Draconic Karma Dungeon - Chapter 73: Panic and Run

Jenna Emery was freaking out and only half listening to who she had known as bishop Marthox explain in short, straightforward sentences how he had been mind controlled into mind controlling people.

She was a bit too concentrated on the fact that she had been one of them.

Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out!

I need to get out!

Whether she needed to get out of the Dungeon, the cult, or the situation itself, not even the Earthquake Mage herself knew at the time.

So, she decided to run away from everything till she could calm down and figure out what to do now that she had her free will back.

One thing she knew for sure, however, was that people could only get Classes which corresponded to their personality.

The school she had attended when she was a child hadn’t been the finest or anything. In fact, it had been aimed for the low tier society. The part of any society which rarely had the means to raise past the 2nd tier and only under special circumstances past the 3rd. Typically due to lacking the necessary funds to enter a Dungeon with any regularity, thus leading to a much slower growth more basic on raising their Skills. And by the time they were level 19+, they would be so old, they would no longer consider it worth it to pay the fee to enter a Dungeon to get the needed Breakthrough Orb to tier up with.

So, most people in Jenna’s neighborhood simply stayed a level 19+ the last decade or so of their lives.

And with a low tier society school came low level and poorly educated teachers. Teachers who could simply talk about whatever they pleased without being called out for it.

Well… It did have to be at least somewhat educational or there would be protests, but that rarely happened.

But this loose curriculum had let one of Jenna’s more regular teachers blabber on and on about what Classes each child might get as they grew up and each Class’s characteristics.

And how no one was ever truly dissatisfied with the Class the System had chosen for them.

Jenna was certainly happy about her own Class. Even when she had been a young adult who just got her first real Class as an Intelligence – no one counted Commoner as a real Class since everyone had had that one at some point.

Her parents were so proud! Both for how quickly she had gotten it – compared to other low tier society people – and for being assigned Intelligence as a Class. Her parents had Strength and Toughness as their Class and like so many others in their neighborhood they worked as seasonal laborers. Carrying what people wanted them to carry. Hammer what people wanted them to hammer. Plow where people wanted them to plow. And so on.

They wanted a better future for their only daughter and any extra money they gathered over the years were given to Jenna when she came of age to use for the Dungeon fee, so she could quickly level up and make that better future come true.

Then she tiered up and her parents couldn’t help but comment on how someone with an Intelligence Class would more likely be hired for better paying jobs than what they themselves did.

Only… Jenna had other plans…

Like most children she had admired her parents. But unlike most she never grew out of it. Her parents were kind and thoughtful despite their lot in life. Hardworking and patient. They refused to take better paying jobs if it required them to abandon their morals and much preferred those where they got to help those in need. Even if a hard job came with much too small a payment.

Jenna wanted to be just like them.

Yet… She also wanted to make them proud of her. And they didn’t want her to be like them.

So, Jenna had from a young age made a compromise with herself. Had even sealed it with a prayer to the System!

She would be like her parents in thoughts and actions, but not in Class.

For instead of moving crates with her body, she would learn to do it with spells, Skills, and mana.

This desire had persisted even under the control of The Order of The Broken Goddess and eventually granted her the Class of Elemental Mage – Earthquake.

Earthquake was the stronger version of the Gravity element, after all. And Gravity spells had been her preferred way of lifting heavy objects as a young adult.

Jenna didn’t know for sure if mind control could affect the Class one got. But if it did, logic told Jenna the System would change one’s Class back to what it should have been, once the victim’s mind was freed.

… The label over the talking muskin’s head still said Hypnotist despite him no longer being Brainwashed.

Get out, get out!

I need to go!

Now!

And with that thought, the human woman was gone. Back up the stairs she had recently come from.

The bright, light blue light of the Dungeon transporting her out of it, combined with her own panic, disoriented the late 5th tier long enough that the deputy stationed near the Dungeon Portal could fulfill his orders.

And knock her out with the flat side of his sword.

Luckily for Jenna, her admiration of her hardworking parents had led to her having much more Toughness than the normally fragile Mages.

She wouldn’t have survived the attack otherwise.

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The deputy in question, Varitan Catalpa, was an elf just barely in the 4th tier, who didn’t dare take any time to truly look at his victim. He only knew that the cult had been strong enough to steal the mind of their own strongest. His good friend the sheriff had concluded – and Varitan agreed – that only a powerful surprise attack had any chance of taking them down.

The town didn’t want these people here, but with the dungeon mistress unreliable the sheriff had simply ordered his deputies to keep them unconscious for the time being.

If possible, of course!

And as Varitan had the highest level amongst the deputies, he was assigned to guard the Dungeon Portal for their return.

Should the Dungeon not kill them first, that is.

When Varitan finally took a second to look at the female human he had just hit, he quickly concluded he had hit some type of Int Class without holding back. Those were often quite fragile.

As a full blown attack from someone with 32 Strength was basically an instant death sentence to those not invested at least a little bit in Toughness, he naturally panicked.

He was a deputy, after all, not a soldier.

Killing wasn’t what he had signed up for.

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Reid Alvarado had asked why Talindra Delonix-Regia had been left behind and had been informed she was under someone else’s mind control. Apparently, freeing someone from your own control was as easy as deciding to do it, while it took time and concentration to free someone from another’s control.

And if the other mind controller was more than a certain amount better than the muskin Hypnotist then it was completely impossible.

Then, out of nowhere, the Mage of the group stormed out of the Dungeon, without any words having left her lips since their minds had been given back.

Confused, the human Paladin, the elf-vulpinekin hybrid Battle Commander, and the muskin Hypnotist decided to follow her lead. Though at a jog rather than a sprint.

As they appeared next to the Dungeon Portal in a flash of light, they noticed one of the town’s deputies kneeling next to their runaway comrade, desperately trying to figure out if she was still alive. His panic stopped him from realizing he had gained an audience as he frantically went from trying to find her pulse, to checking if she was still breathing, and back again.

“What did you do?!” The Battle Commander asked with incredible hostility. A quick glance at the hybrid showed a tense body just as ready to attack as the voice had sounded.

That being ‘at the slightest provocation’.

Which seemed somewhat unfair to Reid. They didn’t know what had happened, after all, and the deputy was clearly concerned about the woman’s well-being.

The deputy flinched at the sound of such hostility, looked up and saw them, before jumping back, leaving a couple of meters distance between them.

Fear was clear in his eyes and body language. His gaze flickered cautiously between the three of them as his legs shook in fear. Then a determined look crossed his face as his eyes found a place to focus on. Swallowing down his fear, the deputy charged.

Seeing this, Reid naturally tensed up and got ready to block the attack for his comrades. It was his duty as a trained knight – even if he had never actually passed his final examination – and his instinct as a Paladin.

But the charging elf didn’t have a weapon out.

Actually, he wasn’t even charging at them. He was charging at something to the right of them.

And while Reid had tensed up in preparation to block an attack, he ended up simply watching as the deputy charged into the Dungeon Portal, entering the Dungeon. As he entered, the greenish water-like reflection of the doorway turned to stone as the 1st Floor reached full capacity.

“Huh…” Was all Reid could say. That’s weird? Why did he react like that? While the elf-vulpinekin hybrid had certainly acted hostile as he asked, the question behind it had been fairly simple: ‘What happened?’

With a shrug Reid took over kneeling next to the unconscious woman and began offering her first-aid. Reid’s non-panicking mind was quick to determine she was still alive and breathing. And while she otherwise appeared to be fine, she had a still swelling bump at the left side of her head. All their water canteens were empty, but the cool metal was the best Reid had on him for that type of injury.

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While the sheriff and the three deputies in the first room of the Dungeon were certainly confused when the label over Sarzina Acacia’s head suddenly declared her free of mind control, they couldn’t help but agree with the assessment.

One moment Zina was trying to convince the sheriff to either have her letters mailed or for access to her emco. This was often interrupted by the dungeon mistress attempting to simply leave the Dungeon, which in turn had the sheriff and his deputies scramble to distract her, mostly with questions of the Dungeon or the cult.

Then the word [Hypnotized] and its associated timer disappeared, and Zina stopped in the middle of her praise of the broken goddess.

One moment passed. Then two. Till suddenly the noblewoman began muttering angry curse words unbefitting of her status. Shortly after her rant began, Lightning started crawling up and down her body as the angry Lightning Mage tried to calm herself by instead focusing on releasing some of her energy through spellcasting.

The sheriff and his three deputies simply watched in silence. She clearly wasn’t in the right state of mind to talk.

At first Zina was too focused on her own anger over having her free will taken away to notice the deputy entering in a panic.

Then she heard the word ‘cult’ get spoken and quickly gathered from the panicking deputy that they had left the Dungeon again.

Which meant the Hypnotist was right on the other side of the Dungeon Portal!

Filled with uncontrollable anger Zina stormed out of the Dungeon, Lightning crackling at her fingertips.