Dungeon Diving 302

Book 10: Dungeon Diving

by Bruce Sentar

Genres: Sword & Sorcery; Fantasy action & adventure

Synopsis

Ken and company find that with the introduction of the Threadspawn, the whole dungeon becomes far less friendly. Even the populace on Earth is spooked.
Which is why the UG and Haylon sends Ken and a few others on the press tour. Though, even that can't keep Ken from the action. The Threadspawn invade Earth meanwhile Ken is recruited fully into the demon hierarchy.
Now he has to balance loyalties to the UG and the Hierachry while the Threadspawn threat grows ever closer.

Read more

Release date: December 10, 2025

Print pages: 433

Sample

The Story Thus Far

Last time in Dungeon Diving, Ken finished up summer training with Crimson and prepared for the start of a new year at Haylon College. It would be his third year at Haylon, though ostensibly, his class spent most of their time down in Star City, deep within the dungeon. They were focused on continuing to grow as adventurers under the direct tutelage of Crimson rather than staying in a stuffy, castle-like school as many of their predecessors had done. But while Ken was working to better himself, those who moved against him did not sit idle. In the wake of Crimson's battle with the nekorians in the dungeon, there were plans being concocted to give Ken quite the headache. Lucian was being pushed by his father to settle the debts of his dead grandmother, who, in his father’s eyes, had coddled the child far too much. Lucian’s father wanted to harden him and to use vengeance against Ken for that purpose.

The Story Thus Far Last time in Dungeon Diving, Ken finished up summer training with Crimson and prepared for the start of a new year at Haylon College. It would be his third year at Haylon, though ostensibly, his class spent most of their time down in Star City, deep within the dungeon. They were focused on continuing to grow as adventurers under the direct tutelage of Crimson rather than staying in a stuffy, castle-like school as many of their predecessors had done. But while Ken was working to better himself, those who moved against him did not sit idle. In the wake of Crimson's battle with the nekorians in the dungeon, there were plans being concocted to give Ken quite the headache. Lucian was being pushed by his father to settle the debts of his dead grandmother, who, in his father’s eyes, had coddled the child far too much. Lucian’s father wanted to harden him and to use vengeance against Ken for that purpose.

 

In their dive of the dungeon, Ken also found a new race, the whalewyrn, including Misha, who found Ken as an incubus fascinating. The group eventually found their trial monster after making their way deeper into the dungeon. But while classmates were each taking turns attempting to conquer the trial, Lucian struck again, this time with the aid of strange mercenaries intent on killing Ken. These mercenaries, however, were beyond simply strange. When killed, they revived themselves unless a worm nestled inside their bodies was also destroyed. In the disastrous fight that followed, one of the worm-parasitized mercenaries fell through a portal into Star City, bringing the arbiters down on Lucian and his co-conspirators. Though Ken fought Lucian to the end, the mercenaries were wiped out, and the orkai arbiters were present to clean up and root out anyone working with them. This new threat within the dungeon escalated to the Nekorian Council, which ultimately removed Lucian’s father from power. With those events concluded, Ken hoped life in the dungeon would finally settle down, letting him refocus on his studies and growing his abilities. However, while he worked to sink himself back into classes, Star City’s finest prepared to welcome a delegation from the demons and reconnect Hell after the shuffle.

Chapter 1

I scratched my head with the pencil, staring down at the test sheet before me, before I filled in one of the bubbles. The correct answer felt like a toss-up between B and C, but 50–50 was far better than an even split across four answers. I consoled myself as I guessed at yet another question on the test. Life had settled down from the hectic mess that followed the ambush. We had proven to the orkai investigators that we were not currently being controlled by worms, and we were allowed to return to normal life in the city. There were rumors swirling of demons in Star City, but I had been relatively cooped up studying, though Des had done her best to make studying as enjoyable as possible. Her study methods were starting to become addictive, which I had a feeling was directly part of her plan. “Do you have time to be daydreaming?” Crimson’s voice startled me out of my thoughts, and my hand jerked across the sheet, making a pencil line all the

way across the row of bubbles. I cursed and began erasing the mistake. “You did that on purpose,” I muttered. “Quiet during the test,” Crimson scolded, punctuating the words with a whip crack, though I was fairly certain the sound was actually created by her fist passing through the air with enough force to ruffle the papers on the desks all around me. This time, I actually stopped looking at my test to glare at her, only to find the black-haired woman with piercing blue eyes pouting at me. Though her moniker was Mistress Crimson, it had more to do with Crimson being her last name, and she leaned into it by wearing a red leather bodysuit. This outfit iteration, I was fairly certain, was made from hide dropped by a dinosaur she so aptly named Fred. Poor Fred was ridden into the ground before she farmed him and his ilk. Dungeon monsters did not have any sort of personalities, but I still felt for the dinosaur. There was a certain camaraderie I could identify with in being tormented by Crimson, though she often liked to call what she did to me “training.” “Just working on the test,” I told her with a tight-lipped smile. Crimson’s pout remained. “Do you not like the test?” she asked. “I made it perfect just for you.” “I think it’s difficult enough,” I grumbled. Knowing her, if I said anything else, she’d make it harder. Those words only made Crimson’s smile grow wider. “It’s a shame. I was hoping it would be a little too difficult. I can make you work for the extra I forced myself to pay attention to my test, even though Des was trying to get my attention beside me, bouncing her eyebrows. The demonic mage, who, like me, had left her humanity behind in becoming a demon, was my temptress and girlfriend. I had become an incubus using demon blood Crimson had gathered deep in the dungeon. Of course, that had also caused it to escape and turn a boss into a much more dangerous challenge than I’d expected, but we were alive, and I’d grown stronger. I sighed. I needed to focus on the test and attempt to salvage my score. The section we were currently going through had to do with the history of the other races in the dungeon. It was a very different syllabus than a Haylon student would have had years ago, but since the dungeon shuffle and our discovery of Star City, learning about the other races in the dungeon had quickly risen to high priority. Especially given that these ‘deeper’ races were filled with powerhouses that even Crimson couldn’t compete with. But despite the importance, I was finding it hard to care about which orkai warlord was the first to enter the dungeon long ago. I was fairly certain the name started with a G, so I circled D for Grakash the Mighty and moved on. The next question, however, I got easily. It was a question about the demon hierarchy and how exactly that worked. That felt far more applicable, given it had a very personal interest to me. There were a number of subraces of demons. The leader of each subrace was a demon king or queen, and then typically a demon had a number of demon princes that served underneath them. However, one key aspect of how demons organized was to prevent betrayal. They often sought the other subraces for the princes and princesses beneath them. Those princes and princesses could only become a king by helping their lord kill another. For example, an imp demon prince who served an incubus could only become a demon king by killing the competitor imp demon king rather than their current master. Of course, all of that had dozens of other implications. It was a tangled web, but it was one that we had discussed at length in class, and I quickly selected the first answer, filling in A on my sheet. I knew that a succubus princess would not work for a succubus queen. I continued with the test, suddenly buoyed by the idea that I knew one answer at least was absolutely correct. “Time!” Crimson shouted from the front of class, only to a chorus of groans. Crimson waved off everyone’s groaning. “What? If you haven’t gotten them by now, you aren't going to get them anyways. And most of you were done.” She then pointedly looked at me with a smirk, and I wondered if she had distracted me on purpose. I wouldn’t put it past Crimson to try to make me need to earn my extra credit. I could already imagine just how much fun she would have coming up with tasks I needed to complete. “Alright, pass your tests to the right. If you’re all the way on the right, then it goes back around.” She waved her hand as if we needed an example. The shuffle of papers continued, only for Candice’s hand to rocket into the air above her. “Isn’t it Haylon policy that teachers grade the tests? After all, there are multiple long-form answers on this one. And it would be remiss of students to accurately grade those.” Candice waited for an answer, her hand still rigid in the air, clearly on edge. Crimson looked down her nose at Candice and said nothing for several seconds, just continuing to stare while Candice’s arm stayed rooted in the air. After nearly a minute, Candice’s hand faltered and slid back down to her desk before she picked up her own paper and passed it aside, earning a victorious smile from Crimson. “Wonderful. Now that there are no problems, let’s continue.” Crimson’s voice held fake peppiness as she gestured for us to all hurry up. “I will grade the long-form questions separately. However, there is no need for me to spend so much time selecting between multiple choice. Sadly, I’ve been told I cannot get one of those fancy readers sent down here. And the orkai have only offered some sort of ocular implant that could do it for me at high speed…” Crimson shuddered. “So while I have all of your hands, I’m going to use them. Any other questions?” Harley shot her hand up. ...