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

“The… earth ahead looks... wrong? Thin, like the top layer of a puddle in winter.” Dale notified them.

The man asking questions nodded, though Dale wasn’t looking his way. “Good, those are most likely traps. As an earth-affinity cultivator, one of your most important responsibilities will lie in seeing or feeling traps like that. Others might see them, but I want you to call out every trap you see. Any you fail to catch in time will mean an hour of training with Josh at full speed.”

The panic in Dale’s eyes made me chuckle, I guess ‘Josh’ wasn’t gentle. Hopefully poor little Dale wouldn’t have to worry for much longer... about anything.

“Those moving Essence blobs are coming at us now!” Dale called out.

“Likely Mobs. Get ready boys!” The blond man holding daggers whooped.

A fresh squad raced at them, moving quickly under my direction for a kill. The huge man in Dale’s group moved forward with a tower shield, so I had both of the Smashers ram it. Higher quality than the previous group, the man's shield held under the heavy attack, but the man himself grunted and moved back a few steps.

“Those suckers are heavy. Dodge ‘em if possible.” He told the others in a strained conversational tone.

I sent an Oppressor to jump to the side of him, pushing off the wall to gain sideways momentum. Thinking he could easily block this smaller Basher, the large man didn’t focus as he should have, therefore he was knocked off balance as the cleaving wind sliced into both of his legs, opening up shallow cuts where the armor was jointed, even though the Basher itself was stopped short.

The other men rushed in, the cloth-wearing one moving exceedingly fast across the ground. I could feel a bit of Essence interacting with the earth as he moved; this must be a movement skill. He seemed to vanish from his spot and appear behind the Oppressor that had knocked the large man to the side. He punched with perfect form, creating a resounding *crack*.

The perfectly aimed blow snapped my poor bunnies’ neck, it flopped to the floor, dead. While this impossibly fast man was distracted - I hoped - I sent my Impaler at his back to try for an incapacitating blow. Mid jump, an arrow landed in its eye! That was odd, I hadn’t seen this group having an archer before. I risked quickly looking at their weapons, noticing that the person I had thought was using a staff this whole time was actually carrying a big-ass longbow. The draw weight on that must be massive for it to look like a metal-clad staff most of the time!

The remaining Oppressor and two Smashers bounded toward the group of three people standing together, the two heavies flanking the lighter Oppressor. The blond haired man raced right at them, a dagger in each hand. As the Bashers leapt at him, he ignored defense, leaping higher than my bashers; accurately stabbing downward between the armored plates of the leftmost Smasher, severing his spinal column.

When the remaining Bashers landed from their missed attack, a heavy spiked ball crushed the skull of my unarmored Oppressor. Dale had moved forward without my noticing, the little brat! I may have been too focused on the jumping man while Dale landed his attack. The man with the...Bow? Staff? Stepped forward and slammed the metal-shod end onto the last Smasher, dazing it long enough for the dagger wielder to finish it off. Just like that, the battle was over. For now.

“A good test of their abilities, I can already think of a few improvements we should try for the next batch.” Dani quickly reminded me, “Give them some good loot!”

I had a few silver and copper coins rain down, as well as a few healing potions I had gotten from a well-funded but underpowered group recently. I threw in a holy symbol for good measure.

“Well I think that was worth it!” Dale gasped, excited at seeing silver glinting in the treasure.

“Hmm. We have not even gotten to a room on this floor, already the Mobs were stronger than the Boss on the previous level. Should we continue, or go warn the Guild?” The wise, unarmored person polled the group.

“Hard to warn against that which we don’t know.” The dagger user was placing the bodies of my Bashers into a bag he had, which I felt was far too small to hold them all. I wanted a closer look, but his aura forced me to remain frustrated.

“I suppose that’s true. We continue.”

I delightedly told Dani.

“Yay, you!” She cheered.

Dale’s group moved further in, Dale calling out the traps placed throughout the tunnel. He missed one, I was really looking forward to them boiling in acid when the cloth covered human ruined my fun by stopping the group, pointing at the ceiling, and telling Dale he had an appointment with Josh when they were done. The big one, who I now assumed was Josh, was gleefully rubbing his hands together and dancing around just outside of the range of my trap.

Twice, I tried to ambush them with squads while they were distracted with the low powered original Bashers. Sadly, each time they were defeated, though I was able to form a dent in Josh’s gigantic tower shield. He grumbled like a thunderstorm when it happened, whining till the one they called Craig reminded him the dent could instead have been in his legs. As much as I wanted to eat them and their equipment, I was still very impressed by their teamwork, perception, and coordinated efforts.

They moved on, clearing room after room, cultivating in each. After a bit I noticed something odd about their behavior, they never took a wrong turn! I was confused as to how they found their way until I heard Dale ask the same question.

“Well, here is a fork in the tunnel. Which way do you think we should go?” Craig looked at Dale, though it was obvious that Craig somehow knew the answer.

“I’m not sure, I’ve never been here.” Dale responded, a bit frustrated.

“Neither have I, but I know we need to go to the right! Look at the quantity of Essence swirling in the air. The more Essence a path has, the more likely that it is the correct way to the Boss room.” Hans glibly informed him, throwing around precious information.

“Oh, that makes sense.” Dale accepted this answer easily, and they started down the right-hand path.

< Really? Dani, is there a way for me to get around that? I didn’t realize they could just follow the stupid air !> I demanded crossly. What a ridiculous thing for me to not notice.

“We’ll have to think about it, maybe we could open small tunnels like air vents to more evenly distribute it around the cave?” Dani responded evenly.

I decided slowly, thinking about it. I chuckled darkly. Squish! >

The group was in the last room before the Boss battle, I planned on making it a spectacular fight. A few more groups of adventurers were at different stages of the dungeon by this point, one was even approaching the stairs down to the second level. Worst case scenario, even if this didn’t go as I wanted I had another few chances to gain some Essence.

Dale’s group entered the room, noting the Silverwood tree and looking for the Boss. It was rather dark in here, and the Boss with all of his granite armor was well camouflaged with earth Essence, making him look like part of the wall unless moving.

Instead of relaxing as I had hoped, the human snacks grouped closer together for defense. Dang. One of them tossed out a flask that broke on the floor, which started putting off a lot of light. Well, I’d be absorbing that pattern when we were done, thank you very much!