With my 'allowed number of sapients' still out of order I instead relied on the view from my Dungeon Portal to tell me when dawn had arrived. I had spent the night leveling up, wondering what the Lightning Mage planned to test in my Dungeon today and considering my 'Cage problem'.

For the latter problem I had decided to wait till I had roughly used the EXP I gained from the elven army to level up. Then I would have the Cage send fake requests to the Lightning Mage. That should be what she would expect me to do after all! And then I would use her reactions to learn more about her - which could only be a good thing!

The snow around my Portal began to reflect the rising sun and made me want to check what my progress had been during the night. Status, please!

Personal Status Level: 22 EXP needed for level up: 35,800/35,800 Additional EXP: 1,584,576 Mana payment for level up: 3,000/6,750 Mana: 347/2,250 Mana regeneration: 787.5 per hour Floors: 8/11 Allowed number of sapients in each Floor: Disabled Floor Details Achievements Mission Dungeon Rules

Well… I think it's unlikely they'll wait for me to get another level before entering my Dungeon again… But I don't think there is anything better I can do right now and I still intend to do another three level ups before I start sending out fake requests.

I'll just have to wait and see what they do…

…

Is there any chance they might disable my max allowed again once the 24 hours are up?

No… I don’t think so. They’ll want me to give them loot after all. The disabling was likely only meant to make it easier to get to my Core to Cage it, so they can control my growth.

How exactly did they do it? Was it a spell or something?

Sapients can make an enchanted runic tool to disable the allowed number of sapients in each Floor. Said tool is commonly made by an Apprentice Enchanting Runesmith.

To activate the tool it needs to be placed on the back of a Dungeon Portal and have mana pushed into it.

Oh… Then, since I could make a Rule affecting my Portal, can I make a Rule… I don’t know… maybe one stopping tools like this one from being placed in the first place? Like a nonstick pan or something?

A Rule making the Dungeon Portal haphephobic for lasting touches costs 485 mana.

That’s cheap. But do I want it? The tool did allow me to throw extreme amounts of creatures at my enemies, while they couldn’t so easily escape my wrath. If I had had this Rule back then and only 4 elves had entered, the Lightning Mage would have had to have been one of them as she was clearly the one meant to Cage me. And even if she had been alone, I highly doubt I would have been able to kill her with just my normal amount of creatures.

Of course her Strength is not the best, so she wouldn’t have been able to ram through all my puzzles without being stopped at some point as their Toughness keeps rising in response.

But as a Mage with high Intelligence she likely would have tried to solve my puzzles rather than break them…

…

While this tool is likely very bad news for other Dungeons, I think it might actually be more to my own advantage than disadvantage.

And should I change my mind I can easily make the Rule then, with it being as cheap as it is!

…

Actually… It would be nice to, instead of stopping the tool from being used, to punish them further for using it. Like when they break my puzzles. Maybe something like… should my max allowed be disabled my creatures’… Hmm… What Ability Score do I want to raise?

Toughness already had a Rule raising it, Strength was useful for most of my creatures, but I had several who attacked using mana based attacks and would benefit more from having their Intelligence raised.

Dexterity perhaps? It would let my physical-attackers move faster and help my long-ranged creatures hit their target.

Yeah. Dexterity it is!

Of course, such a Rule was much more expensive, so I decided to wait till I couldn’t level up any more - and thus had faster mana regeneration - before I actually made the Rule.

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Captain Gleditsia had used his influence to ensure the 5th tier Apprentice Healer, Miss Pinckneya, had joined their mission, and he had done so for selfish reasons. It hadn't even helped him in the end, as his death had been too sudden for her to save him.

Sarzina Acacia had used her influence to hire the 5th tier General Contractor, Chalia Ulmus - who wished to be called by her first name despite her age and experience -, partly for selfish reasons, partly not. Supervising and guiding the construction of a new town was certainly something the old elf wanted to do, and having the experienced Chalia help with construction would surely be a big help to the town, both now and for the future inhabitants.

But hiring her was also done for selfish reasons. The town would be Zina's after all, as it would be a Dungeon town till it had grown big enough to be considered a Small City. At that point, only the district with the Dungeon Portal in it would be considered her domain.

Of course she would still have to follow and enforce the laws of her Queendom, but she would be in charge of local laws and regulations.

And naturally she wanted the best for her future town!

Not that she had enough money or influence for the absolute best the Queendom could offer, but Chalia was certainly up there.

Chalia's presence did create an unexpected friction at first before an hierarchy was established. Lieutenant Alnus was in charge of what remained of the company, as well as all decisions regarding safety. Chalia was in charge of the construction of the place and those who worked on it, but had to listen to and try to accommodate requests from dungeon mistress Zina, lieutenant Alnus, and, with lower priority, the future citizens of the place. Meanwhile Miss Pinckneya would take charge when someone's health was in question. Though, that hadn't yet been needed.

Zina wasn't really in charge of a lot just yet as the town had yet to be built. She could tell Chalia - both as the dungeon mistress of the place and as Chalia's employer - what to prioritize and what to build where. Requests of the latter kind could be denied if the place wasn't a suitable place to build on, but that had yet to happen.

At the moment, the last thing Zina was in charge of was who got to enter the Dungeon and when. She had used the morning to figure out the new hierarchy with the other leaders and discuss urban planning for the new place. It was hours past midday when she finally found time to enter the Dungeon. This meant the 'allow all'-tool had run out of mana and disabled itself, meaning Zina wouldn't have to waste time and mana doing so herself.

Being so high level compared to the monsters of Dungeon meant Zina had no need to have a Party with her. And though it was unlikely that Oona might gain a level anytime soon, she really didn't want to risk her best friend's life on that thought. It would be safer to simply let the dawon take a catnap for a couple of hours.

Too bad that's a Queendom-wide law. Otherwise I could just have disregarded it and made my own law count instead.

So, Zina decided to enter the Dungeon alone.

Properly prepared and armored of course!

But otherwise alone.

As her self imposed mission wasn't urgent she fully intended to leave after exploring two or three Floors. Her goal was to learn all she could about the Dungeon, and while she could have hired someone else to do it, she wanted to do it herself.

The first step was the Portal itself. In her excitement she hadn't thought to check what the allowed number had been or the minimum time needed between each Party.

The Dungeon Portal is currently open.

The standard timer has been set to 2 hours from the arrival of each Party if the sun is up and until dawn if the sun is down.

4 can enter the Dungeon at a time.

'From the arrival of each Party'? Uh… Didn't know it could change the start of the timer. And additionally having the timer depend on the position of the sun?! Now that is groundbreaking!

Zina was quick to write her observations down in her new notebook.

Then it was time to test her theory out.

She entered the Dungeon and… nothing happened.

So it is true for the whole Dungeon! Or at least the first and last Floor.

With no one attacking first, Zina began drawing a simple map of the room, noting down the Portal entrance, the exit, the one big tree, the stream in front of it, the marble boulder in front of the stream, and the three somewhat big bushes.

And, of course, how the grass and leaves were still green, when they had been red the last time she had been in the room.

She counted the monsters and wrote down '6 level 1 karmic dragonets' next to the map. On another page she described the monster type, which was needed for her Dungeon's personal bestiary, which she would one day sell at her Dungeon Guild.

With that done, she took a closer look at her surroundings. The bushes had berries on them, so she checked her gloves for holes before plucking a berry from each.

The boulder was just a normal black marble boulder. No hidden secrets there.

Looking down into the stream revealed another monster, which was then noted down as well.

Good thing I remembered to wear waterproof boots for this.

Zina wanted to take a close look at the tree to see if there was something behind or in the crown of it. And to do that she would have to walk through the stream. Her physical Scores had never been good, so an attempt to jump over it would simply lead to a splash.

But as soon as her foot touched the water, the level 1 'fledgling karmic elemental sea serpent - Lightning' rose its head over the water and hissed at her. Or rather, at her foot.

Curious more so than afraid, Zina froze in place to see what it would do. It kept hissing, ran out of air which forced it to duck under the water to get more before going back to hissing at her foot.

It would likely keep going like that forever if she let it, so Zina pulled her foot back. The monster stopped hissing and went back to swimming back and forth in the stream.

Zina wrote the behavior down.

Then, still determined to get closer to the tree and wanting to see what it would do, she placed one foot in the water. The monster went back to hissing at her foot. She placed the second one in the water in front of the first.

The monster attacked her with Lightning.

Zina stopped walking to observe its attack pattern before she kept going again. Once out of the water, the monster stopped attacking her, and she paused to write down what had happened.

Then she climbed the tree.

The dragonets in the tree mostly ignored her. Only looking at her when she got too close to them.

Having found nothing interesting in the tree she jumped back down.

Looking at the area behind the tree, Zina could now see 6 rabbit-looking burrows, which were partly hidden behind grass and wildflowers. Her want for a closer look was answered with a choir of 6 hissing monsters. The tree now contained 6 angry dragonets with their wings stretched in warning.

It was quickly noted before the warning was ignored. The following attack was also ignored, though any firebreath was successfully dodged.

The burrows, much like the tree, didn't have any secret hidden in them. Zina walked back to the stream again and, all at once, the dragonets stopped attacking her.

Interesting. Their attack pattern appears to be activated by close proximity to their designated 'home'.

The fledgling sea serpent once again attacked Zina, as she crossed the steam, and ignored her once she was out.

Then the dungeon mistress went to check out the next room.

Due to the Dungeon Rule 'Experiencing Peace' your Party has been rewarded double the amount of EXP and loot you would have gotten if you killed all the creatures in the room you just left.

Loot appeared as Zina left the first room, making her smile brightly to herself as she wrote down what she had gotten. Being 5 tiers higher than the Floor tier, she naturally didn't get any EXP, but she wouldn't have gotten any anyway. And if this happened after all rooms, then she would quickly get to one where she would.

Just as I had suspected!

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Without knowing if this development was good or bad, I had decided to hold back on using my Override Button. It wasn't like it would make much of a difference to the 6th tier, so I might as well hide it.

The Lightning Mage slowly and thoroughly went through my 1st Floor. Exploring every nook and cranny and writing everything she found down.

Which was everything.

Traps were found before she got near them, but wouldn't trigger when she tried to make them. This was naturally written down and the placement of every trap noted on her map.

In The Great Pond Room she decided to kill a dragonet, even though it hadn't done anything to her. As expected, it died immediately, everything turned red, and its flock attacked her. After killing the other dragonets, she wrote down what had happened.

Then she mumbled to herself as she often did. This time it was because she wanted to test if one could get EXP and loot for not killing my creatures, and then go back and get EXP and loot for killing them, meaning triple the reward per creature. She decided not to, as she had a too high a tier to get any EXP anyway, meaning she would only get half of the desired test results. She would have to have someone else test it with her.

Good thing, I had made the Rule with that same exploit in mind. That trick won't work on me!

Keys-bearing dragonets had their key taken from them by force, but without killing them.

The Kindness puzzle confused her and she wrote down everything she could think of before she decided to free the fake dragonet crying out in fake pain.

Seeing the 'solved puzzle' screen, she once again began muttering to herself as she considered if I had a theme going on about not harming my 'monsters'. Only for her to discard her thought as 'Dungeons don't have themes, except for in monster type'.

Finally, in the very last room of the Floor, did she miss something: my mimicking dragonet!

Much the same thing happened on the 2nd Floor. Except she had been informed that the treasure chest was one of my mimics. It didn't talk to her, as it knew I didn't really like her. The two griffins attacked her when she tried to get a closer look, but she simply used magic to have them trapped by plants.

The mimic let her touch its body and feel how realistic it felt. When she opened the 'chest' its tongue and teeth were revealed, which had it stop pretending to be an object and run away from her.

As she refused to admit to herself that my Dungeon did indeed have a theme, and as the mimic in the room wouldn't talk to her - not that she tried to make it, she didn't know it could -, the Lightning Mage couldn't solve the Politeness puzzle.

She wandered around the room several times before she began going through each room on the 2nd Floor again. This time taking extra care to check each and every creature's neck for the missing 4th key.

Which she naturally didn't find, as it didn't actually exist before someone asked for it nicely.

At some point she began trapping my creatures with her plant magic - which sometimes had funny, but harmless, results - in order to better keep track on which creatures she had already checked.

Once she had confirmed to herself that every creature had been checked for possession of a key, she froze and her eyebrow furrowed in confusion. After 17 seconds of this, her face suddenly went from confusion to a crazy-looking grin.

What?!

"Finally! A mystery worth my time!" The elf mumbled to herself. "And here! In my own Dungeon!"

Sorry to tell you honey. But I'm my own Dungeon!

The Lightning Mage mumbled several more things to herself but came to no immediate conclusion. She ended up giving up for now and left my Dungeon to eat her dinner.