Emil Great Rat had been a thief before he had joined The Order of The Broken Goddess. The order's influence hadn't changed this fact, only tempered it.
Growing up as an orphaned street kid ant he had to go against society's rules to survive. Other kids had a family which fed them and helped them out. Emil didn't even know what his parents' nas had been and thus didn't know his own last na. But plenty of people had called him "a great rat, unnaturally big" or so variety thereof, so Emil had taken Great Rat as his last na.
Sotis people had offered to aid Emil, but he knew they were simply trying to trick him into lowering his guard, so he didn't fall for their false offers.
The Order of The Broken Goddess, however, had taken good care of Emil: giving him shelter and tasty food. What more could a holess guy ask for! In return Emil only had to pretend to believe in the existence of a broken goddess. He didn't even have any duties to attend to!
Well… Except for joining the failed crusade.
Still better than what his life had been beforehand.
For a bit Emil had actually believed in the existence of the broken goddess. He could no longer say for certain. He felt it could be true, but that he wanted a bit more proof before truly believing.
But even without believing he was still ready to support The Order.
As long as they took care of him in return, that is.
Before, the presence of his boss kept him from going back to his roots. But now, that influence was gone.
So when the Tribe chose to simply send him off with no one to guard him, he knew it would be the perfect ti to take a couple of extra things for himself.
The horses! Was Emil's first thought and target. Stupid rules saying they're not already mine! But as always! Rules are there for to break them! Never done anything for after all, so why should I follow them?!
Soon after, Emil on his own crusade horse reached the other three crusade horses his group had arrived with. Boss had only received 4 crusade horses from big boss, as she had still been new at her job. As such, Emil and the gno girl had shared a horse on the way there, and the two centaurs hadn't needed any horses.
That thing again?! Seriously? What is that?! The creature had the body of a horse but blue and red scales and an unnaturally long neck. Fur-covered horns on top of its reptilian face behind which lay a mane of golden fur.
It was the creature the boss of this place had walked around with.
Sothing that unique has to be worth a lot! So of course, Emil had to take it too.
The horses were secured by ropes to so thick branches on the nearest trees. Lizard-face stood in the middle of the three horses and let them sniff and nibble it as horses are wont to do when curious. The horse Emil had arrived on began sniffing and nipping too, soon after Emil had jumped off it.
Why's lizard-face not on a leash too? I don't have any extra rope for you mister! However, the ropes were quite long and Emil did have a knife with him.
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"... end up having a whole army of Dungeon creatures to help us fight against the elves!" Tirza, the vulpinekin leader of the Party of the Brave, finished her suggestion for the whole Tribe to have not just one Dungeon creature friend but many.
"While your idea has rit, Tirza!" Nerok began. "... and I will certainly ask the Dungeon if such a thing is possible or have limits on the Dungeon side of things! On our side of it you have to rember that we have to feed all these creatures! While one or two creatures each - depending on their needs - is certainly possible, we do have to be careful not to-!" The Chief cut himself off as he had spotted Lionheart sprinting towards him.
"Lionheart?! What's wrong?!" Lionheart didn't slow down until he stood on the other side of the Chief. Then he began trying to push Nerok in the direction he had co from using his wither. Getting worried, Nerok pulled himself on his steed, who imdiately began running.
Only 35 seconds passed from Lionheart started running with Nerok clinging to his back till he stopped. It took Nerok several seconds to realize what Lionheart wanted to show him.
A horse was missing!
The remaining two horses were moving restlessly and seed to be in distress, but otherwise they looked unhard and were still roped to nearby trees.
Nerok looked around the area, trying to find any clue as to what had happened to the third horse but finding none.
Hearing the Tribe nearing his location he loudly inford them of the missing horse, while thinking to himself: What happened here? Could the rope simply have been too loose? But what about Lionheart's reaction then? Hopefully soone can figure out what happened, so we can stop it from repeating. 'Cause… The old ursakin Chief gulped. … I really don't know what happened here.
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Emil Great Rat had jumped on his horse and quickly gotten out of there, the mont lizard-face ran off after he had failed to place the rope around its long neck. He had done this enough to not risk it when the jig might be up!
Not that he had ever dealt with living animals before…
Still, Emil now had two horses so he considered the event a success!
… At least until he realized he had a week or so long journey ahead of him and only enough food for a day or two. The busty horse lady had been hunting for them on the way there using her bow and arrows, but Emil had no such skills.
… And she and horse boy had been surprisingly good at finding their way around in the forest.
… Gno girl was always the one to raise their tents wasn't she? Emil didn't think he knew how to do it.
… And fire for the cold almost winter nights. That had been the giants' job. One getting firewood and the other making it catch on fire. Emil wasn't worried about getting the wood, he was in a forest after all, but how exactly had they made it catch on fire?
"Stupid lizard-face!" Emil grumbled to himself. While the horses and lizard-face were distracted, Emil had unknotted a rope from a branch, cut it in half and bound the half still connected to a horse to the saddle of the horse he had ridden in on. Then Emil had taken the half of the rope he had cut off in both hands and cautiously approached lizard-face wanting to secure the exotic creature for himself so he could sell it off when he got back in town. Seeing him approach, lizard-face had begun to back away. Emil had had very little experience with animals and as lizard-face didn't seem aggressive he had decided to simply to get it over with fast.
After having decided that speed was the key to success but before Emil had begun to implent his new strategy, lizard-face had begun to turn around. As Emil had planned on putting the rope loosely around the creature's long neck, now having its face turned in another direction made this more difficult to do. And so, as Emil tried, the need to first get to the neck before actually attempting to knot the rope around it ant that lizard-face had had more than enough ti to run off before he could.
As lizard-face had run off towards the beast people, Emil had quickly decided not to risk getting discovered and jumped on his horse to take off with the newly connected horse right behind them.
…
Am I even going in the right direction? Emil didn't know and had no real clue how he could find out. I think we ca from this direction…
And that was just the first of his problems…
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New Dungeon Rule:
Only for Those of Sound Mind: All mind manipulation is punished by having all Ability Scores lowered by 10%. This is in effect whether it is done to you or by you, but will not hinder any attempt to free a being from mind manipulation.
It does make feel safer, but boy! was that expensive!
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New Dungeon Rule: Get Out of My Head: All mind manipulation is weakened equal to a lowering of 6 points per hour of the used Ability Score(/s) of the manipulator.
I hope this will end up saving so innocent lives.
…
What a Dungeon Core I am. Wanting to save the innocent rather than killing those with low karma as my mission states I should. Cult mbers even count towards my tier up despite them being forced.
I would have killed the siren’s group regardless of whether it helped tier up. I don’t want to take any risks when it cos to my life after all.
… And I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even have stopped my creatures or traps from killing them due to the karmic targeting.
… I suppose I could have… removed so of the creatures or traps they would have a hard ti dealing with, but as every removed creature gives back half of their mana’s worth I would soon have ended up with max mana and been unable to remove anything else.
That would have been stupid, though!
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The selected karmic cherufe has gotten the Achievent 'Puzzle Guardian'.
Achievent: Puzzle Guardian: You are the guardian of a Dungeon puzzle. Condition: Be the only guardian of a Dungeon puzzle. Reward: 125% to all Ability Scores when doing your duty as a guardian.
What?!Why? I had charged my magma golem with guarding the blue coin token, which was a key to the first door of the 7th Floor. The golem had placed the token on its back as it would be harder for people to notice it was there without making it impossible - which the System wouldn't allow. It had even made a circular indent in its back for the token.
If that was a thing why didn't the dragonets and kobolds, I charged with keeping keys out of the wrong hands, get this too?! I questioned the System, but I didn't pause to let it answer. It's basically the sa thing after all! Don't tell it's just a difference between using keys or coins!
The description of the Puzzle Guardian Achievent simply flashed in response. As I reread the thing I noticed it: It says 'the only guardian'! That's why!
Should I change my key-puzzles then? So that you only need one key? I considered it for a bit before discarding the idea. They're on the first two Floors. While the extra Ability Scores are nice, it won't make a lot of difference on those Floors. The ti delay the extra keys give - and the confusion surrounding them - is better for those early Floors.
But I'll definitely start using only one guardian!
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The 7th Floor was finished 2 hours before dawn the day after the cult had tried to 'rescue' . We had fallen into a new routine, where the whole Tribe intended to visit at least once a week. No one had actually limited it to that as everyone wanted their own bonded creature friend ASAP. Nerok had asked if they could have more than one, but unfortunately the System wouldn't allow that.
The Chief had also asked if my kobolds would mind training the Tribe in fight techniques, which they didn't. Several kobolds all around my Dungeon even ended up with the 'teacher' modifier:
8 self-selected karmic kobolds have gotten the modifier 'teacher' and will have a better sense of what to do to help their students learn.
One of the new kobold teachers was the Charisma Class kobold, which wanted to teach everything but fighting.
Sure. If that's what you want.
Every adult mber of the Tribe was scheduled to attend at least one lesson while 16 people had applied for daily lessons.
The cult really shook them up!
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It was tradition in Mammalia that the parents of a newborn would do no work for the first week of the baby's life. Instead, their community did all the needed work for them and brought them food to eat for the duration. This was ant to give the parents ti to bond with their newborn without having to worry about anything.
Morghar would have liked to follow this tradition, but wasn't too disappointed when it wasn't entirely possible due to the various threats approaching the Tribe.
… At least he didn't need to do any chores or cooking for a bit!
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