Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 58: First Look at The 10th Floor

It was common practice for miners to announce the movement of a tamed Dungeon's Core to the local dungeon master without first exploring the new Floor. For some tamed Dungeons entering an unexpected Floor without express permission from the dungeon master was simply seen as rude while it came with a fee or community service in other Dungeons.

Sarzina Acacia had decided the punishment would be a couple of weeks with 3 hours unpaid Portal guard duty each day. This punishment would likely change as the Dungeon and the surrounding town grew but for now it seemed fitting.

The newly arrived sheriff had at this point been handed all information needed to aid him in making the growing town safe from both inside crime and outside forces from lieutenant Alnus, before the remainder of the company had left for the capital. Sheriff Dakath Fraxinus had then been quick to schedule a guard rotation for himself, his undersheriff, and his 8 deputies along with suitable freetime. Some of said freetime he and his subordinates used in the Dungeon during which the relocation of the Dungeon Core was discovered and immediately reported.

When dealing with an unexplored Floor, Zina had already established a certain way of dealing with it. Namely: slowly while taking notes and with a somewhat high level person backing her up against the unknown.

As her usual choice had left, she needed to find a new person to watch her back and point out details she might otherwise miss. After a bit of thought the dungeon mistress had come to two different possibilities: Sheriff Fraxinus or Fader Ginkgo.

The sheriff would be a good exploration partner in the case a puzzle needed Charisma to be solved or if there had been added another room in the Dungeon where the monsters actually attacked on sight, like the werewolves had done.

Should the majority of them even still be called monsters? They only attack criminals and in self defense…

On the other hand, some puzzles were easier to solve with high Awareness and a sense for details, which the high priest might be able to assist her with.

… In reality her Awareness was likely higher or just as high as Fader Ginkgo's. Zina simply hoped he might help her shed some light on the uniqueness of her Dungeon. Even if just through offhand comments his lack of knowledge of the Dungeon's secrets wouldn't allow him to understand the meaning behind.

Having no reason not to simply invite both individuals, the three of them had soon after planned an expedition to the 10th Floor for the next day after breakfast.

Depending on how it went, Zina would invite either both, only one of them, or someone else entirely to explore the 11th Floor with her when it was revealed.

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Both sheriff and high priest had been easy to convince to follow her lead through a Dungeon run. Sheriff Fraxinus expressed a want to learn more about the Dungeon and suggested he might learn more if he went with the dungeon mistress than if he went with his own people.

Fader Ginkgo, on the other hand, had simply said 'yes' to the invitation with no hesitation nor explanation. Simply a nod and a thoughtful look.

Finally! People who like to learn about Dungeons as much as I do! When was the last time I found someone like that?

Professor Cercis?

Actually… Have I ever found anyone else? Braern supports my choices but he's never expressed a desire to learn for himself or even enter a Dungeon if not for a tier up.

He's a good brother at least…

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It took mere moments after the Lightning Mage entered my 10th Floor before she realized that she had been getting fake reports.

… Or rather: She would have if the elves hadn't just realized I had a Rule in place to twist people's pre-knowledge about my Dungeon. Instead the noblewoman assumed that anything she thought she knew about the new Floor was temporarily wrong due to the Rule.

And not because I had fed her wrong information from the start.

Of course that only meant the realization would be delayed till she was outside my Dungeon again. Which was much appreciated! Any delay would mean more mana for me should the worst happen.

Then again… I doubt she can even reveal this to anyone since I want it to remain secret.

With no one attacking my creatures, the whole Party having positive karma levels, and with no presence of any non-karmic creatures on my 10th Floor, the only interesting things about their trip were the puzzles.

The first one was a closed but unlocked door with the words "The key is the key" above it. Next to the door was my true mimic pretending to be a key on a hanging keychain. The mimic - being my perfect mimic - didn't react to getting picked up and simply let itself be placed into the keyhole and turned.

Which locked the door and left the Party quite confused. They had heard the sound of the lock turning but now the door was locked?

While they did get the door unlocked again - as to be expected - they couldn't figure out why I had made a puzzle like that.

And why the System hadn’t announced the puzzle solved. They were all at a high enough tier that they wouldn't have gotten any EXP for a puzzle that simple - would anyone, had it really been that simple? - but they would still be informed of completed puzzles.

That's okay. You don't have to understand why I do the things I do. Besides! You'll find out the real purpose of that particular puzzle soon enough…

The Three Curses puzzle at the end of the 2nd room was a simple one, mostly meant to distract people from the previous puzzle. Three spheres the size of a human head, each with their own curse attached. The first person to touch a sphere would get the curse until someone else had guessed what the curse was. Only once all three curses had been guessed correctly would the exit be revealed.

The curses would change from visit to visit between two dozen varieties. That being said, the curses were all related to either hearing or speaking. This was both to make it harder to notice the effect of the curse for the unprepared and to make it impossible for someone to solo my Dungeon.

… Maybe I would regret that choice, but my experience told me anyone with the ability to solo my Dungeon would have a hard time finding anyone else in their tier. This meant in dangerous situations they would end up having to protect their partner and potentially leave themselves open to attack or at the very least a bit more tired by the end of each attack.

This time around the three curses were a slight stutter, the need to state the color of any noun said, and the inability to hear names.

At the end of the 5th room there was another closed but unlocked door with a key hanging from a keychain next to it. Only this time the key was an actual key and the door led to a wall.

The similarity of the two parts of the puzzle was the only hint of what was going on.

… That and apparently the Lightning Mage could detect that the key was magical in some way. I knew it was, of course! I just hadn't given any thought to whether anyone would be able to detect that.

So, with the Lightning Mage in the lead the Party solved my puzzle, taking the magical key from the 5th room, bringing it to the first and turning it in the keyhole there.

The first puzzle door of the 10th Floor was now a portal to the otherwise inaccessible 6th room of the Floor: The Blessed Field.

Where my unicorn blessing lived!

The third puzzle of the Floor was a simple 'make all the unicorns in the room like you and your whole Party to make the trapdoor to the next room appear'. Super easy for some, yet impossible for others!

The elves had a surprisingly hard time, however. Apparently a unicorn had killed one of their previous queens? She must have been an evil queen then. The story - most likely alongside a lot of propaganda aimed at making the monarchy seem perfect - had made them incredibly wary and at first even hostile towards the grassing blessing.

But after several moments in tense defensive positions, the Lightning Mage seemed to either realize the unicorns had no intention of harming them or she remembered my words about only killing bad people. Nonetheless, she decided to cautiously approach the nearest unicorn.

Once it was confirmed the unicorns wouldn't harm them, the other two quickly decided to simply avoid and ignore them.

Which didn't do anything to annoy the unicorns but it also didn't make them like the Party. The blessing instead ignored the Party like the Party ignored them.

I wasn't all that surprised when they decided to stop for the day before having solved the puzzle. The Tribe had solved the puzzle quickly due to Begdar having spread the knowledge of my theme around from the moment she knew of it, and because both her and Chief Nerok made sure to regularly remind people of my and my creatures' kindness.

That's to say: Everyone in the Tribe knew half my puzzles could be solved through kindness.

And even though I had informed the Lightning Mage of my theme, she had yet to use the knowledge of it to try and solve one of my puzzles.

As soon as the Lightning Mage had arrived back at - what I presumed was - her office, she began analyzing what she had learned from her trip, like she always did.

Only to finally realize just how wrong everything my requests had told her about the 10th Floor was.