Hephetrius Hydrus and many of his fellow followers were watching from the safety of the room above as a disciple woke up from his frozen state, clearly confused about something.

Then another disappeared, then one woke up. Again with no clear pattern to it.

The one who had woken up this time was the one who knew this specific Dungeon and had solved its puzzles, leading and opening up the way to their goddess. And unlike the first one to wake up from the frozen state they had been forced into, the elf didn't seem at all confused.

She knew this would happen, but because this Dungeon is better guarded - containing the main piece of the goddess - any warning she could have given us would have been twisted into misunderstandings.

“Hurry!” Came the only word from the elf. Ever since Hephetrius had understood the unusual control the Dungeon had over people's warnings of what was to come in its depths, the elf hadn't spoken much. The only words out of her mouth were warnings disguised as orders like this one.

Something bad would happen if they didn't keep moving. Something worse than the possibility of disappearing.

That terrifying thought had the cardinal quickly shouting in command “Forward!”, before he led the charge down himself.

His centaur body couldn't use ladders, but his hooves were strong and the hole big enough to simply jump though.

Then everything went dark before Hephetrius was even sure he had landed.

Am I even standing on the ground right now? Or am I floating?

The only visible thing in the absolute darkness around him was a single System message:

You have died.

Oh… So, I wasn't fast enough…

…

Melanie will have to do it without me.

…

Can she? It's dangerous, this crusade.

…

I hope she makes it out alright.

Not only is she the only one left of the inner circle, the only one left to guide The Order of The Broken Goddess on the right path!

But she's my friend too.

… The only one I have left.

Your friend's health and future without you to help them weighs heavier on your mind than your own losses.

This makes you worthy.

Huh? What do you mean, o’ holy System?

The darkness disappeared all at once, revealing the room underneath the trapdoor.

This is an individual puzzle.

You have solved a puzzle!

… I thought of Melanie over myself ‘cause all I have left is her and the cause…

As Hephetrius looked around he quickly realized the room they were in was slowly filling up with lava from the two corners closest to the exit.

Melanie was among those still frozen.

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My plan was going splendidly!

The Tribe+ had gotten some injuries as too many cultists had been teleported in at once. But luck had - quite literally - been on their side and against the cultists, stopping the hits of the cultists from being lethal.

Roughly half of the cultists arriving in The Great Tree Room had to be killed, as the Tribe+ wasn't the most efficient in capturing and subduing people fighting for their lives.

Rather them than us.

I know they're all mind controlled and doing this against their wills but still:

Rather them than us.

While the puzzle part of the room only activated when the frontline tried to leave the room, the moment the first cultist had stepped down from the ladder and into Hell's Judgement Hall, the pair of magma traps in the room had been activated, creating a time limit.

Normally the time limit was more to force people to go into the Boss Room with little to no preparation, but this time it had an additional job: Separating the main group of cultists into two groups.

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With every person freezing up the moment they entered the room since the moment the puzzle activated, the entrance area of the room was quickly crowded, pausing their advancement.

Which gave the magma plenty of time to crawl forward, eventually blocking the way forward.

Shoot! I really hoped the two cardinals would have been separated!

But alas! The human cardinal had not only passed Hell's Judgement but done so in time to jump over the still small line of magma in front of the exit doorway.

Two thirds of the cultists - just shy of a hundred people - were left behind when the doorway was finally fully blocked.

What are they gonna do now?

Only a small handful of them were above level 30 and only one of those had magic.

Ice clearly wasn't his specialty, and the magma level kept rising til the whole room was filled with magma.

… It didn't spill out to the other rooms as I hadn't made a Rule to allow traps to cross into other rooms like I had for puzzles.

After that it didn't take them long to decide to leave my Dungeon and immediately reenter, as that would reset the trap and allow them to press forward.

They would also have to redo the first nine and a half Floors, but they had no better idea.

Naturally I warned the Tribe+ about their arrival, which allowed them to knock out most of them the moment they entered my Dungeon from my Portal. With the teleporting the cultists could appear anywhere in The Great Tree Room, which made it hard to ambush them. But when the cultists came from my Dungeon Portal, there was only one place they could appear from.

The Tribe+ dedicated some of their people to knocking people out as they arrived, others to pulling the unconscious bodies away to make room for the next one, and some to tying them up so they couldn't attack upon waking up.

It was a fairly efficient system.

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New Dungeon Rule: Family True Sight: All creatures with the ability to see Karma Auras will detect the personal Karma Aura of the Dungeon's chosen family over the Karma Aura of any potential mind controller.

The still free roaming part of the cult had entered the 15th floor - a Floor with river and lake Environment theme -, and I had gotten enough mana to make the ‘Family True Sight’ Rule from the 16th Floor and have it include all the remaining Floors as well.

Newly created Rules couldn't affect the people who were already on an affected Floor before the Rule came into effect. So, it didn't make sense to wait till they were halfway through the Floor to make the Rule, in order for me to have enough mana to include the 15th Floor as well.

No need to waste the mana on that right now, when said mana could instead help me with the current situation.

As the Rule covered the 16th to 28th Floor it had ended up costing me 18,915 mana. Which was a lot for a Rule which barely did anything.

But worth it!

… I hope. I can't actually see the effect just yet.

The second half of the available area for the 15th Floor was reserved for the Boss room and its titanboa Boss, which meant the first half was more packed with creatures than normal. Which in return resulted in lives lost on the cultists side.

The Boss Room was filled with as much water as the System would allow while keeping the Environment theme river and lake and not ocean - which I didn't have access to. This was due to the semi-aquatic nature of the titanboa Boss and its tendency to ambush their prey from the water like crocodiles and alligators.

The titanboa itself was just as much a dragon as its sea serpent cousins and only slightly smaller than them with its length of 28 meters.

Despite its size it had insane speed. And with a mouth that big it could swallow a guy whole!

… Unfortunately, humans - which the majority of this wave of cultists consisted of - were still big enough that it took it several dozen seconds to swallow each one.

Being semi-aquatic it hid in the waters while swallowing.

Having already revealed itself, the cult wasn't fooled by the murky water, but at least they had a much harder time hitting it down there.

As a constrictor serpent the titanboa had a lot of strength hidden behind its scales and didn't have to solely rely on its big mouth and ability to swallow. Unfortunately, most of its prey had high enough levels to either tank the hits, dodge them, or use magic to defend themselves.

Five people hadn't been able to, giving the Boss a final score of seven - it had also managed to eat two - by the time it fell.

…

I knew it didn't have a lot of Toughness but that wasn't even five minutes!

…

I suppose I had been expecting ‘Cheaters Only Cheat Themselves’ to have given my creatures insane Toughness at this point. But with Zina Brainwashed they haven't broken a single puzzle!

They couldn't solve them all, but they also didn't break or skip any.

… Oh well. Only 33 cultists left - not counting those the Tribe+ has captured - and 13 Floors left to go!

Well… I suppose you could say there's 51 cultists left, but of course some of those ‘cultists’ are my family, so I certainly don't want to kill them all!

Ten members of the local law enforcement. Seven ram riders, who left their rams outside my Dungeon Portal. And Zina herself!

Wait… I took a closer look at the remaining cultists. Aren't we missing a deputy?

We were, but under the effects of the mind control his friends couldn't mourn him.

It took a while before I realized I couldn't either.

I know I wasn't close to the guy at all or anything. But he was still a part of the town. Of my town. My people.

I should feel something about his death, shouldn't I?

But I didn't. No sorrow, grief, or sadness. Not even the tiniest bit of pity.

Only a sense of disappointment that I hadn't been able to save them all

Now that I think back: I haven't felt any form of real sadness since I was a human. Fear, yes. But not sadness.

Not that I've had a lot to be sad about in this life yet. But I would have expected to be at least a little bit less happy at times.

… Wait!

I haven't felt happiness either?!

I searched my mind for moments of happiness in my time as a Dungeon Core, but I couldn't recall a single one.

Relief, pride, satisfaction, yes. But no actual happiness.

… I guess…

… Maybe Dungeon Cores just don't need those emotions…

Or…

Maybe they don't have them ‘cause they would interfere with their System given Mission…

…

At least the Rule is up now. It should stop any more of my family dying.

… and maybe then I can forget about my inability to grieve or feel guilty…

The human part of my mind felt that my lack of emotions meant something was wrong with me.

The Dungeon Core part insisted that all mortals die eventually and there was no reason to waste time thinking about it.

Dungeon Cores were made to kill bad guys.

And to the System, deputy Tiarsus Liquidambar died as a bad guy.