Dawn had come and the 1st Party of the day entered my Dungeon. For the first time in my Dungeon life, did I get to see people with black auras. Not completely midnight black though. The mouseboy, rhinogirl and foxgirl had a more normal looking gray aura. Still darker than the average people I had seen but not truly concerning. I had gotten an unexpected amount of good people until now after all, so my average was likely shrewd. The bearboy, catboy and wolfboy all had really dark auras though. Looking closer I discovered that they had auras of 12%, 20% and 18% respectively. As such they would be affected by - slight - bad luck, would take 10% extra damage and would be compelled away from the bìxiés. The bearboy's really close to 10%. If he were to somehow lose those two percent, he had above 10%, every creature would start attacking him!

Why do I hope that happens? Right. Cause they're really bad guys!

The Party had walked up to the stream before The Great Tree. The three with gray auras had stopped up several steps before and were watching the dragonets in the tree nervously. Bearboy turned around with sneer on his face. "Remember the deal. If you don't fight the monsters with us, you won't get any of the quadrupled loot." The three nodded but didn't move closer.

Quadrupled loot? Where did that come from?

The bearboy stepped into the stream not caring he got wet, and his two friends followed him in. Having entered the eel's territory it gave them some electric shocks before being found and killed.

My… well I don't have a heart anymore so I suppose the notion would be 'my Core sank'...? Nonetheless I had realized that these guys were level 9+ like all the others and thus my level 1 and 2 creatures were unlikely to hurt them much.

At least I'll get to see some of my bad guy defence systems in action. I thought as the Blood Shedded, Blood Room Rule took effect. The Rule was purely a cosmetic change as it was meant as a 'don't kill' warning in case the peaceful creatures hadn't been enough. I'm excited to see the bad luck take effect! Will it be obvious? Or will it be more subtle like the good luck has been?

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The moment the lightning sea serpent - for despite its small size for a sea serpent, what else could it have been - was killed everything turned red. The leaves on the trees, bushes and climbing plants turned into a dark fall red color. The grass became bright blood red and even the water started to look like blood.

Vanek, the muskin, gave a loud squeaking scream before looking around paranoid. Kerir, the vulpinekin, and Duzcax, the rhinokin, didn't make any sounds but looked cautiously around as well while moving closer to each other hoping to cover the other's back should something happen.

Khaogthoc was shocked by the color change for a moment before looking smug. "See! The Dungeon acknowledges our challenge!" The ursakin gathered the loot from the slain sea serpent before continuing towards the tree with dragons in. His friends/henchmen Vakhix, the lupinekin, and Talgrag, the felinekin, followed closely behind.

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The tiny green dragons fought back against their slaughter but were too weak in comparison to give their attackers more than scratches and 1st degree burns.

When no extra loot appeared after leaving the room Khaogthoc decided it meant their quadrupled reward would appear as they entered the Core Room instead. "It's better that way anyway! We don't have to carry as much loot through the Dungeon this way!"

The stream in the 2nd room had two of the small lightning sea serpents in it and again the room turned red when the first was killed.

No one noticed the trap before the burrows and as none of them had listened too closely to the other Parties' tales, also hadn't known to look for it. Metal spikes went through Khaogthoc's left foot and left him limping. The ursakin killed all 6 dragons in the room himself as a response. The first death of a dragonet turned the room red.

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When the bearboy killed the first dragonet in cold blood, two things happened: his karma level went from 12 to 11% for attacking with no just cause and all other dragonets in the room went to attack him at once. They got some burns and scratches in but nothing much as he was both a much higher level and his two friends came to his aid.

Much the same thing happened in The Rainbow Forest, but I had noticed something they hadn't.

They didn't notice that the key disappeared after they killed the dragonet?! I don't think they even noticed the key in the first place! This made me ecstatic as they now couldn't enter my Core Room and get extra EXP and personalized rewards. They have shown they don't deserve it!

The bearboy stepping on the Spikes trap was clearly the work of bad luck. Now that I think about it, losing the key, without even knowing it, is pretty unlucky as well. And while they in theory could find the key by searching the burrows, I really can’t imagine them looking there. Not even when they realize they need 3 keys.

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The Trap Corridor went alright for them. The wolfboy did a good job finding the traps but got hit in the head by a single stray rock from the Rockfall Ceiling trap. Bad luck for him! I thought with a laugh.

The Orchard had a single bìxié in it which I had ordered to guard the passage to The Berry Forest. The three with black auras killed the dragonets first while the gray auras waited by the entrance.

It took them several minutes to realize that they had avoided the area around the bìxié and only then did they notice the bìxié itself. The three gray auras had naturally noticed long before then, as they weren't affected by the bìxié. They simply tried not to laugh out loud while watching the bad guys walk around an invisible wall.

I, however, didn't try to stifle my laughter.

Partly because I couldn't actually laugh out loud…

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Having ordered the rhinogirl into freeing the fake dragonet, the Party entered The Swamp Route. Seeing a glimpse of a marsh crocodile to the right, the bearboy had his friends follow him into the swamp. The other three simply stood still and waited for them to be done.

With a jump the bearboy attacked the crocodile with his axe, his followers close behind. Having once again attacked a peaceful creature finally caused his karma level to fall to 10%.

Shrills sounded from the room's 6 dragonets as they took to the air to attack the bearboy. Then a roar came from the other crocodile as it ran across the dirt and pebble route to avenge its dead kin. The sudden loud sounds stunned the whole Party for a moment allowing the dragonets to attack the bearboy before he could defend himself and giving me time to activate my '200% Constitution for all creatures' Ability in the hopes it would help my creatures.

Hearing the pained shouts of the bearboy had the gray auras turn around and run into the previous room where they hid.

Despite having double Constitution half the dragonets had still fallen by the time the other crocodile arrived. To bearboy's bad luck he was still distracted and thus took a bite to the right leg making him fall to the ground.

Drag him towards the sleep trap! I ordered my crocodile. Shortly after the trap activated, and all three bad guys fell asleep. Now asleep the bearboy was quickly killed by a bite to the neck from the crocodile. The crocodile then walked back to its own side of the swamp as it had no beef with the other two beastkin. The 2 remaining dragonets however needed to avenge their fallen flock. They killed the two by slowly ripping their throats open while they were asleep.

As the room was now cleared of sapients a pop-up appeared.

3 level 9+ sapients have been killed in your Dungeon.

You have gained 2,850 EXP.

First of Your Kind rewards you 570 EXP.

5 level 2 creatures have died.

You have gained 10 EXP.

First of Your Kind rewards you 2 EXP.

Creature Designer rewards you 1 EXP.

What?! How?! Huh?!

After thinking it over a bit I realized I had killed 3 level 9+'s as a level 6 Dungeon Core using only level 2 creatures and a trap. So of course the reward would seem big. It probably also has something to do with the fact that they were killed. No one else has died in my Dungeon and my creature and trap descriptions do state that killing would earn me a lot more EXP. Besides. Dungeon Cores have increased growth while young which means I need less EXP to level up at the moment. So it’s probably not as big a reward as it seems. Though still way bigger than anything else.

… Status…?

Personal Status Level: 6 EXP needed for level up: 1,200/1,200 Additional EXP: 3,788 Mana payment needed for level up: 88.25/350 Mana: 91/350 Mana regeneration: 70 per hour Floors: 1/3 Allowed number of sapients in each Floor: 6 Floor Details Achievements Mission Dungeon Rules

... I think I'll focus a bit on levelling up tonight...

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No more sounds could be heard from the swamp room. Vanek, Kerir and Duzcax gathered their courage before looking into the room. Khaogthoc's dead body could be seen from the entrance. Relief went through the three. Vakhix and Talgrag are likely dead too then, they thought.

"Do you guys think they'll attack us if we just went through?" Vanek, the muskin, asked.

"Maybe, but why does it matter?! I'm not going through there! I'm leaving!" The vulpinekin, Kerir, stated loudly.

Vanek looked down and twirled his right foot around. "I wanted to see the shapeshifting dragon…" He mumbled. Zaktak had talked loudly about the awesome shapeshifting dragon and its rare loot. The color-changing leather was highly sought after, as no one in the Tribe knew how to dye clothes.

"I'll go with you." Duzcax stated. "But we'll turn around if anything attacks." The rhinokin added. "Deal?"

"Yes!" Vanek said excitedly, drowning out the Kerir's complains.

Not wanting to be left alone the vulpinekin followed the others into the swamp room.

Nothing attacked them and as the sleep trap had already been activated it didn't matter that they had forgotten its existence.

Poking random rocks in the next room eventually revealed the shapeshifter. Said dragon simply walked away from them having gotten annoyed by so many people having poked it since the Dungeon opened.

All three beastkin agreed that they wouldn't have found the shapeshifter if they hadn't been told it was there.

No loot had appeared, and they didn't have a single key. They could have gotten one from one of the dragons in the room but as only one key wouldn't open the door, they didn't bother getting it. As the three of them hadn't participated in any of the fights they had only gotten EXP from the puzzle. Still they had no desire to attack any of the monsters. Instead they turned around and walked back.

Stopping next to the corpse of Khaogthoc, Duzcax asked: "Shouldn't we gather their stuff? The Tribe needs it." After looking uncomfortable at each other they decided to do so.

Around Vakhix and Talgrag's bodies lay 2 BO's. They had been dropped by the monsters they had killed, but the two died before they could bind them to them.

Before more than a "Who sho-" could get out of the rhinokin's mouth Kerir had grabbed one and crushed it. The vulpinekin then used her new Enhanced Reflexes to avoid Duzcax who was trying to grab her. As a 2nd tier with the Dexterity class Kerir quickly left the other two behind and ran for the Portal.

Now alone the muskin and rhinokin gathered the rest of the loot. While doing so they decided the other BO should go to Duzcax as she had been the one to suggest they loot the bodies for loot.

The rhinokin got the Intelligence class and soon suggested they reported Kerir's actions to Chief Nerok.

And Khaogthoc, Vakhix and Talgrag's as well of course!