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

“Cal we have to do something!” Dani frantically demanded, “If they die, we are screwed! It’ll come back here and… and…” She was unable to finish the thought.

I demanded, A thought hit me like a thunderbolt from on high.

The Cat half limped, half dragged itself toward Dale, single working eye fixed on the heart beating in Dale’s chest. Dale tried to struggle into a defensive position, but his limbs were broken, each small movement causing excruciating pain. He gasped for breath as a tentacle raised up above his body, plunging down directly into his heart. Although Dale's heart had been reinforced by opening a meridian, the sharp point of the tentacle went directly through, leaving a perfectly round hole in his body. The hole began at the skin of his chest and exited his back where the talon had driven deep into the stone below him. The tentacle slowly receded, twisting as it did so as to inflict maximum pain to the dying man.

The Cat lowered its ruined face to his and hissed evilly, watching for the last bit of life to drain away from Dale. Dale stared into its eye, even as his own vision went dim. The bleeding hole of the Cat's neck poured black blood onto him. Wait, what?

The huge body flopped over onto its side, head torn clean off. Tom stepped into Dale's view, chest seemingly fully healed; only shiny scar tissue present to show that he had been mortally wounded.

“Adam! Get thyself over here, tis bad!” Tom boomed, dropping his Warhammer to the ground as he cradled Dale's still form. Dale’s vision darkened entirely as his body was filled with celestial light.

“It’s too late.” Adam whispered, tears streaming down his face. “I fixed the damage to his heart, but it is just… too late.”

“No!” Hans ran to his fallen friend, “I refuse to believe this! Work harder !” His voice broke on the last word.

“I have nothing left to give.” Adam sobbed, “I’m drained to near death myself.” He shook, his body wracked with sobs.

“Here!” Rose ran over to them, vials in her hands, “Pour this down his mouth!” She held out a healing potion.

“Rose, he is gone… It won’t help.” Adam informed her morosely.

* SLAP * Her hand rocked Adam to the side, he looked at her startled and astonished out of his depression. “You will do what I say! Now !” She screamed in his face.

He took the vial, handing it to Hans, who poured the potent healing potion down his fallen friend’s throat. No effect was visible, no miracles appeared.

“Now you drink this!” Rose directed, handing Adam another vial that blazed with concentrated Essence. She gave another to Hans, directing him to administer it to Dale. Reluctantly obeying her, Adam drank the contents of the vial. It never reached his stomach, the potent Essence being absorbed directly into his Center, lighting it up like a dawn forcing away the hold of night. The Essence rushed through him, filling him to his maximum potential and then continuing, the overflow of Essence beginning to burn out his meridians.

Quickly - full of panic - Adam returned to Dale and attempted to revive him. The Essence in Dale from the vial was now sitting in his center like a lump, unmoving. No matter what technique Adam tried, it refused to move, to connect to Dale’s life-force. His ministrations restarted Dale’s heart, but the man refused to regain consciousness.

“I’ve done… all I can.” Adam slumped. “He is alive, but… I think not really. Let’s get him out of here so we can at least give him a proper burial.” The stunned, sickened members of the team gathered his body and prepared to leave.

“He isn’t all the way dead though!” Dani gasped. “You won’t get his Essence anymore!”

I looked at them wonderingly. I couldn’t absorb him since he was alive, so the others had placed him near the exit as they moved to take a trophy of the great Beast they had slain. With the human auras no longer blocking him from my sight, I was able to inspect Dale carefully. Since he was dead - but not really - I was able to learn everything about his body near instantly, as I had with Dani. I was quickly able to determine what the issue was and corrected it in his body, as I would a stone in my walls.

This did not bring him back, the Essence in him was no longer funneling into his quickly dimming life force. Even the liquid Essence in him began to sputter and make its way out of his body. There was still more Essence in him then there had been; truth be told the overdose they poured into him would have made his chest explode if his body were alive to contain it. Now, it was just dissipating into the air.

I explained, looking at the residual Essence in Dale's body.

“Will it cost you too much Essence?” She reminded me, to which I responded with a negative. She kept asking questions, the primary being, “What will happen if it doesn’t work?”

can fix him. If I don’t do this I may never get another chance to know if I could do it. You know me, I have pride in my work, if I try this I want to do it right.> I bent my will to the task at hand despite her protests. I extended Essence into him, trying to reestablish normal flows to his life-force. I tried dozens of different things, but the thick Essence in him refused to stay in a cohesive pattern. It seemed that it wouldn’t unless he were to apply his own will to the task. I could make it stay - if I were to always have him in my dungeon - but the group was already preparing to leave. He showed no signs of waking up, nor of being damaged enough to die properly.

I was getting frustrated,

Dani had no idea either, obviously. “You know his pattern better than I do, Cal. If you don’t know what can help him, there is nothing I could do.”

I compared his pattern with the things I was able to create, and found a single match . Me. One of the first things I had ever really understood was the body that I resided in. A soul gem, not just a Beast Core. Dani had told me that this was as large as I would ever become, from here on out the Essence would be poured into me like a dimensional pocket, always able to be filled but never being full.

I shifted Dale’s intestines around a tiny bit; creating a perfect soul gem around his center, just below his heart and almost against his spine. The Essence which had been escaping him was quickly drawn back into what had been his center, now a highly refined Beast core - a Masterwork Soul gem. Now, the issue was that no Essence was able to leave the gem and all the Essence contained in him was being slowly drawn into it. Working quickly but carefully, I surrounded the Gem with a perfect layer of Runescripted diamond.

Diamond, I had found through exhaustive testing, allowed for all Essence types to move through it well. It was a spectacular conductor for all of it. Each type had a gem that allowed for perfect flows, but needed to be purely that type of Essence. For instance, the topaz head on Adam’s staff allowed celestial Essence to flow perfectly, but would greatly impede all other types.

Where his cultivation had drawn in the Essence of the Heavens and the Earth, I made a Rune - which would activate by cultivating - to draw in that power to his Center/Core. At each place around his meridians where energy would flow out into his body I placed that same Rune, but inverted it in order to send energy out . At each corner of the new Soul Gem I placed tiny yet powerful Beast Cores, which would absorb only the Corruption his cultivation produced. With luck, I would be able to use that for something in the future.