Draconic Karma Dungeon

Chapter 76: How to Kill a Unicorn

Turning the key in the lock of the door in the first room of the 10th Floor turned out to be the correct choice. Something which greatly relieved Talindra Delonix-Regia as she had run out of ideas on how to solve the Dungeon's puzzle.

Her next attempt would have been to break through the brickwall behind the door in the 5th room. Which naturally wasn't an option she was too keen on after what had happened earlier with the axe wielder.

Unlocking an already unlocked door and expecting it to anything but lock, seemed entirely illogical, yet definitely something a Dungeon this unusual would do.

The fact that passing through the first door of the Floor didn't earn them any EXP from a solved puzzle, had naturally been disregarded as the door hadn't actually been locked. So, despite the words above it, it couldn't have been a puzzle. The goddess was simply making them aware of something for a later one.

Talindra's Party had mysteriously disappeared. She assumed they had either been swallowed by a trap from the surprisingly strong Dungeon - as all the monsters in that area had been killed - or they had left the Dungeon. Either through some form of force forcing them to leave or through their own free will.

The fact that they disappeared as the puzzle she had been studying, suddenly stated it 'could not be solved under these circumstances'... That couldn't be a coincidence.

No, the puzzle in question must have relied on multiple people to be solved. And with no more people on the Floor, the puzzle was considered invalid by the System where it had been perfectly valid beforehand.

Only… Talindra had an amazing Awareness Score. It was her highest Ability Score in fact. And she had just gone through all 5 of the rooms currently discovered on the Floor looking for clues on how to enter the 6th. The only traps she had found which would hide their dead bodies from her had been the 'hidden' lava pits in the third room. A room they hadn't entered as she had been standing in front of the door to said room, attempting to understand the associated puzzle as they disappeared.

And why would they have left? The goddess needed aid so it couldn't have been willingly.

Yet… Talindra hadn't seen any signs of anyone or anything which could have forced them out either…

But ultimately it didn't matter what had happened to them. Not this moment at least. The goddess still needed saving and with the rest gone, the goddess might just reward her remaining follower more handsomely afterwards for having succeeded where others had failed or given up.

And Talindra really liked getting things.

The short hall connecting the first room to the second had completely disappeared as the Light Hunter opened the door. Instead a field of grass, wildflowers, a couple of trees, and the 6 monsters of the room could be seen on the other side.

The elven woman froze in fear.

The monsters were unicorns.

6 of those unreasonably aggressive, white, lion-tailed, cloven hooved, goat-bearded, horned horses which many foreign crafteries and royalties kept as farm animals and pets for reasons unfathomable to any civilized individual.

Knowing how aggressive and dangerous even 'tame' unicorns were, had Talindra freeze in fear as she saw them standing in the next room.

At least they couldn't reach her yet, as they were in a different room. They hadn't even noticed her yet.

Such was the rule of Dungeons.

Then determination set in as she remembered her mother's lessons on how to deal with unicorns. Her mother didn't normally do the lessons herself - Talindra had plenty of tutors for that - but defending against unicorns was too personal a topic to their family for her mother to let anyone else teach her daughter about it.

Unicorns are aggressive and attack on sight. They mainly attack with their horns but won't shy back from kicking and stomping with their hooves. They only use their teeth as a last resort. Any damage dealt to a unicorn or their allies, the unicorn can spend mana to heal, but its mana supply isn't infinite so simply keep at it or attempt to kill it with a single attack through its brain or heart. It can't heal fast enough to heal those, while a sliced throat would be healed before it could suffocate from it. Still, a sliced throat will distract the unicorn long enough that an actual killing blow can be attempted.

But of course, to actually be able to land a hit on a unicorn requires speed or the ability to counter its mana shield. Talindra made regular use of weak spells both for the convenience and to keep herself in practice, but she was in no way good enough - nor did she have a high enough Intelligence Score - to dispel or otherwise counter any sort of spell or Skill. And as her practice was entirely done outside of combat, she wasn't even sure she would be able to focus enough on casting it should she attempt to use any mid battle.

No, Talindra's mana use in combat was entirely Skill based. Enhancing her arrows with her Skills or the quick flash of Flash Lure were much easier and quicker to do, which mattered a lot during combat when so much else needed one's attention.

She was, however, really fast. Dexterity being her second highest Score, close behind her Awareness. And enough speed meant one could hit the unicorn before it could shield itself.

Lastly, don't waste your mana on direct attacks against a unicorn. Whether that be through a spell or Skill attacking the beast by itself or by having it surround and empower your weapon. Unicorns are resistant to mana based attacks and simply touching a unicorn with mana will weaken the effect said mana was trying to cause. So one's mana should be used to either power oneself or to change the environment to one's advantage.

There is of course the theory that unicorns are only mana resistant on the outside, and that any mana which successfully pierces the skin will end up trapped inside and do damage till the mana has been used up. But with 6 unicorns at once I can't afford to chance that.

So, game plan: Hmm… With 6 opponents at once I'll need to start out with something to disorient or distract them. Flash Lure is too small to disorient more than one unicorn at a time- Said Skill was a Class Skill she had received when she became a Noble Light Hunter. Contrary to the name of her Class, Light Hunters specialized in hunting at night, which was why they, if they didn't already have it, received a passive Night Vision Skill or, if they already had one, an active Heat Vision Skill they could turn on and off with a minimum mana cost.

While her trained Night Vision was still only at level 1, Talindra had in fact had it when she tiered up, meaning she had both Skills at her disposal.

Light Hunters were named such as they used light or Light to hunt with. Either to lure their prey into a desired position or to disorient them with a sudden flash of light appearing out of the dark. Which was what Flash Lure was made to do. The Skill would use mana to create a small orb of Light where the Light Hunter wanted it within view. Depending on the need the orb would either give a soft glow and a weak 'follow me' effect aimed at the viewer - really only effective on animals - or explode in a flash meant to temporarily blind and disorient. In the prior case there was a small constant drain on mana to keep the Skill active.

The Light of Flash Lure also didn’t affect the user, so no accidentally blinding oneself. Which meant Talindra could use Flash Lure as a simple light source when she needed to.

She had only needed to use her Flash Lure a few times during this Dungeon run when she needed to deal with two monsters at once. One would get her arrow while the other was temporarily blinded.

-but if I could possibly blind them all at once I would have a really good advantage. Unfortunately, I can't cast Flash Lure fast enough. I don't know exactly how fast a level 20 unicorn is, but they are supposed to be fast. Maybe I could manage to blind two, maybe three, but there's not a lot of room between the entrance and the unicorns. And of course the rules of Dungeons prevented one from simply attacking from the previous room, just as no monster would notice her before she entered. Any attack from another room would turn to light particles as it passed from one room to the next.

Hmm… Maybe if I…

Talindra wouldn't normally dare to make up a spell on the spot, but the desired effect was so close to Flash Lure. A Skill she had started considering her favorite due to its rarity - meaning it would take her opponents by surprise - and versatility. In fact she knew Flash Lure so well she decided to risk it despite her Intelligence Score not really being suited for complicated spell use and even less so spell creation.

But this spell was just a big exploding Flash Lure. Bigger than what the Skill could do even if strained to the max.

After a half an hour - even with such a familiar effect, it still needed to not affect its caster and creating spells wasn't an easy thing to do - she had created her new spell and successfully tested it.

Not that she had anything to test it on, but it had looked like a 1 meter high exploding orb of Light and the sight of it hadn't affected her sight.

Half an hour had gone with the creation of the spell, but Talindra didn't consider the time wasted.

For when it came to unicorns, it was better to be safe than sorry.

With that in mind she got herself ready, bow in one hand, arrow in the other, and her mind ready to cast her newly created spell at the center of the unicorn herd the moment she had entered the room.

The unicorns raised their heads as one to look at her with their noses flared in enraged snorts the very moment she entered the room they were grassing in.

She didn't give them enough time to do anything more before she released the needed mana into the casting of her giant exploding Flash Lure.

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It was hard to follow what exactly was going on around the Lightning Mage as I could only listen, and more often than not someone would interrupt the one talking or simply start talking over them.

I had however been able to see my supposed mistress cut and cauterize the hand of the Hypnotist as it had happened near my Dungeon Portal, so I at least knew the topic of the argument.

The Lightning Mage had punished the Hypnotist and not everyone agreed with that. She had argued that with his punishment served and with him no longer being Brainwashed nothing more was to happen. But another argued that her hand should be cut off as punishment for cutting off the hand of Hypnotist 'unprovoked'.

They had yet to reach an agreement.

… Or rather, they had yet to calm that one guy down. Everyone else talking seemed to agree that - at the very least - the Lightning Mage had the authority to punish him.

And with the Light Hunter seemingly meditating for half an hour, it wasn't like I had anything else going on. Rules were expensive, so I was left just waiting and collecting mana.

The Light Hunter finally moved again, just as the angry one seemed to finally realize no one was actually backing him up.

Then she cast a spell meant to blind multiple opponents. Why she cast it in a room devoid of enemies wasn't clear to me. Instead it simply reminded me of how useless my old 'Mostly Random Wonky Magic' Rule had been this run. It didn't work on mana-using-Skills, only actual spells. And as only two of the 6 cultists had been spellcasters of any definition of the word, combined with the common 'we're in a dangerous Dungeon, so let's save mana whenever we can'-mentality, it wasn't all that often that an actual spell was cast. The Hypnotist had kept himself as far from actual battle as possible and the Earthquake Mage preferred using Skills over spells.

The few times a spell had gone Wonky it hadn't even ended up inconveniencing them at all. It had annoyed them, but not enough to even slow them down.

But if archer girl here intends on using an actual spell…

System! Make Wonky Magic less random!

The Wonkyness was now increased from a 10% chance to 50% the next 10 minutes. The Rule only allowed me to do so twice a day, and I had originally planned on using both charges during the final Boss battle - on the assumption and hope that the battle would last more than 20 minutes - but with only a single intruder left, who normally wouldn't be using any spells at all, it seemed logical to use the first one now.

I didn't regret my decision.