The situation was truly dire.

Why else would Sarzina Acacia even consider contacting one of her parents? Her mother especially?

Zina was the youngest of three children, yet the only member of her family she liked was her brother Braern. As a male in a matriarchal society her parents cared little for her brother and they only required him to marry well and not shame the family. How he got himself a good wife and what else he did with his life, they didn't care about.

'An heir and a spare,' her mother had told her once when a young Zina had questioned her mother's actions - or rather lack thereof. The spare here was clearly Zina.

Not only that! But her older sister had given birth to a daughter only a decade ago! Which meant her parents had even less use for a spare.

She had tried to rebel in her youth. Act out in shameful ways in public in order to get their attention.

Zina eventually realized it wasn't the kind of attention she wanted to get from her parents. She started acting politely in public after that.

… Well, slightly less politely when it came to her fellow Dungeon miners. They tended to be a more… casual bunch.

The Dungeon mining and her dream of becoming a dungeon mistress was her later, more subtle way of rebelling against her parents. A respectable position - their Queen was one after all -, yet not something high society ever expected someone would do. It took too much work and few people ended up with enough Awareness to tame a Dungeon. It was extremely hard - but not quite impossible - to control what Ability Score was raised during a level up after all, so many who tried ended up falling short.

But not Zina.

As a dungeon mistress she would never again be ignored or overlooked. Her word would be law within her territory, which surrounded her Dungeon, and she would finally be listened to.

And as the name of a Dungeon's first master was never forgotten by history, she would never be forgotten either.

Zina hadn't been disowned. Her childhood rebellion had been seen as just that: A child acting out to get attention. And her adult rebellion was fully within societal boundaries and might not even have registered to most as something rebellious.

They just hadn't talked in decades. More than half a century at least. Some polite smalltalk with her sister whenever they were at the same event, but not as much as a simple greeting or even a nod to her parents.

She was still just the spare in their mind, after all. Not someone important.

But the royal family needed to know what had happened to one of their own, and as a Royal Advisor her mother would be able to get the message - quickly - to the Queen.

Which meant Zina had to actually talk to her mother.

If only it had been father. At least I know he didn't come up with the idea to shun me. He simply followed his wife as any good husband would.

Grabbing her emco, Zina steadied herself and made the dreaded but necessary call to her mother.

I can cry if I need to afterwards…

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Her youngest was always too busy to talk to her mother. At least Nalaea Acacia hoped that was the reason her daughter hadn't contacted her before.

Deep down she always regretted telling Sarzina she was just a spare. Even if it was the truth, there was no reason for her daughter to know that. And maybe they could have kept in contact then…

But Nalaea respected her daughter's need for… well. Whatever it was that kept her from contacting her mother. Nalaea wouldn't pry.

She didn't have the time to do so anyway.

Yet. The flash of her personal emco had filled her with hope. Maybe we can finally reconnect!

Steadily ignoring the quiet voice in the back of her head telling her she had never actually known her youngest in the first place.

Her daughter delivered the news of their Crown Princess' status in a detached way. Like she wasn't actually talking to her mother, but a stranger instead.

Maybe having me do her a favor is her way of giving me a second chance? Nalaea hoped even as logic told her, she was the logical choice. Probably even Sarzina's only choice of getting information to the royal family quickly.

But even though Sarzina was a spare, she was still her daughter and this was a tiny favor.

And, not to be forgotten, the message was important enough Nalaea would have passed it along from anyone. Even untrustworthy sources.

Not that her daughter was untrustworthy! Sarzina might not be a highly ranked hunter like every other high society lady, but she was still of high standing with her reputation intact.

Having put her emco back in her purse with a sad sigh over her relationship with her youngest, Nalaea left her mansion and headed for the palace.

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One moment the unicorns had raised their heads in unison to look at her with their noses flared in enraged snorts in response to her entering their room. Talindra Delonix-Regia attempted to cast her newly created spell, and the next moment the unicorns lifted their heads as one once again to flare their noses at her before they attacked.

Did they all move?

Her spell appeared to have backfired in the weirdest way. As mainly a Light elemental spell it shouldn't have been able to move the unicorns around like what had happened.

But there was no time to figure out what had just happened. The spell had worked as intended once and had one harmless backfire. While she didn't know what had caused it to backfire, if it happened again chances were she would make the same mistake which would result in the same type of backfire.

Which was an acceptable, if undesirable, outcome.

With the unicorn herd now moving towards her - giving her only seconds to do something before the first horn hit her - she cast her giant exploding Flash Lure.

Yes! The now blinded unicorns were still running towards her, but now their aim was slightly off and they didn't realize before they hit the wall beside the portal entrance that she had moved away.

Talindra began shooting her high quality, but unEnchanted and non-Skillpowered, arrows at the unicorns. Her quiver was Enchanted to not only hold a ridiculous amount of arrows, but those arrows could even be sorted into 4 different types, which could then be called forth by pushing mana of one of the 4 common elements - Heat, Water, Pressure, or Earth - into the quiver. Right now her quiver was giving Talindra her Earth designated arrows, which were all her unEnchanted ones.

She was aiming at the unicorns' blind eyes, or specifically the brain behind their eyes, fully expecting their mana shields to stop her arrows from actually hitting.

Only for her arrows to pierce the skulls of the first three unicorns, killing them instantly and turning them into light and loot.

Maybe they can't use their shields while blinded? Or maybe they don't know when to use it? Either way, what a discovery! People might never have to fear unicorns again!

For indeed. Without their shields, no mana being used directly on them for them to resist, blinded so their own attacks couldn't connect, and with their opponent going for insta-kill-zones so their healing didn't get a chance to heal them, it was child's play to slaughter all 6 unicorns.

Well… When you know your enemy's strengths and weaknesses and plan around that…

Talindra was fully aware of how bad it could have gotten if her mother hadn't taken the time to instruct her on how to deal with unicorns.

If grandma hadn't been killed by an unprovoked unicorn attack, I likely would never have been told this much about unicorns. And then I would have tried to defeat them like they were any other Dungeon monster, which would then quickly have led to my death!

… Or at least a wounded retreat. I am in a Dungeon, after all, so they wouldn't have been able to follow.

With the herd defeated, Talindra began looking for the entrance to the next room.

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The fight was over almost before it began. Which was especially disheartening and disappointing considering how expensive and time consuming my unicorn blessing had been to make.

For a second I even considered whether they had even been worth it in the first place!

But in hindsight, the Light Hunter - who was apparently a Princess? I hope that doesn't hit me in the butt later! - was level 74 against 6 level 20 unicorns. Sure, my unicorns could in theory have won, but they started the fight getting blinded, which prevented them from knowing when to activate their magic shields to block attacks and made it much harder to hit the elf. If they hadn't been killed so quickly, they would eventually have compensated for the loss of sight by listening for their opponent. They do have good hearing, after all. But with the Light Hunter only doing one-shots through the brain, they had no time to even heal themselves, much less try to locate her through sound.

So, while disappointing, it was more due to their opponent than any fault of their own.

The second before the Light Hunter was released from her stone prison and returned to her flesh and blood body, I had naturally activated my second and last daily use of increased Wonkyness. I had hoped she would try to do her spell again upon waking, and that it would go Wonky again.

But alas. It didn't work, and as she only used one spell over the course of the fight, there wasn't another chance of something Wonky happening before the 10 minutes were up.

It was only a 50-50 chance anyway. And while it's sad that I won't have my second use of added Wonkyness for the Boss fight, she uses spells so rarely it seems unlikely she'll use any then at all. At least here I could accurately predict when she would use a spell.

While the trap door leading to the next room was only meant to reveal itself if the visitor had gotten the approval of the entire blessing, the fact that 'the entire blessing' now consisted of zero unicorns apparently meant the Light Hunter had 'gotten their approval'.

Curse you System for not allowing me to block her off completely!

She wants to kill me, you know!

Or well… The one who originally started this cult wanted a bunch of Dungeon Cores, seemingly for decoration.

The point is still there!

The trapdoor was still hidden between some bushes, so it wasn't immediately obvious it had appeared. The intent had been that the unicorns would guide the person or group to it. With no more unicorns it would take a bit longer to locate.

At least the puzzle in the next room should keep her entertained awhile. It might take her-

Talindra Delonix-Regia [Brainwashed] [Dungeon Weakness] [51 minutes, 13 seconds] Elf Noble Light Hunter Level 74

-more than 51 minutes to solve, maybe she would fail completely and have to suffer the consequences, or perhaps she would figure it out immediately.

As long as it's not the last one, I think I'll be fine.

There was always the Boss Room after that. And a whole Tribe of beastkin to slow her down after that.

The question at this point was more of a 'will she die before the timer runs out?' than anything else.

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"Ah! There it is!"

Talindra hadn't been expecting a trapdoor. She had simply begun looking for keys, or coins, or hidden symbols, or something like that, once she had determined there was no obvious exit to the room.

And she certainly didn't expect what happened next.

She went down the ladder leading to the next room, one oddly empty of Dungeon environmental objects. No grass, trees, bushes, flowers or climbing plants. No volcanic rocks or lava.

Just an empty 5 by 5 room with walls seemingly made of stone rather than volcanic rock.

The moment Talindra's feet hit the ground, the world went black.

Then a System box appeared before her eyes in the midst of the darkness.

You have died.