Dungeon Spawned: Dark Dungeon 01

by D. R. Rosier

  He wondered just how screwed he was, Verin was a damned snake, and he’d just lost any chance to prove it.

  She ran in right behind Donnell. She’d had doubts the old man could take the master from Jennesar, but Donnell grunted and swung his hammer hard, hitting Salvatore in his side just as Salvatore started to swing his sword up. Salvatore no doubt had plans to swing it back down as well, but that wasn’t to be. There was a loud crack, and Salvatore went flying into the wall fifteen feet away, and landed on his ass.

  She gaped, Salvatore’s armor was dented, and its magic aura gone. Holy shit, Donnell’s weapon, the red aura must be a breaker aura. She’d heard of them but never seen one before. Never mind that, the asshole didn’t have armor any longer, at least not a magical one.

  She cast a whirlwind blade spell, which made the bastard scream, but he still had his sword. With a quick swing of it, the spell fell apart under the holy aura. Damnit, she’d just have to watch then. Or, maybe not.

  She cast the speed spell onto Donnell to make him even more deadly, and then she watched as Donnell moved in like lightning, and slammed the head of the maul against Salvatore’s sword arm.

  There was a loud crack, and Salvatore dropped the sword.

  Salvatore said, “Stop, you don’t understand, its…”

  Whatever Salvatore might have said was cut off, as Donnell’s maul crushed his chest. The sounds of his ribs and sternum breaking were very sharp, and Salvatore spit up a river of blood and breathed his last.

  She felt satisfaction at his death, they were all dead. But she needed to send a message, a strong one. One that left no room for misunderstandings. She was also out of paper.

  She walked over and cast an air blade spell, and took Salvatore’s head.

  Diana grabbed Salvatore’s sword, and was studying it. No one argued with her about it either.

  Jerrold said, “What’s the head for?”

  She smiled grimly, but felt nothing. She was empty.

  “It’s a message, for the ruler of Jennesar. I guess I’ll need a box.”

  Even she was disturbed by how dead her voice was. Just like Sienna.

  Donnell said, “Thank you for your assistance in defending the dungeon.”

  She tilted her head, “What I did was destroy an invader. That I happened to save this dungeon is well and good, but wasn’t my purpose. My only purpose was to destroy our enemy, and deny him his goal.”

  Donnell sighed, and his look of true understanding and shared sorrow almost made her burst out in tears, the man had obviously lost his fair share of comrades, and perhaps lovers, but she pushed it down inside, it wasn’t time yet to grieve.

  She walked over to the crypt and stared down into it, a large black crystal sat there. It had a very powerful aura, but no more so than one would expect from a nine-level dungeon. She wondered what it really was, and what it was hiding.

  She had no idea yet… if Jennesar wanted it destroyed, maybe they should let it be, even protect it.

  She suppressed a laugh, and wondered if she was mad.

  Jerrold said, “We should go.”

  She nodded, and followed her cousin and Suzy toward the exit stairs…

  Epilogue

  Catalina stared up at the castle, her ancestral home. She was still bowed with grief, but no longer dead inside. No, now she was angry, and her only target for that anger was herself, and the entire kingdom of Jennesar. She smirked, she couldn’t exactly invade, so she was stuck with self-castigation.

  She didn’t really want to come home, but when Jerrold had suggested finding a new fourth so they could go back in the dungeon, just three days after her beloved’s funeral, she’d almost killed him. The magic was in her fingertips, and her tongue begged to say the words. That’s when she knew she needed to get out of there. It was either that, or go insane.

  Yes, beloved. She’d been confused while Sienna was alive, with the intensity and mix of the emotions and possible sources for them. She was sure now though, she’d been very much in love with her fire mage.

  Jerrold said he’d write, they said they’d be choosy, and not pick just anyone. She wasn’t sure yet if she’d go back once they found someone suitable, maybe they’d have to make two replacements. Her dream had been to get experience, and become a master after enough time. The dungeon and mission had just been the excuse to get there. And she’d gotten the woman she loved killed by her stupidity and self-absorbed behavior during a dangerous situation.

  Now… nothing really appealed to her. Her dreams were dead, or at least, they were frozen.

  Sienna was dead, and color was gone from her world. She truly wondered if it would ever come back…

  Carlton sighed and rubbed his eyes. It’d been an interesting week since the raid from Jennesar. He’d used up all his contacts trying to find something, anything really, to tie that snake Verin to the debacle. No luck though, either none of his contacts knew anything, or they weren’t talking. At least, they weren’t talking to him.

  The official finding on the four traitors had been that they’d gone rogue, without Verin’s knowledge. As for the fifth, he’d never returned from Jennesar. Either he’d stayed and joined them, or he was long dead like the others.

  Verin had even gone out of his way to eject the Bishop from Jennesar in a very public way, and sent him on the way. He was sure that was just a show, a cover, but there was no way to prove it.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Enter.”

  Selwyn came in, and based on his face he was very disturbed.

  “What is it Selwyn?”

  “Sir, I’m afraid we got a dispatch. It’s not good news.”

  Carlton frowned, “Out with it, I won’t hold you accountable for bad news.”

  Selwyn nodded, “Sir, an inquisitor has been dispatched to look into your recent actions. Traveling with him is high cleric Ennis. I speculate he is your replacement sir.”

  Carlton knocked on the desk while he looked up in thought.

  “Ennis, he’s one of Verin’s toadies.”

  Selwyn asked, “What do we do sir?”

  Carlton shrugged and smiled, “We have a week to plan. Whatever it is, it had better be good.”

  Selwyn’s laughter was forced…

  Things were cleaned up, and mostly back to normal. I seemed to have gotten away with my small deception, and haven’t heard anything about more fallout from the replacement guild people in the keep.

  I still had a lot of questions, but at least I had an idea where to find the answers. I still had seventy some odd life forces around, but I couldn’t expand for a while yet again, so it would keep in my sex demon cavern. The hold up there of course was my crystal size, which continued to grow. I also wanted to crack the more powerful elemental issue first, since when I added new floors, they’d need to be more powerful.

  I’d been working the crystal, several projects including the gnomes, spell work, summoning, enchantment, maintaining the dungeon, and I’d also started working on a new special project, which is pretty much done. I’m just reluctant to do it, even if it’s a necessity.

  What I really needed was a spy. I needed someone to go to Jennesar to ferret out information about my enemies, and any clues as to what I should do when I can implement phase one of my escape. I needed to plan my strategy, and I need information to do that. Phase one of the escape plan, would be to create an avatar, and leave the rest of me here, and phase two of my escape was to make the dungeon my avatar, and leave with my true self and return to where I belong.

  Phase two is a long way off.

  Phase one I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing until the dungeon is strong enough, until I’m strong enough. But before I can start, I need the information to plan. I was aware of the internal issue with the church here in this kingdom as well, I did see the traitors kill the guild members up in the keep. I had a feeling the information I needed about that was in Jennesar as well.

  I needed a spy, and possibly a saboteur, w
hich brings me back to my secret project.

  “Lila, do you trust me? You’ll do anything I ask?”

  Lila replied, “Yes, why?”

  “Because I have a task for you, many in fact, and this is going to hurt. For that, I am sorry.”

  I felt her nervousness at my statement, but no rejection, only willingness, and trust.

  I reached out with dark and light magic so tightly twisted it looked like a single cord of gray, and I delved into her very soul, the essence of who she was. I changed her, not the core of her or who she was, her desire for sex, none of that. But I removed the twisted hatred, and the corruption of her soul, I cleansed it carefully of demonic traits while she screamed in my mind, and changed the very nature of her being. It was the gift of her true name, along with intrinsic knowledge, which allowed me to do this.

  I opened her soul up to the elemental sphere of light, now she would be able to wield light, darkness, and fire. I filled her mind with many spells that I’d created, spells to help her spy, to help her hide, and to help her destroy if necessary. She was still a being with a dark core, but like me she was now a higher being, not a fell one of twisted evil and hatred.

  She was no longer a demoness.

  Then I evicted her from our prison. My escape would lead to my death, I was too much to exist on this plane without my prison. But she wasn’t. As I slowly threaded her soul and essence through the pinhole, I used earth, water, and fire magic to build her a new body. Then I used twenty of my stored life energies, and filled the body with a whole lot of dark magic, a little fire, and a little light.

  Her body was perfect, as was my memory of the first time we’d joined minds. She was the exact image of her greatest fantasy, with two exceptions. She had long lustrous blue-black hair, not golden blonde. And her wings were the color of midnight instead of bright white, and soft as silk.

  When her soul was freed, I inserted it into her new body, and her soul, essence, and all the power I’d poured into her body became one. I don’t know why I had the instinctive knowledge to do this. I don’t know if I was truly a god, or simply a power to be reckoned with. I did know Lila was now far beyond a master’s power.

  Lila came awake, and gasped a breath, and then looked down at her body, and studied her wings and hair. She was beyond stunning, and so beautiful. She was wearing the strongest weapon and armor I could create using all six spheres of elemental magic. They weren’t as strong as a holy weapon or armor, but for mortal enchanted items they were extremely powerful and almost invisible to magical senses.

  I waited patiently for her to finish her self-assessment, and then I would give her orders to go to Jennesar, and find information, spread discord carefully, and spread the name of Nurien. I needed to know a lot of things, but there was one thing I already did know, and that was that I’d get my revenge and regain my rightful place. That, or I’d die trying.

  Lila asked in a soft awed voice, “What have you done to me?”

  I replied, “My love, I’ve granted you your greatest fantasy and desire. You are a power to be reckoned with, my first angel, my dark angel.”

  Afterword:

  I hope you enjoyed the story. This was the first book in the Dark Dungeon series, which is tentatively planned for three books. I tried to end it without a major cliffhanger, but obviously there are a lot of threads undone. I hope the battle and partial revelations toward the end helped give it enough closure, but this is a trilogy. Either way, you won’t have to wait long for book two.

  I also made an effort to keep the point of views down to three, and tried to keep most of that focus rested on Nurien, I think and hope I succeeded. My original notes called for six, which would have been way too much and disrupted the focus. That will continue in the following books. Catalina and Carlton will stick around as well, and no other POV will be added, except in the prologue of course...

  Prologues don’t count…

  If you can, please take the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and make a big difference.

  About the Author: If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at magicwrtr@gmail.com. I started out posting short stories online and at readers’ requests started to publish them. If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Cirenthian Chronicles – Book one is Out of Darkness.

  Marcus, an ancient vampire, finds himself moved to another world where suddenly he is alive again, and magic is a known and powerful danger. No longer a vampire and dealing with emotions he hasn’t felt in over a millennium, will he be able to start a new life? This series is now complete.

  Necromancer Chronicles – Book one is The Necromancer.

  Vincent is a necromancer and has an even darker secret. Feared by the rest of the supernatural community he lives on his own, often struggling with his powers, and how to use them. But change is coming, and he will soon find himself dragged into the middle of a suspicious and untrusting community.

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  Cytherean Chronicles – Book one is Flame of Cytherea.

  This two book series follows the chosen champion of a goddess, brought to her world and healed after he was mortally wounded on Earth. At first Justin is a little lost, not knowing anything about the world he finds himself in or even why he is there.

  Ashley’s Tale – This two book series follows the tale of a woman with unique parentage in a world greatly different from our own Earth. It is twenty-five years in the future, and the supernatural have long since been exposed. Ashley must struggle with her conflicting nature to find a balance, and her hidden power, as she is taken unwillingly into an extraordinary destiny.

  Ashley’s Daughters – This three book trilogy is about Ashley’s three daughters. It’s about a new world of dragons, and a second new world of human mages and all the fallout involved. Of course, it’s also about them finding love, and their place in the worlds. It starts about twenty-eight years after the end of Ashley’s tale.

  Sentient – This is the standalone book following an artificial intelligence from an advanced race, a man who comes back from war a little broken, along with diverse others as the Earth itself is put into danger as they are dragged into an interstellar war against their will.

  Sentient: Evolution – This is a sequel to the stand alone book Sentient. It takes place a thousand years later, when Aide finds herself alone and broken, yet still following her programming. Others join her as a new menace approaches, one that makes the Sthellan look like a great neighbor in comparison.

  Will Aide be able to recover and rise to a new challenge? She’s been alive too long, she must either evolve, or wither away, if only she could bring herself to care…

  More books and series can be found on my author’s page at amazon.com/author/drrosier

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  He’s also been alone for ten years, and tired of the women of the peerage that see nothing of him, only of his titles and money. Not to mention, they all play the courtly game and faint at his feet. That’s not what he wants. He wants a challenging intelligent woman who will help make life interesting.

  He should have been more careful
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