Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 38: Expecting a Battle, Getting a War

System Alert:

The restriction on the number of sapients allowed on each Floor of your Dungeon has been forcefully disabled for 24 hours. In reflection of this, the maximum levels worth of creatures for each Floor has been disabled as well, creatures will respawn when their room has been emptied rather than their entire Floor, and visitors can only exit through the Dungeon Portal or the Core.

As punishment to the sapients who did this, all loot drops will be disabled the next 24 hours.

Oh no! That means they will all come at once!

How many is that even?!

When the message appeared, all my chests disappeared as well. This in turn meant several of my creatures would get no buffs from the Abilities 'Treasure Guardian' and 'Strength of the Hoard'.

My hoarder dragons still had their leprechaun gold, but that was only enough for a single extra point in Strength. And I highly suspected that point had been rounded up.

The two griffins of my 2nd Floor still had their mimic to guard of course. I had only just started to consider if I should have said mimic change its form, when elves began pouring into my Dungeon. Room after room they slaughtered my creatures, which couldn't yet respawn as more elves kept coming through. Each room turning red as blood was shed made some individuals hesitate, but then they would just see someone else ignore the change, which made them ignore it too.

One of the elves in front was a 3rd tier Scout who was quick to point out my traps to any who had missed one, so my traps seemed sort of useless.

The army was mostly 3rd tier, with some 2nd and 4th tier sprinkled in. Additionally there was a 5th tier Apprentice Healer, a 6th almost 7th tier dawon - a giant liger? - and a 6th almost 7th tier with the Class 'Noble Elemental Mage - Lightning'.

As the siren had only been at the very beginning of the 5th tier, this did make me somewhat worried. And with the Lightning Mage's neutral karma level, my Wonky Magic Rule could change her spells for good or bad, neither being guaranteed.

… Let's just hope, they're not super paranoid…

Interestingly enough, only one of the two 0%'ers I had sensed had entered my Dungeon. Said elf was a Hypnotized level 28 Awareness Classer who didn't look like a combatant. A healer, perhaps?

No keys were collected but I doubted the locked door would even slow them down.

I was right, it didn't. But by the time the front of the army had rammed open the locked door at the end of my 1st Floor, The Great Tree Room had finally been emptied. I knew I would have to wear them down by having them kill my respawned creatures over and over again, if I were to have a chance at winning this. But if I started right away, they would quickly realize what was going on and simply leave someone behind in each room to stop my creature's from respawning.

Which could also be a strategy, as they would then be spread out…

I did a quick count of my rooms. I only have 39 rooms, though. That would still leave 35 elves to walk to my Core together! No! I'm waiting till it's less obvious that my creatures are respawning!

In The Watchtower Crossroad the sword-bearing kobold leader was giving the kobolds of the room some encouragement, and I was just about to ask the leader to return to the Fortress, as the elves were getting closer. But before I could, I had an intriguing thought: If a creature respawns when its room is empty, does that mean the room it was killed in or the room it originally spawned in?

I naturally had to test this theory, and I did so by sending one of the wood wyvern from The Wood of Rebirth into The Forest of Territories. I ordered said wyvern to attack the first elf it saw and, as expected, it quickly died.

And, just as I had hoped, it immediately respawned in The Wood of Rebirth surrounded by the other three wyverns in its flock.

Yes! I was quick to make the order that all creatures from rooms with no elves in them should rush to a room with one and attack the elves the best they could. All creatures from rooms with at least one elf in should instead act like they normally would.

Of course, even when ordered to, my karmic creatures would only attack people in self defense or those with low karma. Which wasn't every elf, only some 75% of them.

Which was still a large amount, so it didn't cause too many problems.

For now at least…

Even with the maximum levels worth of creatures for each Floor being disabled, my creatures still couldn’t enter earlier Floors if their level was too high, so it would mostly just be creatures from the later rooms in a Floor entering the earlier rooms to attack.

Noteworthy exceptions to this were several lower leveled longmas and ash drakes, my Boss’s three assistants - such as the unicorn bunny - and the 64 level 1 will-o’-wisps and 6 elemental Heat slimes from the 7th Floor.

The ash drakes lacked wings and the ability to breath fire. Instead they had the tendency to cover a room with a cloud of burning ash and black smoke, leaving their enemies blinded so they could sneak up on them using their heat vision.

Will-o’-wisps would give all that saw them the feeling that nothing else mattered except getting close enough to touch them. Unless said person had an Awareness of 10 or higher, that is. Which most people had. Then it wouldn’t work at all!

Unless! The person saw more will-o’-wisps! Then the required Score rose two points for each additional wisp, making it harder to resist following them mindlessly. Which is why I had prioritized numbers over levels when it came to will-o’-wisps.

All with an Awareness Score of 30 or more were completely immune, though, so it wasn’t perfect. And as it required line of sight I had to be careful an ash drake didn’t come by and ruin it.

Elemental slimes of the Heat element - an element I still hadn’t gotten quite used to existing - didn’t really gain anything through level up, as all their extra points were put into Toughness. While level 1 slimes had good Awareness for their level, their Intelligence Score of 2 meant that while they would recognize a threat when they saw it, they would have no idea of what to do about it. As the Heat slimes were also karma creatures they would likely only try to hit an enemy with a pseudopod if said person were straight up evil. Though, I had yet to test it.

Long story short: Heat slimes were no good in a fight.

No. What made Heat slimes interesting were their ability to explode in a blast of heated slime upon death. So, the slimes having a higher Toughness Score would be pointless.

It was no wonder why no one in the Tribe had wanted to bond with a Heat slime.

Or a will-o’-wisp for that matter.

To delay the elves in realizing that my creatures respawned once a room had been emptied, I ordered all creatures from rooms, the elves had left, to stay put for now. I planned on having them attack from behind, once the army had killed my kirin Boss and entered the 6th Floor. That way it would be much harder for them to suddenly start having one person stay in each room.

No. I have to be patient. If I start doing it immediately after the Boss has been killed, they might just leave a group behind in The Field of Fallen Heroes and stop my Boss from respawning. I’ll have to wait till they’re a couple of rooms away first.

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Sarzina Acacia found her future Dungeon extremely fascinating despite its youth. No other Dungeon had ever been recorded as having monsters not of its chosen type on the 1st Floor. Only much older Dungeons had monsters of another type and then only on later Floors.

Zina hadn't actually seen the crocodiles, as she had been ordered to enter last, but she had read the scouting report several times in preparation.

And not only were there crocodiles on the 1st Floor, but each Floor had been reported to have a larger variety than any other Dungeon its age. Normally a variety like this was only found in much later Floors of a Dungeon with an age measured in decades rather than weeks.

The reported traps were, for the most part, nothing special. Only the rusting trap had stood out as being unique for the Dungeon. The scouting Party had ended up skipping every puzzle, except the unique spinning wheel puzzle, so Zina was still unclear on how special those really were compared to other Dungeons. And as the company wanted her to tame the Dungeon as quickly as possible, the frontline intended to simply bruteforce every puzzle. And that was admittedly a faster way of getting to the Core.

So, finding out just how challenging the puzzles of her future Dungeon were, would have to wait till tomorrow. Or, System forbid, the day after.

Like the Dungeon itself, its kobolds appeared much older than they actually were. The kobolds had been reported to have watchtowers and an entire fortress to defend from. Though admittedly a small one. They even flew around on the backs of galespikes! That just didn't happen! Or at least it hadn't happened before. Or maybe it just hadn't been recorded before? Or maybe it has, but it is just really rare? I'll have to look it up when I have the time.

While Zina loved riding around on Oona she never did so when they were in a Dungeon. Dawons attacked with claws and teeth which meant getting close to the enemy, while Zina was a spellcaster with a crossbow and prefered attacking from further away.

For the moment the two of them walked side by side as the front of the company did all the fighting. As they entered the 2nd Floor they heard someone apologize loudly in a disparate and panicked tone. The voice was then cut off mid sentence. Zina and Oona, along with several nearby soldiers, began running towards where the voice had come from. After passing a small stream, the trees started to thin, and they could see what had happened:

One of the company's three medics - the one Zina didn't know the name of - had gotten a throwing knife so deep into her left eye it had hit her brain and killed her. A meter or so away from the dead body of the medic lay the equally dead body of a soldier with blood still pouring from his throat. Another soldier was cleaning his dagger on the dead soldier's clothes, while two of his peers calmly observed him doing so.

"What happened?!" Zina demanded to know, wanting to avenge the dead but unsure why it had happened in the first place.

Or why the two soldiers were simply watching it happen.

"He killed the medic." The soldier with the less bloodied dagger answered as he got back on his feet and sheathed his dagger. "Claimed it was an accident, captain didn't believe him." The soldier shrugged. "So, the captain ordered him punished before he joined the frontline."

Zina sighed. The punishment for intentionally harming a medic - both inside and outside the military - had been execution for as long as she could remember. Normally there would have been some form of trial beforehand, but as the commanding officer on a potentially dangerous mission - though the danger here was low - the captain had the option of executing the aggressor right away if he feared they might harm another. If the aggressor was to bring harm to the company's remaining medics it would be a disaster.

At least it explained why the other two simply watched. They had probably restrained him while the third did the hard part.

But now no one will know if he actually did it on purpose or not.

"Let's get going, privates." Zina stated with a whirl of her hand. Dungeons were known for absorbing nutrients from the newly dead, but only once the room they died in had been emptied. And unlike any other creature Dungeons eat everything. Meat, blood, bone, hair, nails, clothes and items as well, it all disappeared once the room had been emptied.

So, people tended to mine without carrying valuables.

All nearby soldiers saluted the future dungeon mistress with a "Yes, ma'am!" before they did as she had asked.

But it is also dangerous to take too many risks while in a Dungeon. I can't really fault the captain for being overly cautious.

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Their preparations had rendered the rust trap mostly useless. Stone and acutium could rust, but it happened much slower than other metals.

Zina quickly noticed, the kobolds had created new types of traps since the scouting had happened: The ground had been covered in oil in strategic places and there were several tripwires. Both had the aim of making the invaders fall down, so the kobolds could better hit them with their crossbows. Said bolts had the curious effect of making any 2nd tiers hit by one want to throw up, while higher tiers simply got dizzy.

The most impressive trap the kobolds had made were their crude bear traps.

This means they can work with metal already!

Zina dropped a small rock into the first unactivated bear trap she saw. It snapped shut but a couple of its teeth broke off in the process.

It might be crude work but it clearly works! The noblewoman was really excited! So many new discoveries! So much to learn! She tried to repress a giggle. And I'm not even in the frontline, so this is just what's left! There must be so much more!

And here I thought being in the back would be boring!

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It wasn't going all that well for me, which wasn't a surprise. I expected that the tide would turn once the elven army reached The Field of Fallen Heroes, but that I would be losing until then. I didn't even really think I would be able to kill them all. There were too many of them all at once - even with the restriction on creatures per Floor lifted - and they had both a high level healer and a couple of almost 7th tiers.

About a dozen elves had some Skill or knew a spell which could either lessen the effect of the will-o'-wisps or temporarily raise the Awareness of others, so they wouldn't want to follow the will-o'-wisps. Apparently for most of the elves the closest Dungeon to where they lived was full of fey, so they knew exactly how to counter them.

My exploding slimes were successful for a while - until the elves learned to shoot them instead - but only so far as to wound people, they didn’t actually kill anyone.

The army had almost reached The Field of Fallen Heroes and only three elves had died. 71 to go. Well, 72 with the dawon. The first to die was, naturally, the 0%'er. She had been cursed with bad luck from a dozen bā zú lung dragons before getting killed by friendly fire.

And that elf was then killed by his fellows in retaliation as they didn't believe it was an accident.

The third elf was killed by a surprise attack from the 4th Floor mimic while being distracted by the Dishwashing Trap. Both mimic and trap were quickly destroyed by nearby elves.

The 'Cheaters Only Cheat Themselves' Rule was slowly raising the Toughness of not only my creatures, but my traps, puzzles and doors too. So while I hadn't killed a whole lot of them yet I had wounded most and exhausted many. Especially, as they were unknowingly facing the same creatures again and again as they kept respawning.

Yes! The ring handle mimic, placed just before the Boss Room, had gotten another successful ambush kill. 71 left! The mimic got one more bite in before getting killed.

The handleless door the mimic had been on was rammed open only for the statue of the room to animate and attack the nearest elf. With the extra 50% Toughness from all the skipped puzzles it was a formidable foe.

But while it almost killed the already wounded soldier it surprise attacked, the statue didn't actually end up killing anybody.

Now it's time to truly test how capable my Boss and its assistants are. The siren wasn't much of a fight.