Dungeon Eternium

 

Well, here we are: the final book in Dakota Krout's Divine Dungeon series, Dungeon Eternium!  

Dungeon Eternium picks up pretty much right where Dungeon Desolation left off.  They've beaten Xenocide's powerful Runes that were drawing the moon to the planet, but unfortunately that damage has already been done.  While they have more time now, the moon is still going to crash into the planet.  Also, Cal's leylines are also destroying the planet because there will no longer be any free-floating essence, devastating the world even if it survives the moon.  The only option is to have as many people as possible hide in a large enough soul space, assuming the one being with a big enough one (ie Cal) agrees.  

I found Dungeon Eternium a bit dry at first.  Most of the Cal parts were just him by himself.  He was doing whatever on his own without Dani or one of the Bobs to throw ideas around with.  Dale was also just kind of doing stuff - he's no longer a noble, so he wasn't really part of the goings on politically anymore.

But I did find the stuff with the Northmen interesting, mainly from Cal's perspective.  He started exploring their city and found a dungeon underneath them.  The two dungeons made an exchange that Cal thought was well worth his while, and it was interesting to encounter another Dungeon that was so cunning. 

Dani's "brother" also turned up at one point.  He was a dungeon core that grew up with Dani, so they started calling each other brother and sister.  That was admittedly a weird little side bit to the story because he didn't really add anything to the plot (and his character wasn't overly interesting either - he was a core stuck in a backpack - he couldn't spread his influence anywhere, and Cal and Dani just kept shoving him in a chest whenever Grace was around to make sure she didn't bond to him).

But then Dungeon Eternium took a few interesting turns.  First, Cal went to the very North of the world as per Dani's request.  There he found the oldest Dungeon around (Dungeon Eternium), who created the Wisps.  While the Dungeon could have destroyed Cal with merely a thought, he asks for Cal's help because the moon is going to directly impact him (which was apparently Xenocide's plan all along?)  Eternium helps Cal with some stuff, and in exchange, Cal helps bring Eternium into his Soul Space.

What was really fun about this exchange was that Eternium didn't understand Cal's language.  Cal had to give it to him, and he immediately understood and used it perfectly because he is such an immense, ancient, and wise being.  It was a neat moment.

But then the fun really began.  Barry returned and took over Mountaindale once again (but this time from the Master, who was sick of the politics anyway and so didn't care).  He took all kinds of tribute, and started trying to control who would enter Cal's soul space (although when his back was turned, the Dark Elves all snuck in).  Once almost everyone was through, he summoned his new master: Xenocide (this scene had some hilarious dialogue between the two)!  Then he made his way through the dungeon, killing everything in his path with his weird and deadly power.  Cal orders everyone to escape, but Barry catches Cal and tries to eat him and all the souls now contained within his Soul Space.  But rather than die, Cal and Dale become rejoined.  But Dale's human body cannot contain the totality of the two of them (especially since Cal is so much more than a human, plus he's in the A ranks where Dale is B).  So they have to make their way back to where Barry is before their body fails to get the perfect replica Dungeon Core that Cal made (he was hoping to use it as a distraction, but Barry knew which one was really him).  

This whole part was so intense - I loved it!  It felt like a real culmination of Dale and Cal's arcs, and a really fun way to bring them together.

So while the beginning of this book was a bit dry, it's totally worth the read.  Everything (even stuff from Dungeon Desolation, my least favourite book in the series) comes together really well.  I really enjoyed both this book and the series as a whole.  :)

And now my friend who recommended this to me wants me to start reading  

Dungeon Desolation

Rather than sleep, last night I stayed up super late reading Dakota Krout's Dungeon Desolation, the fourth book in the Divine Dungeon series. The Master's armies of undead are rampaging across the world, but Mountaindale, the town on Cal's floating island, remains relatively untouched.  At least until the Guild decrees that all human titles are forfeit and the town and academy are now in their hands to support the war effort.  They send an obnoxious S-level Mage to conscript Cal as well - he kills an entire floor (even Cal's essence within it), and threatens to kill the rest of the dungeon if Cal refuses to cooperate.  They want to use the dungeon to ferry troops to the back of the Master's armies.

Cal of course does not take this well, and immediately starts planning how to get out of this (and specifically how to kill the S-level mage, even though Cal himself is only a B-Level dungeon).

Dale is no longer Baron (although he remains a Duke with the Dark Elves), and so is in major danger of being conscripted into the army.  So he signs himself up at the academy as the protege of the headmaster whom he had just hired.  The clerk takes a disliking to Dale, and conspires to get him booted out of the academy by not issuing Dale receipts for his tithes to said academy (but luckily Dale gets wind of this and is able to remain in the dungeon long enough to more than make up for the shortfall).  Unfortunately, all his training, specifically to strengthen his aura, makes an imbalance within him, and Dale starts becoming uncharacteristically aggressive, both in the Dungeon and without.  It takes the intervention of his teachers to knock some sense into him (quite literally!)  

While I enjoyed reading Dungeon Desolation, I didn't think it was quite on par with the other few books.  For one thing, there was a lot less Dani than in earlier books (she was training their daughter, Grace).  For another, there was a lot less of Cal doing fun and crazy things - it was kind of more of the same from book 3 (he was mostly finishing up his ley lines, and dealing with flying).  He did make a few new monsters and floors, but nothing really fun (I guess other than his battle royale of elementals that he set up and let fight and evolve on their own).

The ending was rather unexpected though: everyone was manipulated by Xenocide, the super-ranked Mage of Madness (I have no idea what his level is, but it appears to be more powerful than anyone else, even the Master) for the last several hundred years so he could get everyone into a particular place at a particular time to power a ritual for him to attract one of the planet's moons to the planet, killing everyone and "freeing them of their madness."  Now everyone has to work together to stop him, if it's even possible.

While not the best in the series, Dungeon Desolation still had some fun moments.  It'll be interesting to see how the series ends in Dungeon Eternium.

Dungeon Calamity

Book 3 of Dakota Krout's Divine Dungeon series sure took some crazy turns!  Dungeon Calamity opens with Cal being brought back to himself by a mysterious man who wants his "whispers" back.  The man was surprised that Cal even answered when he spoke to him, but with that settled, the mysterious man left the dungeon.  Cal's goblins, the Bobs (the Bobs are specifically clones of his original Goblin Shaman) are overjoyed that he's back - a month has passed and Cal went decidedly insane.  He was throwing crazy traps and mobs against adventurers and failing to clean anything up. Terrified that this reprieve from madness will be short lived, Cal starts making plans to go and find Dani.

To that end, Cal starts extending his influence downwards, looking for the molten centre of the planet.  He also gets the Bobs to help him start a new ritual which sets ley lines through the planet.  Finally, Cal fights his way into the Mage ranks, managing to tie himself to the most powerful concept in the process (the one that all the other ones originate from).

With Dale being his usual unhelpful self, and Cal losing contact with Minya, he embarks on his most daring adventure yet: controlled flight.  Using a gyroscope, he manages to get the mountain into the air and headed off to save Dani!

For his part, Dale was kind of doing more of the same.  Embroiled in the local politics, he manages to get a training school up and running in Mountaindale (that's the name of his new city).  The school is meant to be a place where people of all races and nations can gather to train, hopefully politics-free (although everyone is aware that they probably won't be able to keep all politics out).  He continues training with his Dark Elf teacher (and manages to piss his teacher off, so his teacher is now attacking him wherever and whenever).  But then when the nations of the world are attacked and decimated by a necromancer calling himself "The Master," Dale finds his and Cal's goals suddenly aligning.  

Dungeon Calamity was in many ways different from the other two books, mainly because Cal was without Dani (which was sad).  But it was full of really fund moments (and culminated in a crazy ending that I didn't see coming).  I'm looking forward to reading book 4! :)

Dungeon Madness

I once again started reading another book that just sat for a few weeks of me not touching it.  Then on Friday, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't really interested in reading that book right now because I wanted to read more of the Divine Dungeon.  So I started book two, Dungeon Madness, and finished it late last night (I should have stopped reading, but I was so near the end that I just powered through and finished).

Dungeon Madness picks up relatively where Dungeon Born ended: Dale can now hear Cal, the Dungeon, speaking in his mind.  But he's doing his best to ignore Cal.  Cal also discovers that Dale can't hear him when he leaves the dungeon, so Cal has to work around that.  

Outside of the dungeon, Dale's friend Hans cajoles him into taking a more active role in running the city that he's trying to develop around the dungeon.  Aided with knowledge from the memory crystals the dark elves gave him, he's becoming more politically astute.  Unfortunately some people don't take too kindly to this; they jump him and leave him to die in the dungeon.  Dale makes a desperate deal with Cal to remain alive.  In return he has to bring Cal things to eat so he can learn their patterns and make more.  Cal's first demand is for a bag of holding (although he decides Dale can bring that later when he decides he first wants the fluffy pink robe Dale was wearing instead).  

Meanwhile, villages around the mountain are mysteriously dying.  The people think it might be necromancers that are on the move, and so the nobles from the two nearby kingdoms are sending their children to the mountain to protect them.  Unfortunately it isn't necromancers that are causing the problems...the problems appear to be Dungeon Born and they want to come back home...

Dungeon Madness is a fun and quick read.  In a lot of ways it was similar to the first book, although with the added fun of Cal actively messing with Dale and company because Dale can now hear him.  (I did get a huge laugh when Krout was describing what everyone in Dale's group got, except for Hans, who got nothing because Cal doesn't like him).  But it does set up beautifully for book 3.  I can't wait to read more of the story soon!

Dungeon Born

 A friend of mine really wanted me to try Dakota Krout's Dungeon Born, the first book in the Divine Dungeon series.  It tells the tale of a soul that gets sucked into a soul gem and becomes a brand new dungeon.  The dungeon, names Cal by Dani, his wisp servant/friend, needs to grow and evolve, attracting adventurers to attempt the dungeon (and hopefully die along the way, feeding Cal energy and new toys to play with like weapons and runes).

Dungeon Born is also the tale of Dale, one of the sheepherders who discovered the dungeon (and the only one to live to tell the tale).  Dale ended up selling all his belongings to buy the entire mountain the new dungeon is on, knowing that all the people who will be interested in the dungeon will make him rich once word gets out.  This leads him into the Adventurers' Guild and training to become an adventurer.  It also leads him into politics as all the people who want to use the dungeon don't realize that he owns the entire mountain.

I'm not going to lie, the beginning of this gets a bit rough.  Krout's world is very much like an RPG system, complete with leveling of the characters, and for awhile Dani's explanations to Cal about everything really made me feel like I was reading an RPG rule set rather than a fictional story.  But once you get past that, the story gets super fun!  I'm quite excited to see where things go in Dungeon Madness, the second book in the series!