existed. “Hmm? Oh, you can break it if you use enough Mana, but I don’t think you will find a willing Mage. Also, it tends to drain all the Essence out of whatever is thrown against is, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to break it yourselves.”

Hans was a bit more abrupt with the distracted man, “Oi! How do we get in?”

“Well, I imagine you’ll just have to wait for it to vanish. After all, if it just randomly appeared, it’ll likely vanish the same way.” With that unhelpful advice the Mage skittered up the stairs on all fours and jogged away.

“Frank isn’t going to like this.” Steve sing-sang fretfully, adjusting his bow and quiver. “I call not it !” He shouted the last words.

A chorus of ‘ not it! ’ followed this, except from a confused looking Dale.

“What?” Dale looked around the circle of now-happy faces.

“Thank you for volunteering to be the one to tell Frank.” Steve patted Dale on the arm, a grin on his normally stony face.

“Meet us for lunch when you are done!” They walked up the stairs and away, laughing at Dale’s misfortune.

No choice but to be the sacrificial victim for them, Dale returned to the Guild tent and waited for an audience with Frank. Roughly twenty minutes passed before he was ushered inside to make his report. When he finished, Frank heaved a sigh and nodded, rubbing his forehead.

“Ah, I see. Don’t worry too much, lad. We knew the dungeon was getting more difficult. Think of this as a short vacation before your mornings become far more dangerous. Now how about you-” Frank looked at Dale for the first time since he had entered and did a double take. “You already have a meridian open? Good for you Dale! Congratulations.”

“Oh. Thank you. I didn’t realize it was a big deal until it was over, the guys just walked me through what to do.” Dale blushed a bit at the unexpected praise.

“We don’t advertise what a meridian can do because it is dangerous to open when you are not ready for it. Imagine someone doing that and having corrupted Essence.” Frank shuddered at the thought, Dale did not comprehend the idea until Frank continued, “Think of it like this: Suddenly, your heart is surrounded in stone, too heavy to beat; your lungs fill with water; Or the blood in your veins turn to fire. Bad, bad idea. Better to let people think long life and superhuman strength is a side effect of reaching a higher rank. We don’t tell people until they are ready for it, got that?””

“Yes, sir.” Dale was then shooed out, moving to go get lunch with the others.

The team spent the remainder of the day training, the others taking turns sparring with Dale. Having only a bit over a month of experience fighting rabbits and mushrooms, he did terribly. Realizing the error in their ways, they began with the most basic of basics; teaching him the proper way to hold his Morningstar. From that point forward, it was decided, Dale would take turns sparring after lunch with someone so he could become an actually good fighter, instead of just a subpar stick swinger.

Dale was able to fight for several hours, and was amazed that he could continue without getting exhausted as was normal for him. While he did not win a single match, he was able to continue until they called for him to stop, round after round. Confused at first, he finally remembered what he had been told about opening his heart meridian, and felt great joy at the already apparent effects. Dale was overjoyed that this huge increase in stamina was the result of opening just one meridian, he was now ravenously awaiting the chance to see what would happen when the rest were open.

He made good progress in learning to wield his Morningstar that day, but was nowhere near to mastering even this basic weapon. Understandably, picking up a weapon and suddenly being good with it wasn’t realistic, it was a childish and lazy fantasy. Having proper form and being able to maximize your usage of a weapon took an obscene amount of work, it wasn’t a magical appearance of talent. Even using a memory stone only taught you how to do something properly, it didn’t hone your muscles and reaction times, it didn’t allow you to bypass strength training and endurance building. Dale couldn’t imagine how long it would take to learn how to use something as complex as a sword in actual combat . Whack your enemy with a spiked ball on a stick? Perfect.

Even learning to use his shield as more than an accessory was harder than he thought it should be. Practicing without the enchanted buckler taught him that you couldn’t just accept whatever blow came down, you needed to then angle it away. A heavy blow nearly breaking his arm taught him that you also need to try to dodge at least every once in a while. Getting his legs swept out from under him, as he thought of all this, taught the very important lesson of keeping your eyes and mind on your target.

Dozens of these small lessons began building into talent, and huge bruises. When he could finally not get up on his own weakly waving his arms in a sad little attempt to roll over, the men relented and sent him off to take a bath in the cold mountain stream, calling after him to ensure he cleaned his reeking armor.

After dinner they each sat together and cultivated their respective elements. Dale and Craig sat on a slab of stone while Hans sat in the center of a ring of fire, sweating profusely. Josh was up to his neck in the river, eyes closed and shivering in the snow-fed mountain stream, while Steve danced around to find the strongest breezes. Wind was never in short supply on a mountain, of course.

The next few days followed this pattern for Dale, disappointedly checking the dungeon each morning, getting beat on after lunch, and cultivating heavily in the evening. They woke up on the fourth daybreak to excited people awaiting the Portal Mages imminent arrival.

“They should be here within the hour!”

“I can’t wait to see my kids!”

“A hot bath and a good meal in the capital by next week!”

Dale was a bit nonplussed at these swarming, cheering people. Were the mountains really so bad? A young messenger ran up to him and informed him that his presence was requested by the Guild Master. He followed the boy to the large tent, and was quickly shown in. A large map and table had been acquired from some unknown locale, several people were talking in low voices while pointing at the map.

“Oh, good. Dale, looking at this map, can you tell me where you’d prefer to have the portal set? It is a fairly permanent system once it is built, made of Inscribed stone, metal and gems. Very heavy. Large enough to bring a couple wagons through at a time as well.” Frank offhandedly muttered, “Big-ass eyesore too.”