Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 96: Ensuring Freedom and Whether or Not You Should Believe In It

A week had passed and Agtius had come up with many arguments against moving - most of which he was fully aware originated from his trauma of having been forced to abandon his family. The rest of the family - especially his mamá, who had always been the head of the family even when his bampás had still been alive - had decided otherwise.

Apparently business was going badly enough that the family of immigrants decided to immigrate again. The three oldest of his younger siblings, Fridvag, Trivog, and Miztius had already moved out and made a good life for themselves, so they wouldn't be joining the rest of the family.

Why can't we just all stay together?! Why do I have to leave anyone behind?!

Meas had another half a year before she would be an actual adult with access to the System, so she would naturally join her mamá. Safius and Ethor may have had jobs, but they had gotten them for the money and not because of actual interest. So, they had decided to join their mamá as well.

I should never have told them about The Dungeon of Karma. The tale of his freedom had included mentioning the still developing settlement surrounding the Dungeon.

And his family knew well enough that developing places took a lot of wood. Even with houses built of stone and cement, a lot of the skeleton and infrastructure was made of wood.

Or at least I should have lied about their need for wood. Made the place sound less desirable.

In the end, Agtius' arguments hadn't worked, and the family had sold their land and home to buy a pair of arthropleura and everything else they needed for the three to four week long journey.

And here they were, bright and early. Standing right where Agtius had separated from Reid, waiting for the Paladin so he could join their unexpected caravan.

"Agtius! I see you changed your mind!" Reid greeted as he arrived. "Oh! You had to convince your family, I see! Wonderful to meet you all! I'm Reid Alvarado, as I'm sure you know, and this is my twin sister Kathrin."

He certainly cheered up since getting back to his family. His decision to leave them behind might be questionable, but at least he knows to appreciate them.

Then again. He apparently isn't leaving them all behind.

"They were actually the ones to… convince… me, this was the right thing to do." Then with a nod towards Kathrin, Agtius continued. "A pleasure to meet you Kathrin. I'm Agtius, and this is my mother Valith. My brothers Safius and Ethor. And my sister Meas. Business hasn't been going as well as it could be." He ended with a shrug.

No need to go into details, and I'm sure they can guess the important bits.

"Oh! Well, I couldn't let my twin leave again, so soon after having been apart for so long!" Kathrin said with a pep in her step as she began leading her horse and the caravan away from the City, so they could begin their journey. "We're twins, after all! We were rarely ever apart, and it's been so lonely without him."

"I know, Kat. Stop rubbing it in." Reid said with a roll of his eyes.

His smile betrayed his true feelings, however.

"I don't think I've told what I did when I realized you had disappeared and that the Hypnosis, which had failed on me, had actually succeeded on you? Well, I quickly realized it must have happened while I was talking to the worthless baron. If I hadn't been in another room, this never would have happened! So I called my mentor before sneaking back in for interrogation. He didn't say anything of note despite all my tricks and anger. He didn't even break when my mentor took over! That's when we realized, of course as he was Hypnotized too, he wouldn't break no matter what! So, we had him discredited and thrown in jail. Again, we had no way of getting rid of his Hypnosis."

Kathrin ended the tale with a nonchalant shrug, like she hadn't just admitted to ruining a man's life, simply for distracting her when she should have been with her brother.

A woman after my own head.

Despite the dark implications of Kathrin's story, pleasant banter soon erupted amongst the group as they all began sharing stories. The atmosphere was only broken when they stopped for lunch.

With his missing arm Agtius hadn't been able to help as much as he had wanted to. At times he had even been the one who needed the help!

Katrin, or Kat as she had asked they call her, had checked their surroundings as lunch was concluding to ensure their isolation, before revealing the other reason she had joined their group.

"I'm gonna ask that you keep what I'm about to say a secret while we travel," she began. "It's not so much a matter of national security as it is to stop a national panic, otherwise I likely wouldn't have been allowed to tell you. As you already know, members of the cult of The Broken Goddess are currently being identified via unicorns and taken into custody. This is happening all over Windin. What we haven't let the public know, is that we don't know how to reverse the mind control."

A bright, tooth-filled grin appeared on Kat's face. "That's where I come into play! As I - through both my job and brother - am already aware of all the details, I've gotten the honor of acting as an ambassador, to broker a deal between Windin and dungeon mistress Acacia to have our prisoners sent to her Dungeon for rehabilitation."

She gave a self-satisfied nod topped with a cocky grin, before leaning in to stage whisper. "Of course they also picked me because I possess the necessary Ability Scores to act as a makeshift ambassador! Not just anyone can be trusted with a task like this!"

Well. The trip's certainly not gonna be boring with her around, Agtius thought with a shake of his head and a smile.

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Dungeon Rule Updated: ‘Mimicking Fake Core’ becomes a Dungeon Core mimic.

The sudden System announcement took me by surprise as I hadn't been informed of how long it would take.

Hello little one! Welcome to the world!

While my newly created Dungeon Core mimic didn't respond physically to my greeting - it still very much looked like a perfect replica of my actual Dungeon Core - but I could feel its emotions quite expressively.

I couldn't feel the emotions of any other of my creatures, but with its job meaning it had to pretend to be my Core, it made sense it could talk to me without having to speak like my other creatures. At most the rest could let me see through their eyes and hear through their ears and such, but nothing involving their thoughts or feelings.

In addition to sharing feelings, my Dungeon Core mimic responded to my greeting by sending me its thoughts: Love Creator. Protect Creator.

Oh, my perfect little baby! I thought in reply to my only level 60 creature. While I hope you'll never need to, I know you'll do just perfect should you need to protect me!

Pride, happiness, and self confidence were sent back in response.

Oh? You prefer communicating with emotions rather than words?

Feelings of happiness and acceptance were my only response. Luckily the System had prepared me for unusual ways of saying 'yes'.

Very well, my little one.

What's my mana like right now? Status, please!

Personal Status Level: 59+ Needed number of killed or redeemed sapients with original karma levels of 25% or lower: 2,820/5,000 EXP: 66,053,742 Next mana payment for level up: 0/212,000 Mana: 17,562/26,500 Mana regeneration: 9,275 per hour Floors: 19/30 Allowed number of sapients in each Floor: 6 Floor Details Achievements Mission Dungeon Rules

I had gotten a lot done in the 16 days it had been since the elven Crown Princess had left with her escorts. So much in fact, that it would take forever to list it all. 8 additional Floors had been made with varying Environmental themes and everything that entailed.

I've got a decent chunk of mana saved up. Let's see what I can do with it!

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Talindra Phoenix Flower had been traveling for three long weeks. Her escorts had been ordered by her mother to never let her out of their sights. A habit which had begun as soon as they had arrived at the still unnamed and unfinished Dungeon town.

As such, the Crown Princess was way past simply being annoyed with them by now.

But at the same time, she understood.

Her past self would have ditched the guards almost immediately to go explore and have fun.

But that puzzle in the Dungeon. That one puzzle, which had made her believe herself to be dead.

It had changed her perspective on things.

No longer were fun and material things what was most important.

No. The most important thing was Alfamér.

It was time to grow up and finally be the heir she was raised to be.

And being a good heir started with not running away like she wanted to and staying in sight of the guards at all times. Which meant she couldn't go out hunting, her all time favorite activity, and had to let someone else provide food for the group.

Instead Talindra used her free time reading over the report of the Dungeon of Karma. It was a fascinating read. So fascinating in fact, that had she not witnessed many of the points herself she wouldn't have believed it.

Her mother had called her weekly - which would normally have been considered quite excessive but was understandable under the circumstances. As little of interest happened while traveling their emco talks mainly consisted of all the oddities the report described and any experience Talindra could add.

Normally her mother wouldn't have hidden as much of the ongoings of the Queendom as she did during their talks. There had been a lot of 'it's being taken care of' and a lot less details on how it was being taken care of than usual.

But Talindra didn't blame her mother or get angry like her past self would have. It was hard being in charge and there was no reason for Talindra to make it harder for her mother.

One of the first things Talindra had learned from her mother was the act of masking. Her mother had three masks: The Foreign Queen, where she would act coldly but fairly towards other nations. The Loving Queen, for interactions with her own subjects. And her true self, which was only ever shown to her closest friends and family.

Talindra was used to her mother acting distantly whenever they were in public or if a surprise guest showed up. But to see the face of The Foreign Queen when it was only them and her personal Guards? The Guards she treated as an extension of her family due to the close bond of their Party?

That hurt.

But again, the much more mature Talindra could understand her paranoia. She had no proof her daughter had actually been freed from mind control. Or that she hadn't simply been mind controlled again on the way back to the Palace.

So when her mother, the Queen, ordered her to hand her the report on the Dungeon, Talindra simply did so, hiding her pain behind her own mask. She waited while her mother skimmed through the report she had already summarized for her through their emcos. And she accepted her mother's disbelief in the report's authenticity.

Talindra had thought it herself, after all: It was an unbelievable report for those who hadn't actually been there.

So, that’s the advice she gave her mother, before she was promptly escorted to her quarters.

With guards still constantly guarding her.

And while her younger self would simply have broken out to hunt in the woods, this version of her wanted to be better. Wanted to be the best heir and at some point the best Queen Alfamér could possibly have.

And… Well… Talindra knew she hadn't paid as much attention to the more political and social parts of her studies as she should have.

So, in order to get the most out of her polite imprisonment, Talindra picked out several dozen unused books in her private library - that she really should have already read - and began reading.