Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 50: Trap Triggers and Troublesome Travels

During the next several days we settled into a new routine.

I worked on finishing my 9th Floor, while spying on the elves.

The Tribe harvested fruit and vegetables, as well as trees from the 8th Floor at night, which they made use of during the day. They had even made a rudimentary forge for minor smithing, though they used just as much wood for making furniture.

The military elves patrolled the area around where the remaining elves were digging. From what I had overheard, they were currently making sewers. The well had been dug out first, and the sewers were being constructed far enough away from it that the two wouldn't clash.

With 50+ elves - it was hard to count with only a single stationary viewpoint, and no one had spoken of an actual number in my hearing - working on the construction the sewers were very nearly done already.

The Lightning Mage had used her time on attempting to discover what made my traps trigger, figuring out why one could make The Door of Speciesism open yet everyone - as far as she knew - still failed the puzzle, and going over her notes while planning her future business as a dungeon mistress. Fees, taxes, prices of loot and information being sold at the Dungeon Guild and so on. A bit of her time did go to speaking with the leader of the construction force and the lieutenant, but less so over time as they each settled into their roles.

I was finished with my 9th Floor just before the dawn of the fourth day of this routine, but I refrained from declaring it as such right away. I needed to do so shortly after dusk, so I could be sure we had enough time for me to dig out the 10th Floor and for the Tribe to then move all their stuff a Floor down.

Naturally I warned them of the upcoming move, so they could get ready to get it done quickly.

Several took it as a command to take a nap… As they would be up late it wasn't that bad of an idea, if one could actually fall asleep while the Tribe was busy packing up.

While waiting for the sun to set, the Lightning Mage had three soldiers join her for a Dungeon run. Two out of the three had karma levels under 25%, while the third was the soldier who had been redeemed by petting my yaks. The yak-petter's karma level had already risen to 29%, faster than any I had seen before! And I suspected he was the reason I had gotten EXP from 'Making the World a Better Place' at odd moments, despite the fact that he wasn't even in my Dungeon during those times! But as a Dungeon Core I see everything happening in my Dungeon all at once, and I know none of the Tribesmen had their karma raised during those times.

I must assume something about petting a Dungeon creature taught him a lesson in kindness.

… Or something…

My traps triggered and, as with every time this had happened before, it led to the Lightning Mage getting excited and writing down every detail she could think of in her quest of discovering what my 'Dungeon-wide secondary trigger' was.

Which was honestly a good way of putting it! But of course she wasn't in any way close to figuring it out. As I highly doubted she had any way of reliably discover anyone's karma level, it would likely stay that way quite a while.

As my 'mistress' was currently focused on figuring out my traps, she had decided to ignore my Floors past my Boss. Instead she would use her time to go over her notes and Dungeon textbooks, hoping to learn my secrets. And as no one entered my Dungeon without her, my deeper Floors had been left to themselves.

But when the Lightning Mage again went over her notes that evening on when my traps triggered and when they didn't, only to find contradictions in any solution to the mystery she could find, she declared to herself - and thus me - that she was out of ideas.

Only for her to quickly backtrack and propose the idea that it might be random whether the traps triggered for any particular run or not. Which, of course, wasn't so easy to prove and could only be disproven if the actual secondary trigger condition was discovered.

Nonetheless, in the morning she would begin letting people enter without her in return for a small fee and an 'exit tax' of one quarter of one's loot or its value. Apparently, exit taxes were normally only one fifth of the gathered loot but as it was much easier getting loot from my Dungeon than other Dungeons, the tax had been raised.

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On the other hand, the entrance fee was smaller than average. A dungeon entrance fee was calculated based on how many wanted to visit the Dungeon on an average day. Popular Dungeons had high entrance fees as a way to stop too long lines - which could either be a physical line or one on a waiting list - from forming.

What my 'mistress' didn't mention, was how entrance fees were very much simply a reflection of 'supply and demand'.

As there were just over 100 elves stationed around my Portal, with roughly half still too afraid to consider entering, and with all of them having work to do as well, I simply wasn't considered a popular Dungeon at the moment.

The sun set, the 10th Floor was quickly dug, and the Tribe was moved successfully. As my 'family' they could open puzzle doors without solving their puzzles simply by wanting them to open, and with even my non-karmic creatures seeing them as one of them, the Tribe had no problems passing through my now activated 9th Floor.

However, with it being a new Floor - and having been stuck in the same small place for days - many took the time to actually complete the Floor as it was intended. And as they knew of my theme and typical style of puzzle making, they naturally breezed through them.

Even more so as one of my puzzles contained a critical mistake, making it much easier to solve.

I knew it had been suspiciously cheap! Nice to finally know why.

Naturally, I made sure to fix it. It was an easy fix.

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Sarzina Acacia began her day by asking Chalia Ulmus how the construction was going.

"The town foundation will be finished later today, deary." Chalia replied. "And then we'll begin building your Dungeon Guild as you have requested."

"Thank you, Chalia." Zina said with a smile and a nod, before leaving Chalia to her work as the noblewoman went to find lieutenant Alnus.

It didn't take long before the dungeon mistress and the lieutenant had decided on a schedule and salary for the temporary guard/fee-/tax collector rotation. Then their new duties were explained to the privates in question, who liked the idea of getting the boredom of guard duty broken up a bit while getting more money.

A part of their duties were informing those who paid for it about the first 5 Floors of the Dungeon. To aid with this Zina had prepared 5 hand drawn maps, as well as a couple of pages of short descriptions of the monsters, traps and puzzles found there. These were not for sale just yet, as Zina wasn't yet able to have them mass produced.

With that in place, Zina felt ready to start exploring the 6th Floor and beyond.

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Uh… Right! I'll have to fix that…

My Earning One's Own Paycheck Rule had made the group of 4 construction workers believe only some of my creatures were non-aggressive, while thinking the rest would act like normal Dungeon creatures. The group had gotten ready to attack before they… relearned? that my dragonets were harmless if left alone.

While I didn't want people to simply be told where my traps were and how to solve my puzzles, before they had even been in my Dungeon. I did, however, want people to be able to come in knowing my creatures would leave them alone if people left them alone.

And I knew, having people assume my creatures would automatically try to kill them would quickly leave me frustrated.

How much would it cost to update Earning One's Own Paycheck to allow sapients to remember being told that my creatures only attack in self defense?

Making exceptions to an existing Rule costs no mana.

Making exceptions to an existing Rule creates a Subrule for the Rule.

Alright then. I would like that exception then.

New Dungeon Subrule:

Subrules for "Earning One's Own Paycheck":

Subrule 1: The knowledge of Dungeon creatures being generally non-aggressive will not be distorted by this Rule.

Good.

The 4 construction workers had immediately relaxed their guard as the exception took effect. They were still a bit wary but had stopped looking like they expected everything to jump at them.

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Brother Malik and his unicorn Familiar Sunbolt were about a week away from returning home to Craftery Cartwright. Their adventure had had just the right amount of excitement and relaxation.

Truthfully Malik would love to keep exploring like this, but he couldn't let his people down. Not that they wouldn't be able to make do without him. No, no! The craftery and its people could take care of themselves just fine. But they would both be disappointed in him and miss him greatly should he leave for longer than this.

Malik hadn't even known how long the journey would take when he had first ventured out. Had it been any other time of the year, Malik would have stayed at home even at the face of the mystery of his Familiar being at two places at once for a short moment in time. But as it had been the end of the harvest, Malik had been encouraged to go the moment he expressed desire to do so.

Having been reassured that everything would be alright, the Hero and his Familiar went for a long walk in the direction the man had felt his second Familiar.

Now late fall had given in to early winter with snow falling and melting in a near constant circle.

The Monk had stocked up on supplies everytime he got across civilization, but he was fully capable of surviving off of nature. Winter made it more challenging, but with it still being early winter, Malik didn't find it too difficult.

Though, he had no problem admitting he had eaten less than usual, and Sunbolt had had to eat bark several times. Not that it had dampened their mood any!

The two companions had resupplied at a Large Village the day before. They were getting a little short on money these days. He hadn't expected it would take this long, after all. But the people of his Kingdom praised unicorns and saw them as the best judge of character. As such, ever since he had returned to Pasan, he and Sunbolt had gotten a free meal everywhere he stopped by, as well as discounts on rooms and supplies. Not massive discounts, Malik wouldn't have allowed that. But letting people help made them feel important, helpful, and needed, so Malik generally accepted such things with a bright smile and a heartfelt thanks.

While walking through yet another forest, Sunbolt gently poked her Hero with her head before making a pointed motion with her head. The unicorn had the higher Awareness of the two and this was her way of informing the human of other people being nearby. Malik loved meeting new people and whenever he had met someone outside of a town they had been in need of some form of help. Some had gotten lost, others wounded, one group had misjudged their need for food and hadn't known how to live off of the land.

So, when Sunbolt informed him of the presence of people in the forest, Malik was immediately ready to go help and adjusted their course slightly to the right, as Sunbolt had depicted.

It didn't take long before Malik began hearing the sounds of hundreds of people talking and moving around. Way more people than the two friends had stumbled upon outside a town before.

After several more moments of walking it was revealed to them that a large group of gnomes had set a temporary camp in a clearing clearly too small to fit them all at once, much less all their stuff and animals. They appeared to be roasting a large variety of animals on 6 Orb driven stoves.

At first glance there didn't appear to be anything they needed help with, much to Malik's relief. That didn't stop him from wanting to meet them and hear their story.

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It wasn't a nice story. Far from it.

The gnomes had been living in a Large Town named Rivervale at the outskirts of Pasan in a region which had previously been a part of the gnome dominated Small Kingdom of Geniss. This region still had a plenty of gnomes living there, though the area had belonged to the human dominated Kingdom of Pasan for over 100 years. None of these gnomes had been alive when the area had been a part of Geniss, making them all citizens of Pasan and used to the laws of said Kingdom.

But their social customs? Not so much.

Having lived in a place almost purely filled with gnomes with everyone's closest ancestors - either parents, grandparents or at least great-grandparents - having been citizens of Geniss, their social customs had mimicked the Small Kingdom instead of the one they were actually a part of.

This hadn't caused any problems while Rivervale was still populated.

The Large Town had had a Dungeon, which had been one of the reasons Pasan had wanted the region. Not just for The Dungeon of Rivervale but for the other Dungeons in the region as well.

For the people of Rivervale this mostly meant they had a new tax collector, so life hadn't really changed from before the war.

But then one day their Dungeon Portal crumpled, becoming a pile of rocks and dust.

Many suspected one of the Parties inside the Dungeon - all of which had been ejected from the Dungeon seconds before its Portal fell - had done something to the Dungeon Core. But when they had been interviewed it came to light that one of the Parties - the guilty one most likely - had escaped capture.

The culture and economy of Rivervale had been entirely dependent on its Dungeon and without it, the Large Town quickly stopped being able to function properly.

Visitors including merchants stopped coming once the news of the Dungeon's fall had spread. People began to move away, while others took to crime in desperation.

This particular group had started out as a collection of people from Rivervale, who didn't know anyone from outside the once active Dungeon town who could take them in or otherwise help them establish a new life elsewhere. They had banded together and set out to find a new place elsewhere, not really having any specific goal in mind.

That was when their Genish variant of social norms began causing them problems. The group could never figure out what they did wrong. They knew no actual law had been broken, yet every town wanted them to settle down somewhere else. Sometimes they were told this directly, sometimes actions spoke louder than words.

Two dozen of them hadn't been able to adapt to their now nomadic lifestyle fast enough. In the beginning, they had had a bit of a problem reliably getting enough food and water for roughly 1,000 gnomes, and wild animals had been a problem several times.

Malik had been able to simply jump on Sunbolt's back and escape any aggressive wild creature getting too close for comfort. But with that many people slowed down by heavy possessions, while not actually having enough pack animals or carts for everyone to get a ride at once, this hadn't been an option for the gnome group.

Having listened to their troubles, Malik knew exactly how he could help.