Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 18: Wonky Magic

Erlan Rhamnus really didn't like his Party. They were… unpleasant people. The Mage, Ayred, especially. Ayred had made it clear from the beginning that his only purpose in life was to use magic and destroy things. Or even better: combining the two and using magic to destroy things. And I get the feeling 'things' is a very broad term for him. Erlan thought as the Party entered the young Dungeon that might have killed above its tier. I think slaves and animals are included in Ayred's definition of 'things'. Maybe even other sapients like humans and gnomes. Erlan chose not to consider if elves were included too.

Nothing happened as the Party slowly walked into the room. Then Ayred threw a bolt of magic at the top of the tree in the corner. Following the bolt the Party saw it hit a small green dragon. The dragon turned into loot before it had even realized what happened. The room turned red as screams came from the direction of the tree. 5 other small green dragons jumped into the air and started flying towards the Mage. Erlan only ended up shooting a single arrow, which killed a dragon before it could get to the Mage. Ayred, however, killed another three before they got near him. The last got cut down by the Fighter, Hagwin, just before it got to breathe fire at the Mage.

"Ha!" Ayred sent his Party an incredibly arrogant smirk. Clearly mocking the others for getting less kills than him. All without even saying a word.

He must have a lot of practice with that smirk! Erlan thought but didn't say a thing.

The Party had no interest in the common loot of a 1st tier Floor if it wasn't BO's and instead entered the next room. While Erlan was the first to notice the dragons this time, his Dexterity wasn't high enough to do more than aim his bow in the right direction before Ayred had cast a spell and killed it. With a Dex that high despite being an Int he'll likely get an Intelligence and Dexterity based Class next tier.

Erlan got to kill two of the dragonets - the Scout had finally had the time to read the name tag above the dragons - flying towards Ayred while the Mage got the rest. Or rather, Ayred would have gotten the rest. As the Mage tried to shoot the spell to kill the last of the dragonets in the room the spell instead backfired and - for some odd reason - gave him a sprained wrist. This time the Tank, Andrathath, was the one to kill the dragonet before it could breathe fire on the Mage.

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The first several times it happened the Party didn't think much of it. To do magic 4 things had to happen. 1) You had to be at least tier 3 as that's when you get access to mana. 2) You had to have enough mana to cast the chosen spell. A higher Intelligence score would give you a higher mana pool, and mana regeneration was based on your maximum mana. So while all Classes from tier 3 and up could learn magic it was mostly the Intelligence based ones that ended up using it daily. 3) You had to have enough Intelligence to be able to learn the spell. Again making it more appealing to Ints.

And 4) You had to actually learn the spell. The System often gave Skills that needed mana to be used but spells had to be learned. Granted, some Skills, some Classes got, looked, and acted a lot like spells, but came without the ability to cast it wrong.

As such the whole Party simply assumed Ayred hadn't learnt the spell properly. So when the spell malfunctioned again in the third room - this time draining energy from the whole Party - they simply looked annoyed at the Mage while thinking he was incompetent.

The magic worked as it should in the next two rooms and Erlan even succeeded in stopping Ayred from killing the dragonet with the key. The Scout feared the key would have otherwise disappeared with the killed monster. The dragonet was thus killed only after the Tank, Andrathath, had pinned it to his chest with one arm and kept its mouth closed with the other hand. Erlan had removed the key only a second before Ayred shot a magic bolt at it.

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In the 6th room Erlan wondered why he was the only one who noticed the 'bìxié'. Ayred had even cursed at the 'invisible creature' that had hit him after the bìxié had rammed into him with its deerlike horns. The hit hadn't actually hurt him though, but the Scout still found it weird that the Mage hadn't seen what hit him.

It's probably just 'cause I'm the only Awa here. Erlan thought after shooting the winged lion-dragon. Maybe this is why the other Parties failed in completing this Dungeon! They didn't have any Awas who could see these monsters. And while one is doable at this low level even without being able to see them, with more numbers these could be really hard to fight against.

After sharing this discovery with the others - and consequently lifting their morale -, the Party entered the 7th room. The key-carrying dragonet on top of the big rock in the middle of the room immediately went to attack. Ayred reflectively responded by shooting a magic bolt at the attacking dragonet only for the magic to instead give him a beard made of feathers. Good thing too as it gave Andrathath the opportunity to grab the dragonet and pin it to his chest so they could get the key. The spells Ayred sent after the other angry dragonets worked as intended.

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My 'Mostly Random Wonky Magic' Rule didn't seem as powerful as I had hoped. The first time the Rule took effect it simply weakened the spell, which in turn halved the damage output it otherwise would have had. I was the only one to notice it happened though, as the Mage was way stronger than a simple level 1 dragonet. At half damage the bolt still killed the dragonet.

The sprained wrist was a better result but still seemed a bit lackluster compared to my imagination. It is random though, so it might give more spectacular results later.

Simply being this high level must have given them enough Awareness to spot my traps 'cause the Scout isn't pointing them out, yet they know exactly where to avoid walking. The Party had expertly avoided my Spikes trap in The Burrow Trap Room. Their later ease in avoiding the traps in The Trap Corridor and the Hidden Pitfall trap in The Berry Forest confirmed my thought.

The feather beard made me laugh. Mentally that is.

In The Room of Kindness, the Scout had spotted the fake hurt dragonet and frozen in surprise. This gave the Mage time to spot and shoot a bolt at the illusion. Seeing as the dragonet didn't leave any loot behind, it was quickly obvious to the Party that it had been a puzzle.

Like the two Parties before them they instead rammed through the door. This led to the Fighter getting covered in acid which only made him itch for a while. I know my puzzle gets their strength based on the tier of the Floor they're on but isn't there another way to put a stopper to this?

Dungeon God: You have realized that you are (kind of) the god of your own world.

So… There is now a Rule that states that… you have to actually solve my puzzles. 'Cause if you don't… it's annoying to me… and you don't learn the lesson I'm trying to teach you… and then… bad things happen…

Cheaters Only Cheat Themselves: All Dungeon-aligned beings and items get a 5% increase in Toughness if a puzzle is neither solved nor failed but instead skipped completely. Dungeon-aligned includes Dungeon walls, doors, puzzles, traps, creatures, "family" and so on. A puzzle is considered skipped if it is "solved" by breaking the puzzle, if physical or magical force has been used to trick the puzzle into a solved state, or if the puzzle gets skipped. The increase in Toughness through this Rule cannot be higher than a 100% increase and gets reset once the cheating Party leaves the Dungeon.

Due to the current presence of sapients in your Dungeon the Rule will for now only take effect in current empty Floors. The Rule will take effect on the remaining Floors as soon as they are empty of sapients.

Despite how rambling the Rule had sounded, as I tried to come up with it on the spot, it ended up being a pretty cool Rule.

It won't do a lot this time around, but wow is that gonna stack!

That was kind of expensive, though. Mostly due to me having several Floors now, I think.

… Then again… I get a lot of discounts on my creatures, so I'll probably always find Rules expensive to make.

The Party had entered The Swamp Route and the first spell the Mage tried to cast got affected by the 'Mostly Random Wonky Magic' Rule. This time it resulted in the Mage temporarily becoming mute. Not something that really bothered him. By the time the Party entered The Waterfall Room the feather beard had fallen off and the Mage could talk in a quiet whisper.

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Erlan could see the exit of the first room of the 2nd Floor, but it was guarded by 10 bā zù lung dragons. Every time before this the Party had been able to kill off the 8-legged dragons pretty quickly, so the faint black aura that for a second appeared around Ayred came as a surprise. The Party didn't know what it meant and so decided to ignore it.

Even when that black flicker appeared another 9 times.

The first spell Ayred tried against the lung dragons made a red glow appear around the Mage, similar to the black aura from before. The second spell worked and killed the intended lung dragon. The third spell summoned a unicorn.

A unicorn named Sunbolt.

Unicorn! What do I know about unicorns? Erlan thought desperately to himself. The white, lion-tailed, cloven hooved, goat-bearded, horned horse might have been summoned with its face turned towards Erlan but that wasn’t who it decided to attack. Instead it wasted no time and began charging towards Ayred with its head lowered so its horn was aimed at the Mage.

Right! Unicorns are aggressive and attack on sight. Every elf had heard the infamous story of how the previous elven queen had been attacked and killed without warning by a unicorn while she was visiting a craftery in the neighboring human kingdom. Like many elves, Erlan had often questioned why the craftery had wanted to keep a unicorn. Though with humans’ much shorter lifespan it made sense why the unicorn hadn’t been locked up well enough that it couldn’t attack anyone.

Though… Some rumors stated the unicorn wasn’t even punished for killing the queen!

To some, the most horrifying part was that many other crafteries and even some royalties had poorly secured unicorn herds as well.

Erlan was about to shoot an arrow at the unicorn but got interrupted by the lung dragon that Ayred had intended to kill when he instead summoned the unicorn. Said dragon was raising its sharp tail in an attack towards the Mage, and so Erlan shot it instead of the unicorn. It died on the spot. Unicorns can also heal themselves, Erlan reminded himself.

Ayred had gotten a couple of spells off but the unicorn barely seemed to get hurt by them as it rammed its spiraled, straight horn into the Mage. Ayred hadn't even thought to dodge and was hit in the torso. The unicorn was only level 4 but still managed to get far enough in that it hit a rib and broke it. Blood splattered as the unicorn ripped its horn out of the torso as it reared. Light glowed around its own body and the bodies of the three lung dragons Hagwin and Andrathath had hurt - but due to bad luck hadn't yet killed - and healed the wounds of the 4 creatures. This gave the dragons a second wind and they began fighting even harder.

The pain had Ayred looking down at his wound as he covered it with his hands, trying to keep the blood inside his body. As such he didn't see the unicorn aim its hooves at his head as it reared down.

Shortly after, the Mage laid flat on the ground, not unconscious but stunned and confused.

Erlan didn't want his Party member to die if he could help it, but each time he tried to go for the unicorn, an 8-legged dragon would show up and the Scout's priority would change. As such the unicorn got to stomp Ayred's head again, knocking him unconscious, before enough lung dragons had been killed that Erlan could get a shot off on the unicorn. Unlike the magic bolts from earlier, which had simply been less effective, the arrow instead got reflected by a magic shield and bounced off. As such, the unicorn got another stomp off on Ayred's head before Erlan actually hit it. And unlike the Mage's bolts, the arrow killed the level 4 unicorn in one hit. The unicorn burst into light particles but left no loot behind.

All 10 bā zú lung dragons had been killed at that point, so after a quick look around Erlan pulled off his backpack and began to work on Ayred's chest wound using his first aid kit. The Scout didn't know what to do for the broken rib, so he chose to focus on the bleeding wound. Ayred woke with a scream as Erlan cleaned the wound with the alcohol from the first aid kit. The Mage thrashed around for a bit in pain before settling for laying still while making pained sounds.

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The 'Mostly Random Wonky Magic' Rule changed the effect of 6 of the Mages bolt spells while the Party was in the 1st room of the 2nd Floor.

I don't think he knows any other spells.

The first wonky spell made a mechanical clock with arms and legs and a sword appear and attack its caster. It got a couple of scratches in before it was destroyed and turned into light particles. The second one blinded the Party - but not my creatures - for 10 seconds in the middle of a fight. The third made the Mage incredibly clumsy for a minute which had him falling on his face twice and hitting the Fighter with a magical bolt on accident. The 4th reversed gravity for the Mage for a minute which dislocated his right shoulder twice when he landed on it after each time gravity changed. The 5th doubled damage dealt against the Mage for the next minute. And while it didn't make much difference for my own creatures, it did help the level 4 unicorn the 6th wonky spell summoned.

Like the animated clock from earlier the unicorn would count as one of my Dungeon creatures either till it died or the Floor got emptied of sapients. This was a good thing as the system considered unicorns as semi-sapients, and the unicorn otherwise would have appeared on the previous Floor due to the 2nd Floor having reached its allowed number of sapients.

Why the unicorn had a name when the animated clock didn't have one I didn't know, and the System refused to tell me.

However, I did know that, unlike the animated clock from earlier, unicorns were karmic creatures. As such, it immediately attacked the Mage rather than the first it saw - which had been the Scout who had a karma level of 67%. The unicorn didn't only attack with surprising power but also healed itself and some of my bā zú lung dragons it was fighting with, as well as shielding itself from attacks. Additionally it had resistance to magic attacks leaving the Mage unable to kill it. The unicorn did go down eventually - it was only level 4 after all - but not before damaging the Mage severely.

I need to get myself a couple of unicorns as soon as I have the mana for it! But unicorns are way out of my price range… I mentally sighed. Just as far out as my true mimics are… More actually. My true mimics are karmic true mimics now, making them much cheaper than before. Unicorns have a base cost of 10,000 mana, despite already being a karmic creature, making them almost 2,000 mana more expensive than my karmic true mimics in base cost...

I mentally sighed in disappointment.

Immediately after the Scout had given first aid to the Mage did the Party begin to scold the Mage for casting a spell, he 'clearly' hadn't learnt to use. The Mage had gotten a concussion and couldn't properly defend himself against their accusations, so they began discussing what to do now. While they shortly considered simply leaving, their much higher level made them reject that idea. Instead the other three ordered the Mage to stop casting spells unless it was his Skill spell - it sounded like said Skill was some form of shield spell - and instead use his emergency dagger. Apparently, the dagger was meant to be used once the Mage ran out of mana.

"I was out of mana anyway." The Mage grumbled.

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The Party had avoided all traps they could, activated safely those they couldn't and collected both keys in The Forest of Territories. The traps in the opening of the 2nd room were annoyingly noticed as well and thus didn't do any harm.

But let's see how they deal with the creatures of The Wood of Rebirth.

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As the two robin-sized dark red birds were faster flyers than the brown feathered wyverns, Erlan took it as a priority to kill them first. As a 3rd tier against a 1st tier he hit the two with his first two arrows. You might be specialized in Dexterity, but I happen to have a decent amount as well! Having killed the birds Erlan then turned his attention to a wyvern.

That he hadn't noticed that the birds didn't turn into loot wasn't so much bad luck, as it was a disinterest in 1st tier loot - with the exception of BO's -, as well as the continued existence of more Dungeon monsters in the room. That the birds got consumed in a short burst of flame as they died was simply mistaken for the burst of light that appeared before a monster turned into loot.

Erlan's Party successfully pinned the lung dragon carrying the key, so they could take the key before killing it. As the other 3 did that, Erlan killed another two of the dark red birds - both of these were level 1, where the other two had been level 4 - which had attacked Ayred.

Again not noticing the lack of loot as he didn't care to look for it.