Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 39: The Might of Fallen Heroes

Sarzina Acacia had discovered that her future Dungeon did indeed have several unique traps. Some form of gas was meant to be released from some realistic looking, but fake, flowers. Normally such traps were hidden in the walls or fake rocks. Zina didn't know what type of gas had been in the flowers as it had already been released when she arrived.

There were also small fields of wheat, which were secretly death traps, and totem traps, which could lower one's Ability Scores. And who knows how many of these unique traps had already been destroyed by the time I came by?!

It was a bit worrying to see that a soldier had been killed in the camp themed room on the 4th Floor. With this many people it was meant to be much safer to get to the Core, so he shouldn't have died.

But it wasn't too worrying. Accidents did happen after all.

Zina, Oona and the rest of the backline arrived at the 5th Floor Boss Room.

It truly is a fast growing Dungeon! Having finished the 5th Floor in not even 3 months! Zina had thought when she entered said Floor. Her excitement turned to horror later on as she saw the bodies scattered around the Boss Room.

"What happened here?" Zina exclaimed.

"The Boss was both more powerful than expected and wasn't even alone like Bosses normally are, ma'am." Lieutenant Alnus was the one to answer. Alnus looked bruised but not seriously wounded. He had likely been healed by the 5th tier medic, though, so it had likely been much worse beforehand. "It had the assistance of three other monsters. One of which was a 'unicorn bunny' which would constantly jump in and out of its burrows to heal the Boss, prolonging the fight massively."

Zina's eyes suddenly began to shine. "Really! Did you notice anything else?! Any reason why the Boss was more powerful or why it wasn't alone?!"

Alnus thought for a moment. "The Boss seemed unable to touch a third of us. Only reason no more died in fact, myself included. Could be connected to why it seemed so powerful… But it's not really my expertise, ma'am."

Zina shook her head violently. "Right! Of course not!" She took a quick look around the room. "How many were lost in the battle?"

"9, ma'am."

"9?!" Zina hadn't been the only one to shout. The Dungeon was only 2.5 months old. How could it possibly kill 9 presumably 3rd tiers?

The lieutenant gulped and looked worried before adding: "Three of them were 4th tier…"

In shock, no one said a thing. In a way it wasn't surprising there had been 4th tiers present. Higher leveled people in the military tended to like fighting and would thus want to be a part of the front line.

Which would lead them to stand before this overpowered Boss with a personal healer.

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With several of my creatures dying and respawning again and again, my kirin's 'Power of Fallen Heroes' Ability strengthened my Boss even more than before. That, plus the bonus in Toughness from the strengthened 'Cheaters Only Cheat Themselves', meant my Boss had the Ability Scores of a level 106. That was 16 levels higher than when the siren tried to defeat it!

The frontline of the army always checked the size of the next room before entering it. They didn't want there to be too many people in any room, as fighting took a lot of space. Too many allies in a small room, simply gave you a large chance of hitting and getting hit by your own allies.

So, seeing the small size of the Boss Room, the elves decided to only send in 9 3rd and 4th tier people to deal with the Boss. Which was much more than any 1st tier Boss should be able to handle.

The spellcasters of the army had almost completely refrained from using spells but some had been used to target flying opponents. And some of those spells had gotten wonky. Leaves had been ripped out of nearby trees to obscure the sight of the caster, and one spellcaster had become a sheep for a minute mid fight. Both times the caster had ended up more wounded than before due to the unexpected vulnerability, but nothing more happened.

Not all the elves in the army were bad people, however. Just most of them. As such, one spellcaster had had their Force elemental blast strengthen, when it became wonky, rather than having something bad happen.

But no mana was spared when the first group of 9 elves entered The Field of Fallen Heroes. I had the bā zú lung dragon curse the 4th tier Survivor Class with bad luck, as said elf had been annoyingly good at noticing any and all hints giving away my, otherwise invisible, longmas's positions. Without him my longmas might do a lot more damage.

I ordered both the longma and the feathered serpent of the room to focus more on staying alive for as long as possible, rather than focus on attacking. With the flying serpent's innate passive Skill 'Aura of Morons' it was worth more to me alive, and the longma could curse another should the Survivor die. Naturally my unicorn bunny's job was to stay hidden in its burrows till it was time to heal the kirin.

The kirin, however, was full on offensive. Doing damage and killing enemies was the objective here.

And damage was what the kirin did.

The Survivor appeared to notice the danger and tried to jump out of the way, only for his leg to get caught by the powerful, burning hooves of my Boss. The sound of bones breaking was interrupted by a loud scream of pain. This caused 5 of the other 8 to freeze in shock.

Not surprising. My Boss was only level 10 after all.

Two of the remaining three rushed to attack and distract my kirin, while the third tried to drag the Survivor away. Having a Toughness Score of 72 meant even powerful attacks from the 4th tier Hammer Wielder only caused bruises. So, my kirin simply ignored the two attackers to finish off the Survivor.

Who soon was a survivor no longer.

This made the other 5 wake up and join the fight.

As the one doing the most damage, the Hammer Wielder was the next to go. A little bad luck surely helped here, but so did the elf's low Dexterity, making it impossible for him to dodge.

The battle took quite a while. My bunny jumping in to heal my Boss whenever it got too bruised. When the fourth person died, the remaining 5 decided to call for backup and had the arriving Archer focus on killing my bunny.

Four elves had died but now there were 11 living elves in the room. Three each from both the first and the second groups had karma levels over 25%, meaning my kirin would be unable to harm 6 of the 11 elves.

I hadn't expected to win the fight anyway. I had only hoped I could kill off some of the bad guys so I might finally tier up.

And luckily for me, having this many fighting elves in a small room caused some problems with friendly fire. People getting in the way of arrows, daggers, short swords, hammers and spells hitting the wrong target, and so on.

But with no mana being spared in the Boss Room there would naturally happen something wonky. First, the ground got covered in ice, making all the elves fall to the ground and have a harder time standing and moving. My bunny had to move a bit slower, but wasn't really bothered by the sudden ice. My kirin never actually touched the ground in the first place - likely due to being unable to harm anything unless they had a karma level of 25% or less. Grass wasn't evil after all - and was instead walking on the air several centimeters over the ground. The feathered serpent could fly and the bā zú had 8 clawed legs to balance on.

Another two elves were killed by my Boss in the ice confusion.

Then the male Mage's spell blinded him, and I ordered my bā zú lung dragon to take him down while the rest of the elves were distracted by my kirin.

But then the Archer had gotten his legs stable and with fewer living allies he could finally kill my bunny unicorn as it came out to heal my Boss.

Before going down my kirin killed another elf and had heavily wounded 4. My remaining two creatures were quickly taken care of with no Boss to take the heat off of them. With the battle done the Apprentice Healer was called into the room to heal the survivors.

The Boss battle was naturally already a hot topic.

9 out of 16 is not bad. Not bad at all! Especially not with the level difference!

13 down, 62 to go!

Now I just have to wait till the back of the army is in The Trusting Fox's Pass. And then I'll begin phase two!

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Lightning traps! Zina thought excitedly to herself. While she knew most people wouldn't be happy about such a discovery, she also knew it would help make her Dungeon - and thus herself - famous. Unlike most traps, it's not even a one-time-use one! Those are so rare!

The noblewoman went to get a closer look at where the lightning originated from, redirecting the lightning whenever it appeared. On the wall at an angle there was an odd looking metal object. It appeared to be a cone shaped rod surrounded by a spiral of a different metal. Every 30 seconds lightning would shoot out from this object or the identical one it pointed to on the opposite wall a bit further away. The lightning would go from one end to the other, hitting everything in its way.

At the end of the room - which was the first room of the 6th Floor - there was a broken, yet somehow active puzzle door. The door itself had been rammed open, but the consequence of failing the puzzle would still take effect. Consequences for failing puzzles were quite normal for 2nd tier Floors, but they normally stopped working when the puzzle itself was destroyed. Not always, though, so it wasn't too unusual.

The consequence here was getting a Force fist to the face, when one entered the door without solving the puzzle first. Without the element of surprise, however, it wasn't hard to dodge.

Zina soon after noticed that the entire company had stopped near the other end of the next room. Most took the time to take a short break and drink some water. Several people seemed to be in a heated discussion.

"No! We can't just send more people through! They would be trapped boars!" Lieutenant Alnus shouted to captain Gleditsia, all manners casted away in the moment.

"Like he said!: We don't KNOW if it will have the same effect on everyone! So we have someone else TEST IT!" Gleditsia bellowed back.

Zina interrupted them before they could continue shouting. As she did so, she made sure to have her back straight, her hands behind her back, and her nose tilted slightly upwards. Her posture would subconsciously remind them she was a noblewoman and make them more likely to listen to her. "What is going on? Captain, lieutenant." Hopefully reminding them of their titles would also remind them to talk respectfully - and calmly - to each other.

Not that Zina had much hope it would work on the captain.

He seemed to always be shouting.

Luckily, the lieutenant was quick to answer. "Well, ma'am. That fire over there-" Zina looked in the direction of his finger and saw that the flames completely covered the room's exit. "-is immune to the effects of having water poured on it - we had a couple of spellcasters try first thing. As it looks like an unnaturally thin wall of fire we decided to simply have someone jump through it, ready to roll on the ground should they catch on fire."

Alnus looked to the ground while taking a deep breath before continuing. "Private Pinus volunteered. He was a Tough after all, we all thought he would be better able to handle it should he actually catch fire."

The lieutenant crossed his arms, looking sad. "He didn't catch fire. He simply screamed in pain, sinking to his knees with his head in his hands. He…" Alnus gulped, tears appearing in his eyes. "He wasn't able to defend himself when the monsters attacked him…"

Shaking his head and speaking with a stronger voice than before, lieutenant Alnus rounded up his explanation. "The captain and I were just now discussing how to go around this problem. Sergeant Castanea suggested we have another private run through to see if it will have the same effect-"

"These disrespectful soldiers would only deserve it, should the same happen to them!" Interrupted said sergeant in an annoyed mumble.

Lieutenant Alnus simply ignored him. "-and the captain agreed with him. My fellow lieutenants and I believe we should consider other options first."

Zina gave a quick nod and hid her excitement over the new challenge. "Let me take a closer look at the situation before I cast my vote." Clicking her heels together, she saluted them. "Gentlemen."

She then walked away from them, knowing her clever words would keep their anger - especially the captain's - in check for a time.

Stopping next to the flamewall exit, Zina quickly noticed how the wall next to it had parts of the stone in a lighter color. "Trust me" it said.

Trust who? Zina questioned. The flamewall? After considering it some more, she came to a possible conclusion with a laugh.

And then she walked through the flamewall to test her theory.