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DRACONIC KARMA DUNGEON - Chapter 14

Published at 2nd of February 2024 05:57:25 AM


Chapter 14: Tribal Announcement and 2nd Floor

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Chapter 14: Tribal Announcement and 2nd Floor

Karmic griffins are expensive. More expensive than even my karmic small dumb mimic, which was the second most expensive creature I had made. And not just a bit more expensive but a whole 80 more mana before the 50% extra and my discounts. For the base cost that is. The griffins' level up cost is actually less. Probably 'cause leveling up a mimic makes it stronger and better at hiding, while leveling up griffins just makes them stronger. The reason the griffins base cost was that high was likely due to their Ability to deal 120% damage while guarding a treasure. The definition of 'treasure' is subjective though. I consider my mimics to be treasures as it took me so long to design them. And even longer before I had made one, I could use. As such, I had gotten my griffins to guard my mimic while still getting the 120% damage bonus. Honestly, I think griffins are meant to be on the 6th or 7th Floor. If they're expensive to me with all the discounts I'm getting, then I don't think a normal Dungeon would be able to make one before the 3rd Floor if they really tried. But then you have to factor in that mine are also the much cheaper karmic versions. Thus skyrocketing the price of their non-karmic cousins.

All that being said I could still easily afford them even without using my Mana Bank. Griffins were just much more expensive than what I had made beforehand. For instance, karmic griffins were more than 3 times as expensive as the bā zú lung dragons. If I were to make them without using my Mana Bank, I would have needed to have done it 2 levels at a time.

The mimic was - as its species stated - dumb and so I had to slowly repeat the words it had problems with. It would have taken way longer if I hadn't! Still, its sentences sounded like a 3- or 4-year-old.

With all the discounts I had gotten I no longer had any problem counting the fledgling lightning sea serpents as dragons in my mental count to make sure my Floors were roughly 90% dragons.

Like the 2nd Floor the 3rd Floor also had only three rooms due to me making rooms bigger than the standard room size. The rooms of the 3rd Floor had been dug but it was far from done. No puzzles, no traps and only three kobolds. The Watchtower Crossroad was actually the only room where the environment was done as I needed Kobold manpower to finish the rest. Though I might decide to add more watchtowers to the Crossroad later on.

Due to the kobolds' ability to gain classes every kobold was spawned with a weapon. As their creator I got to choose what weapon they spawned with, as long as it wasn't super powerful compared to the kobold's level. In the case of a kobold with a crossbow, the material of the crossbow and bolts would change based on the kobold's level.

The kobold talking to the Chief added some nuances I hadn't told it of. The fact about people with 10% karma level or lower being unredeemable I hadn't even thought about yet couldn't help but agree with once I did.

The Chief didn't seem to notice that the kobold was speaking in an entirely different language. One consisting mostly of growls, yips, hisses, and bellows. Oh well. Maybe someone else will notice.

Chief Nerok left my Dungeon having gotten his options and I began planning for the future.

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The whole Tribe had kept close to the Dungeon Portal as the time neared for their Chief to return. More than an hour had passed, and the Tribe had gotten excited. "The Dungeon must be able to communicate with him if it takes him so long!" many stated. A few skeptics in return pointed out that the Dungeon might just have gotten a new Floor. This didn't stop the excitement from mounting though.

Shouts and cheers got out as the Chief appeared out of the blue next to the now stone Portal.

Nerok quickly noticed that the Tribe was already gathered around him. He put on his new griffin feathered cape, raised his hand to quiet the crowd and spoke to his Tribe. "Yes, as some of you have guessed I have successfully communicated with the Dungeon!"

"How?!" Asked the curious and the skeptics.

"The Dungeon has finished its 2nd Floor and has begun making its 3rd! The 2nd Floor has a single creature with the ability to speak!" Multiple "What?!"'s and other sounds of surprise could be heard from the Tribe. Said sounds got louder when the Chief continued speaking through the noise. "The 3rd Floor only has three creatures for now yet all three are speaking draconic humanoids!"

Nerok paused and soon the crowd was quiet once more. "The Dungeon has a plan!" The cheers returned louder than before. Nerok simply waited for their curiosity to quiet them down again before continuing. "The Dungeon fears no elves as it has plans on how to survive without even being enslaved by them!" This time the cheers almost shattered everyone's eardrums. Meeting elves and not getting enslaved? That seemed like an unachievable dream to the Tribe, but of course their local Dungeon god would know a way!The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

It took much longer before the Tribe calmed down after that announcement. And when they did, they all had one question on their minds: How is that possible?

"Karmic woods wyverns, huh?" Begdar had looked up while Thenac was looking down. There appeared to be about half a dozen of them in the trees in front of them. Though their brown feathers were a good natural camouflage, so Begdar wasn't sure if there might be more, she just hadn't noticed. When asked, Thenac informed her that there were indeed more hidden.

"To the right. Ground level." Thenac had noticed movement behind some trees.

Bā zú lung dragon Level 3

A roughly 5 meter long, serpentine, 8-legged, wingless dragon walked past the Party barely sparing them a glance. Its orange coloring and red highlights made it very visible in the green forest. It had a neural spine sail going from the beginning of the neck and around the other side of its tail making the tail look like a double-sided weapon.

"It's not karmic either? Like the bìxié?" Begdar wondered out loud.

The Party decided to walk straight ahead for now while avoiding the traps. They knew they didn't need to do so but liked to keep in practice doing so.

Thenac kept an eye on the trees as much as on the ground and noticed a key in the biggest one nearby. Taozcec was quick to take over and began convincing a wyvern to give them the key. The wyvern got closer but didn't seem to understand what the vulpinekin wanted it to do. Seeing that it wasn't working Nalir simply climbed the tree, got the key, and jumped down again.

"Good job, hun!" Begdar said and gave the felinekin a kiss on the cheek. Nalir's eyes softened, and a small smile appeared on his lips. "The key seems to be located in a bigger concentration of wyverns and there don't appear to be any lung dragons around here. Most likely the next key is in the territory of the lung dragons. Though that is assuming they have one."

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Not long after finding the first key of the Floor, the rhinokin again noticed an item. "Is that a treasure chest?" Walking closer she pulled the climbing plants off of the chest. Said chest was big enough to contain one of the small shields they had gotten earlier and high enough for a helmet.

Thenac opened the treasure chest and found some dragon leather along with three medium copper cubes.

Morghar picked up a copper cube. "You don't normally see copper before the 3rd Floor, right? And sometimes first by the 4th?" His Party agreed. "Thank you kindly then! You even went so far as to make them medium sized!" The ursakin said to the Dungeon. As a small cube was 1×1×1 cm, the medium 2×2×2 and the big 3×3×3, each size had a volume much bigger than the previous size. Going from small to medium was an increase of 8 times the volume while there from small to big was an increase of 27 times. That and the fact that the bigger sizes made it quicker to gather them meant that the Party was really pleased.

Next to the chest was a stream guarded by log crocodiles like the ones from the swamp room. The stream had logs laid over it at places and steppingstones at others. On the other side of the stream the wyverns and lung dragons were level 4, but the room looked otherwise the same.

The Party reached the wall on the other side of the room, but the opening wasn't immediately in sight. Thenac's Trap Detection detected several traps to the right, so the Party decided to go that way.

Entering the lung dragon territory the Party quickly found the 2nd key half hidden under a rock. The lung dragon territory had fewer trees and instead big rocks stood amongst the wildflowers and ferns along with small puddles of water. Thenac identified a proximity trap around the key but couldn't tell what kind. A stick was used to retrieve the key.

The Party ended up walking past the opening as they had noticed another chest. This one contained a pair of dragon leather boots and another 3 medium copper cubes.

Exiting the room a larger than usual amount of loot dropped. Plenty of different dragon leather items the Tribe already had and while most of the cubes were medium sized, they were all aluminum. 6 BO's dropped as well, and the Party felt weird having to ignore them. With the Tribe still so primitive and without access to trade, they had no use for any more of them. As such the Party only gathered the aluminum cubes and the dragon meat.




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