Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 55: Sapient Beasts and a Stable Boy

The slave comments hadn’t been aimed at the cult.

3 days had passed since Sarzina Acacia had learned of her Dungeon's intelligence. She had soon after announced - carefully worded - that her Dungeon reflected one's behavior and that the secondary trigger seemed to be based on one's general behavior rather than one's current behavior like for the Dungeon monsters. That one person might trigger a trap with a wide effect leading their Party to get hit by the trap as well.

And that the massive number of monsters seen during the initial run to Cage the Core was the Dungeon 'reflecting' the 'allow all'-tool's effect by allowing the Dungeon to follow different rules for its monsters.

And as such, only a temporary effect.

This announcement had led to a massive spike in Dungeon mining at first. For the first day afterwards, Zina's Dungeon had been near constantly in use. But near lunch the next day, one of the soldiers had been killed by the Dungeon, reminding people that the Dungeon of Karma could still kill you.

Not that it stopped just about anyone from mining. The loot and EXP was simply too good for the amount of effort expended.

While others had been mining her Dungeon, Zina had used that time to reevaluate all she thought she knew about the Dungeon of Karma in the light of the Dungeon's sapiency and its System given Mission.

The immediate conclusion? The System had been right about giving the Dungeon sapiency. As her initial trip to the Core had shown, the Dungeon of Karma was better at killing than other Dungeons of its age or even other Dungeons of its size. Yet, it killed fewer than its strength suggested as the Dungeon of Karma was fully capable of selective targeting, which let it follow its Mission without unnecessary bloodshed.

The Dungeon-wide secondary trap trigger was a perfect example of this, only triggering for those the Dungeon actually wants to kill! Simply brilliant!

While the Dungeon had stated it had a theme it hadn't revealed what that theme was. Though with it being an embodiment of its Mission it hadn't been hard to guess.

It had oddly enough gone into third-person due that part of the conversation, saying "my Dungeon has a theme" instead of "I have a theme"...

Yet another oddity Zina wanted to add to her notebook, though this time it was one she couldn't write down. While she didn't think anyone here would dare read in her notebook without her permission - she was the dungeon mistress of the town they were founding after all, which came with a lot of respect and authority alongside all the duties -, she didn't want to risk it getting read.

What she did write down was her discovery of her Dungeon's theme of 'reflected behavior': If you showed the Dungeon kindness, it would reflect it back at you, with the same happening for rude or violent behavior.

Still. Even with this discovery, Zina found it prudent to reevaluate everything she had learned.

And when she got to the point of analyzing the puzzle door at the end of the third room of the 4th Floor - the one which kept insulting the elven species until you convinced it not to judge based on another's species -, Zina had to ask herself a startling question: What if the slave comments hadn't been aimed at the cult but at me like I first assumed?! Or maybe Alfamér in general?! But rather than the slave being the Dungeon itself, it was actually someone else?

The puzzle door in question wouldn’t fit into the Dungeon’s theme unless it was reflecting the opinion of someone.

And after thinking over her past conversations with the talking door, Zina quickly realized that the person the door reflected hated the elven species and thought of them as ruthless slave owners.

But who would think that? It’s not true after all! I’ve never seen a slave in my life, nor even heard of an elf of the present time being a slaveowner!

After a bit more thinking on the matter Zina decided to simply request the answer of her Dungeon. While she would have loved the challenge of figuring it out on her own, she worried the Dungeon - and thus the System - expected her to do something. The sooner she figured out what to change, the faster she could begin and complete her sacred task.

The elven noblewoman reached inside herself and mentally touched the link between herself and the Dungeon Core Cage through which she sent the request to her Dungeon.

To think that I use the System Itself as a mere communication tool! Zina shook her head with a smile. But I can't forget! If the System hadn’t wanted me to do this, it simply wouldn't have let me!

Seconds later, the answer arrived via the holy System.

Request accepted

Your linked Dungeon Core is against slavery. The only form of slave it has seen is runaway beastkin slaves.

Beastkin?! But they're not people! They're animals!

…

Aren't they?

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Finally she got it! Took her a while!

I thought I was pretty clear when I spoke - through my mimic - but I suppose I was somewhat distracted trying to sound mysterious and wise…

First the Lightning Mage had panicked and aggressively muttering could be heard from her for several minutes as she compared all she knew about beastkin with actual beasts.

It hadn't taken her long to realize she didn't actually know all that much about them but in her denial she tried desperately to convince herself that beastkin were really beasts. Had always been beasts and nothing but mere animals.

Only to end up concluding they were more intelligent than animals, yet were often treated worse.

And she froze like lightning had struck her: "They have Classes… Only sapient species have Classes… Right?" She had muttered to herself - and unknowingly me. She had sounded completely terrified, like the knowledge could physically hurt her.

Then confusion set in as she remembered that my kobolds had Classes as well and her denial made a reappearance.

Eventually she decided to simply ask for confirmation.

Your linked activator requests to know if your kobolds have Classes because they are sapient.

Will you allow this?

Yes/No

Sure thing! If her knowing, that kobolds are actually an extinct sapient species, helps her come to terms with beastkin being sapients as well, then let her know!

It did help her. Only now she had yet another big revelation she wanted to share with her people, but no way to explain where she had gotten that knowledge from. Nor did she know exactly what to do with her newly discovered information.

In the end she decided to take it one step at a time. 'Her Dungeon', aka me, didn't like slavers and supposedly that meant the System didn't like slavery either.

I don't think the two are related… I don't just hate slavery because the System does. I hate it 'cause I believe everyone has the right to make their own choices!

Still. Believing me to be her god's spokesperson got her moving quicker than if she hadn't, so I didn't correct her.

That, and the description of my Achievement 'Freedom of Thought' literally started with 'Everyone deserves to have their own free will', so I felt pretty confident in the System agreeing with me on this.

That being said, while the Lightning Mage now wanted to abolish all slavery, she wasn't cocky enough to believe she could make that happen. Instead her plan was to prohibit it for the town being built around my Portal. Supposedly, as the local dungeon mistress she could make local laws like that as long as they didn't go against any major law made by the monarchy.

As she didn't have a good way to explain why she suddenly believed beastkin to be sapients, she instead decided to point out how beastkin were often treated worse than actual animals, thus starting her campaign out by outlawing animal abuse.

Something which apparently was frowned upon but not actually illegal already.

After completing the necessary paperwork, the Lightning Mage went back to her bad guy hunt.

Specifically, how to locate the person with 0% karma.

She had been considering how to find them many times the last 3 days, but had only arrived at one half of the solution: Ordering everyone to enter my Dungeon, claiming she wanted to observe how my traps and creatures react to each person.

And I do think she’ll take the chance to do exactly that. Just to be sure she didn’t miss something I haven’t told her about…

Her only problem was figuring out how to keep the 0%'er in my Dungeon after discovery with all my creatures attacking them. Especially, if she had a full Party with her, which timewise would be the most effective way. 'Cause how would she explain to them that the person needed to be killed by the Dungeon and actually make them believe her?

… I hadn't figured out how to tell her I intended to undo the mind control rather than simply kill them. I feared what she would do with that knowledge, being as thorough in her approach to things as she was.

Would she order people to be mind controlled in order to find out how quickly I could undo it and what factors into that speed?

Or would she simply ask me now that she could? But I had noticed she would often attempt to figure things out herself before resorting to asking me for the answer…

No! I have to get over my trust issues! She reacted well to learning beastkin are sapient, even though she had grown up being taught the opposite! She just needed some time to come to terms with it! She didn't even make any crazy experiments during that time! She just reevaluated what she already knew!

Maybe she simply couldn't do any experiments 'cause she didn't have access to any beastkin to experiment with…

No! Don't think like that! If she had had access to a beastkin slave she would probably just have asked it questions and done a couple of simple mind tests! Nothing crazy!

Right?

Yes, right! Now stop this train of thought and figure out how to communicate your ability to break mind control to her!

I took a moment to calm myself before continuing.

I can tell her how 'Enthralled', 'Hypnotized', and the likes can be seen next to a mind controlled person's name while inside my Dungeon. That should help her convince people to leave the person to me.

…

And I could add a timer feature to it, counting down to when their mind is freed. That way she wouldn't have to do experiments to find the exact number.

… Damn it! Why am I like this?

Nonetheless, it was a good idea so I implemented it. It was a simple change to my previous Rule 'Get Out of My Head' - the one which slowly breaks mind manipulation - and as it was purely cosmetic, the change barely cost me any mana.

Now I just have to actuallyinform her of all of this.

… Let's hope I don't end up backing out!

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

I didn't and 2 days later we had found and freed a young - but still adult - stable boy from his Hypnosis.

The timer had ensured everyone was alright - or at least didn't complain too loudly - with trapping the young elf in The Great Tree Room for the duration. The Lightning Mage had explained how she wanted the young stable boy to stay in the Dungeon for the timer's duration and the soldier and… stable master?... was quick to follow her order.

I think she intimidates them…

Then she left my Dungeon to inform everyone else what was happening. The timer was in hours after all, it would take a while.

… There was some fear associated with what would happen when the timer reached zero. I hadn't wanted the timer to say so as future cult members might react by leaving my Dungeon and coming back with some form of defence for it. But if they didn't know what would happen they would have a hard time trying to defend against it.

The Lightning Mage had done her best to calm the worried people, though that clearly wasn't her speciality. She had relayed what I had told her about it being a countdown till his mind was freed but had to claim it was just a guess.

And while trying to hide our communication she ended up emphasizing that 'it was just a guess, we can't know for certain till it reaches zero'.

Which naturally made people more worried…

Her follow up of 'the Dungeon doesn't really kill people, remember?' had more success due to the lieutenant cutting her off before she could start mentioning all the times I had killed people.

The stable boy - much like Skau - had been ordered to report to the cult any news he heard about any Dungeon and thus hadn't known a whole lot about what the cult of the Broken Goddess was currently up to. Only that his current mission had been to keep them up to date on the town's progress.

They are so sending out another Party to try and steal my Core, aren't they?