Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 32: Solving and Making Puzzles

Well… That was unexpected… But somewhat understandable. I thought as Emerald's Party admired themselves in the mirror wall. But curious, still…

Would you mind assisting me, young kobling? I asked the nearest free kobold. The kobolds took pleasure in calling me 'Mother Core' or simply 'Mother' when only around other 'children' of mine, as the custom had now become. I had in turn decided to refer to them as if they were all children. My children.

They naturally loved it.

The kobold nearest to Emerald's Party was located in the last room on the 6th Floor, as the 7th didn't have a single kobold. This meant it was a part of the Greedy Pacifist Clan of kobolds. The Clan mostly spent their time experimenting with olive oil. How to make better quality and how to better preserve it were currently their top goals. They had given the Tribe a jar of their latest product and kept an example for themselves as well, so they could figure out if things spoiled differently in the Surface World than in my Dungeon. The jar itself had been carved from stone by the Clan and came with a screw lid. Something, I had been the one to teach my kobolds about.

"It would be my honor to aid you, Mother!" The Greedy Pacifist replied.

I want you to ask Emerald's Party a couple of questions for me. You can find them in The Room of Reflections.

"Yes, Mother!"

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that my creatures couldn't enter other Floors due to the maximum levels worth of creatures for each Floor. The only exception was uncompleted Floors.

System? I want a Rule which allows my kobold to enter an already filled Floor. I just want it to be able to ask them a couple of questions.

New Dungeon Rule: Mana Form: All Dungeon creatures can turn their body into mana. While in mana form they have no physical body and do not count towards the Floor's maximum allowed levels worth of creatures.

Nice! Looking at my mana I saw that it had cost me 339.5 mana. For a Dungeon-wide Rule it was actually really cheap.

Likely cause it didn't have any offensive or defensive purpose.

On the way through The Swampfire Forest I informed the kobold that I wanted to know how common mirrors were. It might be possible to incorporate the information into later puzzles after all!

The beastkin had only just stopped talking about the mirror wall when the kobold arrived at their destination a couple of minutes later.

The kobold asked the question before Emerald's Party had had a chance to say a thing. They quickly explained that while mirrors were somewhat common, they were normally of much worse quality. Only royalty would have mirrors with a reflection this clear.

Interesting… I don't know if I can use it, though. You can go back now, kobling. If you wish.

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The Intelligence Class, 'mana form', glowing, mist-looking kobold left the room and the Party got back on task. Clearly this was just another oddity of the Dungeon of Karma.

"'Show me only violence'." Begdar read out loud to remind herself and her Party of the riddle. After pondering the riddle a bit she suggested a solution: "Perhaps if we cover up all the words except the word 'violence' then the eyes would only be able to see said word." Her Party nodded.

"How do we cover up the other words?" Zaktak asked.

"Hmmm…" Begdar didn't have an immediate answer for that.

"Cover it with our bodies?" Morghar suggested. "It's not that high up."

Begdar gave a nod and a shrug at the same time as she didn't have any better idea at the moment.

Emerald's Party then tried to stand in front of the riddle without blocking the word 'violence'.

A snort was heard. The Party looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the kobold from earlier had only moved to the entrance doorway. "The eyes aren't only seeing the word 'violence' right now! But a bunch of beastkin and a couple of dragons too!" The kobold gave another snort.

Begdar facepalmed. "Of course!" With a smile and a nod she thanked the kobold for its aid. For it had indirectively told them that, while doing it this way was wrong, they were on the right track. "Let's look for something to cover it with." Begdar instructed her Party.

Soon a barrel in the corner was discovered, filled with small, stone balls intended for the nearby slingshot. Only… That was the only ammunition in the room. No arrows or bolts despite the bows and crossbows. And underneath the small balls were a long piece of cloth. A cloth conveniently the color of the volcano themed wall…

"So…" Morghar began, holding the cloth in his hand. "How do we get it to stay up there without holding it?"

"There's small hooks over all the words, Morghar." Thenac stated as she grabbed the other end of the cloth. "They're made of volcanic rock, so they blend in well and most won't easily notice them, unless you're looking for them or have a high Awareness."

Morghar and Thenac covered the three first words, leaving only the word 'violence' be shown, before taking several steps back.

Your Party has solved a puzzle!

You have gained 23 EXP.

Rocks were heard scraping against each other and the Party looked to the one empty wall in the room. The wall was slowly being lowered.

Only to reveal… another empty wall behind it.

"What?" Could be heard from both Begdar and Zaktak, with the latter being much louder than the former. Morghar gave a confused "Huh?", while the remaining three beastkin simply looked at the new wall in shocked confusion.

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Bahahaha! I couldn't stop laughing. You should have seen your faces! More mental laughter.

Emerald's Party proceeded to walk up to the wall and feel the entirety of the wall, looking for a hidden exit. It only made me laugh harder. If I had had a movable body I would have been rolling on the ground laughing. I couldn't remember ever laughing this much, and as no one could hear me unless I wanted them to, I saw no reason to stop laughing.

Only after the whole length of the wall had been thoroughly searched through touch, did the Party give the idea up.

As I didn't want the kobold to even hint at the solution to the next puzzle, I had ordered it back to its Clan.

Bagdar began pondering the new mystery out loud, only for Thenac to spoil my fun and notice the solution. "The exit is visible in the mirror!"

Well… That's how it is when you have a Scout on the team!

After that it didn't take the Party long before they realized they had to look at the exit in the mirror while they walked through it. The exit didn't exist unless you were looking at it in the mirror.

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All in all, the Tribe thought the swampfire forest theme was odd but scary, which was intended. But as the traps didn't trigger, they failed to realize how well the traps fit the theme and added to the fear factor.

The Floor could have been done about a day earlier if I hadn't added 22 small, 2nd tier chests to the Floor. I added them due to the 'Strength of the Hoard' Ability my red fledgeling karmic hoarder dragons had. And unlike the griffins' Ability replacing a chest with a mimic won't work. I might consider mimics a treasure but they can't be a part of a hoard.

I had tested it…

The Ability added points to the dragon's Strength Score based on the size of its hoard, so I felt the need to give each one a chest as a hoard. While having a hoard consisting of a single small 2nd tier chest surrounded by leprechaun gold - which I had paid very little mana for - didn't make for the biggest hoard, it still gave each hoarder dragon a 2+ to their Strength Score. Not a lot, but still the equivalent of a level up.

Having a hoard might normally mean that you don't share, but having a karmic nature seems to cancel it out. The hoarder dragon sure didn't seem to have any problems letting the Tribesmen take the things in its chest if it got some pets in return!

Each of the 22 small, 2nd tier chests contained three medium tin cubes. Additionally, they had a 5% chance of containing a small item inspired by its location or defender. As all 22 chests had the same defender, the item that could appear was the same: a spoon made of redwood, that could bring up to 5 liters of water to boil in a minute just by stirring it. It would also work for tea or soup, but not for oil.

While that might not seem super impressive, this feature didn't require the user to use any mana, so even children could use it!

… I hope no one actually lets a child play with it unsupervised…

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This time I decided to start by making the puzzles of the new Floor. Two of which I had wanted to use since the time I made my 1st and 3rd Floor respectively. I hadn't been able to make them as I intended then due to the 'puzzles aren't allowed to harm people yet' rule, and I simply hadn't gotten around to making them until now.

The last puzzle of the Floor was the newly improved one-guardian-only locked door, where you simply had to get two keys to unlock it. Nothing super fancy, but in turn super cheap!

Well… These days it was cheap. It had been expensive back at level 0.

The third puzzle was a… fetch quest? Something I had only realised afterwards. When completed the visitor would be rewarded with a key to the locked door.

That and EXP for completing the puzzle.

After having made the puzzles I began on making creatures.

I decided not to begin with the mimic.

… Mostly 'cause I didn't yet know where it would be best to put it. I needed to first know what I wanted it to be able to turn into before I could decide on its race. Which would reflect what size objects it could turn into.

Instead I first made a bunch of fledgling karmic flameborn dragons. They looked much like the classic red dragon that was my hoarder dragon, but flameborns were more… flat. It had a flat, wide mouth and its legs came out from the side of its body like a salamander, giving it a shorter look. The fledgling version was about 1.5 meters from its claws to its hornless head.

And while it couldn't breathe fire, it did have the tendency to catch on fire. Hence the name 'flameborn'. Their bodies were covered in a flammable gel they could ignite on command using a little spark of Fire mana.

Then I began filling the next room with magma lindwyrms. These 2 meters long dragons looked like obsidian black snakes but had a pair of legs on the front part of its body.

So… it looked like a big snake with arms…

Arms ending in deadly claws, mind you! But it still looked a bit odd.

Magma lindwyrms lived in magma - of course! -, so they were placed in a hall with a stone route in the middle and magma to each side of it.

A week had gone by and I had finally made all the 18 lindwyrms I wanted to make. I was once again starting to wish my mana regenerated faster than it did.

That didn't mean I was bored, however! The Tribe had visited me quite often during the day! Especially the first 5 days after the cult had appeared as everyone wanted to bond with a creature of mine. After that it had been a bit calmer.

Three Parties still came by twice a day each, though… So, my Dungeon was still much busier than before just based on that.

Many other members of the Tribe had decided they wanted to come by once a week for fighting lessons with the kobolds. This meant there were about two lessons per day.

And all of this naturally gave me a massive amount of EXP.

Status, please!

Personal Status Level: 19+ Needed number of killed sapients with karma levels of 25% or lower: 19/50 EXP: 641,048 Next mana payment for level up: 0/5,250 Mana: 662.25/1,500 Mana regeneration: 525 per hour Floors: 7/10 Allowed number of sapients in each Floor: 6 Floor Details Achievements Mission Dungeon Rules

So, much EXP! And I can't use it! I wish I could just get rid of the tier up requirement! But noooo~! That would go against my mission as a Dungeon Core! The System can't have that!