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

“Stop telling me how cool it is !” She demanded. “Where is it now? Is it going to come back in here?”

I directed every Basher to hide as best as it could. I watched the Cat move closer to the entrance where even at this hour a few intrepid souls were mining. It was a few hours till dawn right now. Watching the inattentive miners, I actually felt a little bad for increasing the quality of ore they could collect after dark. It had seemed like a good way to keep people in here. Ah, well.

The miners shouted in anger and confusion as the room became pitch black, running for where they thought the entrance was. Not one of them made it out. The Cat was crouched next to the exit, and as each approached, the tentacles would flash out slashing throats, piercing eyes, even wrapping around a neck and killing one man by suffocation. These men were all in the F-rankings, they had no chance to defend themselves from this killer. After its gory fun, the Cat poked its head out of the doorway through the ‘bubble’ in place which increased the Essence density, its face meeting fresh air. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it chuckled as it scented all of the prey above.

It ran up the steps and was lost to my senses. I was digesting the Essence that had made its way to me from the slain miners, turns out this wasn’t really a bad deal for me after all. A little fear, a lot of Essence. Dani shook, unspeaking, simply trying to take comfort in my presence. I turned my attention to the runes that had failed in the room. The large ones were still working correctly, but the one that had created a minor portal was burned off the ground and may have damaged the others.

I traced the remaining Runes, looking for flaws, but found none. This worried me. I had not found any flaws the first time things went bad after all. I smoothed the stone in the damaged area and began again, slowly cutting into the stone and creating the pattern I needed for the Inscription. Though somewhat recovered thanks to the miners’ deaths, I still had far less Essence than I felt I needed. I was sitting around two percent capacity, so working at all was exhausting. I went slowly, double checking every bit of the pattern, looking for any flaw. I found none, so I finished with the activation Inscription, watching as the pent up Essence from the large Runes filled this new one.

I held my ‘breath’ as the slightly smaller Rune activated, and ‘sighed’ with relief as it worked as I had expected it to. Each Rune in turn activated, the spiraling activations coming closer and closer to me with each revolution. The last Rune activated, I braced myself to fill with the Essence which was howling through my tunnels to power this massive series of Runescript. …Nothing happened.

It had worked for Dani! Why wasn’t I gaining any Essence?! I checked my work furiously, looking for anything that may explain why this was not working correctly. The Runes were glowing brightly; the Essence was there for the taking! Wait. The Runes were glowing… They were containing the Essence. Right, Dani had been able to cultivate only while in the output area of the Rune. It didn’t just release the Essence into the air, it held it in place. I could be moved over to the Rune but that would put me in an awkward position, not to mention I was super low on Essence.

I cast about for a solution to my problem, but only frustrated myself. Dani picked up on my agitation and quizzed me, “What is the matter? Is the Cat coming back?”

The discouragement in my voice pulled her out of her fear and she bent her mind to helping me. What a good being to be bonded to for life! We went through several options, but nothing seemed to fit my needs. Then Dani verbalized something that made just… just perfect sense.

“Well why not use the inverse Rune? If these normal Inscriptions collect Essence, the inverted Rune should release it, right?” Dani shyly contributed.

I fervently exclaimed.

Dani blushed, “Oh stop you big ol’ flirt.”

I bent my will to the task, creating one last Rune in the set. It looked wrong, like a scar on the floor next to the perfectly formed non-inverse Runes surrounding it. Luckily, it was really small. We’re talking about an inch in diameter. The first Rune in the doorway had a radius of nearly six feet. The thick, condensed, pearlescent Essence that had been contained by the final Rune cascaded into the activation sequence of the inverted Rune.

Essence dripped out - literally dripped. The Essence had been collected in such a large quantity and forced into such a heavily purified and condensed state that it was in liquid form. Each drop was a shining gem and moved with a viscous swaying as it was pushed forward by the droplets forming behind it.

that , Dani.> My mental voice was a whisper as I watched the area slowly fill with flowing Essence. After a few seconds in the open air, the liquid seemed to steam and slowly moved back into a thick, mist like state before dissipating into the air like humidity. Even with the Runescript then grabbing it and returning it to the center, the room was soon again dense with Essence. The air was easily two to three times as thick as it had been since the Essence couldn’t escape and just continued to become more potent.

“Cal, can you quickly make a drain? Let it sink down into a reservoir under us and the tree, so as it evaporates it comes up through the hole where we are.” Dani directed me quickly. Her words pulled me from my stupor, my utter excitement had been holding me still. I formed the drain as she had requested, lining it with the tungsten I had found in my first attempt at making a tunnel. I wanted nothing breaking this reservoir, no sir! The condensed Essence slipped into the opening, flowing in a manner more befitting molasses, yet draining all the same. A tiny droplet was made every few seconds, but each one was purified Essence and therefore exceedingly potent.

The reservoir I made filled very slowly, in an hour it had only collected about an eighth of an inch of Essence. Once in the open space of the reservoir, it again evaporated into the air of the small area. Soon the air pressure made it try to go back up the drain. I opened a miniscule hole under me, allowing the Essence to flow up into where I made my existence.

I shouted joyfully. The pressurized Essence had agitated my puddle, resulting in - you guessed it - bubbles! Not only that, but I greedily cultivated the flowing Essence, quickly regaining my lost strength. I gained roughly half a percent of my capacity an hour, a huge amount. To put it in perspective, the seven F-ranked miners that had died had only given me roughly the same amount, half of a percent each that is. This means that if the rate continued, I would gain the equivalent Essence of a life per hour !

The amount I was able to take in was not nearly the amount the reservoir was allowing into the room at large as the released Essence gently blew past me, but I wasn’t worried. I’d get it all eventually! I was basking in the healing feeling of happiness when I felt a hole appear in my glee. ...Oh no.

I urged her to stop eating and pay attention.

“Hmm? What? This is nice.” Came her languid response.

Instantly losing her cheerful attitude, the hunted feeling appeared in Dani’s manner again.

I winced as it wiped out the Boss squad on the first floor in moments. I finished. I watched as it went to the healing potion contained in the cistern and sniffed it. It shook its head and narrowed its eyes, then continued back down toward us. Dang, it knew I had poisoned that potion. Ah, well. That would have been helpful.